I managed to tell some one in the office I had come across a surly karate monkey. This is what I found on my desk. No camera but I grabbed the pic from the site. Anybody else get anything cool?
The wife got me a new helmet. That was the only thing cycling related. One relative gave me a Christmas sweater on Christmas. I swear these people.
I got a new pair of shoes and matching pedals. They are Pearl Isumi mountain bike shoes. Totally cool. A house brand SPD pedals. :love::love::love: I put them on my cyclocross bike. The pedals are for a road bike...There is hardly anything there... Got three bottles of chain lube too. Finish line pro road lube. Never used it...???
I don't get cycling-related gifts because no one else I know will spend what I do on bike stuff, and THEN GIVE IT TO ME! No big deal, though -- I like to pick my own stuff, anyway....
My side of the family doesn't exchange Christmas presents due to financial reasons but my wifes family does. On their request, I made a list of some various bike stuff I was interested in with prices from about $25 up to a little over $100 so they would have options. They completely disregarded the list and instead purchased a pair of Keen Commuter SPD sandals for me. This would have been cool if... A) The shoes fit [they didn't] B) They had saved the receipt so I could return them for cash [they didn't] -or- C) They had purchased them from a bike shop so even if I was stuck with store credit I could purchase something else useful [as I'm sure you can guess, they didn't] So now I'm stuck with $125ish in store credit to Mast General Store. Don't get me wrong, Mast does sell some cool stuff but nothing I really need and their closest location is 500 miles away from me so i can't exactly "stop in to browse every once in a while". Maybe I'm just an arsehole but I kind of wish they had just used that money to buy presents for a needy family or something rather than me end up with a giftcard I'll likely never use. Why yes, i am bitter that the only present I got even remotely cycling related was the tandem that my wife and I bought for each other for christmas this year.
A person is my wife's family got us a Visa giftcard but it says there is a 3.95 activation fee. So it's really only a 22.05 gift card. Should have just gave cash. Got no cycling gear this Christmas. Got an air compressor and that's about it.
I think that's charged to the person who buys the card, it's added to the face value of the card at the register. The face value of the card shown on it is what's available to you.
Ryan, I grew up in an flat without a father around and three younger children. Mum had no money. We had no Christmas but for what neighbors gave us as food. For me I find Christmas depressing on all accounts; for the bad memories and the stories like yours of foolish spending. My girlfriend insists on putting up a tree in my place now, but it gives me no cheer. The whole concept is a bad one. I could do without.
Sent my daughter and fiance a couple of links, so I got the tool set and bottle cage I wanted. Worked well! These were in the $10-$20 range.........
It sounds like my situation is a little better than yours was but I can completely agree with the sentiment. My grandfather who i was very close with died on Christmas Eve of 2004. My mom's dad died in the beginning of December several years prior. Last year my cousin died in a car accident in December just a couple weeks shy of his 18th birthday (his car slid on black ice and hit a pole). My father just got back to work after over a year and a half of unemployment (during which he was actively looking for a job). My younger brother is in school studying Public Policy at George Mason University (probably the best PP school in the US) but he is doing it on student loans so I know he doesn't have much extra spending money. And finally this year I have been unemployed since May and although my wife has a good job and i do receive unemployment benefits, money is pretty tight here too. If it were up to me I'd quit exchanging presents all together. Everyone could just save their money and buy themselves something they want or donate to a charity instead of everyone winding up with a bunch of stuff they neither want or need. A recent picture of me-->
Ryan, I agree completely. What bothers me most is the trend toward gift cards or cash. All this says is I'm too damn busy or lazy or uninterested in truly addressing your needs. Christmas giving is about social pressure to spend money on others. We really don't give a damn all year long about uncle Fred until the season's expectations make us get him a bad shirt that does not fit. Screw it all. Buy yourself something useful if you have the cash and do a good deed in your own backyard. Good cheer costs not a cent. Good deeds are free and mean more. The old person whose errand you run will better remember the deed then any store-bought trinket. God, I hate Christmas present expectations and all it entails. If a person pays me no heed 364 days a year, who the hell cares for their present on the 365th day? Not me.
Doohickie, you enter a room like a basket of kittens. Hard to stay Scroogesque when you are around. No doubt you deserved a good bike. And a good Mrs.
I got (in no particular order) the following items: A Thomson stem Two sets of Ritchey Pro bars (44x26 and 42x31.8) A Reynolds Ouzo Comp stem An Easton EA70 stem A Bontrager stem Knockoff track wheels A single speed conversion kit for my MTB Cargo cycling shorts A Campy brakeset A really cheap brakeset Profile bullhorns Origin 8 bullhorns An FSA seatpost Cross levers A FSA integrated headset (it fits) A FSA semi-integrated headset (wrong one ) A nice wheelset dirt cheap Two new freewheels A freewheel tool Track pedals A stack of carbon fiber headset spacers A Minoura Rim Drive trainer Pearl Izumi arm warmers that do not fit (anyone?) DiaCompe TT levers I hate what Christmas has become. It sucks to see people going into debt to buy their kids stuff for a "holiday". So I sold some of my old Harley parts and photo gear, and went on a shopping spree, buying all the bike gear that I felt I needed for the various bikes I have. Ironically, I gave one item to my fiance' to wrap for me, and it turns out that I can't really use it. To go with my trainer, I got her a recumbent exercise bike. To anyone who thinks that my shopping was excessive, let me again state that all this was paid for with funds from the sale of things very near and dear to me.
After reading your post regarding disdain for cash/gift cards, let me tell you: I gave my wife a whole list of various bike gear and tools I wanted. She decided I would eventually acquire all that junk for myself somehow. But she knew me well enough to know that I'd have a lot more trouble justifying buying a new bike for myself. She talked to the shop owner and asked which bike I'd been looking at, and she picked it up. Everyone knew but me and I was completely flummoxed. I didn't know how to react. Now that's a lot better than cash or gift cards. :thumbsup:
