Tuesday, July 31, 2012

you shouldn't put it there.

this is a chipmunk hole.

i don't know this because of my superior naturalist knowledge of burrow entrances of small animals; i know this because it is located in the middle of a mountain bike racecourse and as i came up to this stretch of course a few days ago, the chipmunk was perched paralyzed halfway out and no way to turn and go back in.

"oh, honey.", i said. "that is a very bad place to put your entrance."

i have seen other similarly placed burrow entrances and i have to wonder WHAT about a frequently used mountain bike trail makes a groundsquirrel decide to construct a door? certainly it's not seclusion, and probably not superior protection from predation. firmness of ceiling? access to travelled routes?

all of you groundsquirrels feel free to weigh in.

Monday, July 30, 2012

trefoil

if you've been following my story, you know that i have been working hard to regain my physical conditioning.  you know that i do not race the way i used to once. it was before i started writing this blog, but a very long time ago i was out of shape and my mom gave me a bike and i got into shape and i won some races and i moved up from one lap to two to three before i got sick and in this last episode it's been hard for me to ride a whole lap at all nevermind at race speed, and only in granny gears.

last season (year two or something of the spotty recovery) it was a big deal to get onto the middle chainring at all for any of that one lap.

in the last few weeks during my daily workouts, i have been able to go first one and a half laps, then two laps, solid. and in the middle chainring, most of the time.

then i was starting to get onto the big chainring sometimes.

today i went one lap on the yellow course and two on the blue, because we'll race the blue course tomorrow and wednesday. this was the first time i have gone three laps at any speed in over a year.

i am getting my legs back.

five, six years from now, maybe i will be back in racing form.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

i'm not sure what i'm supposed to make of this.

He spoke of working with a group of women from his church. "On Monday they had no skills. On Tuesday, they were using power tools. On Wednesday, they had opinions," he said, laughing. "It's a mixed blessing."

i'm not bothering to quote the source.



really? that's what you chose to say about it?


blasted boys' club.


get bent.

Saturday, July 28, 2012

you REALLY need a hat.

a while ago i wrote a post called you need a hat.

today i destroyed my favorite hat. i was coming around an easy corner on a wide and gentle downhill, one i've done a thousand times and i wasn't even trying to see how fast i could go or how far i could lay the bike over, or anything.

i just suddenly went down. right on my head.

and a helmet as it breaks makes a stunning sound, and i don't know about you, but when i fall on my head like that, i get flashbacks to all the times as a kid i fell and hit my head and that stunning, stinging spinning pain of the walloping hammering HURT of it.

and i heard my helmet break and thought: wow. that wasn't so bad. but i hit pretty hard and there are going to be some bruises because let's face it, i bounced.

but the helmet does the thing it's supposed to do: it absorbs a lot of the impact. so i laid there in the trail for a few minutes and thought about maybe passing out, but then i felt all right and bounced right back up.

i think i'm gong to take a couple of advil and maybe lie down for a while, though.

Friday, July 27, 2012

olympic hopeful

i'm watching the opening ceremonies, just like everyone else.

i've become increasingly jaded by olympic coverage and aggressive cease and desist and sponsorship nasty that i think i'm only ever going to drink pepsi again even though i hate it.

i am excited, though, by watching the parade of nations even though the nbc commentators are idiots who think it's ok to make fun of smaller countries in this moment of their dignity.

i love watching them all come in, proud and amazed and sometimes defiant but they're all there and they're all together.

well, they're not all there. a number of athletes  don't walk in the parade if they have their event tomorrow because of the fatigue, and some of the athletes with events very late in the games aren't even there yet.

but i am even more excited!

lea davison is on the us team! i didn't even know it until i heard the interview with her on vermont public radio last week.

see, i only thought of her as that nice young woman who is a kickass rider and along with her sister (also very  nice) is responsible for the little bellas.

i've chatted with her in the parking lot, and seen her go by in the wednesday night races and i knew she was training with andy, but "olympics" or even "world cup" just never occurred to me.

if you listen to the interview, she says it didn't really occur to her, either.

and on course on wednesday, she went by and there was much cheering.

we hope she will do well.

