George Clooney: Bicycle Advocate?

I'm a John Turturro fan for sure, so I jumped all over this Role Recall article from Yahoo!. But what really stuck with me was this tidbit from Turturro's time with George Clooney on the set of 'O Brother Where Art Thou':

On set, we were always riding bikes. George bought us mountain bikes and I still have mine.

That's awesome. Turns out George Clooney is a pretty rad guy.

Cruisin' For a Brewsin' Is Back, Baby!

Holy shit! Turnout for the Cruisin' for a Brewsin' Bike Pub Crawl was a little weak by the end of the summer last year, so I had some concerns about whether they'd reboot it for 2014. It's hard to communicate my sheer delight when I got the invitation via Facebook for the kickoff event, which is taking place this coming Thursday, March 20th.

A few notes on the event: 1) The weather is going to be fucking perfect - current forecast calling for a high of 67 with sunny skies. 2) The route is fantastic, and is as follows:

1. Depart Dugout at 6:30pm
2. Lindberg's on C-Street
3. Trolley's on the Square
4. Back to Dugout

Each stop usually lasts about an hour, which means we'll be back at the Dugout and beginning to disperse by around 9:30pm. And I absolutely love it when Lindberg's is on the agenda - the trip between downtown and Commercial Street never disappoints.

I hope to see you all there, because it's guaranteed to be a great time.

Garage Overhaul: Phase 1

Last month I mentioned that I was beginning work turning our small garage into a functional workshop. I finished what I'm referring to as 'Phase 1," which mostly just included making The Tinkery functional. Future phases will focus on further refining the functionality and improving aesthetics, but this will be a bit more intensive and I'm not sure when I'll have time to get around to it.

For Phase 1, the first step was clearing out the unnecessary junk to maximize space. Once we had a bit more space, the canoe was pulled out of the backyard and hung in the garage. Then I designed and built a new workbench and hung our bikes - minus the tandem - on the south wall.

The garage started out something like what you see above. We basically just piled anything we didn't want in the house into the garage as it came off the moving truck. There was a narrow path through all those piles, allowing us to walk in and out of the house. Our bikes were leaned against one another and all of my tools, spare parts, etc. were packed away in boxes.

Now the garage is much more roomy. The bikes are handy and my tools and supplies are organized on the new workbench. Miscellany has been organized on the shelves in the back of the garage and there are only a few items still sitting on the floor - the tandem and the trailer among them.