Tag: ICEholes

‘Run awaaaaayyyyyy. …’

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 6 Comments
This morning …

Well, so much for the Great January Blizzard.

I make it maybe two, three inches, tops. Didn’t have to drive in it, so, winning. Did have to shovel it, so Herself could drive in it.

You win some, you lose some.

… and this afternoon.

By the time I got around to shoveling, a lot of what we got proved broomable. Which is excellent, as our steepish, north-facing driveway is an ER visit just waiting to happen.

I work the thing starting from the top, because the top stays in the shade this time of year. Then, as I reach the steepest pitch, I pivot to the stone steps, walk down to the cul-de-sac, and start working my way back up. Any missteps while leaning uphill should involve less velocity and impact. Or so it is to be hoped, anyway.

The cycling is right out. I have been a cyclocrosser, but not since 2004 or thereabouts. There’s a car wash down the way, but I don’t have any quarters, and the last time Herself caught me cleaning a bike in the shower it was damn near all she wrote for the marriage.

So I’ll probably go for a short run in my mud shoes. I ran yesterday between rainstorms, and it looks like I’ll be running again tomorrow. That’s three straight days of running, for you folks keeping score at home, or two more than I can honestly claim to enjoy.

But it beats riding the stationary trainer. I believe getting pepper-sprayed by the ICEholes would beat riding the stationary trainer.

Don’t tell the ICEholes.

Breaking the ICE

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 26 Comments
Alex jeffrey Pretti. Photo provided by Michael Pretti to The Associated Press.

Enough.

Time to rip off the Band-Aid — or, in this case, the masks.

Eliminate the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. Period. It was a bad idea from the get-go — “homeland” me bollocks, leave that fascist shit in 1933 Berlin where you found it — and it hasn’t aged at all well.

Anyone who’s serious about shrinking the federal government should start with DHS. Tear down the superstructure and let’s see whether any of its components can be salvaged.

One should go straight to the trash: Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Shitcan the whole shitshow. Anyone who hasn’t already resigned in horror is part of the problem. Anyone who still wants to work there should be encouraged to emigrate (I hear Hell isn’t half full).

Anyone still on the job? Off you go. Lt. Aldo Raine, U.S. Army (ret.) will escort you off the premises after presenting you with a small memento of your service.

Horseshit and gunfire

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 25 Comments
Black and blue and yellow.

Black Friday? Not entirely. As long as you avert your eyes from the news, that is.

And from your email in-box, too. Jaysis H., etc. Everybody and his bookkeeper is trying to sell me something. Take a break, f’chrissakes. I’m still digesting last night’s feast.

Well … truth be told, as feasts go it was fairly light dining. Green chile stew, salad, freshly baked cornbread, and raspberry cobbler with whipped cream. Fake beer for me, real beer for Herself.

While feasting we watched a couple episodes of the old HBO series “Deadwood,” a tale of unfettered capitalism ascendant in which much of the dialogue sounds like Pestilence Piggy addressing the press.

In one episode a gambler and whoremonger growing fat on fear of and hatred for the government ordered the newspaper office ransacked, its machinery vandalized and shat upon.

So, yeah, ripped straight from today’s headlines. Art imitating life; horseshit and gunfire.

Before we sat down to eat I slipped out for a bracing 90 minutes on the Soma Double Cross, tooling around the Elena Gallegos Open Space and a few of its neighboring trails. Lots of folks out, hoofers and rollers, either working up an appetite for Thanksgiving dinner or sweating out the gravy. And no wonder, with temps in the low 50s, though there was still a bit of mud in the shady spots after last Thursday’s rain.

The DC is a good choice for EG: 42mm Soma Cazadero tires at 30/35 psi, a low end of 24x34T, and grippy IRD Cafam cantis for when shit gets real. Eight-speed bar-cons and XT/Ultegra derailleurs. The 54cm frame is small for me, but has a longish top tube, so I don’t look like a frog trying to hump a helmet when I’m in the saddle. The little sucker is really frisky in the swoopy, twisty bits.

I enjoyed myself so much that I went right back out and did it again today. One more thing to be thankful for. Like leftovers.

Freecipitation

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 16 Comments
Splish, splash, etc.

What a gloomy day. The ceiling is all the way down to the deck and the drizzle is intermittent. Reminds me of Oregon, only without all the ICEholes and Natural Gourds wandering around, growing fungus in their footwear and moss on their north sides.

Ordinarily I’d slip out for a jog between sprinkles, but I’ve already logged two 5K runs this week and fear a third would leave me a smelly puddle of tears, shredded connective tissue, and bone splinters.

Still, slouching around indoors muttering over the news ain’t no day at the beach neither.

That Tennessee explosives factory? Holy hell.

Public “servants” trying to suppress free speech? Par for the course. Public excoriation for thee, but not for me. Shove the First Amendment right up their fat asses by attending your local No Kings! rally on Oct. 18.

Government employees being shown the door because … well, because Rumpleshitskin likes it? Remember his two-word catchphrase from the unreality show he keeps reliving over and over and over again in the throes of his growing dementia. He’s a man of few words, because he can only remember a few, and can pronounce even fewer.

And to top it off I’ve got one lonely, disheveled hummingbird parked at the backyard feeder, like the old soak lost in thought who just can’t seem to hear the phrase, “Last call. …”

Awaiting fulfillment

~ Patrick O'Grady ~ 13 Comments
“All right, group, it’s time to meditate on the Pure White Light of Stupidity.” — Firesign Theatre, “W.C. Fields Forever.”

The email read: ” Hi Patrick, the status of your order has changed to Awaiting fulfillment.“

Well. Join the club. Cult. Whatevs.

I wasn’t waiting for the electrician or someone like him. Just waiting on delivery of a product I’d ordered online because it was not to be found locally.

An earlier online transaction had gone walkabout, wandering from Abilene to Albuquerque only to pull a U and mosey right on back to Texas, where it reversed course yet again and returned to Albuquerque. Not to me, mind you. Just somewhere here in town. Me, I was passing the time watching bots, banks, and Budget rent-a-vans with Oklahoma plates perform “The Dance of Late-Stage Capitalism.”

In Chicago they have been awaiting a delivery of another sort altogether. National Guardspersons from Texas. “Be All That You Can Be,” the ads used to say. If this is all you can be, try harder. Fulfillment is elusive. I mean, I wanted to be a rich and famous political cartoonist and just look how that turned out.

Job fairs like a recent Immigration and Customs Enforcement extravaganza in Texas seem popular among a certain subset of job-seekers. More so than, oh, say, working in America’s agricultural industry, replacing the people the ICEholes are dragging off to Christ only knows where.

“I’m looking for a career, not a job,” says a 25-year-old would-be masked avenger from San Antone, a contract worker in the solar-energy industry, one cross around his neck and two more in his ears.

Ho ho. A “career” in the very government being stripped for salable parts like a stolen Honda Civic in a chop shop. A fine place to be awaiting fulfillment. And ICE couldn’t care less if you’re a former sergeant at arms for an outlaw motorcycle club, or just look like one. Say, are those Iron Crosses in your ears? And is that a “Blut und Boden” tat? You got a signing bonus coming, son!

You’re gonna need those fat stacks Big Gummint is promising you, Bubba. Have you checked the price of groceries lately with the workforce gone walkabout? If you were an humble farmworker, just trying to feed America’s families and your own, you might could swipe a peach now and then for yourself.