No Better Way to Start the Day

Sugar letting me know it's time to get out of bed.

Mike Alessi's Crash at Red Bud

For those of you not in the know, I love motocross. When I started riding dirt bikes something inside me just clicked. I had finally found something that was meant for me. I expect the feeling to be similar to a basketball player discovering a basketball for the first time. Even thinking about it brings a huge smile to my face.

A little more than a year after I started riding, I tore my ACL at a local MX track. My first BIG injury and the first time I was going to have surgery. The only thing I could think about was getting back to the track. So I went with a doctor that told me I could be back riding in 3 months. Well, a couple months later I was back on the bike...for 5 minutes. I had managed to get my foot caught on a tree root and my leg was yanked back. I heard a loud pop and felt the same pain as the first tear. I was pissed and frustrated which led to some tears. Luckily, I didn't tear the ACL again but it stretched. I went to a another doctor and this time I took the slower approach to riding again.

11 months after the initial injury, I bought another dirt bike(The old one had some bad karma...seriously). I was pumped to be riding again. Well about my third time back out to the track, I high sided and landed on my head. It really freaked me out. After all the commotion, I instantly made sure I had no pain in my leg. Then I went through making sure I could move all limbs. I'm super paranoid about neck injuries. Initially, I didn't think twice about stop riding. I had waited an entire year to ride again and I wasn't about to walk away. Two day later, I changed my mind. As much as I love riding dirt bikes, I'm not in the same mindset to bounce back from injuries. I'm not willing to go through another year of rehab for a hobby.

Three weeks after I bought the dirt bike I sold it. Since then I haven't thought about riding dirt. Kind of strange, it took landing on my head to clear some things up for me.

There is a reason I bought all of this up. I saw a clip from this weekend's AMA Motorcross Championship race and it gave me chills. It shows Mike Alessi crashing and then getting ran over by the rest of the field. It's one of the gnarliest crashes I've seen. Luckily, it looks like he is in good condition with two broken shoulder blades, a few ribs, and a concussion. Yes, I said luckily. He is still breathing and walking around.

At what point would you start asking yourself, Is the risk worth the reward? Mike Alessi just returned to racing from a broken coller bone.

For me, the great feeling I had riding isn't worth the injuries. But I don't rely on this type of thing for income. So I can't really answer it on that level. Maybe that's what separates the pros from everyone else. They are willing to hang it all out and not think twice. What do you think?


NOT FOR THE FAINT OF HEART

July 4th Weekend

I feel like such a slacker. I have a bunch of things I want to blog about but I don't. Lately it's like going to the gym. You don't really want to do it but once you get going you're glad you did. No good excuses though.

Happy Belated 4th of July! What did you guys do to celebrate this emptyglorious holiday?

We headed to the Arkansas Bend Park for some good times. When we got to the entrance, the ranger notified us there was a burn ban in effect. This meant we couldn't use any of the park's grills unless they were above ground. Sadly, there weren't any of those sites left. We had to settle for one with a in the ground grill. Long story short, we cooked up some illegal hot dogs and boy they were delicious. I think they were so tasty because it was so wrong. We're such rebels!

Hope everyone had some good times of their own.

Here are some pictures for your enjoyment.

Towel Please

I don't really consider myself a gamer. Once upon a time I would say I was. But that all changed with World of Warcraft. Around the time I started playing World of Warcraft, I installed an application called xfire. Xfire is a chat client, much like AIM, that allows you to connect easily with other gamers. It also tracks what games you play...and how long you have played each game. One day after playing WoW I happened to check my xfire account. What I saw made my jaw drop. Xfire said I had been playing for 52 hours. 52 hours of my life went into a video game. That is like a work week and then some. Shortly after, I canceled my account and haven't looked back...except once. But I haven't looked back since that one time.

I go through spells where I will fire up the PS3 or Xbox for some quick entertain. But I start feeling guilty if I have been playing too long. Anyway, I am babbling, on to the point. Today, I saw something that got the gamer inside me excited.

The announcement of Diablo III!!!te he!!

I probably spent more time on Diablo II than any other game. Even my non-gamer friends would waste hours and hours playing. So when I saw the announcement over at 1-Up, I instantly felt like a little kid on Christmas morning. When it releases, I envision a Sir Rob wasting a good portion of his life on it. At least for the first week. That should be about the time I start feeling the guilt.

Check out the teaser video!



Also, head over to 1-UP for the article and screenshots.

Oh! Ooooooh! Oooooooh! Ahhhhh. Towel please!

On a sidenote, 52 hours is nothing compared what other people have put in. I know people that have put 500+ hours into it. Can you imagine that. Has anyone ever been on their death bed and said "I wish I would have done more gaming."

I think not.

Kicking the Habit...Once Again

I have what some might call a problem, some may call it an addiction. I drink a lot...of sodas. It's really embarrassing for me to admit this. I have a lot of people looking up to me. It's because of them I want to kick this dirty habit and get clean.

The turning point for me came one day when I was in a back ally servicing a quadriplegic amputee Gulf War vet. I was on my knees about to start the 'Sir Robbie Rob World Famous Special' and it hit me. Well, the vet hit me. The first hit was to the head, with what I don't know, from that point on I was in and out of consciousness. I woke up laying in the filth of the ally covered in my own blood. My body was covered with bite marks and wheel chair tire marks. I had hit rock bottom...Actually I would say rock bottom hit me. I knew I needed to get help.

