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.

STFU Man

Stop me if you've heard this one ...

 So a few weeks ago, I was on a weekend ride with Brady.  I don't remember if it was a long or short ride.  I just remember when we went by the crossfit building.

I think it's crossfit.  I don't really know.  I've seen videos and articles and proponents and opponents on the whole crossfit thing.  It seems strange to me, but not really any stranger than a traditional hard gym workout.

It's new and exciting and I think there might be kettle bells involved so I guess that's cool.

The place is on about 42nd and Nicholas.  I know because it's just down from where my grandma Surber used to live.  That's where (grandma's, not the crossfit place) my brother and I would go on Sunday mornings after Sunday school in favor of sitting through church.  If you recall, my brother and I would always feign stomach aches so we could get a swig of that delicious Pepto-Bismol.

Probably an actual conversation at the living room of my Parents one Sunday evening:

Mom:  Those boys are always constipated on Sundays.

Dad (peering over the top of his newspaper):  It's that church you take them to.

And speaking of churches, there's a church right next to the place that may or may not be a crossfit place.

But much like Cro$$fit (TM) is the new exercise fad, this church is super modern.

First of all, I could have never gone to it.  Every single person who goes there is real young and real pretty.  I mean as a cross section of people, it has to be about the best looking crowd around.  They look good enough to be at the high school dance in a movie.

They look way way better than the crossfit people.  Maybe they're the crossfit graduates.

Probably and actual excerpt from a crossfit graduation commencement speech:

"You've conquered your mind and body, now it's time to lay it all down and let God conquer your soul ..."

At this point, I envision several graduates sneaking out the back door and over to grandma's house for a nice refreshing tiny little plastic cup of the pink stuff.

Anyway - the whole reason I think it's a crossfit place (next to the church and down the street from grandma's) is because I always see them doing weird exercise things like the videos or articles I've seen about crossfit.

So yes.  It's completely possible that there are 2 distinct types of cultish workout.  But it really doesn't matter to me.

One time as I was riding by, I saw a guy running in the street, up the hill, towards grandma's house.  He had some sort of rigging around his shoulders and was dragging a metal plate with weights on top of it.  It was sparking and scraping up the street something terrible.

I didn't at first realize that this was something he chose to do.  I figured he was making his loud slow escape from the church.  

But once I got close and passed him, I could see he was nowhere good looking enough to go to that church.  But then again, maybe they chain up the less um, spiritual ones.

So yeah.  Crossfit.  

So when Brady and I were returning from our ride, there were around 20 or 30 people out running from the gym to grandma's house and back.  

As we went by, Brady offered some encouraging words of motivation to each person we passed.

What a guy.  These people were giving it all they had. A few words of encouragement can go a long way.

Like one time I decided I was going to run a 5K race.  I had set a goal for myself of under 25 minutes.

The race was somewhere around or on St. Patrick's Day.  There was a pot o' beer at the end.

Brady also ran that race.

After he finished the race, and knowing my goal, he sauntered back to where I was struggling like a diarrhea-plagued crossfitter running to grandma's.

He ran alongside and helped pace me to the finish in 24 and change.

Turns out, 25 minutes is not a good enough goal to get your hands on that beer at the end.  It was all gone by the time I got there.  But all was not lost.  It was Budweiser so I couldn't be too upset.

So a few weeks ago, we're going by these crossfit people and Brady wants to help.  That's just who he is.

"C'mon," he shouts, "Let's get those knees up.  Go! Go! Go!"

No comments from any of them.  No acknowledgement.  No laughter.  Just grim faces focused on the challenge ahead. Longing for the day when they can go to church unshackled.  

But Brady's words were not entirely wasted.  My spirits were raised tremendously by spectacle.  

We kept going by people and Brady kept shouting friendly encouragement.  It was hilarious.

Finally, Brady was rewarded for his effort.  It was the very last guy we passed.  Brady brought out the irony, "You're running in shorts on a cold day like this?  Put some clothes on!"

"Shut the fuck up, man," is all he said.

I don't know about Brady, but those 5 little words made my day.  

