Das Commute

I had planned on leaving at 4:30 so I could get home around 6 but, nope, things came up.... especially with a customer in China... that made it where I didn't get going until after 5:30. The thing with China, by the way, is that in the morning when I get some questions from that side of the world, I usually put off answering them until later and focus on the European crap... since they still might get back to me before noon my time. China, on the other hand, won't be checking their emails until later on in the evening... except for a few guys that keep going until midnight over there.

But I digest - errrrp - so I called Kerry to let her know I was hitting the road, put my phone in my backpack, put on my sunglasses, and started off. Only while I was adjusting my rearview mirror - the one that clips to my sunglasses - the little plastic piece-of-shit bracket on it broke. It's late and I want to get going so a huge part of me wants to say "oh well, make do and get going" but I reeeeeally like having the rearview.

When I'm biking along a road with a lousy shoulder, especially going fast on a downhill, I can stay in the road and keep an eye behind me. If a car is coming, I hug that edge until it goes by. I can see big trucks coming. When I enter a right-hand turn lane, I can glance back (while still keeping my main focus in front) and see if anyone's entering. The right-hand turning lanes are a big deal riding in suburbia... do I hug the right then slow before they turn or do I stay in the middle in traffic?

So I hitched my star to the rearview and called up a friend that I was pretty sure was still at work inside. We tried cable-ties and twisty wire-wraps but what ended up working (20 minutes later) was good ol'black electrical tape... the duct tape of the spark chaser set. Finally, I jumped the tracks next to the parking lot and headed off.

A half-hour later, my worries were confirmed.... the 15 mile ride home was NOT going to be the brisk, exciting ride of the morning, it was to be a grueling slog on the side of the road in 90 degree sweltering heat.

In addition to being during a cool, sparkling morning, the ride in was also primarily downhill. Given that the Gwinnett county schools were closed and I suppose people were taking off early for the holiday, traffic was light and the mood was reminiscent
of the moment in the cartoon where Cinderella throws open the shutters amidst chortling bluebirds and happy chipmunks. The dew was glistening on the cowslip and there was an eager sharpness in the air, a feeling of "go get'em, tiger"! And there I was, speeding down 141, scoffing at the lowly drivers enslaved within their clunky chariots. I got to the office in 1 hour and 15 minutes, energized and rarin' to go...

But the ride home was another matter entirely... first off, traffic was a mess. Now, in general, the more traffic the better for riding home. One, you don't gave to worry so much about those right turning lanes or getting amongst the cars in general... everyone's going slow. Two, it's a huge boost for me to "beat" the cars.... passing the Hummer with GO BULLDOGS or the Lexus with FUCKNUT ACADEMY never gets old.

But when it's hot, you're riding uphill, and you are not used to riding AGAIN after doing 15 miles in the morning, there is something very taxing about riding endlessly next to a mass of car that is draining. And, God forbid, I stop and take a break on the side of the road. You have to stay standing and look sharp soldier! Three seconds after you decide to sit and and maybe call home and check in, some car is stopping in the middle of the road and the guy is asking "You ok? Did you wreck?" Yeah, I know I should be glad but I swear it happens the SECOND I sit down. I'll have my phone in hand and my bike well out of the road. I'm not sprawled in the gutter wrapped up in my bike, bloody and the wheels still spinning. And yet, they stop like they're forest rangers or the goddamn Peace Corps. "You ok, buddy?"

I'll reallly hate myself when I actually DO wreck.

The whole trip is basically uphill but for the last two, there's no "basically" about it. It's a serious uphill.

So I take to the sidewalks becoming a biker Uncle Tom. I never see bikers on the sidewalks. They claim their portion of the road with confidence and self-righteousness. Anyone who would ride on the sidewalk is basically saying bicyclists don't have the right to ride on the road. But I do... sometimes I ride on the sidewalks.

