My trip to one of the best places ever. A Graphic Novella.

Jack is involved with Academic Pentathlon at his school.  It's kind of a big deal.  There are 2 teams of 9 kids.  One team for each middle school grade (7 and 8).

Jack is in seventh grade.  After a several month long process, he was selected for the team. Isabel was also selected.  Isabel is also in seventh grade.  She lives across the street from us.  So that was cool.

Anyway, there was a big city or state competition several weeks ago.  McMillan (Jack's school) won the trip to Nationals in Boise Idaho.

At first the whole family was going to go, but it ended up just being Jack and me.

Jack's trip was paid for by the generous donations of people who generously donated.  My trip was not, so I booked my own flights and things to save a few bucks.

I got on a plane Wednesday night.  It was a small plane.  My seat was 13B.  Of course we know that "B" is just another "13" scrunched together.  So that was pretty omen-rific.

It was kind of crowded, but the seat next to mine was unoccupied.  So to save the lives of everybody aboard, I slid over to 13A.  But before I did, I took a picture of it ...

Then the plane took off and stuff.

That was just a short flight to Minneapolis.  Then it was straight to the hustling, bustling Boise Airport terminal.

But I kid the Boise terminal.  The next morning, I decided to get some breakfast before I went bumming around to bike shops, looking to rent.  But then I saw this car and decided I didn't want breakfast.

So I rented a bicycle and put it in the trunk of my rented car.

Then I put on my fancy bike pants and went for a ride.  That's when I realized I was in the best place ever. The bike infrastructure was incredible.  Bike lanes everywhere.  The traffic was cognizant of bikes. Riding in heavy traffic was never scary.  Then there was the scenery.  It was like this all day long:

 and this,

and this,

and of course, this.

Yeah - they have a bunch of blue and orange stuff up there,

The thing about Boise was that everybody there was unbelievably nice.  I had never seen it before.  I could only describe it as "Munson" nice.  Why, they even had a colorful happy place for the area freaks.

Freak Alley

If you know me, you know I can only take so much "nice" before I become suspicious.  Sure that something funny is going on.  It's the same reason I'm convinced Munson is pure evil. Nobody could possibly be that nice.

Well on my second day there, I saw something that confirmed my suspicions.

Yep. Figures. At night, Boise is filled with filthy rotten soul sucking vampires.

So that sums up the best place I've ever ridden my bike.  What? Huh?

Oh yeah, sorry. The kids had a good time doing their smart thing or whatever.

And posing for photos

and riding a bus

and I don't remember if I mentioned this, but the scenic bike riding was nice too.

True Story

I'm pretty sad tonight.  I finished the Ashland Criterium in 11th place.  I lost contact with the lead group of 10 and could not get back to them.  But that has nothing to do with why I'm sad. In fact, I didn't know If I'd finish well or not. I was more concerned about my handling skill.  There were corners.  There were climbs.  Overall, I felt pretty good around the corners. There really wasn't anything too difficult or technical.  I certainly have room for improvement, but this is where I'll get it.

The race was scheduled to be 40 minutes long.  After about 20 minutes, I lost the front guys.  Then I was working with 2 other guys. We were hoping (in vain) we could catch them.

Sometimes it looked like we were closing in, but I don't think so.  With 13 minutes left to race we were about 15 seconds back. Not likely we'd make that up.

Then a strange thing happened.  As we turned toward the start finish line, there were a bunch of cyclists standing in the road.  We didn't have any idea what was going on.  we were told we had to stop. That the race was being neutralized.

The lead group was put at the first turn.  After a while, our group of 3 was told to come up behind them.

The rest of the guys came up behind us.

We were told that we had to wait for an ambulance to clear the road.  There had been a crash and the person who crashed didn't know what his name was.

That's why I'm sad. I was involved in his horrific crash.  I didn't go down.  He did though.

It was during the first lap.  It was a fast downhill section and people were moving around all over trying to get a good position.  It was the first lap. Seriously.

On the way down the hill, A guy came up on my left fast and tried to cut me off.  I started to go to my right to avoid getting hit by him, but the guy an my right started drifting toward me.  All I could do was brace for the impact.  We hit shoulders hard.  I pedaled hard to try to stay up.  The guy drifted back and his arm and handlebar hit and went under my left thigh. I was pretty sure I was toast at that point.  Then I heard his crash.  I was still up, but had to be careful of all the Cat IVs in front of me looking back to see what was going on.

So that sucked.

After they paused the race 20 minutes later, they told us that there would be 3 more laps.  A neutral lap and then 2 finishing laps.

They sent the first group and a few seconds later we thought we'd be able to go.  But Darrell Webb started yelling at us like we'd done something wrong.  I think he was having a stressful day.

He said we were 50 seconds behind the front group.  He knew that because of the timing chips.

But ...  No way we were 50 seconds behind them. They had still been in sight when the race stopped.

The timing chip theory was flawed in the first place, because when they stopped the race, they stopped us behind the line and the front group in front of the line.  Then we had to wait at least 30 seconds before they let us move up in front of the line.

Again - it doesn't really matter - we weren't going to catch them.

But then, this is where it got really stupid.  At the end of the neutral lap, we were closer than 50 seconds to the front group.  Darrell Webb went all ape shit on us.  We were not trying to catch them.  In fact we got to a place where they were roughly the same distance ahead of us as they had been before the pause.  It seemed fair.

But the faulty conclusion about where we were in the race and the yelling at us was completely unnecessary.  Yes - the officials got it wrong.  No - it would not have made any difference (probably).

But it was still irritating.

But the worst thing (besides a guy went to the hospital) was that the 3 of us in our little group had 2 laps of racing left.  Sure it was for 11th place, but to me, it was still a race.

After one lap, one of the other 2 sat up.  I found myself in front of the remaining guy for most of the second lap.  I wanted him to come around, but he wouldn't.  Eventually he pulled up beside me and we just rode side by side until the final turn.  He sped up a little and I matched his speed.  I was really hoping for a fun little drag race.  Sure it doesn't count for anything, but c'mon.

Nope.  He sat up too.

Screw you guys, I thought as I stood up and sprinted home for completely meaningless 11th place.

The things I'm happy about are that I didn't quit even when there was no reason to continue.  I handled the corners well enough to get me by for now.  I didn't freak out and fall down when a guy ran into me.

Still though.  Very scary.  I don't pray, but I'm praying this guy's ok, just because I really want him to be.  Because in the end, this is just some stupid thing we do on the weekends. 50 seconds indeed!

I've fallen and I can't get up

I was talking to my dad today and he reminded me of something I hadn't thought about for at least 4 or 5 days.  

Actually it was funny that he brought it up.  He didn't think I'd remember it.  But I did.  I was pondering it on my way to Des Moines last Sunday.

Dad was telling me that he was happy with the way his children turned out having jobs for the most part and stuff.  He always says it wasn't important to him if his kids excelled at sports (good thing). He always wanted us to focus on education (oops).

While I think that education should definitely take a priority over any sort of athletic endeavor, I believe there is a lot to be gained from being involved in sport.

The story I was thinking about on the way to Des Moines goes like this:

The whole family was at a picnic. It was some sort of big party thing.  The people were organizing different competitions.  There were foot races for all age categories.

At the time, I believed I was the fastest runner in the world.  I believed that even if I was slower than someone, I had the will to go fast enough to win.

I believed this based on results.  I was by far the fastest runner of all the kids in my neighborhood.  I could always outrun any of them.  I hadn't factored in the fact that I was only counting kids younger than me.  I wasn't considering kids older than me.  They were essentially adults or something.

So I lined up for this picnic race of kids my age and we took off at the whistle.  I must not have gotten a good start because right away there were 2 kids beating me.  Well, no problem.  I'll just run faster and get past them.  I was pretty excited about this because this was one time I was racing and my dad was actually watching.  My whole family would see how fast I was.  As I switched into high gear to overtake the others, something bad happened.  They went even faster and pulled farther from me.  Then horror of horrors, some other kids started passing me.

