The Last Jedi. A review of the latest Star Wars movie.

Note: This review of the latest Star Wars movie was written a few weeks after it came out.  It was winter and very cold out.  That matters.

Last night, we went to see the new Star Wars movie. I can't say for sure yet, but it might just be the best Star Wars movie of all time!  Why can't I say for sure? Let me explain ...

I hadn’t  really heard anything about it. I don’t actively avoid hearing about movies, but I don’t seek out information either. I like to make up my own mind about a movie without the influence of preconceived notions or expectations.  I have found that going into a movie with high hopes can often result in disappointment.  I’ve seen many excellent movies that I didn’t appreciate while I was first watching them because they were so highly acclaimed.

Forrest Gump is the one that comes to mind. Forrest Gump was in the theaters for roughly 7 years before I finally went to see it. Everybody I knew was saying it was the best movie ever and they should just stop making movies now. Everybody just wants to watch Forrest Gump forever or something.  I knew a little about it. It was about a mentally handicapped guy who walked around talking about chocolates. I wasn’t too interested until it won the academy award for best motion picture ever.  I’m pretty sure it won all of the academy awards for everything that year.

One of my favorite movies of all time is “The Shawshank Redemption, a prison love story.”

“Shawshank” as the fanboys call it, was up against “Gump” for best picture. Gump won – so I now had really high expectations for Gump. It had to be even better than Shawshank Redemption.

So I went to see it.

I did not like it.

But how could I?

If I had known nothing about the movie, I would have thought, “Ok that’s kind of a cute little “Being There” sort of movie (though not nearly as good as “Being There”) that tries to make some sort of deep statement here and there about “Vietnam was a crazy time, man.”

I would have liked it. Not loved it, but I would have thought “Hey – the lesser of the 2 guys from ‘Bosom Buddies’ isn’t a horrible actor”  Peter Scalari totally carried that show.

Unfortunately, I was expecting a movie that was better than “Shawshank.” There’s no such thing.

Well, maybe (just maybe) there is now …

I went to this new "Star Wars: Hey, I Thought She Died" movie not having any idea if I’d like it or not. I’ve heard snippets of high praise and equal measures of “not so much.”

Part of the allure of seeing “Star Wars - The Motion Picture” last night was that it was Tuesday. In Omaha, that means all tickets are just five dollars each.  

We got to the theater at around 6:55 for a 7:00 start. No concern.  I figured there would be at least 10 minutes of trailers (I didn’t know the half of it) and there were a total of 4 people in line for tickets in front of us.

The first two in line were receiving perhaps the most exhaustive customer service I’ve ever seen from a ticket wench.  It was a grandmother and her grandson. The Grandmother wanted to see “Star Wars” and the grandson wanted to see Jumanji, with wrestling’s Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson. I don’t know anything about how the ticket vending software works, but there appears to be a more complicated procedure in calculating the grand total if there is more than one movie involved in a single transaction. After a few minutes, the capable staff at “The Regal Theater” in North Omaha had it mostly worked out. Since there were 2 tickets sold and even though each ticket was for a different movie, the total came to … ten dollars.

Whew. Glad that’s over. Now all grandma has to do is pay and then it’s 2 more people before I get up there and order four tickets to “Star Wars: Episode who knows”

It’s only been five minutes (since we got into line) and already two tickets have been sold.

Then the cashier says, “Are you a member of our …”

Fuck.

“Why no, tell me about that,” says grandma.  It better be 15 minutes of trailers.

So after the nice lady tells grandma all of the details of the benefits of membership, and signs her up and tells her what she needs to do when she gets home and everything, she swipes the new member card and recalculates the total price for the 2 tickets to the amazingly low price of exactly the same as it was before.

Then grandma does something I’ve never seen before but totally should have seen coming.  She pulls a pack of cards about four inches thick from her pocketbook. Grandmas don’t have purses. They have pocketbooks.

This stack of cards is an assortment of credit cards mixed in with rewards cards from I can only imagine represent “everywhere she’s ever been”

As she shuffles through the enormous deck, looking for the one credit card that is not maxed out, she is comforted by the fact that there is no need to hurry, because there will be a bunch of trailers anyway. 

She pays and now it’s story time. The cashier embarks on that epic tale passed down for generations on how to find “Theater 1” 

“Is it that one right there with the big ‘1’ on the door?” I don’t say, not pointing 30 feet over to the left (my left). 

With that out of the way, there are only two more to take care of.  They are not nearly as slow as Grandma and Jumanji, but they are also completely unprepared when their time at bat comes. First of all, they are not together and they’ve been standing there for so long, I think they forgot where they were. They definitely didn’t know who was next, but luckily, we’re in Nebraska, so they each insist that the other go first.  Like it matters.  The movie will start at the same time for both of them, right? Eventually, one of them stepped up like some kind of rude-ass New Yorker and ordered a ticket for Either “Star Wars, Rise of the Sithilis” or “The non-mork Jumanji”. 

Each exchange was identical for the two remaining patrons in front of me, so I will just describe it once and then you can read  it twice.

“That comes to 5 dollars.”

“What’s that?”

“5 dollars” 

“Oh ok. Thank you. Let me take this time now to find my money. I’m not sure where it is.” 

Person digs out 3 ones, some lint and way too much change.  She pushes it toward the cashier like an “all-in” poker player. 

“Are you a member of our …”

“Why yes I am,“ narrowly averting a double homicide.

As she listens carefully to the same story about the legend of how to find Theater 1, I open my wallet and pull out a $20, just in time to say this:

“Four for Star Wars”

“Ok that’s …”

“Here’s 20. I’m not a member of your whatever and I don’t want to be. Theater 1 is right there. I will enjoy the show.”

So we sit down at 7:10 in time for a full 10 minutes of trailers.

There’s one where Wolverine plays a circus mogul who is the only person in the world who understands freaks and how best to exploit them. It looks pretty fucking touching.

There’s one where Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson befriends a white gorilla named George who grows real big and then everybody wants to kill it. But Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson wants him to stay alive.  George also appears to have a huge wolf friend. 

I think there was a Jurassic park trailer too. There were dinosaurs and Jeff Goldblum, so it was probably Jurassic park, but I’m not sure. 

Then there was a scary movie about if you make noise, the things will kill you – so the family just sits around playing Monopoly with felt pieces until the stupid brother knocks over a lamp.  That’s enough noise to start the attack.  Not sure how they fart in this world. Maybe that will be the joke:

Q: how do they fart in that one movie where you have to be quiet?

A: Very quietly. Get it? Quietly. Hardy har har.

Then finally. The movie started. "Star Wars: Don't Even Think about the Episode Number"

It started the same way they all do and I found myself in an extremely relaxed mood.  I had had a strenuous workout. My legs were sore and I was just plain ready for a good old fashioned Star Wars flick. There were only a few people in the theater (including that stupid kid who decided he wanted to watch Star Wars with Grandma instead of flying solo at Jumanji, Starring Not Vin Deisel. Awww! 

So I kicked off my shoes and put my feet up on the back of the chair in front of me and smiled.  This movie was going to be great no matter what.  

Spoiler Alerts ahead!

So about 10 minutes into the movie, just after some hilarious exchange between some Han Solo wannabe and some Imperial Jackass, there's a terrific space battle going on. Explosions, deaths, flashing lights, Announcements over the loud speaker. Really? Flashing Lights?  Hey Wait. Those lights are flashing from the side.  Like the wall. Not the screen.

