Christmas In Phoenix, what a delight!

No snow, just desert, oh what I sight.  Up high in the sky, stars shining bright! Cabela's, AMC 20, Nadia's park... AMF Bowlerama, 10 pins in the dark.  Cacti, peacocks the odd meadowlark!  Climbing mountains, huffing, puffing, shrubs dressed up so shiny.  On closer inspection, they were so tiny.  A Brand new TV, no channels just movies, some oldies like Monty, oh so groovy.   Some like Kate and Matthew, yeah, they be newbies.  At Cabela's we saw 4 geese cross the street, a pike a gar and a man with a ceegar! 

Me, Sick as a dog but attracted a kitten, two young women... one mostly smitten.

Oh my, what a joy to behold, you must keep it mum, the word can't get out, let no one be told... shhhh!  Keep it quiet, don't want no one to buy it.  Just my good friends out there, on the Bay, what a wonderful surprising and fun Christmas Day...

May God Bless everywun!

MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL...

It's December 24, Christmas Eve.  Things are quiet, no sirens for the moment. A very pleasant 15 C/60 F out there.  I just spent a few minutes with "Albert," as in Einstein, as in my old pal Einstein that left me this spring after 19 years.  Albert is the stray kitten that has made himself at home here on my porch.  Thankfully it isn't cold out, no worry about him freezing to death and even though he is extremely cute, boyishly handsome so to speak, I know I am leaving shortly and cannot keep him.  At least the young girl next door says she will look after him once I am gone.

I've been very sick these past few days/weeks.  Seems every year around Christmas I come down with a whopper of a cold.  Just my luck.

I wanted to take a moment and reflect back on the year passing.  Each year I make a filing folder that gives me a list of things I would like to do during the coming 12 months.  Kinda like a goal sheet.  Nothing elaborate, no changing the World kind of stuff, just things like eating well, doing my exercises, reading more, writing even more, trying to maintain healthy relationships, doing three MC trips... that sort of thing.  I am already thinking ahead to 2011 (remember when 2001 was futuristic) It's a pivitol year coming up, lots of decisions to make for me, wonder how much of it I will see thru over the 12 months.

In any case, I just wanted to take a moment and say to all of you, family and friends... Merry Christmas to all, the best of the New Year, and to all...

                                                                     a Good night!

What a way to spend a Holiday!

This is how my throat has felt for the last 3 weeks!

Well I left home 1 month ago!  It was cold enough to (maybe) freeze hell over, which didn't do my dispostion much good nor my burgeoning Cold any harm.  It survived the trip and prospered!  One month, and I am still friggin' sick!  Gone thru all the stages like Moses and the 10 commandments, now into coughing my lungs out/stage.  Doesn't lend itself well to having personal conversations or sleep. 

Glad that I was able to make it thru the neices trip, they are back to reality, theirs... not mine.  Brenda and Anna arrived on time, safe n' sound.  Their visit hasn't been without glitches but for the most part, this miserable cold notwithstanding, we've done well.  It is still hard for me to get used to having an Anna around.  She is kind of like typical children her age, wants to explore, gets fixated on certain things, likes cats (more on that later), has her insecurities like bees, wasps and pretty much anything with wings or teeth... yet given her adhd and other assorted challenges, she can be "quite the handful"  Demanding, stubborn as a billy goat (that'd be moi) and ultra focused. 

Case in point.  After several attempts, we finally made it to the Glendale Library.  Now I don't know about you guys, but I love libraries.  Apart from the obvious, this one offers a no cost membership because I am a community resident, but also passes to local attractions and events.  Right now we are trying to line up the Zoo for next week!

Anyway, I digress... we sign out the maximum 10 dvds the other day, and after enduring yet another Harry Potter which nearly caused me to step off a tall bridge over a deep canyon (and you know AZ has the deepest one of all!)  we returned several, but Anna wanted some replacements.  Now I don't have a TV here, well I do have a TV just nothing to watch on it except for movies.  My card would not accept any more withdrawals because... as far as the Library computer system was concerned... we were still at our max allotment.  For most kids, an explanation of this would suffice.  Not Anna.  She went from person to person explaining her wishes (demands?!) and finally was able to have some staff member 'check in' the returns so she could get her new movies out!

Gotta hand it to the kid... she can be totally dedicated to getting what she wants.

As for those Harry Potters... Yes, I know they are a revered institution, and good for JKR becoming rich and famous writing it, however it has to be the most convoluted, dense and senseless story since that other useless SFX 'thriller?' I also thought was a waste of time and money... The Lord of the inane trilogy.  Now there was a series of movies about... well nothing, relying on special effects for it's lackluster plots and long drawn out fairy tale backdrops.  Gimme Bruce Willis or Denzel Washington or Kate Hudson, any day!