I think I ended up 4th or 5th out of about 10 or 12 kids. I was devastated.  I spent the rest of the afternoon heartbroken about what I had just learned.  I was not a fast runner.  At all. And now my whole family knew it.  I went back to them ashamed and they wouldn't look at me.  They just sat there absentmindedly chewing on their potato salad.  

So I went to a far corner of the park, sat at a picnic table alone and pouted. After a while, my aunt came up and asked me if I wanted to go throw rocks at the people at the swimming pool.  There was this pool that was fenced in. It was next to a forested area.  We could throw stuff at people from the forest and they'd never see us. That cheered me up a little.

My dad's version of the story is a little different so maybe he's right about me not remembering it.  In his version, I came in dead last.  His dad gave him some crap about it and my dad said that it wasn't important to him.  My education was the only thing that mattered.

As much as I can't conceive of the conversation between my dad and his dad going anything like that (they would have both been drunk, for one thing.  They were both truck drivers, for another) I'm sure my dad is right about the part where I came in last place.  I may have rationalized myself up a few spots or something to ease the pain. I don't know.

Oh wait, I remember what happened.  Seriously, I just remembered just now.  The entrants of the race were not arranged by age, but height.  I was a really tall 6 year old, so I was racing against 8 and 9 year olds.  Ok, that makes me feel better.  After all these years of carrying that pain, I finally remembered something about it.  Except, that's bullshit too.  Nope.  I'm just slow.

Anyway, on my way to Des Moines, the memory popped into my head because I was headed to a bike race and contemplating my ongoing dread of racing. Why am I always so nervous about every little part of a race?

In 2007, I decided to quit racing for good.  A few years later, when I gave up golf to get back into cycling, I figured I'd never race again. Just get fit enough to hang with the more challenging group rides.

The problem is, all of those people race and when you start seeing your equals winning races, you think, maybe you should ...

But then the fear creeps in and more often than not, I chicken out.  I've usually got a pretty good excuse that sounds believable to me.

I get so nervous about doing a race, it will effect me for days in advance.  This is not true of cross racing.  It was at first, but after my first 2 or 3, that shit's just fun.  And - I suck at it.

No - road racing is what I'm best at.  Also, what I'm most scared of.

So I've been wondering for years (literally), where all this apprehension comes from.  I've been trying to pinpoint an event or place blame somewhere.  I did that in 2007 when I crashed completely through the fault of another. I told everyone back then that I quit because you can crash and it's completely not your fault.  Though this is true, it's not a good reason to quit.

Another fear, though pride related, is getting humiliated.  I've been humiliated (at least felt that way) so many times that I never want to try again. One time I got pulled from the Papillion crit on the second lap because I was immediately dropped as the race started.  I could not get clipped in and sat there in front of everybody while the whole race rode away.  By the time I clipped in, it was too late.  Afterwards, Shim told me it was the funniest thing he ever saw. If there was YouTube back then, I'd be famous. 

The good news about all of this is that today, I found out what my problem has been basically my whole life.

Now I can move past it and just get on with the racing.

My dad was telling me another story.  I have absolutely no recollection of this one though.  My fear of crashing goes way way back.

Dad was telling me that I could walk when I was about 6 months old.  I would take steps here and there.  But then I fell hard.  After that, I would only walk while holding on to furniture or something.  I wouldn't even try, though it was obvious I'd be fine if I did.

I was over a year old before I started walking without holding onto something,

That was it.  Not the falling while I was learning to walk.  Just me.  That's how I am. That's how I've always been. It's probably why I was born 3 weeks late.  Unwilling to take risks.  It's apparently always been with me.  It's just who I am.

Now that I know that, I can ignore it - because as I've already pointed out, I'm insane.

So I will see you at the races this weekend.  And it's going to be a blast.  Because even though I'm nervous, I now know that's just what I do so I will shut up about it from here on out. You're welcome.

P.S. I would like to mention that I did "win" the race last Sunday in Des Moines.  In the end, I had the fastest sprint.  I felt pretty good about that for about 5 minutes, but then I realized that just like my former glory days when I thought I was a fast runner, all of my competition was way younger than me.

Maybe I should pick on somebody my own age for a change.

Well That Sucked

Have you ever had "One of those days?"

Every once in a while, I have "One of those days."

It seems like the shit just piles on.  Like you're just that close to a whole heap of trouble or personal loss.  It doesn't make sense to me that all of this should happen on a single day. Well, it kind of does.

I think most days, an average number of positive and negative things happen to you (based mostly on your perception).  But some days, there are way more positive things. Some days - way more negative.  In the end it averages out.

Perception is the key.  If you are in a foul mood, you tend to notice bad things. Every little thing that happens seems to confirm that you are having one of those days.

Sure, that explains some of it, but I swear - whenever I have "one of those days" something really bad happens that has nothing to do with my mood.  Or does it ...

For roughly the last 24 hours or so, I've been in a crappy mood.  I've had to reevaluate how I look at certain things. I hate doing that.  I like to think that I have a pretty good idea of what's going on. When I discover I was way wrong, it tends to bum me out.  

The last 7 days hasn't been much help.  With rain and weather and commitments, I haven't been getting enough riding in to keep the demons at bay.

So tonight I decided to try to exorcise most of the demons that have accumulated over the last week.  I knew I wouldn't have enough time to get them all, but if I could get a relatively hard ride in, I might drop their numbers to something manageable.

Unfortunately, from the start of the ride I knew something was off.  Hamilton was closed at about 50th.  I always take Hamilton and I know the detour.  I followed the detour sign to find that all roads (except the one going the way I'd just come from) were blocked.

Unbelievable.  

Eventually, I circled back and got across Saddle Creek for my destiny with the BK Bridge.  A couple of times, I encountered people in cars doing stupid stuff, nothing really out of the norm.  It was just heightened by my bad mood.  Since it was really nice outside, there were lots of stoned people driving around.  

Well, it might be the same number as normal, it's just that I smelled lots and lots of weed on my ride tonight because windows were down.

When I got to 30th I just about got hit by a car.  It was my fault.  Through inattention, I didn't see it and started to roll through the intersection.  I hit the brakes hard and no problem.  But still. I thought I had better start really paying attention because the gods are out to get me tonight.

Then I got to the BK bridge.  I went around a young couple pushing a stroller.  I made the sharp right hand turn onto the bridge proper.  

At the beginning of the BK Bridge, there is a gate that's almost always open as it was tonight.

I was not to the gate yet, but I saw a young girl riding a rental bike down  the steep slope toward me.  I noticed she was going kind of fast.  Hmm, I thought, she's going kind of fast.

The next thing I noticed was she was on my side (my right) of the bridge.  Then I noticed that both her feet were occasionally sliding on the pavement.  She was trying to scrub speed with her flip-flops.

Then I realized with horror, that she had no brakes and no idea what to do.

What a day I'm having, I thought.  Because the thing about having one of those days is that even if it's way worse for someone else, you perceive it as all about you.  So yes, the girl in great peril was about to make her problem my problem.

I wasn't sure how to avoid getting hit by her.  Then I saw the gate.  If I could get to the gate, it would effectively protect me from this poor girl.

In this photo, the person walking away is about where the girl was riding out of control toward me.  I was pulling over to the far right to let the gate block me.  She eventually went all the way to her left and tried to use the fence to slow her down. And Blammo!

The gate stopped her rather abruptly.  Her glasses flew over the fence.  Her head bounced as it made hard contact with the edge of the gate.  It made a deep gash in her left eyelid.

