I know what you're thinking, a new post two days in a row-he's damn near prolific! It isn't that, it's just that something really bugged me, so here goes:
I covered about 40 miles today, long for me. As I tooled down from the hills where we live to the coast where we don't, it warmed up, just a tease I see now, as I wound up riding home in the rain, knowing I was going back to them hills, and the temperature dropped this time. It was a great day though, a good ride indeed.
What struck me (everything strikes me, you know) as I rode was all of the trash strewn about on our lovely formerly a rail line bike path. It had roadie written all over it, unfortunately: lots of those stupid-I can't believe people consume that stuff-gel squeeze carb things, squished on the asphalt like banana slugs. But the item of equipment that iced it for me was the inner tube. The inner tube was hanging from a sapling about 10 feet off the path, obviously tossed aside by a roadie who felt "hey, I've been inconvenienced by this flat tire" and that they just had to get back in the race...the one in their mind, that is. It was clearly a road bike size, no doubt about it being off of a Target mountain bike, I really don't think I would have minded it as much if it was from a civilian, but no, it was from "one of us". Did they think that the local group who sponsors that section of the path would be by soon on their regular morning cleanup and cart it off, just grateful to feel like a volunteer at a real race, helping out Levi by giving him a shove to get going again after a mechanical?
Folks, in these times of bike lane wars in NYC, people riding naked through the streets of Portland, and a general us against them mentality that pervades the dialog as the country comes to grips with a lot more cyclists on the road, please, please, please, clean up your shit. Don't give the motorheads anything they can use against us, you know what I mean?
After I got to the coast, a little more than halfway into my ride, I passed a "Bike Lane" sign that had been vandalized-but not in the usual destroy mangle rip rend style. Very neatly, someone had taken a can of black spray paint and made one clean horizontal line each through the bicyclist logo, and also the words "bike lane" below it. It looked so deliberate that it succeeded in communicating something very clearly to me: this person has animosity towards cyclists. Please, keep it clean, let's not give them a reason.
Sunday, February 20, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
And He's Up Again...
Okay, got it. Okaaay-got it-I hear you! I know it's been tough, and quite a while since my last post. A long haul. Well, fine for you, then, but what about me? You see, I'm the one who notices everything-everything, I'm the one with the overly-active imagination. If you think this is easy, walk in my shoes. There's been a whole heckuva lot goin on in this world the last couple of months and I, for one, quite possibly the only one, haven't missed a thing; it is what makes it tough to keep up with my demanding and information hungry readers. In the meantime, I'm walking like an Egyptian.
So, let's "cover the cats", starting with.....
The Kings Speech
I loved this film. Colin Firth is an actor who is comfortable just seemingly playing himself. I don't mean he stammers offscreen (?) but he's just naturally...natural. Did you see him in "A Single Man"? Yeah, I thought not, but he could be George VI playing the single man the way he projects a "realness", a human accessibility that tells you he's a regular guy. The King's Speech could have been about Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who quite forces a friendship with the then Duke. Logue's personality and facial expression drive the film; Firth is nearly the "supporting" actor to Geoffrey Rush's Logue. A fascinating look at the world of the 30's and 40's, one that will be a pleasure to view again.
Cutting For Stone
Abraham Verghese is, according to my Wiki-pals, the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School. Wow, and he also earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop. As titles go, that Stanford thing is large, huh? He's been a busy boy!
Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written story of twin boys, born in Ethiopia, whose mother, a nun, dies after giving birth. The other half of the illicit joining is the surgeon who freezes up in trying to save the mother and the twins at birth, and sort out his own mind in a time of chaos. The chaos continues for the boys long after birth, as the Government in Ethiopia falls in a coup in the 50's.
I tend to listen to Audiobooks-thank you Audible!-and the narration of the Audiobook is spot-on, highly recommended.
