Left behind: The Turk', as captured through the glass of the front storm door.

Upon finally getting out of Dodge I usually snap a shot of Bibleburg receding in the rear view mirror, but this time I thought I’d take a pic of Turkish wondering why I get to be outside and he doesn’t.

The Turk’ is fond of me in a benevolently rapacious fashion, but what he really loves is to be outside on a sunny day, rolling around in the driveway, thunking his shovel-shaped skull against the concrete with each ecstatic flip.

Turk’ can’t follow my peregrinations online, lacking the requisite interest, computer skills and thumbs, but you can continue to catch my little act here and/or at my backup blog, maddogmedia.wordpress.com. That rascal has up-to-date software and can be managed from the iPhone.

And should you pop round on Friday, be sure to wish Herself a happy birthday. No matter how many laps she jogs around the sun, she retains her ageless beauty. Maybe she’s running backward.

I do have a substantial cushion — I don’t really need to be in Tucson until Saturday afternoon. But I like to take my time on road trips, savoring this, that and the other, and this friggin’ storm may cost me some much-anticipated eating, drinking and soaking time in Santa Fe.

At moments like this I can understand why some people fly. Buy the ticket, check your luggage, fork over $175 each way to take a bike along, sample any number of airborne viruses while strapped down in your pressurized aluminum tube, reassemble the bike at your destination — assuming that (a) it and your toolkit get there, and (b) none of your stuff is destroyed — do your ride, then repeat the whole process in reverse, only this time with a severe upper-respiratory infection and an $8,000 bike with a dent in the down tube and an inexplicable stain on the saddle.

Y’know, come to think of it, driving a Subaru Forester packed to the gunwales with bike crap, journalism tools and camping gear through blizzard conditions seems kind of pleasurable by comparison.

As a consequence, I didn’t bother to ride. I figure I have plenty of that sort of thing coming up soon, and in a more hospitable climate, too. Instead, I visited my chiropractor, started packing and scored the fixings for a big pot of chicken noodle soup, which is simmering as we speak.

Soup sounded good, and more important, there will be leftovers, which will come in handy during my absence. Herself will cook an egg, or a holiday feast, but leaves the shopping and three-squares-a-day stuff to me. If you like to eat, you want a great fat bastard running the kitchen, not some 95-pound sprite whose capacity is about equal to that of a baby robin. I’ll cook up a couple more items tomorrow and freeze ’em so she’ll have heat-it-and-eat-its while I’m pushing envelopes down in cactus country.

The fun part of all this is the packing. Ordinarily when vacationing in Arizona I park myself in McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, so any forgetfulness on my part is easily remedied. But bike shops, REIs and other dispensaries will be few and far between south of Tucson, so I have to try to transcend my brain damage and take everything I might possibly need, including a bigger vehicle to carry it all.

George Washington Hayduke got along fine with his own two legs, plus 60 pounds of gear in a backpack, but I’m going to need something with more carrying capacity. Maybe a Peterbilt, or a CH-47F Chinook helicopter.

Text updates work OK, kinda, sorta — I have to type in the HTML window instead of the Visual window — but pix are a no-go on the Flash-impaired iPhone when using Safari. I tried an end-around using TwitPic, but no joy. Anyone out there with a little more experience? I’m running an old version of self-hosted WordPress (2.6), which may be the source of my troubles. There’s a WordPress app for iPhone, but it requires WordPress 2.7.

Of course, “courage” is hardly the word to use here. Dubbed “The Underperformer” by Time magazine in a 2006 article discussing America’s five worst senators, Bunning wouldn’t have dared take such a stand were he not retiring from the Senate. To do so would’ve have taken actual balls instead of the substitutes he played with while pitching baseball instead of fits.

One thing I don’t understand: Why has nobody asked whether Bunning was such a deficit hawk when the Daffy-Fudd cabal was running two unfunded wars? Probably because the press knows it won’t have him to kick around much longer. Lazy pricks.

