It's Monday evening for at least another 40 minutes or so... I've been out riding with Paul the last 3 days... Saturday I was a little sunburned on my forehead. Sunday I just hurt on my face and my neck and shoulders are somewhat uncomfortable. Shock and surprise to anyone who knows me I decided to wear a helmet this evening to prevent any further pain from sun exposure on my face... I have enjoyed just getting out and riding. Tonight we decided to take the "old Glenrock Highway" to Wyoming Highway 94 and in turn to Wyoming Highway 93 into Douglas followed by Interstate 25 back to Casper. Just over 100 miles but a hell of a lot better than sitting around doing nothing. It's Highway 93 that brings the blog out in me tonight!
Let's start with the fact that it wasn't all that long ago when I thought it impossible for a vehicle to hit a bird while driving down the road. That changed one day when I was driving from Moab to Cortez and happened to hit a bird in a big-ass conversion van that I was driving at the time. Given the size of the vehicle and the amount of driving I can accept the probability of the van and a bird trying to occupy the same space at the same time. After all, life is just one probability after another, right?... Fast forward too this spring and me watching "Wild Hogs" (good movie if you want to watch it)... I'm pretty sure in the previews you see a couple characters all bug splattered followed by John Travolta's character running into a bird... I was still of the opinion that the probability just wasn't there for this to actually happen... You know movies doing things that don't really happen in life anyway...
We stopped at the junction of Highway 94 and Highway 93 for a few minutes to rest. Needing "rest" on a motorcycle is only going to make sense to someone who has done any amount of distance on a motorcycle. For some reason it really wears on you...I take the lead and head into Douglas on Highway 93. I wouldn't give myself more than 6 mile down the road when a bird swoops down in front of me and hits my helmet. Look back and see it hit the ground, presumably dead... OK... Back to odds... Eventually my helmet and a bird are going to try and occupy the same space at the same time... I accept that... Within 5 minutes another bird smacks into the front tire of the bike (what are the odds) and gets thrown to the ground behind me. At this point I'm pretty much freaked out that I have just tried occupying the same space as 2 birds over a period of 5 minutes. The odds really can't be that high for that scenario...
We get to Douglas and I have to stop to verify with Paul what really happened... We agree that one bird hit my helmet and that we weren't sure what happened to the second until inspection of the bike... Feathers all over the tire pretty much suggested that the second bird hit there... After admiring the BMW for a few minutes we decided to get back on the road and head back to Casper... We both agree that hitting 1 bird, let alone 2, was just really freaky!
About 10 miles out of Douglas Paul had taken the lead and was headed up a hill. At first I figured his bike was geared too high and so the loss of power up an insignificant hill didn't really mean anything, after all he is riding a Harley... Of course it is going to break! So there we were on the side of Interstate 25 fixing his air filter... Neither one of us heard the Highway patrol guy till he talked... Highway patrol agreed without actually saying that the only reason we were having a problem was the name on the bike... "Harley"... He checked to make sure we didn't need any help and waited in his cruiser till we were back on the road. kudos for WHP!!!
Paul and I continue down I-25 and get off at the first Glenrock exit to take the old Highway back to Casper from there... Having safely made it through Glenrock and down to about 14 miles to go back to Casper we have incident number 3 happen. I was once again in the lead and had a bird swoop down right in front of my helmet. I didn't hear a hit nor did I see the bird meet the ground behind me so I'm going to call that one a miss... Paul was for sure that it had flown into me...
There we have it... 2 confirmed kills and 1 near miss all contained in one 100 mile trip... I have over 3700 miles on the bike since March 22 of this year... Really now, what are the odds???

Anyone desperate enough to:
1) check back on here to see if I have actually added anything, and
2) have absolutely nothing better to do with their time...

You may or may not poses the knowledge that I work for a communications company. At some point in my pathetic "college" days I took a communications course (it was one of those pesky general requirements.) As hard as I try to avoid it, I communicate on a daily basis. With all this, I'd qualify myself as "knowledgeable" on things that are communication.
From the aforementioned college class I seem to recall that the number one problem in communication is that what is said is not necessarily what is heard. That didn't take long to wrap my head around at the time and it still doesn't... If you need an example of that than here we go:

      Imagine a red wooden box

What you imagined is in no way what I meant... I'm sitting here thinking of a box that is about 6 inches wide, 4 inches tall and 9 inches long. (Trig rule states that all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares.) I also imagine it with an open top (only 5 sides) and made of pine... The point of all this is that if I wanted you to know exactly what I was thinking I should explain it in detail if I actually expect you to be on the same page. However, as with the majority of any conversation we give an abbreviated description and hope for the best without giving it any other thought. On to what this relates to...

I had longish hair to start out my day today... I'm lazy, long hair facilitates me doing nothing with my hair. I will deny no ones opinion that I look better with short hair as I totally agree with that assessment. The long hair also happened to be doing this mullet kind of jig on my head so I went to see about getting that situation remedied... I sit in the chair, grab the hair at my neck and tell the stylist that I need that much hair cut off. Previous encounters with this stylist have gone along the lines of, "you only have long hair when you come to see me. When are you going to cut it short?" Well, maybe I mentioned that I'm lazy... So she agrees that she needs to cut about 2 inches off. I trust the stylist that I'm going too, otherwise I wouldn't go... Don't tell a cook how to cook... blah blah blah... She goes ahead and sprays water on my head I assume to make the hair slightly more manageable. What she does next is grab the hair dead center on top of my head and cuts 2 inches off the top.
I'm not patient. My laziness facilitates the long hair as long as there is a way to keep it out of my way on a daily basis. As I've come into the summer months, I don't particularly like wearing a hat while working as it makes me hot. What I had been doing for the last month is pulling my hair back to a semi ponytail. That is to say that most people think I look like a samurai for some reason or another as it is only the hair on the top of my head that I pull back and the pony tail is at the top and back side of my head. 2 inches less length would eliminate my ability to perform this little trick and I may have mentioned that wearing hats in the summer tend to make me hot.
Having watched 2 inches of length vanish I watched her proceed to cut another section down by 2 inches. It was at this point that I instructed her that I was going to have short hair today and that she should just go ahead and cut it the same length as jack's hair. Hair stylists have always thought I am joking when I tell them this... My usual approach to getting rid of my long hair is just to go bald. Some might think that no hair is even less work than long hair but they would be horribly mistaken and they probably have no idea what a cowlick is...
I started the day off with long hair...

Please pay very little attention to the asymetric aspects of the two tubbs...

Right side tubb is tacked in place...

Left side is now underway...

This is pretty much where it sits... THANKS TO THOSE WHO FUCKED MY SHIT UP SO THAT I CAN EMBARK UPON THIS!!!

Smoking is apparently the rule and not the acception up here. I'm constantly surrounded by the foul stench. I may have to look into renting a house up here if I ever plan on getting any distance from it. I have completely taken for granite the Clean Air Acts that have protected me thus far. Also this being my first apartment experience, I don't ever want to do this again.
I was trying to motivate myself to go Mtn. Biking again this morning, but bed seemed like such a nice place that I didn't want to leave it. Maybe I'll go tomorrow...