I reached out to my family but they gave up on me a long time ago. They got tired of me stealing from them just so I could get my fix. They would say "Why didn't you just get a soda out of the fridge! We had a 24 pack!". But they didn't understand. They only had normal soda in there. My cravings were for diet soda. Anyone can get addicted to Coca Cola. It takes a real junkie to get addicted to Caffeine-Free Diet Coke.

It was because of the Diet Coke addiction I couldn't find anyone with experience to help rid my of it. I would go to all of the rehabs in town and the conversation was the same everywhere.

Rehab Front Desk: "Addicted to Diet Coke?"

SRR: "Caffeine-Free Diet Coke mostly. Sometimes I drink a Diet Dr. Pepper or regular Diet Coke. I drink about 12 sometimes 15 cans a day."

Rehab Front Desk: "Sir please get the hell out of here. We have REAL patients that have REAL problems."

No one understood my addiction. I was on my own to kick this nasty habit. So I found a dirt motel in the middle of no where. I would kick this thing cold turkey. Right after I enjoyed a Diet Code from the vending machine. It was probably the best thing I have or will ever taste. Afterwards, I boarded up the room and started the rough road to a healthier life.

It was 5 days later that I came out of that room. The soda no longer had its' teeth in me. I walked right up to that vending machine. It sat there tempting me to have another refreshing soda. But I won that battle I got a bottle water instead. I just said no!

I wanted to share my story so everyone with an addiction to diet sodas knows they're not alone. There are others out there that are wanting to help you. Just reach out and we will help.

Hi. My name is Sir Robbie Rob and I'm a soda addict. I've been sober for 19...make that 20 minutes.

Charlie the Unicorn Part Deux

I've been on the hunt for a Charlie and the Candy Mountain t-shirt since MetalMan told me about it. In my searching I found a friggin' sequel to the awesome-ness that is Charlie. I can't believe I didn't know about this. I must be seriously out of the loop.



That is just pure gold. Heeeeeeeyyyyyy Charlieeeeeeeeeeeeeee

By the way, someone hook me up with a link to a Charlie t-shirt.

UPDATE: I'm a jackass. The link is actually at the end of the clip. MetalMan thanks for sending the link and not pointing out I'm slightly slow.

Big Pimpin', Spendin' Cheese

Change never comes without problems. If it did, we wouldn't try to avoid it as much as possible. This time is proving to be no different. It's treating me like its little prison bitch. I'm the new fish on the block and its screaming "Fresh Meat!" at me. Why does it have to be so ruthless?

Man up Rob! Don't Cry!

*Deep Breath*

Actually it hasn't brought me to tears yet. I'm just walking around with a donut pillow for when I sit down.

Back in April, we sold our beater truck. I used the truck as my daily driver and hauling around my dirt bikes. Well, it had about 316,000 miles on the original motor and was due for inspection. Last year, our mechanic did everything in their power to get it to pass the emission test. This year it wouldn't have passed, so we got rid of it instead of dumping cash into it for a rebuild. That left us with 1 Car and my beater Honda CM400E. Not bad, cause I like riding me some motorcycles. Shortly after we left for vacation. When we came back the CM400E was sitting in its own fluids. Quite nasty really. So that sat on the sidelines while I ordered parts for it. Meanwhile, Alev and I are sharing one car for getting to and from work. No big deal.

A little history about our 1 and only car. It's a 1999 Chevrolet Tahoe that we got from Alev's brother. He was planning on moving back to Turkey and needed to sell his truck. He was telling us that he was taking it around and people weren't offering him enough money for it. Me, being the complete dumbass I'm known for being, offered to buy the truck off of him if nothing pans out. Big mistake. He was feeding us a bunch of BS about how he was still trying over the next couple of weeks. It came down to him having to leave and no luck getting rid of the truck. He drops it off at our house and I was stunned. I will skip all the mean stuff. But the truck was jacked up and we weren't about to take this over until he or his mom fixed it. Sadly, his mom paid to get it fixed and we held up our part of the deal. Over the year of us owning it we dumped so much money into it...just for repairs. That's a brief history of the Tahoe.

Anyway, Alev and I are sharing the Tahoe. This goes on for a couple of weeks. Then comes a time when we need to take the Tahoe in for some work. It's an all day thing so we are stranded at home without a car. Not that I mind being stranded at home, I just like it when it's by choice. After we pick up the truck all is well...for a few days. The truck crapped out on us and I spent a whole day trying to fix it. No such luck for us. We rented a car (KIA...Killed In Action) and putted the truck back to the mechanic. At this point, Alev and I already decided we needed to get a reliable vehicle if it's going to be our only one. So we decide to buy a car. Not really the best time but it's needed.

We have a tendency to settle for things. We will buy something less desired because it's cheaper. A year, probably less, we will get tired of said thing and look to replace it. This is our history with cars. This time we wanted to go in getting what we wanted but also put time into researching it. We found what we wanted and handle the process awesomely. Seriously, Alev and I kicked some ass that night.

Here is our choice. A 2006 Chrysler Pacifica.






Awww Yeah! Sir Rob is pimping a Mini-Van!

Wtf did you just say? It's not a mini-van, it's a crossover. Completely different...ok not really.

So it's not something that was planned. But it's nice having a car that isn't a complete POS.

This is just one of the many hiccups going on right now but we're pushing through it. We're not always pleasant towards each other but it will pass...soon I hope.