I don't care, get mad at me if you wish!  After all I must have been the only person in the entire World that saw the video and book titled the "Secret" for what it was... a money grabbing useless piece of slick marketing.  Even Harley's offer more substance.  Thank God Newsweek came out finally and labelled that piece o poo, "The Worst Self Help Book of the Decade/Century"

December 7th came and went.  I thought there would be more coverage of the Pearl Harbor events of 1941.  After all, it was the USS Arizona that remained capsized and memorialized.  Are we really becoming so sedateand complacent that we forget History?

I have done no riding.  That's right, Zero!  My DR is sick as it's owner (but easier fixed) but I have neither the tools, nor energy nor time to fix her.  Apart from the battery dying of neglect, had the thing on tender but without power for nearly a year, fat lot of good that was.  Now the carb is obviously plugged with some waxed fuel. 

I had several bikes lined up to see locally, but given the rigours of visitation and this miserable Cold that has knocked me flat on my tush, I have only gone to see one.  On the flip side, it is pretty much what I have been looking for.  A 98 XT 350 with few miles (not kilometers, miles.  This is the US of A) 

Those bikes were very advanced when they were imported.  The first XT's were simple rugged bikes with decent if limited suspension and kick start equipped SOHC 2V engines.  Yamaha shocked everyone when they introduced the DOHC 4 valve, shim over buckets, YDIS (Yamaha dual induction system) with dual carbs linked to a common float bowl 250 in 1984.  The following year, they dropped the quarter litre engine in favor of the 350.  This bike had decent supsension, then latest MonoCross linkage and a killer motor.  It is reasonably light and has a good mix of road capability like my 600, yet is versatile enough for the off road exploration I do with my 225.  6 speed tranny, cleated pegs, folding controls and a tiny 3 amp battery with a leg to start the engine.  Why would I opt for a kick starter?  Given the occasional use the bike would get, a kicker makes pretty good sense.  Even with a dead battery, the bike can be ridden. 

Now here is the kicker?!   The current owner is a real life Tom Cruise.  I don't mean an actor (can TC really act?!) but a jet pilot.  He flies F 16's from Luke AF base.  To top it off he's an avid dirt biker, with a DRZ and KTM 200 in his garage!  Yayyyyy for strokers!!!

So... it's nearly 8 am December 23, 2 days before Christmas.  Brenda is asleep, and can that girl sleep!  Anna is outside after a long night of rain with 'Albert' short for Albert Einstein.  A very cute perhaps 6 month old stray kitten that she says... "followed her home one day."  Sure, like I'm gonna believe that.  Remember that fixation/determination thing I mentioned earlier...

Me... I've been hacking pretty much all night, again.  Been up since 5 ish, hard to sleep in any case when every few seconds it feels like you've sucked in lungfulls of mustard gas...

Yes...

It's midnight here... and pretty much midnight back home. 

As per sign!

I have survived the drive, the cold is doing great, me not quite so.  The lights are on, food is in the fridge, the girls have come... and gone.  It's been quite the 10 days.  Maybe not those that 'shook the World' but perhaps MY World.

Not sure, but this could be that fabled "Uncle Franks cabin"

 Now that I have a HI SPEED Internet connection from Qwest... I can log on here with relative security and pay bills, surf the net, map directions and generally behave like a lunatic in the privacy of my own (Phoenix) home.

Yup... this is a desert!  Aha, sure is, righty then!

Here's the bad news... after nearly a year of sitting around doing nothing, my Dr 200 has a doa battery.  Didn't matter much that I'd paid 30 bucks for a battery tender and faithfully plugged the little 7 amp guy in, if there is no one around for a year to turn the power on... the excercise beings rather pointless.  So, after attempting to bring it back to life (Dr. Frankenstein had more luck) I called the local bike store on Bell and yes, they did have one in stock for 45.95. 

Bobtailed cat focused on Liz!  Or, is it a fake?

The goils and I drove up the next day, me barely coherant from this miserable friggin cold, only to find that they have moved to parts unknown and that oh so nice shop is now the temporary home of auto hail repairers.  For those of you that didn't get to see the 'you tube' presentation on a massive October hail storm, you missed out on the event of the decade.  For Phoenix was blasted with hail storms the size of basketballs. 

Who knew, road runners could even get up there!

                                                  Well maybe baseballs, but dam hard ones.

Waaaay too cute burrowing owl.