Ok... when the fact comes up that I ride a bike through the suburban streets, a lot of people say that bikers should stick to the sidewalks. First off, I'm pretty sure it's illegal. I don't think any cop would enforce it but sidewalks are for pedestrians. A person on a bike is a wide object and, especially when barreling along downhill, has no business on the same path as joggers, walkers, and moms with strollers. Second, sidewalks are hardly continuos... especially in the suburbs. They stop and start willy-nilly and a biker jumping off the curb into the road is a lot more likely to get hit by a car than a biker cruising along steadily at the side of the road.

But when I'm plodding along on my mountain bike, tired and slow uphill... and there's a sidewalk along side.... instead of sitting in the road, skirting the gutter, dodging sewer drains and dead possums and getting slammed every ten seconds by the wind of a passing SUV, I'm getting on that goddamn sidewalk.

The Challenge

Last Sunday, Liam and I went mountain biking on the trail at Central Park off 400. Last month, we got Liam a new bike, a black and red 24" Novara Tractor from REI. He was getting a little big for his old one plus he was getting into trail riding and the lack of shocks, handbrakes, and especially gears for the uphills was holding him back some.

This was his first time on the trail with his new bike. One or two little spills but he did pretty well. I have completely lost my balls in regards to anything remotely sketchy.... mostly I'm talking about steep drop-offs even the short ones. Part of this is due I'm sure to my natural risk aversion nowadays but I think most of it is the fact that I no longer ride trails.

But I do ride a bit more than I did when I wrote this but mostly on roads. And mostly the same road.... 5 miles out and 5 back on a main road through a supercluster of developments with a few massive hills. I even bought a new bike.... a Cannondale F5 . All black except for a spot that looks like someone took to it with a dremel with the grinder bit. Which is why I got it for $200 off at the REI scratch and dent thing.

I used to ride to work a few times a year back when I was 5 miles from home but I've been saying for a while that I would do the 15 miles to my new office. I've left a set of clothes there for the next day and two weeks ago I even got all geared up and started riding but turned around after a 1/2 mile because it was foggy... it's dangerous enough on a clear day. And I need to do it before it starts being 110 degrees in the afternoon.

That's it, goshdoggit! I'm doing it next week!

Let it out!!!

I must pay my respects (whatever that means) to Ronnie James Dio who died last weekend. He headlined the first show I ever saw.... way back in 84 at the Orange Pavilion in San Bernadino, California. It was the Last In Line tour with Dokken (a classic cheeseball hair band).

Never followed him much after that but did enjoy his role as the Lord of Metal in this.

Wait a sec... he wasn't even in that. I guess I just assumed while glancing through it in the way that people read on-line that only Dio could be the head of the Supreme Metal Council in its majestic hall atop Vatnajökull, Iceland's largest glacier.

The Pet Colombian, Part 1

At one point in my college travels, I lived with a guy - I'll call him Matt - in a small apartment on White Ash Trail just south of UCF in Orlando, FL. Our total rent was probably less than $500 a month but dammit, that was too goddamn high so we decided to get a roommate.

Only trouble was we didn't have an extra room. So Matt dry-walled in the dining room. Note that there was one of those bars between the kitchen and the dining room that you could sit at and talk to people in the kitchen. Cut out two pieces of drywall, do a little shaping with a boxknife, slap that shit in there, and - wala - no more bar area and you've got a ready-to-move-in room with a chandelier hanging in the middle of it.

Roberto moved in and we quickly began adopting many of his sayings into our conversation.

"Ch'out, ch'out" (check it out, check it out) - Please notice that there is an attractive woman in our presence.
"Thankyaverymach" - I appreciate the fact that they are indeed very attractive.
"Ah som'beeetch" - something has come between me and my goal, or
my luck is not very good today.
"Viva l'America!" - I love the USA, typically sung while drunkenly excercising with barbells
"Ahhh Americans vedddy rude!!!!" - typically exclaimed as an expression of displeasure when another has created a gaseous
environment in your immediate area

Smokey Treats

I never really smoked cigarettes. I tried them in high school once or twice and I have a distinct memory of sitting on a curb with a cigarette... coughing and thinking "why am I doing this? Oh yeah... peer pressure" and I never tried them again. I'm not saying I never did anything since then because of peer pressure but I definitely remember smoking being something I actively decided not to do because of it. That, and the fact that my first taste of a cigarette was when I surreptitiously snuck a sip of one of my Dad's PBR's only to find he had had stubbed out a butt in it. Funny it didn't kill my taste for beer, huh?

