Meetzorp

Chariot chaos

Nov 15th, 2009 by Meetzorp

Half of a grocery cart, laden with a passenger, being towed behind a bicycle makes a pretty distinctive sound. A grinding, rattling, metallic rumble, sometimes accented with whoops, yelps, shrieks, and cursing.

Like this, basically.

We’d convened on Friday night as planned in Korruption, a fine and choice dive bar in the West Bottoms. It’s in an *awesome* old building and has a really, really pretty tile floor:

It also has a really fab tin ceiling.

Jonesie was so inspired by it as a potential venue that last I knew, he was considering it as a possible spot for a future stationary sprint race. Apparently, they do burlesque shows in there sometimes. I’m going to have to find out when the next one is and go, ’cause there ain’t much better than dancin’ girls, if they’re good and campy and have cute outfits.

Danimal’s chariots were like the Cadillacs of the shopping-cart chariot world.

This one is basically like the Chevy Vega of shopping cart chariots. Not as explosively dreadful as a Pinto, but rather sad and pathetic nonetheless.

Jevon prudently and uncharacteristically be-helmeted, hitches up behind Christi for a wild ride.

These two chowderheads tried to take off while hanging on to the same rope, but it didn’t really work out too well.

Here’s Joel greeting Jones with typical exuberance.

A piratical Danimal brandishes the bopping stick.

F.C. can be observed recovering from plowing smack into Christi’s extremely solid folding bicycle. I’ve never known anyone with such an unbridled disregard for his own personal wellbeing as F.C. This guy will crash headlong into all sorts of inadvisable objects and pop back up, still grinning.

Would you want to tank into this? I thought not!

Corrina’s showing Brian the ropes (hur hur hurrr)

Danimal probably won the most races of anyone, so he’s the theoretical champion. I say theoretical ’cause this event was pretty ad hoc and nobody got it together to keep score or anything, and I didn’t come up with any prizes, ’cause I’m a shitty “promoter.” But Dan & his brother invented this sport, and so he gets major props just for that. And he’s a REALLY good charioteer and driver. I rarely feel like I am going to die when I’m riding behind Dan, and he doesn’t cross up on you, overtake you, or slingshot so much that he knocks your rear end out from under you. As I said, he’s ace at the sport, so he pretty much deserves his theoretical championhood.

As predicted, Melissa took to chariot racing like a duck to water and was equally joyful as driver or charioteer.

There were two minor injuries. The dude who dinged his knee hit the pothole and endo-ed, which is a hazard in the parking lot where we started. After we got run off by the cops we found a much better parking lot where we’ll race again next time.
Anyway.
Jevon’s injured elbow happened for much more colorful reasons. He was riding behind Jones in the chariot, clutching Jonesie’s camera and taking pictures of their career around the track. Jones took a corner a little hot & slingshotted Jevon into a rollover. ‘Cause Jevon wasn’t holding on or really steering, he had no chance of saving himself and rolled ass over teakettle along with the chariot. But he saved the camera AND got his shot.

So, I hope this kind of tells the story of the night of Sweet Chariot Racing. We were disorganized, there was mild drunken mayhem, a visit from a very nice policewoman, lots of chariot racing, and plans for future, better events.

Posted in Adventures, biking, dumb things I have done, Party, Photo entries, Utter Silliness | 1 Comment »

Ferret!

Nov 15th, 2009 by Meetzorp

I’ll be back later on to write up the Chariot races, but in the meantime, please enjoy one of my new favorite videos on the entire Internet:

It’s kind of like the old Hamster Dance, but better. With ferrets! And Weezer(ish).

For comparison.

And now, I’m off, to go be a productive member of society.

As far as you know!

Posted in Distractions, Utter Silliness, videos | No Comments »

Things I wish you didn’t need to be told:

Nov 12th, 2009 by Meetzorp

Years ago, there was an online advice column called Etiquette Grrls, wherein two kind of snotty preppy girls dished out snarky etiquette and lifestyle advice to a clueless write-in audience. Then, they got a book deal and published two different etiquette books titled Things You Need To Be Told, and More Things You Need To Be Told.

