February 26, 2020

The following was written (and never posted) on February 26, 2020.  I have not changed a word.  I think I must've thought I had more to add or something. I couldn't add anything to it now, because I am not that person anymore. I am way less naive after everything that happened in 2020.  I think I've still only scratched the surface of my delusion.

~~~

The following happened yesterday. It made me a little sad because I think my faith in humanity was probably slightly elevated at the time.  And then ...

I used to take my dry cleaning to Nu Trend on about 77th and Cass. It's next door to the tobacco shop that used to be Ted Lechnowski's Bike/Hockey shop.

I usually drop my dry cleaning off after work so I always see the same person at the counter. She's a kindly, elderly woman of slight build and auburn (probably dyed) hair.  

One time last winter, there was a little suffering bird just inside the shop door, next to a small waste basket.  She told me that it was on the sidewalk this morning when she got there and she was hoping it would recover. She had set up a dish of water and some sort of meal for the doomed creature. She was very sad about it. It was a little awkward, because it seemed like she might cry. I was thinking the bird was too far gone (it was mostly dead when I walked in and all dead when I left). But I admired the compassion she had for the helpless little bird. 

Yesterday I went in to pick up some dry cleaning up and drop some off. I walked in and she said "Hinsley" by way of greeting. I smiled and took a fun size snickers bar from the candy bowl at the counter. I stuck the candy in my pocket and she kind of smiled. It was a little bit of a funny gesture, so her smile was appropriate.

Then she told me about people come in and say, "Is this free?" and grab a huge handful. She went on to tell me how angry it makes her.  I made a sort of "Pauline" comment by way of acknowledgement like "Don't they have food at home?" 1 Cor 11:34. 

"And you know, It's always the coloreds" she said back. I might have understood the audacity if she had pronounced my name correctly. It would have meant she knows my relatives and feels it's safe to go full Klan on me.  But no. She said "Hinsley" not "Hinsley."

It made me sad, but it is a wake-up call. Whenever I start thinking things are better than they used to be, the kindly old shop lady is there to remind me that I'm fooling myself.  Well, not anymore. I'm going to start going somewhere else. After I get my dry cleaning back.

The weird thing is that "Max I Walker" sounds much more Aryan than "Nu Trend". Especially if you pronounce "Walker" with a "V". 

 

~~~

That was 2 weeks before we started working from home and 21 months ago. I haven't been to a dry cleaner since.  We all knew about the coronavirus when I wrote this. We also knew about racial tensions between a political party and a race of people.  We just didn't know how bad it was yet.

The Return of the Hammer

The Keystone Trail in Omaha is a multi-use trail that starts around 88th and Fort St. and goes South for several miles.  It connects to other trails and is part of a nice network of safe pathways for people and pets to walk, run, bike, sleep on - or whatever.

Since there are all sorts of people on the trail, it is good form to carefully navigate around all children, dogs, and others when passing. It is also good form to not make any unexpected movements. Being predictable is nice.

One big problem that has plagued the trail over the years is the Keystone Hammer.  I first heard of this phenomenon from Brian Redemske. I think he came up with the term.

From my understanding, the Keystone Hammer is a cyclist who is using the trail as his own personal race track.  He is in a race with everybody on the trail. It looks a lot like Mario Kart. The safety of anyone on the trail, including himself, is secondary. The most important thing is winning the race.  So if a couple of children are walking on this nice spring day with their pop-pop, they better stay the hell out of the way. What do they think this is? A multi-use path? No. Keep those brats to the right or I WILL run them down! I am the Hammer, and I'll not put my PR for this segment in jeopardy!

Or something like that.

Note: I just went to Brian Redemske's blog page thing to look up his entry on the Keystone Hammer and was denied access. I'm sure it's personal.

At different points in my life, I have been a keystone hammer. Not for many years. It is sort of a lonely business. It's also a bit of a bully mentality. A bully is someone whose confidence is strictly results driven and easily shaken by one bad experience.

I haven't noticed any Hammers in a long, long time. I am not sure the reason. Most likely because I have spent increasingly less time on the trail in the last 10 years or so.

It seems to me that there is generally less traffic on the Keystone as there was 10 years ago. But I could be wrong.

The last few days however has seen a huge resurgence. With the ultra nice spring weather and everyone being cooped up in their homes lately, the trail has regained some of its early popularity.

Along with that comes the New Keystone Hammer.  He's got a new look, but he's still the hammer.

The old Keystone Hammer was ALWAYS a roadie. He was usually kitted in US Postal or Discovery gear. Sometimes he had clip on aero bars, but he was definitely a roadie.

The New Keystone Hammer is way too cool for a road bike, gramps. He has to ride either a gravel (not cyclocross) or fat bike.  Extra credit for a nicely coiffed beard.

I encountered this creature yesterday.  What follows is my 100% accurate account.

I was on the Keystone starting my solo WNW ride, heading towards the Democracy park trailhead when I noticed a fat bike ahead. It was maybe 400 yards ahead. There was a fairly strong tailwind, so I was easily cruising at around 23 MPH.  After a couple of minutes, I was not noticeably closer to the fat bike. This surprised me. I didn't do anything other than note that I was not yet passing this guy.

Eventually, It became clear that I was ever so slowly getting closer to the guy.

Eventually, I passed him with the friendly "On your left" greeting that is requested by the trail sign maker guys.

Oh, I forgot to mention, it was 73 degrees out and sunny. A frickin' perfect day.

I had no idea yet that I was passing a New Keystone Hammer. In fact I didn't even yet know there was such a thing.

 After I passed the fat bike, the guy said "Get a real bike."

When I tell my wife about these encounters, she often tries to see the big picture. She can tell that I am telling her about somebody being a dick, and she wants to just let me know that I'm looking at it the wrong way.

When I got to the part where the guy said, "Get a real bike." she jumped in with "He was just giving you some crap. Friendly trash talk."

Did I say, " ... and that is the end of my story. What do you think?"

Because that "just giving me crap" theory was one I held as it was happening.

It went like this:

"Get a real bike"

Me thinking: haha, that's good. I am going to chat with this guy to:
1) see if it's somebody I know.
2) if not, chat about biking in general, and what he thinks of his fat bike in particular.

So I slowed down to let him come up beside me and chat.

As I turned to see where he was, he shouted at me,

"Dude, I WILL run you over!"

Uh oh.

He's not a friend. He's not "Giving me crap." He's mad. real mad.

But what is he mad at?

He's mad at me.

Why?

Because I passed him. He figured out that I must be going faster than him and it's not fair because he is more of a man than I am and so it must be the bike. If it's not the bike, then he is a completely worthless example of a human being. I mean, what is all this training for if some sissy-boy on a purply bike can just zip by?  Yeah. Totally the bike.

So I moved over to the far left side of the trail to let the hammer pass me and avoid being run over. I sat behind him for a very uncomfortable moment and then said "I don't think you're going to run me over because you ..."

"Dude, shut the fuck up," he requested.

" ... can't catch me," I continued.

And with that, I went back around him. I shouted back "Have a nice day" and drilled it. Reviving my old school Keystone Hammer ways. I mean - I was flying. 30 MPH? Probably. Maybe faster.  Little kids and dogs put into unnecessary danger? Most definitely. I weaved in and out of all manner of foot and bike traffic. Grazing walkers and startling toddlers. Parents everywhere shaking their fists at me.  People yelling "Slow down!" causing me to push even harder. Slow down on MY trail? NEVER! You must be confusing me with the Fat Biker back there.

My lungs were burning almost as much as my legs. At this point a tragic mishap was both likely and welcomed. Anything to stop the pain. But no. Everybody got lucky and stayed out of my way. Dude, I WOULD have run them over!

Then I kicked a puppy and knocked some baby birds out of a nest from a low hanging branch. 

