GWBs in Maine

Mr. President is at his family's 'compound' in Kennebunk Port, Maine this weekend. He is meeting with the President of Russia, Valdimr Putin. Who the hell know what they are really talking about? Thats not the point of this post.

The local paper, Portland Press Herald, ran this AP pic today. First, why isn't Putin in the boat too? Again not the point. The point is that as soon as I saw this I thought: *he looks like a flipant, privileged, ignorant, S.O.B.
Then I heard this question in my head: 'Mr. President, do you have any comments on the respect, dignity and influence the USA has in the world today?"

Day with Dad

This past Sunday my dad was doing an antique show at the Wells Reserve. It was a great place, with a nice ocean view, plenty of miles of walking trails etc. etc...

It was a pretty good show, as far as sales go. Plus its a good chance to see my dad, see him in his element (wheelin' and dealin'), and learn to identify old shit. So that in case I run across stuff at yard sales i know what is good and what is crap.

Anywho, he has quite a collection of Wallace Nutting pieces. They are hand painted photographs. The colors are beautiful and the scenes are well laid out. Here's a pic...

If you are interested in Wallace Nutting here are a pair of links. LINK1, LINK2. There are others...just google it.

If you want to buy one, email me.

Tailgate? Really?

Here's a photo I snapped in Northern Maine not that long ago. When you see something like this it screams 'blog me' for all the world to see.

I guess the note indicating what the purpose for the 2x4, is actually for the cops that pull this guy over. At least its all spelled correctly.

T-minus 7 Days

The vacation countdown has officially started.

Wife and I are headed to
Sandals Resort in St. Lucia.

Excited? HELL YA!
I cant wait to be sitting at the pool bar, drinking fu-fu drinks, basking in the Caribbean sun eating 5-star food and getting fucking SHIT FACED!.

oh yeah-its also our 5 year wedding anniversary.

Roche Moutonnee

While I was on that cycling ride in Bethel last week I snapped this pic of a ROCHE MOUTONNEE. Two actually.

It is a French term : roche= rock. moutounnee = something, i don't know i'm not French. my French-English earth science dictionary defines it as 'ice smoothed rock, glaciated knob'

Its often referred to as a 'sheep back' or 'whaleback', I have heard both.

They are glacially shaped so, tn this case ice sheet movement was from right to left. The ice ramps up the low angle side and will 'pick off' material on the steep side. Aerodynamic, if you will.

Anyway, its also a nice picture.

Bethel Ride

Last Friday I got called about at site. I dont care to write about the details but there was a figurative fire that I needed to put out. And it involved me driving to Berlin, NH and missing out on company boat day. Which, is a day that we all go out on BossMan's sail boat-cruise around Casco Bay and have lunch. Its a team building exercise. At least thats I how I imagine BossMan writes that down on his tax return. But what do I know?

Anyway. We managed to finish the work very early and I was headed home by 11am. Luckily, I had my bike and all my riding stuff in the car. I found a town park in Bethel, changed into my riding clothes in a port-a-shittah and found a short loop. It was a great 18 miles and along the way I saw this metal pheonix statue that some farmer guy must have crafted during a long winter.

Tuesday crazy-ness

There are some days that just go by. There are some days that just suck. Then there are days like I had yesterday. Where you just feel GREAT...start to finish.

At work, I was the fucking man. Keeping two people coordinated on-site at underground storage tank removals. " Yes, do this. No, now do that. What are your results? This is what we need for samples. Ok good. Did you talk to the State guy? Is he happy?"

Then I had a project meeting to lay out the next few months. Which was continuously interrupted by then aforementioned on-site jobs.

At noon Wife showed up for lunch. We had sushi. It was goodBack at work, I continued to kick ass. A client had come in to discuss some new tanks they are installting. The existing tanks fucking broke! Leaked some gas and caused a big headache.
So, in that meeting with ClientGuy and BossMan I was able to steer the meeting because I had kept in recent contact with all the other parties involved *(State DEP, ClientLady in Canada and Monkey Subcontractors).

I got the feeling that BossMan was impressed and happy with what I had done.

Then just as Im going home...SmartWorkLady asks me to drop off lab samples on my way home. No Problem.

Then I get home and I rode the Kona into town to return the movie and because I was all pumped up I made it, the 5 miles into town in 16.4 mintues and return in 21 minutes. For an avg. spped of like 17.6 or something. Which is friggin' flying for this bike.

Middle East Chess Match

I was looking at a map of the Middle East yesterday after a though occurred to me while reading the most recent news about Iran and their quest to build a nuclear bomb. The story was something about how the Pentagon has completed war plans to attack Iran or the nuclear facilities or something...

