03.1.2010 | 11:56 am
A Last-Day-to-Enter Note from Fatty: Tonight at midnight I’ll draw the winners for the “Help Me Help Kellene Help Dallas Get a Kidney” contest. So far, 1003 donations have been made, raising $27,672, which is remarkable. I’m hoping that we can bring that total to $30,000 tonight. For details on what you can win — a Trek Madone, a Diamondback Sortie Black, a Lemond Fillmore, or a Batch of Troll House Cookies – read here. Then click the button below to donate. Thanks!
In addition to being a beloved, award-winning Internet cycling celebrity blogger, I am quite humble. This, I believe, is (part of) why I am so vastly popular with — quite frankly — everyone.
And so I am — quite charmingly, I think you’ll agree — somewhat reticent to even point out that last night, for the third year in a row, I won the “Best Sports Blog” category in the 2010 Bloggies.
I am even more hesitant to note that I am the first person to ever win the Sports category three times, and don’t even get me started on whether anyone else has won it three consecutive years.
“Consecutive” is a fancy word for “in a row,” by the way. I’m happy to share this information, first because I have an awesome vocabulary, but also because I am a sharing person. Really, if there were a word that would best describe me, I’d say “unselfish and sharing” would be that word.
I think that when one wins a category three times, that blog — and really, the person who writes the blog — is given “Hall of Fame” status. But I haven’t really checked. Things like that aren’t important to me.
For the record — because I am scrupulously honest, as well as good-hearted and self-effacing — I took what I assume to be second place in the “Best Writing” and “Blog of the Year” categories, both behind Ree of The Pioneer Woman.
I let her win. She needs the traffic.
Everyone’s Acting All Weird
What I find really surprising is that everyone around me seems to have changed, literally overnight. Consider each of the following incidents, many of which have actually happened in much the way I hereby describe:
- My children still expect me to make their lunch for school. This morning when I got up, I expected that — as a show of respect for my increased celebritihood — my children would have made their own school lunches, or perhaps one of my people would have taken care of it for me. Strangely, neither of these things have happened. Even more strangely, I haven’t heard from “my people” at all. Where are they? Why haven’t they introduced themselves?
- The Runner still calls me “Fatty,” instead of “Hall-of-Famer.” I think she’s doing this to keep me grounded, but I think it’s pretty evident that I’m the most grounded person who has ever lived.
- When I went to the DMV to get my registration renewal today, the guy at the window totally acted like he didn’t recognize me. I of course knew better. He’s one of those people who likes to pretend that famous people are like everyone else. Whatever helps you sleep at night, buster.
- A complete stranger got all angry at me when I went straight to the front of the line at Wendy’s. Some people are so jealous of the perqs of fame. I’d ask other Sports Blog Hall of Famers for advice on how to handle this kind of situation…if there were any.
- People keep telling me I’ve changed. “Just two weeks ago, you were the most wonderful human being who has ever lived,” a number of people who read my blog have told me. “But now it is clear to me — by reading three minutes worth of text four days per week — that your personality has undergone a vast and fundamental change for the worse. You have become mean, egomaniacal, and very, very judgmental.” Which may in fact be true, but the truth is I’m a busy and important person, and people like me adhere to different standards. I’d apologize, but I feel I’m too important and busy to do so.
Perhaps weirdest of all, however, is the strange fact that in spite of my almost absurd number of accolades, I continue to make 3/4 minimum wage with this blog. Which is a shame, because — apart from the adoration from my public — I’m totally doing this for the money.
PS: Seriously, thanks to everyone who voted for me. That’s really really really nice of you.
Comments (66)
02.26.2010 | 10:21 am
(Click to view larger version)
Seriously, if you’re in the area, come on by Sunday, March 14, between 6 and 9 and say “Congrats, Fatty and The Runner.” Or words to that effect.
Give us a hug. Have some chips. And maybe we’ll bust out Rock Band, too. My Billy Idol impression is awesome.
PS: The “Help Fatty Help Kellene Help Dallas Get a Kidney” contest ends Monday. Get contest details here, and click the button below to donate.
Comments (178)
02.25.2010 | 8:36 am
New Prize + Update on the “Help Fatty Help Kellene Help Dallas Get a Kidney” Fundraiser: In honor of a couple of comments posted by A Troll Who Wants to Know What Happened to This Blog, Philly Jen — fearless and awesome leader of Team Fatty Philly (join today!) — has added an additional prize to the fundraiser: The Troll House Cookies Bake Sale Prize. Yes, in addition to the three bikes I’ll be giving away, one additional lucky winner will be sent a large batch of “Troll House” chocolate chip cookies, made and shipped by Philly Jen herself.
