Throwback Thursday – Yellow Bracelets

I posted this about three years ago.   My wife, Muri and I were talking to a realtor and she suddenly started talking about Lance Armstrong.  It mystified me until Muri pointed to my Yellow Bracelet, which I have worn for so long, I forget it’s there.  This is the (slightly updated … updates in red) post.

For about eight years, I’ve worn a yellow plastic bracelet on my right wrist, day and night.   You’ve probably seen them around.  They have the word LiveStrong embossed on one side.  Of course, they are a signature of The Lance Armstrong Foundation, which is the largest athlete charity in history, raising $470M since 1997 to fight cancer.   I started wearing the bracelet when my friend John was fighting cancer, a battle he lost.   I’ve worn it through Muri’s semiannual mammograms and the sometimes sonograms when something showed up, all false alarms, thank God.   I wore it while my sister-in-law lost her battle and now while my friend, Bill, is fighting his.   It represents my support of charities fighting cancer and my support of anyone dealing with the disease.   It was also a favorite plaything of my favorite cat ever, Mr. P, who disappeared this year.  It’s not about Lance Armstrong.

Yellow Bracelets

For about five years, I’ve worn a yellow plastic bracelet on my right wrist, day and night.   You’ve probably seen them around.  They have the word LiveStrong embossed on one side.  Of course, they are a signature of The Lance Armstrong Foundation, which is the largest athlete charity in history, raising $470M since 1997 to fight cancer.   I started wearing the bracelet when my friend John was fighting cancer, a battle he lost.   I’ve worn it through Muri’s semiannual mammograms and the sometimes sonograms when something showed up, all false alarms, thank God.   I wore it while my sister-in-law lost her battle and now while my friend, Bill, is fighting his.   It represents my support of charities fighting cancer and my support of anyone dealing with the disease.  It’s not about Lance Armstrong.

Gourds and Helmets

As you will soon discover, I come to the keyboard tonight with nothing to write about … but it’s happened before, especially on Top Sites Tuesday, the BlogDumps meme that asks us to post our Two Thoughts on Tuesday.  I’ve been doing TST for so long … and commenting back and forth  with Wolf and Trina, BlogDumps’ founders, that I feel like I know them.  One of the pleasures of blogging is meeting people whose lives are totally different than your own.  I can tell you this.  I don’t live on a farm.  Build my own power generating windmills.  Throw huge Halloween costume parties at my farm.  Play with tractors and in between do construction and repairs.   I don’t suddenly take off on a six week sailboat trip and wander up the coast, looking for a new engine.  Wolf and Trina do, which makes it fun to follow them.  Over the last few TSTs, they’ve been posting about the field of pumpkins they’ve planted, so when an invitation arrived on Facebook to Like Paul’s Pumpkin Patch (Wolf is a Paul.  Or is it the other way around?), I clicked right over to see it.  It’s here.  There’s pumpkin philosophy … I would rather sit on a pumpkin, and have it all to myself, than be crowded on a velvet cushion – Henry David Thoreau … and updates on the crop’s progress.  They even posted about another crop: The Gourds are coming up too! we should have a few ton by the end of the season 🙂 which gave me my first opportunity to comment … I said: So, I think it’s safe to say that you won’t be Out of Your Gourds.  Hilarious, right?

Pedals

Friday night, I went into the bicycle department at our local Sports Chalet and bought new pedals for my bike.  The pedals I’d been using were Look pedals, which use a mechanical cleat to lock the rider’s shoes to the pedal.  This allows the cyclist to both push down and pull up on each stroke, giving him more power and speed.   I began using cleats when I was doing triathlons, not just because I wanted more speed but because no self-respecting triathlete would ride without them.  I did my last triathlon over twenty years ago, but I’ve still been using my Look pedals … I just didn’t want to look like a bike-weenie.  But they are a pain sometimes.  I have to change my shoes for even the shortest ride and if I have to stop to use the facilities, cycling shoes are awkward for walking. particularly on wet concrete floors.  In a tight situation on a busy bike path, disengaging the cleats from the pedals in time to avoid a spill can be iffy.  My new pedals are good old-fashioned bike pedals: no cleats, no toe straps.  On Tuesday, I pulled my bike from the trunk and climbed on in my jeans shorts, BlogDumps T-shirt and cross-training shoes.

