For my birthday, Bea’s Mom got me a copy of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road.
It had been recommended to me, but with the caveat that it was quite dark, and could very well leave one depressed. Knowing my tastes and penchant for post-apocalyptic fiction (can we go ahead and just call it speculative fiction? ;) ), they felt that it was nonetheless a solid suggestion. I have to say, they were partially right.
The basic gist of the story is that a man and his son are survivors of what we can assume is something akin to a nuclear winter. It is indeed dark and dreary, and I will freely admit that I enjoyed going outside and enjoying the warmth of the sun on my face. Later, I talked to Jeremy and gave him my thoughts on the unfortunately short (~250 pg) book. I see where he might have been depressed, but I think I extracted a wholly different sentiment. For me, while the scenario and ordeals were horrible, it was the absolute and unending dedication of the man to his son’s well-being that affected me the most. It is the man’s sheer unwillingness to accept defeat in order to protect another and “keep the light” that I find uplifting.
This book is at times sad, harsh, and utterly bleak, and it is in these situations that the absolute best and worst of man is brought to light. The resounding message for me is that there are those that when faced with it, will keep putting one foot in front of the other because it’s just what has to be done.
Well, I lied. Tennis is decidedly not metal, but that didn’t stop me yesterday.
My friend Alice (aka Diamondgrrl – rollerderby, aka Comissioner Gordon – kickball) and Anne (aka All the Way May – kickball) took me out to City Park, and we tennied. Tennised. Tenniserated. Yeah, tenniserated. I like that – it’s got a certain ring to it. It’s like regular tennis, but with a heat index of 103°.
Anyways, outside of the Wii Sports package or a table-top, I’ve never really played tennis. Much like baseball, something was off with that brand of hand-eye coordination when I was a kid – I just didn’t play because I couldn’t. Besides, I had soccer.
I have to say, it was pretty fun, and I didn’t even wear silly clothes, despite the musings of the twitterati. And when I say twitterati, I mean just Neal.
We showed up early, and hung out for a bit before our court time of 7:30. Alice gave me fore- and back-hand grip basics, and we just kinda launched into it. One of the ladies was always on my side of the court and they rotated – giving the person across from me a good workout. Being on the smaller side of 2 vs. 1 isn’t all that fair. With the heat, I did work up a bit of a sweat – mostly due to the quick back and forth movements one makes on their feet. And nicely enough, my arm and back are pain-free.
All in all, I only hit 3 or 4 balls over the fence in the 1 1/4 hours we played, which I consider to be an achievement – I thought we’d have to throw the towel in early due to a lack of fuzzy yellow projectiles. Alice thought I did pretty well for someone who’s never played. Part of that hand-eye coordination problem crept back, but really only on the slow speed balls. It just messed with my head – too much time to think about where to stand, when to swing, what angle to hit it at, the exact timing, etc. To remedy, I just decided to move quickly towards the ball. This reduced the amount of time I had to over-think the situation, like Ramius turning into Tupolev’s torpedo. (I’m guessing only Pistolette got that one)
All in all, it was fun and worked out a different, rusty, part of my athletic side. Hooray for leveling up. :)
And who knows, maybe next time I’ll have to either sport one of my kilts, or even emulate this guy:
If I only still had my long hair. If I do end up picking up a cheap racket, I think I’d have to name it the Anvil of Crom™. Just for the metalness of it.
*EDIT* Thanks to Todd for the awesome Kids in the Hall Clip – ERADICATOR! (skip to 1:50):
Perhaps I should transfer my bicycle polo nom de guerre of The Laser Viking™ to tennis as well.
I recently did some laptop repair for an employee of Bicycle Michael’s, and in return, he worked on track bike. Working on my bikes is something I rarely feel like doing these days, and those wheels were in need of a truing.
Well, Jon did some great work – even went so far as to install a new chain and replace my handlebar tape.
Unfortunately, a resident prankster (let’s call him Centurian™ to protect the less-than-innocent) was caught while in the process of, uh, “accessorizing” Molly (the bike).
This bike has two “Guardian Angels” let’s call them. The most prominent is a green monkey that came with my most-awesome green tuxedo jacket (it has green velvet lapels!) named Julius. Julius has been affixed to this bike for a few years now, and it’s a wonder he has yet to be defaced or kidnapped.
Until now, that is.
Apparently Centurian™ (say that as Michael Palin in Life of Brian as you can) has a tendency to bring out people’s inner gimp:
He came back gagged, covered in electrical tape, and a 9v battery hooked up to his nipples.
Sadness. Perhaps I shall stwike the centuwian. Stwike him vewy woughwy. And fwow him to the gwound.
