Ch-ch-ch-changes

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
Scott Pankratz will lead the Adventure Cycling Association, succeeding outgoing executive director Jim Sayer.

The Adventure Cycling Association has hired itself a new executive director.

My attention was elsewhere when the deal went down, and I don’t know what it means for The Organization. I may have met Scott Pankratz in the course of my wanderings, though I don’t recall doing so. I have met many people, many, many of them, and they have met some version of me.

In any case, he seems to have been involved in good works, co-founding (with wife Julie Osborn) the nonprofit Ecology Project International; serving on the boards of the Montana Community Foundation and the Montana Nonprofit Association; and riding the ol’ bikey-bikey from Hither to Yon and back again.

“My passion and enthusiasm as the incoming executive director at Adventure Cycling come directly from transformative moments in the saddle from Alaska to Mexico,” Pankratz said via press release. “I look forward to expanding our community to give everyone with a bike the confidence, community, and gratitude that is at the heart of the Adventure Cycling experience.”

Scott takes over from the departing Jim Sayer early next year. Best wishes to both.

Awtumn

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 18 Comments
O, ’tis a fine soft first day of October.

Fall, stat! Whoof, the Universe is on the ball today. No sooner is it October than boom, the gray skies, the likelihood of thunderboomers, and the yellowing of the maple leaves.

With the changing of the seasons in full swing those fat bastards in DeeCee no longer need fear breaking a gravy sweat as they continue stripping the Republic for salable parts.

Has the Grand Experiment finally failed? Is it time to return to a monarchy? Some people think so. Liberation from the drudgery of managing their own affairs certainly would free up scads of time for watching cute kitty videos, Instagramming their Starbucks orders, and piloting defective e-scooters into phone-thumbing pedestrians.

It’s beginning to look a lot like … October?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 20 Comments
You really shouldn’t show a dog this many trees
after he’s had three cups of coffee.

Yes, that’s exactly what it appears to be: a Christmas display at the local Lowe’s, in September.

I think we all know what I want for Christmas (cough, cough, impeachment, removal, cough, cough).

But having been a very naughty boy indeed, I don’t expect to get it.

Well, I expect to get it, all right. But not that “it.”