The Original Keystone Hammer is back baby!

Prognostication again.

I know I've made predictions like this before. But here is where I predicted the end of a local legend. Granted, I was off by four and a half years when, four and a half years and 30 minutes ago,  I said,

 "Petrow's is stupid and when all of their customers die of old age in 30 minutes or so, Petrow's will be no more.  So sad."

Here's the lame story about the lame restaurant that didn't even have the decency to go out of business correctly. They just quit. They hated it as much as I did and didn't want their progeny to be saddled with the horror that is their *onion ring policy.

At least they did one thing right.  FTG.


*Review: Petrow's offered its patrons a choice of side with some of their meals. Fries or onion rings.
Fries: a pile of fries with 2 onion rings on top.
Onion rings: 2 onion rings.

This is all detailed in my stellar write up linked above. And Here.

Something for Fredcube

With football season in full swing, I figured it was time for me to dust off the tale of my greatest moment on the gridiron.

It was while I was in High School. I was a senior at Omaha Central. I was positioned as sort of a weak side tight end. Our quarterback was the legendary Mike Matya.

Normally, high school games are played on Friday Night. But this was a special game. It was Saturday morning at the University of Nebraska at Omaha's Al Caniglia field. It was a fine Autumn day. Mild temps and sunny.

Even though I was a senior, I had never played even a single snap at Central. To anybody who knew me back then, it would be no surprise since I wasn't on the football team.

It's a shame, too, because boy did I ever have the moves.

I was always pretty sure I could have been a great receiver. Not that I could catch or anything. Growing up in Nebraska, catching the ball never seemed all that important.

I just knew that if I got out into space with the ball ... good luck getting a hand on me.

Not that I was a fast runner or anything. I just figured my evasiveness would be enough.

It was.

What I was good at was goofing around in class. In sophomore year, I took English from Mr Heck.

Brian Carlson was also in that class. Since my name was "Cube" and his was Carlson, we initially sat next to each other in class. That didn't last too long. Mr Heck, for no reason whatsoever, decided to move me clear to the other side of the room from Brian.
 
My new seat was on the weak side of the room, directly behind the legendary Mike Matya. He wasn't legendary yet. But he had a good sense of humor.

Also he was much smarter than Brian or me. When I made some stupid joke, Mike would suppress all kinds of laughter. He was good at it. He was enjoying the jokes that Brian and I made, but not foolish enough to join in. That's how people get in trouble. I hear.

Lots of football players thought I was funny, but Mike was the only one to make sure we were always invited to parties.  This was cool because they were football player parties.

It was a little scary being a smart-ass around a bunch of half-drunk big aggressive football types. But Mike was their QB and always had our backs.

That's also how I got to play football at UNO one fine Saturday morning.

The night after some game, I was at a party and Mike invited Greg and me to join a bunch of them the next morning. "Hell Yeah!" we said.

Greg and I were the only ones there that weren't football players. I wasn't concerned though because I knew if I got the ball, it would be lights out. Sure these guys were bigger and faster than me. But like I said, I had the moves.

How did I know? Well, I'd had plenty of practice. What I'm about to explain is no exaggeration. This was my exact thinking at the time.

Central was a pretty crowded school. We had exactly 4 minutes to get from one class to another. That included going from class to my locker, swapping out my book and getting to the next class while everyone in the school was trying to do the same.

It was madness. But I had what I considered an amazing talent of foreseeing where the holes were going to open or close. I always navigated my way through the crowd with such ease that I imagined I could be one hell of a running back. I'd cut. I'd spin. I'd weave. I would always maintain book security and I'd get to class in record time without ever being touched. It never occurred to me that nobody was trying to touch me but still. It was a lot more than 11 people in a hallway a lot narrower than a football field. My logic is sound.

So about 15 or so guys showed up that morning.  I was so happy because I got to be on Mike Matya's team. I was even happier than he was!

So the very first play of the game, Mike received the snap (he held the ball and counted off some number of 'huts') and we were off. I didn't know what I was doing. I was probably out of position or something because nobody was anywhere near me. I waved for the ball, but it turns out it was a quarterback keeper or something.  For no gain.  Oh well.

Second play of the game. Hut, hut, HIKE! and we're off again. I am all alone out there, waving like a madman. Mike telegraphed a fake to me and tossed a perfect strike into the hands of one of his favorite targets. Pass complete to some other jock for about 4 yards.

Well this went on and on for quite some time. I was always open and never got the ball. We'd be stopped after a couple of first downs and then the other side would get the ball.

On defense, I was exactly the same amount of effective. I always ran toward the ball but it was always somewhere else. That made sense to me though. I had never practiced running into people in the hallway. It wasn't my thing.

Then it happened.  3rd and long and I was open. Mike looked at me and his eyes said "Yeah, well, sure. I guess," It was like if eyes could shrug.

Mike dumped the ball off to me and I was off to the races. I saw a tackler coming for me and neatly stepped out of the way. Then another and another. My 'passing period training' was paying off huge. I ran for everything I had and they were all missing me. It was glorious. I was finally stopped after a 25 yard gain! 25 freaking yards! Mike was laughing. I had basically just run through a bunch of actual football players and made the biggest gain of the day. True story.

The joy I felt was great, but really did not belong to me. The universe, realizing the error, rectified immediately.

The stunning revelation the football players had was that I was no ordinary runner. I could not be brought down with a normal tackle. The people away from the action had witnessed something few ever get to see.

These "real" football players with all of their experience and training could not hit me because they expected me to be some place else when they lunged at me. I was literally too slow to catch.

"You guys should have seen that," Jon Jones was saying to everybody. "He was moving so slow and everybody was missing him. Hilarious."

Thanks Jon. That joy felt odd anyway.

After that, I just plowed into people on my way to class. FTG.

My chat with Wesley. SiriusXM's "real human"

10:40 AM

SiriusXM:      Hi, I'm the Sirius XM Virtual Agent. I'm here for you!
                                        May I have your first and last name?

You:    Fred Cube

SiriusXM: Thanks, may I also have your phone number, including your area code?

You: 000-000-0000

SiriusXM: Thanks, again.  How can I help you?

You: When I try to use the mobile app, I am getting a message that says "We found your account, but your subscription does not include streaming"

SiriusXM: Okay, I can help you with that. Are you trying to log into your SiriusXM account? Or log into SiriusXM Streaming Radio so you can listen online?

You: log into streaming radio app to listen online from my iphone

SiriusXM: No problem. Follow this link to recover your SiriusXM Streaming Radio username and password.  Did that help?

You: No

SiriusXM: I'll try to do better in the future. Would you like me to connect you with a specialist who can help you right now?

You: Yes

10:40 AM You're now chatting with Wesley.

Wesley:  Hi, my name is Wesley. Thank you for contacting SiriusXM.  Fred, let me access your account and help you to access the app.

You: Hello - I am trying to listen using the app on my phone. I am getting a message that I don't have streaming with my subscription

Wesley:  In order to assist you with your request, I will need to access your account. For security reasons, can you please provide the  complete address, including zip code?

You: ___ Omaha NE ___

10:32 AM

Wesley:  That matches. Certain changes made on your account may result in us sending you an email confirming the changes.  Is fred.cube@email.com your current email address?

You: yes

Wesley:  Perfect. May I know you are trying to access the app with the username: fred.cube@email.com case-sensitive.

You: yes. i am able to login i am unable to listen since I get the message that my subscription does not include streaming (which I've used before).

Wesley:  I get that. Your radio is now under Select Lite plan and this will not allow you to access the online streaming services.

You: When did that change - because I used it this morning, yesterday, a few days ago and so on?  also - if I go to my contract agreement, it says that I have streaming.

Wesley:  I get your concern. Do to [sic] technical glitch you were able to access this app.  I have not heard from you in a while and your chat window shows you've been idle, are you still with me?

