Smoky Mountains 2009 - Part VI: Top of the Mountain

Though Cherry and I had just got done with our five mile hike to Rainbow Falls, we weren't done hiking that day. No way, we were way more hardcore than that!

Our next task was to get to the highest point in the mountains. To get there, we would have to drive some twenty miles through winding roads, and at some point, cross state lines to North Carolina and back to again to Tennessee. On the way, we stopped at a few ledges where we could get out and take some photos of the picturesque mountains and their namesake smoky haze.


After about forty minutes or so of driving, we finally arrived at Clingman's Dome, the highest point in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Unfortunately for us, we weren't quite there yet. The parking lot was about half a mile from the observation deck. We thought to ourselves, "Half a mile ain't so bad! We just got done with more than five miles!" Little did we know that this would be one of the toughest damn half miles we'd ever faced. Maybe it was because of the thin air - after all, we were at about 6500 feet in elevation, and we were from Florida. Or, maybe it was because of the steep grade of the paved walk.

Most likely, however, it was because we were still pretty damn tired from our previous hike! Fortunately, Cherry found a stick to help her get up to the top!

At long last, however, we made it to the top, marked by this spiraling observation deck.


From this point, you can get over 100 miles of visibility and it's said that you can see 7 states. However, on that particular day, we had no such luck. We were virtually blanketed by that same famous smoky haze and at certain points had probably little more than 100 feet of visibility!


After hanging out for a bit at the top, we quickly went back down the mountain in hopes of getting down before it got too dark - those mountain roads are probably pretty scary without any lights or reflectors to guide you! But, our adventure wasn't over yet! We had to eat dinner yet! That night, we asked the hotel clerk for a restaurant recommendation, and he pointed us in the direction of The Peddler in downtown Gatlinburg. This interesting restaurant's main feature was the way customers selected their steaks. Their steak masters would come out and bring you the actual, raw cuts of meat for you to inspect and select, then cook it for you while you gouged yourself on the all-you-can-eat salad bar and some wonderful dinner rolls. Also particularly pleasant was its reasonable price! For about 30 bucks, Cherry and I shared an 8-ounce ribeye, a fresh caught trout, the aforementioned all-you-can-eat salad bar and dinner rolls!

Finally, after the long day of hiking and eating, we retired to the hotel. But there was one more interesting thing to view! Going to the room, I grabbed the bottle of water I was drinking out of when we were coming down from the mountain. You can imagine my surprise when I saw that the bottle had been crushed into this:


Apparently, since the bottle was open when I took my sips of water at 6000 feet, the thin mountain air displaced the water that I drank and got trapped in the bottle when I put the lid back on. Then, when we came down from the mountain, the thin air condensed, collapsing the bottle! Incredible!

Tune in next time to see our tour of the famous Smoky Mountain community, Cades Cove!

Quick! Before they take it down!

We never used Percy Harvin on kickoff or punt returns in the three years he was at Florida, thanks largely to one Brandon James who was very, very proficient at the art of returning. We put him in a few times to prevent opposing teams from kicking away from said Brandon James, however. Between the two of them, teams still preferred kicking to the diminutive James, despite the fact that he has 4 punt return TDs and one kickoff return TD on his resume and is on track to break SEC records in return yardage and touchdowns.

However, in the absence of their own returner extraordinaire, the Minnesota Vikings have been using Percy as their full time kickoff returner, and boy, has it paid dividends quick! In Percy's third ever NFL outing, he racked up four receptions for 51 yards, including a critical first down catch that allowed Brett Favre to make the very amazing in its own right game winning touchdown in the final seconds of the game. But Percy's biggest highlight came on this 101-yard kickoff return for a touchdown. Percy makes one hard cut, then screams past the entire 49er's coverage untouched in just under 12 seconds.

See it here before they take the video down!!!

Huge Scare - Superman is Human

This week was an away game for Florida, as the Gators played Kentucky at Commonwealth Stadium, where two years ago, a quarterback duel for the ages between Tim Tebow and the talented Andre Woodson took place.

This year, there would be no shootout like that 2007 game. No, it would share much more similarities with the 63-3 stomping of the Kentucky Wildcats at the Swamp last season. Last season, with the help of two blocked punts deep in their own territory, the Gators at one point had more points than they had total offensive yards on their way to the rout!