Thank you weight belt wearing runner.  Even though you're too ugly to attend most of the modern churches without being chained down, you can have a front row seat at mine anytime.  We take ex-lax chewables and Pepto-Bismol for communion.  You DO NOT want to see how we baptize.

It's too soon to tell, but I personally feel this is the first post in  a long time that merits a "What the hell is cube talking about?"

Virtual Assholes

Lately I haven't felt I've had much to say.  Last week, I mentioned that I thought it might be because of winter.  There's little going on during the big chill and [hence] little to write about.

I could tell a story of something from the past if I could think of one.  I can't.  I'm pretty sure I haven't told them all yet, but maybe I have.

During other parts of the year, I might talk about something that happened while I was out riding or otherwise doing stuff other than shivering.

In past winters, I've blogged about my [training] or made promises about what I would do when the next season starts.  I don't do that anymore.

Now I just get on the rollers throughout the week and go on the occasional weekend ride.

The rollers still suck, but the time is slightly more bearable if I use the Zwift.

Or at least it was.  For a while.

Zwift is a pretty cool idea.  Sort of like a video game where the controller is your power meter or approved trainer equipped bike.

Zwift is probably less than a year old and they have a long long long way to go if they're going to succeed.

The login process is clunky.  The limitations are many.  There are only a couple of courses available and you don't get to choose which one you go on.  Well - I've seen chatter that you can change the date on your computer if you want to ride the course that isn't offered for whatever day.  Um no.

But overall, the time on the rollers goes by quicker with Zwift since it kind of sort of resembles riding a bike if you squint.  Not really, but kind of.

When I first started using it, I had to be careful or just close my eyes when "cornering."  I rolled right off the rollers a bunch of times.  Kind of funny, I guess.

Also, I think I'd get a better workout (more structured) if I just did the music thing (no TV or Zwift). As it is, I'm mostly focusing on power output during the Zwift rides (this is what determines speed, based on whatever grade you're riding on).

So I rarely focus on just high cadence work - which I believe is an important part of any balanced breakfast.

Anyway - there's one thing that works flawlessly on Zwift.  Group chat.  Absolutely perfect. There's no end to the meaningless text messages popping up on the screen.  I think some people are logging in just to chat.  They can't actually be concentrating on a workout.

Often people are fighting about Donald Trump or calling Merckx a doper (so what) or telling everyone to just shut the fuck up and ride or telling everyone to watch their language and just ride and so on.

There are the occasional racist comments and the obligatory ensuing outrage and public flogging and such.

Then someone will say "Don't feed the trolls."

Other people need to tell you what they're doing:

"Whew just finished my FTP.  Totally got my head kicked in."

"Metric Century finished !!"

"That's all for me.  Thanks for the ride, guys."

"Who here is from Ohio?"

"Tennessee here."

Then there are those who brag about how great the weather is wherever they live.

"Yeah - 60 and sunny here!"

I wait for sometimes up to 3 seconds before somebody else says, "Why the hell are you not riding outside?"

It never stops.  But it's not all bad.  The other day soebody actually offered the best advice I've seen so far.  He wasn't talking to me.  He was talking to another rider who was complaining about all the chat (and presumably completely missing the irony).

"WHY CAN'T ALL YOU PEOPLE JUST SHUT UP AND RIDE YOUR BIKES!!!"

"If you don't like the chat, just go into your settings and shut it off, dumbass!"

Doh.

So I did.  That's better.

So if you're ever riding around on the Zwift and you ask me a question about Donald Trump doping, don't be offended [ or do ] if I ignore you. I may not hear you.  I've got my music on.

Ok winter. We get it.  You can go now.  I mean it's still better than Arizona at any time ever, but I'm a little tired of it.

But 'Cube. What's wrong with Arizona?

I hope you're joking reader.  I really hope you're joking.

Update

It's 8:26 PM.  I've had a fairly busy day and once again find myself in a place where I don't have anything to say.  I really want to get to the TV watching by 9:00PM.

I think the general slowdown of activity that happens in the winter may contribute.  I can't really sit outside at lunch and eavesdrop. So I don't really have anyone to make fun of or marvel at or anything.

So I will provide an update.

