I have been a falluto!

I haven't posted in a while, which makes me a falluto (Spanish for no-load, loser, waste of space, etc.).  I have had writer's block, making me a block  head with nothing to write about.  Now I am repenting of my great evil and will blog again!  

I have begun riding my bicycle (the big heavy one that is an easy chair on wheels) to work from Fruita, which is about 15 or 16 miles one way.  The routes are limited, and I like to go down Hwy 6 & 50 on the shoulder, which is very wide, but also very dirty.  I don't mind the dirt, but the dirt hides goat heads, which attack bike tires and give you flats.  I have ridden three times and gotten two flats, both times the front tire.  Both times at about the same place on the road too.  I am tempted to find a broom and sweep the dirt off the shoulder in that area, but that would be too much like work.  I got a CO2 pump to blow up my flat tires and a couple of spare tubes to keep me from being stranded, so now that I am prepared I will probably not get a flat again.  That's usually the way it works for me anyway, if I am prepared nothing happens, if I'm not, then something does.

Now that I am riding, I am having the uplifting experience of being sore.  My knees, and inner thighs especially cry out after the riding is done and I have been sitting still for a while, then get up.  My legs say "Hey!"  They get back at me for moving by giving me pain.  I will show them, though.  Soon they will be like the Nephite women journeying in the wilderness, and will be able to bear their exertions without murmuring.  Then I will be strong.  Oh, by the way, the ride home today got me sunburned and wind burned.  The wind was blowing 20 to 30 miles per hour, in my face, and by the time I got home I was bushed and really, really hungry.  I will need to start taking some granola bars or something along to snack on.

Sunday is a double whammy for me.  I have to speak in Sacrament meeting and I have to give the lesson in my Primary class.  I have begun preparing.  At least for the talk.  I haven't even looked at the lesson book yet.

Later, everybody!  

There's hope for the world

In a week when the church is in the news because of three missionaries being brain-dead idiots on their day off, I found an article in the Village Voice by some dude named David Mamet, who is I guess an american playwright.  He wrote an article titled "Why I am no longer a 'Brain Dead Liberal.'"  He's a pretty good writer, although I think he likes to show off his knowledge of big words and clever phrases.  I will not hold that against him.  He has seen the light, and is now a recovering liberal.  I quote from his article:

I'd observed that lust, greed, envy, sloth, and their pals are giving the world a good run for its money, but that nonetheless people in general seem to get from day to day; and that we in the United States get from day to day under rather wonderful and privileged circumstances -- that we are not and never have been the villains that some of the world and some of our citizens make us out to be, but that we are a confection of normal (greedy, lustful, duplicitous, corrupt, inspired -- in short, human) individuals living under a spectacularly effective compact called the Constitution, and lucky to get it.

For the Constitution, rather than suggesting that all behave in a godlike manner, recognizes that, to the contrary, people are swine and will take any opportunity to subvert any agreement in order to pursue what they consider to be their proper interests.

To that end, the Constitution separates the power of the state into those three branches which are for most of us (I include myself) the only thing we remember from 12 years of schooling.

The Constitution, written by men with some experience of actual government, assumes that the chief executive will work to be king, the Parliament will scheme to sell off the silverware, and the judiciary will consider itself Olympian and do everything it can to much improve (destroy) the work of the other two branches.  So the Constitution pits them against each other, in the attempt not to achieve stasis, but rather to allow for the constant corrections necessary to prevent one branch from getting too much power for too long.

Rather brilliant.  For, in the abstract, we may envision an Olympian perfection of perfect beings in Washington doing the business of their employers, the people, but any of us who has ever been at a zoning meeting with our property at stake is aware of the urge to cut through all the pernicious bulls**t and go straight to firearms.

I edited the bad word on the last line.  There's hope for the guy.  I especially like the imagery of the last paragraph, because it hits the nail on the head as far as the real world is.  

We love you, Joe!  Hang in there, Ash!  We love everybody else in the family too, especially the grandkids!   

Can you caption these pictures?

Call the one on the right #1 and the one below #2.  See if you can come up with a clever caption for each one.  Maybe I will award a prize but don't hold me to it.

Not everyone gets to be a blueshirt

Blueshirts are the guys on the flight deck that wear the blue shirts.  Duh.  Greenshirts wear the green shirts, redshirts wear red shirts, yellowshirts wear yellow, it's really all very color coordidnated.  There's a method to the madness, too.  Blueshirts handle chocks and chains, greenshirts do the maintenance, redshirts are the ordinance puppies, and yellowshirts are the plane captains and launch controllers on the flight deck.  There are also purple shirts that do the fueling.  I just don't have pictures to post of all the other guys.  This blueshirt is relaxing before he has to hump chains and chocks, samples of which are lying on the deck behind him.  

I just watched a show on the television that told me it took four million years to evolve my butt.  I want my money back. 

