For Photo Friday: Minimalism.

I spent last night going with a friend of mine to get his new bike.  He’s joining the rank of people who use bikes for transportation.  And another ass-kicking friend of mine started riding to work today.  I need a job so that I have somewhere to ride to everyday.  My poor bike has not moved since Monday, though he will move tonight and tomorrow, etc.

Also, the site for the bike “club” is up.  I’ll post the address soon.

I had a burned face from a very hot and pretty immense fire that some teenagers we were leading built.

They put extra stumps in the center of it to make it burn longer, because one of them didn’t lift a finger to help and was assigned to put it out.  They were getting revenge on him for his always-lazy-ness.  He did wind up proving them right when he threw a hissy fit and kicked something when he had to put the fire out after he tried very hard to get out of it.  I mean, it’s easier than finding, cutting and stacking wood.

On one hand, I was proud that they stuck together and glad that the person who always manipulates the rest of them and gets out of doing anything he doesn’t want to do got a small portion of what was coming to him.  The whole thing smelled of justice.  But on the other hand, I was disappointed at their revenge impulse.  There were other ways to get him to work, though I can’t think of them.

Mostly, though, I’m afraid I might have instilled this revenge instinct in these youngins.  I hope not.  They are some nice people.

Friday night, I used my cell phone as an alarm clock.  I wanted to get up first, get a shower, make coffee, etc.  I had it inside my sleeping bag so as not to wake anyone else up.  But when it went off, I was on top of my arms, which were asleep and numb.  I could not move them to shut the dang thing up.

Maybe I’m the only one that thinks this was funny.

I damaged a few pieces of gear this weekend, which usually drives me batty.  But I didn’t really care.  Could it be that I am getting closer to relating to my possessions like a normal person?  At least, the utilitarian ones?

I figured out the source of the bruise on my rear: when I kept falling on top of my metal flashlight during a skit about beans.  The flashlight looks like it got run over by a small car or several bikes from my big butt hitting it repeatedly on top of rocks.

Come on, that’s funny.

It will publish…now.

I am going camping this weekend.  While I think I need to get away, it’s more of a working weekend than a vacation.  And, you know, I miss my wife when I’m away.  I made all my veggie food ahead of time so as not to be a pain in the ass to the cooks.  Though I think they might take it personally that I don’t eat their food all the time.  All I can do is apologize and eat my various methods of burrito art.

We are having what might be the perfect weather for a nice camp-out, too.  It was 95 degrees last year and humid.  I am wearing jeans and flannels this weekend.  And sleeping in a tiny tent by myself.  No snoring old guys to keep me up.  I might just go meditate in the woods.  I finally read The Dharma Bums this spring.  I should have read it a long time ago.

A friend of mine wrote to me two years ago, asking me about my Buddhist time.  The way that I abandoned in favor of some image of myself as some kind of renegade philosopher.  Plus, I took Max Scheler too seriously (search this blog for Scheler).  Anyway, I wrote back to him in a hotel room in Kentucky (which I mailed near a roadside Burger King) to disregard and dismiss all my dismissals of Buddhism as me being a know-it-all asshole.  That I think my unhappiness during my time as a PhD student might be traced back to when I abandoned Buddhism.  Or, at least, it might have been less soul-crushing.

Yes, I called graduate school that.  For me.  If it didn’t work toward crushing your soul, congratulations.  Seriously.  You’re probably stronger than I am.  You don’t need to prove it with hatemail.  I know some people who definitely enjoyed graduate school more than I did.  Some of them drank much much much more than I ever did, though.  One didn’t drink at all, but I don’t know how happy [s]he was.

Geez, “Achilles’ Last Stand” is a great song.

I currently own three bike multi-tools and a new chain wallet.

I have too much stuff.

I repeat, I am camping.  Not here.

Bikes locked together at the Ecofestival a few weeks ago.  Mine is on the right.

Photo Friday: Difficult Shot.

I follow religiously every morning.  Yesterday, this almost made me cry.  Getting sad over the death of a cartoon character might make me suck, but remember that watching “The Simpsons” is — as one family member has pointed out — like a church or mass or some such act of devotion for my brother and for me, doubly so when we are together to watch it.

I mean, I think it’s only logical.  “The Simpsons” is probably the greatest thing to be invented since bikes, even better than Dunkin Donuts or pain medication.  Watching it whenever you can just makes sense.  It proves that, despite my walking into things and spending my adult life in school, I am not a complete idiot.

You should love the Yehuda Moon comic and “The Simpsons” — prove your worth, I say.  (And buy me a shirt while you’re at it.)  I mean it.

Photo Friday: Fire.

Did I mention that I learned how to use a sewing machine?

[This is from three years ago, when I had a balcony on which I hang stuff like birdhouses.  I didn't move.  Again.]

Dan’s wheel was wobbling and hitting his brake arms. What the frikk?

We decided to walk the four miles home, rather than risk an injury or further damage. Dan was afraid that the heat of the descent warped his rims. I thought maybe he snapped or bent an axle. I mean, I can true a wheel like a sumbitch (for not getting paid to do it and having very little experience, that is). But I didn’t have any spoke wrenches on me.  We got home fine, though, and all was well.  I ate half a pizza for dinner.

Talked to Dan Sunday, and he found the problems. Bent axle, but also a snapped spoke. It was still attached to the nipple (huh huh huh), so we didn’t see it. No prob! We hit the shop, bought a spoke and went about getting it on. The freewheel was being a bee-otch and had to go into the bench vise.  The lockring tool had to, that is. That took a while. But then it came off, got cleaned up, Dan put the spoke on, and I got the wheel nice and trued up.  Working on bikes is a hell of a lot of fun.

Also, I was introduced to Lava Soap. Awesome.

[Also for Photo Friday: Professional.]

“Yes!  My @#$%ing finger has been hurting all day.  Is it your index finger?”

“My right one.”

My left finger was hurting yesterday, like it got crushed in something.  And, while I am clumsy, I know I didn’t crush it in anything.  Both our fingers hurt, for no reason.  His left, my right.  So I have to call our middle brother this weekend to see if both of his hurt, in an act of brotherly symmetry.  How creepy and…connecting that would be.

Frikkin cosmic.