The nub and thrust, as it were, of my entry today is that I wish these two women were still live with the Q&A column, ’cause I have the weirdest etiquette quandary and I need to ask SOMEONE, preferably someone who manages to be both tactful and witty about how to handle this one.

What, if anything, should I say when people call in and are eating loudly into the phone?

It not only grosses me out, it drives me damn near frantic to have to endure a phone call with someone who is gnashing on chips, beavering their way through an apple, or smacking on chewing gum. Or eating anything else and chewing with their mouth open or talking with it full. It’s fucking disgusting and civilized people shouldn’t do shit like that!

This one gal today, I am pretty sure was noshing on an apple, and it was LOUD, with lots of crunching and slurping, right in my ear. Moreover, her call was long and complicated, so I couldn’t get rid of her in a timely fashion. And all the while, I was cringing, seething, and imagining hunting her down, snatching the apple from her hands, throwing it out the window, and rantingly delivering a few home truths about people who eat loudly into the phone while conducting business calls.

If there’s any reasonably polite and effective way to ask people to not eat-and-phone, I’d sure as hell love to know what it is.

Posted in grumbles gripes and pointless bitching, Work/career (vague as to avoid doocing) | 4 Comments »

Big weekend coming up:

Nov 11th, 2009 by Meetzorp

I know I’ve mentioned it, but the ad-hoc chariot races are on for Friday. It’s so official, there’s even a Facebook thingy for it. I’m so stoked I can hardly think straight…this is top quality stupidity on offer here.

Then on Saturday, the season opener for the KC Roller Sprints kicks off at Harling’s. Should be good times. I’m gonna bring a little cash and do a little heads-up spinning. I might even wear lightweight shoes!

Joel’s going to be off on a Dirty Kanza scouting ride with Jim and the Emporia crew, so he’ll miss the sprints, but on Sunday, they’ll be enjoying the highlights of Flint Hills gravel and scenery, so I expect it all balances out in the end.

I’ve been giving the DK200 a bit of thought. I’m gonna give it another try. I know I can finish it…I just need to pace myself a little better and not get lost. Need to push myself a little harder. I’ve got some training rides in mind for winter and spring, and I just want to finish. That’s all. Finish!

I’ve also been giving some “serious” thought to the Trashboat Regatta for 2010. I’ve got every intention of making that event bigger, sillier, and better than before. I’m going to be trying to invite a lot of good mad-inventors to participate and trying to get the word a little further out and about. Since the inaugural Regatta went off without many hitches, and with nary an injury, there’s a certain amount of precedent. If two bike dorks whose “boats” were built the night before and a quartet of drunken art students can navigate down four miles of the Missouri River & not kill themselves, I think a wider population can expect at least similar levels of success. That’s one of the angles that I intend to promote.

Posted in Adventures, dumb things I have done, Party, Trashboat Shenanigans | No Comments »

Cling tenaciously to my buttocks!

Nov 10th, 2009 by Meetzorp

Apparently driving a stickshift one day re-trains me immediately.

It’s pretty well established that I don’t drive much. It stresses me out, I get lost, etc. But when we were up visiting my folks, I drove Dad’s Jetta – we needed to go in to town and pick some stuff up, and Dad wasn’t up to driving, being in a sling after rotator-cuff surgery. Joel doesn’t drive stick, and Mom’s car (or Joel’s truck) is a little small for three people when one of the three is 6’5″. So, the Jetta, with me at the wheel, it was.

Dad’s Jetta is a 1990, two-door, Diesel sedan. It’s a little boxy piece of business that basically looks like a Rabbit with a trunk, which is basically what it is. But it gets about 40mpg and it goes pretty well for an old Diesel, so there you go. And while it’s kind of a lackluster little car, Dad quite likes the thing, truth be told.

So I drove the Jetta up to and around in Chadron and back home without incident.

Then, today, I had to drive Joel’s truck, ’cause I’m having a mysterious lung complaint and tried to go see a doctor about it (more later) and kept accidentally brake-checking the darn thing, going for a clutch that isn’t there. ONE trip in the damnable Jetta, and I’m back to habitually driving as if the automatic transmission was never invented.

