Category: Automobiles

Nocturnal emissions

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The view from the guest bedroom at 5:34 a.m.

“It’s a winter wonderland!” Herself sang as I flung open the bedroom door, growling like an elderly bear, a hitch in my gitalong after a night of imperfect sleep.

Son of a bitch. Right again. No wonder they pay her the big bucks.

Happily, neither of us has to take our chances on the Duke City streets this fine frosty morning. Herself continues to work from home in Year Two of the Plague, and I am a senior citizen on a fixed income who doesn’t have to do jack shit other than sit on his arse, bitching about this and that, while waiting for Uncle Sugar to give with the free money.

I’ve seen two fine auto crashes in the past two days. The first was on Tramway near Comanche; a Honda Element and some other vehicle came to grief in the southbound lanes as I was cycling northward on Sunday. The second ate up two northbound lanes on Juan Tabo near Lomas on Monday, as I was taking the Fearsome Furster in for an emissions check and re-registration.

The  emissions tester was a man unhappy in his work, probably because he was freezing his nuts off in his tiny shed, which let the bitter southeastern wind roll in with each customer. Nevertheless, he and the State conspired to rob me of a couple hundy for the dubious privilege of courting death on the mean streets of the Land of Enchantment in a 16-year-old rice grinder, and then we were both in a bad mood.

I won’t take my brand-new sticker out for a spin today, thanks all the same. We have already established that my neighbors can’t keep the shiny side up on a sunny day, and I’ve just paid in advance for two years’ worth of happy motoring.

Anyway, it’s cold out there. Colder than a gut-shot bitch wolf dog with nine sucking pups pulling a number-four trap up a hill in the dead of winter in the middle of a snowstorm with a mouth full of porcupine quills. …

Draught for a drought

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Man, you just can’t beat the clouds in New Mexico, even if they occasionally snow on you.

Seven inches. I measured it, with a steel ruler.

No, not that. The snow. The landscape drank it the way a wino chugs a short dog.

You’d be surprised how quickly an Albuquerque lawn can drink seven inches of snow. Maybe not.

Winter’s drive-by with its record snowfall and low temperature meant I had to crank up the furnace two days earlier than last year. There’s something final about the sound of that Trane XR80 groaning back to hideous life; every time I switch the thermostat from “Cool” to “Heat” I feel as though I’ve just driven a stake through the heart of summer.

The streets cleared quickly — after 133 vehicle crashes and 31 injuries, nobody wanted to be on them, not even the snow.

But if you were afoot and kept your eyes open it wasn’t awful. I went out for a couple hourlong walks and by Friday it was warm enough for a ride, in long sleeves, knickers and tuque.

Anyway, we’ve got a stretch of 60-something and sunny on tap, so it looks like the landscape is back on the wagon after slamming its cold one.

TGIFuhgedaboudit

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Santa may not be squeezing his fat ass down my chimney at the moment, but with a sky that blue, who cares?

Some Fridays I send no thanks to God.

The press brays about another delivery of magic beans from the Orange House. My main MacBook Pro develops a bloat I can’t doctor and must be shipped off for emergency surgery. Sue Baroo the Fearsome Furster goes in for a radiator transplant. And WordPress shanghais me into its pain-in-the-ass block editor.

All this being said:

• At least I don’t have to edit any bean-delivery stories for The Daily Disappointment-Fabricator. (“Just who says ‘he tested positive,’ anyway? Same guy who’s been lying about anything and everything since he was whelped?”)

• I have a backup MacBook Pro. Not as powerful, but hey, at least it’s not swelling up like a poisoned Russian dissident.

• The Furster is 15 going on 16. Of course she’s gonna have occasional meltdowns. They’re still cheaper than a monthly payment for the car I don’t want to buy anyway.

But WordPress? Fuck those guys. This block editor eats shit out of a hipster’s thrift-store fedora. It makes me want to run away from the news, my second-best MacBook, and my credit-card statement, and go for a nice long bike ride.

See ya.

Car park

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
“Why do American cities waste so much space on cars?”
Uh, because they’re climate-controlled living rooms that go places?

A good newspaper not only reports the news, it stimulates debate on the issues of the day.

And this piece by Farhad Manjoo in The New York Times — “I’ve Seen a Future Without Cars, and It’s Amazing” — is certainly going to set some chins wagging.

But hoo-boy, talk about your roadblocks:

Given how completely they rule most cities, calling for the outright banishment of automobiles can sound almost ludicrous. (We can’t even get people to agree to wear masks to stop the spread of a devastating pandemic.)

In other words, don’t swap the Escalade for an e-bike just yet, Sparky.

One more minor quibble: I think this sentence — “Manhattan, already one of the most car-free places in the country, is the best place to start.” — is just a wee bit Noo Yawk-centric.

How about starting with a smaller space, like Santa Fe? Wall off the actual walkable/bikeable bits from the metastasis that surrounds them, provide car parks around the perimeter, and encourage people to engage in muscle-powered transportation.

Pedicabs will be available for hire, but you’re gonna have to show me a serious hitch in your gitalong or other qualifying infirmity before you make someone else haul your fat ass around town. The penalty is crucifixion (first offense).