You: yes - I was wondering what was going on. Sorry.

Wesley:  Let me explain this for you.

You: Can you point me to what exactly the "Select Lite" offers.

Wesley:  There are 2 plans that is Select and Select lite.  The select lite have same channels what Select plan have however it will not have any online streaming option.

You: ok - what is the regular price for "Select Lite"? I don't see it on your site.

Wesley:  The regular cost for both the package cost $15.99/month + fees and taxes.

You: Select costs the same as select lite?

Wesley:  Yes you are correct.

You: then why did I get switched to select lite?

Wesley:  I see that your radio was under this same plan form Jul 29, 2019 after the free trial ended.

You: the select lite?

Wesley:  Yes you are correct.

10:50 AM

You: ok so I did not want to pay the $15.99 after the free trial so I was going to cancel. The person I talked to offered me this for $5/month (plus fees/tax). But you're telling me that the regular price is the same as select lite. so after my special price ($5) goes away (08/01/2020) I will be paying $15.99 for a service that has no streaming but costs the same as the one that has streaming?  Some people call me a stable genius.

Wesley:  I do understand your concern however now my hands are tight [sic] and can not help you with the Select promo offer that you have now.  If we make any changes then you will lose the promo offer.

You: no - I'm neither concerned nor asking for anything else. I am just trying to make sure I understand.

Wesley:  I get that.

You: I'm not angry or demanding anything. I was just confused because I was able to use streaming until just now. it is seriously (that's how you're supposed to spell serious) no problem. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't doing something wrong. I do have one other request though ...  If you get a chance, could you go down to the tech guys and ask them to reinstall that glitch. It would really be helpful for me. Thanks.

Wesley:  Sure. We have already got few customers with the same technical glitch and have updated to your team.  They are working on it.

You: Thanks Wesley - Although I think something is getting lost in translation. I'm going to go now.

Wesley:  Thank you for understanding.  Is there anything else that I can assist you with today?

Summer Evening

This is another early memory in a voice similar to this one.

The boy knew God.  He knew him well.  He used to talk to him all the time.  There was never any fear.  There was always awe and reverence.  He was taught to say his prayers each night before he went to bed.

He would kneel down with his mother watching as he clasped his hands, closed his eyes, and began,

“Now I lay me down to sleep”

He would say for his mother’s benefit.  In his mind he was slightly embarrassed.  He knew God was listening, and that he and God would start talking for real in a few minutes.  But this was for his mother.  Not God.

“I pray the lord my soul to keep.”

Then he clearly heard in his mind the voice of God, who sounded a lot like his dad, assuring him that yes, he’d keep his soul

“If I should die before I wake …”

In his head, he was saying to God, I don’t want this part about the dying in my sleep.  I mean, yeah – if I do die, by all means, take my soul – but what I’m saying is I don’t want to die.  I only mention it because That’s how mom says you go to heaven.

“I pray the lord my soul to take.  Amen.”

Next he would climb into bed and get a kiss from mom.  She’d turn out the light and the real prayers would begin.

The bed was warm.  The footie pajamas were comfortable.  The cowlick on the front right side of the boy’s head was in full bloom.  Every night, the boy would take his index finger and feel the way the cowlick stuck out.  He’d twirl the hair round and round asking the real god question after question.

The boy loved God for a while.  God was always patient and loving to the boy.  He always helped the boy work through things he didn’t understand.

After a while, though.  The boy learned more about God.  He didn’t learn it from God.  He learned it from Church.  He learned about the things that were sins.  He found out that if you do any of those things, then you go to hell to live with the devil forever.  You don’t go to live with God. 

The boy examined his life, and realized to his horror that he had stolen and he had lied.  Both of these things were on the list. 

The only conclusion this boy could come to was that he was going to spend eternity in Hell.  He was 5 years old.

He didn’t want to talk to God anymore.  He knew that his parents and brother were going to go to heaven and he would be eternally separated from them in hell because he had taken an orange circus peanut candy from a grocery store while nobody was looking.  He had bitten his brother in the arm once, and when his brother screamed about it, saying the boy had bitten him, he had lied.  He said that he had bitten his brother but it was an accident. 

It was no accident.  Worse than the sin was the fact that his parents didn’t believe it was an accident anyway, so it was a completely pointless lie.

The boy still believed in God, but he didn't trust God anymore.  It was terrifying for the boy.  Fifty years later, the boy thought, "You know - maybe don't try to scare kids into behaving with the threat of eternal damnation."

But what does the boy know?

I'm Still Breathing

About 2 months ago, I decided to start making sure I'm still breathing.  I now spend about half an hour a day doing nothing else. I just sit there going "Yep, that was an inhale. I wonder what's next.  Oh what's this? I appear to be exhaling."

SPOILER ALERT! I'm now going to talk about what happens next.

So after that last exhale, there's a brief pause and then, BAM! I inhale again.

Next, I wait to see what happens. I puzzle over it for roughly 1/10th of a second before, what's this? Exhale! Woah. What are the odds?

And so on.

Today was day 60 of my new habit of practicing Mindfulness Meditation.

I learned how to do this from a course I took.

The thing about paying attention to your breathing is that it is pretty much guaranteed that your mind will wander off of focus from your breathing after about 2 or 3 breaths.  Then when you realize your mind has wandered, you focus back on your breath. That moment of realizing your mind has wandered is mindfulness. I hear.

Anyway, what I intend to do with this blog now is record some of the wanderings that happen because they're kind of funny.

 I also think I will jot down various discoveries that happen from time to time, because those are pretty cool.

Sometimes, I may put down some bike related bullshit. We'll see.

Yesterday I remembered something I've been trying to remember for 51 years with no luck.  That made my day. I was on cloud 9 thinking about that. I'll talk about that one another time.

Today was just the ordinary old garden variety attention to my breathing thing.

So if you'll find a comfortable spot ...

~~

Why do you look at the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? 4“Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and behold, the log is in your own eye? 5“You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye. 

This morning, the above passage from the bible (NAS Red Letter edition) came to me and my mind wandered from my breath thus:

How the hell did I even notice the speck in my brother’s eye?

Maybe my brother, who only has a speck in his eye might give me a hand with this log over here.

If I go to all the work to get the log out of my eye, I’m pretty sure my brother can get that speck.

What the hell is going on in Israel that everybody has chunks of wood in their eyes?

Then it came to me: Oh yeah. Carpenters.

That's when I realized that this was not a teaching of Jesus. It was a thinly veiled reference to something that had happened back at the shop. Jesus’ brother had probably walked up to him while he was at the table saw or something and was all “Hey Christ, your hand placement is all wrong.”

Then Jesus was all, “You’re going to tell me about hand placement?”

And so it escalated until Joseph came by and told them to take 5. "Ouch," said Jesus, glancing at his brother, who had lost his pinky finger on the table saw a couple of years earlier.  Jesus' brother let that one go and they walked outside. 

Once everybody was gathered around, Jesus started up with the words above.  Meanwhile, his brother was standing off to one side, arms crossed, shaking his head, glaring at Jesus.

Probably Jesus wanted to say something like “Don’t tell your brother about table saw hand placement unless you actually know what you’re talking about.” But he changed it because most of the workers gathered didn’t know anything about operating table saws. But still, his brother knew what he was getting at.

The cool thing is that years later, they were able to laugh about the whole thing and the fact that it made it into the bible.

~~

And then I went back to my breath where I had the stark realization that at some times I inhale, and at others, I exhale. Hello? Is this thing on?

And sceeeeeene ...

A quote or two

"It's easy to suck. It's not sucking that's hard." -- She.

To suck is the natural state of everything. It is unnatural to be naturally talented.

