A new tire

I came to the city after work, I was staying overnight so I could get to the bike place first thing in the morning to get a new tire.

When I arrived in the city I went to Woody's for a beer and to see if anyone were around. None of the usual suspects, just Chris.

Chris is a biker. I do not wish to know his last name or where he lives. We have an agreement, he doesn't want to know my last name or where I live. We are both members of organizations which mix like oil and water.

But he is a nice guy, straight, but gay friendly. He teases me all the time, I give it back. Last night he had the stupidest t-short on. It was a plain shirt with something that felt like a placemat on it. The place mat was actually an LED screen. When you turned it on, it reacted to music and to talking. Sound bars would go up and down and lights would flicker. When I first saw him, it was too light so it didn't have a great effect. We talked for awhile, him flirting in his non-flirty way. He rode a bike to the bar too. This surprised me as he normally got pretty wasted when there.

After awhile my friend Neil, who was also there took off and I did too. Neil was in usual tease mode. I hate it, but someday maybe he won't be. He's ared head....maybe a genetic thing.

I went and ate at Junction. I was sitting outside and a guy with a Harley hat was there, we started talking. I think he too is was a member of the same touring club Chris is a member of. I thought he was on the team, but alas, no.

Went for a cruise after eating. I stopped at the Tim Horton's on Whyte Avenue, where 'Tims Angels' were gather for their bull shit session. As I was getting a new front tire I was checking out theirs. A lot of bike had a lot of tread left on them. I am sure these guys only ride from home to Tims then back home again. They polish their bikes up real nice. One Harley was absolutely spotless. Maybe the guy has a steam cleaner. There wasn't even bug remnants on it. If it should rain, these guys disappear really fast. Get baby back home to the garage.

I went back to Woody's, Neil said he may come out later. I was going to hang out with him. He wasn't there. Chris was still there though. He was 5.5 beers into a six pack. It was darker and his shirt was flashing to the music. If you looked you noticed the light seemed to go from around his waist on the left side up to his nipple on the right side. It appeared to go in waves. When you got close to him you saw the sound bars, but from afar it looked like he was being molested by a big white hand. He was being courted by a cross dresser. He is hard to figure out, but our backgrounds will ensure we are only acquaintances.

I went to my sister's place, where I was staying. I was in bed by 10:30.

Today I had a couple of instances which bugged me. It sounds like I am being picky, but I have noticed that my friends complain of the same things. You go to Tim Horton's and don't get what you order. for what ever reason. Heaven forbid you are Muslim or Jewish and order a breakfast sandwich with no bacon or ham and thats what you get. I know fiends feel it is like a lottery at the drive through, you get whatever the server wants to give you. Knowing the people are in a car and will not park to complain helps this.

As a firefighter I have volunteered to work the counter on Camp Day. So I know how to get my coffee how I like it.

I went to a gas station and paid for gas, then I asked for a lottery ticket. Just a quick pick, no extras. The teller confirmed with me, I said no extras,. She prints a ticket with the extra added.

I am not sure what to make of this, I would say it was a lack on English issue, but it has to be more than that. I seriously think it is like the Starbucks guy said in a rant. You profile people on the way into the store with what they will order. At Starbucks I fit the Grande Bold profile, so I always get what I want. Heaven forbid I order a low fat mocha soy no fat supreme latte. I strongly think that people let their profile override their ears. They only hear what they have decided you will say. This is annoying. It leads to 'a machine can do your job' kind of thinking. Unwittingly enough, the servers are playing into it.

I went to the bike shop, got my bike in and a new tired on it in less than an hour. They found a dent on the rim, not major, but appears to be bambi related. Tire and rim may get added to the insurance claim. If it ever gets settled. I got a Michelin Commander II tire. Rated for 40,000 kms. This is unheard of in bike tires. They had to order it in. Michelin is a pretty big company, I am sure it is a good tire.

I am headed back home, after the unannounced rain stops (I am glad I brought new raincoat). Have to head out to Duvernay for a beer :)

Tonight a friend of mine's sister is performing in Vegreville. My friend is going to do a belly dance in the intermission. She conned me and some other guys at work into doing a belly dance routine for charity. We were hilarious, of course we had veils on, so our chastity was maintained.

Work and stuff

So I am co-chair of a management employee committee at work. At yesterdays's meeting I thought I had hit one out of the park. We had a meeting, I was chair. We got to a standard item and I brought the issue up. I did a pile of work before meeting on incident follow ups. I could find nothing to show that follow ups were done. I interpreted legislation to mean our committee was supposed to do that.

Management had other ideas. They had their strategy meeting and then had a sit down with me at end of the day. They cited privacy and other stuff. I told them it was my interpretation and I think I need to refer to someone other than management for interpretation. They understood. Then I said I was the only no-shop steward on the committee and I feel like a cork. Trying to keep them at bay. They had an idea how hard it was. They soon realized I needed another opinion. I will get one either from Fire Department , cause guess what? The have a committee too, by law.

