Month: October 2015

Son of Unreal Estate (a continuing series)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Yeah, yeah, right, welcome, thanks, whatever.
Yeah, yeah, right, welcome, thanks, whatever.

BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — Heeeeeeee’s baaaaaaack. …

After an Airbnb guest raised doubts about how well the Chez Dog furnace was working, and a maid service said the clothes dryer was mostly a clothes tumbler, it was back to Bibleburg for Your Humble Narrator.

Heading for Taos.
Heading for Taos.

Our most recent guest checks out this morning, after which I’ll dash on over and cast a bloodshot eye on the situation. I suspect that the furnace issue has something to do with folks who insist on trying to operate a programmable Honeywell thermostat that they understand about as well as I understand the GOP, but the dryer could be an actual, you know, like, thing, and stuff.

This trip saves us the cost of the maid service this time around (just call me Hazel) and gives me a shot at resolving any other issues our real-estate agent thinks may need attention.

Plus the trip let me have lunch at Orlando’s New Mexican Cafe in Taos and dinner at The Margarita at Pine Creek in Bibleburg. So I’ve got that going for me, which is nice.

Tell you what, though. As I was leaving the Duke City yesterday, motoring past all those colorfully clad cyclists scarfing up the endorphines on Tramway, I felt distinctly like Tom Sawyer sentenced to whitewashing while the other kids played. Even more so now that it’s raining. …

Don’t Force it

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Looking northeast from Trail 365A, just above Embudo Dam.
Looking northeast from Trail 365A, just above Embudo Dam.

Things feel like they’re finally inching back to what passes for normal in these parts.

The Jones handles the local trails with style and grace.
The Jones handles the local trails with style and grace.

I arose at 6 a.m., logged a few billable hours of work, then got out for a short ride on the Jones, which hasn’t been getting a lot of love lately.

The two of us pooted around unproductively and yet pleasantly on the trails southeast of El Rancho Pendejo, topping out at Trail 365A, where there was something of a traffic jam — a visitor from Alaska hiking up with his old ski coach and a couple dogs, a runner headed down with her own pooch in tow, and finally this old dog and his bike smack dab in the middle.

The hikers asked me to snap a phone pic for them, so I did, and then I dove down the trail ahead of the runner and headed for home, where I learned that the Force will be with the viewing audience during halftime of tomorrow’s Giants-Eagles matchup on ESPN.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see Han Solo piloting his mobility scooter around the galaxy while a cackling Luke Skywalker urges his grandson to pull his robotic finger. The Farts are strong with this one. …

Just monkeying around

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
We have a maple in Bibleburg and another in Duke City. Didn't plan it that way; it just happened. This one's in DC.
We have a maple in Bibleburg and another in Duke City. Didn’t plan it that way; it just happened. This one’s in DC.

I’m gonna go out on a limb here and call it fall.

(Rimshot.)

Got back from Bibleburg last night after a week of what you call your basic flurry of activity:

• Meetings with our lawn guy, a painter, and a real-estate agent about Chez Dog.

• Relocating from the old home place to a north-side hotel and back again.

• Cleaning the joint three times (once after an Airbnb guest, and twice after me).

• Reglazing one broken lower panel in a self-storing aluminum storm window.

• Washing the other 15 windows and replacing those lower panels removed by asshats who failed to grasp the concept of the self-storing aluminum storm window.

• Replacing the screen doors with the storm doors.

• Chatting up a half-dozen or so friends and neighbors (and catching an escaped dog for one who suffers from reduced mobility).

• Two rides and two runs.

• The watching of a series of astoundingly shitty movies, which reminds me of why we jerked the cable out of the wall all those years ago.

• And finally, exactly zero cycling journalism.

This last caught up with me today, when I had to crank out a column and cartoon at high speed for Bicycle Retailer. But I think the downtime doing other chores helped free the mind after a disturbingly long stretch of creative constipation.

The sight of me with a tool in hand, for anyone who knows my mad home-repair skillz, conjures up the image of the hominid from “2001: A Space Odyssey” flailing around him with a thighbone. Nevertheless I managed to dismantle, clean and restore all those goddamn storm windows with nothing more than a putty knife, a hammer (my favorite tool), a quart of Windex and a great deal of profanity, especially when I was up to my hips in a shrubbery using hammer and knife to liberate an upper window panel from its prison of paint.

But sparkling windows and a fresh coat of weather-be-gone on the decks should help Chez Dog show a little leg when the suckers come strolling by. It’s been a great little house to us, but as an Airbnb rental it’s proven a little tough to manage from six hours away, and it’s time it was a great little house to somebody else.

Unreal estate (a continuing series)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Pikes Peak as seen from the temporary HQ of the Mad Dog Media Whirled Hindquarters.
Pikes Peak as seen from the temporary HQ of the Mad Dog Media Whirled Hindquarters.

BIBLEBURG, Colo. (MDM) — Oh, lawd, we’re just burning up that ol’ country road lately. First to Sin City, and now to to Galt’s Gulch, where they’ve got theirs and by God and Ayn Rand you’d better get yours.

Chez Dog, pictured shortly after the hailstorm that welcomed me back to the 'hood.
Chez Dog, pictured shortly after the hailstorm that welcomed me back to the ‘hood.

It being fall and all we decided it was time to check up on the Old Home Place©, in part because we like to have the storm windows in place and the furnace in working order when the snow flies, and in part because our helpers with Project Airbnb decided they were over it with a couple clients still queued up in the hopper.

So here I am, back in the libertarian laboratory, comfortably ensconced in a Hilton property on points after a couple days of fix-’em-up around Chez Dog™.

One of our summertime guests had decided to augment the airflow through the joint by removing several of the glass panels in the old aluminum storm windows. These are self-storing bits, mind you — slide ’em up to let a cooling breeze flow through the screen during the heat of the day, slide ’em down to preserve interior warmth come evening — but no, apparently they had to be removed entirely. Probably the same knucklehead who wondered why the air conditioning that we don’t have wasn’t working properly.

So those have been cleaned, lubed, repaired as necessary, and replaced. The thermostat has been reprogrammed (should’ve dusted it for knucklehead prints). And the joint has been otherwise spic’d, and also span’d, and our latest guest is in residence. I’ll tidy up after him in preparation for the next lot, which arrives middle of next week, spend a couple days committing cycling journalism, squeeze in a bike ride or two or three, meet with a painter about the back deck, and then fire up the rice rocket for re-entry to Planet Albuquerque.

With all this going on I haven’t had much time to pay attention to the news, which is probably just as well, because I already have grave doubts about the state of the Republic and shit like this and this and this is not exactly easing my mind.

Thank God for Elvis Costello.