About 23 years ago, I had a complete physical checkup.

I had another one yesterday.

There were none in between.

I've been to the Dr. a few times for various questions about whether or not I was dying of some horrible disease I read about on the internet that exactly described my symptoms.

In each of those cases, the Dr. was able to discern that I was not dying at all.

Recently I had a scare with something the kids call "Heart palpitations."

In the end, the doctors and spouse have come to the conclusion this was brought on by anxiety from recent upsetting events (Death of a friend of approximately my age and the ensuing gatherings).

My general Dr told me everything was fine and there was no reason to believe anything was wrong.  Unconvinced, I worried myself to another round of palpitations and ended up at a cardiologist.

The cardiologist was cool because he was listening to my heart and saying things like "Wow.  It's like 44 beats a minute."  

He told me I was fine and that he would like to put a heart rate monitor on me for 24 hours.  Not because I needed it, but because he thought it would be cool to see how low my heart rate went while I slept.  But yeah - we didn't do that.

Because of this scare, I decided to get current on my medical maintenance stuff.  

So yeah - everything's still ok.  I'm in much better shape than I was in 23 years ago.  Back then, my triglycerides and cholesterol were high.

My only problem now is that I'm old.  

So in March, I am now scheduled for a thing they call a "Colonoscopy." I'm sure it's every bit as exciting as it sounds.

While we were on the subject, I asked about the old prostate exam thing I've heard about for so many years (Think "Fletch").

"Yeah - we don't really recommend those anymore."

"Why not?" I asked, a little happy.

"They are statistically more harmful than helpful," The Dr. said.

"How?" I asked.

"Well, for one, they can make your johnson (no relation) not work anymore,"

Good enough for me,

The update is this: you know that thing they say about when you are going to start exercising?

"Always ask your doctor before beginning any blah blah blah."

I started exercising 19 years ago.  I didn't ask my doctor until yesterday.

He said it was fine.

~

Also - funny story - My Dr. likes to ride his bike around.  He has a Madone and a cross bike he just bought last fall.  He shops at the Trek Store in Papillion.

He told me he's a little disappointed because he tried to ride his cross bike on the gravel roads near his house and it was such a harsh ride, he couldn't stand it. 

"What pressure did you have in your tires," I asked him.

"About 85 or 90," he told me.

I suddenly realized how he must feel when I make assumptions about medical stuff.  

"You can probably go more or less, but give 40 a try," I told him, "If nothing else, it will be much better than 85."

"Or 90," he said.

"Let's just not talk about 90," I requested.

Ok, maybe that's not a funny story. I just wanted you to read it.  Thanks.

I think I'll go see Cracker

It seems like every summer, there's a big huge free concert down the street over there at the Memorial park.  There are usually 3 or 5 bands who used to be popular.  They each do a 20 minute set and then there are fireworks.

One year recently, I think it was Sugar Ray, Blues Traveler and Uncle Kracker.  Smashmouth might have been there or maybe that was a different year.

I think the estimates are usually that something like 80,000 people go. I think we go about 1 out of 2 or 3 years.  It's usually a pretty good time.  It's free.  It's a big party.

I wonder how many people would show up if they charged say, five dollars.

Anyway, I don't really know who Uncle Kracker is, but I'm pretty sure I don't like them.

Cracker on the other hand.  I really like Cracker. The lyrics.  Yeah.  It's the lyrics.

"Hey, Hey it's ok to make a little mess out of your life. Cause you don't need a diagram to tell you how to have a good time."

"I don't know what the world may need, but a V-8 engine's a good start for me"


"Well I was gonna bring you flowers but I didn't.  It's the thought that counts and I think I'm a bit too broke."

Pure gold.  Uncle Kracker though.  Hang on. I honestly don't know what they sing. I will consult the google and get back to you.  It might take a while but to you it will only seem like a moment ...

Ok I'm back.  That was only like a minute.  I have to go back to google but I just wanted to stop back and say that I still don't know what "they" sing, but I have learned that "Uncle Kracker"  is the stage name of a person who is really named "Matthew Shafer"

I'm not sure which I like better except that it's not "Uncle Kracker."  I think that's a terribly annoying name.

