Tag: Santa-like body fat

I can feel Spring coming… and then my bike broke.

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

I have a neighbor with a rose blossom tree that is the first bloomer of spring. We can see it from our breakfast nook and the kitchen window. The second I see the small red buds starting to show, I know that spring is on its way. Petals are now covering a small patch of ground on my side of the fence and the ornamental cheery trees in the neighborhood blooming. Now is the time to peel myself from my winter sloth and get to the gym, run, and ride my bike. I took my wet-weather commuter-bike down from the rafters in the shop, blew off the sawdust and immediately saw that my head tube was cracked. Son of a…. No idea how it happened. No crashes or huge drops that I know of. It is an aluminum frame, so if cracked it is unrideable. When steel fails it is gradual and you have some warning. When aluminum goes, there is no warning. One just finds him or her self in a bloody and broken pile on the street.

The bike is my Winter/wet-weather commuter, but due to my only laziness, it has only see the road twice since last fall. I have some other bikes, but finding the crack was a a blow to the momentum I was building to finally get off my ass. I took it into a local shop where I know and like the owner and explained the issue. Specialized has a lifetime warranty and he called his rep and I will have a new frame in a few days. I will then spend some time in the basement tearing the old bike down and rebuilding on the new frame. I am sure that I will obsess over some minor detail that will cost me days and some amount of cash.

Back when my daughter wore ribbons in her hair.

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

My daughter, LOL, recently turned 18. Eighteen should a magic birthday and I am sure it is for her. For me though it is a milestone in her life (and my own) that is fraught with a goulash of emotions. She will graduate from high school this year – very proud of her, is looking into colleges, before long will find a career, a mate, buy a house, procreate… In addition to the elation of seeing my child flower into an adult, all of the changes make me feel very old all of a sudden. She should still be in pretty little dresses, running around in the grass with matching ribbons in her pig tails. Her days should be filled with snacks, naps and cartoons and I should be skinny and have all my hair. Where has all the time gone?

What I Want Thursday – 8/2/2012

/ Matt Talley / 1 Comment

Below are the things that I find are present for me today:

1. More time with my children.

2. I want to stick to my new diet and workout schedule and not fall off the wagon and back into the cookie/café Mocha/lethargic/big-belly abyss.

3. For my wife to finish some long ago promised sewing tasks for me.

4. More book shelf space at home. We read more and more on our kindles and have sold many, if not most, of the paperbacks that have filled our lives for years and we are still completely out of space for our books. There are stacks on the floor in both of our home offices, to-read piles on each night-stand, fiction and history filing the living room book case, literature lined up on the basement hutch, cookbooks on the bottom shelf of the china hutch, and single volumes littered across the normally unoccupied spaces of our small home. We more shelves, not less books!

5. A finished kitchen

6. Painted lawn furniture

7. Filson Medium Travel bag. My son and I went to the Filson factory store and I fell into love/lust over this piece of luggage. I know that sounds weird, but I fly a LOT – I am a Platinum SkyTeam frequent flier member and a Gold OneWorld member. Quality, attractive, roomy, useful luggage is a necessity.

8. A cigarbox electric Ukulele for playing blues with a slide.

9. A proper car camping/glamping kitchen set up.

10. A few books: Passions:The Wines and Travels of Thomas Jefferson; The Lodge Cast Iron Cookbook; Paris Between the Wars 1919-1939: Art, Life & Culture; Ernest Hemmingway bio and a two books of his letters (1&2), etc…

11. A Truck bed full of wooden wine/port crates/boxes for a couple of open projects at home.

12. To give Heifer International a menagerie of animals. That is my charity goal for the year. I want to save, gather, raise, find as much cash as possible to give to Heifer International by the end of 2012 for the purchase of bees, goats, cows, water buffalo, chickens, trees, training and hope. It will provide animals and knowledge that will change lives for the good. I will add a link or a tab on my front page to a fund status page/counter and update it as the gift grows.

Rock Climbing with the Lads

/ Matt Talley / 2 Comments

This May saw the 2012 Orthopedic Big-Belly Hillbilly Climbing & Beer Drinking Association Cragfest. It was held at Smith Rock, OR and in Mt. Shasta City, CA. This was the 9th sort of-annual gathering in the last 13 years for our little band of over-educated, misshaped, crippled, wannabe climbers, profound thinkers and powerful drinkers. We spent a long week climbing, eating & drinking hopped beverages (I gained 6lbs!!), there were murderous 6-8 mile hikes up to crags, some nudity, 5 snake sightings (one reptile death), no broken bones, some quality routes climbed, limited blood loss, heavy rocks snuck into packs, laughter, video games, gas, Squid Billies, more laughter, and quality time spent catching up on each others’ lives…. A fine week off with buddies and away from the J-O-B.

