The times, they are a-changin’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 65 Comments

You better start swimming or you’ll sink like a stone. …

I started the New Year off with a bang, resigning my temporary commission as a junior officer aboard the sinking ship VeloNews.com.

It may sound impulsive, but it was a decision long in the making. I had been with VeloNews (now Velo) for nearly 23 years, since March of 1989, and had been a contributor to VeloNews.com for some nine years, eventually rising to the lofty post of online editor at large. As the MarketSpeak® has it, I felt some “ownership” of the “brand” and wasn’t eager to simply walk away as some equally frustrated friends and colleagues had done, among them former editor in chief Ben Delaney and former web editor Steve Frothingham.

A younger VeloDog
Your Humble Narrator back in the mid-1990s, working a road race for VeloNews.

But VeloNews.com has been rudderless since Steve moved back to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, and though I agreed to fill in as web editor five days a week until a replacement unit was located, acquired and installed, I was a having an unusually difficult time getting management at Competitor Group Inc. in San Diego to commit to a basic two-days-a-week contract for Your Humble Narrator as 2012 approached.

Contractual squabbles were nothing new. Rassling management over contracts became an annual Feat of Strength after CGI acquired Inside Communications Inc. back in 2008, and excising toxic bits from their reams of legalese was like unbuilding Frankenstein’s monster.

But before there had always been a web editor or magazine editor standing between me and San Diego. We would exchange pleasantries (“Fuck no, I ain’t signing that. And where’s my check for January?” “Didn’t get paid again, eh? Why don’t you go on one of your pain-in-the-ass strikes?”) and eventually the exasperated intermediary and I would reach a deal that graciously permitted me another year’s earnings (unless CGI woke up cranky one day and decided to sack me), the retention of my copyrights and some limited freedom of speech.

This time around the website was on its own for budgetary purposes, the digital herd had been ruthlessly thinned and I stood alone against the Pirates of Mira Mesa. Repeated inquiries as to future employment were met with: “We’ll take it up with the new cap’n soon’s he’s piped aboard, matey. Now grab hold of an oar, the admiral wants to water ski.”

Well. Call me paranoid, but having seen the cutlasses come out for Charles Pelkey, John Wilcockson and other more senior members of the crew, I was starting to hear the sound of whetstones on steel in my sleep. So rather than wait to walk the plank, I used it as a diving board and went over the side.

The coward’s way out? Maybe. Truth is, I just didn’t feel like fighting tooth and nail for half a chance at the dubious privilege of repurposing magazine content, rewriting press releases and picking a new featured image in an old photo gallery to make it look fresh. I’m too old a salt for that. It’s cabin boy’s work.

I hate to leave the boyos in Boulder behind, facing heavy weather, but I won’t miss the buccaneers in San Diego. It’s a Bounty full of Blighs and not a Christian in the lot.

New Year’s Eve blows

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 28 Comments
The Fat Guy, circa 2002
The Old Guy Who Gets Fat In Winter, circa 2002. How little things change in a decade.

The wind is clocking a Brazilian miles per hour out there today, which means it can strip you of your pubic hair in an instant (after first blowing off your pants).

Happily, I’m safe inside, doing a bit of light pixel-pushing for VeloNews.com, thinking halfheartedly about riding the trainer, and wondering what I can whip up to fetch to an informal New Year’s Eve gathering at a neighbor’s place. Tequila surprise? Nope, there are too many surprises lurking in that Mexican cactus whiskey. I don’t know these people well enough for that. Homemade salsa and chips will suffice.

I had hoped to get in one last ride to close out 2011, but the wind disabused me of that notion. Plus given my calorie consumption this holiday season it felt something like bolting the gate to the sty after the pig had escaped.

A quick check of my training log finds that I rode just short of 3,500 miles this year, about half of what I did 20 years ago when I was still racing a ton. No records exist of my 2001 mileage. However, I had begun losing interest in competition after a brief peak as a cyclo-crosser in 1999, and living outside Weirdcliffe made training on the road difficult and getting to races problematic and expensive, so I expect I had already begun my glide path toward the lower mileage of the recreational rider.

But there’s something about working in cycling journalism that — for me, at least — makes cycling less recreational than it might be for, say, a radiologist, carpenter or accountant. I write columns, edit stories and draw cartoons about people who ride bicycles over impossible distances with authority and panache, then perform a poor imitation of them in my free time. Some days it can feel something like dressing up in other people’s clothes, like a fat kid wearing a Superman costume.

This is one reason I was glad to find I could take up running again after a few months off. I don’t earn a dime from the sport or know anything about it and thus can contentedly lumber along, nodding sympathetically at the pained expressions on the other runners I encounter. It’s more medicinal than recreational, the equivalent of a hearty dose of fish oil or flossing your teeth.

And man — you want to sample an activity that elevates cycling above other pasatiempos, take up running three days a week. It makes a brand-new Brooks saddle feel like the gentle hand of the Lord.

So let’s all do more of it in 2012, no matter how badly. It’s an election year, after all, and people will need the comic relief.

Happy New Year to you and yours.

• Late update: Thanks and a tip of the Mad Dog Media IWW tuque to the folks WordPress tells me are the Most Active Commenters of 2011:

  1. Khal S. (473)
  2. Larry T. (296)
  3. Ben S. (117)
  4. James (116)
  5. Libby (111)

You folks keep the joint lively and it’s a pleasure to have you — and all the rest of you — stopping by.

Season’s growlings

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 12 Comments
Christmas 2011, Santa's elves
Capping off another terrific Christmas: from left, Bouncing Buddy Banzai the Spinning Japanese Chin; Field Marshal Turkish von Turkenstein, who clearly had too much eggnog last night; and Miss Mia Sopaipilla.

Preparations for the annual holiday feast have begun at Chez Dog. Herself’s gift, a Canon Vixia HF M41 camcorder, is charging on the kitchen table (she aced a video-production class this fall) as she assembles a raspberry cobbler.

Next up is a cornbread-stuffing recipe we’ve never tried before — the cornbread itself is already done, and top-notch it is, too — followed by an appetizer of toasted baguettes topped with a rich spread of prosciutto, butter, Parmigiano-Reggiano and pine nuts (also a newcomer); mashed spuds; sauteéd spinach with mushrooms; giblet gravy, cranberry relish; and last but not least, roast turkey.

I usually do something offbeat for Christmas, like a Northern New Mexican feast or a chicken cacciatore, but this year I decided we needed the comfort food. The leftovers are the best part of a traditional turkey dinner — turkey sandwiches, turkey enchiladas, turkey soup, and whatnot. You cook like a mad bastard for one day and reheat leftovers for three days. What’s not to like?

Meanwhile, the traditional Humiliation of the Animals has been accomplished. The furry swine failed to get me a MacBook Air or an iPhone 4, and I’ll be damned if I’ll let that pass without retribution. You can order that stuff online, f’chrissakes. No messy human interaction or trips to the mall required:

“Hello, how may I help you?

“Meow.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Meow!”

“Come again?”

“Meeeowwwwwwrrrr. ... Oh, fuck it, Buddy, you try.”

“Woof?”