So. About the lung complaint.
I don’t know what it is. Probably some sort of congestion-bred bacterial infection clogging up the ol’ bronchial tubes. Whatever it is, I’ve been coughing like I have hairballs to no good effect and feeling slightly winded all the time. Not full-blown asthma-attack territory, but definitely lung-y. As if an asthma attack is an option that my lungs would be willing to consider if I don’t concede to their demands, whatever those might be. So I thought I’d go to the walk-in pseudo-doctor in CVS and see if they would agree to antibiotic me up upon request. But when the NP there heard the big “A” word, she said there was nothing she could do to me and told me to get my not-as-yet-wheezing lungs down to an urgent-care clinic.

Turns out there’s an urgent care clinic on my way to work, so I’m going to stop in there tomorrow on my way to work and hope they can get me in and out quickly and deal with whatever evil is festering in my chest.

The bummer thing about today’s pseudo-doctor experience is that it went the same way pretty much EVERY trip I’ve ever made to the doctor goes. The Doctor/NP/Quack is almost invariably utterly dismissive of my concerns, doesn’t listen, or insists that something else is the matter with me.

The doctor-person today insisted that I was suffering from the flu, though I have not had a fever, chills, or achy joints. What I have had was a cold…I am almost certain of it. I started off with a sore throat, then I got really snotty and sneezed a LOT. Then I had a lot of coughing and head and chest congestion, which I still have. Only the chest part has gotten worse. Enough so that I am kind of concerned, ’cause I’ve had this happen before and I ended up going to the ER with a full blown asthma attack, plus bronchitis. Twice before. I know what it feels like. I know what it the matter with me. I have experience with these things. To be told that something entirely different is ailing me, when I am almost 100% certain of what is wrong with me is dismissive, obnoxious, and unhelpful.

What I most likely need, and what will probably be prescribed for me, is a dose of antibiotics to kill off the infection, and possibly a stronger inhaler for the meanwhile. What I got today was a lot of attitude from their quasi-doctor and 10 sheets of computer print outs for various urgent-care offices in the region, which I could have gotten for myself, at home, in 1/3 of the time.

Anyway, I’m not terrible bad off and should be able to get this taken care of tomorrow morning before work. Assuming the urgent-care doc doesn’t brush me off and tell me to go to the ER and waste even more of my time and money.

Oh, and the title for today’s entry? That’s a line from an old Ren & Stimpy cartoon with Powdered Toast Man. PTM had rescued the Pope and was giving him a lift back to the Vatican. PTM only flew backwards, and had perched the Pope on his rear and instructed the Pope to “cling tenaciously to (PTM’s) buttocks.”

Shit, I can’t describe/recap this properly. You’ve just got to watch it. Just watch it. All will become clear.

So, have you watched it? We’re clear now?

Okay, so today I’m wearing a pair of jeans I made…brown corduroy “skinny jeans,” and they do mighty-mighty things for my rump.

So, I remarked to Joel that these jeans “cling tenaciously to my buttocks,” which in fact they do.

And since then, for the rest of the day so far, the phrase “cling tenaciously to my buttocks” has been roving around my poor, addled brain. I thought I could possibly purge it via this entry, so there you have it.

Posted in Car Drama and trauma, grumbles gripes and pointless bitching, Oh, for fuck's sake | 1 Comment »

Just What I Needed

Nov 7th, 2009 by Meetzorp

Christi just got a frisbee that has a little LED light thingy in the middle of it.

What this means is that this frisbee can be lit up at night and the more die-hard (and nutty) Friz enthusiasts can now play Friz even after the Daylight Saving time change.

We tested this theory this evening to a rousing success. The illuminated frisbee seems to be sturdy enough for reasonable gameplay, flys well, is easy to catch, and is overall quite satisfactory for after-dark games of bike-friz.