That's gonna leave a mark

I was panicked. I was sure she would be seriously hurt.  The terrible realization that she needed immediate assistance and this might cut into my ride time was too great a burden to bare.

Just kidding.  What really happened was I realized how most of my problems the last 24 hours and even 7 days had to do with my selfishness.  The things that were upsetting me boil down to a succession of days of me not getting my way.

This girl was bleeding all over the place ...

see?

And I had been whining about the weather and family stuff.  I have it pretty damn good overall.  I have zero valid complaints.  My complaints come from the fact that sometimes my extreme privilege gets slightly interrupted with life.

Thankfully for me, I got to witness a girl banging her face into a big metal gate to knock some sense into me.  She was having one of those days.  Not me.

I asked her some questions.

"Are you ok"

"Did your brakes go out?"

"Is it 'One of those days?'"

Then I reached down and grabbed the hand brake of her rent-a-bike.  It was fine.

I had the awful realization that she must have thought this was a coaster brake bike.

She was a little bit in shock.  People were starting to gather.  She said, "My glasses."

I said, "I'll go find them."  I didn't even know her at all and I stopped to help her.  I did not just keep riding. It would have been ironic if I had, wouldn't it?

She said "Thanks."

I must've looked through those weeds for about 10 minutes.  But I eventually found the glasses.  

Her friends caught up with her and started giving her aid or some shit.  I gave her back her glasses and continued my ride. But now with a new outlook.  I've got it pretty damn good.  For instance, I know how brakes work.

Then when I got onto the trail on the CB side and started heading North/East, I was completely blocked by five people just standing around. I slowed and said, "Howdy."

I startled them.  For some reason, one of them tried to hide the big old joint he was smoking.  They moved aside and I thought "What a day I'm having." 

Blanche DuBois Ride

"I have always depended on the kindness of strangers."  -- Blanche DuBois

So I guess this article is a big deal this week.  I read a couple of references to it before someone actually linked it.

I hear the comments to the post are infuriating.  I don't know because I don't read comments to things like this. It's just a bunch of trolling.

The FB people I know who are complaining about it are saying something about damaging biker-motorist relations and blah, blah, blah.

I don't know.  It was weird.  I read the article and pretty much agreed with every sentiment in there.  Somebody said something to the effect of the article was "engineered" to create a division between humans on bikes and humans in cars and why can't we all just get along or some such B.S..

Don't get me wrong.  I would love it if motorists weren't complete lunatics.  But the truth is, they are. It doesn't matter if I'm on a bike or in a car.  The absence of "we/they" isn't going to happen.  The vast majority of motorists are cautious.  They are careful and considerate and I appreciate it.  But if 1 in 500 is a stupid asshole who has no business behind the wheel, you'll likely encounter him while you're on a bike ride.

Since you're (usually) going much slower than cars, you see a lot more cars than if you were driving.  How many times when you're driving a car do you see somebody doing something stupid?  If the answer is never, you're the one doing it, moron.

Like I said, most people are pretty cool.  But it only takes one bad one to end you.  That's why we get mad at them.  It's kind of a big deal.  And no.  Getting mad about it doesn't make it worse.  It might seem like it at the time, but if the motorist is truly in the wrong, screw that guy.  He's not going to get better or worse.

Oh hey that reminds me.  I kind of um, lost my temper last Tuesday.  I was done with my workout and was heading home all nice and easy like.  I was on a short, but bad section of road.  It's the road that turns into Cuming to the west, just north of the Pedestrian bridge.  There are 2 lanes of traffic, but it's kind of busy on that little stretch.

I was riding along and a large Rental truck (Ryder) buzzed by me at about 45 MPH.  When he first passed me, he gave me about 2 feet of room.  By the time the back of the truck cleared me, I had less than 6 inches.  I got as close as I could to the curb and focused all of my attention to gesturing in his Mirror.

I had a tailwind that day.  A strong tailwind.

But he was still going way too fast for me to catch up to him and respectfully enter into a conversation about safety and the law, etc.

But I had to try.  It was like my civic duty and stuff.

So I pedaled pretty hard and got up above 30. I was in all out attack mode when a silver car pulled up beside me and the passenger gave me a thumbs up.  He said "Go get that asshole!"

I just smiled, encouraged, and upped my pace a bit.  The adrenaline doing wonders for my output levels.

One thing that happens when you drive way faster than the speed limit is that you have to stop at the red lights and wait for all of the people going the speed limit to catch up to you.

There sat Mr. Ryder.  Left lane.  Front of the line.  The right lane (my lane) was empty and I was closing fast.  As I got even with the back of the truck, the light turned green.  No point in stopping to chat.  The truck would take off.  So I just kept going.  Once I was in front of the truck, I again restated my opinion with hand motions.

I don't think the driver or passenger of the truck agreed with my opinion, so they came up to tell me about it.

They pulled up beside me (going about 15 at this point) and began to question my behavior.

"What the fuck is your problem, man?"

I began to discuss basic courtesy and the law and everything, but the driver continued to yell and threaten me.

He said, "I will fuck you up. How you like 'at, boy!"

Then I understood. I had been speaking the wrong language.  I responded In kind with various assertions of my manliness and his lack thereof.

Of course this was all bluff.  But it's was a powerful one.  There's no win for the guy who squares up against a guy wearing lycra and road shoes.

I am not kidding (it surprised me though) when I say my taunt actually startled the guy. Totally unexpected, but I could see the driver in this moving truck was afraid of me, a guy on a bicycle.

Then we both looked forward to see that there was some construction that narrowed the street to one lane.  The left lane. The truck's lane.

Mr. Ryder Stomped on the gas.  We were only going 15.  Big trucks do not accelerate well.  I was in the perfect gear and big tailwind.  I jumped.  Easily outsprinting for the single lane.

I got in front of the truck by a whole bunch and took over his lane.

Then I thought I had maybe done the most foolish thing imaginable.  All he'd have to do now is run me over.  But I was clear of him and swung to the right as the construction cleared.

I looked back to see a most marvelous sight.

Remember the silver car?  Apparently, they had been hanging out behind me this whole time.  When I sprinted for the lane, they followed my lead and blocked the truck.

Next, they pulled up beside me, close, so the truck couldn't go anywhere.

The passenger said, "What the hell's the matter with those guys?"

"I honestly don't know."

Well we talked about it for a few seconds, while Mr Ryder was becoming furious, stuck behind the silver car.  Honking.  Yelling some bitch-ass shit.

The silver car passenger asked me if I was going to be ok if he took off, and I showed him the weapon I always carry with me.  He understood and gave me another thumbs up and was on his way.

My next encounter was to be with the truck.  But I was not afraid.  Maybe I should have been, but I figured I had the power here.

Lots of people have no problem being complete assholes.  Very few want to be seen that way on YouTube though.

So I took my phone out and pointed it at the truck.

They quietly went by, slowly and respectfully giving me the whole lane.  They were also silently returning my gesture from earlier, but their fight was gone.  That was when I whipped out a big smile. I had won.  And it wasn't by handing out poppies to motorists or some such nonsense.

So yeah, FTG.

I've tried

But I really have nothing.  Below is a photo of 4 drafts that all sucked.  Goodnight.  Oh, by the way.  I'm racing in Iowa city next weekend.  I'm pretty stoked about that.  Maybe then, I'll have something to chat about.  Or maybe not.

Learning to keep your mouth shut (I fired a guy, part 2).

A few days ago, my boss came to me and whispered.  She often whispers, because she's smart.  We live in the cubicle world and anything you say can and will be held against you.  If it's heard.

The problem is that since I look so young, like maybe 25 or 30, she speaks so low that these ever-growing ears can barely hear her.  I am often saying back to her, "Eh?" almost certainly destroying the illusion of my youth and giving away most of my 51 years.

