Macho Man

I must confess I voluntarily attended a craft show a couple of days back.

This makes ones body parts brought about by a the Y chromosome shrink. (I feel a need to explain that I am – of course – joking which you probably already know since most of what I say in this blog is some attempt at humor. The key word being “attempt.”) I was there in a mostly vain attempt to sell some of my photography. I didn't sell much (or maybe I should say that I haven't yet as we still have more than an hour and a half left until we can go. If I was getting paid by the hour and I figured in time spent out taking the photographs then I would be making well under a dollar an hour today. Still pays better than biking I guess) and have pretty much given up hope of selling much of anything else – which is why I am typing in this blog and not paying attention to potential customers (of which there are very few anyway).

So I went to the craft show, felt my manliness under attack and in a desperate bid to reacquire said manliness I started to knit a mitten and do Randy "the Macho Man" Savage impersonations. There should be a good joke that I could crack here using the subject matter of boredom, masculinity, desperation, and knitting....but I can't really think of how to tie that together.

Speaking of the Macho Man and listening to him talk he reminds me of Harry from Dumb and Dumber, only Harry is skinnier and doesn't have a phony rasp in his voice.

Just as I was whining about not selling stuff a woman with a sweatshirt on that read “Bad Girls of the North” bought some cards bringing my total sales for the day up to $16.

So this blog is supposed to have to do with bicycles and riding them in preparation for Arrowhead. Well, I suppose that this has precious little to do with Arrowhead and is only obliquely related to bicycles (listen carefully to what he says 27 seconds into the video). I took this picture from astraddle my bike and that is about as far as the bike relations go. But I thought it was funny and also a pathetically tragic example of substituting a “K” in place of a “C.”:

Speaking of pathetically tragic I watched Battlefield Earth last night. I had seen it before but it had been a while and since I just made reference to it in one of yesterday's posts I thought I'd better refresh my memory. I was shocked all over by how bad it was. Jenny and I watched some of the special features and The Making of Battlefield Earth was one. They interviewed several of the people that were involved in the making of the movie and it was unbelievable that none of them seemed to be aware that they were, in part, responsible for making one the worst movies in that history of mankind. . Even worse than Ghost Rider.

I think that one of the reason's I tend not to sell much at craft shows is my refusal to be persnickety and cutesy and neat as can be proven by the state of my “white” bar tape that is more of a medium grey at this point:

If more proof is needed then I'll submit this:

This was taken of my feet just before a ride in the chilly air and had forgotten my booties at home.

At this craft show I could have bought this:

and the table where I could have bought the Microwave Potato Bag was being overseen by this woman:

If you think, based on what I have written so far, that I am really bored and am just filling my time by writing random stuff in this blog to attempt to stave off this boredom, you'd be right.

So yesterday I went for a ride (this blog entry is being written over two days). And am pleased to announce that so far training for Arrowhead is going well. Yesterday's ride wasn't that long as far as Arrowhead goes (5 ½ hours or so) but I was able to hold a medium/medium-high level of output throughout.

I finished yesterday's ride at a neighbor's place where a group was gathering and was meeting Jenny and Glinden there. I admit to having visions of showing up on a bike and having people ooh and aahh over that and feel all cool. Well I got a flat about 100 yards from their place and ended up walking my bike into their yard. Real cool. Almost as cool as this guy (me):

I did happen to pass a dog sled out there which was pretty cool. I like dog sledding a lot and even took a 3 day trip to the White Mountains (same place where the White Mountains 100 [see photos here. This is kinda cool for me to look at because I have actually been to some of these places]) is held. Too bad they didn't have that race when I lived there or maybe I would have done that one too) of Alaska back when I lived near Fairbanks. But I've never had any sled dogs of my own. I hope to someday to do some bike-joring – maybe next winter when I have a Pugsley (if you don't know what a Pugsley is then click here for an extremely disjointed video - especially aurally - of them in their preferred habitat) and perhaps some gears to go with it.