Bike Friday

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments
Your Humble Narrator, circa 1980 at The Arizona Daily Star
Your Humble Narrator, circa 1980 at The Arizona Daily Star.

Nice Q&A with John Howard in the San Diego Union-Tribune. Asked what he likes about cycling, Howard replies: “The fresh air, blue sky. Just being out there. At this stage of my life, it’s all about the (mental) therapy.” What he said.

To the east, El Tour de Tucson rolls out tomorrow, and The Arizona Daily Star — which in 1980 had the misfortune to employ Your Humble Narrator — has a profile of multisport athlete Kathyrn Bertine, who is now focused on cycling. The Tucson Citizen, meanwhile, takes a look at Team Xood, formed by local pro Scott Blanchard. Nice to see the MSM paying attention to our sport for a change.

I wasn’t paying any attention to cycling in 1980. I had a bike, a beat-up old Schwinn Continental, but it was strictly transportation and rarely used even for that. Mostly I worked, drank beer and swam, in the landlady’s pool off Orange Grove Road and at the University of Arizona, because Tucson is hotter than Hell and a single guy could keep cool while ogling a lot of scantily clad female forms. I developed a fine tan along with many evil ideas, none of which came to fruition.

Late update: Almost forgot — there’s a cyclo-cross tomorrow in Bibleburg. You can download a PDF flyer here. My man Mikey O’Schenk, believed to be the last Mad Dog still racing, may or may not renew his duel to the death with Dennis “The Menace” Collard. The two fought right down to the wire in the local winter running series, with Dennis winning the final race by a couple seconds but Mikey holding a comfortable dozen-second cushion in the overall. Alas, Rumor Control reports that Dennis may forgo a bid for a second consecutive beating because he’s working the event (been there, done that, Hoss).

Fun, fun, fun

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 3 Comments

I was off on a little web-surfin’ safari this morning and ran across a story in The Los Angeles Times that says Angelenos are abandoning mass transit and crankin’ up their little deuce coupes again, now that gasoline prices have plummeted to $2.30 per gallon. Good news, Detroit: You won’t be needing that bailout after all. SUVs for everyone! She’s real fine, my 409 . . . .

In other auto news, failed presidential candidate Mitt Romney — whose dad ran American Motors in the good ol’ Rambler days and then became governor of Michigan — took a giant dump on Motor City in The New York Times the other day, and The Detroit Free Press called him on it. It’s a pretty interesting read for those of us who haven’t paid much attention to the U.S. auto industry of late. Meanwhile, here’s some number-crunching from The Detroit News regarding the industry’s employment effects beyond Motown.

And in DeeCee, House Donks have voted to replace auto-industry pal John Dingell of Michigan as chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee with Henry Waxman of California. Steve Benen calls this “a very encouraging development” that will make a meaningful energy bill more likely.

Couldn’t these guys have carpooled?

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 5 Comments

If you’re bound for Congress to sing the poverty blues, it helps if you’re not traveling by multimillion-dollar corporate jet. Good God. No wonder the U.S. auto industry has the collective net worth of a roach coach in East LA. Thanks and a wink through the aviator goggles to Steve Benen at Political Animal.

The Mad Dog Forester, with Steelman attached, in McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, Ariz.
The Mad Dog Forester, with Steelman attached, in McDowell Mountain Regional Park outside Fountain Hills, Ariz.

Late update: I’m no economist, as Herself will be only too happy to confirm. I don’t even play one on TV. But I’m having a hard time feeling any sympathy for the Big Three automakers, who seem likely to ride their private jets back to Motor City without fat wads of the taxpayers’ cash tucked neatly away in their vest pockets.

I’ve owned exactly two American-made cars — a ’64 Chevy Biscayne, which I loved, right up to point at which I drove it into a train, and a 1996 Ford F-150, which proved so evil a vehicle that an exasperated mechanic told me, “Mr. O’Grady, you don’t need a mechanic, you need an exorcist.”

Something happened in the three decades between Biscayne and Beelzebub, and it wasn’t good. That’s why Herself drives a 2002 Subaru Outback and I drive an ’05 Subaru Forester. My ’83 Toyota 4WD is still functional, but in need of repair, which it will not get anytime soon. Even so, I’d rather push it than drive that piece-of-shit Ford.

Sure, if one, two or all three of Motor City’s titans collapse, a lot of people will be going ass-first into the blades. But they’ll have plenty of company. My own line of work, journalism, is shedding workers like a dead dog sheds fleas, and for the same reason — the folks running the show have been too busy cashing checks to come to terms with a changing world. I don’t see anyone trying to money-whip us back to solvency.

Hulk smashed!

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 1 Comment
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .
You wouldn't like me when I'm angry . . .

Upstart Donk Mark Begich has sent Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Pork) a nifty present for his 85th birthday — a one-way ticket back to Alaska.

Stevens was the ethically challenged engineer on a gravy train that has sent Alaska far more of the taxpayers’ money than it deserves during his six terms in office; let’s hope the pork gets sliced a little more thinly and spread around a bit more fairly in his absence.

The evil old fart, a self-styled “mean, miserable SOB” who famously donned an “Incredible Hulk” tie when preparing for legislative combat over drilling in the Alaskan National Wildlife Refuge, goes to his well-deserved fate not with a bang, but with a whimper: “I wouldn’t wish what I am going through on anyone, my worst enemy,” Mr. Stevens said Tuesday morning in the Capitol, according to The New York Times.

Gosh. Kermit was right — it ain’t easy being green.

Rocky Mountain high

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 2 Comments
There's still some water on the Academy; the Blue Zoomies probably stole it from the Army while those guys were out of town, getting used to desert life.
There's still some water on the Academy; the Blue Zoomies probably stole it from the Army while those guys were out of town, getting used to desert life.

As in record temperature, I suspect. It was 75 when I wrapped up my lunchtime ride into the Air Force Academy and back, accompanied by a couple hundred of my closest friends. Seemed like everyone with a bike and a good excuse for riding same was doing so. Damn, it was nice. But dry, dry, dry, as in drier than a popcorn fart.

The creek is mostly not there anymore, and the trail is powdery, which makes traction iffy if you’re running a bald set of Michelin Jets on the old ‘cross bike and trying to slalom around ragged formations of tuned-out iPlodders taking their half of the trail out of the middle.

Back home, I laid a quick eye on the VN.com website to see if anything needed doing (it didn’t) and set about watering the lawn. Watering the lawn. In November. That’s just wrong.

Meanwhile, from the We’re All Hopelessly Fucked Department, we’re facing an economic collapse sometime this century, perhaps as soon as 2020, and we’re too stupid to watch movies. There’s some news you can use. A tip of the Mad Dog Kevlar helmet to Steve F. and Khal S. for the tips.

Late update: Meanwhile, as long as we’re on the subject of movies and stupidity, indulge your inner geek with the new “Star Trek” trailer.