Didn’t get this up last week. Quick one. For Photo Friday: Cold. This is from the Washington Monument Lighting in December. That is all.
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Last time the weather changed, I was embracing darker images. That was a very very hot day in October, at Robert E. Lee Park, just north of Baltimore City. I was excited about bunking down for the eventual fall and the winter. I was livid that it was so hot, especially since we were to take a daytrip to Washington a day or two later.
Now, I’m happy when the forecast is warm. I am thirsting for some color, some sun, sandaled feet. I am bummed at this weekend’s forecast, which means movies and reading and cooking. But no fun outside awesomeness, especially since I woke up with a tickle in my throat today.
Poor me.
It’s been cloudy and crappy so many days this spring that I would enjoy a nice, sunny, hot day today.
Remind me, in two months, that I said all this.
Photo Friday: Fragile.
The engine of an SR-71 at The Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum. I kept thinking of how insanely high-tech that plane looked and the fact that it is an obsolete technology now.
Photo Friday: Far From Home.
I will also be far from home today. My paternal grandfather is back in the hospital, and my maternal grandmother fell yesterday and is staying at my parents’ house, where I am headed today to help out. I get to teach a ditty tonight on bike types and the basics of bike parts, which is fun and a useful means to not think about things too much.
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I’m not certain how useful/effective my chain cleaner was for chain cleaning because, frankly, I waited too long to clean our chains and over-did the lube last time i put it on — and used too-sticky lube. The jury’s out, though it is fun to use. But this cog brush worked great for getting the crud out of our cassettes, chainrings and pullies. It looked like it got run over by a greasy truck when I was finished, but, hey. It took one for the team. It cleaned up pretty well, too.
For Photo Friday: Found Object.
Last year, it was snowy and cold. After a flick, we celebrated with a couple we love. The hubbies declared their Irish-ness over pint after pint of Irish brew. This year, it is sunny and beautiful, though a bit nippy. I ran my errands on my bike today, weighing down my backpack enough to compress my chest, which kept making me giggle. I need to use my rack next time, though.
I went to a St. Patrick’s Day Tea at The Crown and Thistle this weekend with my parents and aunt. I was wearing a very green sweater and my red beard. A quiet lady who worked there put her hand on my shoulder as she was walking by our table and told me, “You look like one of our real Irishmen today.” I took that as a compliment. I wore several pieces of green yesterday to a family party. More today. I’m drinking Irish tea and listening to Celtic music and enjoying the sun. I am not much in the mood for drinking, though I think my heritage requires at least a pint or two of Guinness tonight, with the cabbage I am eating for dinner.
I delivered a head of cabbage to my parents’ house in Hampden on my bike rack today, wearing green. I’m like a leprechaun today, I swear.
Photo Friday: The Good Life. You might be thinking, “The good life? Coffee? Isn’t that shallow?” I mean, after a decade of studying Western philosophy, shouldn’t this be a photo of a relaxed person, contemplating comfortably in a cafe’? Or after studying Eastern philosophy, why photos of a mind-altering substance like coffee?
It’s been…a week. So right now, Friday morning, when I have to run around until about ten or eleven tonight, teach kids about bikes, go see my sick grandfather days after his 80th birthday, work on job stuff, etc., coffee is the good life. I know; everyone is busy. So you should know what I am talking about then.
Something like a Gnome is scaring people in Argentina and throwing rocks at kids:
We were chatting about our last fishing trip. It was one in the morning. I began to film a bit with my mobile phone while the others were chatting and joking. Suddenly we heard something - a weird noise as if someone was throwing stones. We looked to one side and saw that the grass was moving. To begin with we thought it was a dog but when we saw this gnome-like figure begin to emerge we were really afraid.
Watch the video to see his walk, which is probably the scariest part of all.
And that ain’t no bummer. RIP as in Rust In Poop. Good news for people everywhere who like to breathe.