Cracker on the other hand ...

Ok hang on, I'll go see what M. Night Shafer sings.  See?  Right there.  Better name than both of the others.  And that took me like zero seconds to come up with.  Maybe Uncle Kracker was too busy writing awesome songs to worry about how he was being bullied. Hang on, I'll be right back.

Holy Jason Mraz on helium, Batman!  Yuck.  I do not like the song singing of this Uncle Kracker very much at all.

I distinctly remember him now.  I remember being glad we were arriving as his second 15 minutes in life was ending at Memorial park (he was the first on that night).

But honestly, I can't give anybody at the free concert too hard a time.  It's free.  Therefore: fun.

I can't stand when people complain about how much the bands playing at the free concert suck.

Who cares?  Drink a beer and have some fun.  It's free.  I hope that next year when the suck bands are announced and you get into the tongue clicking, eye rolling thing, you'll remember the cost of admission.

But anyway.  I bring all of this up because:

1) I am at a total loss for anything to say tonight
b) I put on some Cracker (Kerosene Hat) when I sat down to the blank page tonight.
3) I want to iterate that there is no cost for the concert.

That reminds me.  One time a few years ago somebody told me Cracker was playing at the free concert down the street.

He was telling me because he knew I liked Cracker so much.

I said, "Whaaaaaaat?!?! Cracker!  That is unbelievable."

Then he said, "Oh it's definitely Cracker. On the radio, they said the lineup was Blues Traveler, Sugar Ray, Uncle Kracker, and maybe Smashmouth.  They couldn't remember"

"Wait," I said, "I thought you said it was Cracker."

"Yeah.  That's right.  Uncle Kracker."

"I'm pretty sure that's different," I said, crestfallen.  Hang on.  I'm going to google "crestfallen" to see if that's how I was behaving when I found out it was Uncle Kracker and not Cracker playing the free concert down the street.

Ok I'm back.  I looked up "crestfallen".  I was totally crestfallen at that moment.

It turned out alright though.  As I mentioned, we got there about the time Uncle Kracker was doing his last (possibly only) song.  We worked our way to the stage and started shouting for him to play "Eurotrash Girl."

He tried to explain but we weren't having it.  We basically threatened him.  It worked. He played Eurotrash Girl for us.  He had no choice at that point. Then as a bonus, he did a beautiful rendition of Jason Mraz's "I'm Yours" as sung by Alvin and the Chipmunks.

Did I mention that this was all free?  We had beer.  We had fun.  Mission accomplished.

Afterward:

So while I was writing this, I wondered out loud if Cracker was still touring.  Crazy.  They're playing tonight (Thursday) through Saturday in Athens GA.  Yeah, I won't be able to get to that one.

Next Friday though. They're in Maryland. Better, but probably not.

Hello, what's this? Richmond Virginia a week from Saturday!! Are you kidding me! I'm virtually there 3 times a week on the Zwift. I was there tonight as a matter of fact.  I'm getting to know my way around that course pretty well.  Lucky me.

Oops.  Time to end the post. "Cracker -- Kerosene Hat" just ended and  became "The Cramps - Off The Bone" which is simply delightful (96 tears in 96 eyes).  Although possibly not as good as "The Uncle Kramps."  The jury is still out and such.

Obligation met.  Goodnight.

Spoiler Alert: Contains a vampire.

There's an old thing people say sometimes. They look at you and say "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

This is a question with no good answer.

Possible answers:

1) Yes it is a banana

2) No it is not a banana

3) Yes I am happy to see you

4) No I am not happy to see you.

First of all, I think that carrying a banana in your pocket is a rare thing.

Much more rare than being happy to see a friend.

But not quite as rare as being so happy to see your friend that you get a big boner.

But your friend doesn't know.  It's either a banana or a boner as far as your friend is concerned.

To me the problem with the question is that whether or not you have a banana in your pocket, you are in an awkward position.

The question seems to suggest that you cannot possibly be happy to see your friend and also have a banana in your pocket.

Of course, this is ridiculous. Both could be true.

But that's not really the point of the question is it?

The question is rhetorical, isn't it? (rhetorical).