She was whispering something about would I  mind asking a certain colleague to lunch.  I told her I'd be glad to.  This is a person that I will be working with a lot in the near future.  I don't really sit near him so we've never really just gotten together to B.S.

So today we went down to the dome to eat lunch and chat.  He's been at our company from roughly the time of the recent round of U.P. layoffs.  Mostly because he was one of them.  He had been at the U.P. for 12 years.  He started as a contractor in St. Louis.  He worked for Transcentric and UPDS or whatever. He moved to Omaha when it was required to stay on at the company.

He is now a contractor at our company and I hope he gets hired on.

Anyway, we were chatting about some of the people we both know and I learned a ton of rumors. Juicy stuff.

We were laughing about how the U.P. compels you to step forward and report anything you see that is in any way an EEO violation.  He and I were both of the same opinion.  I will sign the paper, but I'm not going to report anyone for just anything I might have overheard.

This really happened in my group while I was working at the U.P.:

Somebody sent an email to everyone on his team.  There were about 12 people who got the email.  I also got the email.  It was "The Fable of the Grasshopper and the Ant."

It might have been altered a bit.  I don't really remember.  I had started reading it and thought it seemed like political propaganda.  I then deleted it.  My indifference about those things is and always shall be so incredibly high.

There was a person who received the email who took it as racially charged.  He felt he was being singled out.  He read the story as saying that his ethnic group was being called lazy.  To be fair, he came from a teeny tiny country called "Grasshopperia" so if I squint, I can see his point.

What happened next was that everybody got called into the boss's office to account for why nobody reported the racist email.  We had all agreed to report any such behavior.  We had signed things promising to snitch on anybody who might have said anything that somebody might take offense to.

So yeah - U.P. meant it.  But it's totally stupid. I understand what they are trying to do, but this sort of Big Brother "tattling" is something I have always shied away from.

Well.  Not always.  But ever since I worked at Idelman Telemarketing.

I remember Idelman having similar policies as the sort of thing UP was doing.  "If you see somebody stealing something, you must report it."

Guess what?  You've hired security for that.  I don't actually think they were asking us to report what we saw.  I think they were trying to scare us by saying, "If you steal something and anybody here sees you, they are required to tell us about it."

Challenge accepted.

In a way, my telemarketing job was the first "professional" job I had.  It was in an office.  There were all kinds of political correctness things to learn. But I had become firmly convinced that tattling on a coworker will bring you way more trouble than clamming up.

For example, one time when I was working at Butsy Le Doux's, I had to fire a guy because of my big mouth.

A combination of bizarre circumstances landed me the cushy assistant manager post at the restaurant.

Jim, the assistant was considering leaving the company to go work for the state. But the jury was still out. Most people didn't believe he could do it. I wasn't so sure. I knew one thing.  If he did leave, I was the obvious choice for new assistant.  What with my mayonnaise extraction acumen and everything.

Ultimately, Jim did leave and my title became "Night Cook."  Mother was so proud.

As assistant manager, I had some responsibility.  I was involved with ordering food.  I had to decide on the soup and specials for the day.  It was normally just something I'd whip up from Paul Prudhomme's cookbook with whatever food we had to get rid of very soon.

Never order the special.

I felt the power of my authority coursing through my veins.  Having never been in a position of authority in my 20 years, it maybe kind of, sort of went to my head a little.

Even though this was 31 years ago, we still had to leave the kitchen to smoke.  There was a stairway in the back of the kitchen leading to the outside. If I went out for a smoke break, I'd go there and usually daydream as I watched the crew doing the kitchen things.

On one occasion, my eyes rested on William. William was an incredibly friendly guy.  Always soft spoken and quick with a smile.  He was about 6'6" and 250 pounds of no fat.

William lived near 48th and just north of Dodge in a halfway house.  Yeah, William the big ol' lovable ex-con.

The thing about William was he had to hold a job.  Any job.  Something about his parole agreement.  He needed this job even if he didn't really need the money. I liked William.  I liked him a lot because when the owner hired him and introduced him to everyone, my first thought was, "Oh my shit.  This fucker is totally going to kill us all immediately."

So my expectations were low.  Once he settled into the routine of the job though I started to think, "I love the way William hasn't killed any of us at all yet!"

But as I was smoking my cigarette watching William, something seemed off.  I couldn't quite put my finger on it. He was holding a butcher knife and slicing frozen okra.  No big deal there.  He had the cutting board sitting on top of a garbage can.  Ok, probably not the most sanitary, but I'll allow it.  The tops of the okra get discarded, so maybe he's just sliding them into the trash and the rest into the pan.

So I watched him.  He sliced up about 20 pieces of okra to the perfect width. Then with the knife, he scraped all of it into the garbage.

I was so confused, I watched until he did the whole thing again.

I ran down and said, "William!  What are you doing?"

He snapped out of a trance.  He looked at me.  He looked down at the cutting board and into the trash.  He looked back at me and grinned a huge grin.

"I am so fucking wasted," he confessed.  This was horrible.  He can't lose his job.  Especially for being wasted at work.  I've known a ton of good people who never ever could have been honest with me at that point.  But he was.  I wish he would have lied.  Not really.  I wish his confession would have been to a better manager.  A manager like say, me, 5 days after this happened.

I told him it was ok; that he should go home and straighten up before he came back.  He was cool with that.

Then I made my mistake that I have yet to repeat.  Not at U.P.  Not anywhere else.

I tattled.  I figured I needed to know what to do about the situation, so I went to the owner that hired him and told him what happened.  I was stupid.  I thought he'd guide me in whatever punishment William was in for.  I envisioned something like, "Just tell him if he ever does that again ..."

No.  "You saw it.  You need to fire him."

Gulp. Not only was I terrified of the idea.  I didn't agree with it.

William's next shift was the next day and I had worried about what I'd say to him the whole time.

In the end, I deflected.  I told him I didn't want to fire him, but the owner was making me.  I was sorry.  William surprised me once again.  I hated myself for essentially ratting him out (this is why I have never seen myself as "leadership material").  He said, "It's cool.  It was my mistake."

He shook my hand and left.  At that point I thought about how I'd probably be all crying and everything if it were happening to me.  Also, I probably would have cried a lot in prison too, so.

The experience was awful, but the lesson was worth it: No matter what the man says, keep your mouth shut.  Fuck that guy.  Also, where did William get that weed? Seriously.  That had to be some righteous bud or whatever.

The time I had to fire a guy

I've decided for now at least to pretend that I haven't ever posted any posts.  I'm doing this so when the story I'm about to tell touches on stuff I've touched on dozens of times, I don't feel the need to say stuff like "I know I've mentioned it before," or "As I've said many times before," or "It's like Deja Vu all over again."  Just kidding, I never said that last one.  But I have an eerie sense that I have.

So anyway, quite possibly my first blog post:

I used to work at Wendy's.  I was pretty proud of it.  I thought it was easily the finest restaurant of the big 3 burger joints.  I was a little bit of a Fast food burger snob.

After a couple of years of that, I got a job at a real restaurant. Butsy LeDoux's. I was a cook.  There was a manager and an assistant manager.  The assistant manager had actual culinary school education or something.  The manager.  I don't know what experience he had. But he was funny.  We became pretty good friends.  Darrell made me laugh.  I made him laugh.  But I'm pretty sure he was laughing "at" me. That was OK.  It was a pretty good laugh (still is).

Jim was the assistant. I don't remember if Jim laughed too much. Jim was Irish.  This is only pertinent because Darrell (coincidentally) had the same last name as Jim.  

Jim was nice and tall.  About 5 foot 6 inches or so and possibly 145 pounds.  Jim had light, wispy blond hair.  He also had a light, wispy blond mustache. So sad about Jim's mustache.  He wouldn't shave it either.