Mensa listed the ten smartest shows in television history. Complete bull hockey. Any list of the smartest shows on television that does not include “The Simpsons” must be compiled by a Neanderthal. I’m serious. Hell, any list that has anything other than
1) “The Simpsons”
2) “The Simpsons”
3) “The Simpsons”
4) “The Simpsons”
5) “The Simpsons”
6) “The Simpsons”
7) “The Simpsons”
8) “The Simpsons”
9) “The Simpsons”
10) “The Simpsons”
is complete crap. I don’t believe that whoever made this list have ever seen any other shows. In fact, I hereby charge that the group or board or person who made this list has never seen anything on television before.
I’m very glad I stopped paying my Mensa dues. Really, I did. It was expensive. What? Oh, yeah, I got into Mensa. I’m not stupid or anything you know. Geez. Dang. Come to think of it, maybe that would be good on a resume’. Maybe I should pay my dues. Make up for the whole spent-my-adult-life-in-school thing.
Why not? A cop in Baltimore did. But, then again, he didn’t get away with it. His fat ass is suspended. Sorry about the fat comment. But. Geez. You should see how skinny the Army made my brother get. And this guy…I mean, I tug my own little gut around everywhere I go, but come on. And he’s supposed to be a cop on foot. Shouldn’t that imply that he could catch a bad guy? It looks like he had trouble taking this kid down. Watch the video for yourself.
This is exactly what we need. With the crime problem in Baltimore, we need asshole cops that pick on little kids. That will solve everything. Skating is, you know, so much more important to stop in this city than drug dealers killing innocent people when they are trying to kill each other. I remember living in Boston, with a much lower murder rate than in Baltimore. The cops there, at least the ones I came into contact with, were just scary. I got yelled at once for cussing loudly in Quincy. Gee, I wonder if the scary cops you wouldn’t even spit in front of and the lower murder rate were related at all. Maybe being afraid of the police is a bad thing. But still, out-of-shape cops picking on teenagers is not exactly going to win the BCPD any respect. I haven’t exactly met a lot of, I don’t, good cops in this city. Some, yes. Mostly not. And I grew up here.
Mayor Dixon has expressed disgust. She’s right. Maybe she’ll shake up the Poh-leece some more. I hope she does something to this jackass, who is totally making it easier to blame her and her administration for crime, like the local martyr Republicans like to do. “We just can’t get a Republican Mayor elected in this city. It ain’t fair.” Wow, way to complain about DEMOCRACY, dudes.
Sheldon Brown passed away. I was coming back from a bike shop in the summer, and I swore I saw Sheldon Brown riding on a folder up on Falls Road, past the city line. I thought, what the hell, and emailed him, not thinking I’d get a response. But I did. He sent me a cheerful few emails (telling me that it was not him and me saying what a boon it would be to Baltimore cycling if it had turned out to be him) that I will save forever now. From what a lot of people are sharing, that was the norm for a very generous man and a hero to cyclists everywhere. This is very sad news, and I’m glad my friend and I went riding and to a bike shop for some parts today, to keep something like Sheldon’s spirit alive. Check out Sheldon’s website for what will probably never be topped, insofar as free bike advice and encouragement go. If you can read that site and not get on a bike, well, brother, you’re lost.
In a world where we are running out of oil and where there are traffic and road problems that seem like they will never go away, maybe part of the solution is to stop giving every idiot with a birth certificate and proof of a residence a mf-in driver’s license.
Take the stupid bitch we have all heard about recently who killed a cyclist, apparently on purpose(?), while drunk behind the wheel. She was driving on a suspended license from getting caught driving shit-faced before. Wtf? Yeah, I would apologize for my nasty language, if you could tell me a better term for this, this thing.
