-or while digging through the previously mentioned boxes of crap from my parent's house, that I found some of what were my very favorite toys.

My Magnum P.I. Key Car;

My Chevy Nomad Stomper;

And best of all, my Bigfoot truck, with 4WD, 2WD, forward, reverse, neutral, and working headlights;

And I mean to tell you, I really loved that Bigfoot truck. I brought batteries into work so see if she still ran, which much to my dismay, she didn't.
Last night I took the entire thing apart and cleaned it all out, minding all of the fragile solder points, and gave it another go today. It still will climb over piles of boxes like a little blue mountain goat. I asked Demonika if she thought it would be weird for a grown man to be playing with trucks at the playground, to which she responded "you should probably just play with them in the backyard." She's a smart one, that Demonika is.

But on a whim, I put together a little obstacle course and shot a video so you can experience the radness with me.

Right there at the end, it almost ran over my 9th grade Co2 car, which would have been ok, cause that thing sucked anyway. (It should be noted that I replaced the old video that had the Co2 car in it, with a new one that doesn't, because this one is so much more killer-er.)

I'll also include the advertisement that got it all started for me. If I remember correctly, the little rev, peel out thing at the 16 second mark is really what sold me on this particular item.

I'm thankful for my family, who if I were them, I would have abandoned me a long time ago.

I'm thankful for my friends.-
Many of whom you've read about here,
and many of whom have actually been made here.

I'm thankful that I got the opportunity to be the bummer life avoidence mouth piece.
Before I was doing this, I was mad about everything all of the time, but I was always trying very hard to keep things in check, and taking a daily inventory of all of the things that there are to be happy about, though because I was generally lacking the discipline that it takes to constantly remind myself, often times it would slip through the cracks.
Now that I do this, I can't ignore what makes me glad to be alive. I'm forced to acknowledge it all of the time, and that's pretty bad ass.

I'm thankful for our friend Private J.R. Waggle, who used to send meandering emails, but now that he's in boot camp, sends meandering letters containing centerpieces for the Wall of Shame like this;

Theres no need for you to squint and rub your eyes to see it better, as I will bring it closer;

Thats right, Private J.R. Waggle had to write 'I will not talk unless spoken to' one thousand times.
The armed forces are just like the third grade, except everyone is taller.

I'm thankful that Sonoma County has a cross series of their own, and regardless of how big the word 'heckling' is on the flyer, please keep yourself in check. This is cyclocross after all, and should be taken very seriously.

I'm thankful for the best Craigslist posting I've seen since the one that the random girl posted for me, which led to a night of debauchery that would have made Larry Flint blush.

I'm thankful for this image that Marty sent to me;

-and I'm thankful for this clip that Nat sent as well;

I'm thankful for my health, and that this is my backyard;

I'm also thankful for our newest feature here on How To Avoid The Bummer Life, 'The Kaptain's Korner'.
What bits of wisdom do you suppose he has for us today?

"How'd we all get here? How'd this core of folks, over the span of the last ten years and thanks in part to the glory of the internet, get to this point in time? Joined by the love of two wheels and the human engine, and all sprinkled with cheap American beer in cans. I began my research in the bike culture's doppleganger: Rock n Roll.

Children of the 70's mostly, all of us ending up with or without real jobs, but all sharing an unequivocal love of the bike. I wondered this to myself and thought "What would Izzy Stradlin have to say?" so I looked up his Wikipedia page. Izzy says of his childhood: "It was cool growing up there (CD - LaFayette, IN). There's a courthouse (Tippecanoe County Courthouse) and a college (Purdue University), a river (the Wabash) and railroad tracks. It's a small town, so there wasn't much to do. We rode bikes, smoked pot, got into trouble - it was pretty Beavis and Butthead actually."

So I also had to dig a little deeper and find the yang to Izzy's yin and pick up on what Slash had to say: "My big awakening happened when I was fourteen. I'd been trying to get into this older girl's pants for a while, and she finally let me come over to her house. We hung out, smoked some pot and listened to Aerosmith's Rocks. It hit me like a fucking ton of bricks. I sat there listening to it over and over, and totally blew off this girl. I remember riding my bike back to my grandma's house knowing that my life had changed. Now I identified with something."

What are the two constants in these guitar heroes' awakenings? Pot, and bicycles. And suddenly I too am awakened."

Despite the Captain's clean cut appearance;

-my man is a hessian, through and through.

It would be easy to go on and on about how much stuff I'm thankful for, and the fact that the list is such a long one is in itself something else to be thankful for.

I'm jumping out of here and ripping the chord for a few days, so in my absence, I genuinely hope that all of you have a fantastic few days ahead of you, with all of the fixings.

And maybe I shouldn't sign off without saying that I'm thankful for you all as well.

Even though that statement is as true as they come, it was sappy enough that now I gotta go punch myself in the mouth.
.. and then go play with my truck some more.