Not everyone can ride a 54cm bike (or two, or three). But who doesn’t love a giant plateful of something homemade, sweet and delicious?
These special treats will even be walked under several bridges on their way to the post office for an extra dose of troll magic. The winner will also receive the ceremonial trophy pictured at right.
Also, as of this morning, we’ve raised $19,484.89 (the amount isn’t in a round $5.00 increment because Paypal takes a small cut of each donation). That is going to help a lot.
For more details on the prizes, click here. To donate and enter the contest, click the button below:
And remember, the contest ends Monday at midnight, so don’t delay entering!
And again, thank you.
Cheating in the Water
Last Friday, The Runner and I got something pretty awesome in the mail: Aqua Sphere Icon wetsuits, designed specifically for the swim portion of the Ironman (Full disclosure: I did not pay for these).
I had been wondering for a while whether a 2.4-mile swim was within my reach; trying out the wetsuits seemed like a good excuse to find out. So on Saturday we went to a local olympic-sized pool, grabbed a lane, and got swimming.
You know what these wetsuits are? They are swimming miracles. That’s what they are. Suddenly, my legs stay on top of the water, whether I’m kicking or not. Which means that suddenly, I’m cruising through the water faster, with less effort.
I swam 2.5 miles (that’s 40 laps — I did the last .1 mile to show the pool it hadn’t beaten me) without particular difficulty. Took about 85 minutes.
By putting on an outfit, I had gone from being a really bad, blunt-instrument-approach swimmer to being a pretty decent swimmer. With no change at all in my actual swimming ability.
In fact, thanks to this suit, I was able to slack off on my swimming technique even more. Just to see what would happen, I stopped kicking altogether for several laps, just letting my legs float there, having my arms do all the work. This would be a terrible idea without the suit. With the suit, I moved along just fine. In fact, I now plan to use my legs as little as possible during the swim part of the Ironman, seeing as how I’ll be using them quite a lot during the other two legs (ha!) of the race.
Meanwhile, The Runner, who has spent considerable time developing actual good swimming technique, did not get the same kind of benefit from the suit. Which is to say, these suits seem to really level the playing field. Which is great for people who are rotten swimmers — e.g., me — and not so great for people who have invested considerable time and effort in being good swimmers on their own merits.
The one thing both The Runner and I noticed about the wetsuits is how incredibly warm the insulation makes you. This, I’m expecting, will be my favorite thing about the suit when I begin swimming in the cold water of a reservoir on May 1.
In the heated indoor pool, however, the insulation left me feeling like I was swimming in a hot tub. Except larger. And with fewer bubble jets.
It was hot like riding in Arizona. But not a dry heat.
Here’s how I looked afterward:
No matter how often I look at this photo, I just can’t get over how darned sexy I look. Especially my wetsuit-compressed gut and my visible-through-the-wetsuit belly button indentation.
Fatty = Sassy.
The Problem with Wetsuits
Make no mistake: I am incredibly grateful for my wetsuit. Thanks to it, I have a prayer of finishing the swim portion of an Ironman alive and still able to turn over the cranks. Furthermore, this particular wetsuit is awesome. Wearing it, I can move my arms and legs as freely and comfortably as I do without anything at all on (no photo of that, for which you can be grateful).
But it feels kind of unfair to allow the use of these suits. While a wetsuit gives everyone who wears one an advantage over anyone who doesn’t, it seems to me that they give poor swimmers proportionally more help than they give excellent swimmers.
Now, since I’m a lousy swimmer, I’m OK with that. But then I consider: what if there were a set of bibshorts that somehow moderated gravity, making you weigh 145 pounds, no matter what your previous weight was. Further, those shorts force you into a nice aerodynamic riding position and assist your upstroke, so you have a better, smoother cadence.
Well, yeah, I’m pretty sure I’d want those shorts. But they wouldn’t help me as much as they’d help The Unholy Roleur. At least, not during the climbs.
As it turns out, an unearned advantage is most enjoyable when you’re the one who didn’t earn it.
But I’m still really glad I have this wetsuit.
PS: I’ve been interviewed and podcastified by helpabikeshop.com. Check it out here.
Comments (62)
02.23.2010 | 10:42 am
This is my sister, Kellene:
She’s the one on the left.
