Archive for the ‘A Musing’ Category
People who think they know everything …
. . . are really annoying us who do.
With Apologies to Friedrich Nietzsche . . .
. . . those who are seen conversing
are thought to be doddering idiots
by those who text.
Us Old Farts Can Be Invisible …
. . . if my recent visit to a bicycle shop within walking distance of home is valid.
While out on a pedal, I dropped into the shop to take a look at all the shiny new toys, ask how long and how much it would cost to tune up my bike, and check out an attachable basket that would serve to pick up a loaf of bread now and then.
After locking up my Mongoose at the front door, I poked my way in and spent some time walking around the small items – gloves, tire-changing tools, etc. – stacked around the entrance. I picked up a floor-standing tire pump and hand-held one and tried the mechanism of each (I have an old floor-stander at home).
Then I looked through the clothing section for some all-cotton biking shorts. I have a half-dozen pair I picked up at a San Diego shop that quit carrying them. Don’t know why because they’re much more comfortable and breathe better than the ubiquitous stretchy-spandex ones. And I studied the sizes and prices of helmets. Mine is a dozen or so years old and experts say you should replace them every few years because the elements make them brittle.
After that, I wended my way through the rows of bikes – mountain bikes, kids’ bikes, racing bikes, cross-over bikes, coaster bikes, heavy-duty bikes – checking their weight and viewing tires.
All the while, the guys running the shop were whirling around: one was pursuing a giant sale of bike, costume, et al to a father and daughter, another was hauling bikes and helmets in and out the front door for a potential buyer who was riding them around the parking lot, another was trolling in and out of the back room asking a pretty-looking looky-loo if he could find anything for her, another helped a fellow who came in to picked up a bike he tuned up.
I checked my watch and about 25 minutes had passed and no one ever approached me. So I purposely spent another 15 minutes trying on fluorescent-colored shirts and jackets and inspecting several styles of shoes, from sneaker types to those rigid plastic sabots that lock onto the pedals.
Then I strolled back out, unlocked my bike and pedaled off.
No one at any time even acknowledged I was in the neighborhood. Nothing. Nada. Niente.
Those guys will never see me. They didn’t see me when I was in their shop for more than half an hour and I’m not going back. I’ve already visited another bicycle shop and solved my problems.
– 30 –
You Know You’re Getting Old When …
… your list
of dead friends, relatives and acquaintances
is longer than your list of living ones.
AOL Can Go …
… fly apart.
I have been one of their most-staunchest defenders, proclaiming loud and long how their benefits far outweigh any bane. I flew in the face of forward-looking critics and critiques touting more efficient cyberspace servers, proclaiming the tried and true methods of my long-time favorite.
NO MORE!!!
With an arrogance reminiscent of French royalty, they’ve managed to finally get rid of me and my support. They tried to BS us with a sales pitch about their latest and by-far-the-greatest innovation in cyberspace annals for a trivial monthly fee instead of being straightforward and pointing out service costs money and they have to charge for it, without even offering the choice of keeping what we had.
NO MORE!!!
I’m not going to hang around until they decide to raise that fee for their next innovative innovation.
Early-Morning Episodes . . .
. . . as seen on pre-breakfast bike rides around Gilbert, Arizona, include:
— a shout-out lime-green polyester shirt housing a pony-tailed blond skimming along a side-street sidewalk followed by her beau in black shorts, black T-shirt and black sandals pedaling a black high-handle-barred coaster bike.
— two grille-to-grille pickups plugging up a driveway and blocking half the street while the backed-into-the-drive vehicle sucks battery juice through what look like black straws from the truck with its back to traffic.
— power mowers competing against each other in green swards across the street from on another as landscapers trim bushes and blow leaves into piles before the sun gets angry.
— teens — bored, perched on curbs, chatting in couples, texting or gaming, a few even waving — gathered at school-bus stops.
— school buses boring into traffic without conscience.
— bikers in bike lanes with teeth gritted who rarely wave back as they bust their buttocks to beat their previous times or distances or both.
— assorted dog-walkers of all attitudes and attire with an endless array of breeds and behaviors.
— householders, a few holding their morning coffee, turning on or off their front-yard sprinkler systems.
— young mothers, mostly in vans, dropping their children off at all-day holding tanks.
