Fun In The Park After Dark

On our daily/nightly ride-run into Manito, me 'n the fris-dawg ran across more awesome free entertainment. This time, the ultimate night light . . . a hot air balloon going nowhwere fast . . . parked in the park for show, and every time they'd fire the burner, what a show!

On the Subject of Frisbee Dogs and Cruisers

More convergence stuff, or maybe just wild ideas. Time will tell.

This is Brandy.


She's predominately Australian Shepherd. If you know the breed at all, they are 110% about their job. Since we don't have a ranch, her city-slicker job is chasing down anything that is launched from our hands or feet. I'm not talking about chasing it down as in getting it done sometime before coffee break. The future of civilization hangs in the balance, on every throw. She makes greased lightning look slow. This dog can scoot.

When our longtime family lab started to slow down, we intentionally went out looking for a smaller, auxiliary, back-up dog, that could learn the ropes and excellent manners from the main, heavy-duty dog. Brandy was a respectful student and picked up all kinds of great traits from the old girl. The other thing we intentionally went after was some energy. The kind that keeps your metabolism up. The kind that keeps you from sitting on your ass when you get home from work because you feel guilty that she has been waiting for you all day and her whole life revolves around you and nothing short of a drool-spewing workout will do. The kind that gets you out in all kinds of weather because it's just so flat-out fun to go hang out in the park with your pal and share the joy of gettin' after that damn ball!

Jasmine went to dog heaven a few weeks ago, and Brandy is a different dog. She's no longer auxiliary, and it's a hard adjustment when you've had an older sister that handles all the tough situations. But she's stepping up. And she's more focused than ever on her job.

So we're down to the park almost every day, like we've been every day since she came home with us. We walk sometimes, but mostly we bike, because she sleeps at the speed I walk. So we ride. And we pack the essential gear, as dictated by the conditions:

Ball "chucker"
Nylabone (daylight) frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Large LED lighted frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Small LED lighted frisbee (er, um, flying disc)
Plastic bag for picking up poop (I'm usually "plastic" on the "paper or plastic?" question)
Optional master's hydration for those extra-hard workouts

I threw the the blue and orange thing in there. It's called the 'flying squirrel'. Lame. If you have a really slow dog, it's yours. (As you can tell, I've been living with a slow dog for years and am now drunk with fast-dog arrogance.)

LED frisbees? Yeah, we get 'em at REI. Greatest invention EVER. We love summer, but we love the winter even more, because we have the whole place to ourselves and we turn it into a glow-in-the-dark playground. Sometimes we freak people out in a UFO-kind-of-way. People have immense immaginations in the dark. (Myself included.)

The AquaVelva's been a blessing, because now I can carry all the stuff I need in the baskets.

Yup, that's a bud light stashed under the (empty) poop-sack in the front basket. Good eye. Anyway, no more slobbery frisbees (er, um, flying discs) stuffed into my backpack. No more plastic bags of poop stinking up the side pocket.

But the other night, as I was hydrating between demanding, athletic tosses, I had a vision. It had to do with some cruiser stuff that's been happening lately.

First, I went to get my hair cut the other night. Ed cuts my hair. He's the reason I look so awesome. (Not buying it? Whatever, bite me.) Anyway, Ed has this new, totally awesome, head-turning, screams-cool Electra cruiser that he's commuting on. I got there early and I'm checking it out, and Ed says that I better take it for a spin while I'm waiting. Twist my arm. And it turns out to be way more fun than way fun. People are yelling at me about how cool my bike is. It's not my bike, but the secret is safe. At my age, I'll take all the attention I can get.

Then, over this past weekend, Patty, Jacque and I went out of town for a family wedding and had an opportunity to rent some cruisers in our spare time one afternoon. We were diggin' it! Just one of those "in the moment" deals.

I've always thought cruisers were cool. Someone else's cruisers, though. Never could figure out what to do with one, myself. But all of a sudden, with a brilliant flash of LED light, I'm thinking about how cool it would be to take a cruiser and turn it into a dedicated run-dog-run-dog-bike. Something like this:


Is this legit, or have I finally lost it?

Busy Times, Good Times

The AquaVelva's been out of commission for a little over a week. A rear bearing problem that forced me to seek nearby professional help.




It's been killing me . . . I've only had the bike what, about three weeks, and my happiness is totally dependent on it. I picked up the wheel and a cuppa jo from Joe this morning. I'm jacked to get this bike back on the road and hyped up on caffeine. Good wired times.


Brandy, the "take-me-to-Manito-and-let-me-chase-anything" dog, is slightly more excited than I am. Good dog times.



Last night my club hosted the Double Trouble Twilight Race. I'm pretty involved with that and so it's been a couple of super-hectic days of running around town, moving a lot of equipment from here to there. We had 48 racers turn out. Things went well.



I want to write more about the process of organizing a race in a separate post. It's pretty interesting stuff. Today I returned the last of the equipment, so I'm free to park the truck and ride again! Good times.

Just prior to all the race business, we were camping in the Twisp neighborhood over the holiday weekend. We were there with non-bikey relatives, but we managed to get out for a couple of rides. The first was from our camp at 2800' up to Blackpine lake, at about 4000', over a distance of about 3 miles. That was enough climbing for Patty for one vacation. But she'd have to admit she had a good time on the way down.




The next day I snuck away on my own and pedalled up to Buttermilk Butte (is that a cool name, or what) at 5600'. Two hours going up (at one point I was busting ass to do 3.3 mph), and half an hour coming down. Spectacular scenery and 9 miles of super-fast double-track windey all-downhill fun. Super good times.




These showers in downtown Twisp are the total bomb. I emerged lean, mean and clean. Well, clean at least. Real good times.




The geniune (non-TG) Parelas came in last week and then sat there in a box all weekend. If I'm gonna check out John's supple tire theory, I need to do it right.




The half-ass TG thing was leaving me to wonder. I finally managed to get 'em mounted late Monday night.





I won't get to do any real testing for a couple of days, but I concocted a lame excuse to get out on them for at least a couple of miles (a bill that had to be paid and deliverd to the PO on Grand immediately).




Couldn't tell much about the tires, but I did pass a guy on 29th riding with no lights or reflectors. I'm all about the thrill of taking risks, but dude, you're an organ donor. I hope the next guy treats them better than you. Yeah, so I sound like a grandma, whatever. But I also have some experience of having to go through, and watching other people go through, a lot of reconstruction. That whole experience totally sucks and you should at least do what can to reasonably increase your odds of survival. Riding with zero lights or reflectors isn't it. That dipshit pissed me off for a minute, but then I let it go and it was good times again.

Haven't had time to catch one minute of TdF television coverage. I've just followed via some crappy, boring blogs. Now that things are slowing down just a bit, I'm looking for some places to watch. Good times, good times.