Lance's Mug
I was checking out Lance's Mug today at the local hot beverage store. It was a perfect shape: sleek, pure white, comfortable handle, generous size, a perfect half inch wide golden-yellow Livestrong band around the base, twelve bucks but at least some of it goes for a great cause. Then I imagined Lance's Mug at my garage sale. A year, two tears have gone by, the whole epo-dopo-Clen "The Clear" Kadiddlehopper thing did not go well. Lance has to plead the Michael Milken/Sherman McCoy evil wrongdoer plea and suddenly Lance is walking along an Austin freeway spearing Livestrong bracelets and other trash that was once cool and unimpeachable-like those damn bottles with the cap at each end so you can clean 'em easier, what's that all about?
I really hope, for Lance's sake, that this thing turns around for him but it does not look to be headed in a good direction. This hotshot investigator Jeff Novitzky is swinging a big bat, and I've wondered if maybe he was related to Dallas Mav Dirk Nowitzky, but I think it's spelled differently. If he was, well just give it up, Lance, because Dirk's bro will beat you-but he's not-so we're good, right? In the interest of pro cycling, we better hope Lance is extra clean; it sure doesn't feel like it will be good, though. Here comes the TDF, and Lance is about to go down as the backdrop story for three weeks...I hate to think it, and I really hate to type it, let's hope for the best.
Baseball?
It's not time yet-relax.
So, let's "cover the cats", starting with.....
The Kings Speech
I loved this film. Colin Firth is an actor who is comfortable just seemingly playing himself. I don't mean he stammers offscreen (?) but he's just naturally...natural. Did you see him in "A Single Man"? Yeah, I thought not, but he could be George VI playing the single man the way he projects a "realness", a human accessibility that tells you he's a regular guy. The King's Speech could have been about Lionel Logue, the speech therapist who quite forces a friendship with the then Duke. Logue's personality and facial expression drive the film; Firth is nearly the "supporting" actor to Geoffrey Rush's Logue. A fascinating look at the world of the 30's and 40's, one that will be a pleasure to view again.
Cutting For Stone
Abraham Verghese is, according to my Wiki-pals, the Professor for the Theory and Practice of Medicine at Stanford University Medical School. Wow, and he also earned an MFA at the Iowa Writers Workshop. As titles go, that Stanford thing is large, huh? He's been a busy boy!
Cutting for Stone is a beautifully written story of twin boys, born in Ethiopia, whose mother, a nun, dies after giving birth. The other half of the illicit joining is the surgeon who freezes up in trying to save the mother and the twins at birth, and sort out his own mind in a time of chaos. The chaos continues for the boys long after birth, as the Government in Ethiopia falls in a coup in the 50's.
I tend to listen to Audiobooks-thank you Audible!-and the narration of the Audiobook is spot-on, highly recommended.
Lance's Mug
I was checking out Lance's Mug today at the local hot beverage store. It was a perfect shape: sleek, pure white, comfortable handle, generous size, a perfect half inch wide golden-yellow Livestrong band around the base, twelve bucks but at least some of it goes for a great cause. Then I imagined Lance's Mug at my garage sale. A year, two tears have gone by, the whole epo-dopo-Clen "The Clear" Kadiddlehopper thing did not go well. Lance has to plead the Michael Milken/Sherman McCoy evil wrongdoer plea and suddenly Lance is walking along an Austin freeway spearing Livestrong bracelets and other trash that was once cool and unimpeachable-like those damn bottles with the cap at each end so you can clean 'em easier, what's that all about?
I really hope, for Lance's sake, that this thing turns around for him but it does not look to be headed in a good direction. This hotshot investigator Jeff Novitzky is swinging a big bat, and I've wondered if maybe he was related to Dallas Mav Dirk Nowitzky, but I think it's spelled differently. If he was, well just give it up, Lance, because Dirk's bro will beat you-but he's not-so we're good, right? In the interest of pro cycling, we better hope Lance is extra clean; it sure doesn't feel like it will be good, though. Here comes the TDF, and Lance is about to go down as the backdrop story for three weeks...I hate to think it, and I really hate to type it, let's hope for the best.
Baseball?
It's not time yet-relax.
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