Pragmatik

If you are a fan of the band James, then maybe you know they got back together last year, after breaking up in 2001. If you were sad like me and played Seven over and over again, maybe you were excited when the compilation Fresh As A Daisy came out last year. Maybe you really liked the new songs. So maybe you already have heard the new James record that came out in the US just yesterday, Hey Ma. Yes. If you have any taste in music whatsoever, you need to listen to it. Which is to say, if you know the difference between good music and bad music. If you think is there such a distinction. If you think anyone gets to decide what is music and what is noise. Or what is visual and what is audible. Anyway. Whichever. Bullocks. You need to listen to it. And, you know, maybe this here guy can help…

My grandmother, pictured here on Easter this year, is at my parents’ house in Hampden.  She fell in 2003 and required a metal rod be inserted into her leg; she had heart surgery then to boot.  Before, actually.  She fell last week and wrenched the same leg.  While the X-rays came back negative for breaks, they think she either sprained or tore something.  I am watching her today while my mother goes for a doctor’s appointment, then with my mother and uncle to take my grandmother to the hospital for her appointment to see the extent of the damage in her leg.  I don’t like seeing such an independent woman laid up and unable to even walk.  Or the look on my uncles’ and mothers’ faces when they realize that their mother is getting older.  I am just hoping she will pull through and literally get back on her feet.  No one ever thought she’d get around after her last accident.  I did not believe she’s ever get upstairs in her Canton rowhouse again.  But she did.  She loved walking around in the grocery store with a cart.  I hope she gets to do it again and soon.

I declare to myself today: The next person to make fun of me for not having a job or to make a remark about my long education. Yes. This person.

I am kicking them in the junk.

Why is it Okay to make fun of me for not having a job just because the Mrs. has one, and the bills get paid? What? Oh? It’s not. Yeah. It’s rude at best. Mean on average. It’s not as if I like not having a job.

And the education: making fun of. “All that education and…” Can you mask your jealousy and/or insecurity a little thinner? Yes, I went to a lot of school. Yes, I have a lot of non-practical knowledge. Yes, I read a lot. Yes, I think about things a lot. You know, this might be more of a good thing than a bad thing. I would be a jerk to make fun of people who didn’t go to college. But I don’t have a chip on my shoulder wherein I have negative thoughts about people without stupid letters behind their names. So I would have to fake it to make it up. Maybe I have anti-higher-ed tendencies at times*, but those come from experience, not insecurity and/or jealousy.

Of course, there’s the defense when someone calls me “college boy” that they are just kidding. Joking. That I’m too sensitive and can’t take a joke. Like insensitive people’s required standard of sensitivity means anything to me.

Well, fine. My kick in your crotch is a joke, too. Don’t be so fucking sensitive.

[* I am told.]

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.

Nietzsche was semi-quoted on “Law and Order: SVU” this year, and I was like, “Nietzsche? Oh, yeah, I remember him. Wrote a dissertation that was largely about him, or, at least, dealing with him.” I mean, Nietzsche is hugely quotable and all.  And I did spend months doing nothing but studying him, hate, and power.

I keep forgetting that I have a dissertation to edit and send to my committee and have since the end of last summer. Honestly, I’ve been putting it off because, once I send it, I’m unemployed. Now, I tell myself, I am a student. Even though, of course, in practice and in my own mind, my student days are effectively over. Still, it will be nice to get this out of my life and over-with. And for everyone to have the “option” of calling me Doctor.  It might have been nice if I had realized that I implied I was still a full-time student on every job application I have sent minus one.  Damn it.

I have a stack of Moleskine Cahiers with Nietzsche notes in them from last year.  Most of them have some of my favorite quotations on them, like these do.  Those notebooks worked well, especially since I spent last fall in a semi-nomadic fashion, much like Herr Nietzsche himself.  Not that I had any great thoughts long the way.

Please do keep any “Nietzsche hated women” and “Nietzsche was an anti-Semite” comments to yourself, lest you reveal that you do not, in fact, understand Nietzsche at all. Or, at least, have not bothered to read any of his books.  And if you feel the need to do it, don’t troll.  Come back and answer for yourself.  Nietzsche would.

View larger to see my street in the red ball. Got this by accident. I have not been taking a lot of photos lately. I did update to the newest Wordpress, though, along with some theme-related updates. Like it?

I thought I saw snow flakes blowing around outside my fourth/top floor window a while ago. Strange, I thought, it’s warm today. Then I realized they were bugs.

[My wife's Blinktastic bike, which she commutes on. It, sorry, she has a cool name, too.]

