Cranial Torture

My current troubles with my sinus/ear/head in general feel like this sculpture looks. It is odd how inhaling a a full cup of coffee and then blowing half of it out both nostrils would be Tee Time for the 4 week bad acting my head aches and throbs melodrama.

"Thar She Blows! Port Starboard, a tad astern of the bow. Why Harold, it's a duet."

" Watch out Scout, projectile coffee! .....Uh......Sorry dude. Were those new kicks?"

So the rest of the day whenever I took a good hit of O2 through the snauze, I smelled Starbucks-Verona Blend, brewed stronger than is advisable if one is planning to suck it into their sinuses at 60 mph. I got used to it after an hour or so.

"Say Mike, wanna a cup of coffee?'

"No thanks, I'm still working on that last cup", as I huck up a decent dollop of caffeine infused flem and let it drain down the ole throat.

So in a day or two, An invisible tormenter begins to drive an icepick into what I thought was my jaw. And he didn't just stick it in. Once impaled, the asshole twists and rotates the handle. I degenerate immediately into a pitiful sad feel sorry for myself loser for the next 4 weeks. When I finally decide to turn off the dumass button and actually visit a doc, Doc drops the ball. Several times. And I am still a suffering bastard.

This Photobucket image strikes a chord here in Acton. Maybe If I looked like that I'd score more sympathy from the little woman. Right now the only place I can find sympathy is between shit and syphillis in the Webster's Dictionary.At least I know where to look.

Happy Patriots Day - 1 Day Late....I was Busy

Greetings from Maine! After 8 inches of rain on top the Spring sponge that precedes Mud Season, we had our pants full yesterday. In the 40 plus years I have been associated with this great state, I have never seen flooding like we had on Patriots Day. Horizontal rain driven by winds up to 50 mph battered us poor Mainers for 24 hours.

I guess I ought to be grateful it was not snow. I don't know though. We know how to deal with snow. Just shove it out of the way and go about our business. After spending several hours in the basement trying to shove water out of the way, I realize snow gives me decided advantage. Didn't take me too long either. Pretty quick on the uptake on this one. Yes I was.

Let's see. I have completely soaked 3 pairs of rugged Maine footwear. There are at least 5 hats hanging in the basement going drip drip drip into the river that runs through on it's way to the sump hole. Forget the raincoats. They shit the bed early into it. Leaks, torn, and soon felt like wet saran wrap. And I think I wore the floor squeegee out.

A neighbor who thought he was cute and didn't ante up for a culvert under his drive came home last night from work. The storm sent him a reminder he was going to pay for one anyway. A six foot deep ditch, 6 feet wide was now straddling his drive. He had to park it in the mud and walk 150 yards through his cheapskate mudhole of a drive to get home. And no raincoat. I derive some small satisfaction knowing this.

For those of you who would like to see more pictures just click here. Go to the bottom of the page and check out the slideshows. We had us some real weather Mister Man! Mother Nature spanked us hard.

A Sad Day

I had hoped to relate something humorous today. I had every intention of not letting the severe North Easter battering my area get me down. Returning from a short errand and witnessing the destruction left from many inches of horizontal rain and high wind, I had hopes that some fun writing would pick my day up to at least tolerable. But I turned on the tube before I sat down to write.

The news was full of the events that transpired earlier today at Virginia Tech. Many dead. Many wounded. And a nation stunned by the outrageous insanity that gripped the campus this day.

I sit here too astonished to even be angry. I sit here poleaxed by the thought one person could lose their mind in such dramatic fashion. I sit here saddened by the lives lost for no other reason than being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And I cried.

The events of this day have overwhelmed me. I have nothing more to say.

The Nice Lady

I am a lousy patient. That is probably why I get what I consider lousy healthcare when I must suck it up and actually cash in on all that medical insurance that has drained my pockets for so many years.

The healthcare business is a mystery to me. I always feel as if I have entered another dimension created just to drive me completely bonkers. I admit my attitude when ill, wounded, or whacked out is less than the ideal patient profile. I can be surly, uncooperative, and generally a pain in the ass. At least that is my wife's opinion. After 26 years of dealing with my peculiarities, I would say her opinion might be considered expert even if it is biased.

