Wednesday, April 09, 2008

Bike ride spec log (splog)

O.K.
Got a ride in.
Here to Boeing field than down the Green a bit to monster road then sort of along the Black into Renton through Fred Meyer's parking lot and on to Rainier blvd to Holyoke and back to here again.
14.2 miles
1:28:04 trip time
9.6 avg speed including several gear change and chain loss incidents.
40.2 maximum speed.

I found a delightful back road with nice curves and a terrific long steep hill (see max speed)

O.K. only 15 miles but it was a relative breeze.
Coulda done two of 'em.
Musta been still a bit sub-meteorological last outing.

Here's Spot,




Whifty as that front bumper looks, it's (was) still a lot stronger than any thing it was fastened to.

Labels: ,

14 Comments:

Blogger Glenn Buttkus said...

Three cheers, Fidelio still rolls and Palmer still peddles! I didn't think the weather yesterday was nice enough for a bike ride, but maybe you had a sun break up there along the lakeus pollutus. Have you been having problems with your chain slipping? What can you do about that? 40mph is honking on that cool hill, sir.

Fidelio is your friend,
even though you pump the hell out of him and ride her hard.

You do not speak much about your biking partner, some lady of mystery I presume?

Riding in Spot was always a rush. Kristi loved having such a unique vehicle, and it cornered pretty well. What kind of an engine did it have? What I remember most is the sound of the aluminum body flexing; kind of unnerving, yet cool.

I don't remember your V8 Jeep or the De Soto. Maybe that was between '74 and '85 when I went to Hollywood to become a movie star, yuk yuk. I guess you were back in Seattle in '65 when I had the monster tripower Ford. I scared the hell out of a lot of people in that rod; mostly myself. One day on wet pavement, I popped the clutch, and the damned thing leaped sideways almost into the ditch; way too much car for a punk like I was.

Most of my friends and acquaintances are retired. What a hell of a note. I slave away day after day, in the work place, leaden eyed, blue collared heart and white collared job, helping the blind to see; making them and myself pleased with my compassion and expertise, and pining for those full 8 hour sleep nights, and the late risings, and the stay up all nighttimes, like Alex puts in. One can get real creative at one in the morning. You get on a roll and just do not want to stop until you are exhausted. You know what I mean, right?

Thanks for the pic of Spot. Did you have it spray painted somewhere, or did you do it yourself? Did it yourself I figure. It was a fairly good paint job, Kelly Green; looked good in California. I wonder if it is sitting in someone's back yard, or possibly in the middle of someone's garden with beautiful flowers growing up through out and sticking out of it? Probably just got mashed and thrashed and turned into aluminum cans, enit?

You haven't referred much to whatever book you're reading lately. What is your book club pick? My film club, TFC, is going to discuss three quadrapelgic films, THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY, THE SEA INSIDE, and WHOSE LIFE IS IT ANYWAY? next Wednesday. We just picked the films for May, crime and film noir thrillers, PICK UP ON SOUTH STREET, PICKPOCKET (French version), and the Oscar winner this year for best foreign film, THE COUNTERFEITERS. I still think you need to rent ACROSS THE UNIVERSE and give your opinions on it. It still haunts me after nearly a week.

Alex is off to LA again, so her blog will be silent for a week. She gets so busy composing I don't know how she finds time to keep up on the blog. But then many people do not understand how I find so much time to blog and write reviews and narratives holding down a full time job. The answer is simple. I am sleep deprived. I rise at 3am, arrive here at the office at 5am, and wail away until 7:30am when things officially kick off. Then it is off to bed an an early 8pm, to rise again at 3am. I try and catch up on sleep on the weekends, usually getting 9-10 hours of shuteye. When I was an actor, I loved staying up to 1-2am every day, and reporting for work by 10am. I have always been a night owl, like Alex, and yet somehow I have forced myself metabolically to change up, to semi-function while the rest of you are slumbering. What strangeness, what irony, what horseshit.