Or, if you’re a frequent follower of the blog, you might more easily recognize her this way:
There, that rings a bell, doesn’t it?
Kellene is — without question — the most helpful, giving person I have ever met. Last year, she lived at my house more often than she lived at her own home in Colorado. She took care of Susan, my kids, and my house so I could continue to work and keep my sanity.
At the same time she was helping my family, Kellene was also helping raise money to help the family of a friend of hers in Colorado — Justin Nye — who was fighting cancer, so they could pay their medical bills. By doing a dinner and auction with local businesses putting up most of the spiffs, Kellene helped raise more than $20,000 to help this family out.
To top it off, Kellene spends time each week tutoring disadvantaged kids.
This is just how Kellene is. She’s pretty tough and she doesn’t want anything in return for what she does.
But right now, she needs some help. And I’m hoping you’ll help me help her. And if you do, You might win one of two very cool bikes — or one fairly uncool bike.
Dallas
This is Dallas, Kellene’s son:
He’s 22 years old right now, but has been dealing with kidney problems since before he was sixteen, when he went into acute kidney failure. He was in and out of hospitals for eighteen months while doctors tried to figure out what the problem was. They never diagnosed it, and when he was eighteen, Rocky — Dallas’ dad — donated a kidney.
And things were good for about five years. Dallas worked in the oil fields to save money to move to the city of his dreams: NYC. He’s been there for two years now, where he’s gotten his real estate license and has built a small firm dealing with apartment rentals and leases in lower Manhattan.
The kid’s the American dream, I tell you.
But then — right at the beginning of this year, Dallas’ kidney started failing. A biopsy came back with — finally — a diagnosis: a rare, very aggressive form of Crescentic IGA Nephropathy. Which means he has an autoimmune disorder that produces antibodies that attach to the kidney and ruin the filtration system.
So Dallas has been in the hospital more often than not since the beginning of the year. He’s undergone chemotherapy to stop the production of cells that were producing these antibodies. He’s undergone seven rounds of plasma pheresis — a treatment that removes all the plasma from your blood and replaces it with donated plasma.
The good news is, this has worked. The bad news is, it’s worked too late — Dallas’ kidney is toast. Dallas has started dialysis and needs another kidney. Three members from Kellene’s family will be tested (I wanted to, but Kellene says I currently have other fish to fry), and we’ll go forward from there.
And meanwhile, the bills are getting scary.
Help Kellene, Win My Madone or My Sortie
Kellene and Rocky have medical insurance, but it’s not going to cover everything. Not even close. Optimistically, they are going to be on the hook for $50,000, and very likely much more.
So this is my chance to do something to help. And I’m asking you to help me.
I’m going to have a contest to win three bikes. Now, since this is to help out a relative, not a cause, I felt a little bit weird asking companies to donate product.
So this contest is to win three of my bikes. And I think you’ll find they’re not half-bad bikes to win. Except one of them, which definitely feels like a consolation prize. But still: free bike!
Let’s start with the road bike, shall we? You might recognize this bike:
It’s the Trek Madone, powered by SRAM Red components, I won for my ride with Team RadioShack. It’s been ridden exactly once.
It still has the Fat Cyclist sticker on the headbadge and “Fat Cyclist” scrawled in Sharpie on the seatstay. It’s an awesome bike (54cm) with an awesome story to go with it. And you can win it.
(And by the way, both Johan Bruyneel and Trek have given me the thumbs-up for giving this bike away.)
The second bike you can win is my Diamondback 2009 Sortie Black (size: Medium):
It’s an all-mountain, 5″-suspension bike that has been upgraded to an almost ridiculous extent, the result being that it weighs only 26 pounds.
That’s a decent weight for a hardtail. Go here for more details on this bike, which is in basically new condition. Or go to the Diamondback site for info on the 2010 version of this bike.
The third bike you can win is…my three-year-old, heavy-as-lead Lemond Fillmore singlespeed road bike with bullhorn bars and TT brake levers!
This is a total bottom-end, steel-framed singlespeed road bike. But it’s in perfect working order. And the fact is I put a lot of miles on it last year, and have it to thank for getting me into good shape. I developed a good, smooth cadence by riding a lot of miles on this thing on the flats, and I got stronger by trying to haul it up mountain passes.
Oh, and it would take very little work to convert this into a fixie, if that’s your thing.