So anyway, I have been dealing with something new for me. I would convey just what this recent ailment was if I could. The folks with scopes and thermometers don't seem to know. How can anyone expect me, a simple citizen who doesn't even know where his spleen is, to have a flippin clue. All I know is it is some painful. It has cut my cognitive 2+2=4 abilities to a trickle. And the left side of my head looks like a pear on steroids.

It is at this point a sinus, ear, bad tooth, or just some evil little gremlin inside my head causing mayhem and wreaking havoc in the left side of my head. Things went well the first few days. Antibiotics kicked the major pain down to a dull roar. But one look in the mirror and I could tell we were only fighting the flames with a squirt bottle.

So I get on the phone. Call the Doc's spiffy new million dollar set up with all the fancy furniture in the waiting room. I get a nice lady on the phone.

"This is Mike Macrum. I was in 3 times over the last 2 weeks about my sinus, ear, uh the problem in my head. The Doc wanted me to call in and let him know how it was going. It is not going well."

The nice lady - "Could you explain just what is wrong sir?"

Me through the haze of pain and discomfort, " No, that is your job dammit. And so far throwing pills at it is not working. My head hurts. Does that work for you?"

"Do you want an appointment sir?"

"I don't know, the doc told me to call if I was having problems. So I am calling. The ball's in your court now."

This conversation continued this way for a few more moments and then abruptly I was told to "Hold Please" and the line went click. Dis - fucking -connected!

I had learned from previous encounters with this impersonal uncaring healthcare system that calling back in a rage does little to move the sluggish medical machine in a positive way. So I laid back down on the couch in my misery and tried to make sense of the Sopranos DVDs my wife bought me for my birthday.

A couple of hours later, the phone rings. It's the doc. Like the nurse he asks me what is wrong. Doesn't this guy have my file in front of him? What the Hell? But I do a re-run of the problem and when I say the swelling and pain is still there, there is a moment of silence and then "Oh, uh, well this is not good".

I am thinking this is not good that he thinks it is not good. But I marshall up some civility and just ask what does he want to do. "We'll have to get an X-ray", he says.

I think this is odd because 2 weeks previous I asked if I should get one. But I just say okay, get me an appointment. He ends the conversation abruptly with, "The nice lady will call you with an appointment".

3 hours later I am still waiting to hear from "the nice lady". Feeling abandoned again, I call and get "the nice lady" back on the phone. By this time I am guessing my file has been flagged with whatever color code they use to flag the pain in the ass patients. She obviously recognizes my whiny voice and is not so nice this time. "Mr Macrum, please be patient, we have to get authorization first from your insurance provider before we can schedule an X-ray."

"What authorization? Last year when I crashed on my mounain bike I was x-rayed the same day and it was not an emergency. You guys just wanted to make sure I had not broken my hip. I had the same insurance then. What the Hell is going on?"

"SIR, you will just have to be patient. It may take up to 24 hours to get authorization."

I shut up and then hung up. The next day the hospital called. "We can get you in for your CAT SCAN next Tuesday at 7:00 AM. Will that work for you?"

"CAT SCAN? What CAT SCAN? I was told this was an X-ray." The light had clicked on. The reason for the delay made sense now. And my anger at the lousy communication skills of "the nice lady" and the doc increased three fold.

This has been my week. Feeling terrible and dealing with officious uncaring medical professionals. And now I get to wait until Tuesday to get a 3D rendition of my cranial voids. How long after that will it take for them to get a clue so I have a clue is the big question now.

Did you See That?

This picture intriques me. I wonder just what is going down on the other side of the fence that is so fascinating that there is no room to squeeze in another bike with a guy standing on it.


A sporting event? Most likely I guess. Some futbol game in the bush league lands of Eastern Europe perhaps.

A construction site? Not out of the realm of possiblity. We all know guys are suckers for the big digging machinery.

Regardless, the picture shows another one of the many uses for the simple bicycle. It is not just a tool of transport, but a prop, a way of lifting oneself up above the obstacles in our lives.