A group of us had a real nice little informal, after-sundown game of Friz this evening. I’d been kind of brain fried after work and wasn’t really feeling it, but I forced myself out of my shell and am damn glad I did. The game turned out to be a total blast, Melissa turns out to be a natural at Friz, and we’ve decided that the time has come for more Chariot Races. I’m going to confirm an address tomorrow, and will be back and spreading the good word about the upcoming Chariot Racing Extravaganza. There will almost certainly be mayhem, unsound engineering, cussing, beer, and injury, so you know you WANT to be there, either as a spectator or a participant. And there’s no rule saying you can’t do both.

Posted in Adventures, biking, Party | No Comments »

Good thing I don’t do resolutions

Nov 6th, 2009 by Meetzorp

I said something recently about writing more frequently…and once again I did a lot of fun stuff, didn’t write about it, built up a backlog of postable material, got overwhelmed, and will be babbling forth a disjointed and photo-heavy entry…AGAIN.

So. We went to Nebraska this past weekend-ish. We left town Halloween night, did a little touristing on Sunday morning, and made it to my folks’ house early Sunday evening, just in time for a FABULOUS bean soup and fresh, home-made bread for supper.

We did a cursory exploration of Lucas, KS. We’ll be back another time to actually go to the Grassroots Art museum and to tour “The Garden Of Eden” properly. I think we’re going to do a minibreak in that area one of these days and camp out at Wilson Lake, ride the trails, then hit Lucas and take in the culture.

But, back to what we’ve been up to.

After our brief jaunt in Lucas, we got back on the road with every intention of stopping in
Minden, NE to visit the Harold Warp Pioneer Village I’m sad to say that we missed the exhibit of period rooms, but we sure saw a lot of other cool stuff. The place is a bit of a hodge-podge, and is entirely heavy on Model A Fords, but even at that, it’s pretty nifty. I’d had it mentally conflated with the Stuhr Museum of the Prairie Pioneer (another place that I particularly want to visit one of these days). The Stuhr Museum has a particularly good collection of historic costume, the cream of which has been photographed for a particularly good survey book of fashion history.

Oh yes…what I’ve been up to:

My Minnie Pearl costume worked. Unfortunately, I have my eyes closed, and the price tag on my hat was blown to the back, but the outfit worked out pretty well.

It was cheek-chillin’ C O L D on Friday night, though. BRRRR. I ended up putting my sweater and jacket on over my dress pretty shortly after this picture.

Sean was a warmly-dressed sandwich, which was pretty awesome. Look closely and you will notice that his “bread” has a cup-holder. Ingenious!

Melissa & Christi, bringing the holiday cheer!

Here’s a wild-thing.

Jevon excavated his famous articulated dino-skull mask.

It dates at least back to Halloween ’06.

Super-Clint had wayyyyy too much fun being really creepy.

Dapper Dia De Los Muertos! These guys really had it goin’ ON!

Just because I didn’t see them fly up into the sky doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. It totally could have, you know!

I didn’t take that many meaningful pictures while I was at my parents’ place, but I did get some HILARIOUS pictures of the dog going all Mutual Of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom out on the prairie:

Fixin’ to climb up after a squirrel.

Definitely the right coloration for autumnal prairie stealth.

Water’s AWESOME when it’s her idea.

Riverbanks? No biggie!

There was still some snow to play in.

Ruby liked it:

A lot!

The visit with my folks was nice…a bit rushed, but it’s always good to get to hang out with my parents. Dad’s been recovering from rotator-cuff surgery and was still pretty sore and laid up while we were there. Being unable to use his right arm has really been working his nerves. Mom brought back no fewer than three old sewing machines from up at Grandma’s and had me go through and find out if/how they worked. Survey says they’re all great. The Singer and the Brother are my two votes for being great all-rounders. Grandma had bought this insane Necchi heavy-duty model just a few years ago, and it seems like a great machine…for someone who wants to make a lot of jeans and canvas purses. I think it’s a bit overkill for most home sewing, but what do I know? The Singer is the simplest sewing machine I have ever seen. It sews. Just straight stitch; nothing else. It’ll back stitch to end a seam, but that’s all. No zig-zags, no frills. The beauty of it is that there’s pretty much nothing to go out of adjustment and the entire thing should be easy to keep humming along nearly indefinitely. The Brother is a little fancier, but still completely intuitive to use. It has some cool pre-set fancy stitching that Mom will probably never use, but which could be put to pretty cute effect.