"... Repeat. Please exit the building in an orderly fashion. This is an emergency ..."

So yeah - we had to all get up and leave the theater.  As we approached the exit, one set of doors to leave was blocked off because there was a ton of shit water raining down through the ceiling. Apparently, some toilet pipe had burst or something. I'm no plumber, but it did not smell good.

Good thing I took the time to put my shoes back on before joining in on the emergency exodus deal.

Once we got outside, we looked back in to see an ice rink of water-poo forming. It was seeping from the doors out to the parking lot.  Many people were standing around demanding a "fucking refund" but we just left. I figured the fine folks at the regal theater would make it right if I just stopped by at a more, uh, convenient time.

Anyway, that's why I can't say for sure if this is the Best Star Wars movie ever.  I have only seen the first 10 minutes or so of it. But so far so good.  I actually spent more time watching trailers than the movie.

~~

Follow up from 24 hours later: We went back to the theater and they let us in to see "Star Wars: Now with less Poopy Water" for free. Also, they gave us 4 tickets to come see another movie sometime. Score.

And yeah - was it the best Star wars Movie of all time? Well, I don't know if you can say it was better than the first 2. But I can. It was the best one ever.

The End.

A Response 4 years in the making

Shim Blogged once

Half-Wheel Hero (To the tune of "Juke Box Hero")

Waiting to complain, how can they not know

Couldn’t get registered, closed an hour ago

I need to get loud, I need to get mean

I’ll only do their race, if I can get in free

He had one good card, he decided to play

Saw primes (pronounced ‘preems’) in his eyes, and the very next day

Called a beat up has-been, with a facebook account

Tell them the price is too high, no matter the amount

That one complaint, sounded good in his head

Pros don’t pay, and I’m just like them

Just one complaint, and we’re good to go

They’ll waive the fee, ‘cause I’m so pro

So he started trainin’

This ain’t no stunt

Gotta keep on ridin’

Someday gonna make it to the front

And be a half-wheel hero …

You get the idea.

Get Busy Living or Get Busy Dying

Last year, I posted this about my experience at the Clear Lake Iowa Bicycle, Blues, and BBQ festival.

It's mostly about how much good stuff I learned on that trip.

This year, I have been able to apply much of that when I'm out of town, particularly if I stay overnight. A few weeks back, I did a Saturday/Sunday race weekend in Ames Iowa.  With the exception of a breakfast sandwich and coffee at Panera, I didn't buy any food while I was out of town. I had taken enough from home for the overnight stay.  I packed sandwiches and beverages and stuff. This is way cheaper than buying it all at restaurants, but that's not why I did it.

When you bring your own food, you have complete control over what you eat and when. You can race better if you eat better. Also, I'm sure the town of Ames and the surrounding area has some really neat stuff. But I went directly to and from the races/motel while I was there. Oh, and Panera. Definitely Panera. Once.

This was not a vacation. It was racing.  Both things are fun (except racing - which sucks), but I was only there to do one of them (racing - which sucks).  Vacations gets in the way of racing.

I think Rocky's coach (Mick) said it best when he yelled at Rocky "WOMEN WEAKEN LEGS!" He was talking about Adrian.  What a dick. But he has a point.

In this case, "Women" are distractions like say, "the world's largest ball of twine", and "legs" are well, literal legs. I guess they were in the movie too. Oh jeez, the whole thing was literal. Mickey was an idiot. But what if you took some of that twine and tied it around your legs? Great for learning balance, according to Mick.

Some valuable lessons I've learned so far this year:

At the Water Works Circuit race this year, I learned that there's no harm in bringing a roll of toilet paper with you.  Usually, when I get to a race, my nerves help me purge any excess ... uhh ... baggage.  If there's no toilet paper in the restroom, this can be unsettling.

At the Clear Lake races last weekend, I realized it would have been nice to have one of those "sleep mask" things.  I can sleep pretty well without a completely dark room, but the light coming in from outside at the dorms all night kept causing me to wake and think it was 6AM instead of the actual time (1:43, then 1:48, then 2:07 and so on).

I also learned after the road race that it wouldn't hurt to sharpie my name onto my water bottles.  I got them back, but it would have been easier if my name was on them after tossing them out at the feed zone.

Just little things that make life a tiny bit easier.

But these are just about preparation. Something clicked for me during the crit last Saturday that changed my whole outlook on racing. Most of the fear vanished.  There will always be some jitters, but I actually had fun while it was going on. That has literally never happened.

I used to know this auto mechanic back in the day.  He was a crusty old man. I think his name was "Mick"

Anyway, one time I was asking Mick if he thought I should get some different gearing on my car so it could jump off the line faster.  He yelled at me, "Kid. There's no replacement for displacement!"
 Then he took away my locker.

Sorry. That really didn't have anything to do with anything other than - There's no replacement for racing.  You have to do several of them, full on, stressed out so you can learn to keep cool in those situations. Well, I do anyway.

The clear lake omnium is like most of the others around here. Time Trial in the morning; Crit in the afternoon; Road Race the following morning.

I did the Time Trial in the morning and was happy with my performance.  Time Trialing is kind of the T-Ball of cycling.  Some kids have the power to hit the ball really, really far as long as it's not moving.

It takes a lot more skill and coordination to hit a ball thrown to you than if it's just hanging in the air.

Continuing with the analogy then, road racing would be more like slow pitch softball. You need some skills, but your power can still take you a long way.  Then crit racing would be kind of like trying to fend off a barrage of hand-grenades with a baseball bat.

All analogies break down at some point.

So for the time trial, I used my knowledge from FTP tests and guestimated an average power I thought I could hold for the distance.  I ended up doing exactly what I set out to do, so I have no complaints there.

The Clear Lake Bicycle, Blues, and BBQ criterium race is an excellent course. Scenic, fast and technical.  I was nervous, but less so than I've ever been before a race.  I'm just kind of getting used to the routine, which is nice.

I used to worry that I'd get dropped immediately or that I'd crash.

Then the race would start and I'd be at my limit right away and get stressed that I was going to get dropped.

I didn't know yet that people tend to go real hard at the start and then ease into a rhythm a bit later on. Knowing that takes away a lot of the panicky feeling.

So we were racing around and around. Since I wasn't thinking, "Oh crap, I'm on my limit," or "Oh crap, I'm going to crash," I was able to pay attention to what was actually going on in the race. What I saw came as quite a surprise.

I realized I suck as a bike rider.  I was hitting the brakes all the time.  I've never noticed that before because I was freaking out. I was trying to stay behind the people as they would kind of slow to set up for corners, I would also slow rather than keep my speed. Not because I needed to slow, but because I was trying to not cross their wheel in a corner. Then I came up with an even better idea. This is not new to anyone who races, I'm sure. Maybe it's even wrong, but I was comfortable with it. I started making a habit of getting at least slightly in front of whoever I was near in a turn.  This way I could actually accelerate and pick my line.  Much easier than hitting the brakes.

I also learned that I could shape my line to a certain degree.  If I just stayed calm and envisioned the path I wanted to take, the bike would go there. Very little conscious thought on my part.  This is not easy to do while thinking "Oh crap, I'm going to die."

After about 15 minutes of the crit, something was going on that has NEVER happened before. As I mentioned above, I was enjoying the race.

In the past, I have always been happy that I had done a race after the fact.  A feeling of pride at an accomplishment or some shit.

Now, I was a part of the race. Flowing with the group. Listening to the shouting and swearing, and just generally having a nice ride.

