It rained like a mad bastard here yesterday, just as Herself was driving (more like hydroplaning) home from work. If a fella wanted to waterboard someone, well, that would’ve been the time to do it. Just hold ’em face down in the cul-de-sac until they bubble “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
Just that morning we had air-shipped Herself the Elder back to Tennessee after a five-day visit, and a lucky gal she was, having hit the sweet spot, weatherwise. The three of us spent an inordinate amount of time on the back patio with Mister Boo and the cats, watching the birds go to town on their various feeders. Though Mister Boo was mostly watching the door, being aware that his food was on the other side of it.
We have a couple more days of this sort of thing before the weather returns to normal, but I’m not complaining. As some of you noted earlier, the lawn is looking pretty a’ight, and if God is watering it, that means I don’t have to.
Meanwhile, stay tuned for some exciting news from Apple! Word is the new iPhone may not have a headphone jack! Film, as they say, at 11.
Your Humble Narrator in the salad days, covering a race in Bibleburg.
While cranking out a column and cartoon to commemorate the upcoming 25th anniversary of the launching of the good ship Bicycle Retailer and Industry News back in 1992, it struck me that I was approaching a milestone of my own — as of today, I have been a full-time freelancer for 25 years.
That is not a typo.
After quitting my seventh and final newspaper gig, at The New Mexican up Santa Fe way, I raced the Record Challenge in Moriarty on Sunday, Sept. 1, 1991 (56:43 for 40km, a personal best), and the very next day I was up north in Bibleburg, trying to figure out how a burned-out newspaperman might pay for his bacon and beans.
I had three things going for me. One, I had been freelancing cartoons and light journalism to VeloNews since March 1989, and I began doing more of that, helping cover (now-defunct) races like La Vuelta de Bisbee, the Casper Classic, and the Cactus Cup, and lending a hand with copy-editing and production up in Boulder.
Two, Marc Sani at BRAIN wanted a comic strip for his brand-new industry magazine, and before long I was writing some stuff for him, too.
And three, Herself and I were living rent-free with my mom, who was in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and required oversight. So we’re not exactly talking Hemingway-in-Paris here; we had a roof over our heads, three hots and a cot, and a small allowance for serving as live-in help while my sister managed Mom’s finances from Fort Collins.
At first I could and did work for anyone. But eventually the VeloNews and BRAIN gigs led to other work in the bike biz, and after a while that’s all I did. It’s hard to believe, but a guy could actually earn a semi-OK living scribbling for bicycle magazines, and eventually, bicycle websites. Who knew? Not me. Not until I had 15 years of newspapering under my belt, anyway.
Today I work for BRAIN and Adventure Cyclist, period. It’s not exactly heavy lifting. I get to make shit up for the one and play with other people’s toys for the other. I should be paying them, not the other way around.
You guys, of course, get the dubious benefits of 40 years’ experience for free. You’re welcome.
The goatheads are after me again. Seems as though I can go for months without a puncture and then suddenly it’s pow, pow, pow. Or, more accurately, pssssshhhhhhh, hissssssssss, fyyyyisssssss.
This rhymes with “bliss,” but is not synonymous.
The smart Duke City cyclist runs goo-filled inner tubes or some tubeless setup to avoid needless pedestrianism. But as you know I will never be smart, so I generally wait for a puncture to replace a standard tube with a gooey one. And sometimes even then I’ll just patch the hole and drive on.
If cycling were really the new golf I’d have a caddy to do this for me, or some sycophantic huckster eager for my thoughts on his notion for a left-handed smartphone. “Just try to keep up, punk,” I’d sneer, and of course he couldn’t. It’s a Mad Dog-eat-dog world.
Yesterday I found a slow leak in the rear tire of the Sam Hillborne — it’s always the rear, isn’t it? — and instead of taking the usual half measures I instantly replaced both inner tubes with goopy tubes. Take that, goatheads. Y’pricks.
OK, I admit that I don’t understand business, beyond the basics (buy cheap, sell dear).
That said, how does giving $10 million in state economic development funding to Facebook — yes, that Facebook, the one worth $350 billion — constitute good business for the state of New Mexico, which faces a projected shortfall for the current budget year of $458 million?
• Guarantee Facebook 1.5 million gallons of water per day.
• Reimburse the sixth most valuable company in America for up to 75 percent of gross tax revenues from the center’s construction and operation.
• Waive property taxes for more than 30 years.
All for “up to” 300 construction jobs over seven years and 50 “permanent” jobs, which we know are anything but as restless gazillionaires in search of a better deal make struggling localities scrap like dumb dogs over an old bone.
As I said, I don’t understand business. And I know New Mexicans need jobs. But wouldn’t Los Lunas be better served in the long run by courting companies that love us for what we are, and might still respect us in the morning?
Mad Blog Media 
