Indoor sports

April 3, 2014April 3, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments

Oak Creek Grade, between Cañon City and Weirdcliffe, where a fella is definitely gonna want something lower than 30x30. — Oak Creek Grade, between Cañon City and Weirdcliffe, where a fella is definitely gonna want something lower than 30×30.

The silver maple in the front yard at Chez Dog wearing a thick coat of snowy goodness.

“Man plans, God laughs,” goes the Yiddish proverb.

So, naturally, as I was contemplating the intricacies, logistics and amusements of a bicycle tour, Management reminded me that spring is only a word, an arbitrary date on a manmade calendar.

Yesterday I was motoring around Fremont and Custer counties with the windows down, scoping out various back roads between Florence and Weirdcliffe with a Colorado Atlas & Gazetteer in the passenger seat while tugging frequently from a water bottle. Today I awakened to a few inches of heavy, wet snow on the deck, with more on the way.

No complaints here, mind you. Water from on high is water I don’t have to buy from Colorado Springs Utilities. And it sure beats being on fire.

So it looks to be a fine day for hanging around indoors, viewing with alarm. For instance, I notice that the Supremes are trying to make it less onerous for the 1 percent to run the country the way they see fit. And a Colorado judge is intent on making it harder for the 99 percent to catch them at it.

I’m starting to think Roberts, Scalia, Thomas, Kennedy and Alito are deserving of life terms after all. Not on the high court, mind you, but in Leavenworth, making little rocks out of big ones for their crimes against the people.

Stoking the furnace

March 22, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 32 Comments

Temperature? 23, feels like 13. Chance of rain and/or snow? 80 percent.

Springtime in the Rockies? Check.

When whisky is unavailable, what a auld fella wants on a brisk morning such as this is Bob’s Red Mill organic seven-grain pancakes with butter and maple syrup, two eggs over easy, black coffee and tea, mandarin segments and some warm socks (don’t eat that last item unless you’re really, really hungry or in dire need of fiber).

Like a dumb dog, I’m always surprised when spring looks suspiciously like winter, the way eastern Colorado looks like Kansas and Paul Ryan looks like a baboon’s ass. But last year, samey same. And the year before that. Annnnd the year before that.

You get the idea.

One of these days I’ll wise up and move to the desert. Where, naturally, I’ll bitch about the heat.

Strange beverage

March 16, 2014March 16, 2014 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

Oh, ’tis a fine soft day in Charlotte, North Carolina. Ninety-three percent humidity is good for the skin after a long day spent drinking watery green beer with a few thousand of your closest friends followed by a nap in a shamrock-colored puddle of pee under the old F-350.

I managed to skirt the no-fly list once again and am squatting in the Charlotte airport awaiting the next pressurized aluminum tube full of viruses bound for Chicago, where I understand the climate is likewise good for preservation, especially of things like wooly mammoths, Ben and Jerry’s, and other frozen goods. Just as well, as I’ll be chilling there for at least a couple of hours before catching a Ford Tri-Motor for Bibleburg and Chez Dog.

Skipped the final day of the North American Handmade Bicycle Show, as two days gave us a pretty good look-see at all the touring bikes that weren’t there and I like to rassle my travel arrangements early, especially when I have so little say in how they get made and turn out. If some TSA dude is gonna beat on my kidneys with a mop handle I want to get it over with early, is what.

Meanwhile, Mr. Deme is in Detroit, where he reports he is sipping a Miller Fortune.

“All I can say is we really needed High Life in another package with a bit of Malt Liquor Bull added to it,” he adds.

I recommended a chaser of Listerine, or perhaps some Park Tool chain cleaner.

“That’s next,” he said.

Strange bedfellows

May 9, 2013May 9, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Two cats, one bed — The Turk’ and Mia cuddle up on a damp, chilly May day.

You know it’s a damp, chilly day when Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein (commander, 1st Feline Home Defense Regiment) and Miss Mia Sopaipilla decide to share the same bed, which just happens to sit on a shelf in Herself’s bathroom, directly under a heater vent.

The Turk can be a troublesome bedmate. Being groomed by the big galoot is like being run over again and again by a Velcro steamroller, and his long, furry carcass generates enough heat to hard-boil an egg.

Mia finally decided she had had enough and shifted quarters to the blanket on top of the bedroom bureau. Turk, meanwhile, relocated to my lap, which goes a long way toward explaining my appalling lack of productivity today.

Hell, you try getting anything done with a 16-pound cat sprawled across your lap. Anything besides paying attention to the cat, that is.

• Addendum: Consigliere Pelkey and I are live-updating the Giro d’Italia again this year. You can catch the act at Live Update Guy or Red Kite Prayer, whichever best floats your gondola.

Storm of the century!

April 9, 2013April 9, 2013 ~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 35 Comments

Snowpocalypse — I’ve seen bigger blizzards at Dairy Queen.

Or not.

A meteorologist must feel kinship with the Denver Broncos on a day like today. First, the big buildup — and then, the even bigger letdown.

We’ve not given up hope for a little moisture, mind you. The National Weather Service is still predicting snow showers, but the dumper has been dialed back to a dribble. And if this wind keeps up it will all end up in northeastern New Mexico anyway.

Naturally, the schools are all closed. Small wonder the nation’s supply of idiots is constantly on the rise.

When I was a sprout they wouldn’t close the schools if they were on fire and full of serial killers. And we had to walk to school, uphill both ways, in the snow. Real snow! Not this global-warming shit that looks like a drunk redneck took half a can of white Krylon to his plastic Christmas tree.