Thursday, July 26, 2012

little library

we don't have a public library in the Town O' Bolton.

we also don't have a grocery store, a pizza place or a post office.

if we want to have a library card, we can go to a neighboring town and bolton will pay our fee.

but a few weeks ago i was driving across bolton notch and i saw a little box by the roadside. i meant to go back and look at it, but then another little box just like it appeared closer to my house and i went to look at that.

it is the little library,  a project of the librarian at the middle school.

you can read about it here and here.




Wednesday, July 25, 2012

baseboards

my rule is that if i have to borrow a hand tool more than twice at the work sites, i go and buy my own.

that's why i now have a flatbar, a catspaw, and now a speed square.

and at the last two sites i have to decline a thing or two because of my inability to kneel on hard surfaces, so saturday afternoon i bought some knee pads.

so yesterday when i showed up at the worksite and the homeowner wanted me to get to work putting sealer on the baseboards, i could say "no problem. i brought kneepads."

they'll take any work you can do, and they'll be grateful for it.

but it's sweeter when you can actually do the thing they were hoping you might do, and the slow, mind-numbing hands-and-knees work of doing the baseboards is the kind of job you can just give to a person who will just keep plugging away at it, and more skilled people or people who need to be able to look at the whole room and make decisions can just get on with other work.

sometimes i get asked what i would like to do.

what i would like to do is whatever they need me to do. i'm there to help, not for my own amusement.

on some worksites there are people who know what needs to be done and can figure all that stuff out and just do it.

i am not that worker.

i am the one who, when given a task, will keep doing that task carefully and steadily until you tell me to stop for lunch. and then after lunch, i will do it until it;s quitting time.

or until you give me a different task.


i suppose every work site needs people like me, too.

when we work in moretown, often as not the buildings do not have working plumbing yet. we therefore have to walk upstreet to the moretown general store, where they do not mind if the volunteers use the restrooms and they are also happy to fill our water bottles.

yesterday on the way back from the store i noticed that the concrete bridge at town center is dated proudly 1928. this is only really significant if you know that the last time moretown was wiped out in flooding, it was 1927.



so here are my pictures of the day: one of the worksite, one looking out the front window to the duct tape that labels the high water mark on the downstream side of the building (water two feet lower on the downstream side), and the 1928 bridge.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

i really hate this

i was going to tell you about last night's storm or maybe today's workday in moretown, but two things really got my goat this afternoon.

first, i do not like to see people riding bicycles without helmets. double my dislike for people riding ATVs without helmets.

my level of disapproval goes off the scale when i see people riding ATVs with small children in their laps, especially if they allow the toddlers to steer the vehicle.

today i was particularly teed of when i saw this, because only fifteen minutes before i had seen a guy in a pickup truck drive by my house with a TODDLER IN HIS LAP STEERING THE TRUCK!

WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????

Monday, July 23, 2012

whoa! hold the presses!!!

ok, ok, so i was all like, gonna post some pictures of the workday at the green cup (i will later) or the bolton little library (still upcoming- is that too much of a tease?)

but then i was going through my reading list and found a video posted by CGP Grey and i always like his videos so i watched that-

go ahead, i'll wait right here.





and i noticed that he uses the same music that they use in a little flash game i like to play (already listed in online toys and games, over there ----->)

and i like that music, but always assumed it was attached to the game.

so i hung out in the video until the very end of the credits, because if there's one thing CGP Grey does well (besides make videos i like), it's proper attributions.

and the music is by kevin macleod and offered FOR FREE on his site, http://incompetech.com/.

...which is just awesome.

Sunday, July 22, 2012

road ride

view from my bike
yesterday afternoon i decided to go out on my road bike since my mountain bike isn't in from the shop and i figured a road ride to be easier on my shoulder.

i started just east of jonesville and went into richmond, thinking to come back on cochran road and be done with it but i fet so good i went all the way out to waterbury and then back on route 2.

that means in the middle of that back leg there were a few miles of joint-jarring dirt road, but it was still good.

i found that i have more power in my legs than i used to have, and managed to do the whole thing without using the little chainring at all, which was a first for me.

by the time i got done, i had ridden probably twenty minutes longer than my shoulder wanted me to, but other than a little sore and i probably shouldn't ride today (even though it is perfect weather and my legs really want to go again), there's no harm done.

tomorrow will be soon enough.



the tour ended today, and although i know in general how it came out (the last day is nearly never a surprise in the overall outcome), i missed the live broadcast this morning in favor of going to church. there will be a rebroadcast in a few hours and i will watch that and i will see nearly as much and still won't have to watch the horrible primetime coverage.

later on i will tell you about an autograph i have, and maybe talk about the tour and maybe i'll show you a little of what we did friday in waitsfield, but for now i'm going to go have lunch and probably a nap.

for sure i am going to go lie down.




