September 22.... First day of AUTUMN. In the past, my appreciation for fall was more in the form of relief that summer was finally coming to a close. Now that I am somewhere with seasons, fall is harvest time and the weather is changing. I am making apple strudel with some seasonal apples. The trees next door have a tinge of gold in them. I even bought some flannel. Spoiler: Apple filling I probably need to spend the entirety of fall preparing for winter. I hear there is this stuff called snow..... Focus: Cozy Fall shit
Apparently I got old somewhere along the line.... I went over the exterior of my car 5 times today and I'm fucking sore as hell. 1: Hand wash car 2: Chamois car off 3: Clay bar car 4: Put wax on 5: Take wax off That's a whole hell of a lot of up and down on a sports car when you're 6'7" and 55 years old. I was going to detail out the wheels with Mother's aluminum polish, but ended up saying "Fuck it" and saved it for another day. The last time I did a full exterior detail on one of my cars was about 10 years ago on my 300ZX turbo. Somehow in the intervening 10 years the ground got a lot further away. As far as wax....I can't say enough good things about CarGuys wax. It's not actually a wax, it's a paint sealant....but it goes on easy, comes off easy and leaves one hell of a shine. Best I've ever used and I've used a lot of high end waxes.
Remember that video a couple weeks back of the beastly-fat McDonalds manager beating the shit out of that small woman? It doesn’t always play out that way. Never underestimate who you’re fucking with...
Yeah... athletic cheerleader, and I bet she's got a few older brothers at home. Not a good combo to pick on.
I fucking hate my friends. I've been friends with this guy since we were 13 or so. 40+ years. The past 10 or 15 years he's been content with us just texting each other. I hate texting, it annoys the shit out of me. For years every time I'd call him he'd text me back. I'd call him right back and yell "You just texted me, I know you're holding the phone in your hand! Answer your fucking phone" and he'd text me back. Fine. It'd had been a few years since we'd talked so I texted him today and we had a back and forth text conversation for an hour or so. He ended it by texting me "Next time you should just call me, it's easier."
I hear ya. I've recently come to the earth-shattering conclusion that I'm getting old and out of shape and I should do a better job of looking after myself. I've gotten back into mountain biking, and am regularly using my rowing machine. To be clear, there are no mountains involved... just some local sidewalks and suburban streets. Yeah... no. I'm buying Ibuprofen by the 1,000 count, more so than I did back in the day when I was playing rugby. I have this (faulty?) notion that things will eventually get better. We'll see how that goes.
Sorry this isn’t really on topic, but just as a public service thing: please, if you see an emergency, call 911. Don’t just assume someone else will do it. Call them yourself! The “bystander effect” is real and today in rush hour I happened upon something I’ll never un-see. According to the operator I was the first one to call in, and I was at min a few minutes behind the wreck. There was someone stuck in a flaming car and I couldn’t do anything to help. And no one called. They all assumed someone else would. As a public service announcement thing, if you see someone in danger, please dial 911 before you render aid. Don’t assume someone else will. Please be that first responder. I carry an IFAK and it didn’t help, as much as I tried. They were already gone. But if someone else called earlier, that could have made a difference. Please don’t be that person who thinks “it’s not my problem.” It’s 3 numbers. If you see someone in need, dial it.
Keep it up, and you WILL feel better. Look at it like divorce is for most people: at first it’s a nightmare of pain and suffering, but after a while you begin to feel reborn. It’s not just great for health physically but mentally too. It gives new confidence. There’s just that hump....that hump that you have to push yourself again tomorrow and feel that pain tomorrow, but eventually you feel better and it starts to hurt less. Yoga is highly recommended if you played rough sports in the past. It does wonders for joints and aches, you just have to tolerate the silliness that is Yoga class. Locally, Fanshawe Park and Killally are great for cross-country mountain biking if you start liking it.
You'll be ok. In my early forties I set up my sawmill. I was way out of shape, but after a month or so of pulling green chain off my sawmill and building my flea market, I was good to go. I was in fighting shape again. I could do 16 hour days of manual labor during a Mississippi summer without batting an eye. I was 16 again. Fast forward 15 years and I've led a sedentary lifestyle for many of those years. Detailing my car just kicked my ass. I'm just hoping my body has one more comeback in it for when I make it to my place in Missouri. If I can't build my house there I'm going to be very disappointed in myself.
Oh, I have no doubt I'll get back into it... I spent years in the mountains of BC biking, and lived on a bike. Again, decades ago, but I really enjoy it. My brother-in-law is a bike fanatic... he's got probably $40k in bikes. Trek carbon fibre jobs with bluetooth wireless shifters, that kind of thing. Him and my sister go biking 3-4 times a week, and once I get to the "no longer embarrassed" state, I'll join them. Still... I've always enjoyed biking for zoning out... put on the headphones and just go.
My best friend does downhill mountain biking, he flies out to BC every summer to do that insane, suicidal North Shore trail that looks like a fucking video game from Hell. He rides his bike off the roof of three-story apartment buildings and lends them like its falling off a curb. He always has contusions, Road rashes and nasty cuts from it and he couldn’t love it more. He’s a little nuts, and that’s required to do that fucking sport. You have to be fucking crazy to be a downhill mountain biker. I always fear he’s going to get way too hurt when he’s in the wrong place.
You're what...about 45? Trust me, you have at least one more comeback to younger years left in your body. At least I did at that age and I'd spent the past 10 years sitting at a desk, staring at a computer. My body bitched like hell when I made it do physical labor again, but it didn't take long before I was working rings around my employees that were half my age. I just wish I could convince my hair to look cool and pretty curly again.
So, I just watched Michael Palin's North Korea (episode 1, anyway). It was pretty surreal... very interesting.
I turn 50 in a couple of months. And I have a shaved head and goatee... not worried about the hair thing.
Focus: I look forward to toasting the death of the clouds of mosquitos we've had this year. It's been wet as hell since July, we went from -7 inches of rain for the Summer to constant flooding, resulting in perfect breeding for the little bloodsuckers. Between them and the mud, I'm actually looking forward to colder weather. Maybe we'll have that hard Winter they say we need to kill off the ticks too.
I just went down the stairs. Crazy has strategically placed pumpkins all over the fucking stairs. I guess September isn't to early to start decorating for Halloween .