I just read this book that was possibly the most boringest book ever. It was a book about the importance of a good data management strategy in today's world. It's called something like "data management is important in today's world"

It might not actually be the most boringest book in the world. I'll never know because no way I'm getting  through it. It is roughly 600 pages long. I have to read about 30 pages of it. I have gotten through 15. Pure torture. Here's an example of the type of writing it is.  Not a quote from the book, but the same style. Unfortunately, like when SNL mocks Trump, I won't do justice to the actual horror:

It is very important for companies to understand how important a good data management strategy is and how important it is for companies to understand this. When we say it's important, we mean that without a good data management strategy, many companies in many ways will suffer from not maximizing the management of their data. You know. because of their lack of a good data management strategy ...

Oh excuse me - that's the phone. Hang on ...

Hello. Yeah - Oh hi, guys from that terrible book I'm reading. What's up? No - I was just making a joke. I wasn't serious. But anyway, I already have a job.  Thanks for the offer.

Ok, sorry. Where was I?

It's easy to suck. What sucks most about this book is that it uses a whole lot of words to say very little.  I kind of get it. When we were in school, we had to write essays. We had to write a certain number of words or pages.  We filled in. That's how most of us write.

But real writers? Man. When I am reading something from a real writer and I get to one of those pithy sentences. There's nothing better. Christopher Moore is one of my favorites.  I started reading his new book "Noir" a couple of days ago.

I'm not sure, but I'm thinking he's decided to start each chapter with a wonderful short, hilarious sentence.

The book is set in post WWII San Francisco.  The end of the Prologue (just before chapter one - it's like the plaza level of the book) goes like this:

Yeah, a dame, that's how it all starts ...

So that's cool. The language of the prologue gets the reader into the right narrative voice (whatever the hell that means).

It really wasn't the whole first sentence either. But anyway, it goes like this:

She had the kind of legs that kept her butt from resting on her shoes.

For me it was the first 6 words. Completely cliche. I knew the next part was going to be something about how ridiculously long her legs were. I was wrong. So good.


Ok, chapter 2, sentence one. Again 1947 San Francisco:

The fog lay spread across the city like a drowned whore - damp, cold, smelling of salt and diesel - a sea-sodden streetwalker who'd just bonked a tugboat ...

and just as a bonus, I'll go into the second sentence:

"Fog's a little slutty tonight," said the cabbie, leaning against his hack at the curb outside Sal's.

You know what? What am I doing? I'm going to go read my book now. You should too.

"Noir" - Christopher Moore.

You're welcome.


P.S. - There was something bugging me about this post after I finished it. I was terribly worried that my reader(s) might think I was stretching the truth about how much I like Christopher Moore's writing.  If only there was a way to prove I'm not just some fair weather so-and-so. That's when I got up and turned to my bookshelf. I don't have much of a Christopher Moore collection. I've given away almost all of the books I've read.  Except for two of them.  Other than these 2 books, I don't have any that are "signed by the author".

So there. I win.

Although. Now that I take a close look at that signature ... I might actually be a Channing Tatum fan.  Rawr! I can't really tell.

Yeah. Channing Tatum. That there's a writer.

How to tell if your data was shared by Facebook, A step by step guide.

1) Do you have a Facebook account?

2) Was your data shared? (answer is the same for both questions).

You're welcome.

Based on a true hallucination (A Western)

A few days ago, I was sitting here at the computer, looking at how awesome my workout was.  My workout was a bike ride. I usually like to stare at the numbers for a while and decide how it seems to be going. I like to find some way to look at the workout that makes me feel like I don't totally suck. Usually, it doesn't work, so I have to just plan to work out better next time.

As I was staring at the charts and things, I started to doze off a little. I snapped back to consciousness to catch my head and was able to recall the words that had been going on as I had begun to drift off.

The words were  "Shadow didn't like being followed by the rider man and told all of his disciples it was good."

This means nothing to me. I was not able to make any sense of it. But that's what the narrator said, so it must be important. I'm thinking that since this comes from some jumbled up thoughts in my falling asleep brain, that if I make up a story where this sentence makes sense, it will be exactly the same as if I had not woken to catch my head.

So here's the story that attempts to put that sentence in context and ends up being exactly what I was going to dream ...

But first, I should note that I have not given this any thought yet. I haven't worked out the story.

When I first wrote down the words "Shadow didn't like being followed by the rider man and told all of his disciples it was good," I figured that if I stared at it a while, the meaning or reason would become clear.

No. I have no idea where to begin with this.

I suppose I could just really cop out like this:

"Wakey wakey, Chad,"

"Hey. Ouch! Cut it out Rider."

Rider was tapping Chad "Shadow" in the ribs with the end of his 6-shooter.

"How'd you get here anyway?" Shadow asked, "I thought I lost you back at the junction. You know, I don't like it when you follow me.  That's what I told the disciples."

"Whose disciples? Mine or yours?" Rider asked.

"How the hell should I know?" countered Shadow.

"Hey you want to go get some ice cream or something?" Rider pleaded.

"And how!" exclaimed Shadow.

"Mount up boys! We're headed to 31 flavors!"

"Yee-Haw!" screamed the disciples, throwing their dusty hats in the air.

Shadow had Butter Brickle and The Rider Man got "Rocky Road," mostly so he could say, "You know Shadow, Ice cream is a lot like life."

Rolling his eyes and with a heavy sigh, because he'd heard it a dozen times before, Shadow said with as little interest as he could muster, "Why's that Rider?"

"It don't matter how rocky your road is, as long as somebody's there to butter your brickle."

At that, they both looked at each other and wept uncontrollably.

The End.

Tragic 2. Or Save me a cup 3.

This is the third part.
The first part is here.
The second part is here.

So first there were 2 different stories.  One thing about working far away from where you live is that you have a ton of time to think.  Your mind wanders.  Then when you get to work and your job sucks and people are annoying, there's plenty to write about.

One day on my way to work, I imagined a guy kind of like the slingblade guy. He was kind of brain damaged or something. He called "ketchup" "ketchemup sauce."  This word "ketchemup" came to me as I was driving to work and noticed all the pickup trucks in the parking lot of Builder's Supply near 72nd and Q.

I remembered that when I was a kid, some people used to call pickup trucks "pick-em-up trucks." I wondered if anybody still ever said pick-em-up truck. Then I wondered what other words could be enhanced in the same way as pickup.

Ketchup was the obvious choice to me.   So I envisioned the sort of person who might use the word "Ketchemup." He was kind of like Carl (or is it Karl) from Slingblade.  I started writing a little story about him. It is below.

Around the same time, I wrote a story about a woman who always leaves hot coffee sitting on the counter at work.  That story was so poorly written that I could not post it, but posted the "precis" called "Tragic" recently. But Cube, what the hell is "precis?" How the hell should I know?  The word spilled out of my head just now, but I think it's right. Look it up. I don't know.

Anyway - At one point, I realized that the man that Mary (Dawn below) was waiting for was Phil.  Yeah - Phil was the guy working his way to the diner.  I lied about Jerome.  I was trying to be funny.  Surprise!

Mary's story was called "Save me a Cup" and Phil's story was called "Ketchemup Sauce"

Here is what I wrote about Phil when I wasn't writing about Mary before I knew it was two sides to the same story. Thankfully, this writing is nowhere near as terrible as Mary's story so I can just post it "as is".

~~

Philip did not know how many days and nights he had been walking along the highway.  He did not know which direction he was going.  He was just walking.  His work boots and coveralls were coated in the white dust from the crushed gravel of the road.

Philip was lost in a confused array of memories. There was Dawn.  Always Dawn.  Philip's one true love.  She had promised to wait for him. He remembered that.  He didn't remember why she had to. Where did he go? Where did Dawn go?  What Happened?

He didn't even know her face.  Just her name and her hair.  Her big brown hair.

In Philip's dreams, Dawn always came to him wearing her golden gown.  He tried every night to get a glimpse of her face.  He knew if he could remember her face, he'd remember everything.  Who he was.  Where he came from.