Friday, July 20, 2012

high

at the outset i was kind of hacked that i had a doctor appointment this morning and would only get to work half a workday.

workdays are my saving grace these days.

but after wednesday's crash couple of hours was all my bruised body was going to take.

it is great working with charlie. when he asks if you've ever hung drywall and you tell him no, he says well, you do now.

so today i learned how to cut drywall.

and i also learned that i have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and high blood sugar.

blast.

Thursday, July 19, 2012

crashing bore

last night on my race i was going fast.

really, really fast.

until i was suddenly not going at all anymore.

i plowed into the ground on my right side and heard a terrible sickening snapping sound and i was lying on my back on the ground unable to move and aware of pain, but not able to identify exactly what hurt or how much.

it took a few minutes to get it sorted out.

collarbone not broken. (i have broken this one twice before.)

so what's the snapping noise? maybe the shoulder separating again?

hard to tell, since i know i already have one little muscle up there torn and never repaired.

then when they were getting ready to walk me out, we found the source of the horrible snapping noise: my right shifter is broken. snapped right off.

and i hit the ground so hard that the end plug on the opposite side of the bar popped right out.

i've spent most of the day lying down. there's no structural damage, but a good deal of bruises. last night a lot of that bruising was in the shoulder under the shoulder blade, so my armpit was all swollen and everything and i couldn't move it much but today as long as i don't try to go anywhere too fast or stay up too long, i'm doing pretty well.

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

scat cat

sunday afternoon when i went out for my ride i came across two exceptionally well-formed and prominently placed piles of bobcat shit.

the prominent placement (middle of a busy trail) is the bobcat's way of marking territory.

and because i knew it was fresh, of course i had to poke at least one pile apart with a stick.

and lucky you- i took pictures!

sadly, i did not get a good picture of the second pile all covered with grasshoppers and butterflies who were either feeding on it or extracting moisture; that was pretty cool.


but the hunting has been good for the bobcat. there was a lot of coarse animal hair in it, probably deer.


the real surprise, though, was somethin' ewwwwier entirely. there was some kind of bone and connective tissue in there, which i don't usually see so of course i had to really get in there an have a good look, and while it was the second grossest thing i have ever encountered on the trail and it made me gag, it was also really cool.

there was an entire intact claw, like a chicken claw only small. i know the neighbors raise chickens and that some of the layers have been sneaking off into the tall grass to try to get some chicks. that'd be a nice snack for a bobcat.


Tuesday, July 17, 2012

anthem

yesterday i bought a bike.

i'd been putting off the bike shopping, a thing i would usually jump at, but it's been hard for me lately and when you buy a bike you have to look at a lot of them a ride a lot of them and try to remember what you liked about each one and what you didn't and that is a PROJECT.

i found one i like a lot, which surprised me because the last time i shopped for a bike i didn't find one i loved as much as the one i'd been riding and i wasn't so hopeful because i knew i needed to change from the brand i had loved to something else, and you never know if you will find a something else you love.

but a couple hours into the trying, i kept coming back to the one bike over and over. it was hard for me to make the adjustment; the shifters are different and i do not as a rule like change.

and it's a twenty-niner, which means that instead of the usual 26 inch tire, it has 29 inch tires, which have a lot of advantages in a mountain bike, but also some liabilities. it's kind of a big change and will take some getting used to.

but the thing i kept noticing is how much more power i felt i had, how much more stable and confident. it is a snappy, sharp ride, stiff enough to feel control but not so stiff as to lose quickness. i ket thinking that it made me feel like a BEAST on it, which is a good feeling.

it'a big bike for a little middle aged lady, and i will have to learn how to ride it. i will have to learn how far i can lay it over in a corner, how to stick it on a turn, how to get to over things.

but it MOVES. i rode it for a lap of tomorrow's race course tonight before the run because i wouldn't dare race it without riding it once on the course and i was surprised to just tootle up some things that were a little too much work before. i had to brake soem places where i've never had to brake before, but i realized it was because i simply wasn't ever going that fast in those places.

a few weeks from now i will have figured out where it will grip and where it won't, and what it will do when it slips, because that's really the key. when you miss a thing or you take a risk on a corner you have to know what it will do so you can compensate.

i guess maybe you could not take any risks, but then you wouldn't be learning.


