Ever feel like you've been cheated?

Every fuckin' day
but you know me, I can't complain.
Annoyance idiots from out of town.
Nuisance idiots from other parts of town.
Nice car asshole, Now learn how to drive it.
Keep playing bullshit games with my life.
One night I won't be workin'
One night I won't be drinkin'
That night we will play
you and I and you will serve as
an example.
I will point out your stupidity
at the next stop light.
I'll say it nicely
You'll get pissed off cause some cat on a bike
told you how to drive.
and then your gonna do it
Make that move.
The one that makes what I do next
Justifiable
Rendezvous C'mon!

That folks is a little poem inspired by trying to ride home during the animal skinning festival aka. fur rendezvous.

Sometimes I can't sleep.

Thinking about the past and some people I used to know. I try to talk about it have to borrow someone elses words. Where is my literary laxative when can I let my beer shit out.

I love my wife but oh, you kids........

Come in for a beer it's okay.
We're your friends
We're not like the others
Stick around for the floorshow.
Sometimes it's you
and you don't even know it.
To paraphrase Ferlinghetti.
I am leading a quiet life
outside of Darwin's every day
watching the world walk by
in it's curious shoes
I once started out
to walk around the world
but ended up in Darwin's
I am the man.
I suffered
somewhat.
I should buy a
T-shirt.

The Monster

I first met the monster in the winter of 90-91 , I was riding along the shoulder C st. between International and Tudor late for a shitty job. Suddenly in front of me was a city truck, to my left heavy fast traffic to my right a three foot high snow berm it looked sold enough. Suddenly I was on top of the snow berm ahead of the slow city truck then back on the shoulder, well past the truck. I can't tell you how I did it I just did. The monster is ones own force of will becoming almost a seperate being. It wants to be somewhere and it wants to be there now. It's heady mix of all ones emotions, your happy, your pissed-off, your screaming, your giggling and grunting and snarling alternately. The Monster likes to help out at work.
One day that sticks out in my mind. It's 4:24 Pm. I'm standing outside the courthouse. I'm thinking "The bags empty, filing deadlines 4:30, I'm pretty much done for the day. Yeah just head back to the office, do some paper work, unwind, yeah, groovy cool." Bam! The pager goes off, it's a rush job for one of my favorite clients a divorce attorney, sole practitioner, office two blocks away. "It can't be a court filing?" I pick-up, it is. To add a little color it's the peak of tourist season. Package trip tourists and cruise ship tourists allover Fourth avenue wearing matching jackets and mildly stupid. I head down Fourth. At the intersection with G st. there's a group walking across strung out so as to almost block the road. I don't remember if they were jaywalking or I was going to run the light, it's an easy one to run and there were minutes to spare. In that brief moment in time I wanted to say as quickly as possible. "Hey, look I know you folks are here on the vacation of your dreams and stuff but this isn't some quaint little fucking Disneyland, it's a city people have lives and jobs and my job is to get this piece of paper two blocks from here now! If I don't the person paying the person paying me , well their life could suck a little harder" The Monster says. "Hey I got it" His answer is from the movie "Full metal jacket", Joker let me see your war face! ARGHHHHHHH! It was just the thing to make one of the tourists break stride. Slipped between them and made the filing with a minute or two to spare. These days I don't get as many of those kind of rushes more same-days and the odd one-hour. He doesn't help out as much at work but when I'm eager to get home to my wife and our little cat he'll always drive me home. I still miss the divorce attorney she was a good client, the last minute rushes were good fun, most of the time.

Sub-zero like back in the day a long the way.

Back again like an annoying friend, still annoying but strangely missed. At least for the first few days and then the old friend reminds you why he got on your nerves and still you dance, the band isn't quiet what it was. Your moves are so much better but the band can't quite get the groove it once did and you slide along waiting to respond ready to spring into action but this is not the time even tho conditions bring to mind another time , it wasn't ' 85 more like '98, I just had that song stuck in my head, a time when it was cold like this but not this page on the calender, remain calm just do what I do . About the photo, that's a lovely patch of forest ripped open last summer to make over-priced homes, happens all the time in lots of places but the funny part, if you look really close you can see a brick that used to be part of one of the over-priced homes that used to be there (at about ten feet more above sea level) until 1964 "good" Friday.That's Anchorage for 'ya.

In Anchorage, we don't mess around.

When it comes to riding on ice or protecting our loved ones. It's been quite icy lately, the same wide flat platform that does okay in snow really pays off on slick shiny ice. Much like a shotgun works so well at close range by placing several projectiles in a small spread out area so do the tires by placing several tungsten carbide tipped studs on a small area. Some of the ice we had was quite impressive I wish I'd gotten a picture or two, to a winter rider it would look scary, almost as scary as having a gun pointed at you. I no longer fear ice or much of anything . A slight addition eight hours later, I was reminded that ice demands a certain amount of respect. I'm going to be in a lot of pain. At least I'm not him.

I like mountain bikes

After thanksgiving we got some snow and road maintenance reminded me of the days when oil prices were low and the folks in charge of such things even more inept. There was a case of the post holiday slows.Followed by a brief mild cold snap. I can't complain. I had fun. Getting around was like going mountain biking only with cars. How do I know when were having a mild winter? When I start whining about not having done any trail riding the summer before. A regular to difficult winter I don't miss it. Earlier in one of my half-drunken can't sleep posts I referred to the weather changing sometime late in my early years. When I started it would get cold in October with some snow and it would stay cold until January or February then there would be a brief warm spell. The snow and ice would start melting, becoming wet, soft and slippery, then the temperatures would drop, everything froze back up until spring. Now it won't get quite as cold and the warm spells are more frequent. Snow, maybe get cold for a bit, melt, refreeze and like shampoo, repeat. That's the thing about Anchorage, sometimes the road becomes more like the off-road. If you asked me what sort of bike you need to work here? I'd say you need two. I'd skip over the whole fixed gear versus single-speed versus gears debate. There are good reasons to go with any of them and an equal number of good reasons not to go with any of them. It's all about what works for you, just try to keep things as simple as you can, the less time spent on maintaining your bike the more time you have for other funner things. I'd tell you to get one bike more on the road cyclo-cross side of things with room for a studded tire. Say, at least 700x35c with 700x40c being better. The other for big fat studded tires (well 2.3 is the fattest factory studs for now) on wide rims. You might be thinking about this, that and the other thing. If you have the dough they would come in handy but you might want to get a second set of wheels for it with slightly narrower rims and some Nokian's, maybe "29'ers" . They don't make tungsten carbide tipped studs in super wide yet and you'll need those more often for the nasty brown stuff over thick ice, you'll only really find super wide tires useful for about five days a winter when there's enough snow to cover most of the ice.