See also the hag bitch whose car killed the police officer here in Baltimore on New Year’s Eve. It’s still not clear if she was driving(?), but why the hell did she still have possession of her car? She was arrested for not showing up in court for a drunk driving charge after the death of the police officer. They should have taken her car away when they caught her drunk driving, no? They should have gone looking for her when she didn’t show up for court. What is the lesson? That you can drive drunk in Baltimore, not show up for your court date, and you can just go about your business — unless someone kills a police officer with your car, at which time they will drag you out of your house, cameras filming your old saggies falling out of your shirt and your fried hair blowing in freakishly warm January air?
I would give up all the nice new bike lanes we are getting in Baltimore, the signs, the bike route markings, the reminders to drivers to not kill us. I would give it up if the money got spent on keeping scum like this off the road. I mean it.
Besides, I almost got hit by the same idiot who also almost caused an accident with cars this weekend — twice. Because he didn’t know where he was going. Because the fact that he did not know where he was going somehow excused him from darting out into traffic (almost nailing me), cutting people off to change lanes, stopping, darting back out of traffic (causing me to skid hard, and, damn, thank the gods I lock my arms when I stop like that, lest I would have gone over the handlebars).
I would hope that, with time, people think more about who else is on the road. But they won’t. They don’t even think about other cars. This jackass yesterday caused a problem for more cars than the two bikes he nearly wrecked.
Most* people are stupid when they are in cars. I know. I was, too. I used to sit in my car and plan out stuff to buy, think about people I hated, listen to music and drive around the country to forget problems I did not want to think about or deal with. I would sometimes get aggressive, blowing the horn at morons in Carbondale who did not stop at STOP signs, apparently one of only five people in that town who used the car’s horn. I honestly drove several times when I was too damned tired to be driving and probably put myself and other people at risk in doing so. But I was in a car, so I thought I was unstoppable. I don’t know; maybe cars only made me a jackass.
I hope peak oil means less idiots driving around in metal boxes that can kill people. We have lots of roads cyclists can use. How freakin sweet would it be to ride up 95 to Boston for my 40th birthday, in a dozen years? I like the idea of riding across the country on former highways. Sort of evokes something from Fight Club and puts me in mind of a hot-air balloon propelled by bike, so I could ride to Paris and look great when I got there. All buff and stanky and really in the mood for a nice cafe’ au lait.
[*Calm down. I said, "most."]
Holy Oily Sand, Batman! Shell’s CEO, Jeroen van der Veer, admits that peak oil might be here in seven years. Read the story and letter here.
What is “peak oil”? “Peak oil is the point in time at which the maximum global petroleum production rate is reached, after which the rate of production enters its terminal decline. If global consumption is not mitigated before the peak, the availability of conventional oil will drop and prices will rise, perhaps dramatically.”
That means that we’re running out. Guess who’s going to get oil when it really starts to disappear? Not you, not me. Probably the airlines, industry, the government — all groups who should have freakin seen this coming. Maybe rich people will be apple to get oil. Probably. I can see all the cars in Hampden and Roland Park disappearing for tiny versions of their former selves, more bikes (which now sell for two thousand dollars), then the huge houses down the street from me on University Parkway having land yachts with combination locks on the gas tank doors and armed guards circling them. The engines left running as a disturbing display of wealth.
Not to mention things made of oil like plastic. Starbucks might charge you for that lid soon, man. Plastic will replace gold for bling!
What? You just bought a big SUV or hovercraft? That sucks for you, dude.
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For Photo Friday: The Machine.
This is, of course, very tongue in cheek. I just thought, you know, it might be more interesting than a photo of my bike. I’m not going to join some sort of revolutionary force to overthrow the government. Totally not. Honest. Come on, it’s funny. Right? Not me — I’m gentle and fuzzy. Huggy, too. Half of my family works for the Gubbmint. Don’t call the fuzz please.
One of my favorite shirts has long since rotted off of my shoulders from being worn so much. It was a Rage Against The Machine shirt in white, with a photo of nuns with guns. It was awesome. I never got enough compliments on it. I had a The Clash shirt on last year at Wholefoods, and a middle-aged guy who probably went to see them in person when I was a wee lad gave me a nice compliment. I was stoked. Compliments are good.
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