Monday, July 16, 2012

i wonder how you are


a lot of the time i don't comment on people's blogs. this is usually because although i am reading and care what they say, i don't have anything to add to the conversation. sometimes i past a few words to say "hello, i am out here and i am reading but i don't have anything to add to the conversation" just because it seems polite to mention that i am out here and that i am paying attention.

to the people with the storm damage, the very pregnant lady suffering in the heat, the guy whose kid is grumpy, the woman trying to sort out a new job, and the too-freshly bereaved: i am out here, and i think of you from time to time.

i wonder how you are, and i wish you well.

to that guy who used to blog a lot but now doesn't, and the woman who switched to facebook: i miss your words. my reading list is poorer and lonelier without you.

i wonder how you are, and i wish you well.

to those folks who kept a blog until suddenly your life fell apart and you stopped updating: i still think about you. i remember your last post or your last few posts and i wish you hadn't stepped off that curb, or had to call the sheriff, or lost faith in yourself.

i wonder how you are, and i wish you well.

Sunday, July 15, 2012

flat tacks

maybe you were watching the tour today, and maybe you weren't.

the unusual news today is that at the top of the last climb, some hooligan threw a buch of tacks and nails into the road just about the time the big men were coming through, and there were a few dozen flat tires (which i maybe do not need to tell you represents a danger of crashes) and it took a while for everyone to figure out what had happened  but when the peloton saw what was going on, they neutralized the pack and all came in as a bunch.

this is important if you are team BMC and you're trying to return cadel evans (defending champion) to the pack after his four flats, and it's important if you are bradley wiggins who got a flat late in the mess, and it is of some note if you are pierre rolland, who got away clean of all the flatting and thought to have himself a great gain on time in the GC but had to be brought back into the neutral pack.

the decision to neutralize did not come from the race referees, nor did BMC call for it. it came from the men in the field, who knowing something was very, very wrong decided with great force to do the fair thing.

to neutralize the pack, the big men in the race simply decide amongst themselves that they will be exercising a delicate truce. they sit up and they wait for everyone to come together. their team enforce the truce and when the thing is put to rights they all take off again at full speed and there are no friends.

it is both vicious and gentlemanly.

they will rip each other to shreds on the road, but they'll do it on their own terms.


in  other flat tire news, closer to home, today just after my ride i had taken my wheel off and i had the wheel in my left hand to load it up onto the rack when suddenly and without warning or apparent reason the tire went flat.

usually if you get a blowout or other suden deflation, it happens when you hit something hard, or when you roll over something sharp. usually if a tire goes flat NOT being used, it's a slow leak.

i have never, ever seen a tire go suddenly and completely flat in my hand or anyone else's.

i think tomorrow i will go bike shopping. while i;m at it, i will have the guys in the shop put a new tire on this bike.

yes, that seems best.

Saturday, July 14, 2012

bastille day, 2012

here are some unrelated things:

cory doctorow had some interesting things to say today about comment spam.

today i went two whole laps around the blue course. the blue course is not hard and two laps is only 10k, but it is the best i've been able to do in a long, long time. small steps.

and today the french were out in insane numbers on the tour course because it's bastille day and that's what they do.

i have been in love with the tour de france since i was twelve years old and we saw a movie in school that had a few minutes about the tour. i remember thinking that it was hardcore. and heroic.

and it is.

i've never ridden much more than a hundred miles a day, and not the way those boys do it.

but i have sweated and cried and struggled in bike races and i have done these things sometimes on the same course at the same time with a man who has been though the tour more than once and in the news and on television they seem like gods to us small riders on the ground, but here, on our home courses, they are regular men.

and they are heroic.

later on i will want to talk with you about that.


Friday, July 13, 2012

wednesday in moretown

i may or may not have told you i was going to post video from wednesdays work day.

whether i told you or not, here it is.