Speaking of fire, I was riding into the city. I saw some black smoke. When I first saw it I thought it was from a truck on the highway. Later though I knew it was a fire. As I got closer the smoke got uglier. When I went past building on fire, it was on a service road next to highway, there were rubberneckers everywhere and kids riding bikes through the traffic, that was still moving. And they were looking at fire. I was scared on a motorbike. Kids!

I pulled off to the shoulder later and took a picture. I thought, what has Fire Department done to me that I can't get excited looking at a fire. I was excited, I just wanted to run in with an axe and a hose and fight it. Otherwise, meh!

Erections and Corrections

I really like buildings and bridges and tunnels. Basically anything man erects. So basically any time I take off on a trip it is to see buildings....except for Jasper and Lake Louise. God did well there.

On the weekend I went back over rally route to take pics of buildings. Chicago has many visits due to the buildings.

This summer I was planning on heading to Spring Green, Wisconsin to see Taliesin. Frank Lloyd Wright's home and school there.

Well the insurance company has kind of wrecked that. They are having issues with the bike shop. It has been a week and nothing. So I am canceling trip and holidays. I don't need boss whining about how short staffed we are. The time to fix bike after approval is the issue. I don't want to do this trip in car.

Corrections. Western Canada and the USA too are designed in grids. Straight lines are great for planning, not so much for biking. But nature has foiled man. Corrections are not prisons, they are lakes, rivers, canyons etc. Anything that screws up the straight line.

On highway 631 by highway 36 is a correction. There is a lake in the middle of the road, so it goes around it. The designers of the road banked it. Perfectly. It is about a kilometer long and I get to lean left then right then left. If there is no head wind I can usually get up to ......no good. I have left other bikers in the dust. Sunday a pickup tried to keep up with me. He disappeared and he finally caught up about 6 Kms later and he was going fast on the straightaway.

Went to doctor today. After the personal stuff was done we discussed solidness and assertiveness training. I am practicing the solid stuff all the time. I guess standing correctly goes a long way to helping your assertiveness. I have homework.

If you get a chance, see Vito: A Man for All Seasons, or if not that Celluloid Closet.

I went for a ride today

This blog is going to be more pictures than words. I went for a ride today, almost the same route as yesterday. there were things I wanted to take pictures of, and it was a beautiful day.

Some of the pictures are in HDR, a process when two pics are taken with iPhone, one dark and the other one light. Then they are overlayed and merged. Sometimes it works, sometimes you get a Cloud Tsunami on a Canola field.

You can also play around with light.

The bar was closed in Duvernay. The church and pics looking at a valley are from Duvernay. The old meeting hall is in Shandro Bridge, basically that is all that's left, besides a bridge.

The Weekend

Pretty uneventful week. I slept a lot. I came home from work, had a three hour nap. Watched a couple of hours of TV and then went back to bed.

Thursday I didn't do this. I went to the gym. After I had done some other things a fire call occurred. A semi with two trailers tipped over. The trailers had pig shit in them. I was happy to be on dispatch for that call. It smelt a lot better in the Barn than at the scene.
I did have to go out there though, I had to deliver food. It was a seven hour clean up.

Friday I planned on taking the long route to the city. I got to Tofield, South of where deer hit me, and as I was leaving town, my left mirror broke off. Literally. I caught it as a I had a tank bag and it landed on it. I returned home and got a mirror off my other bike. It is impossible to ride with no left mirror. Well not impossible, but death would come soon. I wound up staying at home, the 150 km round trip tired me out.

I did manage to mow the lawn, do a brake job on the bike, clean up the house a bit and go to the bar out front door for three beers.

Today, I got up early, did laundry, cooked breakfast, cut hair and then joined up with my friend Brian, from work.

We headed North to Two Hills. A bike rally was occurring. We did it. It was kind of disjointed. I may have to get involved for next year, or this 5 year old event will die.

Anyway,Brian and I stopped for a beer in Duvernay. A little town by the North Saskatchewan River. It is about 10 kms North of Two Hills (50 kms from Vegreville). I always thought the bartender there was cute. I told Brian later I have met the guy three times, this year on the ride, last year on the ride and someplace else. I can't remember. Anyway, I had Denver Eagle t-shirt on. I bought the beers and we had some eye contact.

Brian and I were speaking about a speed trap and he joined the conversation. I got strong vibes he liked me.

We were on the bikes getting ready to go and he came out of the bar. He pretended to fuss, that little move made me know he was interested. I was not going to do much with Brian there. Brian knows but it's not fair. A ride to Duvernay may be in order....maybe tomorrow. It would suck if the bar wasn't open....well maybe it wouldn't if he had a helmet and wanted to go for a ride.

The pictures are from the ride. The trucks with stuff on them are for information. We are on the way to Fort MacMurray. So we have big things on the road a lot. Look at the size of the semis compared to what they are hauling.

It's baaaack

So I did a lot of searching on Kijiji for bikes for the weekend. I found out there are a lot of bikes I could buy that would be suitable. That means no seller pressure. So something has to screw this up. This was not a situation I wanted to be in, I like my bike!!!