Glenn

5:56 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You know, buddy-boy, you are missing out on some fun. Yeah, yeah, peddling your ass off on your Wop bicycle is cool, and it is probably good for you, but with your mechanical aptitude and need for speed, you need to get into hogs, man, Harleys; or an old Indian you could rebuild. Have you ever ridden a motorcycle, dude?

You certainly were bang on correcting Butch on the Porsche model that James Dean died in; Spyder not Speedster. You had the Speedsters, right? Did you ever have a Spyder, or did you just work on them? What kept you from one day owning a Jag, or a Ferrari, man? You could have found a way. And why did you never do rally driving? You rapped about it, but never did it.

I live through you now, so remember that.

Eddy Emerald

6:02 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hallo Lane, and Y'all!
Consider attending the Hugo Haus affair, Lane, mein Herr--for there will be real haiku there; the geniune stuff.

Remember those Burma-Shave signs along the highway in the '40's?
I recall some that read, SAVE SCRAP, SLAP A JAP! I still feel that way. December 7th still haunts me.

LL sends her best. She is anxious to begin working in her garden. Still a bit early here. Much luck and warmth to Meredith in her retirement, and to you, and Keth. I will see you in Seattle in just a few short weeks!

......Anonomann

6:13 AM  
Blogger Glenn Buttkus said...

Hey, I just picked up on the comment by Michael Dylan Welch, relative to your posing of the BASEBALL HAIKU. How cool is that? It just shows to go you that you just never know who might be peeking in on FFTL. I remember the thrill we had on the TFC blog site when Damian Lewis posted a comment in regard to us viewing AN UNFINISHED LIFE. Or when Janet Leigh put in a comment on FFTR a few weeks ago. Or when Charleton Heston checked in here over the last few days. Ain't blogging grand?

Glenn

6:18 AM  
Blogger Lane Savant said...

Bike partner; friend of Liz, works in an hospital, does the STP in one day, in between riding she hikes, snowshoes, and I don't know what all.
She looks a whole lot younger than she claims to be.
Rides a 27 speed LeMond.
Drives a Ford (Taurus?) wagon.
That's all I know.
Spot; painted it myself, all the mechanical bits were from a Simca Aronde.
Books; I read the book group book so long ago that I don't remember it anymore. It was about a girl surviving the plague and deciding to go into medicine. Or something.
Other than that I'm still slogging through Jenkins bio of Churchill.
Ferrari story; I had a chance to buy a '59 250 GT in '85, but I got canned and spent the money opening my stupid shop.
150cc BSA trail bike
Suzuki Hustler, 250 cc 2 cycle, 6 speed tranny.
Nippon; One of my stepfathers was on the California Dec 7, Another stepfather was at Iwo Jima.
My first father in law was at the fall of Corregidor (sp?) and got to participate in the march.
None of the Japs who were shooting at them are around anymore, so why worry about it?
Especially since we are the worlds troublemakers now.

Butch, I've added some links to FFTR, including Ms Leigh's

8:25 AM  
Blogger Glenn Buttkus said...

Yup, I noticed the new links on FFTR. Thanks! Although I could not get "Janet Leigh" to open up to anything viable; just a blank page. Did you find her website?

Perhaps it is not my place to mention this, but the comment above put on by Anonomann looks suspicious to me. Is it possible that an imposter has tried to pull the sourcraut over our orbs? Has Lane got cute, or what? Maybe it's just me.

Man, your bike mate sounds like a jock or jockette, a triathlete kind of gal. Anyone who rides the STP in one day has got it all going on.

OMG, Simca parts in Spot! Who, beside you, even remember the Simcas? Were they a car company? The name rings a bell. Were they Japanese, Swedish, Polish?

Winston Churchill was quite a fellow. I once made up a movie list of all the films that he, as a character, appeared in. It might interest you, or the bloggers.

Churchill appeared as "himself" in
1. WINSTON CHURCHILL: The Valiant Years (1960)
2. THE OTHER WORLD OF WINSTON CHURCHILL (1964)
3. THE SPEECHES OF WINSTON CHURCHILL
4. WINSTON CHURCHILL: The Wilderness Years (1981)

Obviously, much of this was archival footage.

