Sir Grump Munch

October 15, 2007

Now Broadcasting From My 30s

Shee-it, just when I thought I had set the high-water mark for time between updates, I go and break it again. I'm lazy like that. But things have been well with me, I had an outstanding birthday in August, thanks in large part to my darling lady Lindsay, who expended much effort in planning a fantastic evening and made me the best birthday cake ever. Other birthday gems were a surprise e-mail from long-lost Eric Ogaz (who I am so delighted to be back in touch with), a rare vintage Misfits T-shirt from LizS, a vegan BBQ party at Rene's house in Chicago, and a cast-iron skillet from Vanessa.

In August I also rented a truck with Meredith and drove down to the Hill on Wheels scooter rally in Chattanooga, that was a great weekend (though a hot bastard!) and good times in one of the prettiest settings around. Great, long ride on Saturday and a cruise on the river at nighttime. Next year Amerivespa will be held there and you bet your ass I'll be back for that. Good people down in those hills.

At the end of August I spent a week in Chicago, visiting and working (love the laptop for that), and I spent some quality time with Aunt Lottie, some scooter friends, some vegan friends, and Lindsay, who was in town gathering signatures to keep the ban on foie gras. It was a great visit, rode my Stella there and back which just about killed it (developed a nasty "piston slap" on the ride up and I had a hellride on the way home, including running out of gas on a 90+ degree day in the shadeless middle of nowhere, Indiana.) But I made it home somehow and am stronger for having gone, or something. I have decided that I'm buying an older Japanese motorcycle (70s, most likely) for doing those trips though, it's no fun at all riding through 10+ hours of Indiana on a hot day...or hell, on any type of day. I just want to get there and get back as quickly as possible. So I think I've got a line on a cool Yamaha XS650 from one of the local scooter guys here, he used to race them and can build one to suit my needs, for pretty cheap.

After less than a week's rest, Lindsay and I were back on the road, this time to Michigan, where we spent 4-5 days dividing our time between her family and mine (she's got relatives near Grand Rapids and Detroit). I really enjoyed meeting her dad and sister for the first time and got the "full immersion" experience at a family picnic around Labor Day, all good people. And she did very well in dealing with my clan, so neither of us have been scared-off yet (which is good!).

Shit if I can remember much of what happened in September, but our little Louisville scooter community website continues to grow, it's a nice little group we've got and new people continue to come out of the woodwork. Other than that, I've been spending a lot of quality time with Lindsay, we are really in love and that's a pretty amazing thing for me to say. We seem to enjoy doing just about everything together, cooking, reading, exercising, traveling, you name it. I'm so tickled to have her in my life and hope that we can continue on this blissful path. I've joined the YMCA (she was already a member), trying to get into good shape and put a little more muscle on these bones. We've had a few more good anti-KFC demos and vegan BBQs, and I'll be traveling up to Anchorage, Alaska with her for a couple days in November, looking forward to that (we're flying of course)!

In October news, the finest time of year is upon us now as the leaves turn colors, descend and scatter into piles and the air is cool and fragrant with this change. The temperature is often "just right," making for very pleasant time outdoors or indoors with the windows thrown open. Draplin's birthday is today, what an awesome time of year to have a birthday. Happy 34th, Boss; you're a constant source of inspiration.

Also, my thoughts have turned more to the political of late, I've sat by and hated the current administration for a long time, but don't feel that I've been proactive enough in 1) screaming for impeachment for both of those fucking warmongering liars, and 2) fighting for equal coverage of a better candidate than the milktoast mainstream offerings of Hillary and Obama. As much as I'd love to see a woman in office, Hillary is not the one, she's barely even a Democrat. About as inspiring as horse's ass John Kerry; no vision, no real shakeup, just "marginally less awful than Bush," which isn't too hard to do. Obama would be better than Hillary, but is still nowhere near my ideal candidate.

So I've decided to throw my weight behind Dennis Kucinich, a man who embodies what the Democrats used to be before they were all pandering corporate pawns. I think the two-party system is a JOKE and should be thrown out along with the baby, the bathwater, rigged electronic voting machines and the Electoral College...Kucinich is an inspiration, as Ralph Nader was in 2000 (and I'm proud to have voted for him). I urge you to read Kucinich's story and learn about where he stands on the issues, it's a refreshingly radical (but not really "radical," just in context of the Republicrat status quo) perspective.

To this end, I've started working on some graphics in support of his campaign, you can see a few of them here: Kucinich on Flickr and I've also set up a little "Kucinich shop" on Cafepress where you can buy some of this propaganda for your bedroom, bathroom, boudoir, or whatever. Cafepress is not a great solution, too much garbage on there diluting the good stuff and they charge way too much for it, the base prices of the items are as high as the retail should be (or higher), so if you want to make any profit you have to mark it up from there. I've been pretty modest about this, doing a slight markup with the plan of donating any proceeds to the Kucinich campaign...though as it is, I've already donated well over $1,000 of my time to doing these graphics. :) Let me know if there are any particular slogans/products you'd like to see, I may get the screenprinting supplies out and make up some "real" bumper stickers to share with friends and likeminded folks. Go Kucinich!

Posted by pj at October 15, 2007 03:02 PM