Darrell was about 6'4" weighing in at around 3 bills. Darrell was big.  Real big. Darrell was not Irish.  Darrell was an Indian.  I don't know if people were saying "Native American" at all back then.  Mostly because it is such a cumbersome term.  It's like you're telling a story instead of specifying an ethnicity.  So we just called Darrell: Darrell.

So one day, I said something like, "Hey Darrell, you're an Indian, right?" I think I was going to ask him about college and would his parents adopt me.

"No. I'm an Irish mick bastard just like Jimmy over there,"  I think "Irish mick bastard" is still the P.C. term.

"You're Irish.  Of course," I said, nonplussed.  Nonplussed in the traditional way.  Not the newfangled way that is actually just wrong.

"No really.  I'm Irish.  That's why Jimmy and I have the same last name."

"You don't look Irish."

"Well, have you ever heard of 'Black Irish'?"  Another term I'm sure is completely fine with everyone.

"As a matter of fact, I have.  Some people have used that term to describe my dad.  Irish, but dark features,"  I confessed, thinking that sonofabitch Darrell was actually going to pull this "Irish" thing off.

I didn't know it at the time, but I went to high school with one of Darrell's brothers.  Well, I knew I went to high school with that guy, I didn't know he was Darrell's brother.  Because I didn't know Darrell then.  Or any of that guy's brothers, so.

If you're ever riding down the keystone and you see a tall, relatively thin guy riding along with a long, dark ponytail, you might think, "Hey - there's a native american guy riding a bike down the keystone."

But chances are, it's Darrell's brother Barry.  And Barry's Irish.  Because Darrell's Irish.  And they're brothers. So yeah.

We all had such a good chuckle over this "Darrell's an Irish guy" thing that we ran with it for the entire time I worked at the restaurant.  At some point, Jim left and I took over as "Assistant manager." There was no longer any reason to claim Darrell was Irish because Jim (same last name) was gone.
 But we had so much fun with it, we not only kept it going, we expanded it to all kitchen staff.  You work in the kitchen, you're Irish.  End of story.

Whenever we'd get a new waiter who'd say something like  "Who's that big Indian back there," I'd shout "Oh that's Darrell!"

"Shhhh!"  the waiter would cower and attempt to wave me off, but I wasn't having any of it.

"Hey Darrell, the new guy thinks you're an Indian!"

Mortified, the new guy would exit the kitchen and Darrell and I would start singing "Oh Danny Boy" or "Tura lura lura".

So yeah, everybody in the kitchen was Irish.

1) Me (literally)

2) Then there was Darrell of course.

3) José the dishwasher. This was our toughest sell especially since he would often bring his mother's tacos in. Which by the way were the best tacos in the world. When people come here from California (particularly southern California) they're big huge snobs who refuse to eat tacos anywhere in Nebraska because they have "the real thing" all over in California.

Well I've been to Southern California a few times and I've eaten some incredible Mexican food there, so I understand why these douchebags (oops - there I go again) I mean "Native Southern Californians" think there's no taco anywhere in the world (even in Mexico) that can match what's in California.  In fact they're almost right.  I've never had tacos in Nebraska anywhere near as good as what you'll find every 10 feet in L.A.

Until I had José's mother's tacos.  So don't talk to me about gristly pork (calling it carnitas doesn't make it suck less) tacos at some subpar taco truck ... But yeah. José washed dishes meaning he was in the kitchen.  So he was Irish.

4) The one girl who was a stripper, but cooked part time until she could go full time stripper. We always tried to encourage her that if she'd practice more, she'd get there sooner.  That kind of backfired on us when she called our bluff. I think her name was Tammy.  One day Tammy was talking about the 3 or 4 hundred dollars she had made stripping the night before.  Darrell didn't believe her. Called her out.  Darrell was a genius.  "What could you possibly do that would be worth that much."  So she started to show us.  She danced for a while as we leered. The orders backed up.  Fortunately for the restaurant, most of the waiters were, uhhh, immune to her wiles (they had their own dance).  The waiters stepped in and stopped the stripper so the cooks could get back to the business of cooking.  The waiters were definitely not Irish. Tammy was Irish.

5)  The stoned guy in the back of the kitchen slicing okra.  He was half Irish; half baked.

One thing the owners hated more than anything was wasting food.  It makes sense.  The whole idea is to sell food.  Well, they would talk about selling an experience, but it was centered around food.

At Wendy's, when the big plastic gallon container of mayonnaise was nearly empty, we would cut it in half and scrape out every bit of mayo that remained.

I did that once at Butsy LeDoux's.  Actually, I had done it about 4 times, but the first time an owner saw me do it, he flipped out at it's brilliance.  Henceforth, we were to always cut the containers in half to get every last drop of mayo.  This was not real popular with the Irish, but It led to a hefty raise and promotion for me.

The promotion didn't give me hiring power or anything.  But nobody likes to fire people. Especially if the person to be fired is a big stoned ex-con.

So here's what happened ... Oh shit!  That clock can't be right, can it?  Well, this part will have to wait.

I promise, I might tell it next time ...

Dignity, Grace and Tumors, Part 3 of 3

"I need you to fart," said the nurse.

I had no urge to fart.  You know how when you have to fart, you are generally aware of it?  It's kind of like when you don't have to fart. Except the opposite.  Either way, you can tell.  Especially when you're 50 (51).

I didn't have any urge/ability to fart.

But the lady kept pestering me.  "I don't hear any farrr-tinnnng,"  all sing-songy and shit, holding her hand to her ear.  "We need you to fart because the Dr. blew a lot of air into you."

"Does he need a breath mint now?" I didn't ask.

What kind of strange place was this?  I didn't sign on for any kinky air hose shenanigans.  But I didn't really care because I was enjoying the drugs - or excuse me - "The sedation."  I mean, this was the best kind of high I'd ever had.  It was sooo much better than alcohol.  Possibly much more dangerous too since it had to be carefully administered by Kim.  Kim, if you recall, was in charge of facing me, while the doctor was on the other side, apparently, having fun with air tanks.  Or maybe it was Helium!

Now that would be awesome.  In fact, I'm going to call them and suggest they use helium from now on for the whole "blowing air into you" part of the colonoscopy.  Just think how wonderfully "Alvin and the Chipmunky" those farts would be.

Alvin!

I'll tell you what.  You want me to fart? Just tell me the doctor filled me with helium.  That's a party, to be sure.  But helium is rare and cost prohibitive so maybe they just use hydrogen instead ...

... And that's why we need you to fart.

Oh the humanity!  I bet when the Hindenburg blew up, they never imagined how much people would laugh about it for decades to come because, Les Nessman.

Anyway, it was starting to sound like they weren't going to let me leave with their air.  Still.  No urge.

Under normal circumstances when there are people around, I may have gas and not really be aware of it. This happens at work a lot.  As soon as I leave the office and start toward my car, I release a 20 second barrage from hell that I had no idea was even there.

So I thought maybe I do have it in me after all.  I pushed all that I dared.  But no.

Luckily I was on happy drugs.  Very happy drugs, so I had a brilliant idea.

I have Kyle to thank for my release from colon prison.

Kyle was my best friend when I was around 12-15 or so.  From the time I was in around 3rd grade until the time I met Kyle, I did the old "Armpit Fart" the way everybody did.  This ridiculous wild chicken wing flapping that resulted in these rapid-fire short bursts of fakey fart sounds.

Then I met Kyle.  Kyle was a master.  He could draw an armpit fart out to around 5 or 6 seconds.  Using different parts of his hand as the release spot, he could mimic all different types of farts from the entire humidity spectrum.  Kyle could, with incredible accuracy, represent the flatulence caused by all four food groups.  His lactose intolerance usually brought cries of "Encore! Encore!"
I'm pretty sure people threw roses to him and stuff.  Yeah, he was good.

