Sprung

...has Spring.

The first Mosquito of the season inside the house

A busy weekend despite the late rain on Saturday and the constant drizzle Sunday. I got up early and took the Spare for an easy 89 miles. Despite the roads being smooth my back was en fuego by the time I returned home.

A quick change of clothes and we were of to Sephie's first soccer (football if you're Russell) match of the year. Their first practice of the season was last Wednesday while I was at work so I didn't know what to expect. With the addition of Yassir (#7, midfielder, 75#, 4'4") the team filled the left footed needs on the field.

Yassir's on loan from a small town in central Saudi Arabia. It was looking like a walk-away victory with a 5-2 lead with minutes to go but they got lazy (or tired perhaps) and gave up 2 goals before the game but held on for the victory 5-4. As with years before the score was quickly forgotten as soon as their teeth sank into the post-game snack.

By the time I got home I was starving. Consuming a meatloaf sammich and fine malt beverage resulted in a 2 hour nap. When I awoke it was raining.


Last week I started using the Spare bike as a commuter. It's roughly 10.5 miles uphill to work and a downhill in the MiNewt illuminated darkness of 12:30.

In the 1980's and early 90's I lived in Dallas and LA. I had no car for a few years and commuted everywhere. Work, grocery shopping, dates, races and every day events were taken care of by riding my bike. In all those years I had two run-ins where it got physical. They were those typical events were the motorists felt entitled to the whole road and I "should be up on the sidewalk." In both cases the drivers were "working class" caucasian.

In that time I rode through every part of the D/FW metroplex and the Inglewood/Culver City/Burbank triangle. In that time I was never accosted by pedestrians, gang-bangers, skin heads, blacks, hispanics or martians.

So Thurdsay evening one of the other electricians says "don't you worry about getting attacked and your bike stolen by n!ggers?"

I knew there were plenty of simple minded red-necks here in Wisconsin and in the construction trades there is an even higher concentration. But Holy Sh!t dude, shouldn't you get back under that rock you've been living under?

The rest of the crew starts in with all the epithets for all the non-whites and how they think I'm crazy for riding alone and unarmed (wtf!) in the dark.

Without calling them bigots to their faces I told them about all the miles logged vs run-ins and the ethnicities I'd encountered. Then I asked if they thought that Wisconsin minorities were more prone to crime than those in Dallas, Chicago or any other city. I also asked if they could answer why it was always white people I'd had run-ins with?

Too few brain cells, too much beer prevented them from answering.

If I have anything to worry about it's the dairy cattle. The Guernsey's seem non-threatening, but everyone knows you can't trust a Brown Swiss.