Put your back into it

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 7 Comments
More fall, still more!

Two visits with the backcracker and I’m feeling more and more like a biped capable of upright locomotion. That said, I’m still not convinced it was a good idea for the Irish to come down from the trees, even though the English were kind enough to teach us how to operate the wheelbarrow.

What I need to be operating is some bicycles. The deadlines, they loom — for Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, for Adventure Cyclist — and I’ve noticed that Kevin Drum’s obsession with artificial intelligence notwithstanding, these pieces refuse to write themselves.

And somebody has to pay the backcracker. ‘Cause he doesn’t accept health insurance.

Thus the temptation is to get out there right now and push those pedals around. Burn some fat, light the cranial fireworks, make a little magic.

Hmm. What would Plato do? Probably not that. Maybe I’ll just go for a walk.

Crack me up

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 14 Comments
Have you noticed that cats rarely require chiropractic adjustment? Me too.

Bang, pow, zoom: To the moon, O’Grady!

OK, so it wasn’t quite that dramatic. But it wasn’t no honeymoon, neither.

What it was: I test-drove a new chiropractor today and after some exertion on his part (and some unseemly screeching on mine) I am feeling a bit more like myself. A barely upright lesser primate, in other words.

In professional parlance, I am “a mess,” which is no surprise to anyone.

But mess though I may be, at least I have not been caught lying to the press and to Congress. Now that’s a mess.

Whether anyone has the spine to treat this ailment, of course, is another matter entirely.

Monday fun day

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 8 Comments

Will Paul Manafort be wearing an orange jumpsuit for Halloween?

Not likely. He’s a white guy, a Person of Money who doesn’t even drive his own car. Such people have spokepersons and lawyers, and they can make bail with the loose change from underneath their limo seats.

Still, the game is afoot, as Holmes would say. Is that the baying of an infernal hound I hear?

Nope. Just some noisy mutt barking on Twitter.

Don’t forget to put roses on my grave

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
This may be the last rose of the season. But this being Albuquerque, quién sabe?

Some of you may be secretly pleased to learn that after I got all smug about our lovely fall weather I managed to tweak my back just enough to curtail my enjoyment of the extended cycling season.

It’s an old problem that makes an occasional painful comeback, like herpes, malaria or the Republican Party. And it taught me the only thing I really learned in college: When delivering refrigerators for beer money, lift with your legs.

Anyway, from time to time some small movement not involving the relocation of refrigerators triggers a back spasm, and while this one is not as bad as some, it’s bad enough to keep me off the bike this afternoon.

I’m not in my basement room, with a needle and a spoon. But I did munch a little Advil to take my pain away.