Wave dynamics revisited

Fowl weather in The Duck! City.

The fun and frolic continues apace here in the Land of Enchantment, a subsidiary of Netflix, Inc. Look for the miniseries “The Ten Plagues of Aztlan,” coming soon! “Episode 1: The Gabachos.”

Now it’s Las Vegas in the hot seat. More precisely, the wet seat, as flash floods close roads and force evacuations.

Word is Ruidoso is getting some rain, which, yay. It’s the proverbial good news/bad news scenario — helps with the fire, but not with the flooding. You gotta play the hand you’re dealt, I guess. Meanwhile, it seems full-time residents may be allowed to return Monday morning.

We woke to a light rain here at El Rancho Pendejo. By 8:30 we’d recorded 0.10 inch of rain since midnight, and we will take it, thank you. Sorta throws a spanner into the ol’ training schedule, but what the hell am I training for, anyway?

If it keeps up I don’t think I’ll have to worry about whether a fellow cyclist returns my friendly wave today. My old VeloNews colleague John Rezell broached the topic yesterday at The Cycling Independent, but I beat him to it by nearly three decades (h/t Khal S.).

In my dotage I see this churlish behavior from all manner of knuckleheads. Wave casually at a brother roadie, get The Great Stone Face. Say, “Good morning” to another hiker on a narrow stretch of trail, nuttin’ but nuttin’. Everyone has the AirPods in their ears and an iStick up their arses, I guess.

It doesn’t bother me much anymore. I keep waving and yielding trail as though it matters. Which it kinda does.

BRAIN Farts: December 2021

• Editor’s note: Here’s the last of my selected “Shop Talk” strips from this year’s run of Bicycle Retailer and Industry News. And yes, as of 2022 it will have been 30 years since the first one appeared..

Signed, sealed, and delivered: The final “Shop Talk” cartoon of 2021.