I am teaching a group of little dudes about cycling, a sort of course/class. Safety, maintenance, the difference between all them there tubes rolling around on a bike, etc. The kids are between the ages of 11 and 16 and are definitely into video games and the like. Two of them have ridden a bike like twice. And, frankly, they don’t go outside to play like I did when I was their age. I was afraid that they might not be all that interested when my surrogate uncle suggested the endeavor.

Last night, I explained in general, how a bike works, where there are bearings, how everything on a bike has a purpose, how they can learn to ride around sans car and driver’s license, how they can be self-sufficient and free on a bike. Most of all, that riding a bike is fun, not just something for hippies, raceheads, the Dutch and people who don’t want cars.

I think they dug the idea.

They actually asked questions, thought using a chain tool/breaker (which we did because a chain needed to be replaced on someone’s bike) was cool, wanted to know more about things like fenders. Of course, I haven’t showed them how to grease wheel hubs yet, what tire Slime smells like (ick!) or taken them into traffic where they have never ever been in the position of driver. That can be scary for anyone. But I think they have it in them. If the project continues, I think the cycling community might gain a few young members. Enthusiastic ones! If you see ten people with blinking red lights (my rule) riding around North Baltimore city this spring, that’s us.

Bomb bay doors on the Enola Gay. (Please forgive the poor picture quality this week.)

Photo Friday: Emotions. At the risk of sounding corny and/or overly dramatic, here is the plane that changed the world, that the door that did it.

I have been on a tea kick again lately. I have not had coffee today at all and have not had any large amount of tea — just a few cups. The dry skin on my hands is healing, and I swear I have more energy. Maybe I’m sleeping better. It’s nice to be getting a handle on my caffeine addiction, at least a little. Or maybe I’m kidding myself.

At the risk of sounding like a complete jerk, what’s up with some cyclists around Baltimore who tote around like seven pounds of safety gear but don’t wear helmets? A guy just rode up University Parkway with bright dayglow gloves, jacket, hat and pannier. But no helmet. He had a half-dozen red lights, including one on his hat.

I suppose one could respond that the nature of his gear was to prevent a wreck, not to protect himself. Maybe he likes his bike a lot and does not want a crash. Maybe he likes cars and does not want to mess up people’s cars that might hit him.

Or maybe he thinks that getting hit from behind by a car that does not see him is the only way he’s going to get smashed. Not the Door Prize. Not jerk-ass joggers who avoid empty sidewalks to walk swiftly with jaunty hips in the bike lanes, with traffic, not against it. Not holes in the road or old storm drains with grates that run parallel to the street. Just saying.

I’m genuinely confused — not trying to start a helmet vs. no-helmet fight. I’ll cop to riding sans helmet during the two months in 2005 between when I bought my bike and when we sold our car.  I’m confused most by folks who clearly have safety in mind but still don’t wear helmets.

[Larger.]

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.

At the risk of sounding like some nut, one of the latest CarMax commercials really bugs me. You know the ones where there’s some allegedly outdated mode of transportation, someone wants to buy one, and then the dealer (HorseMax or BicycleMax) have some policy similar to CarMax. “Why didn’t someone think of this before?” the customer wonders aloud. There is one with chariots, which, Okay, I think we’d all call an outdated mode of transportation. But then these commercials claim the same thing about horses and camels, which is certainly saying something to people who live in lands where these beasts really are a means of transportation. I suppose you could argue that the commercials are meant for an American audience, and no one here rides camels to work, so no harm, no fowl. But no one in this country ever needed a camel dealer for transportation. That does not work. They are totally saying that cars are the highest and most modern form of transportation. Not just any car. A used car from CarMax.

Which is why the one about bikes makes me mad. It has some big-toothed Victorian wankers talking about comfort, French cheese, bringing a bike back if you don’t like it, etc. The implication is that bikes are an outdated means of getting around, one that, with the rest of the commercials, I think counts as more of a statement. That those of us on bikes that are actually more modern than the Planet Killers a lot of people drive are somehow old-fashioned. That we are ugly ladies who want a pillow under our butts and a creepy mustached guy riding around with us.

Watch the video here.

I don’t know. They are in the business of selling cars, so maybe they are threatened by the fact that more bikes are sold yearly than cars. Maybe they deliberately targeted cycling. Maybe what’s next is like the anti-global warming morons who try to sell us jacked-up science. Maybe Ford and GM will start funding studies about cycling as unhealthy, dangerous, etc.

Or maybe they’ll want in on the action and start making bikes, which would be pretty nice. Those companies have a lot of money they could invest in infrastructure. GM got rid of streetcars and got buses into major cities. Maybe they could get bikes there, too. Not to mention the sweet designs they might be able to come up with. A Mustang bike?!

0% Financing on all new 2008 bikes! Taxes and registration extra.

Professional driver. Closed course.10,000 mpg (EPA estimated)

Model shown with optional equipment.

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.