I told Mom that I’d try to find a PDF of the user manual for this machine, since it seems to be missing. Mom thinks that it might have belonged to her aunt Helga, and so it could have been lost anywhere between California, Maryland, and Florida!

So, I guess that’s a kind of disjointed and sort of condensed and highly illustrated version of what I’ve been up to in the past week or so. I won’t make any promises, but I will try to update more regularly, with a little more coherence and a little less photo-spam.

Posted in Adventures, Costumes and disguises, Distractions, Family, Party, Photo entries, Ruby the Dog | No Comments »

What’s the hold up?

Oct 27th, 2009 by Meetzorp

Forgive me this horrible pun, but two different holdups have influenced my day.

The first was a bank robbery which I apparently only just missed.

Today’s my day off, so I decided to run a few errands this morning. I went downtown to take a few books back to the library, pick up a few that had come in from Interlibrary Loan, go to the bank, pick up a few odds and ends at the grocery and go spend a gift certificate at Birdie’s.

As a bike commuter, I plan my errands on a linear itinerary so that I don’t have to double back. My plan was to come into downtown via the River Market and leave it via the crossroads/Southwest Boulevard. The bank was stop #2 on the list, but as I headed for the bank, I saw that traffic had bottlenecked as far back as the 10th & Main bus interchange. I crept along with traffic, cursing imagined delays caused by either the interminable street construction or some dumbass who’d run a light and created a T-Bone wreck. As the flow of traffic neared the 11th & Main intersection where I needed to veer leftward, I saw a bunch of police cars, lights ablaze. Not an uncommon sight in KC. I think things are boring enough that any time any little thing happens, the police flock to it. A half dozen cop cars will descend like vultures upon a crazed druggie who altercates with a convenience store clerk. I thought nothing of it, but crept past, found a bike parking hoop, locked up, and went into the bank building, only to find the bank entrance shuttered up, with a sign hanging from the door stating that the bank was temporarily closed following a robbery!

So I went on with my errands, walked down to the grocery, said “hey” to a couple of my old co-workers, got the rest of the stuff I need to make a butternut squash soup (I had the squash, but not much else) and went back to the bank. It was still closed, so I decided to skip that one for today and deal with my banking another time.

Now my trip to Birdie’s was quite fruitful. I had a gift certificate from Joel and every intention of procuring something really, really pretty:

I think I succeeded.

My plan had been for either a pretty camisole or a garter belt. I managed to cover both bases with this beauty. The garters are removable, and the fabrics (an embroidered satin and a “smoke” lace) are gorgeous.

When I was a kid, this is the kind of undergarment I thought I’d like to have when I was all grown up. Something really pretty, with lace and flowers that would best flatter the feminine charms I was sure I’d someday posses. My “charms” aren’t as charming as I was kind of hoping for, but when all is said and done, I probably have a way better figure than I deserve. And where nature failed to provide, a little prudent fibrefill will make do.

The big idea with the garters is that some while back, I mistakenly bought some merino stockings (not tights, as would have been sensible). The price was so good on them that I ended up keeping them, assuming that I’d eventually either make or acquire a garter belt or other source of stocking-keeper-uppers. And so I have. I tried this whole rig on with the stockings attached and think it will work quite nicely, plus I’ll be feeling all posh and fancy beneath my clothes, which isn’t a bad way to feel from time to time.

Posted in bike commuting, Fashion | 4 Comments »

Until next year

Oct 26th, 2009 by Meetzorp

$110.00 and a gruesome car ride behind me, both cats are vaccinated for another year. Bonus purchase of flea treatments all around, as Ruby has managed to bring in a late-season infestation of fleas.

Ruby’s vaccinations took place back in August. The cats were due last month, but I was too broke, so it had to happen now. I don’t like delaying stuff like that, but you know how it goes.