If somebody says "Is that a banana in your pocket or are you just happy to see me?"

They are really saying "Why does it appear that you are sporting wood? Correct the situation immediately."

But then - and most likely - not completely without whimsy, they offer 2 possible answers.

The first is the thing about the banana.

Stranger still, the question implies that the banana hypothesis is the more exciting one.

"Oh yawn.  You're just happy to see me."

Almost seems like it should go the other way.  Like "Hey - are we going to get busy or is that just a banana in your pocket?"

Then you could say, "Both.  I need my potassium if we're going to get busy."

Then you could just whip it out, peel it and enjoy your tasty banana while your friend waits.

"I can clearly see now that you're happy to see me," your friend might say.

At which point you could say, "No.  Actually that's just another banana."

Then you could give the second banana to your friend because even though you are happy to see your friend, it's not in that way that your friend is thinking of.

Regardless, everybody needs potassium.

This was the funnest blogpost I have written this year so far.

Ah ... a Vampire!

Not Talking About Bowie

Maybe some other time I will talk about what David Bowie meant to me.  Maybe I won't.  But now is not the time.  I was shocked when I heard he died.

I knew his birthday was last Friday.  He also released an album.  Amazon Prime had it available streaming, so I listened to it Saturday while I was on the rollers.  Yep.  That's Bowie.

I didn't know he was sick.

I've spoken here and here about Bowie.  Or rather - about me with Bowie as the backdrop.

The first time I ever became aware of Bowie's existence ...

Oh wait, I'm not talking about Bowie.

But his surprise (to me) death does bring up some emotions I'd like to share.  Thanks in advance for your consideration of my thoughts.  This isn't easy for me:

---

One of my least favorite types of comments old people make begin with a phrase like "Kids these days."

People will claim that they were raised to respect their elders.  That their parents would have "whooped" their asses if they'd behave the way the "kids these days" do.

I've seen people lament that the kids these days are soft because they've never had to go off and die in a world war.

Kids these days just play video games.  Communication is dead because they use text messaging instead of just punching each other or whatever they did in the 50's.

I think what I hate most about the talk above is it's just not true.  Kids are not more "spoiled" than we were.  People haven't changed at all.

Communication isn't ruined.  I never talked to anybody except my close friends when I was a kid.

I see so many kids, fresh out of college starting careers and way more responsible than I ever was at that age.

And I was more responsible than the people complaining now.

So yeah - I don't think the old ways are any better.  I almost always think we are moving in the right direction as a planet.

The rest of this post is about bicycles. The future of bicycles.

I am surprised how many people are openly embracing electronic shifting.  I am hearing more and more rave about this marvelous new innovation.

Gregg (from Olympia) told me recently that he had demoed some electronic groupset from SRAM.

He went on and on about how lovely it was.

I told him why it's a deal breaker for me.  It's not a bike anymore.  Not the way I think of a bike.

Making shifting easier by means of electronics crosses the line.  But not enough to make it any easier to ride the bike.  Maybe due to weight savings (if there isn't any yet, there will be), but you still have to do all the legwork yourself.

And then you have to remember to charge your bike or you wont be able to shift (I'm guessing).

That's just stupid.

I just saw a remark on the Facebooks that with electronic shifting, no more worry about cable stretching.

Um ..

When the fuck do you ever worry about cable stretching? Well replace that with worrying about all the other crap that will go wrong with electronic shifting.

When the cable stretches - give the barrel a turn.  Then forget about it.

But none of that stuff really matters to me.  I have to admit the reason I hate the idea of electronic shifting has to do with a certain romantic attitude I have toward a functioning bicycle.

In the past, when bike improvements came along, the pros were always slow to adopt them.  And even slower to adapt them.  Not me. I don't end up getting the new thing until way late, but that's more economics than skepticism.

Disc brakes on road bikes?  Yes please. Clipless pedals?  Of course.  Brifters? Absolutely.  Full suspension Mtn Bikes?  You bet. Fat Bikes? Well, no.  Fat bikes are dumb.

However - fat bikes are still bikes.

But cube? You've got batteries all over yourself when you ride.