If you follow me on Twitter ( @dubtea ), you would have seen that yesterday that Bea had completed her first bike commute from our house in the Marigny to her office in Harahan. As you may or may not remember, she had quite a bit of trouble the last time she made the attempt last August. Considering the wreck and the confidence it seemed to destroy, I’m super proud of this big step.
The trip by car rolls in at about 21 miles, and is slightly longer by bike ( about 24 miles ) and bicycles are not allowed on the interstate. She basically rides through the Marigny/Quarter/CBD down Royal St./St. Charles Avenue, and cuts to Magazine at Lee Circle, taking that all the way down to Audubon Park and the Mississippi River levee path, which is free of cars.
She’s still using a Scattante Zonal road bike on load from a co-worker, but has her eyes on, nay, lusts for a 2008 Bianchi Dama Bianca Elena. Behold:
It’s not super-girly, it’s purple (heellllooooooo, she loves that purp), is a pretty decent bike, and perhaps most important of all, would be hers.
The problem is the budgets here at La Iglesia are a little tighter, and shelling out ~$1,500 for a new bike isn’t super fiscally responsible. Now I’ve been told by my friends at Bicycle Michael’s that if I were to provide them with the bike size, they’d hold one for her, which is great.
I’ve decided that as an incentive, I’d make some sort of log to help visualize her goal, and her status on earning the $1500 in blood (hopefully not), sweat (summer is upon us), and tears (again, hopefully not). I built a little system I’ve named “Gas Money Records“.
Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good.
Anyways, every day she rides to / from work, she enters the data and it calculates how much she’s saved. The part that I found most interesting was the breakdown of gas vs. maintenance. You end up sending about 10¢/mile on gas, and over 30¢/mile on oil, tires, maintenance, etc. I used commute solutions as a reference, and left out much of the expenses associated with driving: insurance, tax, parking, tolls, travel time, accidents, finance charges, etc. We don’t have tolls (except for the lousy West Bank), and if your car was parked at home you’d still have to pay taxes, insurance, etc.
Surprisingly, it costs her about $9 per day commute! This adds up to over $2,300 per work year! At that $9/day rate, Bea could pay for the bike in about 8 months (if she commuted by bike every day).
If you check it out, you can do your own calculations – leaving out the savings goal will show you what you’d spend in a work year commuting, or you can set a savings goal and see how long it would take you. It’s truly surprising how much can save by even commuting by bike once or twice a week. I don’t think I even need to touch on the health benefits of bicycle commuting.
Well, I think the trail I laid was pretty good, and got a lot of good feedback from it. If you want to read my write-up, you can at VooDooHash.com. The first hash I hared was a while ago with a friend of mine, and was a sheer and utter disaster for various reasons and as punishment, we each had our own bag of ice to sit on, bare-assed.
I think I’ve learned my lesson.
I have learned recently that I “suffer” from Runner’s Knee. Since I’ve started hashing, I’ve noticed that sometimes part-way through the run, often the day after, my right knee and hip have given me grief. It usually amounts to stiffness/soreness and a sharp pinching-like sensation in my knee and hip. It’s hard to describe, but it only happens on the right side.
I decided to ask Herr Google™ about these symptoms, and based on its description and recommended therapy/stretching, I have come to believe that it is indeed Runner’s Knee.
Before last week’s hash, I did the recommended stretch once or twice during the day, and also right before I took off to lay trail. I’m glad to say that neither during the run, or the day after, did I have any problems in either my hip or my knee.
And there was much rejoicing. Yaaaaaaay.
Well, I plan on attending this Thursday’s hash in Metry Brah, and the day after is the 2009 Tchoupitoulas Bar-A-Thon. 6 bars, 6 beers, 6 miles.
I guess I better start stretching.
Ok chickens, I’m haring tonight’s VooDoo Hash. It’s in the Marigny – at Elysian Fields and Decatur.
What? Hashers? What’s the deal? I hear you say. Familiar with the Red Dress Run? That’s us on a weekly basis (sans red dresses). We’re a drinking club with a running problem, and if you ‘re interested in working up a thirst by hunting down a guy in a kilt running around leaving a trail of flower, and quenching said thirst with beer, then this is for you.
What to bring: (required)
- Sense of humor
- $1
- 6-pack of your beer of choice
What to bring: (recommended)
We meet at 6:30, and I take off at 7:00. Come catch me!
If you were to take the polar opposite of how I feel about, say, The Silence of the Lambs, and apply it to the animal kingdom, you’d still wouldn’t have enough ill-will towards spiders.