Eventually, as best friends are wont to do, I took up Kyle's craft and added my own signature brand to his extensive collection.  In the end I had 3 good originals that made the final cut of Kyle's repertoire. For the driest rumbly farts, I let the air escape along the edge of my hand where it meets the little finger.

But today, I wanted a high pitched, wetter one.  That means let it go from the "butt" of your palm.  Coax the air toward your wrist and out.  That's a sloppy one, there.  And what I hoped they were listening for.  I didn't know if I could pull it off after all these years. But I had to try.

Some things, you just don't forget.  A couple of those and I was on my way.

They had told me they'd call for my wife when I was ready to go.  Of course they won't let you drive on the drugs, so you have to get a ride.

Now with the "farting" out of the way, I was going to see the one person who knows more about what's going on inside me than anyone in the world.  The dude who just sent a camera in there.

They took me to a room and had me take a seat.  The Doctor came in and right away I knew there was a problem.  I didn't care, mind you.  I wasn't worried or scared.  What kind of self-respecting drug would allow that, huh?

No.  I could see the doctor was troubled and I was a little curious. That's all.

It was obvious from the Doctor's demeanor he had been weeping.  He was still sharply catching his breath from time to time.  His head was down and he was avoiding eye contact.

"You're just fine.  Everything looks good," he kind of mumbled, looking down at a clipboard.

He then started to leave the room.

"Wait a minute," I said. "If everything's ok, what's with the long face, doc?"

"What? Oh nothing."  he was still acting weird.

"C'mon. It's ok.  I can take it.  Remember the meds I'm on?  C'mon doc. C'mon." I badgered.

"If you must know, I'm considering what to do with the rest of my life now that I've seen the most beautiful colon in the world.  Believe me, I've seen them all, but yours ..."  he slapped his mouth shut at that and ran out of the room.  I don't know what he started to say, but I'd heard enough.  That explained the helium.

"I bet you say that to all the boys," I smirked as I tied my shoes, forgetting to first put them on my feet..

I sat alone in that room for what seemed like zero amount of time before a nurse came in and said, "You're ride is here."

"I think you mean ..." I started.

"Shut up, grammar Nazi,"  she interrupted.

"Touche," I conceded.

I got to the car and Jill had prepared a lovely cheesy egg bagel sandwich.  But even though I was terribly hungry, I refused her kindness.  I wanted to feast on a very specific meal.  A Gandolfo's breakfast sandwich.  Yum.  Gandolfo's breakfast sandwiches are so huge and wonderful, I didn't want to waste my hunger on a thoughtful, yet plain meal.

So on the way to Gandolfo's, I told Jill all about the colonoscopy.  When we got there, Jill pointed out that I had absentmindedly eaten the bagel sandwich and did I still want to go into Gandolfo's.

Silly Jill.

Mildly interestingly, the guy who made my fabulous Gandolfo's  sandwich was the same guy who had done my colonoscopy.  He was already getting a new start on his life.  When I considered it later, it seemed kind of gross to have that guy making my sandwich.  But I was really hungry.

... and sceeeeeeene!

P.S.  I just farted.  Doh!

Dignity, Grace and Tumors, Part 3 of 3 Will Just Have to Wait

"She had to go because she didn't know who Joe Strummer was" -- Whoever Cowboy Mouth is/was

"... a man missed a Bible question because he did not know what Deuteronomy was.  Oh no!!"  - Billy Crystal, Running Scared.

(I'm listening to Cowboy Mouth for this post.  Mostly because I want to remember what the song was that caused me to buy this cd.  If it comes on, I'll let you know.)

(I'm not watching "Running Scared" for this post.  But I could.)

~~

I have a 3rd part of 3 written and shoved way deep in the annals of the blog draft site.  But I have a strict policy of never finishing a story. Actually, I'll put that one out next week.  I just wasn't feeling it this week.

Because ...

A couple of days ago, I was riding down the keystone. I was headed home.  I had been doing these weird unstructured intervals.  It went like this.  Go as hard as you can to see if you can beat the max wattage of the interval before.  If you go 3 times without beating it, you're done.

I got up to 13 hundred and something and like 12 intervals, so yeah.  I suck.

While I was cruising down the trail, I saw an old friend walking along.  I made reference to this friend in a lively comment thread from a blog post in 2008.  The comment is directed at Brady.  I'll save you the trouble of going there and just repeat the comment here:

____

I've known 2 people who write like you do. One is a stinking drunk who is now homeless. Brilliant writer though. Big huge waste. The other is you. Time to give up this crazy dream of working 9-5 for the corporate machine. Time to settle down and find a publisher. You're not getting any younger and you have a family to think about. How long do you think they'll put up with this '40 hours a week' thing you're doing?
____

Well the homeless guy is doing slightly better now (he has a home).  I stopped the bike and talked to him for a while.  Without going into too much detail, I can tell you this guy has all kinds of trouble.  His problem stems from the deadly combination of some severe mental health issues and a seeming incompetence among the mental health fixer upper guys.

He talked for about 3 minutes and I had no idea what he was talking about.  He kept interrupting himself.  Changing direction.  I couldn't follow any of it. Then I realized I was listening to emotion in the form of words.  If you could speak your thoughts as they happen when nobody is around, this is about what it'd sound like.  When your mind is going, you don't have to finish a thought.  You know what you're thinking.  You can start a thought and then it completes in your brain and you move to the next thought.

I don't think I could do this if I was speaking to somebody.  That's what my friend was doing though.  After a few minutes, I was not listening to him.  At least not in a straight line.  It was easier to understand him if I pieced together phrases from the previous minute or so.   I felt like this is what it would be like to be able to read somebody's mind.  You wouldn't hear whole complete sentences all spelled out.  You'd hear a rambling of disjointed phrases.  A shorthand of sorts that only means something to the originator of them.

After about 10-15 minutes, we set off on our separate ways and I was not hearing what I had been waiting for.

In the past, my friend has always ended one of these chance meetings with a "Let's get together for breakfast, some time."

I'd always say, "Sure." and think I'd never hear from him, nor him from me.  That's just the way people are.

But my friend is different.  I can count on him to give me a call within a couple of weeks and arrange breakfast somewhere.

So as we were parting, I was waiting for it.  But he said, "Well, I hope your family is all doing well. It was good seeing you," And so on.

I couldn't believe it. The feeling I got was that his confidence is so low, he wouldn't presume to suggest we get together for breakfast.   But I want to eat breakfast.  It's like, the most important meal of the day.

He started to walk away and I said, "Hey.  Call me about breakfast."

He said as soon as he felt like he had gotten himself together enough, he'd give me a call.  I didn't want to push him, so I left it at that.

But it bugged me.  So later on that night, I sent him an email to reiterate breakfast. I really like talking to him and listening to his creativity. I'm hoping we can get together soon and chat for a while longer.

What follows is a portion of the reply I got the next day:

Really good to see you Fred.  I forgot what it felt like to hear from the rare friends I think of as peers, especially at such redefining junctures.  Been jotting and drafting my thoughts the last couple years when I could while finishing off an accumulation of unread non-fiction to arriving recently on the brink of actually penning [redacted].  I see now the letter seems to have been coming along as something of a prerequisite to weightier overtures, with talking to you I know among them, unless of course you would deny having a certain efficient zeal that also allows your higher values, those akin to geekdom, exercise, comedy and intellectual consistency.?


Yeah - you should see how he writes when he's feeling well.

Well I never figured out exactly why I bought this Cowboy Mouth CD, but I guess this is ok ...

Dignity, Grace and Tumors, Part 2 of 3

So I think I might have mentioned that the day before the procedure, you can't eat anything solid.  You can have clear liquids, including chicken broth if you want.  That sounds pretty awful, but by 8:30 PM, it was the most delicious thing I'd ever had.

I also drank a bunch of white grape juice and apple juice and laxative enriched Gatorade, but I still felt very very hungry.