Risk

I have had moments like this. Times when I looked over the edge and hesitated. Sometimes my pause to reflect future consequences turned to grudging but logical refusal. While hesitation often saves me from myself, it also leaves a nagging "I shoulda gone for it" feeling behind. Wisps of regret that creep back when I face that next big plunge.




When I look back at the choices of my life, I realize that more often than not, I did go for it. Some worked out. Some did not. Some were just time wasted. Some left me wasted.

The one thing I do know is the chances I have taken fleshed out what would have been a damn boring existence otherwise. I could never imagine a life with no risks. Taking risks feeds life into me. There is no moment when I am more alive than that millisecond before I jump from the cliff.

The Exploits of Robbie

This is not Robbie, but it should be.

I have known Robbie since he came into the first bike shop I worked in the late 80's. He was another one of those damn skate punks, only pint size version. He insists he is 5'3", but he isn't. 5' 3" in heels maybe. My daughter at 5"3" always calls him on it.
Having lived the life myself, I knew punks. They were always a pain. So I kept Rob on my radar. It took him about 5 minutes to completely tear down any barrier. An infectious smile, the pint size, and his obvious intelligence just made me not able to dislike this guy. He was still a punk, but you couldn't hate him for it.

Robbie was one of the best skaters in town. The day I watched him ollie off the top of an Econoline van in the parking lot and nail the landing, I realized he had no fear. Ever on the look out for a new bike sale, I broached the idea of mountain biking to him. Skateboards rule and bikes drooled were his sentiments.

The next year Rob bought a road bike from us. Figured it would be handy when he headed off to college. We had created a monster. A cycling monster. Rob rode that Nishiki everywhere the summer before college. He could not get enough of it.

His biggest problem was his inability to locate that line he should not cross. Several accidents with cars skunned him and his bike up that first summer. He always said he was JRA (just riding along). Right. I never let him get away with that.

Rob hits college. Rob rides his bike through a 3rd story window in his dorm. After healing up, Rob is asked to leave college and take his bike and crazy man ways with him. By this time Robbie has finally discovered the joys of mountain biking. He enters his first race and does well. But I hear complaints as race director about the "crazy guy who passes in the pucker". It had to be Robbie.

The next 8 years or so Robbie's priorities were his time in the saddle first and his time in the saddle last. Anything else he did, girlfriends, work, go to another school, whatever ran a distant second to his intense passion for cycling. Robbie went through bikes like shit through a goose.

At some point during this time Robbie became a messenger in Boston. He lasted a year or so until he finally realized that getting hit by cars can have lasting repercussions. I think it was the Jeep that T-boned him, leaving him in bunch under the front fender that told him being a messenger probably meant a premature death before he hit 30.

So Robbie moves out to San Francisco to be near his girlfriend who had transferred to Berkeley. Life is idyllic for awhile until one day his girlfriend comes home with her new girlfriend. She tells him he can stay long enough to find a new place, but he has to leave. So what does he do? He rides. And then rides some more. On one ride Robbie has another encounter with a car at an intersection. He doesn't skate so easy this time. Rob spends 3 weeks on the couch healing up at his ex-girlfriend's apartment while she and her new squeeze set up house in the bedroom.

Throughout this soap opera, the bike remains the focus for Rob. He has graduated from college on the 8 year plan, loved and lost, and crashed and lost. But the bike is always there to show him it's love.
Robbie is a graphic artist living in Idaho now. He has a good paying job, his own apartment, a new girlfriend, and his bikes. He lives to ride. And even though he has mellowed some and his head has less hair on it, he still manages his minimal 5000 miles a year. It has been a pleasure knowing him.

Quite a Rack

Let's see. Uh, yeah there it is, up near the top on the right.

Owning a bike shop brought wry acknowledgement and a smile to my face when I stumbled on this whacky solution to an obvious "the 5 pound bucket's too small", let's get creative genius so many shops have to come up with. Can't spread out. The attic and basement are full or not even there. These guys figured it out. Go up!

Fred

I knew a Homer-sexerull once. Didn't like him much.

