BICYCLE DIARIES

This one time, John and Brandon and myself were going to school, Jr. High, actually we returning to school from the doughnut shop, or maybe even going to school from the doughnut shop, I was riding Brandon's bicycle, it was low, like a BMX, he was riding my 18 speed, and John was riding his own bike. We were sort of racing, weaving in and out of each other's paths and cutting each other off as the norm was, I weaved to pass between a telephone pole and a fence and the next thing I knew my butt was on the ground, the bike was in the air in front of me. I sat for a second or two quite confused as the bike came down to earth in front of me, both Brandon and John saw that I was no longer on the bike and stopped to turn around, I looked up at them and noticed what had knocked me off the bike. Someone had nailed a piece of wood between the telephone pole and the fence where I had attmpted to pass. The handlebars on the bike were low enough to allow my hands to pass under, and the bar had caught me right across the shoulders and had done so with so little force that I did not feel it. The bike simly lept on going while the bar gently knocked me onto my @$$. If I had been riding my bike, my finger would have been crushed between the piece of wood and the handlebars, I felt very lucky.

Another time, we made John crash, he had borrowed someone'd Univega, and when he bit it, we saw the little Emblem pop up in the air, spinning, and then fly off into the grass somewhere. John was livid, he called us, Damien and I, all sorts of names, I felt bad, but I thought it was still pretty funny how he crashed.

The worst was when Brandon and I forced Damien to crash into a car or gutter, I dont know which he hit, but he had a pretty good cut on the side of his hand. I felt bad about that one too, and I didn't think there was anything particularly funny about it...I think that is when we stopped forcing each other off of the road.

My sister bought a new bike this one time...It was a decent bike, a 21 speed mountain bike, but it was heavier than my green and white Huffy, which was the second best bike I have ever owned...lasted me ten years, and I even sold it for 20 dollars at the end, anyhow K and I decided to go for a ride, to test out her new bike. We set out towards the country side, the farms that slowly becoming extinct around the neighborhood, riding at a leisurely pace. We had been riding for a good 15 minutes or so and I was looking out across the fields of grass or dirt, following behind my sister. Suddenlt some dust caught my eye...it was a trail of dust, and I was seeing the dissapating end. I casually followed the trail towards us to see what was making it, and then I saw it... a large, mean, farm dog barreling down on us at top speed. Without saying a word (aghyaaa, does not count as a word) I stood up and started pedaling for my life...in a second I was past my sister, in another i was two bike lengths ahead, and speeding up. She heard my grunt and saw me speed off, but didn't know why, she turned, and by this time the dog had covered some serious ground, and It was MUCH MUCH closer than when I had spotted it, she gasped in suprise, and then started pedaling like mad herself... I am fairly sure that she shouted my name, half pleading for me to wait, half mad at me for taking off without warning, at me as she came...we rode as fast as we could for half a mile...to the boundary of the farm I guess, until the dog peeled off and turned back home. We stopped and rested, and had a good laugh about it, though K was still upset that I had ditched her. I guess I think of self preservation first.

Early on in my life I had given up on riding a bike. I couldn't use the training wheels because K already knew how to ride a bike, and didn't want them on...I think it may have been her bike I was learning on, anyhow, most of my bike riding at that age consisted of my dad pushing me with enough force for me to cruise for several meters and then crash into the street. As I got better at the balance thing, they told me to look ahead in the street to where I was going...He pushed and I went, and I was doing really good, I had a spot where I was going picked out, and I was looking at it, it was about ten housed down the street. Unfortunately my steering wasn't that great and, though I managed to keep myself on the bike for the longest period on my prersonal record, I piloted the bicycle right into the mailbox. My parents said to me, as I lay in a twisted heap of little kid, bicycle, and mailbox, "We told you to look where you were going!"
I said,"*sob* I did!! *sob* I was looking there! *sob*" as I pointed to the house that I had picked out, away down the street. They thought that was pretty funny.