This year, Tim Tebow and company actually looked like they were well on their way to surpassing last year's massacre as they quickly went up 31-0 by the end of the first quarter, defensively holding Kentucky to negative yardage and blocking yet another punt on special teams. Timmy looked to be at the top of his game, rumbling for over 120 yards and two touchdowns on the ground with several long runs and throughout the game. This all despite that some 10 or so players, including feature guys like WR Riley Cooper, safety Major Wright, cornerback Joe Haden, and, yes, Tim Tebow himself, were sick with flu-like symptoms and had to be flown in to Kentucky on separate planes prior to the game.

However, Kentucky was able to slow down the game and managed to put seven points on the board while holding the Gators scoreless for the second quarter. During the halftime break, Cherry and I made our steak dinners, and finished cooking as the third quarter started. That's when it happened. Late in the third quarter, tight end Aaron Hernandez is flagged for a phantom holding call during a long play, causing a third and long situation for the Gator offense. The Gators lined up in an empty set, the ball was snapped, and, for some reason, Tim Tebow didn't follow his offensive line, which was rolling to the right. As a result, he was crushed by a Kentucky defensive end (who strangely came from Tebow's left side, where he should have been able to see him coming, being a left-handed passer and all). To add to the damage, on the way down, Gator teammate and right tackle Marcus Gilbert, battling with the other Kentucky DE, bashed his knee on Tebow's head, causing it to lash forward.

As Tebow lay motionless on the field, the stadium fell silent as coaches and medical staff rushed to the fallen warrior, who had so many times before hopped up after taking or delivering huge hits not unlike this one. Cherry in particular was on the edge of her seat, fearing the worst. He lay for several minutes before he was able to get up and off the field with the help of the Gator staff to a standing ovation at Commonwealth Stadium.


Johnny Brantley came in after Tebow was helped off of the field and, despite a lost fumble, was able to finish the game 41-7, obviously aided by the superb Gator defense and a short jump-ball touchdown pass to Riley Cooper. But by then, few people were concerned much with the game as much as they were with Tebow's health.

In what was a typical Tebow moment, it was later reported that Tebow's first question to his coach, Urban Meyer, was, "Did I hold on to the ball?" To which Urban replied, "Yes, you did," and Tebow said with a wink, "It's great to be a Florida Gator." Those words not only showed this young man's great spirit and sportsmanship, but also showed that he was still cognizant from the vicious hit. Tebow stayed overnight in a hospital in Lexington, where they did a CT scan and determined that Tebow had suffered a concussion. However, they also reported that he was feeling much better and was joking around, before they flew him back home to Gainesville.

The Gators' bye week could not have come at a more opportune time. Not only to rest up Tebow and allow the coaches and medical staff to further evaluate his injury, but also for the rest of the team to recover from their various illnesses and regroup. Our best wishes here at Grant's Pad go to the Gator's own Superman, Tim Tebow.

Talented Amateur Chinese Singer

For some reason, today I decided to listen to some Chinese singers on YouTube. I think I was probably influenced by Ed's post a few posts back about how our cousin met one of his favorite singers on stage at a concert - and that got me yearning for some good Chinese singing!

The girl in the video is supposedly one of the top three singers in an "American Idol" type show in China. She sings in multiple languages, and has fantastic range! Enjoy!

Smoky Mountains 2009 - Part V: Waterfall Trails

Wow, I've already written five parts to cover three days of our Smoky Mountains vacation!

First, a few journal notes. Last Thursday, before going to bed, I noticed a strange strip of discoloration on my ceiling. That could only mean one thing - I had a leak somewhere in my roof! And what terrible timing, too - my house was just out of its two-year warranty! But I called the builder anyway, and they told me they would come out in the next couple of days to check it out.

Being the impatient bugger that I am, I couldn't wait, and Friday afternoon, I climbed up into the attic for the first time in about two years (I had gone up there once when we first moved in just to check it out). I did my best to trek through the piles and piles of insulation until I got about as far as I could without having to literally swim in the stuff. I did see what appeared to be strangely brightly lit area around one of the pipe vents that extended into the roof, however. So, I made my way back to the access in the garage, grabbed my ladder, and climbed to the top of my house to get a look at the shingles up there.

Turns out that that particular vent looked a little different from the other vents. The other vents had a shingle that was specially cut to fit over the pipe, with many shingles underneath it so that water would flow over the stack. This particular vent, however, seemed to actually have shingles over the specially cut one, creating a nice little area for water to collect. Brilliant!