Today's entry is brought to you courtesy of Fred Phelps. Right Reverand, Holier Than Thou, and general all around whacky religious guy. If there are Sins of the flesh to root out, this is indeed the man to call. He knows a light loafer when he sees one.

This Bud's for you Fred. I can see you have something on your mind.

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

I just uploaded my very first image to my blog. In the column to the Right. Naturally it is an accurate rendition of myself. I really look like this. When I am not wearing the clown paint and nose, that is.

And to see if I can also muster up enough intelligence to follow idiot proof prompts, hopefully I will find another image somewhere in this post. Where will it turn up? And what will it be?

Well lookee there! Up at the top. Who's the flounder making it look like a hard climb?

Uh, that would be yours truly actually finishing a brutal 3 mile ascent at Blue Job in New Hampshire. Even the gnarly dudes have a tough time with this one.

An astute observer might ask why I am the only one in the shot? And why was there enough time to set up a tripod, mount the camera, and get the dark room ready before my muscular manly legs pumped me over the crest?

Good questions, all. I can only state that this was not staged. It is however an indication of how far off the back I was on this particular group ride.

So I have successfully reached for and attained a new level of sophistication in the blogging world. No more will I need to hang my head in shame when browsing other blogs filled with images they think help to make their points. I can stand tall now. About time.

Nothing

I love the diverstity of the Internet. There is no subject too minute or silly that someone will not dedicate a site to it. Some sites like ClickClick Click do not pretend to have a point. They are barbs to remind us to get over ourselves. We really are just specks in the cosmic debris.

The sites that kick my butt are the ones that insist I take seriously the various outfits a barbie should have to be considered well dressed. Or huge amounts of bandwidth dedicated to proving that each snowflake may not be unique and how this is important in the scheme of things. Or how about the site that is solely about barrels of smashed assholes?

Google "Nothing" and 500 million hits come up. There are Nothing blogs. There are online stores selling Nothing for those who want for nothing. Nothing has a place on the Internet. Nothing finds a way to fit in with the 200 billion other wastes of bandwidth. At some point you'd think even the electronic ether of the WWW would fill up. But no, it just keeps coming up with nothing.

Nothing Ventured - Nothing Gained

Uncomfortable Comfort

Recently my wife and I had just begun to become more financially stable. It has been an uncomfortable, unused to situation that made us both nervous. Many years of struggling to get my business up and running, college for the kid, and the usual poor spending choices had created a kind of perverted comfort zone for us. We were living the dream. Plastic and home equity kept the fires burning and the hamster moving. It may not have been the lap of luxury, but it was something we could get our heads around. Owing money to everyone was a way of life for us.

That all changed when my wife was fired from her accounting job. That steady income she brought in was gone. What to do? Panic? Yeah, we did some of that for a couple of days. Anquish? Yep.

With no prospects of another firm picking her up, she hung out her shingle. "B-A Accounting". Since her firing had been a matter of economics for the firm, she had many contacts inside who threw business her way. That was just over 2 years ago. Now she is turning work away and her income is twice what it was as a staff accountant. So we became better than solvent. We actually began to get ahead a tad. And did I already mention this made us nervous?

We had every reason to be as it turns out. In the space of 2 weeks 2 of the 3 family cars died. Well maybe not dead exactly. But close enough so's you had to hold the mirror under their nose to see if they were still breathing.

We needed vehicles. My business and our rural lifestyle demand that both of us have motorized transport. Dependable transport. My wife puts 300 plus miles a week on her car visiting clients, And I needed a truck for my bike shop and home obligations.

So we went car shopping. Damn I hate car shopping. But after 2 intense days of frantic internet searching and then dickering with the local Ford dealer, my wife drove home in a spiffy new red Focus to the tune of $17,000 or therabouts. The next day my 15 year old Chevy pick up blew a head gasket and wouldbn't pass inspection.

2 more days of frantic internet searching and then back to the local Ford dealer because we liked how we were treated. After looking at the new trucks, I settled on a sweet little Ranger with only 10,000 miles on it. Nice rig. The bed's smaller than I am used to, but I'll figure it out.

Whew! That uncomfortable comfort we were just getting used to is gone. We now are happy as pigs in shit and owing everyone again. What a great country.