I carry a phone.  I have a heart rate monitor.  A  Garmin.  A power meter.  All require batteries to function. If I ever forget one of these things within the first mile or so of a ride, I will go back for it.

It's as if I can't ride without all of these things.

But I can.  Because none of those things is required for my bike to work perfectly well.

Oh Cube!  Just try battery powered shifting!  You'll love it and so on.

If I'm, say, riding around in Las Vegas or something and somebody's going to rob the casino, I could be in big trouble.  As we learned from the docudrama "Oceans 11,"  You can temporarily knock out all electronics for miles by sending an EMP out to everywhere.

I'd be riding around and boom, my heart rate monitor, cell phone, power meter and Garmin all stop working.

Admittedly, even if I just had boring old regular non-electronic shifting, I'd probably pull over and wait it out, just so I wouldn't miss out on any Strava segments or anything.  But that's not the point.

The point is, I could still ride and shift if I wanted to.

I think if there was a way to still shift in the event of a dead battery or casino robbery, I would be more willing to consider electronic shifting.  Or if I could shift somebody else's bike, maybe.

Which - that's another thing.  I've heard the Electronic shifting evangelists claim that the signal is solid.  Difficult to interrupt or hack.

Bullshit.  When has anything wireless ever worked flawlessly?  It's a little inconvenient when you're trying to watch Netflix.  But could be deadly if you're bombing down a hill and need to stop suddenly.

What?  How could that matter?  It's shifting not brakes?  Good point.  It makes no difference.  Until electronic braking is a thing.  Oh it will be.  I promise.

How can I be so sure?  Because it's a really stupid idea.  Like Fat bikes and eShifting.

Can you even imagine how mad I am at those electronic bikes? No you can't. And I'm not going to go into it right now.  But  I can tell you it's way worse than Fat bikes (still a bike) and eshifting (not a bike). Specialized makes one.  It's made to look like a bike.  You can hardly tell, but it has "battery assist."

Oh for fuck's sake!  Just get a goddamn motorcycle already.

The Ice Thief

I think it was Monday of this week that I went to a little convenience shop near work.

I was going in to get a cup of coffee.  Small.  

Small is the best value.  Not per ounce.  Per price.

See, the medium is just a few pennies more than the small and a few pennies less than the large.

I used to get the large because it was the cheapest per ounce.

Eventually I realized that I would end up drinking only about half of it and dumping the rest out - so yeah, small is the best value.

When I get the coffee, I usually mix the regular blend with the hazelnut.  About 80/20 regular/hazelnut.

I like the flavor of hazelnut.  But it's too much in pure form, so I step on it a few times.  20% Hzl is about all I can handle.

A couple of weeks ago a customer, let's call her "Julie" was trying to decide what kind of coffee to get.

The crusty old worker lady in there, let's call her "Crusty" said "You should just mix some hazelnut with regular.  It's really good that way."

I was irritated by the suggestion.  Not that I thought Crusty stole my idea or anything.  No -  I was mad because now I couldn't get the coffee the way I wanted because Crusty would see it and expect some sort of recognition for her great idea.

It might seem unlikely, but people in the morning are like that.  All up in everybody's bidnus and such.

That's why Crusty was telling Julie all about how she should prepare her cup of joe.

No way I wanted to hear Crusty say something like "See - he's gonna give ol' Crusty's idea a whirl."

I would have no choice but strangle her at that point and my day would be pretty much ruined.

Even after I got my full cup of regular coffee, Julie was still trying to decide.  "Maybe you just don't want coffee Julie.  You ever consider that, bitch?!?"  I felt like saying. God, Julie was annoying.  Then she got even more annoying ...

She made a strange reference.  I guess it wouldn't have been strange 20 or 30 years ago when some people knew who Denis Leary was (a bad comedian).

I bought Denis Leary's "No Cure For Cancer" cd many years ago.  Just awful.  But I had just paid $9 or something for a cd and felt like I should listen to it a few times.  It didn't get better, but at least there are tiny little parts of it that make me smile from time to time.  Ok, one part.