Fortunately for me, Holiday Builders realized that it would have been foolish to quibble over a tiny roof repair and sent the roofer out to assess my leak this past Monday. The roofer's assessment was the same as mine, so he went and sealed up the risk area with a bit o' caulk and told me to just give him a call if I saw any other issues. Sweet! Who says service is dead?

Speaking of leaks, on to the next episode of Smoky Mountains 2009, which featured a few pretty spectacular leaks in the Earth!


Day 3 started out pretty much like Day 2, with a fantabulous pancake breakfast at the pancake house next door. I decided to go a little crazy and add some Smoky Mountain blackberries to my pancakes - yummy. Next, it was off to the mountains!

First, we stopped at the Smoky Mountains Sugarlands Visitor Center to get our obligatory National Park Passport cancellation stamp for the Great Smoky Mountains national park! Can't go to a national park without getting this out of the way first! While there, we also took the little "warm-up" trail to a dinky little waterfall nearby.


Now, we were ready for the real thing. A five-mile round-trip hike to Rainbow Falls. Though the trail is considered "moderate" in difficulty, it had been more than five years since Cherry and I last embarked on a trail of any consequence. I had actually planned an eight-mile hike considered "strenuous" in difficulty, but in the end, I think we made the right call!

While up in the mountains, we had our first significant wildlife encounter. Sure, we had seen a salamander while at the Forbidden Caverns, but this was way cooler than that. One of the hikers in front of us nearly stepped on this rattlesnake!


Nearly three hours after seeing the serpent, the sky opened up. We had been warned that the weather in the Smoky Mountains was very unpredictable, and also that it would pretty much rain at least once a day, not unlike our home state of Florida. Cherry wanted to give up and go back, but we had already come this far! After the rains subsided a bit, we we hiked the last half mile or so to finally see Rainbow Falls:


The picture above doesn't really give a good sense of scale, so I volunteered to risk my safety and climbed all the way behind the falls to give you the following view that shows you how tall the falls actually are:


Historically, I've always been more frightened of going down mountains than going up them. I don't know if it's because going up, I never really have to look down or what. I've always found going down a mountain is a bit tougher on the knees and calves than going up as well, likely due to all the "braking" you have to do to keep from tumbling down, although going up is easily tougher on the thighs. However, going down proved to be quite a bit quicker than going up the mountain, what with gravity doing most of the work!

Tune in next time when we visit the highest point in Great Smoky Mountains National Park!

Gators 23, Vols 13

For an idea of what the atmosphere was like at the UF-UT game this weekend:


Maybe I'm optimistic, but even though I was a little disappointed that we didn't absolutely blow out Tennessee this weekend (can't spell "blowout" without UT), I still think that we played pretty well and learned quite a bit about ourselves, which will be good in the coming weeks.

My good friend Chris was able to get tickets to this weekend's game, so he was able to join Cherry and me in the record-breaking crowd. The crowd was so big and rowdy, in fact, that Cherry actually got lifted off of her feet coming out of the bathroom and had to be pulled to safety by the police! Fortunately, I was able to find her shortly after, and she stayed very close to me for the remainder of the game.


Though the final score was 23-13, the Gators had a good chance to match last year's point output of 30 had not been for another Tim Tebow fumble coming off of a run where he tried to fight for too many extra yards. The Tennessee game was also the only game of Tebow's career as a starter where he did not throw for at least one touchdown - in fact, he threw for just 115 yards and an incredible diving interception by Tennessee's All-American safety Eric Berry. However, despite our obvious deficiencies in the passing game, we still outgained Tennessee almost two to one and actually gained more yards and held them to less yards than we did in last year's game.

We also saw the Verizon guy walking around the stadium! I was actually getting refreshments at the time, but fortunately Cherry had recovered enough from her run-in with the crowd rush to take a few shots:


Some other news from around the football universe - talk about a huge upset! Washington, last year's worse team in division I-A (or FBS or whatever they call it now) football, upset the mighty USC Trojans in the waning seconds of their game, making my National Championship Game prediction of UF-USC a very unlikely happening. There were some crazy shootouts as well, such as Boise State over Fresno State, which featured no less than eight touchdown plays of 60+ yards, and Georgia over Arkansas, which showed new Arkansas quarterback Ryan Prowess's immense talent. Not looking forward to playing either of those teams come October! On the NFL side, Percy Harvin continues to shine, racking up 5 receptions for 41 yards and a touchdown, rushing twice for 14 yards (notably outrushing 2nd string RB Chester Taylor), and accumulating 79 yards on 3 kickoff returns!