Then I crashed.

The lead group of (Just about everybody in the race) 25 people had just gone under the start/finish line with 7 laps to go. The announcement "No more free laps" was made.

Then there was turn, turn, turn, tu... crash!

Somehow, my rear wheel just slid out on a right hand turn.  I don't know how. Nobody got in my way. I just went down.  Nobody else did (not on that lap anyway).  As I was falling, I still believed I could save it, so my hands stayed on the bars.  I believe this minimized the injury to a couple of minor scrapes.

As everybody went safely around me, I was trying to dislodge my cleat from my spokes. I got back on the bike with a new goal. Finish without getting lapped or caught by dropped riders.

The adrenaline was keeping any pain at bay.  Other than the exact spot where I crashed, I was not nervous about taking the corners at full speed.  I worked pretty hard for those remaining 6 laps and finished 25th place.

I was disappointed that the crash happened, but happy that it wasn't too bad and that I now knew the answer to a question I've been afraid of for a while. Will I quit racing if I crash?

It was good that the crash happened after my revelations from the race.

On every race until this one, I am asking myself, why am I doing this?

During this race, I answered. "This is what I do."

I know it's corny, but it was a huge relief for me.

Another thing I realized in this race is that the category upgrade system is there for an excellent reason.

You can't (or shouldn't) just upgrade a rider because he is strong enough to hang with all the local 2/3s on the group ride. Shit, maybe he can even Time Trial faster than everyone in town. But you wouldn't sign Corky to the majors just because he can smack the shit out of a ball resting on a tee.

You have to actually race to learn how to race.  I think for most people these days who take their training seriously, strength is less a limiter than skill.  It is the skill I'm lacking. But I'm getting better.

I am not a fast learner. Before last weekend, I had heard many times that I should be racing Cat 3.  I understand the reasoning and believed it myself.

Now I realize there's no hurry.  I'll get there when I'm ready.

And I will kick ass.

Just kidding.  But really. Yeah.

Addiction

Toward the end of Cross season last year, I decided to try a little experiment.  I had my new bike and everything, so I felt silly not doing whatever else I could to go faster.

I always knew intellectually that I drink too much beer to not have it hurt my performance.  

I had never actually done anything about it other than wake up slightly hungover on the morning of a race and punch myself in the face for being so fucking stupid.

It would go like this ...

Friday night before the race I would get everything ready to go. Once that was done, I could relax with a nice cold beer.  I get pretty nervous before races, so the calming influence of the alcohol was wonderful, and what could one more hurt?

Well, now that I've had 2, what difference does it make if I have a third? That's still less than my normal 5, so I should be great for tomorrow after I drink this 4th beer.

And so on.

Well after I got my new bike, I did a couple of races the normal (carbo-beer loading) way.

Then one day I decided to not drink any alcohol for the entire week before the race.

The result was unexpected.

I didn't really do tons better in the race.  But there was a huge difference. I was not nearly as tired after the race.

So I tried it again. This time was the Iowa State Championship cross races.  I did the Cat 4 and the Masters 50+ races back to back.

I don't remember which was first, but I got 5th place in one and 2nd in the other.  I felt just as good for the second race. 

That was the difference from a week of no beer.

So as Winter was settling in this year, I decided that if my races were being hurt by drinking, my training probably was too. I mostly quit drinking the day after the Super Bowl.

Not that the Super Bowl had anything to do with it.  That's just how I remember when it was. And Oh yeah - Fuck Tom Brady.  

Anyway - I struggled for a while (and still do - somewhat) with the lifestyle change of not drinking.  I had quite a habit.  But I felt physically better right away. I dropped a bunch of weight without changing anything else.  I think this might partially be from the higher quality training.

I have long talks with Jill about my observations after quitting. I do this to help reinforce my decision to quit. I have the occasional beer, but I need to be careful with that because I notice a craving for more beer for a few days afterwards.

In three months after quitting, I dropped 15 pounds and stabilized at around 175.  That's right where I want to be for racing.

But this post isn't about quitting drinking.  That was relatively easy.

This post is about addiction. Physical addiction.  When I stopped drinking beer, I had no withdrawal symptoms.

So I was reading this book by a pro cyclist. He was saying that early in his career, he had a training partner who had found a simple way to cheat his training.

The coach had given him specific target heart rates for his workouts. The cyclist found he could easily reach those targets if he guzzled a bunch of coffee before training. The result was predictable. Poor fitness when racing started.

That got me thinking. I drink a lot of coffee.  Maybe, I should cut back for the sake of better training.

So I started filling my daily thermos with half regular and half decaf.

When I started feeling dizzy for the next few days, I came to the 100% wrong conclusion. I didn't make the connection that I had reduced my caffeine intake. I thought maybe I was still drinking too much coffee, so I tried to stop completely.  Big mistake.

I went to work on Monday and could not concentrate. I couldn't focus my eyes.  My vision was blurred. My balance was off.  I was having difficulty listening to people. I felt tongue-tied.  My words were coming out wrong. The whole day was miserable.

I tried again on Tuesday and it was worse.  Finally, I went over to Starbucks and got a small (tall) cup of coffee.  I drank it down and about an hour later, I felt a lot better.  Still a little dizzy, but most of the brain fog was lifted.

I realized that since I have to work, I can't just quit drinking coffee. I'm going to have to carefully measure how much I take in and slowly reduce it.

But why? 

That has been the question I've been hearing. Why would I need to cut back on coffee?

Well first it was because I wanted to train without the artificially elevated heart rate. But now that I see what the withdrawal is like, I'd like to completely get away from the dependence.

Not in a million years would I have guessed that it would be harder to quit coffee than beer.

I like beer so much more, but coffee has me physically jacked up.

The main reason I don't want to be dependent on coffee is in case there's a Zombie Deal. I know everybody says, "Zombie Apocalypse" but that word seems wrong to me.  I think "Zombie Deal" is a better phrase. Or maybe "Zombageddon." Yeah - I like that. It sounds a little like a pasta dish with brains in it.  But yeah - When (not if)  Zombageddon happens, you know Starbucks is going down first.  Then all of the people who can't get their caffeine fix will be walking around like zombies and promptly getting their brains blown out.  

So now if somebody asks me why I'm cutting back on coffee, I just say, "Because. Zombies."

I'm back (for one very special night) -- You should probably read this one unless you hate laughing.

But this time ... it's traditional.

There's a fantastic movie from the 80's. It's called "Hot Shots!" The exclamation point is part of the title.

Anyways, there this thing they do in this movie where the love interest of Topper Harley says something that Topper can't believe is true.

So he says, "You're joking."

Then the woman says, "If I were joking I would have said "A horse walks into a bar and the bartender says, 'Why the long face?'"

At which point, Topper realizes just how serious it is.

I thought of this joke several months ago. At the time, I thought there was something I could do with it.  There's a thing that I used to hear or that people used to say, I can't remember which.  But it's about a joke that someone doesn't get.  Sometimes (not usually) if someone doesn't get a joke, they will tell you.  They'll say something like "I don't get it."

Then the person telling the joke might say "It's not as funny if I have to explain it."

This is a dumb thing to say.  If somebody didn't get the joke, there's no way it's less funny if you have to explain it.  It will be at least as funny.  Or maybe ... You didn't explain it right. Or maybe the thing that isn't funny is you!

Or maybe you are telling a joke that you didn't get in the first place but since everybody else around thought it was hilarious, you thought you'd tell your friend.  Then maybe you didn't quite tell the joke right.