I've always considered it basically a weakness in others and a pretty gross one at that. I dated girls who smoked but always thought of it as a negative.

Then I was going to go into the "but I like smoky bars" thing then remembered this. Same title and all.... Alzheimer's anyone?

Random

Pretty much the first song I remember thinking was my favorite was "Rock and Roll Fantasy". I've probably heard it at least 3 times a year since then but strangely I can never remember who the hell did the song. Todd Rundgren sticks in my head for some reason but I have no idea who that is either other than some guitar guy that I should know something about.

Wait a sec... maybe my first favorite song was Andy Gibb's "Blood is Thicker than Water". Yup... that was on the bus on my way to 5th grade my first year in California.

And then there were two...

A week or so ago, Erin decided one of the tadpoles wanted to be separate from the others so she put it in a water bottle next to the rest. After a day or two, it died.

I got the old fish aquarium out of the attic and set it up tadpole-style (?) and the three remaining had been doing ok until tonight... well, actually tragedy struck a few days ago when - she says it was - Blueberry got "stuck" under a few pebbles and just now Erin realized she might be dead.

She was pretty upset about it for about ten minutes then Kerry mentioned that we should start putting live insects into the aquarium for the one tadpole that is basically now a tiny frog. So she ran out back and started collecting ants.


We buried Blueberry in the backyard next to Max. She may make me Dremel up a headstone tomorrow but she just as easily might never mention it.

91.1 huh?

I've always had the two Atlanta college radio stations on my car radio presets and they are always in my regular rotation... which is pretty constantly changing since I hate to listen to a song I don't like. However, unless it's one of the genre programs I rarely ever stop nowadays. The surf music show or Big Band Jump or the punk show on Friday afternoon driving home from work.... or especially Martinis con Queso, the lounge show I've loved for 10 years... those I'll hang around on but the usual stuff doesn't grab me anymore.

Now 88.5 WRAS plays decent stuff.... a good mix... but I'll typically not stay on for more than a song. Unfortunately, even when I hear a great song and I stay on until the DJ comes on, she won't say who played it he will be screwed up and won't get it right. 91.1 WREK is insane. One time they'll be playing a blues song, followed by a schmaltzy lovesong from Thailand, then a cookie monster thrash metal thing, then something that sounds like one of those Simon Says games being hit repeatedly by a cinderblock.

I used to listen to it a lot more and got into some good stuff....

Hater - a lo-fi grungy band I never heard of from anything else then or since other than the cd I picked up,

PJ Harvey - her stuff before that fish song was raw and aggressive, Rid of Me is definitely one of my favorite albums

PeeChee's - good punk/rock thing with a unique vocals, like Hater, never heard of'em again

Cardigan's - their CD Live is unlike the usual stuff I like but still one of my tops, I don't know why they decided to cahnge and sound like every other band... well, of course I do.

Slint - a band with some strange songs, it's been over 16 years since I bought Spiderland but I hear that spooky Captain song about once every 2 years on 88.5 or 91.1.

Portishead - well, it probably helped that the clubs I was hanging out played Dummy a lot but again, although unlike my typical stuff... one of my most played albums

When the whole grunge thing was going I liked Nirvana but I was way into Mudhoney for a few years. Then for a while their stuff wasn't interesting me and I kind of forgot about them. One day, I think I was in a Chic-fil-A drive thru line, and I was listening to 88.5 and this song came on and I was thinking, "Wow, a band that sounds like the music I want to hear" and it turned out to be the then new Mudhoney album.