It's the part about NyQuil.  Not even the whole rant. Just some of it.  Bits and pieces like:

We love you NyQuil, you giant fucking "Q" 

Or of the guys in AA who had a 2 year long cold:

"I'm high as a kite and my teeth are green.  Merry fucking christmas."

See? Not funny at all.  But so stupid, it makes me laugh.

Back to Julie.  She said to the room (she was turning to include me - I looked down to hopefully exclude myself)  "I can't mix the coffee because Denis Leary would yell at me for not having coffee flavored coffee."

I was thinking, "Really? A Denis Leary reference.  That's some weak-ass shit."

But I just wanted to get out of there without talking to any of them.  

Now that I think about it, the whole thing doesn't make any sense.  Nobody would get her joke.  I mean yeah, I did.  But Crusty had no idea what she was talking about.  Crusty just made that annoying whiney. moany sort of laugh noise people sometimes make when they can tell by the person's manner that they are trying to make a joke of some kind.  It sounds like something a bored wookie might say.

It wasn't funny when Denis Leary said it and it's not funny now.  But then later as I was drinking my plain coffee, it occurred to me that Julie must actually be friends with Denis Leary.  I imagine that he probably gives her a ride to work or something.  She doesn't even know that he was once an awful comedian. He's just this high strung guy she knows who goes out of his mind at Starbucks and screams at Ford Trucks.

And maybe Julie and Crusty are friends.  Maybe Crusty knows Denis Leary, but is uncomfortable when Julie mentions him because she cares for Julie. Denis Leary is obviously bad news.  Always shouting about cough syrup and stuff.  That's why she made the funny noise.

Yeah that makes a lot more sense than someone making a Denis Leary joke on purpose.

Oh dear - I seem to have strayed off course.

Oh well.  The other day I went into the convenience shop near work.  As I was going in, a woman was walking out with a big cup.  Immediately, I was irritated.  I hate those giant cups people walk around with all day.  

"Ma'am!  Excuse me!  Ma'am!"  shouted Crusty (who may or may not know Denis Leary) from behind the counter.

"The ice is NOT free!"

The Ice thief tried to act all innocent and everything.  She just looked at the woman and kind of shrugged like, "Are you kidding me?"  Or maybe that was me.  As much as I don't like huge cups of ice, I think they should be free.  So did the ice thief.  

Anyway, Crusty said, "You have to pay for that, you know!"

There were about 4 people in line.  Crusty was sort of busy at the cash register, but she'll be damned if that ice thieving bitch is taking one more step toward that effing door.  Or something.

If I was the ice thief, I would have just bolted down the street.  Actually, that's just what I wanted the ice thief to do.

Because I think old Crusty would have chased her down, gout be damned, and tackled her, huge cup of ice tumbling through the air, ending in a magnificent explosion at the pavement.

That would have made my day.

The point is, I'm kind of grumpy in the morning and I just wish everybody would shut the hell up until I've had my coffee.  On second thought - maybe Denis has a point ...

Family is what you really want.

Abe is 10.  He doesn't really like football.  I mean watching football.  I'd say he severely dislikes it.  He wouldn't want to play it either.  Not really his thing.

Abe likes to watch Disney TV and Cartoon Network and stuff like that.

I don't watch much football anymore.  Weekends are usually pretty busy if I go for a long ride.  I don't have cable, so I have a lot fewer games to chose from than I used to.

But for the bowl games, I subscribed to "Sling."  Sling is streaming live television from a dozen or so popular TV channels.  It is 20 dollars a month.  ESPN is one of the channels so I have pretty much all of the bowl games.  I'll cancel Sling after the games are over.

I've spent several hours the last few days enjoying some of the most boringest bowl games I can remember for a long time.

Early Friday we got some bad news about some friends of ours.

This is a family that lives nearby.  Jill and I have been friends with the mom since we were teenagers.  I knew her from High School and Jill has been good friends with her since college.

Their kids play with our kids when they have parties/gatherings.

The family is losing the father from illness.  I came home yesterday to see the tail end of my wife explaining to our kids what was going on.

Abe was extremely upset.  Both children were sad and scared.  They were sorrowful for their friends losing their dad.  They were also contemplating "What if .."