Perhaps the most notable event of the week however, is shown below:


That's right. That is a shiny new Panasonic 50" Plasma 1080p HDTV! I couldn't resist when I learned that the base price of this TV had dropped to $899 at Sears. Add to that a 10% discount at Sears for ordering online and another 8% cash back from Bing, and I ended up just paying $737 plus tax and shipping! It is super sexy, and I can't wait to watch some football on it!

Until next time!

Did You Know?

Just watched this awesome video discussed in class. It's a little outdated but still provocative, and a bit scary!

Smoky Mountains 2009 - Part IV: Gatlinburg

Commenting has been a little sluggish as of late, people! Let's see some talk talk!

Last night featured the first Monday Night NFL games of the 2009 season, with the Patriots winning a thriller against Buffalo in the last minute of the game, at which point they were behind by two scores (which seems to be a recurring theme early this football season) and San Diego barely beating the Oakland Raiders. Being fans of none of the aforementioned four teams, the only game I really had any interest in was actually the Raider game, because of another recent Gator rookie, wide receiver Louis Murphy.


Murphy, who was selected in the fourth round of the draft to the unfortunate black hole of NFL player doom that is the Oakland Raider organization, has outshined the Raiders' first round draft pick, Darrius Heyward-Bey, the fastest player in this years' draft. Monday night showed that his outstanding performance in camp was no fluke - he led all Raider wide receivers with four catches for 87 yards, including one 57-yard touchdown. He also got robbed of one 18-yard touchdown that was overruled by a controversial incomplete call. As for the illustrious double-surnamed speedster? Zero catches for zero yards. Woohoo!

Anyhow, back to my latest travelogue of our traipsing in the Great Smoky Mountains, fitting because this weekend we will beat down the Tennessee Volunteers!

After we got somewhat cleaned up following our white water rafting experience, we headed back towards our hotel, but not before stopping in the tourist town of Gatlinburg, Tennessee. Gatlinburg is a nice change-up from Pigeon Forge, where we were staying. Pigeon Forge is kind of like that road in Orlando with all the tourist traps that try to get patronage from the folks that don't go to Disney, Universal, or Sea World... lots of restaurants, mini-golf, go-karts, and other odd attractions. Gatlinburg has some of that, but is a little more upscale, much more scenic (seeing as it is right at the foot of the Smoky Mountains. It's sort of a combination of Key West (without the water, with less alcohol, and more candy) and a mountain ski resort.


We started our tour of Gatlinburg at Ober-Gatlinburg, a ski resort park that is high up the mountain. There are two ways to get to Ober-Gatlinburg - by car up a very steep, winding road, or by cable car. At first, I tried to climb up the mountain in our Hyundai Sonata V6, but it got pretty scary pretty quick, so I headed back down and took the cable car.


At the top, there are several things to do. You can shop (primary attraction), look at the black bear exhibit, ride some carnival rides of questionable integrity, or even ice skate. You can also take a ski lift to the peak of Mount Harrison, where Ober-Gatlinburg is located, to check out the surrounding view, go halfway up and take the luge ride back down. We opted to go to the top of the mountain.


After hanging out at Ober-Gatlinburg for a bit, we came back down and walked up and down the main tourist strip in the city, peering into all the weird Ripley's museums and scoping out restaurants. We finally settled on a place called Calhoun's, which was suppose to have award-winning ribs. The ribs were pretty good, but personally, I thought the Tennessee Corn Pudding was the most delicious thing we had that night. It sounds crazy, but trust me, it's good!

Tune in next time for Day 3! Check out the photo album in the meantime!

Percy's First NFL TD!

Usually, before I go to Gainesville for the weekend, I gas up at the Chevron station on 520, which gives me enough gas to make it all the way back to the gas station when I go back home. This past weekend, however, I missed the turn to get on 520, and thus I did not fill up before making the long trip. I decided to chance it drove all the way back to the Chevron station this morning on my way back from Gainesville despite having driven an additional 85 miles on the tank. Now I know that the good ol' Scion tC can take me more than 410 highway miles between fillups!

