Free at last

August 27, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments

When a guy hasn’t had an actual job for 21 years, a long stretch of actual work comes as something of a shock to the system. I had a number of perfectly good reasons for quitting that last job, and “actual work” topped the podium.

Still, a man must earn, and thus I spent the last 11 days on the clock, and ain’t I glad that’s over. Now I can get back to viewing with alarm, peeing on various wingtips and riding the damn’ bike.

Today I played catch-up on the chores that had gone begging while I was locked to the money teat. I bought a metric shit-ton of groceries (including ice cream); treated myself to a new pair of running shoes from Colorado Running Company; went for a short jog; and got my old eyeglasses repaired while contemplating some new cheaters (I’m feeling a bit like Mister Magoo after an extended bout of pixel-pushing).

Tomorrow I’ll get back to business around here. I understand the Republicans are playing One-Handed Spit-In-the-Carpet in Florida. Won’t that be fun?

Shiteurday

July 14, 2012July 14, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments

Oy. Long day on the job for a variety of reasons, and no, don’t ask.

Nice to see Bradley Wiggins try to lead out Edvald Boassen Hagen for the stage win, but I’m still having trouble warming up to ‘Is Lordship for some reason.

Maybe it’s racial memory. He is English, after all. But then I always liked the Beatles, Stones, Python, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, etc.

Maybe it’s his manner with the sporting press. Pro athletes often forget that if they didn’t get any media coverage many of them would be wearing paper hats and throwing packets of spuds at strangers through a drive-up window, or standing up to their hips in something nasty with only a shovel for company.

Nah. It’s the sideburns. That shit has to go. Wiggo’ makes Bob Roll look like James Bond, f’fucksake.

Uncurb your enthusiasm

April 7, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments

For the first time in nearly 35 years I am without a pickup truck.

Yesterday I sold the White Tornado, my 1983 Toyota 4WD long-bed pickup, to the auto shop that kept it and our other rice-grinders rolling long past their sell-by dates. The owner’s grandson needed something that was easier on the wallet than the giant pile of Detroit iron he’s been driving, and since Whitey needed work it seemed appropriate to let a family of mechanics adopt the auld fella.

Whitey was the sole survivor of a once-mighty Nipponese fleet, which not that long ago included another ’83 (a 2WD version with nearly 300,000 miles), a troublesome ’78 Toyota Chinook pop-top camper (dubbed the Pee-wee because it looked like something Pee-wee Herman might use to lure unwary children from a playground); and a 1998 Tacoma that was the last brand-new, showroom-floor vehicle we will ever buy.

The fleet, docked at Weirdcliffe. Not pictured: The Pee-wee.

And yes, I had them all at the same time.

One by one they all went west on me. The Tacoma we traded for my Forester. The Pee-wee we sold to a guy whose son needed a camper for fishing trips. And the 2WD ’83 went to the same folks who bought Whitey — they fixed it up for a young construction type who needed a work truck, and I saw it around town now and then for a couple years afterward.

I’ve had a truck since I still had hair, and it feels weird to look out the window and not see one up against the curb. But I got used to not having hair, and I suppose I’ll get used to not having a truck.

Maybe I can saw the ass-end off the Forester and drop a flatbed on the sumbitch.

Give ’er a hand

January 5, 2012January 5, 2012 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments

Pikes Peak peeks out from behind the Garden of the Gods.

One nice thing about quitting a pain-in-the-ass job and not being pissed off all the time is that I find myself noticing the little things again, now that the red haze of homicide unrealized no longer clouds my vision.

Case in point. Having shot a Velo-sized hole in my wallet I’ve spent a couple of days test-driving grocery stores that are not Whole Foods to gauge the extent, quality and price of their organic offerings. Yesterday it was a Safeway, today a King Soopers. Neither was particularly impressive, barring a real steal on Greek yogurt at the King Soopers.

As I walked into the Safeway some pretty young women of color were walking out, weaving around an elderly white man in a motorized wheelchair. One complained, “I’m hungry.” Another said, “So eat, nigga!” The poor old boy in the wheelchair did a slo-mo double-take, wearing the sort of expression you might expect from a pro-lifer who just saw an abortion-clinic janitor pitchforking defunct fetuses into a Dumpster.

Then today, going into the Soopers, I noticed another attractive young woman who seemed very pleased with herself, strutting along as though she were a model on a runway. I’m guessing her mood had something to do with the dusty, perfect imprint of a left hand on her right butt cheek. That’ll put some spring into the step of just about anybody, even a 57-year-old underemployed rumormonger of the cycling persuasion.

Speaking of which, between bouts of people-watching I squeezed in a nice 90-minute ride today. Goddamn shiftless disloyal Fenian bastards. Can’t hold onto a part-time job for more than 22 years and yet they have the cheek to insult the working man with bouts of casual cycling during business hours.

Slow news day

October 23, 2011 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Turkish bags some rays — Turkish has almost come to terms with the New World Order, which requires him to wear a leash outdoors. Almost.

Seems like it’s either feast or famine in the ol’ VeloBarrel. Last week it was nothing but heartache; today, it’s been mostly nothing. I wrote up the men’s World Cup in Tabor (having overslept and missed the women’s race), posted some results and an Andrew Hood piece, and … well, that’s about it. Bor-ing.

There are things going on, of course. There are cyclo-crosses from coast to coast, the Pan American Games, the Japan Cycle Cup Road Race, but because we are short on staff, free-lancers and travel money my in-box remains appallingly free of dispatches from the front. Only Agence France Presse chimes in from time to time, and that lot mostly speaks Frog: Le Belge s’est imposé en solitaire lors de la seconde épreuve dimanche, à Tabor (République Tchèque). Parti très tôt, dès le quatrième tour, il a laissé derrière lui un groupe incapable de s’entendre pour refaire son retard.

C’mon — we saved you guys from the Nazis and you can’t give us a race report in U-nited States American? And who are you callin’ a retard? Merde. Where’s my big ol’ Google translation hammer?

Between bouts of doing not much Herself shaved my dome, Turkish got some quality time in the sun and I whipped up some tuna salad for lunch. And if my in-box doesn’t go ping! real soon I’m gonna grab a bike and enjoy what looks to be one of our last few really nice days before a winter storm blows in.