Blog de Dave

...when you're getting old...

December already...last month of the year...hard to believe it's gone by so fast.

Getting Baby all dolled up. Dropped her tail with a pair of 11.75" shocks last week, and got my Le Pera saddle this morning. Already making plans for next year's trip.

The ride to Sedona wasn't quite what I expected. Well, the destination, anyway. The ride was great; however, it did lead me to change seats. Haven't had a chance to try the Le Pera yet, though...cold an raining today, but I digress. Saw nothing but desert between Ozona and the other side of Safford, AZ. That's quite a ways. Sedona is your typical tourist town; I knew that before I left. 89A between Sedona and Flagstaff is some ride, though. Not what I had in mind when thinking of Arizona. Didn't like the idea of having to have a pass just to pull off the side of the road to look at Oak Creek (for more than the alloted 15 minutes before risking a ticket). Rain was scheduled for that Thursday, so I figured on getting a head start back home. It was 32 degrees and overcast when I left Flagstaff around 7:15 that morning. I didn't see the sun until I got to Phoenix. I did 2379.8 miles total, on $123.56 in fuel, about a nickel a mile.

Next year, I'm taking two weeks, and heading...thataway. No destination this time. Just hitting the road. I'll find out where when I get there.

...I've just been busy. Lots o' stuff happened since I last posted.

Well, no, not really. I've just been sluffing it off. Met a nurse a while back, and have been helping her get furniture and stuff for her new house (what a deal she got on that). Boy, what a chore that is, too...helping a woman pick out furniture. Wrong color. Wrong fabric. Too poofy. Not the right style. Doesn't do this or that. Took two weeks just to find a sofa...and she's got an entire house to furnish.

Me, otoh, it doesn't take me long to decide on something. Which is why I got this the same day I went shopping...

It's been ten years since my last bike. Ten years too long. It's been longer than that since my last really good ride...which is why I'm off to Sedona come November. It's only 1120+ miles one way. I've done twice that before, but was a helluva lot younger. Rode down to see my grandsons last Sunday, 260 miles round trip, and realized (in 102 degree heat) that those ten years made a lot of difference. Well...I'm old. I'll be dead soon (or the world will end, one). This may be my last ride. Gotta make it count.

...and the ordeal I had with the postal service? I'd shipped my studio lighting to California (2-3 day Priority Mail), and I went round and round with "Customer Support" for a week, and come to find out it had gone to the post office in the guy's town, and stayed there for two weeks, and they never even sent a notice to the guy, and they didn't find it until I filed an insurance claim? Well, guess what?

I hope the USPS really does go broke and they all fucking starve in the streets like rats.

I found an 18-70mm 3.5-4.5G lens on Ebay last week. Picked it up for a good price. Priority Mail. Should have gotten it Wednesday. Come to find out, it went back to the post office in the sender's town. And they can't find it. Imbeciles. Idiots. Morons. I mean, how hard is it to give someone a box, and tell them to take it to someone else? 2-3 day delivery. Paid 11 bucks for that. It left Euless, went to Ft Worth, then back to Euless. What...the...fuck? I called Euless this morning (after playing email tag with "Customer Support) for three days), hung around the house most of the day, and the second I leave to go pick up some printer cartridges, they call back. Leaving a garbled message that God couldn't understand. Evidently, they...can't...find it. Asshats. It must take a certain level of dumbassity to wotk at the post office. "Here's my box, dude...and here's $11 to lose it." THAT, they can do.

I'm glad I pay my bills online. 'cuz I will never, ever use the postal service for anything ever again.

...I have to post this using Firefox, 'cuz Opera wouldn't open. Funny hmmm, not funny ha ha.

Spring Break and SXSW, both on one weekend. I'd thought about doing the Million Musicians March at the Capitol again this year, until I remembered the thousands of tourists that were in town for SXSW. I didn't relish the thought of being in the midst of all those people, so I went to McKinney Falls instead...only to find the park full of tourists in town for Spring Break. Lucky for me, though, I got there about ten minutes before the park opened (at 8am), and was able to get some shooting in before any of my shots got photobombed too badly. I'd heard one fella holler at his kids, "Stay off the rocks!" I was like, "Dude...this is the Hill Country. There's rocks everywhere."

Oh, well...I got a few decent shots. A couple of more pics are posted in my Photo section. Speaking of which...for those of you who've commented, thanks. I don't check this thing as often as I should, but I do appreciate the kind words.

...finally...for the past three days it's been raining, off & on. And 40 degrees. What the hell happened to spring? Cold and wet make my joints ache...

Speaking of spring...I started spring cleaning last week. Sold my D1x with the 28-70 lens, the 18-135 that came with my D80, and an ATG gun with a box full of tape. Haven't yet decided if I'm gonna sell my D40 or not. I did finally get a D200, cheap. A fella on craigslist kept posting one for sell at $720, new in the box. Cheapest I'd found yet. I came close to getting it until some other fella posted about him being overpriced, that Best Buy had 'em online for $599.99. It cost me $11 to get it the next day. Now, if the weather will clear up long enough for me to get down to the creek...