Retro-Grouch

I am a crusty ole fart when it comes to embracing all the new technology that changes hour to hour now. Ten minutes ago it was I Pod with 2 giggle bites of memory. You could store 14,000 songs on this little box and stuff it in your shirt pocket. Hey cool. Now the little I Pod box holds 50,000 songs and you can hang it off your earlobe or stuff it where the sun don't shine.

This is really cool and state of the art. But I wonder what the Hell good is it? In order to store the 50,000 songs, you have to have a computer to download them from and it has to take some time. Before you can do that, you have to have a file of songs to download from. And these must have taken some time to download to the computer you use to download onto the IPod. Add in the time to edit, collate and pick your nose, and the time spent setting it all up probably took 10 hours out of your modern, always in a hurry, lifestyle day.

Me, I listen to one CD at a time. Just like the vinyl I used to listen to. I am pleased that CDs have made this simple operation even simpler. No careful placement needed of the needle over fragile plastic grooves. Just stuff that CD in a slot. It magically disappears and music comes out clean and pure. Technology basically stopped here for me. I need go no further.

But I will. Kicking and screaming. The world has me tied to the back of the wagon. I have no choice.
________________________________________________________________________________

My daughter calls the other day. "Dad, there is something wrong with my cell phone."

"Uh, okay. Are you using it right now?"

"Well, yeah."

"I see. You seem to be coming through crystal clear here in Maine."

"No, Dad. (picture exasperated daughter voice like I am an idiot) "My Text Messaging does not work. I can't text my friends. I need my Text messaging."

Need? Entitlement? Can't live without it? Right.

So I did what any father confronted with the dilemmas of youth would do.

"Wait a minute. I'll go get your mother".

A-I who calls Himself Tom

Instead of whining about my lack of visitors, I have decided to do something positive instead of flapping my gums. A new blogging sub forum in Bike Forums goosed my sorry blogging butt into action. With the help of one of the cycling forum posters (we'll call him Tom), I am dedicating this post to a first attempt to really add something new to my blog. Actual links in the post as opposed to the "Oh BTW, over on the right are some links I like" type recognition.

I don't know Tom in the classical sense of knowing anyone I have had face time with. He has become an internet buddie. We both seem to be of similar mindsets. Twin sons of different mothers so to speak. Tom has/is going through a life changing metamorphisis at the moment. His story is what I would call true inspiration. A brave struggle to overcome daunting obstacles.

His story is one of millions of stories that tug at our heart strings. And it would be easy for me to just say, "Hey cool dude, you are the Man!" and then go off on my merry way and forget him. But I got to know him before I had the back story. His sharp and intelligent mind came through crystal clear. His easy going manner of blowing off flames and turning them into humor really struck a chord with me. I liked him.

So if anyone out there is listening, stop by his Blog or Tour de Cure Page . His story might just inspire you also.

Feed em some rope, then we'll let em drown.

Earlier in a post in a forum far far way, a member had referred to the instability of long term employment as a reason to not buy a home. Why would anyone do it in this country now? A good point. But one that only brushes the surface of the problem. Along with that house, so many Americans also have the 2 year old cars, the house full of unecessary gadgets and gizmos, and children dressed off a budget that would feed 10 third world families for a year. The overall nut folks have allowed themselves to get sucked into is more a reason to be nervous than the mortgage.

They lose the job and all of a sudden that monthly nut they easily paid with none left over, comes crashing down on them like a ton of bricks. And the lenders, ever so friendly when times were good, get ugly in a heartbeat. They raise the rates when checks start coming in late. They become vicious in their quest to bleed a downed man before he croaks. Once in the Hell of Credit Card late fees, they make it even tougher to get out.

I say we have a sick system that needs addressing from many angles. The lifestyles we have been sold by Madison Ave are not within everyone's budget yet we have been told through stupid high credit limits, it is. The banks no longer push savings as much as their new credit card. "0% interest for a year" or "No Payments til 2010". In a natural response to a gift horse, we think, "Cool, I can get that new truck even though the old one is fine and I won't have to pay the piper til next year." We have been seduced by snake oil salesmen.