Thursday, July 12, 2012

from the comment spambox

i was looking in my comment spambox the other day, just for giggles, and noticed that many of the spams have similar structure.

does anybody ever read these things and think: "oh, sweet. another loyal fan who will read me regularly"?

here is a selection of my favorites:

Thank you exceptionally much exchange for the improve forum. I academic a enormous numbers and got to differentiate the lucid with captivating people. I'll be a frequent visitor. 


Tender thanks you very much in regard to the relieve forum. I academic a lot and got to know the right with interesting people. I'll be a iterative visitor. 


Thanks be given to you exceptionally much for the help forum. I well-trained a masses and got to understand the right with attractive people. I'll be a frequent visitor.  (this one came in eight times)


Thanks be given to you exceptionally much in regard to the take forum. I well-trained a masses and got to understand the spot on with attractive people. I'll be a ordinary visitor. (this one was also an eight-time repeat.)






and is anyone actually fooled by these?


Hello I am so happy I found your weblog, I really found you by mistake, while I was searching on Askjeeve for something else, Regardless I am here now and would just like to say kudos for a tremendous post and a all round enjoyable blog (I also love the theme/design), I don’t have time to look over it all at the minute but I have saved it and also included your RSS feeds, so when I have time I will be back to read more, Please do keep up the fantastic work. Here is my web blog :: (link removed)


Excellent blog post. I have saved your website to browse this weekend. Thanks a lot for providing this information. Here is my web site ... Headache Clinic (link removed)



Wednesday, July 11, 2012

miss bossypants

today at the work site i met miss bossypants.

i know her name; i just like her title.

actually, she has some real titles having to do with her day job (she is an advanced ski instructor at mad river) and some titles having to do with her volunteer job which started the day the floodwaters were rising in moretown last august.

she gets stuff done. it takes a lot of people to do the flood relief. it takes people to give the money and to haul the debris and to demolish and rebuild and to feed the town and clothe the homeless and all the well-wishers could run in and work willy-nilly, but the whole thing goes better if somebody coordinates the effort.

and the flood was last august but the devastated towns still aren't rebuilt and a lot of families are still homeless.

meanwhile, the town of warren still had its gigantic crazy fourth of july parade just the way they have for a hundred years and the grand marshal's car is still a place of great honor and they put this woman in that car, complete with a sash that said "MISS BOSSYPANTS" and you know it was a grateful accolade bestowed by a resilient community.

there's little enough we can do to help. we expect to bring our own sandwiches. but miss bossypants coordinated not just the twenty-seven volunteers on two sites today, but also a volunteer to make lunch for twenty-seven people.

there was baked ziti and meatballs the size of your fist in fresh homemade tomato sauce and a beautiful tossed salad of spring greens and nice touches: it included avocado chunks and dried cranberries and pignolis.

there were also fantastic dark chocloate brownies, made from scratch.

and miss bossypants reminded us: it might just be a day of work to you, but it'll put two families a lot closer to coming back home.




Tuesday, July 10, 2012

clean

tonight i have clean sheets.

my dishes are washed.

my laundry is done.

my hedges have been trimmed.

none of this is because i am effective or ambitious; it is all because my life had fallen apart to the point i couldn't carry on and my mom came out and spent the day putting things to right and oh by the way she had the workmen come and put enough of my closet together so i can at least function in my house without tripping over everything even though that leak still isn't fixed and nothing else gets fixed until we find a mason to get the chimney capped and  i'm all worn out and don't even have the energy to watch youtube but at least my house is clean and tomorrow i will try to at least make myself useful by going out with the work crew to do some demolition work in moretown.

still flood recovery. there's still plenty to do, eleven months on.

too useless to clean my own bathroom, but you give me a prybar and i can still maybe do some good in  the world.


