Good read. I agree wholeheartedly. Democrats screw up, too: the point here is to stick to what’s important. Get public health coverage passed. Let’s continue to concentrate on Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the economy.
Let the meat puppets air their specials on Farrah, and Jacko, and discuss Sanford. Get things done. Rise above the crap.
And it’s not a fashionable sick, like Swine Flu, where people will be interested in hearing about your repulsive bodily functions. This is a random, unknown viral infection that has laid me out. Headache, body aches to beat the band, extreme fatigue, and my cough muscle has been wired directly to the stabbity-stab portion of my brain. This sucks.
Yesterday was the Best Buddies charity bike ride. I did the 50-mile version, and am sincerely glad I did not do the 100-mile. I have to admit that the longest ride I did in preparation was a 32 mile ride, and I didn’t do it very hard. And I remembered to use sunscreen when I was training.
So yesterday was hard. Took off from Carver, MA. Verne Troyer was there at the starting line: boy, is he tiny. Miss Massachusetts was there, announcing something, and after Verne let go with the starting gun, we were off.
There was a nice ride through some state park, where the first rest stop was, replete with Gatorade, H20, and PowerBars. Then on to the Cape, where we walked our bikes across the Sagamore Bridge. That was about halfway. Another rest stop in Sandwich, where I ate same, with 20 more miles on to Hyannis.
And miles 30-40 were the suckiest. I felt pretty tired at the second rest stop, but basically OK. But pretty much immediately after that, it was constant hills. I thought that maybe the Cape route would be, say, the lovely, flat bikepath along the beach. But no.
I suppose this was to let the folks who did the 20-mile version that they had actually been on a bike ride. Anyway, finished at 1:50pm (10am start), with about 15 minutes of rest stop in there. Due to the amazingness of my friends, I raised a cool three grand for BB, which entitled me to a photo with Tom Brady.
But the schedule was for the photo between 3:30-4, and when 4 rolled around and he still hadn’t showed up, I said screw it. The family had already been waiting around with me since 3:00, and they weren’t allowed into the magical party tent where the photos were going to be taken, so fuck him. I hate football anyway.
We went back to the hotel, the Cape Codder, which Isabel loves loves loves. We’ve stayed there a few times, because they have a wave pool that we cannot keep Izzy out of. Mona had the best night: swimming, a kids jamboree party, dinner outside on the patio, marshmallow roast. I napped as much as possible.
A good weekend, all around. Yatsze is proud of me, which is the best part.
For folks who think poor folks should just pull themselves up and work harder, this article at the WaPo is a wet-fish slap of reality. It’s sad how you can see decisions coerced by circumstance mingled with decisions due to lack of education, and if you don’t have that education, it can be hard to see which is which.
These are two of them:
M’s beat the A’s 8-7 in a 15 inning game. They were behind until the 9th when Kenji tied it up with his first homer of the year, they remained tied until the 13th when the A’s scored 3 in the top of the inning. Bleh.
But the M’s came back and scored 3 in the bottom of the inning, the last on an Ichiro single, his 2nd RBI of the game. Oakland’s last reliever threw 108 pitches, more than either starter. Finally they brought out Eveland, a starter, who loaded the bases with nobody out in the 15th, and Jose Lopez, who got the game-winning single in the first game of the series, did it again.
ZOMGWTFBBQ, that was one incredible game.
I’m doing a 50-mile bike ride for Best Buddies, a non-profit for the benefit of the cognitively disabled. Their site is bestbuddies.org, if you want to find out more about them, and you can make a donation for my ride here.