But her face was always obscured by her big brown hair.  Hair the color of coffee.

How long had he been walking, he wondered.  Days?  Weeks?  Years?  Months? Philip was confused.  He needed to sit a while and rest.  He curled up on the gravelly shoulder of the highway and slept.  Just inches from the myriad 18 wheelers that would pass by every few minutes.

With the sleep came the dreams of Dawn.  Gold and lace.  Coffee colored hair.  But her face. Her back was to him and he reached for her. Philip felt the warmth of her shoulder as he pulled her to face him.  She turned and he saw her bright red lips. This was a first.  The farthest he'd ever gotten in the dream.  He glanced up to look into her eyes, but then her mouth opened wide enough to cover her whole face as she screamed at him "Haaaawwwwnk!"

Philip awoke confused to see a semi swerving back to it's lane. Philip was partially resting on the highway.  "That was close," he thought, referring to almost seeing Dawn's face.

Philip looked down the road he'd come from to see the rising sun.  "So I'm heading west.  Hmm."

A couple of hours later, Philip was seated in a diner at the side of the road.

Fill up.

What?

Fill up. My cup.  reaching into his coveralls, Phil wanted his cup filled.

I'm sorry mister, I can't just ...

Sam was a little annoyed by this smelly vagrant trying to get free coffee from him.  Not that he was heartless or anything. It's just he could barely keep his little diner going. If word got around that he was giving out free coffee to hobos, he'd be done.

But there was something about this particular smelly vagrant.  Sam knew the story too well. Everybody in town knew Dawn's sad tale. How her fiance had been killed overseas.  The body was never found. That was the tragedy. Dawn would never have closure. Sam had listened time and time again to Dawn. He felt sorry that she'd never give up.

Now Sam was looking at a man with a dirty old cup.

When Phil went off to war, Dawn had given him a cup from the diner. She told him he had earned free coffee for life.  She told him to protect the cup with his life or the deal was off. They all laughed about it at the time.

Whenever she told that story, Dawn always smiled as tears ran down her face.

Phil had tried to get free coffee from roadside diners for months.  He'd always present his own cup.  Free refills, he'd say. For life.

It never worked.

Sam excused himself from Phil and went over to the phone.  As he picked up the receiver, Phil got scared.  He jumped to his feet and shuffled toward the door.

"You there.  Hang on!" called Sam.

Phil didn't slow down.  He'd had the police warn him enough.  He'd been beaten more times than he could count.

"Sit down son.  I'll get you your cup.  But let me wash it off first."

Phil considered this.  What's one more beating against the promise of some nice hot coffee?  He stood at the door for a few seconds then turned back to the counter.

"I'd like a burger too.  With plenty of Ketchemup sauce, please."

Sam didn't believe this drifter had the money for a burger, but if Phil was who Sam thought he was, he wouldn't need it.

Sam took the cup from Phil and washed it off. The turned it over to see the scrawled message on the bottom. No question. This was the cup.

Sam tossed a patty on the grill and picked up the phone.

~~

Dawn could not catch a break. She worked 12 hours a day, 6 days a week.  Even then, she could barely make ends meet. She could definitely use the cash.

So when she saw that Sam was calling, she almost picked it up.

But no.  She could not work today.

Today was the anniversary she never had. The war saw to that.

This was the only sacred day of the year for Dawn.

Sam could find somebody else to sling hash today.

Tragic

Maybe not.  I Put "Tragic" as the title of this post because I just got done reading some notes I wrote a long time ago about a story I want to tell. It outlines a woman whose life is defined by great and constant sorrow.  Everything goes wrong for her.  It's real sad. Sniff.  Now since I can't write, I know this story will never be written properly.  So I might as well just tell the story here.

When I wrote this thing originally, I was trying to "write".  When I look at it now, I cringe.  The words I was using don't sound like me at all. Well, they do, but they sound way more douchy than normal.  "Douchy" is a french word, meaning "Showery". Say that reminds me, maybe the French don't shower that much because the word for it is "douche."

"Alors Michel, you showered again, non?"

"Oui."

"Douche!"

Yeah that's probably the problem.

Anyway - the story and my "douchy" talk. I'm just going to go back and read the thing (even though it's kind of painful) and jot down some of the more cringeworthy phrases here.  The thing is, yeah, a lot of the crap I write is crap. But it's worse when I'm trying to be all "authory." Way worse.
Ok here goes. I'll be right back ...

... the soft blonde hair of her young daughter as her mother's countenance turns obsidian and ...

What the fuck?  The thing is - this crap is in the middle of a sentence that is darkly humorous (to me. at least).  Countenance? Obsidian?  Jesus!

Also - I think I should take out the word "soft" or "blonde".  Maybe:

... her daughter's downy hair as her mother's FACE DARKENS and ...

Yeah - much better - except - downy?  Dude! Chill.

Next up:

... she could never be serious about a boy with so little ambition ...

Yeah I don't know why, but I don't like the word "boy" here. It just seems like somebody else talking.

But again, I think I can fix this sentence. How about:

... she was a real bitch ... 

Ok, I'm kidding. I don't know how to fix it.  The point is, it's just horrible, but it was kind of fun to write because this poor gal (somebody else's word) can't catch a break.

So here's the story (or some of it) without trying to "write".  It's just too hard to not suck.

There's a girl about 10 years old. Her name is Mary.  She lives in a small town near a highway. Her mother waits tables at the diner along the highway. They are poor.  Mary's father left before Mary was born.

Mary is determined to have a better life. She dreams of making her own way to success. She saw how her mother's life was ruined by putting hope in a man. A man Mary's mother never stopped believing in. That one day he'd return. She was a little goofy.  (Just between you and me - because there's no way Mary or her mother will ever find this out, but Mary's father loved Mary's mother more than anything. He had completely changed since meeting her. He had just bought a ring and was daydreaming his way back to propose when his car went over a cliff into the ocean and he was never ever seen again by anybody. But don't tell anybody I told you. It will spoil the surprise).

So Mary is a bit of a daydreamer herself. She has a secret place she goes to be alone. One day there's a boy there. Phil. After some lame, predictable banter, they become lifelong friends. Phil loves her from the beginning. But Mary will not let some guy ruin her plans. She won't allow herself to fall.

Until they're about 17 years old. She gets pregnant. Quits school (abandons scholarships).  Gets a job at the diner. Phil gets drafted. Killed (MIA, actually). She miscarries a daughter. Her mother dies of cancer. And it's all really really sad. Seriously.

One thing she does every night for 20 years. When she closes the diner, she sets a cup of steaming hot coffee on the counter, locks up, and walks home. Alone.

She does this because when Phil was leaving for the war, she asked when he'd return. He said he'd be back before his coffee got cold. A lie Mary has lived with for thousands of nights.

~~

Somewhere on a highway, a homeless man has been traveling toward the diner. He's been at it for longer than he can remember.  Years maybe. He doesn't know. His memory is not too good.  He doesn't know who he is or where he came from.  He was severely injured in the war. All he remembers is a name and a cup of coffee.  He will eventually find his way to the diner.  Instinct draws him.

Even though he doesn't know it, his name is ... Jerome.  Yeah, it's totally not Phil.  Too bad, too.  Man that'd be awesome. But even though he's technically MIA, Phil did die in the war  (Don't tell anybody - that'd spoil the surprise).

One last thing. For some reason I could never figure out, Jerome calls Ketchup "Ketch-em-up Sauce"

It's not really important, but that's where this story started from. That and a lady at the last place I worked named "Mary" who left a steaming hot cup of coffee unattended in the break room every morning.  I blogged about it before. Hang on - I'll see if I can find it ...

