A snapshot from the cul-de-sac last evening, at the conclusion of The Boo’s walk.
Albuquerque has its problems, to be sure. Joblessness, crime, drivers who should not be permitted to operate grocery-store scooters … but it flat brings the sunset.
* The headline is from Ed Abbey’s “The Monkey Wrench Gang,” which featured another elderly, bearded weirdo from Albuquerque.
God damn. Another long shift in the barrel, including three-plus hours of Live Update Guy, one “Shop Talk” cartoon, and one “Mad Dog Unleashed” column.
Still, some people had worse days.
• The House GOP managed to fall into a barrel of tits and come out sucking its thumb.
• Der Trumpenführer invaded Washington and it went over about as well as the Russian thing did for that other guy.
• Roger Ailes seems badly in need of a lock on his zipper (the filthy old shitbag may find that it’s better to keep rubbing his little weenie all over the news business than trying to stick it into actual, you know, like, women, an’ stuff).
• Albuquerque seems to be a giant open-air, free-range prison populated entirely by killers, thieves, firebugs, rapists and burglars.
• And don’t get me started on cops killing people just because they can.
Jeez, another dude merging without using his turn signal.
Interesting read here, and a “big idea” indeed.
The author opines that removing vehicles from the nation’s streets “would make urban life cheaper, safer, quieter and more pleasant,” and that good public transportation “coupled with fast, safe, pleasant walking and bicycling can easily meet the need for movement within our cities.”
As a bicyclist who just drove a couple thousand miles to the Phoenix clusterplex and back, and as a resident of the Duke City, where driving like a deranged asshole is the official city sport, I can dig it. The recent trend toward cheap gas has not made motoring any happier, either, unless you’re one of the overpowered, underbrained sociopaths who thinks “Max Max: Fury Road” was a documentary.
But I’d sure like to see some numbers on the up-front cost of shifting urban hellholes like Phoenix, Los Angeles, Salt Lake City and Las Vegas to auto-free — or even auto-limited — human-friendly habitats. Somehow the word “cheaper” is not the first descriptive to leap to mind.
Nope, no snow up there.
Thirty-six inches: That’s the final tally from Maryland, where the digging out has commenced.
“It snowed how much? Where? Let’s never go there.”
Adding insult to inundation, the gut rumble that started working its way through the kinfolk beginning with the brother-in-law has so far claimed 75 percent of the clan, with only Herself spared (so far).
Meanwhile, the mom-in-law’s flight back to Tennessee got croaked by the storm, so Herself the Elder is enjoying a little extra recovery time before clambering into an aluminum tube full of fresh viruses for the trip home.
This whole clusterfuck was intended to give her the chance to inspect a couple of properties with an eye toward relocating somewhere down the road.
I bet the trip made Albuquerque look like the Garden of Eden. The place has its warts like any other, but the snow rarely arrives three feet at a time and the only time anyone ever shits themselves is at the thought of living in Maryland.
“‘Maryland,’ you say? Sounds like Hell to me.”
Pax capsicum.
2016 has begun as 2015 ended, with a bit of fresh snow on the deck and temps in the mid-20s. And they call this a “new year.” Harumph, etc., et al., and so on and so forth.
Last year was the wettest in a decade for Albuquerque and New Mexico, according to the Albuquerque Journal. A quarter of the state remains abnormally dry, but the National Weather Service says there is no drought for the first time in five years.
As to 2016, quien sabe?
“It’s hard to say what short-term drought will be like next summer,” says Chuck Jones, a meteorologist with the Albuquerque office of the NWS. “But we are getting off to a good start for 2016.”
Of course, opinions vary wildly as regards what constitutes “a good start for 2016.” All the four-legged O’Gradys are curled up in their various beds trying to stay warm, while the two-legged types are pouring cups of hot tea over last night’s tinga poblana, which proved a stunning success. If you’re feeling the January chill, I urge you to make it at once, if not sooner.
The road home, as seen through the windshield of a Chevy Express van stuffed to the ceiling with excess property.
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (MDM) — After getting the traditionally late start — O’Grady Standard Time is more than a few hours behind whatever you’re using — I rolled into Duke City at dark-thirty on Thursday with the last of our bits from Bibleburg and a killer backache.
And as of 4 p.m. yesterday, the former Chez Dog and its mortgage payment are in the hands of a 21-year-old student teacher. Now, if we can just get rid of the other two houses, I can finally achieve my dream of living in a van down by the river.
There will need to be a chiropractor’s van parked nearby, though, if I plan on lifting anything heavier than a cooler or a camp stove.
A stretch of the Paseo del Bosque trail, south of the zoo.
There are times — even when my eyeballs feel sandpapered and my snout is clogged like the Paseo del Norte at rush hour — when I think I was pretty smart to let Herself take that job with the Military-Industrial Complex here in Duke City.
