Category: Photo gallery

Fuelishness

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 34 Comments
Valero: $3.59
Circle K: $3.59
Speedway: $3.39
DK: $3.39

Gas prices on March 9 along Tramway Boulevard between Lomas and San Bernardino.

Monday’s chores were medium-heavy and I didn’t get a chance to ride until late afternoon.

It was going to have to be a short one, and I was thinking I should just go for a run instead.

But it was a gorgeous day — 77°! — and the forecast for today was looking a little less favorable. So I kitted up, grabbed the Rivendell Sam Hillborne, and set off for a brief inspection tour of gas prices at four stations along Tramway.

As you know, “the roaring economy is roaring like never before,” and though I’ve seen no signs of this at the grocery or anywhere else, The Pestilence says it is so and thus I must be mistaken. Wouldn’t be the first time.

I rarely drive, gassing up the ol’ rice rocket about once every three months or so. And lately I’ve quit collecting receipts because the pumps’ printers are usually on the fritz and damme if I’m stumbling into the kiosk to stand in line with the proles waiting to pay for their Slim Jims, malt-liquor 40s, and coffin nails, whatever they haven’t already shoplifted.

But I’m pretty sure that the last time I filled up — before we decided to bomb Iran into democracy — the price per gallon for regular was $2.83. And yesterday it was as you see above.

Winning? Your mileage may vary, as the fella says.

This may become a regular feature here at Ye Olde Dogge House. Feel free to chime in with the gas prices in your neck of “the roaring economy.” In the meantime, I have a year’s worth of grocery receipts to examine. I suspect that if there is any roaring to be heard as a consequence, it will be coming from me.

• Addendum: The Associated Press has a national roundup. Whoo, check them L.A. prices! I love L.A.!

iPhoning it in

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments

We’ve had some pretty stunning sunrises around here the past couple days, and if there were a photographer in the house s/he might have made something of them. Alas, you have to settle for some old fool and his iPhone.

 

Change of venue

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 24 Comments

Traffic was light on the bosque trail today.

A fella can only take so much news: payoffs to North Korea, measles making a comeback, and the relentless, all-hacks-on-deck pimping of Marvel’s “Avengers” finale.

AIn’t none of that shit goin’ on down to the bosque. So that’s where I went.

It was a beautiful day for averting one’s eyes from the ongoing collapse of civilization, with temps in the 60s and 70s, blue skies, and only the slightest wind.

Aboard the Rivendell Sam Hillborne I plunged down the usual route — Tramway, Roy, 4th, Guadalupe Trail and Alameda — to the bosque. But instead of hanging a left on the Paseo del Norte bike path and starting the 1,000-foot climb back to El Rancho Pendejo, as I had planned, I kept rolling.

Just past I-40 I picked up Mountain through Old Town, then headed for home via the North Diversion Channel Trail, Bear Arroyo-Osuna, Manitoba, and like that there.

It made for a pleasant, low-traffic 40-miler. And I had enough left in the tank to air the cats and mow the lawn when I got home.

Attack of the Democrats

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

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The prez popped in for a chat today, and a sizable crowd of Bibleburgers seemed happy to see him despite the astonishing disrespect shown for the Second Amendment by his security team. Why, the only people packing heat were the heat. Imagine my astonishment. Where’s Ron Paul when you need him?

The speech itself was basic campaign boilerplate, but it went over pretty well, especially considering we’d spent about four hours broiling under an August sun while waiting to catch Obama’s act. A small army of volunteers was passing out water to the masses, though my requests for three fingers of Chamucos with a beer back went unanswered.

It was quite a crowd infesting Cutler Quad at Colorado College. Blacks, Asians, honkies and Hispanics; old, young and in between; gay, straight and in between; haves and “waiting to haves.” While waiting for the prez to crank it up we chatted with a black Vietnam vet and his German secretary, a Buddhist who sits thrice weekly with three different sanghas, and (of all things) one of Herself’s friends from elementary school back in Maryland.

If there were any pro-Romney hecklers in the bunch I didn’t hear them. It was a fine departure from the horrid discourse one reads in the public prints. Strangers were passing water to each other, sharing the few bits of shade and taking care that everyone had a chance to see the famous tyrannical Kenyan crypto-Muslim socialist usurper in the flesh so they could scope out the horns and that big 666 on his forehead.

Frankly, there’s something reassuring about seeing that many fellow travelers packed into one place like red herrings in a tin. I caught more than one person giving another that appraising glance that says, “Oho, so you’re one too, eh?” Makes it easier to keep plugging along, knowing you’re not the only round peg in a town full of square holes.