Month: May 2024

(Not) for the birds

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
The April showers are a little late this year.

Hm. The weather seems less than ideal for the old bikey ridey this morning. The weather widget says we’ve gotten 0.15 inch since I oozed out of bed two hours ago, it’s still bucketing down, and I am no Laura Killingbeck. I prefer my velo-adventures sunny-side up with some toasty 65°-degree-plus temps if I can get ’em. Just ’cause I have mudguards doesn’t mean I wanna use ’em.

We Duck! Citizens enjoyed a high of 81° yesterday, well short of the record — 92° in 2022 — with zero precip’. In fact, the National Weather Service reports that we have had but a trace of moisture so far in May, and just 0.33 inch in April, a mere dribble compared to the usual half-inch.

Up to 0.24 inch since I started typing this post. Woof. We could corral those missing April showers today.

Anyone who has forgotten/is unaware how important water is to us here in the upper reaches of the Chihuahuan Desert, where the yappy purse dogs roam free, can become wise following the online musings of water wizard John Fleck. Buy him a coffee if you can spare the funds; I attended one water-board meeting in the Seventies, as a cub reporter fueled by vile percolator joe, and I can assure you John needs all the proper java he can get.

In other news, our man Charles Pelkey is working the early shift in Laramie as local host of NPR’s “Morning Edition,” and anyone who misses the glory days of Live Update Guy can catch his act on the Innertubes at Wyoming Public Media. That other fella he used to work with at LUG remains unemployable in print, broadcast, and online.

I do serve at least one small purpose, however. After my own cup of coffee I scattered some bird seed around under the patio cover so the tweeties could enjoy a snack out of the wet. Queuing up at the feeders today must feel like being a hobo outside a Seattle soup kitchen.

Ups and downs

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
No news is good news.

Wind and other things that blow kept my bike mileage in the double digits last week, which would not be such a bad thing if it weren’t for my addiction to the news.

After spending too much time in front of the monitor and not enough behind the handlebar I came this close (finger and thumb so close together that you couldn’t slip the homepage of the Albuquerque Journal between them) to canceling all my subscriptions. Bad news, badly written, barely edited, and poorly presented.

The motto of The New York Times used to be “All the News That’s Fit to Print.” At lesser journals wiseguys often revised it to “All the News That Fits, We Print.” In the Age of the Bottomless Internet it might be “All the News We Print Gives You Fits.”

Practically nobody needs to know most of this stuff, much less write about it.

“The rise of executive butlers.”

“At-home IV drips are the latest luxury building amenity.”

“We tried to pet all 200 dogs at the [Westminster Dog Show]. Here’s what it all felt like.”

Newspapers have always provided a spoonful of sugar to help the medicine go down, of course. But once the sheer volume of treacle was limited by the traditional 60/40 ratio of ads to news, which constrained page count; editors’ desire to focus on what was actually important, like, uh, the fucking news; and publishers’ insistence that the final package turn a profit.

There is no bottom to the Internet, no satisfying its endless appetite. Ever fed a baby bird? Imagine one the size of NASA’s Vehicle Assembly Building, but with a basement that extends all the way to Hell.

Whew. Now. All this being said, I have stumbled across two items you might enjoy reading over your morning coffee, shot of whiskey, or morning coffee with a shot of whiskey in it. And surprise, surprise: They both come from the godsend that rescued me from pulling an oar in the sinking longboat of daily newspapering, the wonderful world of bicycling.

First: The Washington Post presents a fabulous report by Peter W. Stevenson on Indiana University’s annual Little 500 bicycle race, made famous by the only cycling movie worth the price of a frame pump to put it into the ditch, “Breaking Away.”

It’s not clear who shot all the video and photos — Stevenson, a video producer, is credited on some, but not all — but they really help tell the story. And I love the still of the Kappa Alpha Theta rider hovering in midair over her saddle during a remount.

Second, The Cycling Independent gives us an essay by Laura Killingbeck, “A Good Time at the Dollar Store.” Killingbeck, free to explore after three months of housesitting, sings a soggy hosanna to the joys of the open road, a song I’m always eager to hear.

I’m supposed to do a short ride in the foothills with my fellow geezers this morning, but Killingbeck makes me want to strap some camping gear to a Soma and wobble off on a skull-flushing tour of wherever. Shucks, it’s not even sleeting here.

34 and counting. …

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments
Beauty and the Beast (guess which is which), from May 12, 1990.

And they said it’d never last. Ho, ho.

Today Herself and I celebrate 34 years of Holy Macaroni. She makes regular visits to the eye doctor so it’s not my fault. She’s either extremely tolerant or a secret drinker. P’raps both.

And for those of you who are mothers or had mothers, happy Mother’s Day. Ours were in attendance at the wedding in Hyde State Park up to Fanta Se (third and fourth from left, below) and neither of them disowned us, though mine considered it after I told her she couldn’t smoke in our house.