Today I took time off work to go to broker to file claim. As is the case now, I have my phone on silent all the time. This time cost me $200

Constable H called for the Edmonton police Service when I was at the broker. I never heard it. He found my bike, parked not where I left it, but in a walkable distance. He said if I called him right back he wouldn't have it towed. I called 20 minutes later.

The bike was found, it was towed to the impound lot. When I spoke to him I found out that a brake lever was broken. I drove car into the city, in case it was more than that.

My sister drove me to the impound lot, as I didn't want to leave car there at $30 a day. When I paid all the $$$ and got to the bike. The damage is superficial, a foot peg is bent ($125), a brake lever ($105) and a side fender (didn't ask) are bent broken or scuffed. I rode it, it runs fine.

I went back to where the bike was parked on Friday night. My theory is that the vendor of art works on Whyte Avenue moved it. I was parked in prime real estate. When my brother in law and I went to the place I parked it Saturday morning, a van was parked where my bike was. I am going to check to see who had the permit for that portion of the sidewalk. I will check to see if they are a designated by-law officer that can move vehicles. This little fiasco cost me about $500 - and I know their art works were marked up.

I later went back to Barber Ha, the picture from the other day. I took some more realistic pictures.

I am happily riding around on the bike again.

The other photo is from Capital Reef National Park in Utah. It was anew app so I was making a collage.

Long May You Run

It got stolen.

I went to the bike dealers to arrange for the bike to be taken in for the insurance claim. this was the result of deer hit bike, 1.5 months ago. Insurance company finally gave the go ahead on Monday, last week.

Last night I called my sister and we went out to O'Byrne's a bar on Whyte Avenue in Edmonton. When they showed up, I moved the bike to a place where I could see it. Not so much for theft, but for people practicing their parallel parking skills.

As the night went on one beer became many. I met three guys from England and a girl from Ireland. It was funny when they found out where I worked.
They all proudly showed me their status in Canada.

They were fun to speak with, they were from the North of England and worked in oil patch related jobs. they love Canada and would not be going back.

The Irish girl was from Dublin. We talked about the city and how pretty it was. I mentioned I had tried to read Ulysses (James Joyce) a couple of times, having made it to page 221 the most recent time. She said she got to page 12 and tossed it, she could walk Dedalus's route and it made no sense to her. She is on a working holiday and is looking to extend it. I think she will be immigrating too.

The good looking guy, Ryan, must have figured out what team I played for, as he appeared to be a motivator to go to another bar. The third Englishman was getting married in Vegas soon, he said to me, if you want me, you only have a couple of weeks.

They all took off and then two other people sat down. A religious minister immigrating from Florida and his friend who hates Obamacare, he was a Zen Buddhist.

This was an enlightening conversation. I was speaking on behalf of Baha'i belief versus Buddhism. Apparently Buddhism adopted reincarnation unwillingly from Hinduism. We had discussions about God. This is always fun for me as Almighty means different things to different religions...or in the case of Zen people different nothing.

The Zen guy id buy into the prophet thing though, Jesus, Mohammed, Einstein, Van Morrisson etc that was cool.

Eventually around midnight it came time for us to leave. I was staying at their place as I had way too much to drink. I had the urge to move the bike, as Whyte Ave has parking restrictions in some areas after midnight. I was not parked in one of them. I checked the signs.

It was not a great sleep and around 3 am I awoke and had a bitch of a time getting back to sleep. I knew something was up with the bike.

We went to get the bike at 8:30. with apprehension we drove down Whyte Ave, a pickup truck was blocking my view for most of the way. Finally we parked and I looked where the bike was. It wasn't there.

I had hope.

I went to the Old Scona Police Station and was thankful the guy from the previous visit wasn't there. Two very helpful Constables were. I got the phone numbers for the impound lot and they check their records. No bike was towed from Whyte, with my plate number, by them.

A couple of calls were made and then the next thing I knew I was making a report of theft. I thought they were still checking tow records. I completed the police report. It was short, I tend to write novels on witness statements, but I wasn't there so there was little to report.

I am happy I took tank bag with me when we left the night before. It had insurance and registration information.

I was in a daze after the police station. My brother in law asked where I wanted to go. I was lost. I figured I may as well stay by Whyte Avenue as I had a doctor's appointment at 1 PM near there.

When he took off, I got to a park bench and just sat there. My stomach was grumbling, as I was starving. I didn't know where to go, what to do. I finally walked to a Tim Hortons and had a breakfast sandwich. I don't think I could eat much more. On the iPad I found a claim number for the insurance company. They keep it well hidden, on the phone it did not show up at all. I reported bike stolen and asked what was next, he said he could not advise me. He said If I rent anything, keep receipts.

I am kicking around at a Starbucks waiting for the bus to go home, to get the car. I called the doctor and left a message that I would not be able to make it today, there is one bus and it is at 13:15.

In a daze I went to a discount store and got a shirt, toothpaste and stuff. I was not planning on staying in Edmonton last night. I felt pretty dirty as well as in a daze.

Sun's up, mmm looks ok, the world survives into another day and I am thinking about eternity, some kind of ecstasy got a hold of me.

p.s. if you haven't figured it out, music is a big part of my life.