Bike Weenies

courtesy thehotdoghalloffame.com

While the East Coast is battening down for Hurricane Irene, Southern California is having a heat wave, triple-digit temperatures with high humidity (at least by Socal standards).  So, yesterday, I decided I would get my bike ride in early.  I arrived at the park at 7:30 am, planning to do a little maintenance and lubrication (the bike, not me) before I set out.  I knew I should have put down a drop cloth in case I dropped any parts but I didn’t. Some guys never learn. Taking the derailleur apart, I dropped a washer, then spent twenty minutes looking for it in the grass.  Once the derailleur was back together, I realized I hadn’t properly run the chain through it.   Rather than mess with the derailleur again, I decided to remove the chain but broke the chain tool in the process.  Crap!  I was able to put it back on using a Rube Goldberg of tools from my tool box but it was ten o’clock by the time I climbed onto my bike.

Walkers and Hoppers

Memorial Day weekend signals the unofficial beginning of summer here in Socal, which is when My Park becomes The Park. With school out, bevies of mothers bring their children to the park for play groups, Mommy and Me Boot Camps and stroller-jogging.  I love the kids, except when they chase my ducks, but the Moms?  Let’s just sat that a substantial percentage of North Orange County moms think the birth of their baby gave them special rights on the park trails … one of which is never having to move over for anything, especially old guys on bikes. And that’s not the worst of it. Weekends bring Weekend Walkers. Weekend Walkers travel in packs of two to five … and they don’t so much walk as stroll. I don’t object to

Equipment

I think it’s safe to say that Americans love equipment.   You know what I mean.   Joe Abbegotz, your next door neighbor, decides he’s going to take up photography.   He goes out and buys a Nikon D7000 for a cool $1200 and an AF NIKKOR 85mm f/1.4D IF telephoto lens for $1300 more so he can take pictures of coots and mallards at the local park.   Or sixty pound overweight Harry Lumpson decides he’s going to lose some weight and buys a Head Men’s Pro Elite Mountain Bike for $4500.  When you tell him he could save $4200 by buying a Titan Glacier 26″ Dual-Suspension All-Terrain Bicycle, he says, Man, that piece of crap weighs twenty-five pounds more than my bike.  You think, Yes, and you weigh sixty pounds more than the guy that’s supposed to be riding that bike, but for the sake of friendship, you keep it to yourself.  Recently, my son-in-law decided he was going to play racquetball, so he went out and spent $200 on a racquet, goggles and a glove.  He played once.  Not to be outdone, my daughter decided she was going to start to read more.  She talked us into buying her a Kindle for Christmas … and recently hinted she might put it up on Craig’s list.

Monday Smiles – 9 /6/2010

OK, I’ll tell you in advance, these Monday Smiles are of the all’s-well-that-ends-well variety because the long Saturday bike ride I was planning in my post, Detours, and talked about in Sunday’s post, Not Competitive, had an unexpected … and bizarre … ending.  The day was in the high nineties and humid for Southern California.   Perfect, I thought.  I’ve always loved to ride in the heat.  I felt good for the entire ride and resisted mini-races with passing cyclists I’d have blown away in my younger days.   As I rolled into the parking lot where my car was parked, I was tired but pleased with myself.  Then, inexplicably, I found myself lying on the ground between two parked cars, having run squarely into one of them.   A man sitting in one of the cars … the one I didn’t hit … helped me up and asked what happened.   I think I blacked out, I answered, I can’t remember anything. There was a significant dent in the rear fender of the new-looking car I’d hit and my handlebars were bent to a peculiar angle.  I picked up my bike and walked it to my car, changed into street clothes then went looking for the owners of the car I’d damaged.

Not Competitive

Yesterday, I decided I’d make up for several days of missed exercise by taking a longer than usual bike ride.   It was a beautiful mid-eighties Saturday, so the bike trail along the Santa Ana river was busy with Serious Cyclists.   Serious Cyclists ride serious bicycles, usually with Italian names like  Pinarello and Masi.   They are well-dressed, usually in team jerseys, and when they ride in packs of three or four, as they often do, they wear matching jerseys.   They’re fond of coming up behind you and shouting, On your left, before they speed by, and if by chance you should pass them, you can be sure they’ll pass you back within a mile or so.  I know what I’m talking about … I once was a Serious Cyclist.   I’m not any more.   My bike is old, my clothes are mostly worn and monochromatic, and I rarely pass anyone because I’ve gotten slow.  I’m just Not Competitive any more.