Bird's Designated Belly Rubber

The town where I reside has quite a few retirees walking the streets in the morning. My dog Bird will normally just watch them all walk by except for one; her designated belly rubber. One walker who comes past the house pretty much at 8 AM each morning, give or take a few minutes, approached me and asked if she could pet Bird. Said belly rubber and her husband live a few blocks from Lake Michigan I learned so pet away, just leave that sweet house you have to me when you leave this funky planet we live in. 

So every morning at around 7:50 AM or so, you'll see Bird sitting right next to the curb waiting for her belly rubber, wagging her stump tail like a Pavlovian dog drooling as the belly rubber approaches with treats, some dog talk and about a five minute rub. 

If Bird could smoke, she would as she always looks like she just made woopee after the belly rubber leaves.

Trail Head

 

Frontier Rider

The tour headed west this past week to pedal Curt Gowdy State Park outside of Cheyenne, Wyoming and get a glimpse of southeast Wyoming. 

Home base was Cheyenne which tops Denver's "Mile High City" designation by about 1,000 feet in elevation. The "Mile High and some change City!!" The lungs were feeling all 6,000 feet on the trails but a beautiful park Mr. Gowdy has named after him. The visitor center has a bunch of pictures of the legendary broadcaster fishing and hunting with sports legends, celebrities and presidents from the old "The American Sportsman" show back in my youth. He was a sportsman for sure; kind of reminds me of my friend Rob with the many hunting/fishing expeditions he's been on. I attached a short clip of my pedal at the bottom of this post. Take note of baby rider at about the 1:37 mark. Hold on tight son!

The city of Cheyenne has some good people. It must be the cowboy thing but local establishments allow customers to "get one for the road" so out came the paper cups (big gulp size), in went some jungle juice booze or whatever and off went a happy customer. Yee-ha and heads up drivers! And no, I did not partake.

As far as airport fun, with my new hip I was able to get my crotch grabbed going to and coming from Cheyenne; so I had that going for me.

Trail Head

Looking for Gold in the (dune) Hills

My Monday morning trot around the beach has one constant, the two fellas pictured, searching for anything and everything that may have dropped out of the pockets of the many beach-goers over the weekend. Not many people are bringing priceless jewelry to the beach (and leaving said priceless jewelry) so guessing the two bring home a couple bucks in change each Monday. My theory is their wives bought the metal detectors for them to get them out of the house.

Laugh as I may, I'll probably join them in a few years after I pack up my belongings and stop working full time.

Trail Head

1984 - The Year of Eating Free

A little different version than Orwell's 1984 with Big Brother being replaced by Big Mac but 1984 was the year one of the fast food chains had the Olympic spirit in the form of a scratch off card that presented an Olympic event when scratched. If the U.S. takes first, second or third in that event, free food for that card holder! 

Said Olympics were boycotted by 15 countries (I looked it up), with the old Soviet Union leading the charge. With that, the U.S. dominated with close to 200 medals overall. Mix that with the stack of about 30 scratch cards the ladies at the local establishment would give us each time we came in and we had ourselves a feast; with a splash of gluttony. We were still in high school though, so I could polish off a 20 piece nugget without breaking a sweat with room for more.  

U.S.A.

Trail Head

BREAKING NEWS!!!

I hate the way the national news throw out the BREAKING NEWS logo when they are reporting something that was known hours ago, but they need us attention-deficit individuals to not change the station so they throw it out whenever possible.

Well, in the spirit of that process, I give you breaking news from the smallest county in Michigan. Taking away from the regular news in town of where to put the beach bathrooms (going on about three years now for that one), the breaking news in town are the installation of the new pickleball courts!!! I've never played the game but it has quite a following with the many 60-plus-ers in town.

https://www.recordpatriot.com/news/article/frankfort-opens-four-new-pickleball-courts-market-20771151.php

Way Back Machine - baseball 'games'

In the spirit of baseball season and the year the Tigers are having, we take a ride in the way back machine to the 1970/80's when kids like myself improvised for baseball practice when little league was down with games such as:

pickle

The game was pretty simple, and quite stupid looking back on it. You placed two bases apart about the distance between the bases in baseball. Two people have their mitts on and guard each base while throwing the ball to each other. With this going on, one person runs between the bases attempting to get to one of the bases without being tagged. If he made it, I can't remember if we switched places or that person stayed and was king until called out. 

There was no umpire to call safe or out so debates were also part of the game as I recall. "I touched your shirt!!" "You did not!!!" 

I don't recall these games lasting long.

500

A simple game of one guy hitting baseballs to a flock of kids and every man for himself in catching one of the hit balls and accumulating points. The first to 500 wins. I'm going off of memory so probably off in some regard but recall fly balls being 100, line drives 200 and grounders 50. If you dropped the ball, points were deducted accordingly. 

As with pickle, there was no umpire so debates/rationalization happened. "It didn't touch my mitt so that is not a dropped ball!!"  "No way was that a line drive!!!"

1/2 field/pitcher's mitt out/ghost runners

Sometimes a combination when you don't have enough people for a full field of players, you designate second base as the median line and the batter can only hit to one side of the field or the other. Instead of a first baseman, fielders throw to the pitcher before the batter reaches first base for the out. If you're having a good inning, you get to use the famous "ghost" runner and bat again. 

Thankful cell phones didn't exist during this time.

Trail Head

new sign for Bird and evolving into 'get off my lawn' guy

I live on a street that has no speed limit signs and a few speeders from time to time. While I haven't achieved rake throwing status that my dad did in slowing down the select few (yes, he used to throw rakes at speeders), I will make the widest and slowest turn ever on the lawnmower into the street if I see someone chugging down the road. Funny thing is, the speeders are the grandmas of the area. The Seinfeld bit on old drivers (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24psdnXhsEk) rings true.

I have an invisible fence in the yard and my dog Bird will lay in the shade right at the border of the fence line so I had the local print shop make the attached sign. It at least makes people slow down to read it (and see the coolest dog) so it works.

Trail Head