Fall is here with a vengeance. The wiseguys say this past weekend was it for aspen-viewers, but there's still some color down here in the flatlands.
Another extended stint in the VeloBarrel has come to an end. Tomorrow, the off-season begins — it’s back to the usual two days a week playing editor at large for VeloNews.com, with two weeks before I have to crank out some nonsense for Bicycle Retailer & Industry News. Livin’ large, folks, livin’ large. Why, I may even ride a bicycle.
We had a “Wild Kingdom” moment here last night. Miss Mia Sopaipilla was watching one of the kitchen windows like it was must-see TV, so I took a peek myself. I had my reading glasses on, instead of my seeing glasses, but detected a couple lumpy shapes waddling through the back yard to a gap in the fence. Porcupines? Skunks? Really small Repuglicans?
Nope. Raccoons. I put my seeing glasses on and stepped out into the alley just in time to catch one of the masked devils scrabbling up a neighbor’s latticework, behind a climbing vine. No camera handy, alas, so you’ll have to make do with this midafternoon ‘coon-free shot of our own vine.
Just a hint of color, nothing like fall in Ottawa, where I spent a few years as a kid.
Hm. The old updates aren’t exactly coming fast and furious, are they? Probably because there isn’t anything particularly edifying about a 55-year-old tosspost chained to a desk, doing an actual job of work for the first time in recent memory.
I’m on my seventh consecutive day in the barrel at VeloNews.com and won’t get out until Tuesday, so amusing digressions, quips and observations will be few and far between for a couple more days at least. We have the Vuelta a España, the Tour of Missouri, the Tour of Britain, the Tour de l’Avenir, Univest GP and even the world military cycling championships going on all at the same time, all in different time zones, and it makes for a fairly long shift, what with live updates, stage reports, results, photo galleries, rider diaries and all the other bells and whistles that draw eyeballs and keep kibble in an old dog’s dish.
I don’t remember the last time I rode a bike, to be honest. I have gotten out for a few hikes, walks, lurches and staggers, and today’s came in a light rain, with cloudy skies, temperatures in the 60s and leaves on the deck. It was something of a shock to my system, as we haven’t really had what I would call a summer.
Mia Sopaipilla doing her Maltese Falcon impersonation.
Can it be fall already? Yep. Disregard the calendar. If we had a woodstove, I would be feeding it a smidgen of aspen and cedar instead of tapping away at the keyboard, waiting for the furnace to click on. It’s about 68 in the office, even with two large flat-panel monitors and a G4 Power Mac cranking out the BTUs. I’m actually wearing socks in the house. Oh, God.
You know it’s brisk when Miss Mia Sopaipilla takes to sitting atop the Motorola DSL modem and Turkish curls up on the boss-fella’s shorts. The big galoot even wanted some time in the actual lap today, which is a sure sign of a tough winter ahead, the Farmer’s Almanac be damned.
Herself is off to some soiree in Mile High, so it’s just me, the cats and VeloNews.com for a few hours. Last night’s buffalo tacos will enjoy a return engagement this evening, as will a few drams of Castillo de Monséran 2007 to ward off the grippe.
Turkish naps in a virtual lap.
If all goes well I will be a free man on Tuesday, and the comedy will resume shortly thereafter. Until Interbike, that is, when it’s back in the barrel for Your Humble Narrator.
What does one drink to ward off a trade show? I used to use single-malt Scotch, but that was in Vegas, when the publisher was buying.
Just a touch of yellow in the ground cover and some red in the leaves. More to come. Next time I'll take a proper camera along.
Busy, busy, busy. Having three stage races going on simultaneously blows the meat whistle. Not as much as Rep. Joe Wilson (R-Dipshit), but it’s right up there. No lie.
Happily, the Vuelta a España was on a rest day, so it was fairly light duty today, with only the Tour de l’Avenir and the Tour of Missouri to follow. I even got out for a nice hike and saw that we’re getting a little color in the foliage around here. Leaves in the gutters. Still warm enough for shorts and a wife-beater, but not for much longer.
I lived in Springfield briefly during the summer of ’72, but I had forgotten how hilly those Missouri roads can be. This may be because I spent more time walking or hitchhiking than cycling. Finally I hitchhiked right the hell out of there, taking the scenic route east to St. Louis, west to Kansas City and north to Iowa Falls, Iowa, before catching one last lift back to Colorado with a friend of a friend.
Tomorrow it’s back in the trenches with VeloNews.com for all three races. Plus there’s a cartoon needs drawing for VeloNews (Dead Tree Edition). I’d hitchhike right the hell out of here and dodge the whole deal, but I had enough trouble getting rides when I was young and pretty, and I’m too old to be that broke.
I thought so — the haze I noticed while out and about this afternoon is smoke from the California wildfires. This planet seems awfully small sometimes. Some of you should probably leave — starting with the swine who hired Jenna Bush Hager as a “Today Show” correspondent when thousands of real journos are out of work. (OK, we’re talking TV here, and “Today,” but still, a gig is a gig.)
Freedumb Communications, which owns the Bibleburg Gaslight, is expected to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection this week, according to the Wall Street Journal. Freedumb’s flagship rag, the Orange County Cash Register, popped up a story yesterday saying that discussions with lenders about restructuring $770 million in debt are “ongoing.”
Some people must be pooping in their pantalones over there on Prospect Street. G staffers have already enjoyed five unpaid days off this year, and the Cash Register has laid some folks off. A quick check of JournalismJobs.com finds, um, not much in the way of gainful employment for rumormongers. So it goes.
I don’t like Freedumb’s editorial philosophy, which is somewhere to the right of the John Birch Society, and quit subscribing to the G years ago. But an ink-stained wretch has to feel for his colleagues when the deal goes down. The ones who don’t write the editorials, anyway.
Mad Blog Media 