In 87, I was into the Cult and I was looking around for something like them at Peaches, the record store we used to go to in Orlando. The guy behind the counter got me to buy an album but being cheap, I wanted to hear it before I opened it. My roomate worked at the college radio so sometimes I would listen to the music they had... I remember Celtic Frost for some reason. They had the album there so I listened to it there in one of the booths. Nothing on it really interested me... the band just sounded like the glam rock i wasn't into at all albeit with a shade of old Aerosmith... so I returned it still in the shrinkwrap. It was Guns n' Roses debut and with the later banned cover art. I just looked this up on e-Bay figuring it must be going for at least $100 but nope, $30-40 even unopened like everything else.

Cinco de Mayonnaise

I'm sitting here (typing on the BlackBerry) eating chips from Moe's dipped in Paul New - woops, Finn fell off the slide- man's salsa with a Dos Equis from a Beers of Mexico variety case from BJ's "decanted" with an opener from South of the Border... with a lime in it.

Only a Gordita could make it more authentic.

Orion's Steakhouse

Unlike almost 90% of the content on this blog, here is something no one will care about. By the way, sometimes I'm writing for Future Jim or possibly my kids but they will not care about this one either. I plan on writing a whole bit someday about how certain songs bring up memories and images in people (and of course to me in particular) and how every time you hear the song, the same collage of thoughts flies through your head just as it did a hundred times before.... of course, this might not happen to everyone since not every refuses to get new music and has to listen to the same tiny amount of the music he's managed to get into digital form which is itself a small subset from a meager collection of cd's, 95% of which he purchased before 1999.

Anyway..... I hate to draw you away from this fascinating pretext but to the point that no one will care about:

When I listen to Metallica's "Orion", an instrumental from their 3rd album which came out around 85 or 86, do I think of a Grecian hunter clad in a tunic and olive leaves jaunting through the forest with a bow and his legendary belt? I'm sure there's great story there somewhere but I don't know it and I don't think of that or anything else from Clash of the Titan's.

An image fills my head of a massive spaceship not streamlined or menacing but bulky and girder-encrusted... a little like the ship from Disney's "Black Hole" or maybe the one in 2001... but bigger. Much, much bigger. And at it's stern is an absolutely massive metal bowl a mile or so in diameter with the filling side pointed away from the ship. First, the ship is being built in some extensive orbital yard.... sections added on to it's growing bulk... figures in spacesuits welding plates and guiding equipment. All with the glorious blue and white sphere of the earth completely filling the background.

Then the figures are detailing it's interior... loading materials, running cables, etc. and putting the final touches on the exterior. And after a lot of milling about and some inspirational scenes of a launch sequence, small rockets fire and the behemoth slowly leaves earth's orbit and once it clears the engines die and a small object emerges from the center of the bowl.

And the H-bomb explodes.

I remember learning about the ORION project in the 80's either in a science fiction book (told as if it was a real project) or I saw it on the Carl Sagan COSMOS show. It was put forth as a way we could get to the stars with existing technology and I haven't looked it up since so I could be completely wrong about what it was.

So now I'll check it out.

Violet the Frog?

Erin has always had a fondness for bugs and so-called "creepy-crawlies". I can get her excited by saying "Let's go look under the log!" and we'll go down the hill in the backyard to where I burn sticks and pinecones. There's a big log from a tree I cut down 5-6 years ago that we sit on while cooking hot dogs and marshmallows.

Anyway, I'll push it over and Erin loves to see the ants, centipedes, maggots, whatever.... she'll pick up the worms and put them in whatever is her current "garden".

Over the winter, she kept a pet snail. It was "Shelly" for a while then became "Sheldon" when it changed shells (?). She would give it spinach leaves or pieces of carrot and she'd keep the jar clean in an attempt to show us that she's responsible enough for a pet. Then she had a toy dalmation with wheels that she pulled around everywhere and she gave it regular baths.

Now she's got a little terrarium in her room with 5 tadpoles (according to her... I'm assuming a few died) named Rosemary, Daisy, Blackberry, Blueberry, and Violet.

