harumph

weekend pictures

Circus is in town

I was riding back from Floyd a few weeks ago when I passed by the circus tent. People were filing in and a marching band was playing. Probably not a good sign that I couldn't tell if they were rehearsing or performing. I was soft pedaling through the crowd and a clown with a sad face painted on was giving me the universal sign to slow down. I thought it was a little annoying since I was hardly moving, and there was no other way to get out of the parking lot, but thought "ok, well, I guess there are a lot of kids around, and it's just a tiny inconvenience" so I started to slow down, got near the clown and apologized. She asked me a question I couldn't understand, so I stopped, thinking "oh great, this clown is gonna mess with me since I look like a clown all kitted up, etc". Her english wasn't too hot, and I could hardly und

erstand her but after a while I determined that she was asking if there was a bike store over there (direction I came from). I assume she saw all these people riding by and came to that conclusion. She was saying something about needing a new tire. I felt bad since all of these kids were walking by her, looking up, waiting for her to do something funny and she just kept asking where she could get a new tire.

The Friendly Skies

NY post stole my headline: LeBum.

But on to the story. I have just spent 7 hours at LaGuardia and been booked on 2 airlines and gotten absolutely nowhere.

Flight 687 is the one that really burns me, especially since after some research I see that Flight 689 was scheduled for an hour later, and still arrived an hour earlier, even though their story was that due to weather noone was taking off.

On the way back, all flights to NYC were canceled, so I flew to DC and caught the last flight to LGA. Got to PDX at 745 am, arrived in LGA at 1:45 am.

Speaking of flight risks, and being a horrible place, NYC is killing geese. Gassed 4o0 in Prospect Park last week.

"not up in here"

I thought I liked Chuck Schumer and I thought I didn't care too deeply about bike lanes but his planned protest of the new Prospect Park West bike lane is changing both of those things.  He happens to live (part time) on PPW and feels it destroys the 'grand boulevard' appearance of the speedway.  That's rifuckindiculous.  I think I'll go out in support of my heretofore not cared about bike lane tonight at 7 PM. 

bad wheel!

the Wow! signal

Renting a car means listening to the radio. Not necessarily and not always, but often, especially when you are running late and as a result have way overpacked, stuffing far too much into one bag carelessly and trying to find CDs to stuff into the bag, deciding that they will take up too much room, etc.

I heard Tom Petty, Ace of Bass, John Cougar Mellencamp, Bush (Everything Zen, no, I don't think so). I definitely did not hear any song recorded since the last time I listened to the radio. Maybe this is due to the death of the major label stranglehold on music, or the reconciliation of that death with the fact that they still have a stranglehold on radio.

I did hear an incredibly interesting piece on sounds from outer space,ie. the Wow! signal (great name for a band)

Here is a very blurry shot of the order of events:

I won't go into too much detail, but the day was a huge amount of fun. I didn't do that well competitively speaking, but 

I learned a great deal and will definitely be going back, often.  There were 2 crashes, a not so nasty one that happened directly in front of me when a guy snapped his chain, and then one that happened in the B Feature, second to last race of the day, that was very nasty. 

 Fortunately, the guy 

seemed alert and relatively ok as he was loaded into the ambulance.  

Here are a few more pics from the day.  I love the Kutztown Cutters kit, so asked Patty to model it for me. 

Patty is fantastically nice, and turns out she, like me, is a basketball junkie.  She was the first 1000 pt scorer in Marist history, overshadowed by the Dunkin' Dutchman:  Most importantly, she was a big fan of my boyhood idol, Jeff Lamp. 

A few more:

The age range was 

amazing, probably from about 10-70, and the number of people who come out to watch is really surprising.   Finally, this kid is freaking awesome, and me at the end, saying ow, :