THE SIMS

It is Wednesday and I have been playing the sims way too much. The sims is a delightful little game where you can create simulated people and then build them a house, furnish it, and then get your sims jobs to make money to buy better stuff, or buy things that they can use to get better skills to get job promotions to make more money. It is a pretty big waste of time actually, but still fun none the less.
I started out with just the prefab sims, that is, (Michael Bachelor)(Mortimer, Bela, and Cassandra Goth) and(Betty and Bob Newbie). I ran through the tutorial, which involves moving Bob and Betty about, and soon moved on to Running Michael Bachelors life. I got him a job on the music track, and had him wine and dine Bela until she was in the mood to leave the Goth household and become a Bachelor herself (bachelor is thier last name, or rather, their house name. Michael soon was promoted into better jobs, but hit a ceiling when he needed more than 5 family friends for a new job. This led me to the creation of my first all new Sims, The Singles. Three ladies were dropped into the Singles house, Cokie, Mio, and Roxanne. Cokie was the classy one, she got a job with the psychic friends network and was on her way to tarot card reader in no time. Roxanne, the vamp of the neighborhood, began to work nights as a security guard, and Mio, the immigrant, started out in the mailroom on a business track. The singles house was a close cousin to a house I designed that was supposed to be incorporated into affordable track housing in farmersville, anyhow, the Singles advanced for some time until the next house was created. This was the Youngs-Vanrees household, and it housed three guys, Lucas, Ben, and Nick. They were loosely based on myself, my roommate, and my friend who set up a bed in my dining room for about a month. Jobs were selected based on our current jobs/fields. Lucas started out as a subway musician, Ben, a waiter, and Nick, a tour guide or something, (it was the extremem job field). The three of us, real life us, would gather around the computer and laugh about the similarities and differences our computer counterparts had with one another...also we designed their house to be a close replica of the one that we live in, so it was pretty funny. My roommate was addicted for a good week, he would stay up well into the night, trying to buy things that were more similar to what we had in the house.
For some reason or another, because I was bored with the Singles, and didn't want to screw up my roommates game with the YVR's, I invented the Van Jorgenson family. Sven and Denise were the parents, Ollie, Danielle and Daniel were the children, and uncle Bob was included just for some extra income. Now unfortunately, sims have no skills when they start out, this means that they constantly break stuff, but even worse, they start fires when they use the range. This happened to Sven when he was trying to cook dinner, luckily Denise was a quick thinker and hurried in with an extinguisher to put out the flame, unfortunately she was also a complete Tard and somehow lit herself on fire in the process. At this point I had not yet learned about fire alarms and burgalar alarms, so unfortunately, poor Denise burned to death. Her ashes were in the living room for some time, the family mourned for a few days, this got tiring so I moved her ashes into the yard, where they automatically turned into a gravestone, so that the family wouldn't constantly be reminded of her untimely agonizing death, well, they still wandered out back for a while to mourn, but I think I must have stapped them from mourning too early becasue Denise started haunting her family. She would literally scare the pee out of them, and that was a pain to clean up. I got tired of her haunting the place so I sold her Urn for ten bucks and she stopped coming around.
Sim children are mostly useless, just like real children. They watch TV, they can't cook for themselves, they leave messes all over the house, they can't take a shower without flooding the whole freakin bathroom, they don't bring in any income whatsoever, unless you count the 100 dollars their grandparents send them every once in a while for good grades, and they just get in the way generally. I was tempted to corral them in a fenced in area, or take off the door to their rooms while they were sleeping and let them starve to death. But then I relaized that the children are excellent to use for making friends. I can keep them up well into the night, since they don't have jobs that they have to be in a good mood for, I can send them off to school hungry and miserable, and it really won't affect the rest of the family. I mostly used the Jorgenson children for slave labor, that is, I make them clean up everything to save money on the maid, and for making frinds.
After I had moved the YVR family to better digs, and had both Betty and Bob movie in with the singles, I knocked over the Newbie house and built the Hawk House. Brian and elanor moved in with thier 20 something twin daughters Hallie and Holly along with Brians parents, Brians brother Hobart and his wife Gertha. Note the lack of children. This house was made to bring in the money, everyone, except for gandma and grandpa went to work, Grandma stayed home and did all the cooking, while grandpa stayed home to fix anything that got broke, and to make out with grandma, as well as to make friends with the neighbors. The thing about Grandpa is that he is kind of grumpy. Pretty much anytime grandma, or anyone else for that matter, initates converstaion with him, his reaction is negative, and he prefers to do stuff by himself...but he is quick about fixing stuff. The Hawk's brought in a lot of money quickly and were able to buy nicer things and soon amassed enough wealth to move into the big house on the hill. The jorgensons decided to move out of their house...since a glitch in the game was making the neighbors gather at the corner and pee themselves until they passed on..and moved into the old Hawk house. The roomies (another prefab family) moved into a rectangular shaped house and didn't progress much. and the singles continues to amass their wealth. Somehow Michael Bachelor got Hallie to move in with him and his wife, while the Goth family pretty made pretty much very little progress.

The Goth house.

Here is my post for Thursday June 9th 2005

WALNUT AVE

For a short period of time, my dad had ana apartment on Walunut ave. It was in a small two story complex where all of the units faced inwards towards a small grass courtyard. The complex was painted bright yellow. I remember there were other kids in the complex, but I don't remember their names. I had fun playing with them though. One day on of the kids put on a magic show for his/her family. I hid under the coffee table and no one knew I was underneath it. At the end of the "show" he/she commanded the table to levetate, and it did. I think the spectators were pretty shocked at first, but then after enough levetating I came out from underneath and everyone had a good laugh. I remember them being impressed at how long I was able to stay quiet under the coffee table.

