Spring?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
The arthritic old ornamental pear stretches its gnarled limbs.

Kinda gnarly-looking, I know. Still, EarthSky says it’s the vernal equinox, so I gotta go with it.

The allergies say spring. So does the unsettled weather. The NWS has issued a red-flag warning; no, it doesn’t mean the Russians are coming, but it seems we can expect winds of 20-30 mph with gusts to 45.

Last year I rode the equinox in shorts and arm warmers, which came off midride. The year before that I got rained on. So it goes.

Tracking alongside the allergies is another seasonal affliction, the wanderlust. One former colleague will attend next week’s Bicycle Leadership Conference in Dana Point, Calif. In a couple weeks he and some others will dive into the Sea Otter Classic in Monterey. And the Cactus Cup at McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, Ariz., has already come and gone.

Some old newspaper pals from California recently took a ski trip to Aspen. The friends who blew through here with their e-bikes on Friday were headed home to Fort Collins from Tucson. I’m starting to feel like the only guy I know who hasn’t traveled further from home than he can get on two wheels and one water bottle.

It all reminded me of a bit of grumbling I recorded last March for Radio Free Dogpatch, with an assist from kindly old Doctor Firesign and Ralph Spoilsport Motors (“The World’s Biggest”). I think I’ll give this ol’ baby a spin on the freeway. …

Run!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments
The wind smears clouds like a finger over pastel pencil.

Running was the order of the day yesterday. Not from the Russians, or even from the cops. Just ’cause.

Mostly just ’cause it was all we had time for.

Another round of visitors was en route and I had been instructed to deploy my mad posole skillz. The cooking is not difficult but does burn a bit of daylight, even with Herself handling the salad, cornbread, and ice cream. So instead of a refreshing bike ride we did a half hour of the old hep hoop hreep horp along the foothills trails.

I was not at the top of my game, with seasonal allergies using my snotlocker for a speed bag and the Worm Moon wiggling into my REM sleep the night before. I don’t like taking drugs that don’t make you see things that aren’t there, or vertical blinds that make you see things that are there.

Next time we need window treatments I’ll stay in the kitchen where I’m useful, maybe whip up a batch of posole for the installers. Either that or go for a run or ride, come home just in time to sign the check.

The luck of the Irish

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 29 Comments
A wee bit monochromatic for the wearin’ of the green.

O, ’tis a fine soft day we have here so.

The rain awakened Herself, but not me. I thought she was selling me a bill of goods when she said it rained during the night, until I glanced outside this morning.

There’s a dusting of snow just up the hill, and the cul-de-sac is dampish. This wee sprinkle will do a fine job of tamping down the sand in the arroyo I’ve been riding lately. I’ve only seen one other cyclist in there and he was riding a mountain bike; also, down, not up.

It will save me from the raking of the lawn as well. No point in busting my hump corraling all those soggy pine needles now. Wait until they dry out and lighten up.

Ditto for the trails. Never ride ’em wet. After a rain the knuckleheads in Bibleburg would slash the gooey singletrack into something that looked like Rodan the Flying Monster’s landing strip. The ruts would set up harder than times in 1929, and riding them on a cyclocross bike meant taking a hot lap on Satan’s Slot Car Track.

The ground here in The Duck! City is mighty thirsty, though. Getting it wet enough to damage with bicycle tires might require the sort of deluge that made a sailor of Noah.

‘Anyone can get an auto loan’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
For when the M1126 Infantry Carrier Vehicle just isn’t big enough.

OK, so, with the Russian war in Ukraine, random gun violence here at home, and inflation everywhere, we all have plenty to worry about.

But wait! There’s more!

Cyclists, pedestrians, and anyone else hoping for safe streets in a livable environment will hop the first dick-missile to Mars after scanning this New York Times story on what the quarter-point hike in the Fed’s key interest rate means for any of us chickens who’d like to cross the road without winding up fried and breaded in one of the Colonel’s buckets.

A couple key pull-quotes:

“There is far more variation in auto lending than in, say, the mortgage market because there are more credit types. Anyone can get an auto loan.” — Jonathan Smoke, chief economist at Cox Automotive, an industry consulting firm.

“Car-loan rates will move up as the Fed hikes interest rates, but it will be a nonissue for car buyers because it has such a limited impact on monthly payments. Nobody will need to downsize from the S.U.V. to the compact because of rising rates.” — Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com.

Damn straight. Fuck a bunch of Prius. Whadda I look like, some hippie? I got an image to maintain. What are the Russian oligarchs driving this season?

The firing line

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
A bear in the air just north of El Rancho Pendejo.

The clattering of helicopters overhead had become irksome, so I stepped out to see what the hell.

Hm. City cops, sheriff, KOAT-TV. … Goddamn it, has someone posted my résumé on NextDoor again?

Nope. Seems there was body count up the street around Larchmont and Montgomery. Just a short while earlier I had bicycled through that very area twice, at the start of a fine bike ride and again at its conclusion.

The media called it an “active shooter situation,” and indeed it was. Two people dead — one of them the suspect — and four wounded, two of them police officers. Happily, it seems neither sustained life-threatening injuries.

There were few details in a short presser I caught on Twitter, and nobody asked the question uppermost in my mind: How fucking stupid batshit insane do you have to be to start shooting citizens and throw down on the cops when there’s a police substation within earshot?