Casa uno mas

Home for a while but still wired
Mountain Dew and Coke go juice
Fun time, lots of visiting
brothers and sister in law, father and mother in law
mother father sister aunt uncle
canoed with Erin and Liam at Wekiwa Springs
fantastic beautiful saw a gator two turtles
Erin freaked out a little with the gator but in a nervous jokey but a little serious "heh-heh, let's get the heck out of here" kind of way
went to the Brevard Zoo
otters were Liam and Finn's favorite, Erin liked the armadillos who licked her feet
saw an early morning launch of the Discovery space shuttle, one of the last
lotsa Easter candy
egg hunts and bike riding including a major wreck by Liam - shaken but ok
Many Yenlings, Heinekins, plus a not half-bad vodka/pink lemonade/grape fanta concoction
saw Inglorious Bastards - brutal but cool
played 5-6 hours to finish Risk - a game that HAD to be invented before TV - 5 HOURS!!
Swam in a few pools and the ocean
awesome weather,
left at 5:40 Friday morning going down... made it in 9 hours, would've been 8 save for a wrong turn at Albuquerque
coming home, left before 7am Sat morn but took just shy of 12 GODDAMN HOURS
good times

I Heart Train

Well I'm down here on Spring Break in Central Florida... And, yes, if you have kids in gradeschool... you have Spring Breaks again.

Anyway... About this new Train song... as those hip kids in those wicked cool Mickey D's commercials say... I'm lovin' it!

The Perfect Storm

Biiiiig day tomorrow.... first, Erin's Pinewood Derby... worked on the car this week, registered it this evening... then Erin's soccer game.... THEN Erin's Leprechaun-themed birthday party. Took a half- day today at work to help get ready... still haven't come up with the games yet... instead I'm blogging...

And after her party, Erin plans to attend another.

Runny, Part 5

So I'll run 2 - 3 times a week for only about 3 miles each time. I'm taking glucosamine... I've never been a pill guy but it's basically chopped up shrimp casings or some chitonous substance... wait a sec, I forgot to mention that one of the reasons I'm running again is related to my anti-pill thing. It turns out that my cholesterol has recently crossed a threshold that has caused my doctor to recommend I take a drug to get it down. I've always had slightly high cholesterol in the 200-225 range but since my good cholesterol level was high, my doctor just said keep up the exercise and decent diet.

But now it's 230 and rather than go the drug route, I'm going to go stricter on the diet and keep up the running. My typical diet every day is a bagel with hummus (instead of my usual cream cheese), coffee with half&half (can't skip this) and for lunch, black bean burritos with spinach and more hummus instead of cheese, a bag of raw veggies, and a bag of cereal then whatever my wife makes for dinner. So we'll see how it goes.... if the cholesterol gets worse, I'll likely end up on Pravichor or whatever is making the rounds these days.

Anyway, although I miss running for real, I'm going to keep to it for health (not to mention the stress-relief and getting-outside thing!) I don't want to overdo it and hurt my knees which may threaten my hiking plans.

Speaking of, the fam did it's biggest hike ever together today... about 7 miles up and down Blood Mountain, the highest point on the Appalachian Trail in Georgia. Erin and Liam made it to the top with nary a whine and Finn stayed on my back like the smart lad he is.

Diamond Dave

Thursday I heard that the guy who played Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone, Fess Parker, had died. I do remember having a coonskin cap at some point in my childhood but I don't really remember seeing much of his shows. We did watch Disney's "Davy Crockett and the River Pirates" a few years ago and it wasn't bad for what it was.

Anyway, the first thing I'm thinking is could they re-do a frontiersman show? Make it serious and realistic?

The 2nd, Fess in the 60's picking up chicks in a bar "Hey, I'm Davy F*cking Crockett!"

Top o' the mornin'

Last week, Team Keough went to downtown Decatur for a booksigning (well, "stamping", her hand had been injured) by Mary Pope Osborne of Magic Treehouse fame.

