Rainy Labour Day Reflections

 

August 31, 2025

Hello dear reader,

Happy Labour Daye weekende!  I hope that you have been doing well and prospering, at least in some regard.  As you may have imagined, I have been to a Renaissance Faire recently.  I purchased a game called Daldos that is pretty fun to play.  Snot Jr. purchased a foam long knife/short sword of some type that he was delighted with for a few hours and which has know taken up residence in the Dracomobile.  My first batch of hard cider has been refrigerated and I am “enjoying” a small glass of it right now.  The first sip was kind of a sour slap to the tastebuds, but now that I’ve acclimated a bit I actually like it!  I would estimate alcohol content of about 8 percent or so – at one point I had a device for measuring alcohol content, but the cats broke it and it seemed kind of complicated to actually calculate the alcohol content.

Last Thursday I made it over to the Bellevue Berry Farm's taco ride.  After riding down the hill by my home, I realized I’d left my water bottle on my desk!  Doah!  Luckily I decided to stop at a park on the way to the BBF to get some hydration from the excellent water fountain and take a rest break.  Another thing I noticed on my trip was that ye olde Olympia Cycle / Farmers Home building had been removed!  Here is it’s former location.

So long faithful landmark and local bike shop!  It was great to have you around all these years.  

There were also sunflowers aplenty along the banks of the Papillion Creek.  

Upon arrival at the BBF, it seemed a bit sparsely attended for such a beautiful night, but that may have been because it was the Huskers American futbol (!con accente! !por favor!) season opener against the Cincinnati Bear Cats!  Although not great for the BBF, it was kind of nice to have plenty of open seats and a nice view of the charismatic band Parfait.  

The tuba player was especially gregarious and had some wicked dirty dance moves and managed to bring around the tip bucket whilst simultaneously charming the audience.  They had quite a few upbeat funky versions of pop hits, such as Billy Joel’s “I’m Movin’ Out” and Stevie Wonder’s “Superstitious”.  Here is a song I was not hithertofore familiar with:

On the way back, I considered stopping at Pint Nine to see how the HuskerDu was going, but I thought I might be able to watch it at home and thereby save some time and money.  You may consider this move a non-awesome cheapout, and you may be right.  However, I’m grumpy and I don’t get out much so what do you expect!?  You sassin’ me!?  Why you whippersnapper!  Get back here!  Anyway, once I got home I found out that I would have had to pay for some special ESPN channel to watch the game.  We only get a few ESPN options through Verizon/Disney Plus.  So instead of futbol, I enjoyed a couple sets of women’s tennis.  The dynamic Amanda Anisimova is having a good U.S. Open so far.  She seemed a bit uncontrolled during the sets I saw, but she was able to get the ball where it needed to be when it counts.  The announcers informed me that she was runner-up at Wimbledon, so that is a big accomplishment!

Well I hope you are enjoying some moderately active fun these days and enjoying the cooler days of impending fall and/or other fall-like activities.  I recently had a pumpkin cookie with some white chocolate and macadamia nuts that was quite tasty.

Many blessings to you and your habitat.

Corporate Cycles Back to Boulder

August 17, 2025

 Hello fellow bicycle enthusiasts and others,

I am here to inform you that I recently completed the always rewarding Corporate Cycling Challenge in the Omaha area.  The last time I can verify completing this event was back in 2012!  Last time I was mounted upon the Old Bastard, but this time I enjoyed the relatively easier pedaling aboard the noble Shifty.  Here is a Wild Man top bar pouch that I added to Shifty for the event:

Although my photo doesn't show it, there is a handy cell phone compartment on top of the pouch.  It was kind of nice, since I didn't have any decent pockets on my person; however, my phone overheated towards the end of the ride and had to shut down to cool off for a while.  I think I will invest in one of those phone holders with no plastic cover that just attach to your handlebar to avoid the likelihood of overheating.

I saw a hops farm on the way out, which was pretty exciting to me as I enjoy an occasional quaff of hoppy beer.  

I also met up with my dad and we shared some of our recent life experiences.  Here we are at the spacious and well-maintained gazebo 

in the Fort Calhoun park known as West Market Square Park.

Here is a rock that Lewis and Clark tried to pick up back when they were exploring the area a bit further upriver of Fort Calhoun:

Although they were not able to pick the rock up, they did have their men pick the rock up and carry it downriver (not with their arms of course! - they just put it on one of their boats for a bit of added ballast and a nice place to lounge around during the abundant free time they enjoyed back in those days) on the way back after they finished exploring some parts of the northwestern U.S. and left it in Fort Calhoun as a marker for future explorers.  Although it was originally much closer to the river, it has since been  moved, the engraving has been updated a bit, and it still serves as a welcome stop for travelers in the area.  There is also a disc golf course in the vicinity.

One recent life experience for me has been doing some SCUBA diving lessons over at a local swimming place called Diventures.  We also have to carry ballast to help us sink to the bottom of the pool where we practice various skills designed to help us feel comfortable and to be able to survive some mishaps in the depths; however, no boulders have been used so far.  It has generally been good; however, I seem to have a eustachian tube dysfunction situation that I am hoping to resolve before I commit to my open water certification diving.  I'll let you know how it all turns out.  Dad also did some SCUBA diving back in his younger days and he said it kind of messed up his ears, so maybe there's an inherited trait that makes us more prone to these types of problems.  Snot Jr., however, is loving it and doesn't seem to have any of these issues.

On the way back from the gazebo, my dad cruised off over the horizon and it got kind of hot with a headwind.  I probably should have stopped for a rest break, but I kind of wanted to get back to meet up with some corporate comrades so I pedaled on and did some minor suffering to cap off the experience.

So that was how I spent my Sunday morning and I do not regret it.  Please join me again in the future and I will regale you with more heavy tails of moderate activity and/or adventure.

Your traveling buddy,

BSO