Ok here it is:  Mystery Solved

Oops. I just realized. That makes this blog entry part 2 of that one.  Ha - It was that long ago I wrote this. Well, this is unprecedented. I continued a "to be continued."

And you thought I'd never do it.

To be continued ...

Inky

Just in case I don't get to talk to my dad for some reason, I figure it makes sense to completely fabricate the story of Inky Henderson. I realize that I could completely fabricate it with exactly what actually happened because my subconscious could give me hints.  Anyway, let's give it a go.

I'm going to go off of this. I'm including the first line from before even though I'm not sure it belongs. So recapping (there's that word again - for me - not you. I talked about it in a post already written but to be published at a later date), this story is derived from this drunken note:


fred didnt believe me wed have never gone back but fred thought I was lying.  car stuck

inky henderson.  started going under.  everybdy standed there looking.

house fire the next night.

This will be told in "dad story speak." I know it well.

So we was all out at Two Rivers. We was drinking some beers. There was about 8 of us there. There was this gal. Cute little thing. Inky Henderson. I don't even know what her real name was.  We called her Inky because she had dark hair and dark dark eyes. Inky was drunk.

Inky was Teeny's girl. Teeny's one true love.  Not that Teeny was a monk. He liked to fool around with other gals. Hell, we all did.

But Inky was terrible [sic] jealous of Teeny.
 
Teeny figured what Inky didn't know wouldn't hurt her. Unless it was how to swim.  That there, son. That's foreshadowing.  See we was all at Two Rivers. Water. Get it?

Anyway, there's this other gal. Her name was Marla, but we called her Georgia. She used to go out with Teeny before Inky.  Georgia and Teeny still fucked around occasionally. Georgia wasn't much to look at, but man alive! was she stacked.

Georgia's dad was a fire chief or something. Big mother fucker. Mean. Most of the guys were scared of him. He used to threaten us. If we touched his daughter and all that. He didn't scare me. I told him "I ain't touchin' your daughter, but only because she's so homely, not because I'm scared of your fat ass."

No shit. That's what I said to him. Ask your mother.  Anyway - he just laughed it off because even though I was just a kid, I had a reputation for being one tough son of a gun. He had nothing to gain either way.

But Georgia. She'd suck anybody off for a buck. Oh yeah. I just remembered. That's why we called her Georgia. For George Warshington. His face is on the dollar bill. Get it?

So we's all out at Two Rivers and Georgia and Teeny start flirting with each other. Remember. Inky's drunk.

Teeny - his real name was Tony. But we always called him Teeny cause that sonofabitch had the biggest dick you ever saw. We always said it was a good thing Georgia had such a big mouth.

Georgia would be going on about some shit and we'd say "It's a good thing you got such a big mouth Georgia, 'cause I heard Teeny's got a dollar."

"Ha, Ha. Very funny guys. Where is he?" Georgia was cool. We all knew she was a slut. But we didn't care. Au Contraire! That's French, son. It means, "Not even close." My uncle Jimmy. He learned all this french when he was over there in the war. He's a one taught me.

So anyway - we're all sitting around drinking some beers and it starts to rain a little bit.  It was a hot night, so the rain felt good.

Georgia was just wearing a white tank top so when it started raining, Teeny says, "So are you cold Georgia?" checking out her hi-beams.

Woah, you should have seen Inky.  She jumps up and starts yelling. "Give me your goddam keys you bastard!"

Inky was so small and so drunk that Teeny just about fell over laughing, "C'mon Ink, I'm just foolin ..."

"Keys Teeny! Now!"  She's staggering over to Teeny, her hands, tiny little balls of rage.

"Alright Alright," Teeny relented (By the way - I've kind of slipped out of dad speak here and there. Oh well), "Just don't hit me!"

That did it. Everybody lost it on that one.  So we're all cracking up and Inky starts slapping at Teeny. It looked kind of like ... well have you ever seen that King Kong movie when he's on top of the Empire State Building?"  Inky was like the planes pestering him.

So Inky gets the keys and stomps/trips over to Teeny's car.

We kept on having a good time and forgot about Inky until a few minutes later when we hear Teeny's old car starting up.  Now it was backed up to the water because they had the trunk open earlier when they were all swimming over there. There were a few things Inky was not good at. Driving and swimming were 2 of them.

You can see where this is going.

So Inky puts the car in gear and stomps on the gas to peel out. Now I don't know if it was because she was a shit driver or because she was so drunk, but she had the car in reverse.

She peels out alright. Right down the bank and into the river.  We all just sat there stunned. We couldn't believe what we was seeing. So then Teeny. He looks at me like he's all worried and stuff.  He says, "Oh shit Freddy. Now how am I gonna get home?"

We're laughing because we're all pretty stupid, when we hear Inky screaming.  Turns out she can't swim and she's stuck in that car. It's sinking fast. 

Nobody knows what to do, so I just start running over there to where the car is now completely under water.  I jump in and I can't see shit.  Then I feel bubbles coming up and so I swim down and feel around.  I feel the car and Inky has the window part way open. I can't get her through so I kick at the driver's window and nothing happens.  I just push off the window when I try to kick it. I'm in water, so I can't get anything behind my kick.  Now I'm feeling like I am going to have to go up for air, but I know that if I need it, Inky needs it more, so I grab the window and start pulling on it. There's metal around the glass, so that's what saved my hands when the window finally came free. I pulled Inky out and got her up on the shore.

Everybody was pretty happy Inky was still alive, because most of us wasn't supposed to be out at the Two Rivers.

So that's how I saved Inky Henderson from drowning.

Now son, I have a question for you. Would you rather drown or get burned alive? Before you answer, what if you got to live one more day experiencing the peace and joy that comes with being saved from drowning.

I don't know either.
 
True story.

Follow up:

Ok - I talked to my dad.  The main difference between fact (this) and fiction (above) is that they were at the Platte river. There was a spot they used to go to where the water was real deep. You can mostly wade across the Platte except in a few areas. Inky's nickname. I guessed it was because she had dark features, but when I asked dad why she was called Inky, he said (like it should be obvious) "Because she was so small. Just an Inky little thing."

Inky didn't know the water got deep there and she was walking around and fell into the hole.  She couldn't swim and just started screaming for help. Dad said everybody was just standing around not doing anything. He wasn't there to swim that day so he was wearing his jeans and shirt and everything. But he jumped in and pulled her out of the water.

Then Georgia sucked him off.  Just kidding. I made Georgia up.

Two days later Inky's whole family (except a brother, who was out) died in a house fire. Which sucks.

Squirrely Harvest Incompetent Move (Update)

That's what it was. There are people who would say that if you crash, it's your own fault. Of course, this is a hard pill to swallow because there is some truth to it. But let's not forget that there is luck at play as well. There are times when you crash, there is little you could have done to avoid it.

The moment I knew I was going to crash, I didn't see what caused it. I saw the bike and rider 2 places in front of me go down hard. Immediately after that was the guy right in front of me. Then me.

I found out later the first to go down was Sam Fritz. Next was Jordan Miller (I think).  These were arguably 2 of the strongest guys in the field.  They were both in the mix for the win at the end of the race (I hear).

The thing that confused me about the crash was the fact that it happened at all. We were going uphill.  What the fuck?  How does a bicyclist just fall over going up a hill?

I found out later that the rider didn't just fall over. He got knocked over as the result of a Squirrely Harvest Incompetent Move.  You know what? I'm not going to keep typing that out. I'll have to try and think up a clever abbreviation for it.

So 6 miles and 20 minutes into a 60 mile road race, my first cat 1/2/3 race. I'm standing beside my bike in great pain. I may have a cracked rib. I have a huge nasty swollen left hip.  I hit my shoulder hard enough that I thought I might have broken something there. But after a moment, I realized that the pain in my hip and back was way worse.  Bad enough that as the others got up and rode away - I could only stand there, groaning.  I was bent over my bike, watching the race ride away from me.