I'll give you an example. It's a joke I've told on this blog before to explain something about how some written jokes won't work as well as if they were spoken.

Charlie Brown is showing off his brand new Speedo at the lake.  Lucy says "Charlie Brown. I always suspected you were crazy, but now I can clearly see you're nuts."

As a spoken joke, the homophones  "your/you're" really go to work in a lovely way.

But what if you heard the joke and didn't get it.  So you're all, "So what? Lucy thinks Charlie Brown is crazy. Big deal."

Then everybody laughs even harder. Now you think it must be terribly funny to people what Lucy thinks of Charlie Brown. So you figure that you've got a joke people will like next time you're sitting around and people are telling jokes.

So you give the joke you don't understand a try, finishing with "... But now I can clearly see your testicles."

Ok that's still pretty funny. Never mind.

Or what if you hear the joke and don't get it and you have the misfortune of being British?

Then you might say, "But now I can clearly see you're a nutter."

Stupid British people.

But if everybody else was laughing and you didn't get it and you said "I don't get it" maybe somebody would explain it to you.

"It's funny because Lucy is either saying the Speedo is a ridiculous thing for a boy of  Charlie Brown's physique to wear, or that his balls are exposed."

Or maybe you get the joke when you hear it, but you start telling it and you can't quite remember the trick.  Maybe you forget that Lucy was speaking directly to Charlie Brown.

Your version goes like this: So Lucy and Sally are at the pool when Charlie brown walks up in his brand new Speedo and says 'Hi' and as he's walking away, Lucy says, "Sally, I always suspected your brother was a little crazy, but now I can clearly see he's nuts."

This one could still actually work, but Lucy would need a thick accent and Lucy doesn't have a thick accent.

You could change it slightly to say that Sally and that guy from the Raiders of the Lost Ark who saved Indiana Jones by preventing him from eating a poisoned piece of fruit (because that guy had a heavy accent) were at the pool ...

Then the guy from Indiana Jones turned to Sally and said with his heavy accent of unknown origin, "Your brother. I can cleerly see eez nuts!"

Do you get it? Because in heavy accent, his/he's is a homophone. Oh never mind. It's not as funny if I have to explain it.

Anyway - back to the "Why the long face" joke. I have written an explanation or apology for it.  I wrote it on a piece of paper and placed it right here on my desk.  It's not here on my desk anymore. It might be in a drawer. I will look later.  If I find it, I will post it.

Otherwise, I'll probably just write some self-indulgent bullshit about the races I've been doing lately.

Goodnight.

Hoping to come along

Yeah - I haven't posted anything for a couple of weeks.  Not even so much as a post saying I wasn't going to post.

I don't know what's going on, but I haven't been too into it for the last 3 or 4 years.  I want to be, but I seem to lack motivation.

Anyway, I thought I'd stop by tonight and stare at the blank page for a bit.  Once I got here, I saw this draft from 2 weeks ago. All it had was the title. There was no body.  The title was (is) "Hoping to come along."

I could see it was a draft, but I was curious about the subject so I opened it to find no words.

So I don't know what I was hoping would come along 2 weeks ago. I will just have to guess, I guess.

The first thing that comes to mind is cyclocross.  I love cyclocross.  I can tell because I suck at it and I still always want to do it. I want to get better at it.  I am always wondering why I cannot seem to get it right.  The difference between me and the top Cat 4 guys never seems to change.  I always end up a couple minutes behind them.  They are a different crop of guys every year, but I just slog away year in and out at about the same level.  It's maddening, but I love cyclocross.

I think the reason is that it really hurts a lot. The more I torture myself, the more I feel I'm going to puke, the happier I am when it is all said and done.

I think that's because I'm going to finish well back from the front.  With that kind of embarrassment, It's murder to look at my results and know I didn't give it all I had.

It does leave one area of confusion, though.  Why am I getting smoked by all these guys?  Guys I can easily dispatch on the road?

I'm pretty sure it comes down to skill.  Criterium racing (now my second favorite kind of racing) is about energy conservation.  I believe that's the difference for me and cyclocross.  I am not so great around the corners, so I have to burn a match out of every one of them to stay with a group that just railed it.

I practice cornering on the grass quite a bit and I've seen some improvement.  Maybe that's what I mean when I say I'm "Hoping to come along."

Or maybe ...

Maybe a couple of weeks ago, some of my friends were talking about going to get some ice cream or something.  Maybe they didn't say exactly when or where, but it sounded like something I'd be up for so I was hoping to come along.

Yeah, that makes more sense than learning to turn a bicycle on the grass.


Oh that reminds me, I just signed up for the races in Lincoln this weekend.  I am pretty sure I will win them both.

My daughter lives real close to the park. She watched me win the Cornhusker State Games Road Race a few months back. I think I will bring the boys with me to Lincoln and they can hang out with my daughter.  I'm pretty sure they're not hoping to come along.

The right word just blew my mind

The title of this post is currently "The right word just blew my mind."

It may or may not be called that by the time I finish.  The thing is, I was writing on a post that I work on from time to time. It's just awful. Boring, stupid, self-indulgent.  Even by my - um - what's the word ... not 'estimation.'

See that's the problem.  The right words are not coming to me right now. Hang on. I'm going to get that one I'm trying to think of.  It is 9:53 and 45 seconds.

At 9:55 and 30 seconds, I decided to go with "assessment."  I don't think that's the one I wanted, but I'm going with it for now.  Maybe the right one will come to me as I begin to tell you why I'm here tonight.

I was writing this piece of shit about playing darts.  Thrilling, I know.  I'm sure there's a funny story in there somewhere, but I just can't seem to find it.

I was writing this thing about darts when my son and wife came up and commandeered my computer. My son needed to use it for school work or some crap.

Fine, I thought. I'll just go ahead and put a seat on my old road bike, which is what I did.

My old road bike didn't have a seat on it because I took it off last night to put it onto my cyclocross bike.

Last night as I was getting ready to go to the cyclocross practice, I noticed that the seat looked funny.  Kind of crooked or something.  I took a careful inspection of it and found this:

 If you look very very very carefully, you may be able to detect a slight crack in the seat.  Anywhos, I had to replace it.  Since all of my saddles are fi'zi:k arione saddles, I just grabbed one off another bike.

So I did that while the people were at my computer doing work.

By the time they were done and I got back to my dart story, the mojo was gone.  So I started thinking about something very funny I saw on the facebooks the other day.

It was one of the cleverest posts I ever read until I read it.  That was kind of the beauty of it.

It was posted by Scott Redd and it was brilliant.  I know, right?

Anyway, it was only brilliant until I saw it.  Actually it was no longer brilliant when I saw it because I was not the first one besides Scott to see it.

It was something like "I know you won't share this post because I've made it private."

But it was a photo (not a screenshot) of his status saying that and you could see that it was marked as private.

It is nice that he shared the photo of his private status so that we could all get a good chuckle. But it simultaneously ruined it.

If he'd never posted the photo, we'd never know. We'd never share (as he predicted) and it would be hilarious.  It's hilarious weather [sic] anyone besides Scott ever gets to enjoy it.

That's where Scott and I differ. That and the type of cyclists we deride.  I deride the type Munson is and he derides the type Munson used to be.

C'mon Munson! Become a cyclist Scott Redd can deride again!  As long as I'm here, I'm proof you're not too old.  My wrists hurt too.  All the time (true story). HTFU. Then I won't deride you anymore.