I also remember that the place smelled sugary, and that my dad had kept sugar cones in one of the cupboards, and I was still small enough to have to climb up on top of the counter to get to them. No ice cream, just the cones, or maybe there was ice cream, but i couldnt get into the freezer for some reason, and it was most likely French Vanilla, which I did not care for. I must have over done it one time and it ruined it for many years after.

Is it a Wall or is it a NUT? No, it's a Wal-nut (copyright 1995 Wal-Mart Corporation of America)

EVANS

I lived at 936 W. Evans...sort of. The house, which has since been sold, belonged to my step-mother and so I lived there less than half the time. The house had a pool, which my friends and I used to enjoy all summer. My step-sister and her friends would often lay out, undoing their bikini straps while they subathed, while I and my friends played shark and minnow or marco polo, always watching them out of the corners of our eyes, always hoping to catch a glimpse of something, but which to my boyish dissapointment never quite materialized.

One or two times I arrived unnanouced at the place, during the summer, come to play computer games or wait for my friends to come over to swim, to find my step-mother (Sm) out back, topless, doing chores with her headset on, totally oblivious to me, well, the first time it happened we suprised each other, I don't know who was more embarrassed. The second time I managed to see her without her seeing me, so I just ducked back into the house and went to play games on my dad's computer with the music up pretty loud.

I remember when I was younger maybe 7 or eight, maybe ten, there was an incicent where somehow I got hold of my Sm's breast. After this event I was told that if I wanted to touch Sm's breast that I needed to ask first. Which I thought was strange, like I was going to go up to her and say " (L) can I fondle your breasts please?" It seems as ridiculous to me now as it did back then. What has always bothered me is that I know that I did not grope, grapple, or fondle her on purpose, I didn't even know that I had, if I did, which I must have, but even so, If I had, I think I would remember. Like the time T wouldn't let me go so as a last resort I reached out and gave her a good squeeze, which worked marvelously. Anyhow just for the record I never purposely touched Sm's breast, and I do not even remember accidentally doing so.

Anyhow, Evans always made me think of that guy on knight rider...No, not David Hasslehoff, the other guy.

Ok, so his name was Devon, but I remembered it being Evan, and so I associated it with Evans. and its my blog so nyeah! :)

WELDON

My current abode is on Weldon Ave. And I must say, I like it quite a bit. The house is mostly small, but the rooms that need to be bigger are. The bathrooms are miniscule, the kitchen requires strategic movements if more than one person is in it at once, but the bedrooms are both well sized, and the living room is livable. My favorite part of the propery is the rear yard. The yard is rather large for Fresno. There is a gnarly looking plum tree in the center separated from the rest of the yard with circular strip of concrete. It blooms in early spring and drops a thin carpet of white blossoms to the ground. To the left of the tree there is another area sectioned off by a concrete ribbon, which houses a small fountain. There is a plethera of vegetation along the fence of the property, and it seems that the plantstake turns blooming, allowing each other a time stand out, within the yard. Underneath the patio there is a small pond where I have deposited several goldfish. Above and around the pond ivy flourishes and creates a safe environment for hummingbirds to live and nest. Strings of "fairy" lights are strung across the patio rafters and there is an old picnic table where sometimes we sit and dine or drink. The patio is the perfect spot to relax or hang out and listen to the passing traffic, or more frequently, the Mariachi music that hops the fence to dance all over the yard.

Below is the GIS for weldon, The first result creeped me out so I perused the results and thought this one was fun. I hope you like it.

All Hail King and Queen Weldon!

BACKER

My stint as a resident of North Park apartments, on Backer (st. rd. ln. blvd.?) is the longest period of time I have lived anywhere on my own. I lived on the second floor of the complex, which has pretty much relieved me of the deisre to ever live in a two story house. When you move out of a 2nd story apartment into a second story apartment, you realize that carrying all of your belongings up and down a flight of stairs is very not fun.
The roommate my roommate R had before me was a student mechanic, and the walls in the room that I was moving into were a light shade of motor oil with a hint of axle grease...needless to say, i put my bed against a different wal...cleaning and scrubbing it made little difference and so I ended up covering it with a bookshelf.
The apartment was generally in poor shape. The shower had some serious water damage, it seemed like the tiles were about ready to fall off of the walls. The carpets were as old as the building, and the stove in the kitchen was avacado green. At least the linoleum was new...unfortunately there was a slight mishap involving a t-shirt and a hot sheet of cookes that caused damage to the linoleum. Other than that life was fairly tame on Backer.
I did a GIS for backer and the picture below was my favorite result of that search. I think I like the guys steamboat hat, it says to me "come ride the steamboat!" that is all.