Griswald is SUCH a piteous drama queen in the car. Ugh. All the way there and back, he was meeeryoooooowaaawawawaaaooool-ing in such a way that you’d think he was being eviscerated repeatedly and continually. I’m seriously considering calling in the services of the Mobile Vet next year when vaccination time rolls around again. It may well be worth the extra $$$ to not have to endure yet another drive with Mr. Howly-Guts again.

At least he didn’t wet himself again this year.

Last year (and also when we moved him from my old house to here) he pissed all over himself and the carrier in transit. So not only did he suffer the indignity and trauma of a car ride, he got to suffer the indignity and trauma of a bath. Both times I was surprised and thankful that he didn’t up and give himself a heart attack after it was all over.

Anyway, the cats got a clean bill of health. A little chubby, but they have maintained, to the ounce, the weights they clocked in at last year, and the vet was happy enough with that, though he said it would be better if each of them was at least a pound if not two pounds lighter. I’m still working on that one, but they really seem to have plateaued, and if they’re basically “okay” at their current weights, I am not going to sweat a lot over their diets.

They act like this (or worse) twice a day, every day. They really LOVE their food.

Posted in Cats | 4 Comments »

Polyphonic Belles

Oct 25th, 2009 by Meetzorp

We went and listened to these ladies last night, and it was lovely. There’s no better word for it. Lovely.

Their voices harmonize gloriously, forming chords that paradoxically seem to have a texture and shape. It’s not just music, sounds, but more like an aural sculpture.

They chose a series of pieces from the convent of the sisters of LasHuelgas, a 13th century Spanish order who were apparently not unlike the nuns under the Prioress in Canterbury Tales. They were the younger daughters of aristocracy, who for one reason or another declined (or were unable to attain) marriage and settled into a life of genteel and urbane faith. According to the program notes,

In the early 1180s, King Alfonso VIII of Castile founded a convent near Burgos in north-central Spain at the request of his wife Leonora, daughter of England’s Henry II and Alienor of Aquitaine. It became a refuge (Las Huelgas means “place of refuge”) for royal and noble women seeking the religious life, and a mausoleum for the royal family. In 1188, it was incorporated as a house of the Cistercian order, parto of the reform movement seeking to bring Benedictine monastics back to the pure rule of St. Benedict and his ora et labora (life of prayer and work). But although cistercians were supposed to live a simple life and subsist by the labor of their own hands, these ladies gained, in some fashion, a degree of ecclesiastica jurisdiction and independence that would seem shocking today. Their abbesses could say mass, hear confessoins, and make othe rdecisions and rulings such as a priest or bishop might do. indeed, contemporary Carthusian nuns did, by regular rule, enjoy some of the se privileges when a priest was not availalbe, including the right to sing liturgical items normally assigned to a (male) deacon or subdeacon. But the cloistered, submissive life of a Cistercian was not feflected in the daily life of the aristocratic ladies at Las Huelgas.

The program notes go on to explain that the nuns of Las Huelgas were mostly well educated and very likely worked from a selection of traditional hymns as well as “popular” secular music that was retrofitted with devotional lyrics.

The music for last night’s performance had been chosen with the theme of a day of devotions, “includ[ing] songs with texts that refer to the monastic [lives] of the nuns them selves.” There was even a “do re mi” type of warmup exercise included!

While listening to this music sung in Latin, a language I don’t understand, many different thoughts shook loose. As you might guess, I thought about Chaucer, the Prioress, and thought I might want to learn some more about convent life circa 13th and early 14th century.

During one of the Kyries, I got to thinking of a Kyrie that we sang when I was in highschool chorus. It was one of the few songs we sang that had a decent alto part. When you sing alto as I do (badly) you’re a third-string backup singer anyway, and most alto parts are basically an afterthought at best, but this one particular Kyrie that we did had a really strong alto line where we really belted out some full-lunged, from-the-gut Kyries in service of the lilting sopranos above us and the rumbling basses below us. The alto, contralto, and tenor of this group all had beautiful, rich voices which lifted up the more delicate, piping tones of the soprano; the effect was not unlike an elegant wrought-iron fence enlivened with filigree-like adornments. As far as I could hear, nobody got the short end of the staff in this quartet.

More videos of Anonymous Four doing their thing: