The Animate-Inanimate or Evidence of Time Travel

Do you ever get the feeling that inanimate objects have a life of their own but that they're really good at covering up their tracks? Well, I might have evidence of not only inanimate-animation, but time travel as well. Either that or all of that UFO activity in this region back in the 50s wasn't so far-fetched after all.

Yesterday I rode my bike out to Oracle. I stopped at the market at Oracle Junction and my bike computer put the trip at twenty-five and a couple of tenths miles. I went into the market and got something to eat and drink, caught my breath, and went back out to my bike. I filled the water bottles up with the drinks I had bought, put my pack back on, my helmet, gloves, sunglasses, and I was ready to go. I looked down and my odometer was at 67 miles.

I kept switching through the screens to see if I was looking at it wrong, but no, while I was in the store my bike traveled forty-two miles—and quickly, too: I probably averaged thirteen miles per hour on the way out but the average speed had popped up to an average of twenty-eight miles per hour! I kept track all the way home and everything was back to normal—distance, speed, cadence, all were accurate. Now, unless this market is actually a government secret installation doing some really whacked out things with electronic signals, and if you don't come up with ridiculously ludicrous explanations like the magnet was lined up with the sensor in such a way that even though at rest it registered movement, the only reasonable explanation is that my bike took off without me.

Okay, I'm a realist. I don't go for much mumbo jumbo or outlandish "phenomena." I'm willing to admit that maybe the bike didn't just go off on its own, travel a round trip distance of forty-two miles and then slip through a time-wrinkle to get back to the market before I missed the bike and simply forgetting to reset its computer to where I had left it. I can concede this. I suppose it is possible that a person from the future came along, borrowed the bike, took it for a spin, and then brought it back to a time before he or she took it. And maybe he or she forgot to set the computer. This is actually a more likely and far more plausible explanation because there's no way that I know of to deduct miles from a bike computer without completely resetting the distance. If the bike did this on its own, then I'm sure there would be a way for the animate-inanimate to do such a thing, since they'd be in cohoots. But if some being with the ability to time travel came along and borrowed and then returned the bike, then he or she would not realistically be able to reset the computer to where I had it. The only way to do that would be to keep track of his or her own distance and then reset the computer to zero when he or she was twenty-five and change from the market.

Of course, I suppose it is completely reasonable to realize that just because you can travel through time it doesn't mean you're going to be smart enough to remember every last detail. Occasionally you're going to slip up and leave a little piece of evidence behind. I think we should all start compiling the evidence. We need to catch these bastards before they wear all our stuff out!

El Tour is Coming! (AKA, Kill Me Now!)

 

Today was Stephy's baby shower and, since I was being turned out of my house like a common wastrel, I figured it was a great time to get in a good long bike ride. I've only done two long rides this year, El Tour de Phoenix, and Tour of the Tucson Mountains—both about 70 manageable miles. I thought I'd head out and do about 60 miles today, out to Oracle and back around.

I'll tell you right now, I only did 51. It was windy as it has been in a long time. Most of the way out (which is uphill) it was fortunately at my back. That helped. Still, by the time I got to the Biosphere 2 site (okay, Biosphere 2 is about 22 miles north of Tucson—do you know where Biosphere 1 is?) I was ready to stop for a rest. My weird little heart/chest thing acted up and I hadn't been drinking enough. That was probably the biggest cause, too. What didn't help was my hydration preparation. I took two water bottles and full hydration pack. Unfortunately, I completely froze the hydration pack, one of the bottles, and a quarter or so of the third. The pack never melted so I basically hauled it around on my back the whole time. The fully frozen bottle was still half-frozen when I hit my halfway mark. The first bottle still had a nice chunk of ice in it as well. There's no way I was able to drink enough at that point. Fortunately, my turnaround point was a small market just beyond the Oracle turnoff. Of course, their card reader was not working and they could only take cash. Luckily, I had a five dollar bill and was able to get a Nature Valley peanut better granola bar (delicious), a small Gatorade (not a big fan), and a "green tea" flavored Sobe drink (Foul—have these people never tasted green tea? I think it was high fructose corn syrup flavored!). I ate the bar and took a few sips of the Sobe and then poured the drinks into my water bottles, drinking what didn't fit (ice takes room, you know).

It was so windy coming back that there were several spots where I was almost literally blown off the road. Kind of scary, really. There was a ride a few years ago where I was just a bit north of that very spot and my bike was actually blown out from under me. This time was close, but I never lost control of the bike. Today's high was 93 degrees, but it definitely did not feel like it most of the time. The wind really kept things feeling cooler. In fact, any time I stopped the wind wicked away any sweat and made it down right chilly. It took a lot longer coming home than I had planned. It's almost all downhill coming home, but even pedaling downhill I was often only going twelve or thirteen miles per hour. I'm slow, but I'm not that slow! Not downhill, anyway.

I can definitely say, though, that I can't claim to be ready for El Tour. If I had to ride El Tour today, I might have finished it—I'm masochistic that way—but it would have taken a lot longer than ever before. That's probably going to be true when it actually comes around, unfortunately.