How to Enter
This contest works much like other contests I’ve run. For each $5 you donate, you get a chance at the prizes. In this case, however, your donations give you a double chance, since both bikes will be awarded from the same donation list.
In other words, when you donate your $5 — or $10, or $25, or $50, or whatever — you’re getting chances at all three bikes with each $5 you donate. Theoretically, at least, one person could win all three.
It’s easy to donate. Just click the button below, then enter the amount you want to donate and fill out your credit card info.
Note: the Paypal email address is bwright [at] gllblaw [dot] com, and your receipt will show a donation to Brad Wright. This is correct; Brad is the person administering the nonprofit that the funds will go through.
And if you’re too tall or too short to ride these bikes, may I suggest you donate anyway and then give someone who these bikes would fit an awesome surprise.
When to Enter
You need to enter now, because this contest is going to be short — less than a week long! The last day to donate is Monday, March 1, at Midnight MDT. I’ll be emailing the winners Tuesday morning and announcing them as soon as I hear back.
And Rocky will be in charge of mailing the bikes out, because — trust me — you do not wanting me boxing up a bike and mailing it to you. Not if you want it to arrive in rideable shape, anyway.
Thanks
I’ve said, many times, that the very best thing about this blog is the generosity and kindness of the readers who are willing to help me out. So — once again — thanks for helping me pay back a little bit of the huge debt of gratitude I owe my sister Kellene.
Comments (168)
02.22.2010 | 11:40 am
A Note from Fatty: A big thanks to Dug for helping me “research” many of the allegations in this news piece.
PARIS (Fat Cyclist Fake News Service) – Floyd Landis, former Tour-de-France champion and longtime sporter of scruffy facial hair, has recently found himself facing a France-based arrest warrant for hacking into the French anti-doping agency AFLD.
Pierre Bordry, head of the AFLD, asserts that “Landis, under cover of the night, wearing black cycling tights and black long-sleeved cycling jersey, snuck into our lab, where — using the mad computer skills he developed in the Computer Hacking Class he took at the local Mennonite Technical College — he proceeded to download all of our most sensitive data, and uploaded all kinds of malware and trojan horses and tasteless, photoshopped images of Thomas Voeckler.”
“Quite clearly, this was Landis’ work,” continued Bordry. “As evidenced by the way he wrote “Floyd wuz here” and “Metallica ROOLZ” on a whiteboard near the computer where he was working.”
“Also, he left candy wrappers, PBR cans, and cookie crumbs all over the place,” continued the AFLD head. “Landis is — in addition to being a doper, hacker, and ninja-like break-in artist — a total slob.”
And today, additional allegations have come to light, casting a still-darker shadow on the already well-shaded cyclist.
More Seriously Illegal Doping Problems
Bordry asserts that, far from merely doping himself, “Floyd Landis also made other people dope. He was sneaking EPO into Basso’s juice, giving Iban Mayo HGH under the pretense that it was mayonnaise, and secretly sneaking all manner of noxious concoctions into Tyler Hamilton’s herbal remedies.”
“We are confident, in fact, that Floyd Landis is responsible for every single doping incident that has ever happened. And for several which have not happened yet,” continued Bordry, his voice quivering with emotion.
Concluded Bordry, “Floyd Landis is the root cause of all doping in the whole universe and must be stopped at once.”
Still More Allegations
Landis’ offenses are not limited to cycling-related activities, according to French authorities. In addition to doping, Landis is guilty of and / or wanted for questioning in France for the following offenses:
- Being the originator of the term “Freedom Fries”
- Owning several McDonald’s franchises in Paris
- Disliking very thin pancakes
- Knocking down and ridiculing a mime, simply because the mime was wearing a beret
- Being possibly descended from Henry V
- Claiming to not consider Amelie to be the best film ever made
- Wearing excessively gauche attire
- Drinking beer while eating fish, instead of going with a nice white wine
- Causing the French defeat in the Battle of Dien Bien Phu
What This Does NOT Mean
According to Bordry, none of this has anything to do with circumventing the conclusion of Landis’ suspension from ranks of professional cyclists and keeping Landis out of France — and hence, from ever making another attempt at a Tour de France win. “Of course we realize that we are investigating Landis for a crime to which another person has already confessed,” said Bordry. “But we want to be absolutely certain.”
When asked why this warrant has not been distributed outside of French territory, Bordry remarked, “That is an excellent question, and I hereby issue an arrest warrant for you, should you ever enter France.”
Comments (41)
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