I normally get pretty nervous about going to any sort of health check thing.  I worry that something will be discovered that will make life "inconvenient" at best and "over" at worst.

I know it's silly.  If there's something to be found, it's usually best to find it and get it taken care of. Usually.  Not always.  That's why they advise against Prostate checks these days.  The checks and treatment if cancer is found are statistically worse for you than the cancer.

So - colonoscopy.

I expected to be absolutely beside myself with worry on the day of the procedure.

I was nervous, but I was mostly hungry.  By the time I got there, I just wanted the whole thing to be over, butt cancer or no, so I could grab a bite to eat.

I stepped on the scale after a day of fasting and purging. I expected to see a dramatically comical drop in weight.  Two pounds lighter than the day before.  Damn.  That's nothing.

Two days after thanksgiving, I typically weigh 6-8 pounds less than the day after Thanksgiving.  Did I mention that I'm a pretty regular guy?

Even though I was too hungry to be freaking out about the procedure, I was nervous about one thing.  My blood pressure. I have a condition known as "white coat syndrome."  When I go to the doctor, my blood pressure elevates.  The only thing that brings it down is not being at the doctor.  So before I go to the doctor, I worry about what my blood pressure will be.  I'm fairly certain that worrying about it is not the answer to lowering it.  C'est la vie.

A few years ago, my doctor and I did a bunch of monitoring and calibrating and so on.

At home, I'm typically around 116/74 with a heart rate of 44-46.

At the doctor's office 144/88 HR 62.

So when they get you all gowned up and on the table, they jab the back of your hand with a needle for the IV and drugs.  They cuff you for the blood pressure machine, and they let you watch TV while they get ready to shove their huge camera snake as far as it will go.

My blood pressure was right around 178/108.  My first thought was, "Hey, shouldn't we get me to a hospital or something?"

The nurse just laughed and said knowingly, "That blood pressure will come down in a few minutes."

Good Morning America was on the TV.  The last time I saw Good Morning America, the guy who played Lucas Tanner, M.D. (David Hartman) was on it.

Good Morning America that morning was about "The world's most awesomest pizza" or something.

They had renowned pizza guys on there showing off their wares.  I was reminded that I was pretty hungry. My stomach began to rumble and I feared an unscheduled lemonade spill. I was still only 5 hours removed from my most recent laxative O.D.

The nurse came by and pushed the Blood pressure button again. 170/100.

"Don't worry.  It'll come down," she said all sing-songy and shit.  She knows something, I thought, as she hummed her way out of earshot.

Then Kim came over.  Kim told me she was going to be giving me the drugs and that she and I would just hang out while the roto-rooter guy did his business out back.

Kim then took 2 syringes full of - might as well be called 'Heaven' - and pushed them into my vein. She said in about 30 seconds, I'd most-likely not have a care in the world.

A few minutes later, smug "your blood pressure will come down"  lady stopped by ... 112/66.  What the hell?  "Told you so," she said in slow motion, her face melting as her voice dropped a few octaves.

I was so so relaxed.  I don't know what that stuff was, but I was happy. The doctor came by and started up the snake.  It was obviously a quality piece of equipment. Craftsman. Gas-Powered. Oh, it took a few pulls of the cord to get it started, but that baby roared to life in no time.  Good ol' Craftsman.

Then it gets a little fuzzy as the sedation kicked in. At about this time, Good Morning America got weird too. "The world's best pizza" segment ended and now I was watching some bizarre short feature about "The world's wettest and pinkest caves."

I must've dozed off about that time because I don't remember much until I became aware that some lunchlady-type nurse had repeatedly been shouting, "I'm going to need you to toot."

"Toot."  I repeated.  I knew it probably sounded like a question as to her meaning.  But I knew what toot meant.  I just didn't know why she was saying it.

"Fart," she clarified, "We need you to fart." Obviously, she meant for me to "toot" with all of the grace and dignity I could muster.

To be continued ...

Next week: Fart Lady, Results (you won't believe what they found), Gandolfo's.

Dignity, Grace and Tumors, Part I

(Working Title)

Although I can say with a degree of certainty that everything above this line makes it to "post time."

I was also toying with the title "Is it soup yet?"

For roughly the last one year and four months, there's been an appointment I kept "forgetting" to make.

Sixteen months ago, I turned the big 5-0.

I am by no means a dignified person.  I am not graceful or couth either.  I do seem to have a better vocabulary than google though so there's that (Google is calling "couth" misspelled. It is suggesting I use the word "couch" instead.  To be fair to google, I am not a couch either, so ...)

Anyway, from the time I was a little kid, I thought old people were a little ridiculous.  Goofy fuckers, all. With their dirty, ill-fitting, mismatched clothes.  Their loud voices.  That messy white hair they'd walk around in, etc.  Oh and they always smelled like ketchup or peanuts to me.  Yuck.

There was one exception in my mind.  Every once in a while I'd see the "Distinguished Gentleman."

This was a guy who groomed and stuff.  Also, he seemed fit and strong.  His clothes were neat and clean.

I figured if you had to get old, that was the way to go.

Through the years, that idea kind of morphed into the concept of "Aging with dignity and grace."

I'd say to myself, I want to age with dignity and grace.  All the while turning more and more into a goofy old fucker who smells like ketchup.

But you don't just say to yourself, "Now that I'm old today, it's time to be dignified and graceful.  It's time to grow one of those thin, white mustaches and say, "Hmm.  Yes." like Sean Connery.

In reality, what happens is you just live each day as one day older than yesterday.  You do that 15-20 thousand times and before you know it, you're not only not a kid anymore . You're old.

Damn.

And no matter how much you take care of yourself to avoid being a goofy old person, once you hit 50, you are still required to let a coal miner's camera probe deep, deep into your anus.

Either that or it's certain death by butt cancer.  Who's dignified now, rot bottom?

And though this is seriously no laughing matter, if you do get butt cancer and die, people will be thinking of laughing.  They won't laugh because they're better than that. But they'll want to.

I guess you could just get the colonoscopy and not talk about it.  I suppose that's one way to hang on to a shred of your dignity.  Yeah, that's what I should do.  Just not talk about it ...

So I scheduled the procedure about a month ago.

When you sign up, they send you a packet of "prep" instructions.

It basically boils down to "Don't eat anything the day before.  Drink a bunch of liquids and take a dangerous amount of laxatives."

This is what they call "prep" or "cleansing".

From the literature :

 "... a poopy poop chute can obscure the doctor's view of any lesions.  Plus ewwww! There's a bunch of poop in your butt!"

So yeah, you gotta "colon blow" all that outta there the day before.

I have never in my life taken laxatives.  I'm a pretty regular kind of guy in the extreme.  I don't have any problems in that department if you know what I mean. If you don't know what I mean, I'm saying I normally poop a lot.  Like at least once a day.  Usually more.

So drinking a bunch of liquid all day and taking 9 doses of laxatives between 1 and 4 P.M. was the formula for a perfect storm that began at around 6PM and went strong until about 10PM.

Here's my favorite answer from the F.A.Q. in the literature they sent me:

What should my bowel movements look like after I drink all of the prep solution

Your bowel movements should be clear yellow liquid.  They will look like urine or lemonade.  If your bowel movements are still brown and haven't been clear, please call ...


Uh yeah.  So I had my dignified goal.  Sit on the toilet until I saw lemonade.

At 6 PM, I had what could easily be mistaken for Dinty Moore.  Except there seemed to be some sort of small twigs interspersed.

By 8:30, I realized I'd never look at a Black and Tan the same way again ...  Plus the sound was amazing. It sounded just like peeing, but felt way different because, um, because of the source.