I knew it was already too late to get back to those guys.  I stood there helpless as the dropped riders now started going by me.

Wait a minute. Dropped riders? Oh yeah.  Unlike most of the road races I've done, this one started full out from the very beginning. Attack after attack. It was horrible.

If you're old enough to remember matchbooks, maybe you've played with them before.  There was always this fun thing to do with a book of matches. You'd take out a match and with your finger, press the head against the flint and swipe it toward your friend, sending a tiny flaming missile their way. Sometimes the match would ignite and stick to your finger.  That was usually the end of the game. Sometimes, you'd pull all the matches out first and line them up, so you could go into rapid fire mode.

That's what the first 20 minutes of this race was like. So I was hanging on but we still had 54 miles to go. People had been dropped and I had crashed. I honestly don't know how much longer I could have hung on anyway.

 After about 1 minute and 45 seconds, I climbed on and started gingerly pedaling, not sure if I'd continue.  I got into my own rhythm and went by a dropped rider after a few minutes. I could see the other 2 who had crashed way up the road. I saw them going by another dropped rider way up the road from me. I made that rider my carrot. I didn't know who it was. Yet.

It took me a little bit more than a full lap, but I eventually caught on to Rich Anderson's wheel.  He was going fast enough that I knew I wouldn't drop him, so I suggested we each do one minute pulls.  Which we did for about a lap.

At one point, we turned east with a tail-cross wind and I saw there was another rider up ahead. I was pulling, but motivated to catch that rider, so I got aero and pulled hard. By the time I caught the rider, I had dropped Rich.

So I went into TT mode. Again.  When I looked back again, Rich was not in sight, but I could see that the Cat 4 race was catching me.  With just under 2 laps to go, they caught me. I let them go by as I believed I was supposed to.  And guess who was with them?

Rich Anderson.

So we were reunited.  I didn't think that you were supposed to be able to get a lift from another group, but others seem to think that's ok. I don't know. Sounds like cheating to me.

If I had known that was legal, I would have just jumped in with them rather than letting them go by and slogging it out alone.

Update: I was told after the race that it was ok to draft with a group from another race as long as you don't "work together".  This was not correct information. I consulted the rulebook this morning:

3B5. Taking pace or assistance from any outside means is
forbidden, including holding on to a motor vehicle or taking
pace from riders in a different race that is concurrently on
the same course.

Good old rulebook.



I asked Rich if he drafted off the Cat 4 group and he said "No, I was just riding behind them."

I'm not sure what was confusing about my question.  (Just kidding Rich - it's cool. Not Really).

Anyway - I was starting to get worn out and thought I'd better let Rich pull almost 100% of the way after that. He was clearly fresher at that point than I was.  So I was sitting behind him wondering if I'd be able to stay with him if/when he kicked it in at the end.  I was kind of disgusted because I had chased him down once and dropped him again. Then he was able to get back to me. Jerk! (Just kidding - not really).

But he paid his dues at the end.

So I was sitting on his wheel with about 5 miles to go when I noticed that my front tire was going flat.

Just fucking fabulous.  "See you later, Rich," I said, "I've got a flat."

So now I had no choice but to ride on a flat tire.

Oh wait, I had a couple of choices.

1) Get off the bike and wait for a sweeper to rescue me. And get a big old DNF after all the bullshit of the day.

2) Continue to be a man for another 15-20 minutes or so and finish this goddamn thing.

I went with option 2.

No matter what though, I didn't want the tire to come off (clinchers) or to damage my wheel. So if the tire had come off or I wasn't able to keep my weight way back, I'd have to quit.

So for the last 5 miles, I had to take the downhills slow. The turning was almost at a standstill. The climbing was ok, but every crack in the road, I had to lift the front wheel off the ground to avoid hard impact.

I finished and hopped off my bike immediately. That's also when I realized how much pain I was in. I just about fell over from the stabbing pain in my back.

The first guy that hit the road (Sam) in my crash came up to me and explained what happened.

He said, "One of the Harvest guys was riding real squirrely and he kind of veered into me and took me out."

I wanted to know which one, but Sam wasn't tattling on anybody.

So I hobbled over to the car and grabbed my stuff to change.  On my way, Shim called over to me, "Did you hear what happened?"

He told me that somebody next to him moved toward him and he had to move over and when he did his wheel went into a crack and it made his back wheel swerve around or something and that's what took out Sam.

Oh - I just figured maybe Shim thought he saw a soda can and tried to tail whip it out of everybody's way.  You either know Shim or you have no idea how funny that last thing I said is.

Anyway - I consider Shim to be the cause of the wreck.  I'm sure he disagrees and that's Ok. I'm told there's two schools of thought on the subject.  I'm not mad.  Shit happens.

I've told a few people before and it's true. I consider all of those Harvest/Trek guys to be kind of like family. Like if somebody who's not a harvest/trek person starts talking shit about one of them, I get a little defensive.

So yeah - fuck that guy. (Just kidding, Shim - not really).

In Shim's defense, he did offer me some Advil. He didn't have any - but it was nice of him to offer.

Steven Hawkings

I get to work at 7 AM. It has it's advantages over getting in at 8AM.

There are not many people in the office at that time and it's a good time to settle in and get started working. It's pretty quiet, so I can get into a good frame of mind before the day gets loud.

But some mornings, it's already loud when I get there. Not because there are more people.

Sometimes "Larry" and "Curt" are excited to tell each other stuff. "Randy" is always involved in the conversation, but I never hear a word he says. Presumably, Randy is not a loud-mouth obnoxious asshole.

I'm about done with the word "mansplain," which is too bad because I read that it just made it into the dictionary.  It seems like blogger doesn't know this yet because it's got a red squiggly line under it as I look at it, indicating it is misspelled.

But these guys manspain at each other some mornings. Really loud. Back and forth.  Sometimes they ask Randy for verification.  I don't hear what Randy says, but they both hear him and the mansplaining continues.

You know what that means? They could all talk to each other at Randy's volume and I wouldn't hear them. They must want me to hear what they are saying.  They are clearly out to impress anyone within earshot (roughly a quarter of a mile). That's the ONLY reason to talk that loud.

Anyway, yeah. So what? They talk loud and it's annoying.  But this morning I was glad I heard this stuff. 

Sometimes, when I'm reading, I marvel at the imagination it takes to write a good story.  The work it must take that I so easily take for granite [sic]. 

I will read a few sentences and stop and consider if I think I could have come up with that in a million years.  Not if it was complete fiction. 

That's why I enjoyed this terribly dumb conversation.  I learned a couple of things I didn't know while hearing some of the stupidest shit ever.

So there was talk about the NIT tournament and the Minnesota quarterback getting traded.  Then it turned to talk of that one song by Pink Floyd and how amazing it was because Steven Hawkings [sic] sang in it.  Ok - I know his name was "Stephen Hawking" but I'm pretty sure if these guys decided they were a disruption and should just pass notes, they'd spell it "Steven Hawkings."

But I did not know Pink Floyd had a song (feat. Stephen Hawking).

So the conversation went like this:

"No, Curt. I know the song you're talking about, but it wasn't Pink Floyd. It was that one song.  It definitely wasn't Pink Floyd."

"No Larry. It was definitely Pink Floyd. And Steven Hawkings was talking on it."

"Hang on Curt. I remember. It was that one song called "Behind Blue Eyes"

Now when I heard this, I was not thinking of the song by "The Who." I was thinking of the song "In Your Eyes" by Peter Gabriel.  Now I'm not going to say that Peter Gabriel was the best singer, but he did not sound anything like the synth voice thing Stephen Hawking used. So I was confused.

Then Larry said, "Who sings that song, Randy?"

Silence. Then, "Oh yeah - that's right. The Who. But it was somebody else doing that song."

