Who Are They Fracking Now?

Saw this in the news this morning.



Um, yeah. Horizontal fracking would be controversial to the governor and legislature - especially with an open door.

Normally they prefer their drilling bent over behind closed doors.

Behold, The End is Nigh...

Today while I was riding my bike to work I thought to myself, for the first time ever, that I would rather be running.

Recumbent Guy

When you pull up to a stop light on a bicycle nine of the ten things that can happen to you are bad. The tenth thing is nothing. Nothing happening is the only good thing that can happen to a guy on a bike at an intersection.

That’s why yesterday when I was waiting at a stop light and I heard something peculiar behind me I knew immediately it was bad. Yeah, so I hear something and I take the slow peak over my shoulder to see what devilry awaits.

It was worse than I thought. That’s right, recumbent guy had rolled up behind me on his tricycle. It was one of those jobs with two wheels in front and one in the back, with the big phallic shield in front – I guess to make it aero, but it mostly made it look like a penis with wheels to me.

But that’s just me.

So why does every guy that rocks a recumbent look like the ‘most interesting man in the world’ from the dos equis adds? That’s what I want to know. And why does every guy on a recumbent actually think he is the most interesting man in the world, and carry himself with an air of smugness? I guess the same reason bike racers carry an air of asshole-edness.

So I knew the guy was going to try and pass me. You don’t rock a phallic shield and not think you’re fast.

When the light changed I went the passive aggressive route and accelerated up to about 22. Not fast, but just fast enough the recumbent guy would have to work to get around me – which he eventually did.

The bike lane on Eagle Road is like 12 feet wide. I generally like to use the 3-4 feet farthest away from traffic – you know, so I don’t get hit by some wankers snowmobile trailer floating over the white line. Snowmobile trailers scare me.

Apparently recumbent guy has no such inhibitions. He placed his left wheel firmly on the wrong side of the white line and rocked down Eagle Road. I dug out my phone and took pictures…



I am sure dude thought he was being visible or something misguided like that. I am sure he thought the little bronco flag he was sporting on the fiberglass bike flag pole swaying behind him was making him visible too. Right, a blue and orange flag hardly blends in around this town does it?

I wonder why people in cars hate people on bikes.

So apparently it isn’t easy to ride a johnson with wheels faster than 22 mph for very long, because I caught the guy and passed him without changing my speed from the light. (This would be the aggressive part of passive aggressive).

When I passed the guy he was clearly exerting himself. I am all for exerting yourself while in a reclined position, I just don’t think it should involve a bike.

I kinda wanted to drop something on him when I went past – because it would have been so easy, but I gave him the schmirk with head nod instead.

Unstupider

In case you were wondering, the water in the tunnel at the Glenwood bridge is too deep to ride without getting your feet wet, or at least one foot wet depending on how you rock it.

Fenders keep your butt dry in deepish water though - thanks for that.



You might also be interested to know it is moderately uncomfortable riding 8 miles in 30 degree temperatures with one wet foot.

And that stuff about wool keeping you warm even when its wet? Well that's crap.

Actually I'm not sure about the last one, both my feet were freak'n cold when I got to work. It took a few minutes in the shower before I could feel them, and when I could feel them it was bad.

I wonder if submerging your hubs in water is a bad thing?

Oh, and the water under the Broadway bridge? You can rock that feet dry - just go around the sign, closed doesn't mean you. Just watch out for the falling column.

Right, anyway you may have noticed that we are witnessing the annual demonstration of ‘oh shit’ water management here in river city.

Over several years of observation and questioning I have come to understand that the whole process (water management) goes something like this…

So in the winter dudes go out with fancy scientific sticks and sample the snow pack in various places to measure the water content. They come back to the office and do some fancy math to estimate how much water there is in different drainages.

Since they didn't measure all the snow in the whole area they put confidence intervals around they're estimate. It looks like this...



It means if they did the whole process 100 times that the estimate would come out between A and B 95 times. Most of the time it would be around C.

Right so if you were a smart guy you would guess there was C amount of water in the hills and adjust the water flow out of the reservoirs accordingly.

If you were a safety conscious conservative guy you would guess there was B amount of water in the hills and adjust the water flow out of the reservoirs accordingly - minimizing the chance of a flood.

Now if you were a farmer you would assume there is only A amount of water in the hills. You would keep every damn drop of water in the reservoirs until you were positive they would be full plus some. Then, if by chance there was really more water in the hills than A - you would go 'oh shit' and raise the water flowing out of reservoirs until homes along rivers were at risk. If you are lucky you squeak by without flooding homes, but if something unusual happens - like rain or record high temperatures at the wrong time - well, then someone gets wet. Usually someone in Eagle.

Guess what system they use here. Guess who pressures politicians to make sure they use that system. Guess who the politicians pressure.

It's all rather stupid.

Don't get me wrong. I am all for the annual douching of Garden City. I'm not all against flooding the homes of people who were stupid enough to build homes in a flood plain in Eagle either.

It's just that having a house along the river is stupider than it has to be. It could be relatively unstupider. And that is annoying.

Emissions

A friend sent me this email today. It had a bunch of pictures of people exhibiting questionable parenting skills. They were all kind of funny, you know, in a shocking sort of way – but this one really jumped out at me. Duh, because there is a bike.

A sweet roadmaster I might add.



Right so when I saw the picture I had several thoughts…

Those people should wear helmets. It would be uncomfortable to have a helmet in your butt.

I bet it is more uncomfortable to be a thong than to wear a thong.

I wonder if that kid had the doll when she sat down there, or if, you know – she found it.

What exactly does that woman have in common with the butterfly tattooed on her ankle.

Oh god, is that an Idaho license plate on that car?

Yes, yes it is. Canyon County to be exact. Yeah, where they don’t want to test for emissions…

I’m gonna leave that one there.

Hey Look Its Sunny! Hurry!

It greatly embarrasses me to admit that sometimes I watch E.T.

No, not ‘turn out your heart light’ E.T., not Reeses pieces E.T., and not riding your bike in the nighttime sky E.T.

I mean that tv show Entertainment Tonight.

I know, it’s pretty repulsive. They go on and on about irrelevant stuff. Like who the hell cares if some inbred descendent of an archaic system of government is going to get married. I mean really. I am guessing thousands of people get married every day. Some of them have divorced parents or a mother that was killed in a car crash even. Why is it such a big deal if when this git gets married. And who cares if Obama was invited – if he wanted to go he would have been the only straight man on the planet who wanted to be there.

And what’s with the chipmunk dude on show that makes fun of the clothes all the famous people wear. Shake yourself Alvin, all those people you criticize look better than you on their worst day than you do on your best day.

Right, anyway. I did learn from that show that apparently Charlie Sheen is turning into Charlie Manson. That’s kind of weird, but not that surprising – I think dude is still bitter losing control of the regulators to his brother in Young Guns.

That movie kicks ass.

So yeah, Charlie is bringing the world together with his transmogrification. I mean everyone is watching – its not every day you see someone lose their mind live on tv you know.

A friend sent me this example…





Within a few blocks of each other on State St., The Lift Bar & Grill and the Riverwind Fellowship share a common message. Yeah, that’s right – Charlie bringing divergent groups together. Duh, winning...

See, he brought me in too.

Maybe we should send him to the middle east. That’s what we need there, some tiger blood. Kadafi and Sheen in the same room. Well, never mind. That’s kind of scary. Only slightly less scary than Sarah Palin and Kadafi in the same room.

But the honey badger don't care...



Screw tiger blood, how about some honey badger blood.