Monday, July 09, 2012

no, i don't have to.

these days i look forward to the hour when i can simply go to sleep.

sleep is an acceptable compromise between my life as it's happing right now and death.

but i can't do it all day.

i've mentioned once or twice that i am playing glitch and it's a game that seems to be populated by people with a wide variety of disorders all along the obsessive-compulsive spectrum. you talk to people in the game and they'll tell you they have to do their game day chores.

i'm no different. my game day chores aren't necessarily the same as other people's, since i don't give a wet slap about getting badges or leveling up, but i have my own little markers that i like to meet.

for instance: is the price of planks at or below 4.1? do i have enough planks to flood the market if i have to? enough money to buy up as much as i might need to? is there a big pile of free stuff on my front lawn? is it good free stuff, like full stacks of food, and new tools? are my crops harvested? planted?


and i'm looking at the clock and thinking: ugh. i am not done my chores yet. i want to go to bed. but i still have to do my chores.

and you know what? it turns out that it will not matter ONE BIT whether my imaginary crops are planted, or if for a few hours the price of planks rises to 5. everything will be fine tomorrow or even the next day.

so without bothering to collect my daily maximum of quoins or even check the markets, i logged off.

i'm going to bed.


Sunday, July 08, 2012

charlie and me

you know that band, uncle bonsai? yeah, i love them. i was thinking of them because i was looking at the work pictures from yesterday and there's some nice pictures of charlie and me.

no, it's not non-sequitur hour. uncle bonsai has a song called "charlie and me".

ruth and sandy and chicken man worked on the back of the house and charlie and i and a neighbor guy who came for a couple hours worked on the front.







and we got all the siding, on, too.

Saturday, July 07, 2012

lame excuses

i was maybe going to tell you about my day today which was long and hard, but it was good.

our workday for habitat was canceled because the floor pourers hadn't finished their thing, but we had a crew and a day so we went back to that house in richmond and actually finished putting the siding on the house.

that's awesome, but i am too tired to go upstairs and load the photos so you can see.

sorry.

i was also maybe going to tell you about a funny thing in my spambox, but i am too tired to go upstairs and sort that out.

sorry.

i was maybe going to tell you about a package i got in the mail two days ago, but i would have to take pictures and stuff.

sorry.

tonight i want to stay up long enough to watch the primetime coverage of today's tour stage even though the primetime coverage sucks. in order for it to be interesting, you have to actually watch the race. it's time consuming. it's hard to appreciate the intricate workings of the peloton or keep track of the riders if what you're seeing is an endless highlight reel of past years and all the exciting bits of this year's race.

i had to miss the live coverage (which is the only reason i pay for TV) today because of the house thing (see above). i think the only way i can pull that of is to have a shower now and change into my jammies so as soon as those boys cross the finish line i can go to bed.

Thursday, July 05, 2012

tradition

on wednesdays in the summer, i race mountain bikes.

some weeks this means i RACE. some weeks this means i show up with my number and take a start. it's a tribal thing, a matter of pride. it is what we do.

it is well known among my family that if you are being married or buried in the summer and you wish me to be in attendance, you will not get married or buried on a wednesday evening.

sick? take a start; see how you feel.

injured? take a start. for sure don't finish.

plain don't feel like it? put on your number and take a start.

yesterday was independence day. there was no question where i'd be, hand injury or not. but there was one other operating factor: EVERY july 4th race, i ride the course with small speakers blasting Stars and Stripes Forever.

granted, since i started doing it, july 4th has only fallen on a wednesday twice before, but it's a thing now.

and nevermind an injury on a part of me that i needed for steering and braking and such. an injury that happens to fall in the one place that keeps me from holding the handlebar.

so i suited up and put on the pack with the speakers and at the start crashco reached in to hit play and we were off.

my plan was to ride anything i could ride one handed and walk the rest, but in the end adrenaline got the best of me and i totally did NOT feel any pain in my hand and went ahead and used it.

and on top of that, it is really hard to be carrying speakers playing sousa marches on your back and NOT be pounding out a cadence of 120 (or 60) regardless of gear or terrain.

so i'm a little sore today, but none the worse for wear.

what was bruised before is still bruised, and what was cut hasn't separated.

good tight bandage, good tight underglove, good snug bike glove over that.

stars and stripes forever.