State Representative Terry Backer, Assistant Majority Leader, Stratford CT

BULLDOG LANE

I have lived at two addresses on Bulldog lane. After I moved out of the dorms after my senior year, right before my super-senior year, I found a cheap, small studio at the east end of the street. Now, the east end of the street is the "Ghetto" side of the street, and apparently there was a lot of drug activity there, and I think there was at least one night with strange people screaming in the night. The funniest thing that I remember was that on my first night sleeping there, I woke up in the middle of the night, unsure of my surrounding, I turned slightly and saw something move out of the corner of my eye, it scared the kim-che out of me and I jerked up in bed and when I jerked up in bed the other thing moved sharply too, It was at that moment that I realized I was seeing my own reflection in the mirrored closets. I laughed nervously to myself and talked myself into going back to sleep. I was still a little creeped out.

After six months I moved down the street to another apartment complex, to a second floor apartment. One morning while I was cutting something in the kitchen I looked up to see someone jump up on the balcony, to steal my roommates bicycle...I walked up to the patio door and argued with the guy to go away, he wanted me to let him out my front door, I told him to get down the way he came up, I wasn't having any, he finally left. I wonder how daunting I looked holding that kitchen knife, wearing my boxers, yeah, real tough.

Bulldog pups aka Bullpups

BIRDLAND

If someone were emotionaly on a level between elated and ecstatic, are they elastic??

So, I grew up in a part of town the Nortenos (i don't know how to make an enye or umlao) liked to call "El Lando de Bird-o" which when translated into Enlgish means "The Place where those of avian ancestry reside" which has been shortened over the years to be known as "The land of birds" or as some say "Birdland" Growing up in birdland was kind of fun. Where else in town were the roads themes, I mean, there were some dumb parts of town where the names were just all jumbled together, like Cambridge, Princton, Vassar, Harvard, and several other meaningless made up names. In Birdland we had streets that were named after Birds, like Oriole, Wren, Robin, Giddings, Lark, Dove, Quail, and Divisadero. My favorite of all the streets in Birdland is and was my very own street, Canary. I liked the Canary because it was bright yellow, and people seem to like the song of a canary much better then those of the other birds, especially those warbling birds, like the Northern two fisted redbellied Warbler of San Antonio. The funny thing, or at least funny to me, is how many people spelled it or pronunciated it incorrectly. Several people, mainly the people who answer phones at the local pizza delivery place, said "Cannery"... Actually I guess it isn't really that funny after all... So anyway, I posted a picture of a Canary for you to look at.

The street I grew up on was associated with this bird...well not this bird in particular, but with its species, or order, or phylum or whatever!

IT'S RAINING IT'S POURING

Thats right kids, its raining like lions and pandas outside. I don't remember it raining so hard since I was in sixth grade and over at my friend J's house. His dog ran off in the middle of the rain and we had to go find her....ohhh its thundering outside...ok, anyhow i remember it came down incredibly hard, I stuck my head under the rain gutter spout, but it didn't matter because it was raining just as hard. I remember B's streed used to flood, one time I ran over a gutter grate that I didn't know was there and it knocked me over and I jumped off the bike into a good foot of water. Then there was the time I was riding my bike in "THE HOLE" which was one of those water runoff ponds, after a rain and didnt realize my brakes were completely engulfed in mud, which made them work not so well, which I discovered while zooming downhill towards the large pond area. I managed to stop before the pond, but fell over into some realy good mud. It felt absolutely disgusting. But I had a good laugh at myself and hosed off at home. Ah, the rain. The water is starting to come up the pathway now, I am sure we will be getting some calls about roof leaks in the next couple days. ok, take off aye. ya hosers.

Note the lack of the curb, the water is curb level all the way across the street.

A MAN, A PLAN, A CANAL. PANAMA!

Hello everybody. Sorry that I have not blogged much in the last couple weeks. Work has been keeping me busy, and not much has been going on. I finished up a book by Wendell Berry called The Memory of Old Jack, and started The Centaur...which I don't quite get yet, but I am only two chapters into it as of yet. So far it seems like all of the gods of Mt. Olympus have come down and entered the teaching profession. Zeus is the principal, Venus is the PE teacher...The centaur Chiron, teaches science.

So the other week I had a party and invited my entire class. When I got home from school that day I was a bit suprised to find a rooster (below) running around the backyard...I really didn't feel like having a rooster at my party so I went next door and asked if they had a rooster, they said "yes" and I told them it was in my backyard. So my neighbor A came and got it. We cornered it, in the corner, and it jumped up on the fence and was threatening to jump over, which would have been bad news as the people behind me have large rooster eating dogs, but I ran a distraction white A snuck up beneath out fine feathered friend and captured him without further incident. The party was a little bit of a dissapointment, as only one of my classmates and her husband, showed up but they were really quite fun, and my roommate invited a couple people over and we ended up having a decent time. Still trying to get rid of about 10 gallons of beer though. Drop by for a pint will ya?

Yeah, here comes the rooster, you know he aint gonna die