No, that’s not the stairway to heaven — that’s a shot of the pergola over our back deck, taken from a folding chair while the cats chase bugs around the yard. Alas, those beautiful blue skies are supposed to give way to showers this weekend, a little gift from the gods to the body-armored knuckleheads who live for manhandling their double-boingers across the wet clay trails of Palmer Park, where their tracks will remain for alien archaeologists to ponder some eons hence.

Speaking of dark clouds, some of you may wonder why I haven’t weighed in on the debate over “enhanced interrogation techniques” that has been so much in the news of late. It’s because in a sane society no debate should be required. Torture is wrong, period, end of story. And anyone who says otherwise should be tortured.

And speaking of torture, there is much bicycle racing coming to flyover country here as April segues into May. There’s the 31st edition of La Vuelta de Bisbee, which starts today in the Arizona town of the same name, and the 23rd annual Tour of the Gila, which kicks off April 29 in Silver City, N.M. I covered LVDB once, back in the day, but I’ve never been to the Gila. VeloNews.com’s grand poobah, Steve Frothingham, is headed that way again this year, so look for lots of word count, pix and maybe even some video.

Tyler Hamilton isn’t the only Rock Racing rider to find himself suddenly unemployed. Apparently homeboy Mike Creed is hunting work, too, and not of his own volition — renowned disco-denim maven and working-class hero Michael Testicle showed him the door on April 14, according to nyvelocity.com.

Mike chatted with Steve Frothingham of VeloNews.com this morning, and you can read Steve’s account of their conversation here. That Mike’s former employer continues to stump for a riders’ union is not unlike a tomcat proposing a Society for the Protection of Plump, Juicy and Delicious Little Songbirds.

While he apparently has an offer to race next month’s Joe Martin Stage Race with another team, Mike told me via e-mail that further on down the road he’s thinking about leaping from the titanium frying pan of pro cycling into the Sterno stove of velo-journalism, perhaps with a podcast or Internet radio show. While he considers his options, there’s at least one bright side in being jobless in this sport, in this economy — he won’t have to wear that ugly-ass Schlock Racing kit any more.

Here in Bibleburg, meanwhile, the Storm of the Century mostly passed us by. It snowed all damn’ day yesterday and left maybe three inches, tops. But it’s heavy, wet stuff, and the foliage will appreciate it. Some 75 miles southwest and a couple thousand feet higher among the hillbillies of Crusty County, my man Hal Walter reports five times as much of the white stuff surrounding the world headquarters of Hardscrabble Times and recalls a pair of earlier April storms.

Down here, it’s raining lightly — “a driving rain,” as my man Dr. O’Schenkenstein said. And he should know, because he just spent two hours riding in it. The man himself just appeared at my doorstep, looking as though he had been dipped in shit, and taunted me for cowering indoors like the feeble geezer I am. He has been watching old Paris-Roubaix videos, which will give a man notions.