 So after retreating back to the launch pad at Golden Lane, 85302... I drifted off to Golden fitful slumber once again while the newly arrived neices fended for themselves.  The next day, we GPS'd our way to the new shop, amazing as it was, and picked up some stored electrons in a plastic box, otherwise known as a battery!

Vegetarian prairie Dog.

During the 8 days their World stood anything but still for we as a group, gathered very little moss and proceeded to...

"That'll be a buck please..."

Shop, climb mountains, take hundreds, nay... thousands of digital images, went to an empty movie house to view RED, had numerous cafes, ate at Sonic, Taco Bell, Chipotles, and my favorite, the GOLDEN CORRAL, held weapons of several types in our little Canadian hands, including a 50 cal snipers rifle.  (everyone should own at least one) while at Cabela's and went generally NUTS.

This is Phoenix after all...

                                             Like I'd said, the Rolling Stones gather no moss...

Spotted rhino (as in saw) called him and over he plodded.  Really!

Of the many highlights of the week without sleep, was the final day spent at the Phoenix Zoo.  Hard to believe that the place does a pretty good impression of an African savannah.

Once I'd found my way to the Sky Harbour Airport from the other side, and after a quick and suitably short farewell, the ladies were winging their way back to the Great White North.



The "other" Zoo on the drive home.  Interstate 10 west.



While I fretted about downtown with very little petrol in the fuel tank

I just love them kitties!

, frantically searching for a gas station, in that other Zoo.

If I were one of the dwarfs...

I could be Goofy...

I could be Sleepy...

or I could be Sicky!  And I am... I've had the monster energy zapping flu bug for a week.

The drive so far has been, well...

Pretty Much a nightmare from Hell frozen over.

Now keep in mind, I know what I am talking about here.  After all, I'd driven Highway 63 about a hundred times in the old days, where -40 (on either scale) was pretty much death  if you had problems, and I did on occasion.

I'd driven Highway 2, and everyone knows that when the blizzards hit from the Rockies, if you can see 10 feet... you're dang lucky.

Then there's PEI, where a white out resembled a State wide KKK convention jammed into a little 10X10 room!

Many times visibility was less than 12 inches.

But today, the drive thru Montana over the Monida pass and into Idaho (closed for several days) was almost too much to handle.  Going into and leaving Idaho Falls, I saw so many cars, RV's and Semi's in the ditches, I lost count.

Wanna hear something funny.  On gridlock SLC I 15 traffic, where we are alternately moving at light speed or not at all... I am startled by a Big Dualie zooming by me in the HOV lane!  Too bad it was dark, cuz that would have been a good pic!  Keep mind... the roads are ice covered for the most part!

More later...

Snow White, and the seven...

After a crummy Motorcycling year, winter arrived with a vengeance this week.  Living on a corner city lot and having two large driveways, there is always an abundance of snow to shovel when the fluff hits.  High winds and steady snow over two days, only succeeded in aggravating my usual back pain.  When this happens, I just seethe over that collision in 2002 that brought this on, changed my life.

Four guys, one 1/2 roofs, 10 hours!

Young guy from Lethbridge, speeding on McLeod, seeing the light change to yellow and seeing me, decided that I would twist the throttle and run the light.  Wrong!  I stopped, he didn't.  The only good news was that the tire squeal from his Mazda was so LOUD that no one moved, except me. I dumped the clutch (was still in gear) and turned the throttle. That extra few yards and the corresponding decrease in impact speed, saved my life.  Still, the after effects linger and will always.  A shoulder without full mobility and a dozen back ligaments stretched beyond their usefulness. 

To add insult to injury, I was caught in the stupid short lived Government decision to cap personal injury claims, resulting in a token settlement after three years!  Naturally, they quickly found the folly of such things and rescinded the cap, but all to no avail for my case.

Anyway, whenever I shovel I think of that episode with disgust. 

No One's Ark heading to her New Home

This week... I was thoroughly disgusted!  I must have been out there 16 times shovelling.

I'm sure glad to be heading to my little home in Glendale in a few days. 

There never seems to be quite enough time to do the things you have to and while still a 'working man' I have an awful lot to do.  Having the www.  allows one to still keep in touch and even though this is a mini holiday for me, I am still going to have to deal with some work issues.

On the bright side... the roofers are done and "No One's Ark" found a new home in Lethbridge with Clark and Ibolya.

Winter has landed!

Some day soon, I would like to leave all that behind and move into the next phase of the Life and Times of Dr N. Thusiast!

 

This will be?  is me... in a few more days!  Deja vu...