Democratic Debate #264,002

I'm watching the latest round of Democratic debates and I have to say that Hillary is the best Republican running in the Democratic Party. She's really into the "we don't have the votes so we can't do anything" rant: Too many of Hillary's statements reek of the status quo. I still like Joe Biden, but he's an also-ran who hasn't done well in the past. But he's pretty good on the environment and other domestic issues that have been too long abused and ignored. I like Gravel's and Kucinich's flat out dedication to peace and diplomacy. Dennis Kucinich is probably the best American of the bunch, along with Mike Gravel; however, the likelihood of people voting for an elf and a cranky old bastard are pretty slim, especially after eight years of buffoonery, but you never know. We've gotten pretty used to having an ass-clown in the White House so maybe it's not too much of a stretch to think we might make the transition from clown to elf. If only he was a bit more handsome an elf he might be more palatable to the general public.

Burn, Burn, Burn, Said the Greenie…

I like to think of myself as being conscious of my impact on the environment. I like to work toward reducing that impact. That said, I have to admit that this weekend I spent about an hour doing something so decidedly anti-environment it surprised even me. And I did it on purpose. And I enjoyed it. I paid good money to do it, too. I bought a weed burner.

A weed burner is a magic wand that hooks up to a small propane tank, ignites, and shoots a flame out the end. The idea is to burn weeds between the cracks of your sidewalk and other similar places. I burned damned near my whole yard.

With the rains of this monsoon season we had so many weeds my gravel-covered yard looked almost like a pasture. I was able to kill most of them with a simple vinegar spray. This works pretty well without dumping poisons into the groundwater and leaving poisonous residues behind to poison your pets and small children. But, as with even the best weed killers and herbicides, the weeds might be dead, but they don't magically disappear. However, if you have a magic wand, you can at least convert your dead weeds into a black patch of ash that will generally wash away with the next rain. Of course, in the process, you not only add to your carbon footprint by burning propane, but you also create a foul smelling, carbon-spewing smoke from burning weeds.

It would have taken half a lifetime to attempt to pull these things and many of them are so strongly rooted it would have been all but impossible. I weighed the options and went with destruction and mayhem, slash and burn, and burned, burned, burned my way through the yard. And, to no one's surprise, I'm sure, I did this right after taking a shower and putting on clean clothes—so I had to take another (water wasting) shower, do laundry, and wash my now ash-blackened shoes.

Anyone got a match? My front yard is starting to look like a jungle....

The Origins of Me

I am a second generation American. I am a child of the children of the Depression. I am Slovak, Gypsy, English, Scotch, Cherokee. I am the son of an orphan. I am a hillbilly, a Michigander, an Arizonan. I come from Baptists and heathens. I come from science and literature, nature and education. I am a Baby Boomer. I am a child of the generation that walked on the moon, fought for civil rights, rediscovered the voice of protest, and fought for the environment. I am the American melting pot. I am all of these things and none of these things. I originate from many places and cultures, yet no one of them quite defines me.

So who am I? What defines my culture? I come from a family of six children from two different fathers; I am both the middle child and the eldest child. We have not traditionally been a particularly close family. I hope that changes with my children and their children. I hope we are always close. I have no desire to ever be distant from them, physically or otherwise. I want to be connected by knowing where they are, that they are healthy, to help them when I can, to be there one day when they realize I always meant well.

I hope my children believe they come from a culture of fairness and equity, of social responsibility, and a sense that doing right and choosing well are the most important things they can do for themselves and the world around them. I hope they have a sense that it is important to preserve the natural world around them and to protect species that cannot protect themselves. I want them to know that none of us is perfect. We all make mistakes and none of us manages to skate through without ever compromising. Sometimes we even have to compromise on those things we don't think should ever be compromised; sometimes we are weak.

Do my desires, thoughts, and opinions originate in some distant past? Are my origins the blueprint of my now and my future? I don't know. None of us knows. True or not, I choose to think we are not locked in to our behaviors. Our history is unchangeable, learning from it is optional, but never does it mandate acquiescence to a predetermined future. Changing our habits and our behaviors is never easy, but it is possible. Whatever my origins, I hope my future simply reflects those things I want for my family and the world that looms before me.

Um, American Express what?

Imagine an attention span so short that you open a window to post an entry on your "blog" and then...well...and then go so completely blank you have no idea whatsoever of what you intended to write about. Hello! That's me. I'm watching TV thinking it must have been sparked by some idiotic commercial, but who knows.

I did just see a commercial for the new Halloween movie, directed by Rob Zombie. Joan and I think we should write a Broadway play: Halloween--The Musical. "Jason's got a problem with his self-esteem/Has to wear a mask to make the good girls scream." I think it would be a runaway hit.

Oh, yeah. Just remembered. Kind of anti-climactic, I suppose, after all that lead up, but all I was going to say is I think I'm going to go out and get an American Express card and then go buy an outrageous number of something completely insane. Then, of course, dispute the charge when they call me to confirm it:

"Mr. Kmotorka, did you recently purchase 12 gross of schraeder valve caps?"

"12 gross of what? Shraeder what? NO! No, I didn't. I don't even know what the hell one of those things is!"

And "poof!" the charge is gone.

Anyone need a schraeder valve cap?

Asmanex?

As someone with asthma (fortunately very mild), I at least listen to commercials for asthma medications. I keep seeing one for Asmanex. Someone explain this to me: The commercial features a woman who claims that she felt she was using her inhaler too much--as much as twice a week! Twice a week is excessive? Whatever. The interesting part is that this "excessive" inhaler use has driven her to her doctor in search of Asmanex--an inhaler she can use every single day in addition to the regular inhaler she has been hellishly attached to up to twice a week. How does that follow?