While Kerry braved the madding crowds with Erin, I wandered the square with Finn and Liam. There were a few guys putting up some banners around Mac McGee's, an Irish pub for St. Patrick's Day. From the outside, the pub looked very inviting and I was a wee bit parched. The fact that I had watched a show on the Food Network the previous night where they were in Ireland demonstrating how to pour the pefect Guiness did not help ease the temptation to head in. Having the kids though was a little awkward and we were planning on eating at Doc Chey's again so I declined.

Tonight though, once again yet another St. Patrick's Day has passed, another one much like the others with a few Smithwick's (the current beer being pushed as 'what they drink in Ireland'), and corned beef and cabbage, a meal I've always loved, my older son is starting to like a lot, and my daughter still is disgusted by... like seemingly 75% of everything we put in front of her these days.

Two additions:
1) a trip to McDonald's, a fine Irish establishment, for Shamrock Shakes, and
2) a shot of Bushmill's

Another St. Patrick's Day where Erin tries to trap the wily Leprechaun... this time with a trap on the kitchen table and another in her room using a glass of green food-colored tainted grape choose... which she promptly spilled onto the carpet AND neglected to mention it.

Sure and begorrah, tis a wild child she be.

Runny, Part 4

So my plan was to start biking at work for exercise... I bike on the weekends, I'll just start taking short rides at lunch... maybe I can find a big hill in Norcross... there's a big landfill just south of Jimmy Carter...

But it didn't work out. Biking is a heck of a lot more of a hassle than out-the-door running. So maybe I'll join a gym. But now I get to work at 7 because of traffic... I don't see getting up at 4 to get to a gym. Actually, that could work... what I don't see happening is going to sleep before 10 the previous evening. Once the kids are in bed, that's my time to catch up on crap...

I could do a gym in the evening... possibly... but I really don't want to go to a gym anyway.

1) I like getting outside.
2) Actually going somewhere and having to go back is a great motivation vs. some computer thing.
3) I'm a cheap bastard.

So I decide to start running again.

Runny, Part 3

Then we stop and drink a little at another spot off the side of the road while the "runners" keep on truckin' down the line... finally I cross the finish line.... along with one other guy that like myself, actually wanted to get a time.

Speaking of, my time from went I crossed the starting line was 2:29:00. Last year it was 0:49:20. Not bad when you consider I drank about 6 beers along the way...

And then, naturally, we all ended up at The Highlander.

Banner Weekend - Part 2

Well, I keep getting behind in these posts so let me wrap this one up...
after the zoo, we didn't feel like driving back to the burbs it being such a swell day and all, so we went to Doc Chey's in the Highlands, a nice, safe choice.. they even had kid's menu's and crayons.... man things have changed intown, ya know?

Anyway, a bit of a surprise especially given my post about the kids only liking standard fare but they loved it. And $4 for each kids meal... what a bahgin. Best, of all, Kerry and I got to enjoy a meal on a deck with real music and ketchup nowhere in site.

The next day the whole gang ended up biking on one of the new Greenways. Well, Liam and Kerry were biking, I was sitting on the side of the path re-attaching Erin's training wheels. She can "ride" without them... using the strictest definition of the word... she just can't steer or go straight for more than 3 feet. But then we did all ride... the kids saw other kids they knew... and we had fun.

But I didn't really get enough exercise so decided to another ride on my own. I was pondering doing my Taco Mac run but then a friend called and asked me to help him get his pool cover off. His place was about 7 miles away so I set off. I had picked a route to avoid as much riding along busy roads as possible however I had to assume there was an extra back way connecting two subdivisions to a third. One I knew about and involved a ride on a rocky maintenance trail connecting a park and some kind of power utility station. The other I had to hope for the best.. it looked to be no prob on Google Maps - Satellite.

But of course I ended up sloshing through a less-than-sparkling stream, riding along the trail-less side of a weed-covered hill, then pushing my bike up pretty much a cliff (I failed to notice the "contours" on my so-called problem-free route) to finally make the cut-thru. Then, it took some time to haul the soggy leaf-mass cover Deadliest Catch-style from the pool and, with the sun quickly sinking, I had to kill myself to make it back the 7 miles to home before dark.

Yup... a good weekend.