Or is 'deride' the right word? Maybe in today's political climate, "pillory" is a better word.

That's pretty funny.  You know how people do those stupid puns or play on words with the names of the candidate they hate?

If you were a Trump supporter, you could say something like, "I'd never vote for Pillory Clinton."

Then all your fellow Trump supporters would be all embarrassed for you.  "Um, Mike.  Ooh. This is awkward. It's not 'Pillory' - It's Hillary.

Or maybe they'd just laugh along because they'd think you're implying she's popping a bunch of pills.

"There goes that old drug addled Pillory Clinton - am I right?!?"

Sorry - so I was thinking about Scott Redd's Brilliant - until he ruined it by sharing it - post and realized that I would not have ruined it if I had thought of it.  Sometimes there is a joke that is only funny if it is not shared with anyone.  These are the worst.  I have maybe 50 or so of them. I have ruined a few of them by trying to explain them to people, but I've learned my lesson.

When Scott stumbled upon one of these gems, much like a bike ride where you're not lugging a campsite around, he didn't know what to do.

Regardless (the private part of this blog post sentence begins with the word "Irregardless" which is hilarious for a completely original and new reason that I cannot share or it will ruin it) of the fact that Scott ruined his own joke like a cup of camp coffee after a 70 mile bike ride, I still appreciate what he had attempted (and failed) to do.

I was thinking that "The very [word not found] of what he almost accomplished just blew my mind.

The word is not even close to "audacity"

"The audacity of what he almost accomplished just blew my mind"

No - that was not the word.  However, the great thing about that word is that if you read the sentence, you'll know how the inflection should be.  All you need to do now is figure out what the right word is and it will all make sense.

When I started this post, I thought if I came up with the right word, I'd go back and change the title.

I did come up with the right word.  Whew! But I'm not changing the title because unfortunately, the correct word is one of those things that is only funny if it is not shared.

What a coincidence!

But here. I will leave you with this exercise.  This is something I do at work. It is in the realm of private jokes.

I will send emails to people with the occasional intentional grammatical error.

I don't know why I do it. I just think it's funny.

I will reply to some request for help with something like:

"Please reboot you're pc, than let me know if you still have the problem.  Thanks!"

Also - if you'd like to play the Scott Redd game, feel free to guess what completes the sentence about how awesome his post would have been had he not shared it:

The _________ of what he did just blew my mind.

Good luck.

One last thing.  The word "assessment" from earlier sucks. The word we were looking for was "valuation." not "evaluation" either, but "valuation" Thanks for playing.

God bless.

Shut your damn mouth

There's a guy I know who tells stories.  They are usually stories about how frustrated he is at the world.  He dislikes the way of the liberal.  He confuses the charity of the liberal for greed.  He sees the conservative way as the only responsible path.  He believes that everybody should be completely self-supportive. Nobody should rely on the state.

There are two kinds of people. Successful people and lazy people.  His upbringing and faith have taught him that the reason he's never had the problems of the unfortunate is because he's doing it right and they're doing it wrong.

I have listened to his stories for years without comment, but seething at his smug shortsightedness.

Ironically, I've never bothered to examine why his commentary bugs me so much.

Well, until now.

I used to be him. That's why it bugs me. I find myself wanting misfortune to happen to him. This is only half-true.  I'd rather he judge the world in harsh obliviousness until the day he dies than wish upon him some of the horrors that befall much of humanity.  Let alone the relatively small problems I've had. I think I'm better for what I've been through. I'm glad that the judgmental asshole I used to be is gone.  What remains is a slightly less judgmental asshole.  But the pain was barely worth it.

I was a man of faith.  My faith taught me that if you served the lord, you'd basically be set.

Having never been sick (really sick), I believed in miraculous healing.  I believed that if anybody had any problems or sickness, they needed more faith.

God would heal the truly faithful.  Also, God would not only make sure you were provided for, he'd make you ridiculously prosperous.

So I prayed. I worked. I tithed. I served. I loved God so much for all his goodness and great gifts, etc.

I saw people with problems and had no pity.  I would try to tell them what they needed.  They needed faith. They needed God.  I would tell them story after story of God's miracles.

After the birth of my second child, I came to understand that I do not know everything.  I understood that no matter how much we think we have control over our lives and circumstances, misfortune can happen.  It can send you to a dark place.

The best part of it is that if you're a man of faith as I was, you probably have a bunch of Godly friends of like mind.  You go around feeling sorry for all of those unfortunates with physical (and mental) disabilities. Also - superior.  Vastly superior to all of those people of little faith who settle for the crap thrust upon them. You have the same answer for all of them. Increase your faith in God. He has promised to heal you.  Are you calling God a liar?

So when your daughter is born severely handicapped, this is your support group.

For a while, it's cool.  I mean you're crying and sad and ache for your perfectly innocent, precious little girl and everything. But you truly believe God's got your back.  You just go get your praying done and receive God's promise. It'll all work out.

Then it doesn't.  Your daughter doesn't get healed.  But you can't doubt God has a plan.  Sure, the longer it goes, the more uncomfortable all of your friends get around you.

Not because they harbor any ill feelings toward your daughter.  They just don't really feel so good about being around someone who can't trust God enough to get his daughter healed.

This went on for a couple of years.  People distanced themselves from us a bit.  Finally a leader of our huge church invited me out for coffee. He wanted to offer some advice.

During that meeting, he encouraged me through anecdote.  It had something to do with him noticing that his daughter or son would suffer the horrifying symptoms of a bad cold every time his walk with god faltered even slightly.  I can't be sure because it was a long time ago, but it seems like his walk with god was shakiest during the height of cold and flu season. Then he'd get right with God within a few days and a couple of glasses of orange juice later, his kids would be right as rain.

The guy was an auto mechanic.  His hands and fingernails were permanently encrusted with thick black grease.

As he was telling me this story to illustrate that my daughter was suffering one of the most severe cases of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy the doctors had ever seen because of my questionable walk with god, all I could think was "Do you finger your wife with those hands?"

True story.

With tears, I stood up, threw a couple of dollars on the table and left the Village Inn.

I didn't say anything to the guy, but he knew he had fucked up.

I also felt pity for him.  I realized that he believed that every time his kids got a cold, it was his fault.  I hoped (honestly) that nothing serious ever happened to him.  I didn't think he'd be able to deal with it.

I stopped going to church that week.

A few weeks later and I don't know how he heard, but the pastor of the church, a man I'd never met, called me.

He asked for "Fred Hinsley" pronounced correctly, somehow. He'd done his homework.

"Fred, this is Elmer Murdoch and I can't begin to tell you how sorry I am for what has happened."

He went on to ask for my account of it. He was shocked.  He made no sales pitch. He knew I wasn't going back to his church. He only wanted to find out if I was going to be ok. He wanted to help me if there was any way.  He was genuine and I loved him for it. I could hear his real compassion for me and my situation.  He was a good man.

But I couldn't allow myself around the flock any more.  There would always be judgment.  Including from me.  The words that Tim (I just remembered the guy's name) spoke to me at the coffee shop that day were harsh, but they kind of echoed my thoughts.  I was wondering what had I done to deserve this pain.  I was faced with the prospect of watching my kid die within the next few years. It wasn't fair. It must be my fault somehow.

And if a miracle had happened? What then?  I hate to say it, but it's true. I'd have become worse.  More convicted than ever that my faith was so awesome that anybody who remained sick was just no good at faith and god and stuff. I was obviously more humble than them.

