Rocky Hillside

Image from "A Honeymoon to Remember" by Erin Arnold Barkley and Sam Barkley.

More from Paul Fattaruso's Bicycle:

We arrive at an intricate crossroads. I hand the compass over to the bicycle.

PrideFest Denver

Following up on our amazingly successful Bloomsday entertainment recommendation, here's our super official recommendations for spending this weekend in Denver.

All bikeable. All local. Mostly free or cheap.

• Critical Mass is Friday - Seal Fountain Pool in Civic Center Park.
• “The Play’s the Thing” New Play Festival - Free readings of new plays at 7PM Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. The theatre is located at 2180 Stout Street (Stout Street and 22nd Street), next to the Mercury Cafe.
• Cherry Blossom Festival - Dancing, drumming, ikebana and bonsai lectures, and food. There's even a Spam sushi demonstration. Saturday evening, if this year is like earlier years, there's dancing under the lanterns. Many of the dancers wear lovely kimonos. Between Lawrence and Larimer, and 19th and 20th - Sakura Square.
• Starz Film Center - Maybe it's because the Denver French Film Festival is on. Maybe it's a reinvigorated Denver Film Society. Whatever it is, Starz is showing a bunch of intriguing films this weekend. This costs cash, but the Film Society needs it.
• Volunteer to park bikes at PrideFest - BikeDenver needs volunteers. Always more fun to be involved. And even for straight folk PrideFest is a hoot.
• Cowtown Comix Fest - Saturday 1-5 at Tattered Downtown. That's at 1628 16th St (16th & Wynkoop) Downtown Denver. "Meet Denver comics creators that are making unusual, personal, artistic, and/or literary comics outside the mainstream, view their work, and hear them talk." Free.
• The Denver PrideFest Parade - If there's a better Denver parade to watch, we don't know what it is. Sunday, starts at Cheesman at 9:30 AM and then proceeds to the Civic Center.
• La Popular tamales - for a people-watching picnic at Civic Center or at Confluence.

Image by darren webb. Some rights reserved.

When the kids were young, most weekend mornings, I schlepped them out the door early for donuts and a hike or a visit someplace. (Gerty likes to sleep in on weekend mornings.) As the kids grew up, there were games, piano lessons, and birthday parties. Barring a work crisis, I generally drove them here and there and enjoyed standing on the sidelines or drinking coffee until they needed another ride.

The kids are older now. They have wandered off, plan their own days, or enjoy joining Gerty in sleeping until noon. And, I haven't adjusted. I spend too many weekends rattling around waiting to play with children who aren't usually terribly interested in playing with me.

It's odd (and troubling) that it has taken me so long to realize what's going on.

Since I have caught on, I have noticed how many other people spend their time waiting for things that are rare, or at least a long way off. My father waits for his children to visit and for a sickness to carry him off. A friend waits for Sunday and Monday football. Gerty waits for me to retire so we can travel together. Another friend waits for the next big movie release.

• Fake 3D crater designed to slow down London cyclists - seems a creative and amusing way to handle the problem. It's certainly better than speed bumps.
• Environmentalists baffled by Obama's strategy - Hmmmm. Wasn't his appointment of Salazar for Interior sort of a clue?
• Erin and Sam's wonderful story continues - Scroll down for some incredible pictures.
• I was recently introduced to someone who, learning of my interest in cycling, proceeded to rant about how awful her steel-framed, 24-speed Bianchi touring bike is for commuting. She can't wait until her new carbon fiber bike comes in. Made me think of this.
• The Art of the Bicycle is the current exhibition at the curiously-named ArtCentre of Plano. (That's Plano, Texas. If you are trapped there, you might want to look up the Plano Bicycle Association.

• I confess I, too, have forgotten that crucial last step:

  Yesterday I did a quick, successful lunch hour tire change to the non-studded fat-enough tire (since the one from the original Xtra wanted to pop off the rim ’cause it was too skinny), and accidentally noticed the word “rotation” stamped into it… but still actually installed it backwards.  So I deflated and rotated and stuck it back on inless than four minutes (!?!? )  … and came out at 5:00 and the thing was flat.  Methinks, tho’, that I sort of forgot thatlast step of, um, inflating it, since I pumped it up and it’s been peachy since. 

Image by Dustin DeKoekkoek. Some rights reserved.

I am speechless. Drunk, speeding, killer. Thirty fucking days?

From AP:

Cleveland Browns wide receiver Donte' Stallworth began serving a 30-day jail sentence Tuesday for killing a pedestrian while driving drunk in Florida,

From the Cleveland Browns:

A statement from General Manager George Kokinis: "The Browns are very conscious of the seriousness of the charges to which Donte' Stallworth plead guilty to today. We are continuing to evaluate the situation and will make the decisions that we believe are in the best interest of the Cleveland Browns."

That's the problem. What's best for the Cleveland Browns. How about the rest of us? How about the rest of society? What an immoral shit.

Stallworth, prosecutor Miami-Dade State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dennis Murphy, and the Cleveland Browns - absolute assholes.

What could they possibly, possibly be thinking. Are they human?

. . . I think I'm slowly, surely, turning into Yehuda. . . .

-- baudman

Thanks Rick!

Image by jenni ripley. Some rights reserved.

I asked him with my eyes to ask again yes and then he asked me would I yes to say yes my mountain flower and first I put my arms around him yes and drew him down to me so he could feel my breasts all perfume yes and his heart was going like mad and yes I said yes I will Yes.

Official Rocky Hillside Bloomsday celebration suggestions:

• Have someone you like murmur the above passage in your ear.
• Imagine Marilyn reading the lines above. (The passage above is at very end of the Ulysses. Looks as if Marilyn's reading them in the photo!)

• Hop on tonight's special Bike Denver ride.

  The ride leaves from Thatcher Fountain in City Park at 6PM, passes through the Botanic Gardens - garden, bloom, Leopold Bloom, Ulysses (get it?) - and heads down to Wash Park for a free picnic (and a New Belgium beer.) Afterwards stop for a Guinness here (on the way back) or here (if you stop at Wash Park) or here (if your way back is south) or there (if you're a Nobel Prize winner or one isn't enough.)

I saw one of these yesterday. Took me a while to figure out what it was. It's an electric-powered, smaller than a Smart, American Electric Kurrent

American Electric's website copy is a kick. Above a banner that says "The Anti-Muscle Car," the website makes this pitch:

[Q]uirky Kurrent is practically a moving billboard that says, One Very Interesting Person Owns This.

And then there's the list of standard features:

STANDARD FEATURES: Unlike other neighborhood vehicles, Kurrent comes standard with doors, a windshield, windshield wipers and a roof.

A windshield AND a roof.