At that point I went to get a cup of coffee. Actually, I take my own coffee, but I have to rinse out my cup each day. That's what I went to do.

When I got back, they had it all figured out. Larry had clearly consulted "teh goggle box"

 "So here's what it was.  Limp Bizkit did "Behind Blue Eyes" and in one part, they couldn't get the real Steven Hawkings voice, so they got an impersonator. Pink Floyd actually got the real Steven Hawkings's voice. So we were both right."

Silence.

"Shut the fuck up Randy. You know what? You got [sic] a big mouth!"

I can only imagine what Randy said. But I bet he is a quiet mansplainer.  There's always one.  I like to think he whispered something like, "No you're both fucking idiots.  That wasn't Stephen Hawking's voice. He had no voice. It was synthesized speech. Morons!" 

God bless Randy.

Summer Afternoon

A boy sits, legs crossed on a wooden floor.  The sheer curtains are getting blown around by the late summer breeze. The boy is watching something on television.  The shell of the TV is a sort of bumpy silver aluminum.  It stands on four dark brown legs.  There is an antenna on top of the TV with it's ears fully extended.

The boy isn't really interested in the TV. He is watching his mother. He knows she is 'mom' but he doesn't really understand that. To the boy she is just the pretty, smiling woman who is always here.

His mother has blond hair. She seems to be different than before today, but the boy doesn't remember much about before today.  He thinks her hair was brown before but the boy likes the blond hair. He thinks his mom is beautiful.  He watches her ironing clothes. The ironing board makes a rhythmic sharp creaking sound every time the iron goes toward the pointed end of the board.

She looks up from her ironing because of a rustling sound in the room behind her. It is the dining room and the boy is in the living room with the mother ironing between the two.

She sees the boy watching her and smiles at him and goes to check on the baby in the crib behind her.  The baby is the boy's brother. The boy doesn't know his brother or when he showed up. It doesn't seem like the brother was always here. He might have been here before today but the boy isn't sure. He thinks his brother will be here after today but doubts he'll remember it.  This makes the boy sad. He looks at his knees and how his legs go into his socks and shoes. He feels the shoes with his hand but cannot feel them with his feet.  He hopes his feet are ok. He sighs and looks at the TV. It's mostly static, but sometimes he can see people and hear talking and that's pretty neat.

He wonders when the man will be back. The man doesn't smile like his mother does. But the man is very strong.  He can throw the boy into the sky and catch him when he comes back down. The boy likes when he does that, but sometimes the strong man is very scary.

This is my earliest memory.

The lost story of Inky

I don't know who Inky Henderson is or was. I think Inky died many years ago. I am going to try to find out though and I will get back to you.  There are few people who know the story. Maybe there is only one.  Maybe it is not even a good story.  Maybe Inky's last name is or was spelled "Hendersen." It is not for me to say.

Exactly 3 years ago was 6 days before I heard the story of Inky Henderson.  I think Inky was a girl.

I completely forgot everything about the story I heard. It was being told to me by my dad who was drunk. Also, I was drunk. Which is probably why I don't remember the story at all.

But I was not face to face with my dad. We were talking on the phone. This is lucky because even though I was drunk, I could tell it was a great story so I tried to take notes about it as he was telling it to me.

I'm sure that if I had read the notes the next day, I could have put the whole thing together.

But I did not read the notes the next day. I read them just now. I jotted the following down while talking to my dad on the phone on March 13, 2015.

"fred" in the following is not me or my dad. It was his lifelong friend. A 6 foot tall rabbit. fred is dead now.  Anyway, here it is:

fred didnt believe me wed have never gone back but fred thought I was lying.  car stuck

inky henderson.  started going under.  everybdy standed there looking.

house fire the next night. 

Now I honestly don't know if the first line is part of the Inky Henderson story or something else. I will find out.

I have to say it doesn't look good for Inky on "the next night."  It looks like Inky narrowly escapes death one night only to become the victim of irony in the next 24 hours.  I could be completely wrong about this.

I don't know if Inky was in a car that was in water somewhere or if she was just drowning.  I will talk to my dad about this. Hopefully one of us is sober when this happens. 

One thing I do know is that "standed" is drunk for "stood"

To be continued ...

Unnecessarily living with pain

While I was still working back at the UP, I was in fairly ok bike shape. Possibly the best bike shape of my life to that point.  I decided I would run the Corporate Cup. A 10K foot race thing. I figured I could handle it in less than an hour with little trouble.

That was the day I learned that being in fairly ok bike riding shape had nothing to do with running.  I did finish in under an hour. Just barely.  I turned the final corner to see the big clock that said 00:59:22. So I had a block or two to go and about 38 seconds to get there. I sprinted for all I was worth and reached a speed of upwards of 10 miles an hour.  Hobbling across the finish line to the cheer of all the thousands of people who had already finished.   

I think it was about a week later that I was able to walk again without any visible signs of injury. It was a tough week.

The worst of it was my right hip.  It has given me pain off and on since that day (I don't know the year - but I figure it was roughly 15 years ago).

After that day, whenever I decided to get back into running, the pain in my hip would start up. Well, every time except one.

One winter at least 10 years ago, I got to a new low weight (about 190) and decided to get back into running. I decided I'd start slow and quit each session at the first sign of any hip pain. This way, I figured I could gradually work up to running fitness.

It kind of worked. I did a 5K the following March in under my goal time of 25 minutes. Brady helped pace me in on time on that one. He had finished his race and went over to where I was and ran along side me and coaxed me to get across in time.

That particular race featured a keg of beer at the end. Free beer until it was all gone. Unfortunately (or fortunately) for me, it was gone in well under 25 minutes.

I had no hip pain after that race.

Once I got away from running after that, I have never been able to start up without pain.  It didn't matter how slow I went. Running brought pain.

It has been getting worse since last winter. I injured myself trying to jog on the treadmill as part of a warmup for squats.

Squats are far and away my favorite strength training exercise, but that one day of jogging for about 10 minutes, 14 months ago has left me with too much pain to do them.

This winter, I've been warming up on the rollers and trying to do squats (no weight) as much as I can. I can usually get about 5 to 10 in per set before the pain makes me stop.

A couple of years ago, I talked to the doctor about the problem and said it doesn't bug me too much as long as I ride and don't run. He seemed ok with that, so I was too.

We have a couple of rental properties. I am a Lord of some of the finest land near the Benson area.  At one of the slumlike dwellings charming fixer-uppers I own, the renters pay cash each month. They are good renters. They always pay on time.

So last month I put the big stack of cash in my wallet and went to the bank to deposit it.  While I was driving to the bank, my hip was bugging me quite a bit.  It was the same pain as always, but I hadn't been having much pain before I put the extra cash in my ...

Doh!

So 15 years later, I had a thought forming in my brain. I was driving along, furrowed brow, thinking:

"Hey ... I know."

"What if ..."

"All this time ..."

"The problem has been ..."

"Me sitting on my Costanza-esque wallet."

It can't be that simple. So I immediately dismissed the idea and did nothing about it and have excruciating hip pain to this day.

The End.

~~

Ok so It's probably too early to tell, but after I wondered if maybe my wallet wasn't at least partially to blame for my pain, I looked for an alternative to carrying my money in my back pocket. I tried a couple of different things, but ended up with a solution that I like ever so much. It's basically 2 sheets of carbon fiber the size of a credit card and a strap. I put my cards, driver's license, insurance cards, Regal Theater preferred customer awards card (just kidding), Tile wallet finder, and some cash in it and carry the whole thing in my front pocket.

I have had a little lingering pain since I started doing this 3 weeks ago but nowhere near the pain I had before. Also, I'm on week 2 of squats with more weight than I've used in years and no pain.  Yaay me!

Here's a picture of the thing. It's made by a company called Fidelo and it's pretty sweet.

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.