Trying something new

Just a few days ago a friend posed the question of, "Hey Dale, you update your blog lately?" Of course I took that as a gentle prod, as it was obvious I hadn't! Ha!

So, this afternoon on the first day of my "weekend", I decided to take a short little drive "outta Dodge" along Hood Canal ( the western "arm" of Puget Sound), for a little rural, peace, quiet and sunshine, away from the city.

Camera in hand I found a tiny stream leading from the forest, across the beach and into "The Sound". Not to be confused with the SOUND of the rushing water that captivated me enough to take this video. So here it is, for you to enjoy....one more "geek project" to challenge myself with. Just click the little arrow and enjoy! :)

Problem is NOW I have to PEE!!!!

DORKS!!!

Haaaa! What a blog title!

I did my Wednesday afternoon ride with my two bike pals, Lisa and Gary, up on the Green River Trail again yesterday. For the first time this year the weather did NOT have any possibility of cold wind driven, frozen chunks falling from the sky. It was in the 70's with a slight overcast and humidity that reminded me of New Jersey! Actually I half expected a thunderstorm to pop up!

When I read the forecast for today, it mentioned "Clear and Upper Seventies" ....however at this early hour, from my boat I look out the top hatch to see more overcast and my little wind indicators are fluttering like crazy! Maybe the weather man is a DORK!

So, the ride. Gary and Lisa are wisely decked out in the proper, well padded and ventilated clothing for a nearly 30 mile bike ride in Mid-Spring on an unusually sticky Pacific Northwest day......but Dorky Dale, who just spent hard earned money on padded bike shorts, leaves them hanging in a closet becuase he is too modest in a DORKY way to flash his bare white legs to the world, and its too warm to pull a pair of sweat pants over them, shows up in beat up old JEANS as usual.

So after a while of pedalling away, and not really thinking at THAT point that 'I should have worn shorts' Lisa falls behind and soon I hear a laughing voice yell..."Hey Dale! Stand up on your pedals" ......... So there is Dorky Dale, dum de dum dumming along..."OK Ill stand up"...dum de dum dum, doh de doh doh. The next thing I hear is more laughing voice announcing her 'blog post pic of the night'!!!

So after her blog gets posted, I go have a look and there it is....my saggy, blue jean butt posted for the entire world's enjoyment on the internet!! HAAAAAA!! As a gentle reminder that Dale needs to start wearing those dang shorts!!!

Well after about 25 miles of this ride, I start getting a warm feeling in the seat of my pants that is NOT connected to thoughts of Mom's Apple Pie and TeddyBears!

OK so I admit it.....and here you have it, publicly posted and announced. Next Week Dorky Dale Wears The Bike Shorts! But NOW I will be a little more cautious when freinds start suddenly falling behind!!

Now then since Dale was DORKY enough to forget his camera again, Im sure Lisa wont mind if I swipe HER pics and post them here just to illustrate what a neat little trail we have found and to share amazement that whoever planned this trail was NOT a DORK and pulled it off in the center of the huge industrial complex of South Seattle where we are sometimes mere yards from buzy freeways and warehouses! )

Here, Lisa captures Gary and I in a well aimed, backwards picture, just before she put a sneaky, devilish expression on her face and fell behind for the "Famous Butt Shot"! HAAA!!And then she found this neat subject. "Pink Blossoms on the Trail", that I can't swipe and post without the reminder that we ARE on a bike path in the middle of a large urban industrial area!! Way to go UN-dorky trail planners!!

OK, more DORK stories........

A few weeks ago, I was at work, about 11PM, unloading gasoline at a station, had my hoses plugged in, and my little orange cones set out (you'll have to read previous blogs to appreciate my sensetivity on this subject) when this car with a couple Big Dumb Stupid DORKS pulls up and runs right over one of the cones!!! So, I give them a very stern, scowling look and a very direct finger jab to direct them back out of my danged work area, which they do, and Dale returns to his job with a disgusted head shake at how STUPID people can be....but what does he see next? The SAME Big Dumb Stupid DORKS once again drive right back over the cone and into a second one!! So, at this point, the station attendant is out, and I holler over .. Hey! Go ahead and call the cops on these idiots! To which he asks, rather timidly, "Do you really want me to?" to which I exclaim with full intent and escaping steam..."Hell yes I want you to call the cops!!" While this exchange is going on, I am walking around to the open drivers window (becuase of the glare of the overhead lights, I have no idea who is in the car!) in full "pi**ed off mode" with a well placed, "Hey! Are you having a problem here tonight!!?" When I WANTED to say "What the @&%$ is wrong with you, you stupid moronic idiot?!! My exclamations ended in mid-sentence when I rounded the drivers side to find my two co-workers"B" and "N" in the car on their night off, laughing so hard they nearly had tears running down their faces!! So the cops never got called and we all enjoyed a good laugh. And I was given the compliment that "Dangit Dale your patient!! I would have gone ballistic when the first cone was run over!!

OK so you'd think I would learn and be wise to this stuff, Right?

Last Sunday morning ( Oh! I am on DAY SHIFT now!!! :) I was unloading at another station when this stupid moron in a car drives up alongside my work area...sees my orange cones and opens his car door and slowly drives along knocking each one over!! Just to discover it was yet ANOTHER co-worker who was happening by to fill his car! Yep I work with a real fun loving bunch of DORKS!!! HAAA!!!

Be safe and have a great day :)

Poopy!

OK short blog alert and a whine!

So, Here I sit.

I got brand new, super studly bike shorts, new super fast bike tires, and after a nice long nap, here I sit, with rain pitter-pattering on the deck above, coffee polished off, looking at the latest weather update before wandering off to work!
Sunshine tomorrow!!! YAYYYYYY!!!

