That’s reaching

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 4 Comments
The backyard maple is slowly leafing out as it reaches for more sunshine.

Good gravy. You couldn’t find more gasbags in the news if it were Thanksgiving Day and the Macy’s parade were meandering through Manhattan. On fire.

You have Rep. Mikey Mouse (R-Dizzyland) calling himself “a wartime speaker.” This is true in the sense that he is at war with his own caucus.

Then there’s tough guy Tom Cotton, (R-Dunk-’n’-Flay), regaling us from the depths of his dead eyes about how they know how to treat peace-creeps and hippies in Arkansas, where he apparently rarely shows his … well, I suppose you’d call that a face, if only because it’s parked on the front of his head.

And of course there’s Will D. DeFendant smirking, snoozing, and sounding off through jury selection in his criminal trial.

Hizzoner was not amused.

“Your client was audible,” Judge Juan Merchan told the defendant’s shysters, mouthpieces, and ambulance chasers.

Boy, is that ever an understatement. An offense to the ears, eyes, and nose, if you believe what you smell on the Innertubes from noted yukmeisters Adam Kinzinger and Kathy Griffin.

Well, look on the bright side. The trial takes a day off tomorrow, and we’re not in the jury pool.

Charles in the morning

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 11 Comments
Charles Pelkey circa 1987 at Wyoming Public Radio.

Our old pal Charles “Live Update Guy” Pelkey is switching gears again.

He’s worn a lot of hats in his time — newspaperman, press secretary, cycling journalist, lawyer, legislator — and now he’ll be wearing headphones as the local host of NPR’s “Morning Edition” at Wyoming Public Media.

It’s not his first radio rodeo, mind you — Charles had the cans on at Wyoming Public Radio in the mid-Eighties, long before joining VeloNews in 1994. He may not have used a trebuchet to launch a piano into low earth orbit — not yet, anyway — but like the “Northern Exposure” deejay Chris in the Morning he has done some time in Alaska.

These days Charles and his wife, Diana, live within walking distance from the NPR affiliate in Laramie, so he probably won’t have to break out the tattered LUG kit and rusty two-wheeler for his daily commute, which should begin in the next week or two. But anything is possible, as he’s shown us many, many times before.

When Herself and I got the word about the new gig we immediately signed on as sustaining members of Wyoming Public Radio, which just happens to be running its annual spring membership drive. They’ll be rocking “The Thistle & Shamrock” here in about 15 minutes, so why the hell not? That’s a two-fer you can two-step to.

If you want to join us, and WPM, tell ’em Charles Pelkey brung ya. And don’t touch that dial. …

In the beginning was the Word

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
“See this word here? It’s not pronounced the way you might think. Cecil B. DeMille got it right in ‘The Ten Commandments.'”

When I awakened this morning not as a fleeting puff of radioactive gas but as Your Humble Narrator, I knew it was gonna be a good day.

Jesus H., etc. The Middle East has been figuring in my nightmares since, well, forever.

When I was a smaller, humbler narrator my parents taught me to read phonetically, aloud, using whatever printed material was handy. Stumbling through a report in Time magazine one day I encountered the incomprehensible “Egypt,” and after rolling it around in the gem polisher of my mind for a spell I decided it must be pronounced “Iggy-pit.”

My parents roared. I never heard the end of it. They told it to their pals over martinis. They told it to my pals, who had to endure it stone-cold sober and punished me for it afterward. They told it to my dates, who otherwise might have become actual girlfriends, which may help explain why it took so long for me to find someone to marry.

I’ve been deeply suspicious about home-schooling ever since. Later, I would come to question faith-based titles to real estate.

Time of the season

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 17 Comments
Herself’s Soma Double Cross, ready for its 2024 debut.

The surest sign that spring has sprung is Herself telling me to grease up her old two-wheeler ’cause she’s ready to ride.

That this announcement coincides with temperatures in the upper 70s is not, well, a coincidence.

Herself rides a Soma Double Cross. I bought the frameset back in 2006, and Old Town Bike Shop in Bibleburg tricked it out smartly with bits of this and that, some of them mine, some of them theirs. The drivetrain is a mix of Sugino, FSA, and Shimano 105/LX, yielding a low end of 34×32, which probably should be 34×34, or even 30×34, but I haven’t gone there yet.

Not on her bike, anyway. I love me some 30×34 on my New Albion Privateer and Soma Saga (the disc-brake version).

But then I’m a señor citizen, not some spry young tomato like Herself. She can tough it out. I’ll wheelsuck her and provide helpful hints from her slipstream.

Seasonal prep this year was pretty basic. I checked that everything shifted (105 brifters) and braked (Suntour cantis) as it should, lubed the chain, and replaced the 700×32 Vittoria Randonneur Cross Pros with a pair of Schwalbe Little Big Bens. Run those 38mm fatties down around 35-40 psi and they buff some of the rough spots off The Duck! City roads. I’ve got ’em on both Sagas and they appear to have eternal life. They’re easy on, easy off, too, which is handy in goathead country.

She could use some new handlebar tape, but that can wait, as can a spit-shine for her brass Crane bell, which she rarely uses. That thing could wake the dead. Even the self-deafened AirPlodders dive for the ditches when they hear it tolling for them.

I’ve been giving a little love to neglected bikes this week — the Rivendell Sam Hillborne and DBR Axis TT have both gotten out in the fresh air — but tomorrow I’ll be riding my own Soma Double Cross. Now, you wanna talk about a low low end? How’s 24×34 sound to you? Gimme a tailwind and I can climb a telephone pole.

Don’t tell Herself. If she senses the slightest weakness she’ll put me in The Home.