Enough of that, though. As I mentioned in yesterday's football recap post, Sunday afternoon was our very own Percy Harvin's NFL debut with the Minnesota Vikings. I wasn't able to catch the game, but I came across this video of his first touchdown! Percy Harvin is well on his way to becoming that NFL star on offense that UF has been lacking all these years!

Enjoy!

Gators 56, Troy 6

This past week was a pretty wild week for football, both NFL and college. For starters, the first NFL game of the season took place on Thursday night, a low-scoring thriller with the Steelers triumphing over the Tennessee Titans. The Bucs had a somewhat respectable outing against the Cowboys, though we ended up losing by around 20 points or so. That's what we get for letting go of franchise guys like Derrick Brooks and firing our O.C. two weeks before the season, I guess. Percy Harvin also had a fine debut for the Vikings, amassing 99 kickoff return yards on just 3 returns, picking up 22 yards on 2 rushes, and leading the Vikings in receptions with 3 for 36 yards and their only passing touchdown!

As for college football, there were several pretty awesome games. Michigan upset Notre Dame with under a minute left to play, Ohio State and South Carolina pushed USC and Georgia, respectively, to the limits with near upsets, and UCLA upset Tennessee. However, there would be no such upset for Florida, who rolled over defending Sun Belt champion Troy 56-6 in Week 2. And Cherry and I were there to see it again in row 17 at the Swamp!


Although the final stats indicate a blowout (which it turned out to be), the game started out pretty atrociously. The Gators punted three times and fumbled several times in the first half. Unfortunately, Emmanuel Moody, our illustrious transfer from USC, fumbled on his first carry, which became his only carry of the game, a seeming trend for when Moody makes mistakes. Never mind that it was pouring rain, or that Tebow also lost a fumble, or that David Nelson and Brandon James also had fumbles of their own (that we recovered, however). Moody just isn't trusted as much as those guys yet, I guess. Heralded wideout Deonte Thompson also dropped his second gimme catch in two weeks on a possible first down catch. Basically, we just didn't play very well.

In the second half, the torrential downpour had lightened up, and on cue, the Gators turned on the jets, scoring on long touchdown passes to Deonte Thompson, Brandon James, and Riley Cooper. Tebow accounted for over 250 yards of offense and 5 touchdowns, making me seriously regret not playing him on my fantasy football team for the second week in a row (I missed out on his 46 fantasy points and ended up losing 87-81 to Nick)! You can bet I will not be making that mistake again when Florida plays Tennessee next week!

Smoky Mountains 2009 - Part III: Rafting

We went to bed pretty early on Wednesday night. After all, we had gotten up very early, it had been a very long day, and frankly, we had done a lot, as you can see in parts I and II of this mini-series. Add to the busy day the fact that we also at at Duffy's Famous Smorgasbords, some kind of chain "country" food buffet that had mediocre cuisine, but a lot of it, we fell asleep pretty quick that night.

It was a good thing too, because the next morning, we had to get up fairly early, because next up was White Water Rafting on the mighty Pigeon River! Okay, so it's not really that mighty. The rapids in the Appalachian mountains are rated from levels 1 through 6, and the most advanced rapids on the Pigeon River are only level 4. However, seeing as we had never gone rafting before.

Our appointment at Smoky Mountains Outdoors was actually at 10AM, but we headed out at about 8AM because we knew we would be driving through mountain roads. Giving ourselves some margin turned out to be a good decision, too, because not only was the road mountainous (though not very busy), but our trusty Garmin GPS navigator decided to go through some local residential roads instead of taking the freeway route. We still made it before any of our fellow rafters did with about 15 minutes to spare before 10AM, with plenty of time to register.


At 11AM, our hodgepodge groups headed out for the river. About 8 boats came out with our company, Smoky Mountain Outdoors. We were on a boat with a couple from Michigan, another couple from Ohio, and our guide Shaggy, a true mountain man with a fondness for the wilderness and Southern food. The river started out pretty mellow - I'm told it was partly because they hadn't opened the dams to let the water out that day just yet - but soon picked up. Rafting turned out to not really be that hard at all. In fact, from a "shake-and-bake" standpoint, those rapids rides at theme parks such as Busch Gardens and Universal Studios have it simulated pretty well! The difference of course is that we have a little more control, what with our paddles, and we run a much greater risk of falling out of the boat because we aren't strapped in.