My sister, Peggy (far right) married Howard, a fine fellow and a Brainiac to boot, but decided against motherhood based upon having grown up alongside Your Humble Narrator, who never did.

And we are likewise without offspring because … seriously, have you ever read this blog? I mean, c’mon. Herself may need vision correction, but she does not lack perception.

Mary Pigeon and Mary Jane O’Grady discuss the pitfalls of procreation.

A sinus of The Times?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
I’ve long had a nose for news, but a nose from news?

Seasonal allergies may be associated with mood disorders like anxiety or depression, according to The New York Times.

Huh. And here I’d thought my mood had become disordered due to the pain in my ass, an ailment I contracted from reading The New York Times.

I shouldn’t pick on The Ould Gray Hoor here. Anxiety, depression, and ass pain can be acquired just about anywhere, from the lowliest blog (thanks for reading) to the self-anointed Newspaper of Record.

Lately we are presented with a sitting president going all Oprah on his studio audience — Look under your seats! Debt forgiveness for you! No arms for them! — and his predecessor snoozing through court dates, occasionally waking to flash the stink-eye around the room or curse a porn-star paramour. A third candidate for the job has a brain worm, a slow, underhand pitch not even I can take a swing at.

Two rappers are said to be “beefing,” which seems to mean “talking shit about each other from a safe distance.” You’d think these two gents might bump into each other at some social event, like the Met Gala — which is still getting coverage three days later — and then what? An X-slap followed by a virtual duel? Mics at 10 paces?

Speaking of talking shit, slaps, and mics, the House of Reprehensibles gave the back of the hand it wasn’t using to write the Liberty in Laundry Act, the Refrigerator Freedom Act, and the Hands Off Our Home Appliances Act (HOOHAA) to the Creature from the White Lagoon for trying to topple Squeaker Mikey Mouse (hey, if you can’t legislate, defenestrate). MTG couldn’t even get the window cracked, much less toss Mikey out of it. Nevertheless she drew reporters like a dead dog draws … well, reporters. (Hi, Kristi Noem!)

Shoot, we can’t even get a new iPad without drama. Not that I want one.

When not blowing my nose or shifting uncomfortably in my chair I wonder whether in the race to become all things to all people at all times the media have become “a dildo that has turned berserkly upon its owner,” to misuse a Thomas McGuane quote.

McGuane was talking about America. And in some small sense, I suppose, so am I. Back to you, Chet.

A month of Sundays and then some

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
The Colorado Mountain College running team’s 2024 graduates: bottom, (l-r), Brooklyn German, Aslynn Wardall; top: Nate Encinias, Harrison Walter, Adaline Fulmer, Paulo Aponte. Not pictured: Kenneth Obregon.

By Hal Walter

For the first Sunday in a month of them, there is no long training run on tap for cross-country or track. There is no homework. There will be no evening commute to Leadville to deliver Harrison Walter to Colorado Mountain College.

The Blur, it seems, graduated from CMC this past Friday with an Associate of General Studies degree and proficiency certificates in welding.

It’s really a strange feeling and I am still processing it all. For the past two years life around here has revolved around Mary and me supporting Harrison through college. We’ve put about 30,000 miles on vehicles in doing so, and untold mileage on our brains. We knew it was a big risk sending him to Leadville to live in a dorm, but anything worth doing is worth the risk of failing. We also didn’t have a clue what we were getting ourselves into.

Between the ages of 62 and 64 I spent about 150 nights in a dorm room. We traveled to six states to watch Harrison and teammates run for the CMC Eagles. As his academic aide I learned how to operate Canvas and Basecamp. I read textbooks alongside him and helped guide him through countless assignments. During both summers I coached him through his running workouts.

All of this was out of the belief that a person on the autism spectrum deserved a shot at a college education and experience. He graduated teetering on the brink of the Dean’s List with a GPA of 3.46 (final grades are not yet in). It wasn’t all rainbows and unicorns, as he is surely on another Dean’s List for the number of write-ups received, all related to autistic behaviors.

Harrison at Huntsville (third from left). Photo: Hal Walter

As an athlete he left CMC with the school record for the track 10K, and runner-up best times for the 5K and 3K. In cross-country he holds CMC’s third-best cross-country 5K and fifth-fastest 8K, which he ran at the NJCAA National Championships in Huntsville, Ala. He also won the 5K Colorado Cup Snowshoe Race, hosted annually by CMC.

He received the running team’s Most Valuable Runner Award, as well as an award for his GPA and a letter.

And when he wasn’t studying or running he worked part time at Community Threads in Leadville.

There are too many people to thank in this space, but we owe a world of gratitude to his teammates and fellow students, coach and professors, faculty, staff and administration for the patience, support and compassion over these two years. There is a book in the works.

Perhaps rather than a month of Sundays it was an era of Sundays. The future, as Tom Petty sang, is wide open.