Hey! I AM eating right!!!

OK I'm still here! Good grief! It came to my attention that it's been well over a week since I posted anything on this doggone blog!!

Last weekend I attempted a ride with my bike buddies on the Foothills Trail. Started the day with grandois plans to knock off thirty miles. Well, it seems I was getting the tag of "FlatTireDale" with all the tire trouble Ive been enduring lately. I ended up struggling the first 7 miles up to South Prairie with a pooping out rear tire. So, bike buddy Bill with his hi tech tire inflating device ( I RILLY need one of those!) Refilled the poopy tire in seconds, and off we go on the return trip. That lasted about six and a half miles. I limped back in to my truck for the last half mile knowing that there wasnt going to be any thirty mile ride for me that day! :(

But I must admit that the tire problems were only part of it. Physically I was WORN OUT!! I had been lacking some serious sleep over the previous days. Mostly due to my extended swing shift schedule and earlier rising daylight, now that Spring has arrived here in Washington State. On top of that I was seriously neglecting a proper diet! Living on coffee, junk food, and chili burgers while trying to rack up serious mileage on a bicycle just dont work. Not to mention it was probably downright dangerous! Dale needed a reminder that tires ain't all of it. I need to maintain the bicycles "motor" as well!

So on yesterdays ride, my bike buddy gently reminded me with a "Havent I been telling you to eat right?"
OK, so there ya have proof. Dale IS starting to get a proper diet going again!

Oh man was this good!! In that bowl, on top of some kind of trendy cereal from a small, overpriced box, is a handful of blueberries, and handful of grapes, and a handful of shredded almonds.

And that mug holds fresh dripped REALcoffee fresh from a resealable bag of "Peets House Blend" ( and they were NOT whole beans!!! HAA!) I still havent found a coffee grinder yet, but since my poor old drip coffeemaker has been running unusually slow the last few mornings and making some nasty gurgling "death rattle" noises, I think one of todays chores might be searching out a replacement. If I do that I may as well look again for a grinder!

(A side note for those who don't know, "REALcoffee" has become my own tag for ANY coffee that comes in a small, overpriced, resealable bag with trendy labeling, instead of the large, mass produced, round tin can that we all grew up with!)

Looking at that mug I am reminded of the tour I took through that old submarine (USS DRUM) that is on display in Mobile, Alabama. A couple years ago another guy from the long haul trucking company I worked for, and myself, spent an afternoon carousing around the USS ALABAMA museum while waiting for loads. This submarine was open to the public and I was amazed at just how TINY it was in that thing!! It made my little sailboat feel like the Queen Mary! I bet WWII submariners had to be 5 foot tall or less. My 6 foot plus headroom requirements just didnt cut it in there!

Just a side note. That afternoon tour took place PRE-Katrina. I read later that the storm did some very serious damage to the museum complex which sits right on the shore of Mobile Bay. I read where the battleship ALABAMA, which sits permanently moored in the mud of Mobile bay, ( in a special dredged out pit ) actually listed 8 degrees during that storm!! Gives one an entirely new perspective on the power of nature. I was surprised after reading that, that the submarine even existed after the storm. It sits mounted above ground on two concrete pedestals. The story I read indicated that it was the LEAST affected display in the entire complex!

OK, let me step back a smidge to last weekends bike ride. When I had to bail out on the ride due to tire trouble, and the fact that I could have fallen asleep while pedaling! The rest of my bike pals continued on. So on my way home, I passed them on the highway and decided to park up ahead and ambush them with my camera!

I know at least one of them wondered what that weird guy up there was doing hunkered down in the ditch!! This picture of my bike pals earned the title "Four Cyclists of the Apocalypse"! I think to properly take in this picture, it should have a soundtrack of Wagner's "Ride of the Valkyries"!! HAA!!

OK, continuing on. In the days since, Dale has caught up on sleep, recharged his system with decent nutritional intake, and yesterday met his bike pals and we set out to do our usual Wednesday after work twenty mile ride on the Green River Trail. At our usual turnaround spot, Mollie led us farther up the route that we didnt know existed. We ended up adding an additional seven and a half miles to our usual ride! I' m pretty sure we actually entered into the limits of the City of Seattle. Although the extra time involved, put us in the path of two rain showers that soaked Dale's street pants to the skin! One of these days I am just going to have to bite the bullet and start wearing those super studly, contour revealing, bike shorts! Of course Dale had a pair of semi-rain proof pull on pants in his bike bag, but was either too stubborn or lazy to stop to put them on! (And to admit to a well placed question I was asked..."No, that didn't work too well for me"!! Actually they DID go on later when the ride ended and it was mutually decided that we needed a vast, massive intake of Mexican food!!! (I just couldnt bring myself to embarrass myself OR my dinner partner wandering into a public place looking as though I had serious bladder problems!!)

Ah, but part two of yesterdays ride. I stopped off on the way up and had my local bike shop replace the tires on Glinda with some RILLY kewl aftermarket tires. They are a bit thinner and much less soft. The kid at the shop told me I would probably find the bike a little faster and easier to pedal. NO KIDDING!!! These dang things made 27+ miles feel like 15!!! If it werent for sitting in soaking wet pants and the fact that we were starving, I could have done a second loop without even thinking about it. Here is the proof of mileage, AND the kewl new hi tech tires, taken in the rain, with soaking wet pants, with a rain spattered cell phone camera!!

More bicycle stories. Yesterday, on good advice, I joined our local bicycle club. Tons of local rides on a near daily basis that will fit my ridiculous schedule! I might join them for a ride tomorrow, and most likely will go out Monday morning. Ill post more on those adventures later.

Unless I can come up with more to update this blog, thats it for today!

Later Taters, Stay Safe