About an hour into the trip, we were pretty seasoned paddlers, and we had gotten to a spot in the river that was very calm. Shaggy pointed out a lot of trout in the water, and several of the rafters rolled over the sides of their boats, me included, for a little swim in the river. The water was pretty piercingly cold, but with the sun peeking out from between the trees despite forecasts of rain earlier in the week, it was warm enough to float around for about 15 minutes.

We got back to our cars at about 1PM, took some showers, and checked out the photos the company took for us. We actually found a couple of really good photos, but when we found out that they were selling just digital photos for about $20 a piece, we declined. I have to admit, I regret not getting the photos - Cherry can attest to me complaining (half-jokingly) several times over the next several days! So, unfortunately, I have no photos of our first rafting experience to show you...

Next up, Ober Gatlinburg! Meanwhile, check out the photo album here!

UF 62, CSU 3

Well, we certainly came pretty close to matching the spread (especially since later in the week the spread seemed to shrink down to 63 points).


As expected, the game itself wasn't very exciting. We did, however, get our new season ticket-holder T-Shirts. Plus, they gave out these cool double sided mini retractable banners!


I made the right decision in benching Tim Tebow on my college fantasy football team. He did quite well, throwing for 188 yards with two touchdowns, one passing and one rushing. He would have likely had two more passing touchdowns and about 100 more yards had not for some painful drops by Brandon James and Deonte Thompson. However, Tebow sat out midway through the second quarter to hand the reigns over to backup QB Johnny Brantley.

I personally thought Brantley did a less than stellar job. He did not throw any interceptions, but held the ball way too long. Against a middle-of-the-road DI-AA team, he didn't light up the scoreboard quite the way he should have. Final numbers for Brantley were around 120 yards of total offense, about half rushing and half passing, with two passing TDs.

UF's highly regarded defense also seemed a bit lackluster, allowing over 200 yards passing and around 100 yards rushing (I'm pulling these numbers out of the air, based mostly on flaky memory, but that sounds about right). We limited their big-plays (read: none were allowed, save for one reverse pass to the QB that went for about 25 yards), but we were definitely in a soft, bend-but-don't-break mode, allowing several plays of 5 or more yards. As indicated by the final score, we also couldn't hang on to the shutout, allowing a field goal in the second quarter. I later read that we intentionally didn't really mix it up much on offense, presumably to conserve bodies and keep some secrets in the bag.

The running backs put on the best show of the night. Jeff Demps had 86 yards on just 5 carries with two touchdowns. Chris Rainey had about 76 yards on single carry - an electrifying 76-yd touchdown run. Emmanuel Moody showed his power running capability by compiling another 80+ yards on under 10 carries, and newcomer Mike Gillislee put in a couple runs as well. Multi-purpose Brandon James made up for his potential TD drop by running back his first career kickoff return 85 yards for a touchdown (which also happened to be UF's first KO return for a TD in about 10 years!)! Unfortunately, I was in the concessions area getting some frozen lemonade when it happened, so I was only able to watch that highlight on instant replay. After four years of seeing KO returns called back for penalties, I missed Brandon James make good on his promise to return one for a TD last night!

Some other games of note this weekend:

• A slow-as-dirt 7-3 win by South Carolina over NC State
• A very close game between Ohio State and Navy (OSU still won though)
• Perennial BCS buster Boise State over Oregon
• Georgia manhandled by Oklahoma State
• Alabama taking care of Virginia Tech
• Brigham Young knocking off Oklahoma 14-13!

Already, some serious upsets are starting to shape the season!

Are You Ready For Some Football!

A Haiku:

Today is the day
We have waited for so long
Go Gator Football!

We're here on campus, waiting for the 7PM kickoff of the first game of the season against Charleston Southern!

Keep an eye out for your friendly Grant's Pad writeup and analysis. But I wouldn't bet on the Gators to beat the 73 point spread...

Chicks in a grinder

WARNING: THE VIDEO YOU ARE ABOUT TO SEE IS QUITE DISTURBING:



My only beef with the video is the vegan propaganda at the end of it. Instead of doing... what they do to the male chicks, let them grow a little bit and kill them humanely for food - I'll eat 'em!

Choreographed Cycling

This is one of the stranger sports I've ever seen, but it is pretty amazing. Thus, it met the minimum standards for share-age on Grant's Pad. Enjoy in bewilderment!