A recently resurfaced section of the Bear Canyon Arroyo trail, just west of Tramway.
Like today, when I read in the Albuquerque Journal that Duke City just broke ground for a project to create a 50-mile bike loop around town.
About 80 percent of the “Activity Loop” trail already exists, and I’ve ridden quite a piece of it. Mostly it’s a matter of linking up and sprucing up all the various bits and pieces. Bike-ped bridges, on-demand signals, striping improvements, and what have you. The project will take years — the work is to be done in nine phases, as money becomes available — and cost about $20 million.
This sort of thing is not a panacea for problems like violent crime, trigger-happy cops, chronic long-term unemployment, and a sluggish economy. But it can help make a town a better place to live, which in the long term might help address at least a few of these issues.
I did most of my 61-mile birthday ride on separated bike path. The rest was on streets that were designated bike routes or had bike lanes. Not bad for a place where Bugs Bunny was always missing that crucial left turn.
Not even Super Vivid mode helps this morning.
The daffodils are enjoying this damp weather, which arrived a little late for this ex-tree.
This is the first day of spring? So where’s the sun?
Frankly, I’m stumped.
(Rimshot.)
And yes, I know, nobody in his right mind living in a desert climate complains about rain. But right mind and I have not shared the same ZIP code for the better part of quite some time. And I have bicycles that are badly in need of riding.
The good news is, after today and tonight we’re looking at a stretch of sunny and 70s. The better news? We don’t live in New York City.
Longtime Friend of the DogS(h)ite® Khal S. notes in comments that the Bernalillo County DA has leveled murder charges against the Albuquerque cops who shot dead a homeless man (as seen on CopCam!). Here’s the Albuquerque Journal story, which may require you to answer a few stupid questions but contains more detail than The New York Times piece referenced above.
This will be one to watch for a number of reasons. First, the killing was captured on video, which law prof David A. Harris says can make it “impossible to deny some of the very basic facts.” And second, the local gendarmes have thus far gone uncharged despite having compiled a body count that even Westhisface would envy.
Elsewhere, we learn about the potential for collateral damage from those cheapo flash-bang grenades the cops are so fond of. The Albuquerque officers used one against the homeless guy, before shooting him with assault rifles and beanbag guns and finally setting a police dog on him; apparently arty and air support were unavailable. Seems a flash-bang can do a lot more than make scary lights and noise. They’ve also “severed hands and fingers, induced heart attacks, burned down homes, and killed pets.”
There was a time, back when your man on the beat carried a .38 Special, that the cops considered themselves under-gunned in comparison with the bad guys. I think it’s fair to say that the pendulum may have swung a tad too far in the other direction. And some of the “bad guys” just aren’t that bad.
• Extra-Credit Reading On Crime and Punishment: Check out The Baltimore Sun story on the drunk bishop. Based on the choice of image I’d say someone manning the website has a particularly dark sense of humor.
Enchiladas de Herrera from El Bruno’s on Fourth.
Downtime. Hasn’t been much of that sort of thing around here lately.
If you haven’t moved for a dozen years or so, it’s something of a shock to the system, like waking up in a strange room with the notion that you’ve been misbehaving again. The police may or may not consider you “a person of interest.” Nothing is where it should be — groceries, banking, your favorite ride.
Little disruptions abound. Walls without art, windows without shades, a wife with a job that no longer permits working from home three days a week.
Things need doing, and all of them take more time than they did back home. Just where the hell are the English muffins in this Bizarro World Whole Foods, anyway? Not where I’d put ’em, that’s for sure. The eyeball doc says Mister Boo needs another procedure? Put the English muffins back, we’re all gonna be eating dog food for a while. The city won’t pick up glass for recycling? No wonder the bike lanes are full of it.
Oh, the humanity. Caninity. Velocity. Whatever.
Then, suddenly, a pause for the cause. Nothing needs doing. Well, not right now, anyway. So there’s time for a short ‘cross-bike ride through the desert, a fiery platter of enchiladas de Herrera from El Bruno’s Restauranté y Cantina, and our millionth viewing of “Blazing Saddles” in honor of David Huddleston, a resident of Santa Fe.
How ’bout some more beans, Mister Taggart?
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Patrick O'Grady is a cartoonist, columnist, cyclist and curmudgeon who sells words and pictures to Bicycle Retailer and Industry News, Adventure Cyclist and pretty much anyone else who can spell his name correctly next to the phrase which sounds so musical to his tattered ears: "Pay to the order of. ..." For more on Your Humble Narrator, click the comic.
When I'm not simply making stuff up for fun and profit, I review touring bicycles for Adventure Cyclist and shoot short videos about 'em. Click the pic to enter my little theater of the absurd.
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