The old beast gets a new crank.

You can quit searching the taverns, flophouses and obits — I’m still very much alive, despite the feddle gummint’s insistence on tinkering with The World’s Best Health Care System®. I just haven’t had much to say. Too busy riding the bike.

I actually managed to log 150 miles last week despite the weather, and I’m finally starting to feel vaguely like a cyclist again. On Wednesday, the DBR went to Old Town for more surgery — this time a Ritchey crankset with 172.5mm arms and 50/34 chainrings — and on Saturday I took it out for three hours and climbed every damn’ hill in town, some of ’em twice.

Weird how the little things can make a difference. I had always ridden 172.5mm cranks until I took up mountain biking. Longer levers were the fashion off road, so I stepped up to 175mm cranks on the MTB and stuck with them when I started racing cyclo-cross. Finally I went to 175s on the road bike, too, thinking, what the hell, I ride ’em on everything else.

But when I got the Jamis Supernova, it showed up sporting a compact crankset with 172.5mm arms. And y’know what? I kinda liked the feel. I’m not grinding along the single-track this time of year — I’m mostly riding the road, or some bike path, and it’s a whole lot easier to spin shorter cranks and smaller rings with bum knees and a big ass.

So chalk up another convert to the Church of the Compact Crank. Now if I could just find a shop that sold legs and lungs. …

You ain't gonna be spendin' no 40 days an' nights wanderin' ’roun' this desert, bo'. Move along, move along.

If Christ were to begin wandering around our local wilderness, collecting disciples and preaching sermons, sooner or later he and they would run afoul of Bibleburg’s latest ordinance forbidding camping on public property.

The ordinance is both shameful and silly in that it (a) demonstrates the lack of compassion in the black, withered heart of Industrial Christianity and (b) will be impossible to enforce.

Regarding the former, I always thought that it was the money-changers who were supposed to get tossed out of the temple, not the poor and helpless. As for the latter, if I’m a stony-broke homeless guy living in a tent by the creek and a cop hands me a ticket, I’m wiping my ass with it and sending it downstream to Pueblo. Put me in jail for noncompliance and I’m enjoying three hots and a cot, plus regular showers, at taxpayer expense. Shameful and silly, as I said.

Homelessness is a real problem, for the campers and the Chamber of Commerce alike, but there is no one-size-fits-all solution. Some campers are just down on their luck and awaiting better days. Others are mentally ill, addicted to this or that, and perpetually in need of social services that are either stretched beyond the breaking point or simply unavailable. And still others are real, honest-to-God hobos who prefer nibbling along the tattered edges of our consumer culture to diving in head first. Treating them all the same is absurd.

The private sector, various non-profits and individual volunteers are doing what they can. One local businessman sees an opportunity to house the homeless in a former KOA campground off South Nevada Avenue, but the city is standing in his way.

Many a passage from the Sermon on the Mount comes to mind here. Let’s try this one on for size — Matthew 8:21-23:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?

And then I will profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

No more goose with a sluice thanks to my new Planet Bike fenders.

How the hell did I ever get along without fenders?

I tell you, I’d have skipped more than a couple outdoor rides this year without these nifty little plastic mothers. Unless I’m actually racing cyclo-cross — something I haven’t done since 2004 — I’m just not into the freezing, muddy douche up the old exhaust port any more. Cold is bad enough. Cold and wet just plain sucks, especially if you plan to stay out for a while. And washing your kit and bike daily is as much fun as drinking a bottle of cough syrup and watching a chart-wielding Repuglican on C-SPAN.

The roads were particularly filthy today since the sun finally came out and got after that last snowfall, so I slapped a set of Planet Bike fenders on the DBR mountain bike and rode the Greenway Trail for 90 minutes. The Voodoo has fenders, too, but after hitting the deck and dislocating that finger, I’ve decided I like wider tires and a lower center of gravity for a reconnaissance ride in evil weather.