Then I thought about the board games of chess and Risk. So I built up this quick little map of 'Who" is 'Where'.


Can you really blame Iran for being nervous? Strategically Iran is fairly well surrounded by US forces. It really did all start with Israel. The US was able to get its first toe hold there and import some nuclear arms to the region. Then in 1991/1992 Saddam made a piss poor, strategically unsound decision, to invade Kuwait. That allowed US forces to gain a very nice foot hold into the region. GWB then became president, which is still contentious, lied to the general public and invaded Iraq. That invasion and this recent 'war on terror' gave us then a very large occupation in Iraq.
Simultaneously, a couple of Arabs apparently managed to steal some planes and crash them into New York City. I have mixed thoughts about that whole scenario but its another post. Anyway, the US was also able to put a large amount of forces in to Afghanistan.

The Iranians are now bookended by apparently aggressive military forces. So of course the Iranians are wanting a nuclear weapon. Imagine the situation were changed...actually the Cuban missile crisis is a pretty good comparison.

The Russians only got weapons to Cuba. We had our missles ready to go over there as well but, Imagine if the Russians managed, with UN approval, to get 150,000 troops into Canada and a shit load more into Mexico. Do you think we would be trying like hell to build a nuke?

You bet your ass we would!

I guess what I am saying is 'Cant we all just get along'

Weekend Update

This past weekend was very nice.

Friday began and ended with a commute to work by bike. As I have mentioned in earlier posts I drive most the way to work (~33 miles) , then ride the final stretch (~14 miles). I made it into work with a 18.9 avg and home with 18.3. I'm pretty sure I was slower because I was carrying more weight in the pannier and also took a different route that had a little bit more climbing to contend with.

On Saturday, dogs and I did our usual 2+ mile nature walk in the morning. Some people might call it a hike, but I'm my mind the relatively flat ground only qualifies it as nature walk. Anyway, when we got back I completed fencing a section of yard on the south side of the property. We have some new neighbors, who also have a dog, so it was high time I keep our critters in.

Sunday, after the yard work got done Mugsy and Tori stopped by on their way back home from up north for a bike ride. We got in a 27-ish mile loop. The four of us will be in the MS-150 this year, so we need to get some training rides in. 27 is good, but not long enough. We need to get in a few 50-70 mile days. Which is really only like 5 hours of riding or so.

Oh yeah also, Mugsy was able to get back in touch with a friend I haven't seen in years, WHEELS! It turns out that he is big into riding and competitive racing. Ill have to get over to Union and go for a ride with him.

Cops, Cyclists and Terrorists

This story I found through Digg.

Cops can be such dicks at times. Arrested for asking for a badge number? Its gotta be part of the war on terror mentality gone awry.

Do the cops think that all bicycle riders are terrorists? I mean really, the bike frame tubing could be just a pipe bomb in disguise. We can’t let the terrorists win.

Terror… Terror… Well I got just the thing for terrorists.

Peugeot bike project.

I went to the dump on saturday...and like last month I ended up comming home with a 20$ yard sale bike. Peugeot, a little research and I pretty sure is a U08 model from the mid-70's. The paint on the frame is pretty chipped up but the tires were only a year or so old. and the rest is totally functional.

Im gonna talk to a local body shop guy and see if I can leave it in the paint booth and let it get hit by a little extra paint while they are doing some other car. Ill just have to get it stripped and primed, but that shouldnt be too hard. I have access to a air compressor fired mini-sand blaster.

The pic is of the 'arrival' condition.

Fortunately, wife is understanding but the garage is starting to fill up with bikes...Im gonna need a separate bike shed at this rate. Oh well.

VIVA LA PASSION!

Raleigh update

I FINALLY got some sweet tires for the Raleigh. Then I took it with me to work last week and went for a spin around town and swung by Percy's to show it off. But it was one comment from 'dude' there that irked me. "Whats up with the double ring?" Well, I just didn't feel like doin' anything about it, and it functions perfectly. *grrrr*

So the next day I went to HomeDesperate and got a cutting kit for my Dremel. I had heard this could be done, so why not try it. Whats the worst thing that can happen? I toast a crap pair of cranks.

That night, I got a couple of beers, some goggles and set to 'er. The results aint that bad actually. And I only cut my thumb once and nicked crank arm once as well.

Doggie Hair Cuts

Yesterday Watson and Addie spent the day with the groomer. We found that during the summer they were just much too hot with all that fur. Panting all the time. All night. So we decided to get'em shaved. How would you like to wear a fur coat all summer? Not me.

So yesterday was the big day for them. I quickly took some pics and pasted them together. Sorry for the fuzzy quality of the 'after' pics but well... shit happens. Watson is the red merle, Addie the blue merle. Aren't they cute?