Oh, how do they revile me? Let the count the ways…
Anyways, when it comes to these nasty little hellions, I on par don’t do so well. I have improved much since that fateful night in ‘96 when I watched Arachnophobia and then didn’t sleep for three days. It’s something I’ve been actively working on, as much as one can.
Well, just a bit ago, I was in this little room behind the entertainment center. The entrance is so narrow that one has to squeeze through it sideways, as the water heater blocks most of the entrance.
Well, I was in there, in that dark, hot, confined space, screwing a small bit of hardie board to more or less seal off a sizable hole in the wall. I take a step back and rotate to the left. At this point, I had wall directly on my right, a water heater right behind me, and had brushed up against some sort of spiderweb with me left arm. Up until that point with that contact with the web, I had totally sucked it up and manned it out.
Everything changed the moment I saw the beast. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there, and somehow without created a Will-shaped hole in the water heater and/or wall.
I tried and have partial success in soothing my nerves with whiskey, but let’s face it – I’m as jangled as a little girl. I’m still at the point where even the slight changes in air movement by the ceiling fan against my leg hairs are freaking me out. I wonder, can one get oneself hermetically sealed? Assuming there aren’t any in there?
Okay, I just freaked myself out more. I’ve dutifully applied whiskey to the mental injuries to help clean them.
I’ve sent an email in to Whats That Bug for a positive ID, and hope to have a name and information (and therefore power over) for this hellion.
Until then, here’s some photos I managed to snap, after the requisite swig or few of whiskey. For my own sake, I’m just going to link them instead of embed them, as I don’t even like looking at pictures of spiders.
I posted these up at a pretty high res, so enjoy/punish yourself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503102998/
http://www.flickr.com/phtos/willcore/3503101272/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503099684/
A bit ago, I received word that Todd’s awesome and affordable Hong Kong Tailor™ would be making his way on his U.S. Tour, and would be adding New Orleans to his list of destinations.
I figured why not, and dropped him a visit when he came though – a scant 28 days ago! After all, my black suit jacket didn’t quite match the pants, my blue dress shirt has a hole, and my white dress shirt has a weird thing happening with the collar. I was also very interested in obtaining an overcoat, as I had just been in Chicago in February for a funeral, and ’bout damn near froze my ass off.
Getting shirts, and especially jackets that fit me is a bit of a pain in the ass. I invariably have to get my jackets adjusted because shoulders are proportionally much wider than my waist.
Well, I just tried everything on (the overcoat has not yet arrived), and the fit is just great. I’m a happy customer.
Bea’s female co-worker Christy says I need a haircut, and her male co-worker Evan says I need to grow it out. I like Evan, but Christy’s probably right.
Click to embiggen:
This past Friday, Bea and I laced up our skates and headed over to Airline Skate Center, for her Dad’s birthday party.
I haven’t laced up my skates since the last roller derby bout I reffed since I retired (they were in a bind, so I helped on one bout), which was in late May or early June last year. My legs felt good (both while skating and I had zero soreness the next day), and I only fell once, due to just not skating in a long time.
To digress a bit further, Bea practically grew up in a skating rink. Her folks skated a whole lot (I think that’s how they met), and while her mom no longer skates, her dad certainly does. His daughter from his second marriage, now 4, is a natural. I guess it’s in the blood. Now let’s see if her little half-sister will grow up to be a rollergirl, just like sister.
So, the birthday party was at the skating ring, and it was fun. I’m not even going to touch on the odd cross-section of people who hang out at a skating rink on a Friday night, but will instead address the title of this post. Bea baked her dad a cake, and it was light, fluffy, and delicious. And gay. Very, very gay. Behold:
I feel that unicorn candles or something would have been a perfect touch. And while unicorns are pretty cool, I think we can all agree that polycorns are far, far superior.
So there you go. That’s the gayest thing I’ve ever consumed, and it was scrumptious.
A while ago, I was introduced to the Cult of Done. For me, it is quite simple, quite obvious, and I identify with it on a number of levels.
In the spirit of the manifesto set forth and in combination with a generally needed re-ordering of my day-to-day schedule and goals, I’ve figured out a calendar, or should I say guideline, to help me get the things done I want to get done.
This mostly means setting aside time for working on the house, and light yoga/exercise – something I wanted to more of this year, but have since lapsed.
I run (er, hash) ~5-6 miles every Thursday night, and bike pretty much everywhere, but need to do just a little more. And the housework I want done can be attacked in hour or sub-hour increments, and will probably be done faster in this manner than I had be doing before.
To help kick my ass, here is my rough daytime schedule for the work week (click to embiggen):
I start on Monday. Let’s see how things go.