Ultimately, it is no one's fault but each individual's. We are responsible for the debt we take on. But the atmosphere is so permissive, it invites financial failure when the edge so many live on crumbles. We need to adjust our thinking. And if our private sector had any real interest in long term profit, they would begin adjusting theirs also. But they won't. They have no concern if a consumer fails. There are more where they come from. But once the personal debt of millions becomes multimillions, it will be their problem also. Can't sell much if most everyone is broke and under the yoke of bad credit.

It is so easy to blame the fool for failing and not look at the one feeding him the rope.

The Five Pound Bucket.

Went shopping over to Sam's Club in Portland today with my wife. I didn't want to go, but I could tell it was not an option given the suggestive look and the baseball bat she had hidden behind her back.

I do not like to go shopping for those everyday things. Food, soap, underwear. Bores me to tears. And Sam's with it's industrial sized packaging makes the trip not just boring but tiring also. Lift a few 30 packs of canned beans into the cart, 20 pounds of frozen fish sticks and few five gallon buckets of 10w40 and by the time the cart's full, I want to rent some punk to wheel it out to the car.

But Sam's holds a serious fascination for my wife. The calculating domestic that she is, I can just imagine the 2 months of meals tumbling around in her brain as we leave the parking lot. Somehow she has convinced herself that a monthly trip to Sam's negates the necessity of that twice weekly visit to the local super super market in town. She won't admit that it doesn't, and wisely I do not comment one way or the other.

So the first thing I see when we pull into the parking lot is a mom and son duo struggling to stuff a brand new high impact driveway basketball backboard into the back seat of their American version of a Mini Cooper. Junior is on the inside pulling and Mom is tossing all her weight into it on the outside. As we pass by, they have it stuck half in and half out. Mom looks at me pleadingly like somehow I will magically turn this five pound bucket into a ten pound one and the box will instantly slip cleanly into the watch pocket that is their back seat. After years of training in the fine art of exercising futility, I avoid eye contact and pick up the pace to the front door. "You are on your own darling" I think. "I have my own 5 pound bucket to fill in a little while."

The First Link

I just moments ago, placed a link to this blog on a forum I visit regularly. I figured that since no one was going to accidentally find the genius in my mind, I would have to invite them. I am sure that the genius of my mind will be questioned and possibly be relegated to, "a legend in his own mind".

Anyway, the link is out. We'll see if anyone drops in.

Wasted Effort

I have spent the better part of this beautiful Sunday in front of this computer attempting to bring my blog up to date. A recent change in the structure of the blogging network I am part of indicated I should make some necessary changes to my blog. These changes, they promised, would make my experience here more delightful and filled with more fun.

It seems I can now add labels to my blog so that any visitor to my site can punch up all the posts under certain categories. They then do not waste time on posts they know they will have no interest in. But in order to add this spiffy new feature, I must first complete a transformation to the new blogging protocol.

Promising a relatively pain free process, I willingly punched the appropriate button. Now 3 hours later, I sit wondering why the Hell I even tried. The blog transformed just fine. But now I have a whole new set of editing duties to fulfill on each of the 300 or so posts in order to bring them up to speed. At this point, I have 40 or so done. The rest can wait. I need to make a point now. Or an observation. A notation. A conclusion? Whatever.

Why do I bother to update the navigating aspects of a blog that has no vistors in need of navigation easement? I have had no vistors in so long, I am sure this blog has been marroned on some internet desert isle somewhere akin to a sandy atoll 3000 miles from anywhere. Yet, I still followed through with the renovation as if there were eyes other than mine around to appreciate it. If nothing else, I have made another small step in my blogging education.

A Brothel of Mechanical Whores - Part One

5 years ago the 1976 16HP Yard Man tractor my dad left me finally shit the bed. Something in the tranny went ka-blooey and it would only go forward in 5th gear. Tired of the increasing tendency of old parts failing at the wrong moment, I shoved it in the back of the garage and began mowing my 2 acre yard with a walk behind mower.