So when I hear somebody who has it all figured out, I sometimes wish something would happen to them.  Only because I know that in the long run, I'm more compassionate (still not much, but more) than I used to be.

As it turned out.  I didn't know everything and that whole God thing was not the way for me.

~~

Cancel my subscription to the resurrection
Send my credentials to the house of detention
I got some friends inside -- Jim Morrison

I gotta beep a conja chuchum
Honk konk konk
I donta eat ya corn and beans
ya bop a lula
Eat your bom potito (potato wave -- EV)
Eat some corn
Yay right -- Also Jim Morrison (Paraphrased).

One more week, please

Sorry about that complete skip of a blog post last week.  Sorry about the near complete skip of this week too.

We are extremely busy these last few days trying to rid the house of a bunch of stuff we don't want anymore.

Step one is a garage sale.  That's going on this week.

Garage sales are weird. The stuff people will buy.  One guy today picked up something from our big huge table of tools.  I have no idea what it was.  It was certainly specialized for some purpose.

"What's this thing?" he said.

"No idea. I was hoping you'd know."

"What do you want for it."

"Fifty cents."

"I'll take 'em both then.  I'm sure I can figure out some use for them."

That's how garage sales work.

Weird.

 I think my favorite people are the ones who walk over from 3 or 4 blocks away. If they're talkers, you'll have an amusing little game of "Six Degrees of Separation" going in no time.

I'm not talking about the Kevin Bacon version of the game.  Just you and the garage saler trying to figure out who you know who knows somebody that knows a guy you know.

If you want to add a challenge, I suppose you could make the connection go through Nebraska's second district Congressional Candidate for the house of representatives, Don Bacon.

I am only mentioning that, not as an endorsement for any candidate or political party. I prefer to generally keep my political views to myself.  I am only mentioning it because his last name is "Bacon."

But go ahead. You and your tree hugging buddies sit around the campfire, killing children and playing "Six degrees of Brad Ashford."

I'm not suggesting that Brad Ashford kills children, but I can see where you'd get that idea. You'd be wrong of course.

I have to stop right here and reiterate that I am goofing around. I don't care who wins this race.  I really, really don't.

Although, I must say that Don Bacon is way handsomer than Brad Ashford.

In fact, I bet you've already deduced that the photo above is Brad Ashford. Not that he's "ugly" or anything.  However, it's clear that he's not "way handsomer" than anyone.

 But Don "Bedroom Eyes" Bacon ... Gasp!

 You're right, we should probably vote for Ashford because he looks more like the way the rest of the country expects a guy from Nebraska to look.  Although ...

Bacon is an Illinois (fyi - I'm pronouncing the 's' in Illinois) Native so I have to wonder where his loyalties will be on Saturday when the Huskers take on the Fighting Illinis ('s' added for clarity).

I think these 2 should just arm wrestle for the job.  That seems to me like the only fair way to decide anything.

Oh look, I've strayed off topic.  My topic was that I'm sorry I won't be posting this week.

Next week for sure.

Thanks for your patience.

Making Flippy Floppy

Wait a minute. Everybody get in line.

I've been struggling lately with this blog posting thing.  I am checking out some of my old posts in hopes of some encouragement.  Some of the things I've just read, I have no idea how I wrote them.

Well, I have some Idea - but I'm not really sure what I've lost.

I think there's the thing about "mocking" real writing.  I never really wrote anything, I just impersonated cliche writing and it kind of worked ok.  So I think I'll cliche write for a little bit tonight to get back into shape.

It was a fucking dark and goddamn stormy night.  Wow, I feel better already.  Ok now what?

Through the evergreens, came the horrifying sound of gale force winds.  And your mom farting from her big bottom.  Because she smells bad.  

Oh yeah - this is stellar stuff, here! It's so good, there's a pretty good chance no editing will be necessary at all.  Except maybe a little "passive voice" clean up or something.

Anyway, where was I?

Oh yeah ...

A single maple leaf had ridden hundreds of miles on the wind and come to rest on the shake shingled roof of a remote cabin at the base of the mighty Saskatchewan Mountain range.  Saskatchewan Mountain range?  Yeah, either there is such a place or I just made it up.  So what?

The leaf might have made it even farther north, had it not gotten itself lodged between a couple of the shingles.  Oh well, it was just a stupid leaf.  It's not like it had a soul ...

"Pappa, what happens when we die?" The little leaf asked his mom.

"I'm your mother dear," said the little leaf's mom.

"Sorry mom, it's just that I can't tell you 2 apart."

"Why you little shit!" cursed the little leaf's dad.

"I mean unless you're talking, that is," said the little leaf.

So his parents told him about how if you're a good little leaf and do all of your work helping to turn the rays of the sun into energy, one day the mighty god-tree will reward you by shedding you off like so much trash. When the god-tree releases you, it will say "More water for me!"  

Then the cold, hard ground will be your bed and the frozen water will be your blanket until you crumble into nothingness to serve as nutrients for the tree. 

The little leaf was amazed by how much his parents knew about something they had called "fotofenceses"  Boy his parents were a couple of bright leaves.  Oh no! They really were bright! Orange! He had just learned what that meant. His Parents were dying!

The little leaf began to cry. His parents implored that he calm down or risk shaking himself loose prematurely.  His time would come. But until then, he had a job to do.

So here he was all these months later.  His job done. All green, yellow, orange gone.  He had lost all flexibility.  He was now just  an old brown, crusty, brittle fragment of his old self.

What a journey he'd had north. Carried by the wind past all the evergreens. Those fuckers.

Now doomed to live his last few days stuck on the roof of a remote cabin.  A cabin uninhabited, save for the old craggy, gassy woman who lived there.  So pungent and ferocious was her great flatulence that the ungodly odor had seeped through the roof to where the little leaf could not get away.

What did I ever do to deserve this, thought the little brown maple leaf.  Oh what stench!

But the leaf had done nothing wrong.  It was just the cruelest misfortune that he had landed on your mom's roof. Sniff.

My favorite song today

Sorry about this. I don't feel like writing today.  I'm just thinking of my favorite song.  My favorite song changes from day to day.

I'm not going to talk about it. I'm going to post 2 videos.  One will be the "studio" version.  The next will be a live version.  What I like about the live version is that you can understand more of the lyrics.  What I love about the studio version is that you can't.

So for your listening/viewing pleasure/displeasure, here's The Cramps ...

And Live ...

Sorry there's nothing to read. But there's something wildly entertaining to listen to. So there's that.

Oldsmobile graveyard.  Classic. 

Omaha. Yes, the number for Bullshit. Because I'd like to call it.

Many of you young folk may not know the protocol for directory assistance.  Or even what directory assistance was.

A long time ago, if you needed to call somewhere but didn't have the number, you could call directory assistance and get the number.  The number for directory assistance was 411.  So that's where that saying came from.

It went like this:

after dialing 4-1-1 (google "rotary phone").

Someone would answer on the other end and say something adorable like "what city?"

If you weren't ready for this, it could be quite humiliating.  First of all, they said it so fast, you'd never know what they were saying.  So many people knew how it worked, they didn't need to understand the operator.

So after a few times, I had it down.

"What city" (I didn't know exactly what was said and it didn't matter.)

"Omaha."

"Uh-huh"

"Anderson on Burt."

"I have 27 of those"

and so on.

It was really amazing how quickly they got the results.

Anyway - the title of this post is a reference to calling 411 back in the day.

