Category: Bibleburg

Rocking the Pulpit (or not)

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 33 Comments
Georgia Gould on a fast section of multipurpose path on the north side of Pulpit Rock.
Georgia Gould attacks a fast section of multipurpose path on the north side of Pulpit Rock.

During a break in my paying chores yesterday I rolled over to Pulpit Rock to watch a bit of the women’s cross-country race at the US Cup. Man, was that ever one thin crowd, and I ain’t talking body weight here. I have more voices in my own head, f’chrissakes.

The men’s race I watched via streaming video, and while there seemed to be a few more spectators for that contest, the crowd was still pretty sparse, about what one might expect for a Marilyn Manson concert in St. Peter’s Square or a meeting of the Louie Gohmert Fan Club.

Not being a big mountain-bike guy — I quit racing in the mid-1990s after a guy deliberately crashed me at Rage in the Sage, and haven’t covered a race since the final Cactus Cup in Arizona — I have no idea whether this is SOP for the discipline these days or some class of an aberration specific to Bibleburg, which has been hosting the Pikes Peak International Hill Climb all week long.

Any mountain bikers out there in the audience? Is this the way things are now? Or are we here in Bibleburg just “special,” as we are in so many other regrettable ways?

Rocking out

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments
Pulpit Rock is one of the lesser-known venues for riding the old bikey bike in Bibleburg. That will change, starting tomorrow.
Pulpit Rock is one of the lesser-known venues for riding the old bikey bike in Bibleburg. That will change, starting tomorrow.

I almost forgot — we actually have us a spot of bicycle racing taking place in scenic metropolitan Bibleburg this weekend.

Round four of the US Cup Pro Series presented by the Sho-Air Cycling Group takes place Saturday and Sunday at Pulpit Rock Park, which is just a hop, skip and a jump from Chez Dog.

I popped round today to say howdy to my man Andy Bohlmann, who is lending a hand with the heavy lifting as the circus comes to town, and I’m going to strive mightily to spectate a bit between chores (yes, I have deadlines and Herself is road-tripping again, leaving me in charge of quarters).

If you’re in town, swing on by. And if you’re not, you can watch via streaming video.

 

Creative class warfare

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
The Turk' enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.
The Turk’ enjoyed some backyard time while I cleaned a bike in honor of the summer solstice.

Summertime, and the livin’ is easy. Just ask the Turk’, who enjoyed a little outside time in the Mad Dog Media Botanical Gardens, a.k.a. “Weedpatch,” as I washed a bike in honor of the solstice.

Shortly thereafter it began raining off and on, with thunder for flavor, and the feline outings, bicycle riding and Old North End Garage Sale took back seats to working and earning.

Speaking of which, I can see I’ve been going about the latter activities all wrong. Clarity is so 15 minutes ago. If a guy could only learn to deploy with a straight face semantically null phrases such as “further leverage,” “cultural and creative assets,” “place of choice,” “launching new ideas” and “preserving our rich cultural heritage,” why, People of Money would write us fat checks for doing absolutely nothing beyond talking authoritatively and incomprehensibly out of our asses.

Toward that end I’m pleased to announce the formation of the Caramillo Street Collective for Creative Obfuscation, whose sole purpose it shall be to talk shit for money. I know, that sounds an awful lot like what I already do, but trust me, this is a radical departure from business as usual at Chez Dog. It’s a means of further leveraging my cultural and creative assets from my place of choice to launch new ideas that preserve my rich cultural heritage.

Somebody owes me $20K now.

• Speaking of talking shit: Here’s Timothy Noah on the ethics of dog-crap disposal.

Road to ruin

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 44 Comments
Libertarian Interstate. Q. How many libertarians does it take to patch a pothole? A. More guns!
Libertarian Interstate.
Q. How many libertarians does it take to patch a pothole?
A. More guns!

I often wonder why folks call themselves “conservatives” when they don’t seem particularly interested in conserving things, like roads that don’t look like the Ho Chi Minh Trail after a bit of roadwork by B-52s.

Bibleburg has no budget for pothole repair — that’s right, I said no budget for pothole repair — and pulled a $2 million emergency appropriation from city reserves in response to a deluge of complaints from the hordes of gummint-hating, free-market patriots who wanted to know why The Pothole Fairy hadn’t left any hot mix under their American-flag pillows.

Months later work has begun on what streets division manager Corey Farkas concedes is “a drop in the bucket of what we need here.”

Because freedom.

Hail with a side salad

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
Our maple isn't quite down to its last leaf, but there's plenty of bald patches up there and more storms in the forecast.
Our maple isn’t quite down to its last leaf, but there’s plenty of bald patches up there and more storms in the forecast.

Herself and I spent some quality time together this morning, cleaning up the wreckage from yesterday’s blitzkrieg hailstorm.

I had to get up on the roof to broom off some of the detached greenery (and clear the gutters while I was at it). And then we set about collecting the stuff on the ground. This was about the time I decided that owning two-fifths of the block was something of a giant pain in the ass, or more specifically, the lower back.

We filled one of those big rolling trash bins and another smaller can with salad and sticks before saying the hell with it and going back indoors for lunch, after which we lost interest more or less permanently, especially since it looks like another storm may be blowing in here directly.

In other news, poor Cuddles lost his pretty pink shirt in the Giro. He has one flat stage for liver-gnawing purposes, tomorrow, before the ground tilts upward and the shit gets serious. Should be fun to watch. Rigoberto Uran Ran Ran Ran Da Doo Ran Ran looked tougher ‘n’ whang leather out there today, and taking time back from him will be like trying to steal stupid from Louie Gohmert.