Uncurb your enthusiasm

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
The White Tornado
The White Tornado, a 1983 4WD Toyota long-bed pickup that I bought in 1998 and finally sold yesterday.

For the first time in nearly 35 years I am without a pickup truck.

Yesterday I sold the White Tornado, my 1983 Toyota 4WD long-bed pickup, to the auto shop that kept it and our other rice-grinders rolling long past their sell-by dates. The owner’s grandson needed something that was easier on the wallet than the giant pile of Detroit iron he’s been driving, and since Whitey needed work it seemed appropriate to let a family of mechanics adopt the auld fella.

Whitey was the sole survivor of a once-mighty Nipponese fleet, which not that long ago included another ’83 (a 2WD version with nearly 300,000 miles), a troublesome ’78 Toyota Chinook pop-top camper (dubbed the Pee-wee because it looked like something Pee-wee Herman might use to lure unwary children from a playground); and a 1998 Tacoma that was the last brand-new, showroom-floor vehicle we will ever buy.

The fleet
The fleet, docked at Weirdcliffe. Not pictured: The Pee-wee.

And yes, I had them all at the same time.

One by one they all went west on me. The Tacoma we traded for my Forester. The Pee-wee we sold to a guy whose son needed a camper for fishing trips. And the 2WD ’83 went to the same folks who bought Whitey — they fixed it up for a young construction type who needed a work truck, and I saw it around town now and then for a couple years afterward.

I’ve had a truck since I still had hair, and it feels weird to look out the window and not see one up against the curb. But I got used to not having hair, and I suppose I’ll get used to not having a truck.

Maybe I can saw the ass-end off the Forester and drop a flatbed on the sumbitch.

Foggy Friday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
The cruelest month
Things are all fogged up around here today.

“April is the cruellest month,” wrote T.S. Eliot. The quote arises unbidden as I watch the weather change from sunny to snowy to sunny again, and finally to a chilly shvitz of fog — all in less than a week.

Appropriately, April also brings the cruelest race, Paris-Roubaix. And while I no longer help cover such sport for vampire capitalists, I plan to get up way too early on Sunday and lend a paw to my friend and colleague Charles Pelkey over at Live Update Guy.

Charles will be on deck at dark-thirty, as usual, but I won’t plug in until the race is well under way. In the meantime, give us your picks for the V in comments. Tom Boonen is obviously a fave, but with filthy weather in the forecast and no Fabian Cancellara it could be anyone’s race. T.S. Eliot was right.

Light snow, big wind

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 9 Comments
April showers
Oh noes, it's the Blizzard of 2012!

April showers, May flowers, yeah, right, got it. But my idea of “April showers” does not involve a gram of snow scattered across the Lesser Bibleburg Metropolitan Area by 35-mph winds. All a guy gets out of that is cold.

Could be worse, though. Apparently not satisfied with making chumps out of Rick “Governor Goodhair” Perry and Ron Paul on the national stage, God laid a dozen tornadoes on the Dallas-Fort Worth area, where they caused several million dollars worth of improvements.

Elsewhere, a three-judge panel of the 5th Judicial District is in “full wingnut mode,” according to Mother Jones; Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan chats up David Duke’s old gang, the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (as I did back in the Seventies, when I spoke with The Head Hood Hisself); and the RomneyBot v2.012 wins the GOP primary in my birth state of Maryland.

But lest you think the contest over, know this: Rick Sphinctorum says it’s only “halftime.” Jesus wept.

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Buck at Bear Creek
The buck stops here, nyuk nyuk nyuk.

My friend and colleague Charles Pelkey cranked up the old Live Update Machine today for the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, and a couple other refugees from the other outfit joined in toward the end to provide wit and wisdom, kinda, sorta, as Fabian Cancellara crashed out with a broken collarbone and Tom Boonen took the win ahead of Filippo Pozzato and Alessandro Ballan. You shoulda been there.

But if you weren’t, well, you can catch the act next week during Paris-Roubaix.

No cobbles in these parts, but the riding is pretty damn’ fine regardless. The weather is officially insane for early spring — as in 76 degrees yesterday — and I rode south on the Trail of Many Names to its southern terminus in Fountain, then turned around and headed for home, with a quick detour into Bear Creek Regional Park for extra credit and a deer sighting.

It was headwind out, tailwind back, and good for three hours in the saddle, which should reduce my gravitational potential somewhat if I keep it up. I can manage another such outing today, but tomorrow — not so much. The weather wizards predict a 50 percent chance of showers and a high in the mid-40s. Oh, the humanity.

Post-birthday nose meets same old grindstone

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments

A thousand thank-yous to all who proffered happy-birthday wishes instead of death threats.

The festivities began with a pleasant two-hour bike ride — headwind out, tailwind back — and concluded with a high-speed burst of cookery after Herself invited the neighbors over.

We’ve been to their house for eats a couple of times, but had yet to reciprocate, so never having cooked for them I stuck with my basic skill set — a simple pico de gallo with blue corn chips followed by a pot of pintos in chipotle, which I turned into burritos smothered in hot Pueblo green chile with a side of roasted potatoes in red Chimayo chile.

Herself contributed a salad and a delicious raspberry cobbler. Beer and wine were consumed, along with a dollop of uisce beatha. Laughter ensued, and a fine time was had by all, except for the Turk’, who despises company, especially if it includes an aggro’ Chihuahua named Cujo.

Now it’s deadline time at the DogHaus, and somebody around here needs to get real funny real fast. We didn’t spend much on my birthday, but the White Tornado has a new fuel pump and the upstairs toilet has new guts, and Toyota mechanics and plumbers don’t work for free.