Wednesday, July 04, 2012

value size

dear kingsford charcoal,

i really admire your nerve. really.

it's a gutsy move to put six pounds less charcoal in the same size bag and call it "value size".

six pounds! in the same bag! then you bundle it up as a two pack (total loss twelve pounds out of forty) and sell it at a higher price.

so now not only do we pay more, but we GET LESS!

that IS an awesome value!

i imagine that soon you will introduce some swell innovations over at the kingsford charcoal plant and if you haven't already thought of them, allow me to suggest:


  • the ultra-value pack, in which you offer ONE kingsford charcoal briquette in that same bag and charge a little more for it than you did for the former 20 pound bag.
  • rental opportunities for the consumer, because let's face it: nobody really wants to cook anything anyway. we just want to be able to say we have large bags of kingsford charcoal, so you could rent (on an hourly basis) the former twenty pound bag, stuffed with packing peanuts or other non-charcoal filler. imagine our savings!
  • offer consumers the opportunity to purchase coupons that will entitle them to bring their own twenty pound bag and fill it with five pounds of kingsford charcoal. be sure to charge for parking at the kingsford charcoal plant.
  • lease workstations at the kingsford charcoal plant to workers who will then pay YOU for the privilege of tossing two pounds of charcoal in the former twenty pound bag. bill workers for equipment use. define "equipment" in such a way as to include air and ambient light.
i look forward to next grilling season, when we all get to see how kingsford charcoal will implement new and creative value-packed ideas.



love, flask.




Tuesday, July 03, 2012

it looks good.

here's the update on yesterday's hand thingy:

i got lucky.

apparently nowhere along the entire length of the two cuts did they connect, which was a little bit of a worry. some of the flesh in that middle area doesn't seem to be too firmly anchored, but there's a big difference between "not too firmly anchored" and "not anchored".

there is, as i anticipated, a good deal of bruising, but i did not anticipate that the majority of the pain would not be at the wound, but the center of my hand.

because of the swelling, maybe? i don't know *shrug*.

all i know is that i have to go to the store to get some more large bandages and some gloves to keept hat puppy protected because tomorrow i'm working the pit at the barbecue and i'm not looking forward to keeping the hand encased in latex all day, but i'm going to need to keep alternating between the leather gloves for the grill and rubber gloves for handling the raws and i don't see any way to keep everything clean and tight without a base layer that i can wash.

at tonight's race i will be wearing a bike glove and for tomorrow night's race i'm planning on a full-fingered bike glove.

i have a nice thin work glove i was thinking of using as my base layer in the pit, but it's not fully rubberized, so i wouldn't be able to keep it spanky clean.


maybe i'll just talk to the pit boss and beg off of all the wet work and just do the heavy lifting.

last time i worked the pit i had to wear compression shorts because i'd had a bad bike crash and a day of standing and lifting was going to hurt, you know?



Monday, July 02, 2012

ouch.

if you're following along, you know that my red bike suffered catastrophic frame failure a couple of weeks ago.

what you haven't known is that i have been unable to take it down from the roof of my car, unwilling to endure that heartbreak.

and today i figured it was not possible for me to feel more heartbroken, so what the hell?

and i got home from my ride and i unracked it and when i brought it down, my hand slid right onto the part of the frame that was broken and the pressure of the lift and then the drop to the ground alternately opened and shut the place where the frame had broken, and by bad luck or foggy inattention or just by realizing too late how it had slid, the webbing between my thumb and index finger was pinched -hard- and it looked like it was going to start bleeding real soon but of course i had to do two things, in this order:

1) take a picture of that sucker.

2) elevate it and clamp on pressure.

so outside of some rudimentary cleaning out, i didn't mess with it and i have it bandaged pretty tight.

there's a lot of swelling in the area and there's going to be a lot of bruising i think, but i am not taking that bandage off to see how it is.

if you're looking at the picture, this is about twenty seconds after the injury.

funny thing is that i had a moment where i went "oh, no! that finger is numb!" and then i calmed right the heck down because i remembered that i have no feeling on one side of that finger anyway.

i'm just not usually paying attention.

Sunday, July 01, 2012

another day

well, it was another day in hell and i have nothing to say to you that doesn't cut too close.

i fell askeep on the couch watching the tour and woke up just in time to see the end of it but then crasho called right at the finish to ask if i wanted to play golf and i looked away and didn't see how the sprint came out.

and i didn't feel like going out, but crashco hasn't been having such a good time of it either and if he wanted to play golf, i thought it best to go.

sunshine and a walk in the woods.

it's better when we're not in pain, but it beats being in pain alone.

LinkWithin

Related Posts with Thumbnails