I got brave today

I decided to ride my bike to work.  Last night I prepped all my gear that I could think of and went over the bike again.  I went to bed early (for me) at ten o'clock and woke up at six.  By six thirty I was on the road.  A friend of mine who lives down the street, and who wussed out on riding with me, told me that the way he likes to go is down K Rd (east) to 18 Rd, south on 18 to the diagonal and down that to J Rd, then east again on J Rd.  After that, it's a turn south again on 20 Rd to I Rd, east on I to 22 Rd, south on 22 to H Rd, east on H to 24 Rd, then south on 24 to the overpass at the mall.  After the overpass, it's onto the bike trail and in to work.  Ok, is everybody with me so far?  My friend, whose name is Randy Keller if anybody cares, told me that this stair-step route avoids the traffic.  He was right, but it doesn't avoid the dogs.  There were at least ten dogs that at least made me nervous, and one that was downright belligerent.  I thought for a minute I was going to follow in my brother's footsteps.  It was on 20 Rd between I 3/10 Rd (how's that for a road name) and I Rd.  The dog was a salt and pepper bob tailed mutt, probably mad at the world because it was bob tailed, and because it's owners lived in a trailer.  It came at me the first time, and I saw it coming and stopped and yelled at it, and it stopped at the edge of the road.  When I started to move it started forward again, so I stopped again and so did he ( a female dog wouldn't be mean, would it?).  The same thing happened again.  After that I got off the bike and pretended to pick up a rock, which finally discouraged the dog and he backed off.  He tried to save face by barking a lot but didn't charge again.  There were more dogs after that but they were more civilized, basically they just told me to move on and stay off their turf, which I did.

It took me from 0630 to 0813 to get to work.  Randy's zigzag route sucks, in my opinion.  I think he was just suckering me into riding extra miles.  And, all my careful preparations came to naught when I realized after a few miles that I had forgotten the most important items for riding any distance -- my water bottles.  I was glad to get to work without fainting so I could quit spitting dust and could guzzle a quart or two of water.

Since this was the first ride of the year, of course it kicked my butt.  I was dragging all day, and then I had to do it again going home.  I made the wise decision to ride on US Hwy 6 & 50 on the way home, which is a straight shot from Grand Junction to Fruita, with a wide shoulder and no dogs.  No water either,  because I forgot the one bottle I had at work that I could have used.  Overall today I rode over 30 dry, thirsty miles.  No riding tomorrow because I'm not a total fool (I have to take Pat to work because he's leaving from there for his Vegas trip) and Sunday starts daylight savings time, so it will be pretty dark in the mornings for a while.  We shall see if I'm dumb enough to ride in the dark. 

I have my bike all ready to go

I was going to ride to work tomorrow but it's supposed to snow tonight again, so I guess Mother Nature doesn't want me to.  My riding partner called and we decided to wait at least another day.  I was prepping the bike, and, surprise, my tires were low after the long winter and I needed to adjust my rear brakes too, which I did.  Pumping up the tires was more of a pain than it should have been because I couldn't find my CO2 pump.  I bought some cartridges for it the other day and then couldn't find the pump, so I had to go buy a car-lighter-socket pump so I could add some atmosphere to the tires.  Since I own a long wheelbase recumbent with twin rear view mirrors, (which looks really cool by the way) it's a little hard to flip over and work on because the mirrors get squished.  I found a unique way to work on it, though.  It fits just right on the arms of the treadmill, and sits there suspended at about chest high, with everything accessible and easy to work on.   Can I improvise or what! 

When we lived in the Ridges I had a hook placed in a crossbeam and suspended the bike by the front tire from the hook.  I want to set up something like that again here.  The bike takes up less space and is out of the way.  Our house is bigger, but the garage is smaller here and space is more at a premium.  I just have to figure out where the support beams are, since they aren't exposed.  I'm getting excited about riding again though.  It's a lot farther to work but I used to ride 12 miles or so in the morning and 18 to 20 in the afternoon when we lived 3 miles from my work, so an 11 or 12 mile ride to work will be the same.  The main worry for me is a breakdown.  It would be a long walk if I broke down halfway.  Hopefully that won't happen.

The plants are sprouting in the Aero Garden.  I feel like a new father!

It snowed last night

I guess winter doesn't want to let go just yet.  We got an inch or two of snow last night, but I think it will be melted by the end of the day.  It's suppose to get up to around 44 degrees, I think.  Yesterday I "harvested" all the dead flowers from the flower garden in front of the house and I saw new plants starting to grow already.  I hope they are not too surprised by the snow.  

Cathy and I have had a spendy weekend, and it was fun.  This was the third payday of the month for me so the normal deductions were not taken out of my check and I got a big one.  Putting the extra money into savings would be the wise thing to do, but who said we were wise?  We got some more new dishes, new silverware, a new bookcase for the third bedroom which is now our computer room/office, and one of those AeroGarden countertop plant growers "as seen on TV."  It's pretty cool, and I look at it all the time to see if anything has sprouted yet, even though there is no chance for any thing to start growing for another couple of days.  We planted the herb collection that came with the kit, but we also have cherry tomatoes and some salad greens that we bought to plant later on.  We figured to use the included plants first to see how it does.  We got ours at Culinary Corner, but found out the next day that they are at Bed Bath and Beyond too.  The price was the same at both places.  Now we have to spend money on dumb stuff like the house payment and tithing and bills.  Food too.

Joe, we love you and are proud of you.  Ashley, hang tough.  We love you too.  The rest of you guys, same same.