It Ain't Easy Being An Oracle!

The "Oracle of Omaha" takes a good whacking for having his head up his ass and his hand in your pockets...and mine.

Triathlon Comes To Omaha, August 2010

From the Omaha World-Herald: Omaha announces an August 2010 Olympic-distance triathlon. Though I'm not sure about the Carter Lake swim, the bike route goes RIGHT BY my loft. I've ridden the so-called 'airport loop' so many times I could ride it in my sleep...and probably have.

I'll probably be doing Steelhead and Chicago next August, but a side trip to Omaha and a post-race dinner at la Buvette might be a nice "recovery" weekend.

More here from WOWT-TV.

Omaha's the Closest I'll Get To Paris This Year

So I was at my favorite little Omaha bistro last weekend, sitting at a sidewalk table enjoying the Parisian gestalt, when a friend of a friend stopped by, sized me up and said I needed to GAIN weight!

Thanks, Darlin'! Kinder words were never spoken, at least where I'm concerned and CERTAINLY not in Omaha!

By the way, after 2,000 miles of driving, I'm not sure which is the bigger waste of statehood - Oklahoma or Arkansas. Right now I'm thinking Oklahoma due to the amount of disorganized, utterly incomprehensible, traffic-snarling road construction.

I think I saw a certain ex-President chasing a bimbo through an Arkansas Burger King. Don't ask me what I was doing there...gaining weight, maybe.

Today's "Remove That Stick From Your A** Award" Goes To...

...this Missouri prosecutor. Hey, I hate the Blues as much as the next Chicago fan but, c'mon, not even the DUMBEST Blues fan (and there's tons of competition for THAT award) deserves legal hassles over some obscure election fraud law. In fact, s/he should be twice lauded - once for voting, and again for knowing how to write.

God I hate lawyers. Especially those paid by "the State" with nothing better to do than dream up inventive ways of prosecuting backwoods hillbillies.

Guess Where I Am!

Decisions, Decisions!

It's Vino time! Which one shall I pick?

I'm captious.  Cool.  Who knew?

Someone once told me that if you don't love the Great Plains, the locals'll hate you.  They were right.

Rules For Radicals

Saul Alinsky would be so proud.

My former Great Plains home coulda used a few thousand Scotts.

A Post About Lotsa Unimportant Rainy-Day Stuff

Ha Ha Ha.  A while back I said this.  And now Business Week Magazine chimes in with this.  Of course I'm no longer a corporate puke myself but it's still an noteworthy trend.  My MacBook Pro is awesome; my next purchases are gonna be an iPhone and a big friggin' iMac.

Interesting conversation with a Windy-City area business associate this week.  She listened to a condensed version of my Great Plains experience, pondered for a moment, and ranted "Why the freakin' F##K did you ever move THERE anyway?  What did you EXPECT would happen?  What were you THINKING?  Was your head up your own ASS?  The GP is NO PLACE for free thinkers and innovation agitators! And if you're seeking funding for a business idea you might want to move someplace where THEY CAN SPELL 'VENTURE CAPITAL!' "  OK, OK, thanks for the verbal head-slap and, next time, leave the rants to me...

But, given this blog's long-standing philosophy - that Life Is A Tri - I've chalked up my GP wanderings as a temporary detour through life's poison ivy, albeit with some new friends, memories of an awesome wine bar and two or three really good business ideas needing the aforementioned venture capital.  No permanent harm was done, though my training went to hell and it's gonna take a LONG time to get back to 2005's fighting form.

Gray, rainy day here in the GSO, with squalls rolling across the lake. Allergy season is in full swing; my prescribed Allegra is barely holding its own.  Time to call my ever-faithful, always-on-call PCP for some alternative suggestions.

And, while unobserved and unsupervised, CtWD surveyed the breakfast table and snarfed a bowl of mixed nuts and a package of sweet rolls.  Now he's constipated AND hyperactive. Time to chain him to a big tree and let nature take its course.  In a few weeks he'll be decamping to T-D #3's city apartment.  A welcome sight his draggy, doggy-assed tail will be, waving in the car window as they pull outta the driveway.

Oh, by the way, the Tabasco sauce on the chair leg cured his chewing and gnawing.  And it was pretty funny, too.

iPod Shuffle: "Boppin' The Blues" by Carl Perkins, from "Blue Suede Shoes."  Perkins wrote the songs; Presley got the glory.  Sometimes life does truly suck. Lotsa Perkins on the iPod; no Presley.

For training, NASA's sending the astronauts to The Great Plains.  They'll feel right at home on the moon.

I Never Knew This

From the NY Times: The world's best female skier is American Lindsey Vonn - this season's World Cup overall and downhill champion.

Says the article: "Yet for all her accomplishments and potential, she retains a persistent anonymity in the United States. The timing of her victories did not help, wedged between Winter Olympics in the blind spot of American attention spans toward skiing."

How did I miss this?  Maybe cuz skiing is not high on Great Plains' media radar screens, and mountains are seldom thought about at all (cuz those dang center-pivots just don't work on the vertical.)  The locally wretched Big 8 football team dominates the sports pages season-in and season-out, and a sixth-string linebacker's 40-yard dash times are lovingly chronicled as "big, important news."  Hell, even Major League Baseball's scores don't show up until page 8, well behind the fishin' and huntin' reports.

After said football players and a nostalgia-laden former head coach or two, the next likeliest sports hero is the town taxidermist.  Hmmm.  Now I know why I missed it.  I was temporarily insane.

What I used to see...

Gettin' Outta Dodge

The last Great Plains supper.  I hadn't thought of the bars as metaphor, but who knows?

This wine bar will be missed.

Leaving

Sunset over the Great Plains...way, way, way back there behind me as I return to the Great Suburban Outback.

Leaving Part Deux

I said one day I'd see the Great Plains receding in my rearview mirror.  And so they are. Thanks to the Flying Lunchbox for holding steady while I snapped this with my cellphone cam.

The Bitch Is Back

These stairs aren't Walter Payton's hill, but they're still my personal nemesis.  I love 'em and hate 'em at the same time.

They continue on up, well out of camera range. And they're directly across the street from - and in full view of - The Great Plains' main tourist hotel, though that's not saying much.  I'm sure I provide the guests and bar-sitting denizens lots of good, free, stumbling, cursing entertainment.  

Luckily, a glass wall insulates them from what I'm REALLY saying as I chug up and down, something along the lines of "Rippin', zippin', flippin', rotten, zarg barg-a-fling-dong."   Yeah, that's it.  Totally.

Ahhh. It's Been A Long Day!

As this wretched winter drags on and on, my need for a beach/blanket/beverage/bikini fix grows and grows.  Maybe this triathlon would provide the necessary respite.

iPod Shuffle: "I Got A Woman" by the John Mayer Trio, from "TRY! - John Mayer Trio Live In Concert."

Loser Alert

Last week it was orgasm alerts.  This week I'm skipping the middle man and just alerting y'all to a black hole singularity-sized gathering of loser dweeboids assembling in the faint hope that safety in numbers will let 'em recapture a semblance of their youth.  Yep, even as I write this they're winding up and tossing old-lady bloomers on stage to a bunch of lame geezeroids..Bon Van Halen Jovi or something...

Good thing I got my run outta the way earlier today.  I'd might've mowed a few of 'em down and I HATE washing smelly groupie grease outta my running gear.

iPod Shuffle: "Heartbeat" by King Crimson, from "Absent Lovers: Live In Montreal 1984."   I remember the rhythm, the rhythm we made...