Here's the thing. I think Facebook can be lots and lots of fun.  But I try to avoid any sort of confrontation/argument/disagreement/difference of opinion because once that happens, an extremely long boring slew of back and forth comments happens from everybody in the world and I'm forced to read them all.  I just don't have that kind of time.

So often, I want to call bullshit, but I'd prefer if it were a private line. Not a party line.

So I will do it here (call bullshit) where nobody's listening.  Sniff.

So this was posted a few days ago. I won't say who posted it, because it's not important:

During hundreds of hours of solo bike rides and/or rides with Abbey, I have been yelled at by exactly no one. Today, on a ride with Amy, Leah, and Abbey, we were catcalled by a carload of dudes, heckled by three male pedestrians, and buzzed and screamed at by an old man who waited at the end of his driveway to accost us after he tried to run us off the road.

On the bright side, three guys mowing their lawns waved at us.

But really, worst ride as far as driver interactions in two years.

This was a post that seems to have been put there to say "See that fellas.  Women have it bad. Boy my eyes are open to this now" or some shit.

In response to this post, there were a few affirming comments and amens from people.  Things like "Story of my life."
"Yes - sad but true" or "You go girl!"

Well yes and no.

I don't doubt that women are harassed while they ride their bikes.  Probably more than men.  It must sound terribly misogynistic (and I love the "gyn") to use the word "probably" instead of something heroic and enlightened like "Definitely" but it wouldn't be true - because I don't know.

What I do know is this.  Either EOB (Oops) is not paying any attention when he solo rides (or with Abbey) or he's just not being honest (I wasn't sure how to spell the "lying" that means "not telling the truth").

I think what I disliked so much about this post was that it was obvious pandering. Brilliant in that you couldn't be a guy and say something like "I get yelled at and harassed just about every ride," because you'd sound like some kind of jerk who hates women.

However. It is utter bullshit. If EOB rarely gets yelled at, it's because that person who was going to yell at him has already yelled at me and got his feelings hurt when I responded.

Last Tuesday for instance ...

My story could be chosen from any week, but I will pick the one most recent.  I was solo riding. It had been about 1.5 hours of solo riding since I had last been heckled.

I was at 16th street, heading north.  Actually I was in the turn lane to go to Florence Boulevard. I was waiting at the red light,

A rusty, beat up old pickup pulled up beside me. The bearded old guy in the truck yelled. "Hey."

I ignored him.  He was coughing and smoking. Almost gagging.  "Hey. Sexy pants." He yelled.

I ignored him.

"You! on the bike. Coffity cough, cough."

I looked over.  He finished his coughing (really. he was coughing a lot).

"You know your tire is flat?"

I knew I didn't have a flat tire.  If you are in an old rusty pickup, it might be hard to tell if you have a flat tire or not.  You might come to rely on people telling you.  Maybe sometimes your smoker buddies tell you you have a flat tire as some kind of an outragous prank.

After he said, "You know your tire is flat?" he began with the coughing again.

I look at him and said, "You know your lungs are black?"

I think he tried to answer, but the light turned green and he was busy choking to death, pounding on his steering wheel, etc.

Anyway.  Yeah - motorists also harass men on bicycles.

To suggest they don't is silly.

Grandpa Pork

Last Thursday we all went over to my sister's house to have dinner.  My nephew was going off to college the next day so it was a good enough reason for a party.

I knew I wouldn't have time to write my blog post on Thursday, so I did the incredibly responsible thing and wrote it on Wednesday night.

Unfortunately, a bad thing happens when I start writing it early. I sit here thinking I can really go into some epic story telling because - Look at all the time I have!

If I would write a little each night, I'm pretty sure the writing would be much better.  What I wrote last Wednesday ended up being some of my favorite stuff I've ever written.  It quickly became too big for this blog so it sits unfinished.  And wrong. So very wrong.

I think I will put it on here soon, though.

Here's what I am thinking now: I'll write this huge pile of words until it's finished.  Then I'll publish it in parts, with a "To be continued ..." at the end of each one.  This way, I will see it to completion.

I don't have anything specific tonight I want to talk about so I will put the first paragraph of what I planned for last week here:

Ray had something wrong with his eyes.  One of them was weak or something.  It always looked like he was looking to your right if he was talking to you.  His left eye would drift outward as his other eye would be fixed squarely at you.  Whenever he talked to me, I'd keep checking my back because I kept thinking something had caught his attention behind me.

So I'm pretty sure you're all excited about that post whenever I get around to writing it.

But don't worry about that. I'm just bursting with stuff to talk about. I know because so many times this week, I would think something and then I'd think, "I should blog about that."

So I'm pretty sure that any minute, I'll think of something.

~

Thoughts on Grandpa Pork

Like most people, I had 2 grandpas when I was a kid.  Like most people in their fifties, all of my grandpas are dead now.

Grandpa Pork was the grandpa I haven't talked about recently.  Grandpa Pork never told me mathematical mysteries.  Grandpa Pork never took me to see a fireworks show.

Also, nobody ever called him Grandpa Pork.  I just made that up right now because he was my "other white grandpa."

I was always scared of Grandpa Pork.  He had an amazing mane of thick, white hair.  He was very skinny and my earliest memory of him put him at about age 200.

Young Cube and Papa Pork, 1966

Why was I scared of him?  I'm glad you asked.  To anybody that knew him, he was a sweet old man.  But when I look at that face, I see a striking resemblance to my own.  That's a face that scares children.

Plus there was the toilet paper incident.

Grandma Pork was truly the bestest grandma in the whole wide world. We loved her so much. She always had our backs.  

So one time I was over at Grandma's and I had to go potty.  I was probably not yet 3.  I maybe possibly used a few sheets too many of the toilet paper. I don't remember.

What I remember was a rampaging Grandpa pork, yelling at me for using "all the toilet paper on God's green earth."

I darted from the bathroom as Grandpa Pork threw a brown dress shoe at me.  The shoe hit the wall above my head, but I'm sure he meant to miss. Probably.

I ran to grandma's leg for cover where I was safe until grandma saw how much toilet paper I had put into the toilet.

For most of my life before he died, Grandpa was essentially bedridden.  Whenever I watched Willy Wonka, I'd think grandpa could get out of bed if he had enough incentive.

I will talk about this in detail some time, but going over to grandma's house was always a nice lesson about life. I already mentioned how grandma was the best grandma ever.  This was one adult who treated all children with respect.  She truly marveled at the way our minds worked.  She loved to play word games or scrabble with us.

I think grandma's place was always my favorite place to go, but whenever we went over there, she made us "visit" grandpa.

He was lying in a back room. I'd go in and sit in the chair next to his bed. He was breathing heavy.  He'd turn his head like it would be his last action and rasp, "Hi Freddie."

Terrifying.

"Hi grandpa."

"How's school."

"Um. Pretty good."

At that, he'd turn his head back and close his eyes, letting me know the torture was over.  I'd watch his frail panting for a minute and leave the room.

I'd get back to grandma who would tell me how much those visits meant to him.

"Yeah right."  I didn't believe that grandpa learning school was going "Pretty good" meant much to him.

I found out much later (just before he died) that he had remembered just about everything I'd ever said to him.  It wasn't a lot, but a few months before he died, he told me he loved me very much and that I could use as much toilet paper as I wanted.

Sniff.

Grandpa ate canned peas every single day.