A few hours later, I was watching a football game and Abe got into my lap.  He asked me if he could watch football with me.  This has never happened before.  He asked me why the numbers start to go back down after 50.  He asked me what "15 yard penalty" meant. He asked me question after question and I tried to answer as clearly as possible. It really is a difficult game to try to explain to somebody who's never watched it.

But I didn't mind.  Abe wanted to spend time with me because yesterday he became aware that time with me is finite.

I asked him if he'd rather watch the Disney channel. Like I said, the games have been fairly boring (lopsided victories).

I like watching the Disney Channel about as much as Abe likes watching football.

But I didn't care.  Neither did Abe.  He said, "It's fine.  We can watch football"

So we did.

The homy

This post is called "The Homy."  There's no way a post called "The Homy" can live up to its title.  Maybe someday, I'll write a post called "The Homy" that is actually about the legendary "Homy Inn."

But not tonight.  Tonight I just went to the Homy to meet up with a bunch of friends/teammates and drink some beer and champagne and stuff.

Well the whole thing went on a little late and then I had to go buy some scotch tape and Sharpies.

I was going to write/rant about something that's been bugging me, but I need to go to bed.  I don't want to rush the planned post.  I want to really get the point across.

I won't say what it's about, but I will say - It's something related to bikes and it's horrible.  No, it's not Fat Bikes.  Yes, they are completely stupid, but I've already talked about that.

So this new gripe is for next week.

This week.  Well this week I'm going to break a rule of mine.  I normally refuse to discuss politics.  It's boring and stupid.  But with the way the Republican race is heating up, I can no longer keep quiet.

Whether you're a Trump man or an apostle of "The Rube" please read carefully what I have to say.  I know that the chance of me changing anyone's opinion is next to nothing.  But this is important. I have to try.  Don't make me say anything about the "precipice" we're on.  Just read it with an open mind. Please.

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Thanks for reading and I hope you now understand just how passionate I am about this thing.

Bob the car wash manager guy

Bob lives in Coralville Iowa.  Five months ago, he moved there from Maine.  He manages a Laser Wash Plus.  Laser Wash Plus is a place to wash your car.  It has 8 bays with power washers.

I met Bob last Saturday afternoon.  I was waiting for a bay to open up.  There was a line of cars waiting at each of the open bays.  I went to the sixth one from left to right and waited.  There was a guy washing his Mercedes in that one and a couple of cyclists waiting to wash Jingle cross off their bikes behind Mr Mercedes.  All the other bays already had at least 2 cars waiting.  Except for bay 4, which was "Out of Order"

Five of the Se7en working bays were being used to wash bikes.  Everybody washing the bikes was still in their muddy skinsuits.

I was also there to wash my bikes.  But I was in regular clothes.  I had gone to the hotel and showered before going to the car wash.

So Bob was walking around, marveling at the spectacle that was the aftermath of Jingle Cross Saturday.  He spotted me and said, "There's some sort of bike thing going on today."

I thought he was joking.

"Never seen anything like it.  I have to keep cleaning up all the grass. It clogs up the drain.  It's a real mess.  I don't mind though.  Pays the same."

"Yeah - it's some muddy races down yonder a speck," I said trying to blend in.  I had no idea what I was doing.

"Oh you know about it?" - Now I was sure he was goofing with me.

"Yeah I raced today."

Then Bob looked up to see my bikes on the rack behind my car.  The realization hit him.  Hard.

"But you're so ... clean."  He really said this.

"Yeah - unlike these guys, my bikes are a lower priority to me."

Bob seemed to think that was funny.  I knew he was a little bothered by "cleaning up the grass."  He said he wasn't. It was all in a day's work and so on, but I know I would be annoyed by it.  So I instinctively separated myself from the others, even though I was about to leave as much grass as the rest of them.

"Tell you what", he said, "Do you need soap?"

"No.  Just water."

"Bay 4 is closed off because there's no soap. Otherwise it works fine. Drive around over there and I'll get you in."

It always helps to know somebody.  Bob did me a solid and I won't forget it.

Maybe next time I'm in Coralville, I'll mow his lawn or something.  Then clean the mower at the car wash.  It could happen.