A Flat Tire, A Stan's Ball, & A Grave

What do these three things have in common?  They are all things that happened to me, or that I saw, on this morning's MTB ride.  Originally, I was going to suit up in my new skin suit, put on the race wheels that I borrowed from Carlos (again), and don my aero helmet for a full on dress rehearsal ride.  That plan was quickly scrapped when the tubular wheel on the disc wouldn't hold air.  It's a good thing that I didn't squeeze into the skin suit before pumping it up, because the guts of the stem were missing.  Carlos warned me that he snapped the valve off the last time he tried pumping it up, but it was still holding air....not so much this time.  To keep the legs fresh, I opted for a flat, and easy, MTB ride through the desert by my house.  A simple OAB totaling 12 miles in Z1 should do the trick, so off I went.  Just after the turnaround, I hit a ditch a bit off center and my front tire came un-beaded.  I immediately lost air and had my first ever MTB flat.  No big deal, but when I took off the tubeless tire, I was surprised to see a big ol' spongy ball of coagulated Stan's tire sealant.  I had never seen anything like it and was quite amused.  So amused, in fact, that I took a pic of it for everybody to see.  Later on, however, I would find out that this isn't a rare occurrence and happens more often than I thought.  Oh well, at least I got a kick out of it!  OK, I fix 'er up and get rolling again.  About 3 miles from home, I caught a glimpse of a white wooden cross out of the corner of my eye.  Naturally, I went over to check it out and quickly realized that it is the same pet grave that I mentioned in this post from June 2010 Dog Grave On Trail Run. 

As for the gutless valve stem, I took it to Airpark Bikes and they put a new one in (guts) and aired it up (the tire).  Hopefully, I won't encounter any more.....wait, never mind, I don't want to jinx anything!

The scene of my flat:

The spongy, coagulated, Stan's tire sealant ball that was tumbling around inside my tubeless tires:

RIP Fido (hopefully it's a Fido or some other animal!)