So that was better. Closer to what they were looking for, but not lemonade. I was hoping I wouldn't have to make that phone call.  How do you gracefully tell a stranger "Yeah, I realize it's 2 AM but I just wanted to call and let you know my poop isn't clear yellow liquid yet.  Hmm? What? Did I dial ...? Sorry.  Wrong number."

But thankfully, by 10 PM, we had lemonade.  I mean, sure it was extra pulpy, but definitely lemonade.  Ice cold lemonade.

I was ready.  My colon was ready.  Now all I had to do was wait until 2 AM when I was supposed to take another huge serving of laxatives (well, only 7 doses this time).

To be continued ...

Saturday Morning Extra: 15 Minutes.

So after my last post, I've decided a career change might be in order. I'm going to start writing new GEICO commercials.  Abe recently told me that Flo from progressive pulls down about a half million a commercial, so it looks like I'm on easy street, baby.

I tall, immaculately dressed man is seen throwing a pair of dark leather gloves into the trash.  Then in another cut, the same man, different clothes, gloves in the trash.

Repeat a couple of times.

"If you’re an assassin, you toss your gloves into a nearby trashcan.  It’s just what you do …"

~~

Shabby, possibly abandoned house.  It’s dark inside. Windows covered with newspaper. The shape of several dirty people can be made out, lying haphazard and motionless on sleezy, thin mattresses.

"If you’re a meth addict, you sleep in your own filth.  It’s just what you do …"

~~

Update/refinement on what started this:

We see Sergio Garcia seated at a fancy clubhouse restaurant.  He's staring off to his left at a group of reporters interviewing the tournament winner.  While he watches, he's absentmindedly shoving hunks of steak into his mouth.   Suddenly he's pounding the table, gasping for air as all the reporters rush to his aid ...

"If you're Sergio Garcia, you choke on Sunday.  It's just what you do ..."

Top 10 Day

Last Saturday was what I think people call a top 10 day.  It was late February and the record high temperature happened, I think.  It was somewhere in the 70s for a high.  Just fantastic weather.  And on a Saturday too!

For someone like me, that's about the best kind of day ever.  You gotta take advantage of those when you can.  So here's a summary of what I did on that godsend of a day.

I woke up bright and early to send a text to Brady about the ride we had tentatively planned.

Then I went back to bed and slept for another 4 hours because the really bestest part of the day wasn't until later.  It was still a little chilly in the morning.

At about 12:30 I made an egg sandwich for myself and went downstairs to see when Golf was on.  It wasn't until 2 PM, so I watched a college Basketball Game.  I think it was Georgetown vs Butler but it might have been Georgetown at Butler.  Either way, it was a doozy.  It went into overtime and one of those 2 teams eventually won.  The other one did not pull off the upset, so whichever team was favored was the one that won.  I don't really follow college basketball but I do enjoy watching it when I can.  Particularly in late February/March/Early April.

Even though the basketball game went into overtime, it was still over at around 1:30. About half an hour left of this incredibly gorgeous day before golf.  No fear. There was another college basketball game on.  This one was Oklahoma and Texas.  Not as fun to watch because those sound suspiciously like football schools.  I like to watch basketball teams with basketball sounding names like "Georgetown", "Gorgonzola", or "Duke"

Anyway, I didn't have to watch too much of the Big 12 battle because Golf came on a few minutes later and I could really get serious about taking advantage of the best day of the year.

I always watch golf the same way.  Lying down with a pillow and a blanky.  Oh yeah, and mostly asleep.  I love golf.  I am amazed by the skill of the pros.  But this is truly television for people to watch while sleeping.  That's why the announcers whisper.  It's not out of courtesy for the golfers out there on the course far, far from the studio.

I'm sure that back in the old days, golf announcing was all about trying to keep the home viewers awake.  I bet there were noisemakers and sousaphones and such.

But after a time, the golf tv people found their target audience.  That's why golf is on at nap time (2-5) Saturday and Sunday.

So at around 4, I woke up from my nap to watch the rest of the golf for Saturday.  Predictably, Sergio Garcia ended up tied for the lead with Adam Scott.

At that point, I didn't know Adam Scott would go on for the win on Sunday - but I knew Sergio would piss it away because that's what he does.  I just thought of another idea for one of those car insurance commercials.

"If you're Sergio Garcia, you lose your shit on Sunday.  That's just what you do ..."

Anyway, with golf over and only about an hour of sunlight left on the record breaking, beautiful February Saturday, I promptly slid "Bioshock Infinite" into the PlayStation.  I bought the game years ago but never played it.  Playing video games for me is sort of a "rainy day" affair.  Or in this case, an "Are you kidding me with this incredible weather?" affair.

I played Bioshock for about 3 hours, then I went back to sleep.  For the night.

Sunday was pretty much the same as Saturday.  Well, for me.  Not Sergio Garcia.

Then on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, I didn't feel much like riding.

So I rode today instead.  It was ok I guess.  I'll tell you this much.  I'm probably going to miss golf this weekend.  I'm also a little sad that I didn't finish Bioshock because I don't see any way in hell I'll get back to it anytime soon.  Unless I get really really sick again like I was when I woke up on Saturday ... A boy can dream.

Old Puppies

Note:  If I talked to you recently and said, "Oh yeah, I kind of know what I'm going to write about, but it's pretty boring."  Well, I just got done with (gave up on) that one.  If you want to know just how boring it was though, I can say for certain that it is way way Boringer than the one I'm about to write.  So just be happy about that.

If you have an old dog that just lays around all bored and everything, Maybe you should get him a puppy.

I don't really know much about dogs. I do know they seem to lie around a lot.  It seems to me the older ones have become so efficient at lying around that when something grabs their attention, they immediately investigate by shifting their eyebrows to and fro. No head lift.  Maybe a slight tail wag and that's it.  No wasted energy.

They've been doing this dog thing long enough that they understand precisely how much energy to expend in order to survive.

Zero.

The food is just over there in the bowl.  There's no hunting necessary.  In fact, it was possibly frowned upon by the food providers like just about everything else.

Jumping up on people in happy greeting!  No! Down!

Barking at the door just for sport?  Forget it.

Chewing on tasty shiny shoes.  Newspaper attack!

The only thing the old dog has learned for certain is that there is no trouble in just laying around.  Unless you fart, but that's another matter.

But puppies?  Bring in a puppy and it will immediately try to get the old dog playing.  It will run into it.  Bark at it.  Challenge it.  Jump around.  Taunting.  Every once in a while the old dog will join in for a while, but mostly he will figure it's just not worth the effort. The old dog has a regimented plan that he must stick to.  This unscheduled play has no place in the old dog's life or ATP.

But that's where the old dog has missed it.  Unscheduled play is one of the best things life has to offer.

Over the last few years, I've been on a few hundred bike rides. About 25% of those are group rides.  All different kinds of group rides.

Some of those rides are fairly regular and predictable. There is a set goal (fitness).  Nothing (including fun) must interfere.  There are places where people are allowed to sprint or launch an attack.  Specific places.  There's probably a rulebook somewhere stating the appropriate places for surprise attacks.  These are serious important strength building rides and yada yada yada.

And I'm ok with that. These rides are also completely optional but I join because I hate myself and when I'm in pain, I think "Good! Jerk!"

But sometimes a bouncy little puppy (Peter Boyd) will join the ride.

He'll jump around and chat with people.  He'll attack out of nowhere at the wrong time and then sit up when everybody whizzes by him. The old dogs will laugh at the puppy's foolishness.  Silly Peter Boyd, they'll say.  He thought his attack on our training ride would succeed! Ha - HA! Cough, cough, cough!

But his attack did succeed. He's a puppy. A bike tossing puppy, sure.  But still a puppy. He didn't attack to "win".  He attacked to wake the old dogs up. To get them to play.

Mission accomplished.

Then he chewed on Shim's shoe.  Which I admit was a little weird, but hey.  Puppies.