[ this post intentionally finished blank ]

Bad Form

So I'm cruising down this fairly long (for Omaha) fairly steep hill last week.  I'm down in the drops going kind of fast.  Then the hill turns up.  Now it's a fairly steep, fairly long (for Omaha) uphill climb.  As I start to find the right gear, Most of the WNW group flies past me.  They are racing up the hill.  I'm not sure I want to get involved in this. It's already been a hard ride.

The ride has about 4 interesting features.  Once it gets going, it's a fairly hard effort, but the jewels of the ride are

1) The sprint before Ft. Calhoun.
2) The Surfside climb
3) The JJ Pershing sprint
4) Make-up Hill

Make-up hill is a somewhat derogatory term.  It implies that since you've sucked all day, here's your chance to make it up and win this hill.  We're not even going to try, because we proved ourselves on the really hard stuff earlier.

Yeah whatever. I think you're just saying that because you blew yourself up earlier.

So everybody, even the elite was flying by me on Makeup hill. So I thought "what the hell."

I picked a big gear and began to hammer.  As I passed a few riders and sped up, Shim said, "Let's see who's going to win Makeup hill."

I hesitated for a second, considering what would Shim say if I went for it.  Then I realized there was only one way to find out.  I put my head down and went to work.  Way ahead of me were Emily and much farther up the road, James.

But it is a longish climb.  Time was on my side.  I passed Emily and focused on catching James. I did not think I could do it, so I just went harder.  I was in a ton of pain, but I was able to get by him before the top.  Now all I had to do was wait for Shim to see what he would say.  I knew he would say something.  That's what he does.

Earlier this year, I was in the best form I had ever been in.  Every week, I was in contention for feature 1 listed above.   In the past, I was always either dropped or just hanging on at that point.  This year, I was even playing around in the attacks before the sprint - then going for the sprint itself and sometimes getting it.

But then we'd get to the Surfside climb.  The Surfside climb  is steep for a while, flattens out and then gets steep again.

I would always lose contact before the end of the first steep part.

I decided that climbing just wasn't my thing.  I could be happy if I never could keep up with those guys because my sprint was strong.  I was saying things like, "I guess I'm just a sprinter and I'm ok with that."

Then a funny thing happened.  About 8 weeks ago, I started getting pretty close to making it over the top of the hill with the group.

Then I'd get dropped on the flat section to feature 3 (The pershing sprint).

But in the last few weeks, I've been making it both up the hill with the group and not getting dropped before the Pershing sprint. Never winning, but at least not dropped.

Also, I've never been to the top of the Surfside climb first.

So earlier on the same night I beat James to the top of Make-up hill, we were on the Surfside climb.  I was sitting on somebody's wheel when Jonathan attacked.  I think we were still on the flat part, but I don't know.  All I could do was what everybody else always does.  Just watch him go.  It was something to see.  His acceleration, his dancing on the pedals, while the rest of us just slog along.  I think Lucas was next on the road that night after Jonathan, but I don't know for sure.  I just know I thought "what the hell" and looked down.  I went as hard as I could and could see that Jonathan was getting closer to me fast.  I passed Lucas and kept going.  Just before I got to Jonathan, I lost all of my power and shut down.  I couldn't finish what I'd set out to do.  Jonathan won the hill.  Again.

At least I tried.

Oh wait.  This is my story, not Shim's.

What really happened was I started to wonder if I had enough to get by Jonathan.  I did.

I got a bike length on him. He was slowing when I went by him, but as soon as he saw me, he sped up and almost caught back up to me before the top. Man that guy is strong.  If you're not a bike rider, you don't know how deflating it can be to have somebody cruise by you while you're going hard.  To speed up like he did takes a lot of heart.

I won the hill.  I honestly couldn't believe it.

Next is the Pershing sprint.  The few of us were rotating hard and I got dropped.  I didn't care. I was still in heaven over the hill effort from a minute ago.

So at the regroup, Shim said something about how that was the best he'd ever seen me climb, but that I went too hard. I only needed to finish top 5 or something and then I could contend for the sprint.

Yes and no.  First of all - I go to WNW for a hard effort.  I would have contended for the sprint only if I helped pull.  I could have sat in that night and made it with them. But I decided to take my pulls for as long as I could.

My point was: I won the climb.  I never thought I'd ever even be there with those guys, let alone win the thing outright.

It might seem repetitive the way I keep saying I won the climb, but the truth is I won the climb.

I did not come in second or wherever Shim was. I came in first.

So after telling me about my mistake in winning the climb.  After I won makeup hill, Shim said "That was bad form."

"What?"

"You don't go for makeup hill unless you get dropped earlier."

"You need to tell me these new rules when you make them up"

"It's been a rule for years, it's just you've never been with us before."

Well hopefully, I will be with you again. And then some.

I did not mention feature one that night.  Jonathan won the Ft. Calhoun Sprint.  I was a closing second place.

Then everybody else was after that.

FTG.

Remembering Patrick

Patrick was a quiet person.  Whenever he spoke, even if he was stating a fact, it came out sounding kind of like a question.

Patrick was fond of his car.  He owned a 1974 brown piece of shit Gran Torino. When he'd talk about the way he was going to fix it up, he would go to another place.  He was still speaking to you.  Telling you all of the details of how he was going to make that piece of shit Gran Torino the sweetest ride ever.

But he was looking away. He was picturing how awesome life would be once he and his beloved piece of shit Gran Torino were both as whole as the day they were born.

We all kind of laughed at Patrick.  I look back on it and I hate myself.  He wasn't very smart. Not stupid, but a little slow. Also, he seemed to me to be unstable. One of those guys who would show up to work one day and not say a word.  He would brood around, serving up the fries.  He'd look at nobody. Do his shift and drive his piece of shit Gran Torino home.

Patrick was 24 years old. I was 17.  We both worked at Wendy's, but I was much closer to the average employee age.

So yeah, if I had met Patrick anytime in the last 20 years or so, I wouldn't have thought to give him a hard time.  He wasn't hurting anybody. He was just a guy of slightly below average intelligence, trying to get by.  Nothing wrong with that.

But to a bunch of asshole high school kids, he was an easy target.

A few years after I left Wendy's, I drove through to get a burger.  Patrick was working the register.  We chatted for a few minutes.  At that time, he was approaching 30 years old, but I had a completely different view of him.

For one thing, he had put up with all the bullshit my stupid friends and I had dished out. Now he was surely taking it from a whole new crop of jerks.  But when I talked to him for a few minutes, I became aware of what a hard working, humble man he really was.  I felt bad for the way we treated him.

When I pulled away from the drive-thru window, I looked to the right and saw his same old piece of shit Gran Torino.  He obviously hadn't gotten around to any repairs.  I imagined him telling some new smartass 17 year old punk how he was going to fix that car up one day.

Well I haven't thought about Patrick until I heard today that he had committed suicide.  It was about 3 months ago.  He would have been 58 years old.  I don't know if he had a job. I don't know if he ever had a wife and/or kids.  He was a loner when I knew him.

He had gone to sleep in his garage with his car running.  He didn't have the Gran Torino anymore. With some inheritance money, he had bought a Tesla.  But after the money ran out, he decided he was done with this planet. 

So one day, he drove into his garage, put the car in park and just left it running.  The next morning, he woke up feeling rested and alive.  So he turned the car off, went into the house, and slit his wrists.

So sad.  I miss you Patrick.

Also, I don't know if he is still alive or not.  He would be about 58 though. I made up the part about him killing himself.  But it seems like an idiot like that would try to do it with the exhaust from an electric car.

Fucking moron.