Anyway, it was nice to be outdoors doing something other than running through lumpy snow. I only saw two other cyclists so I get big manly points too. The weatherman says mid-40s tomorrow. Sheeyit, that’s practically tropical. Maybe I’ll ride in a Speedo.

Speaking of things that should not be seen, a local billboard company has rejected a bus-shelter ad that would have displayed the alluring cleavage of  — a puppet. The ad, for the touring Broadway production “Avenue Q,” featured the furry pink hooters of Lucy the Slut, one of the stars of the admittedly adult show. Not on my bus shelter, said Lamar Advertising account executive Jeff Moore, who explained his criteria for determining what’s appropriate for bus ads and billboards: “If I have to explain it to my 4-year-old or my grandmother, we don’t put it up.”

That covers a lot of waterfront, there, Jeff old scout. Better invest in a couple sets of blinders for Junior and Granny if you ever plan to leave the house, what with all the titty bars, massage parlors, adult bookstores, XXX theaters and other ungodly sights in our otherwise immaculate Industrial Christian community.

Hell, they might see Doug Bruce. Any sane community would recognize that loudmouthed tub of lard as an obscenity. Alas, our community’s standards are a little looser. When it comes to man-boobs, anyway.

Here comes the sun, doo doo doo doo . . .

We enjoyed a beautiful morning today in Bibleburg. There was finally enough snow to shovel, just barely, and the Big Yellow Ball In the Sky took a valiant stab at burning through the clouds that have been hovering overhead for the past few days.

Herself has returned from a sun-splashed weekend in Palm Springs and is very much not amused by the conditions here, especially since she has to drive to the office in Denver shortly. This is not unlike entering a demolition derby held on ice, driving your good car instead of some beater.

Last night, as I was gingerly negotiating the slippery streets en route to the Bibleburg Intergalactic Airport to fetch her home, I saw any number of speeding nitwits piloting two-wheel drive vehicles one-handed while jabbering away on their phones. Why not just stay home and shoot yourself in the head? That way you’re performing a public service instead of being a public menace.

Speaking of public menaces, don’t miss this Mother Jones story on the Oath Keepers, a so-called “patriot” organization whose core is men and women in uniform. You can’t grow up in the military or live where I’ve lived without meeting people like this, and they’re much more frightening than their leftist counterparts, with whom I palled around in my younger, dumber days.

I occasionally consider selling my guns. Then I read a piece like this and check to see whether they’re all still loaded, with extra magazines and speedloaders within easy reach.

Herself certainly picked the right time to hightail it out of Dodge. She and a couple of girlfriends are on the lam from winter this weekend, hiding out in a Palm Springs condo, eating, drinking and watching it not snow, not even a little bitty bit. They just called with the culinary rundown as I was whipping up a spartan meal of tacos, rice and salad. This is like telling a creekside wino all about your latest gourmet feast.

Speaking of things one does not wish to hear about, I understand Tiger Woods finally performed the obligatory mea culpa before the cameras and mics today. What a load of ice-cold horseshit. First off, if you’re gonna cop a plea, get ’er done while the dew is still on the lily. Second, rehab is for wankers. Show Tiger some pussy, then show him his bank balance. Choose one, big guy. Presto, he’s cured. Thanks, I’ll take my fee in cash.

I couldn’t care less about golf, and where Tiger’s putter has been fluttering is even further down the list of things that hold absolutely no interest for me.

“But what about the young people who view Tiger as a role model?” you ask. To which I reply, anyone looking to emulate the morality of the average multimillionaire athlete should also consult swine for advice on table manners.

I’m reminded of a line from Robert A. Heinlein’s “Glory Road,” in which Star tells Oscar: “I have known many heroes and some were such oafs that one would feed them at the back door if their deeds did not claim a place at the table.”

You want to learn how to pop some skinny nerd in the ass with a wet towel, or imprison him in a gym locker, ask a jock. For all other matters, consult a higher authority. Say, a Magic 8-Ball, or even your own conscience.