Quoting Roseanne Roseannadanna.

I forgot that her first name was Roseanne,  but we’re talking ancient TV history here,  so cut me some slack.

 

And what I mean is,  “It’s always something.”

Took a couple pics this morning,  went to load them onto the ‘puter,  and it ended up taking me a fair chunk of time to get that sorted out.  Gah!

My “trial version” of the virus/malware/trojan protecting thingy had expired,  and I had been too lazy to go out to the net to find a replacement,  and that was the price I paid.   Not monetarily mind you,  just in aggravation. 

Seems that my SD card reader was being stubborn,  and it turns out it was indeed “something”.   I didn’t bother to take a screen shot of whatever little bugger it was,  but we punted it out.   Kind of like a computer enema.   Clean as a whistle.

 

OK,  let’s quickly move on to another image.

 

This was something that I would have preferred to have been doing yesterday,  but instead we went to a “Meet and Greet”.   That’s a back handed kind of term for a “Baby Shower”.   And I don’t “do” baby showers.

But,  since I had been made aware of the fact that other gentlemen would be there,  I figured I’d best take one for the team.

It was fine.  Really.

I didn’t do any “cooing”  or “oohing” or “aahing” when the presents were opened.  Nonetheless,  I was cordial,  had my one alcoholic beverage,  mandatory piece of cake,  and a that was that.   There were a couple individuals there that I had decided many years ago that I had little use for,  but like I said,  I was cordial.   (read:  if you can’t say anything nice,  say nothing.)

 

Having given a description of my demeanour,  I have to say that,  I was at least more enthusiastic than this guy:

Don’t know who they were.  Friends of friends,  or someone’s relatives.  I’ll never see them again.  But seriously?   Dude!  Lighten up a bit! At least pretend you’re interested.  Or go outside and hang out with the smokers.

 

Here’s another observation.  I notice that younger married couples do tend to think that they should be seated together at these types of ordeals er, gatherings.   Have you ever noticed that?  Oh, and Gawd help me if they start to get “schmoopy”.   You know,  holding hands and cooing and shit?

“Look everyone,  we’re a couple”.

Um ya.  Feck off.

See,  T.C. and I are quite content to leave each other alone in these situations.  I mean,  sometimes there’s the “post gathering debriefing” if I’ve said or done something perceived to be dumb.  But if I’m off on my own,  chances are we can avoid that scenario. 

So,  she can hold the baby,  and I’ll go off with the chaps,  quaff a beer,  and maybe talk about trailering horses.   Not that I know that much about trailering horses, other than they’re heavy and you need good brakes.  That’s pretty much the extent of my knowledge on the subject.

Don’t worry,  we’re not buying a horse.  So I won’t need to study up.

 

I thought there was a point to all this,  but after it took me so long to upload those photos,  I’ve kind of drawn a blank.

Oh right.  There was that thing about it being just that much warmer today. It’s *almost* shirt sleeve weather.  Of course,  that’s a subjective term,  so I suppose I could say it’s supposed to go up to 12°C.  You can do your own conversion.

So I decided to take “New and Shiny” out for a spin.  It’s no stretch that there were one or two things to pick up at the grocery store,  and I did have to stop in at the bank.

For those of you who haven’t exactly been around since 2009 when we bought our bikes,  I’m referring to the bike there in the shed.

It’s a proper Dutch bike.

What that means in a practical sense is,  you just get on it and ride.  The tires stay inflated and basically the thing is built to outlast me.  It doesn’t rust.  The hubs don’t dry out.  The brakes are fine.  I’ll stop now.

The funny thing is,  in the Netherlands I rode a bike year ‘round.   And that was sometimes in below freezing temperatures.  So that whole “Oh, we can’t ride our bikes because we get winter” argument goes right out the window.   As a matter of fact,  if you’re walking instead of riding a bike,  it’s almost as if you’re out of place.  Everyone rides.

Here though?  Anyone riding a bike in the wintertime is looked upon as some kind of kook.  In addition to which, our roads are really crappy.   So the bike stayed in the shed for the winter.  

Don’t get me started on the City of Burlington’s take on “Bike Infrastructure”.   They painted some “Sharrows”  on some roadways and declared that a successful campaign.  

A waste of perfectly good paint as far as I’m concerned.

 

 

These things. ↧

Those be “Sharrows”.   I know, it was a new word for me too.

I just shake my head.

 

See the oncoming transport truck there?  What if he’s on the phone?  You’re dead meat.

 

Nobody has the political balls to do anything about the worsening traffic and crappy public transit,  and I’m certainly not going to try and win any arguments. 

 

What’s that expression?  “You can’t fix stupid”?

 

 

Slipping into a rant here,  so let’s call it a day.  Hope you’re enjoying yours.

 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

 

.