5. YOUNG WINSTON (1972) with Simon Ward as WC, with Robert Shaw, and Anne Bancroft as his parents, directed by Richard Attenborough.
6. THE GATHERING STORM (1974) with Richard Burton as WC.
7. THE EAGLE HAS LANDED (1976) with the uncredited George Fowler as WC.
8. THE CHURCHILLS (1996) a mini-series, with him in archival footage.
9. WWII: WHEN LIONS ROARED (1994) with Bob Hoskins playing WC.
10. THE GATHERING STORM (2002) with Albert Finney playing WC.
11. WINSTON CHURCHILL: The Hollywood Years (2004) with Christian Slater playing WC.

There--wasn't that a fascinating segue? Damn rights.

Palmer Automotive trumped a Ferrari. What a piece of salient history, sir. That is the first time I heard that fact.

I hope Eddy is satisfied that you have ridden a few cycles, and that it did not hook you, or float your boat.

Day of Infamy; Pearl Harbor. Odd you have so many personal links to it. Cool too. Biff McGuire, an Actor friend once told a story about working on the film MIDWAY, with the now decease Heston, and the great Japanese star, Toshiro Mifune. Mifune was a jokester. On December 7th, all the crew and cast received Christmas cards from him.

I have always had a weakness, nearly a jones for Bushido tales, and Samurai movies, and Japanese Kurosawa flicks. I wonder how Anonomann feels about that?

I am off to FFTR, to click on Janet Leigh again, and see how she digs it.

Glenn

12:07 PM  
Blogger Glenn Buttkus said...

Janet Leigh, ex-wife to Tony Curtis and mother to Jamie Lee Curtis, died in 2004; of course. But janetleigh who is out there blogging up a storm, and writing poetry, and is a friend of Alex's is a brunette, almost Asian looking chick. I still get nada on her link, although all the others work fine. But while looking at one of the links, there was a comment posted by janetleigh, with her thumbnail pic. So, anyway, she has a celebrity's name, sort of, and seems to be quite a poet, and a terrific supporter of all things Alex Shapiro.

Glenn

12:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hallo Lane!
I did not write that comment with my name on it! This happens a lot. Seems like there are jokesters and dumkopfs aplenty that make comments on FFTL. I feel flattered to be emulated, but peeved that someone else takes credit.

.....Anonomann

12:22 PM  
Blogger Lane Savant said...

If you can't get to Janet from FFTR try the link on Alexs's site.

Anonomann's comment does seem to be an combination of several writing styles.
And even a teensiest bit anachronistic.
Simca = French FIAT
Next to James Joyce and Darby Crash, Winston just might have been the most important man of the 20th century.

12:22 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Probably the young lady poet who uses my moniker is actually Janet Leigh Schwarz or Kuppenhauler. I do not mind. It puts my essence into the cortex of your bloggers, readers, and fans.

Janet Leigh:
Maternal source of Jamie Lee, who did a terrific nude scene in TRADING PLACES (1983).

12:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

You should have seen Chuck Heston's face when he received my Christmas card on December 7th!

Toshiro Mifune

12:26 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

The attack on Pearl Harbor could have been curtailed. Haven't any of you seen TORA, TORA, TORA! You can blame it on Jason Robards.

Dwight D. Eisenhower

12:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I thought Robert Duvall did a good job playing me. I did not care much for Tom Selleck doing it last year. He is too tall, and he had to wear a rubber pate. Bobby Duvall had real skin on his shiny dome.

Dwight D. E.

12:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hallo, you all, especially you Scheiß-imposter!!
Do0 NOT sign your comments "Anonomann" unless you really are me, which you are NOT, but use the English spelling, "Anonoman" (one "n"!!)!!
Neither of the two other comments on this blog are from me, the original "Anonomann".
Tschüß (your keyboard can't type that),
Anonomann
P.S. For all readers of this Blogsite, unless the word "Tschüß" is spelled with "ü" and "ß", the comment is not from me, the original Anonomann!!

3:31 AM  

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