Lack of deep enough pockets kept me from even contemplating a new riding mower. That was then, this is now. I have 5 years of pushing a 22" swath through 2 plus acres of incessant green. I also find my pockets could now handle the idea of a new riding mower. Add in the fact that I have met my wife's criteria of no new equipment until the old had been tossed and the time was ripe for me to begin to dream.

So a few weeks ago while on a quest for other DIY stuff from Loew's, I told myself I would check out their mower section for a minute. When I found their display area, that minute turned into an hour. There were 12 or so riders sitting there seductively, all gleaming and shiny, promising a no hassle beautiful lawn should I just plop down the card and take one home. It was a brothel of mechanical whores.

I was instantly in love again. Only this time, not one but 12 lovers beckoned me and I could not choose. I would stand next to a Husky and run my fingers over it's hood and that red paint shouted sexual lawn pleasure should I fire up it's beefy 23 HP twin V motor and allow the 54 inch deck to hover over my grass. Mowing with this little beauty promised pleasures beyond my comprehension.

But soon I noticed a red Troy Bilt winking at me. She had a confident air and clean look that drew me away from the Husky. I fondled her mower deck and I swear she shivered. I was in lawn mowing heaven.

But then I looked across the aisle and there before my eyes the green and yellow paint of 5 different John Deere's shook their little PTO's at me and I was smitten. I almost ran over to them. I had heard about JD's. They had the rep. They always delivered.

Almost too bashful to even touch them I just circled each one and carefully turned over the teaser cards found attached to each steering wheel. I think I read the specs. I am not sure now though. All I remember is the fit like a glove feeling I got as I boldly climbed up on one and sat down. That yellow weather resistant seat caressed my ass and fit my back like it knew me intimately or soon would should I take her home.

The steering wheel was soft to the touch but hinted at rugged determination should the terrain get dicey. I swear it purred with pleasure as I gripped her wheel hard. As I sat lost in my fantasy, I gazed down at a dash full of intriguing knobs and small lights. I could only guess their purpose. I was sure they would enhance the experience though. These painted up hussies had turned my head.

At some point I remembered my original mission and regretfully left that alluring brood of mechanical seductresses and found the heating duct parts I had come for in the first place. To say it was a letdown to find myself taking home duct work instead of a new girlfriend would be an understatement. The severe case of mechanical blue balls I drove home with drove in my disappointment with every pothole I encountered.

End of Part One

The Dripping Faucet

It has been over a month since I last posted here. Not being one to multi-task in a big way, I allowed another activity to steal my blog time. Considering that this theft of blog time was looked upon kindly by my wife of 26 plus years, I should feel okay about it. But I don't. I am guilt ridden and ashamed of my lack of participation in the blogging culture. At least while I am explaining myself here I am going to be full of regret. When confronted by my darling signifigant other, that regret will melt away as if it never even crossed the barren landscape of my mind.

Coming back here after such a long absence is tough. Those re-directed creative juices must now switch from construction of physical things to construction of subjective things. With a healthy dose of self doubt, I often feel my efforts in either direction might be better spent buying finished products than attempting to create them. But self doubt always loses to ego in my case. Misplaced confidence maybe. But there it is.

For 3 weeks of the last 4, I have holed up in my basement toiling away at renovations and reconstructions that have been successfully neglected and ignored for 20 years. A load bearing wall down there had lost it's plate to years of Spring run off that insists on passing through my basement on it's way to the ocean. The floor above dropped an inch or so. Walls began to crack and doors started acting funny.

This did not happen over night. And while I would like to say it sneaked up on me, I cannot. I watched it unfold and did nothing. Not sure why. I have the carpentry experience and tools to handle the fix. Laziness? Um maybe. But it was more than that. A perfect vehicle by which I exposed one of my more irritating character flaws. I have always had a high tolerance to problems. I always make them hit a critical point before I do anything about them. In inter-personal relationships and when dealing with the physical world. I can listen to a faucet drip forever without wishing to fix it. It nearly broke up my marriage in the early years until she got over it.

Unlike many of the emotional and personal glitches of my life, when I decide to fix something I really fix it. No half ass solutions. Over kill all the way. The new wall I built was no exception. It is stronger, better looking, and water proof. It will definitely outlast my time left on this planet.