This year’s cast of characters included:

Taint: A native son of Southern California. Strong climber, but easily confused by tri-cams and large hexes. A world traveler and new father who needs 11 hours of sleep a night to function and has absolutely no short term memory – none. An easy target for pranks and very poor at retaliation. Had to cancel his participation on an OBBHC&BDA trip two years ago because he had 2nd degree burns on the soles of his feet after helping with/leading a fire walking “class.”

Dr. Strippy-Socks: A writing, climbing, painting, fiddlin’, designing, and docterin’ polymath who was gracious enough to open his mountain home up to our little band of miscreants. A man who has an amazingly talented and giving spouse that allows him out of the house in polyester shirts, a visor, short-shorts, tall socks and sandals. This in an individual who in the course of a conversation will quote bolt torque specs, reference an obscure Ska band, outline the ideology of specific band of Orcs, and review the symptoms for early onset CHF in middle aged men.

The Bridesmaid Whisper: A bright, smart, medical resident with a dry sense of humor that borders the Sahara. The strongest climber of the trip, a man who developed the definitive definition of a #2 Pencil and made me tinkle myself a little while laughing hysterically in my sleeping bag. He is a man that can walk into a wedding reception and in short order has to wade through a throng of drunken bridesmaids who need his body like the Pope needs Jesus.

Smooth&Boney: Is a man who can sit on the couch for years, then walk outside and send a 5.12 sport route. Any mention of Jessica Alba will send him into smiling, wild-eyed fits of joy, followed by some alone time. Poor at hiking with a pack and once cried when his belayer tooted on him a little, has gear that predates Columbus, his favorite outdoor technical fabric is jean denim, and is the father to three adorable girls – the middle one loves me more than her uncle Rosy! When not climbing or wading through the estrogen that fills his life, he is a Designer/Engineer/Manager for the snazziest tool corporations in the world, but has yet to pass any cool shinny metal stuff on to his friends.

The Lawn Enforcement Officer: Father to two pale yet happy children and husband to a wife he doesn’t deserve: a mix of Betty Crocker/Belladonna/Ellen Page. I am the short, fat, balding, yard-obsessed, hairy, practical joking chronicler of this tale who now lives in Seattle in a 1928 house that is forever under reconstruction. The winner of The Deep Belly Button Award this year – A prize given to the fattest climber in the group for a given year.

Not-A-Biker: A great climber, brother to Smooth&Boney, and a generous friend who looks more like his father with the passing of each day. A man about to embark on an odyssey that will take him and his sweet southern, gvn-toting bride into the wilds of Philadelphia for a 3 to 29 year medical residency. He is someone who will freely give prostate exams to his friends (perfect strangers too…), has a questionable web search history, and who should never be allowed to even sit on a motorcycle. Was pantsed (sic) this year in full view of the entire group.

Missing this year was THE Mark Flood. Mark is the only man that Chuck Norris masturbates to. He is the strongest climber and hiker that any of us know, a gifted engineer, a good natured friend and drinking companion, and one of the toughest people you will ever meet. I have seen him drink from green stagnate pools one the sides of cliffs without any intestinal backlash and there have been things that have gone into his belly that would make a billie goat puke.

He has become a whispered legend in some circles after snatching falling climbers out of the air – mid fall – and saving them from a quick brutal death – truth. To punctuate the description/picture of Mr. Flood: He couldn’t join us this year because while hiking out of what was surely an epic day of climbing, he fell on the steep trail and a piece of iron rebar was shoved into his knee joint!! He tied a hankie around it and finished the walk out… His presence was duly missed this year and we all pray that he will be there for the next gathering to keep us all honest and safe.

So long 2011, don’t let the door hit you in the @ss…

/ Matt Talley / Leave a comment

2011 was a hard year for us, like it has been for so many Americans, on a number of levels: I was gone constantly for work – over 100,000 air miles, we had some serious medical bills, there was money spent to help some good people out of a bind, some unexpected home repairs, a layoff, taxes, etc…  I also chose 2011 to really work on my weight: putting it on, not taking it off.  I just stopped running, biking and lifting for the last half of the year.  I blame it on many factors: my work schedule, stress, an injury, laziness, apathy…

As I stand in my birthday suit in front of the mirror, I have done a fine job turning myself into a bald Troll doll.  As I had to promise my wife that I would go out without pants anymore (long story), I doubt that anyone will see me in this state, but I KNOW.  When dressed for working outside on the weekend, I look remarkably similar to a fvcking garden gnome.  I am not happy about this state of affairs!  My New Year’s resolution is to rid myself of this baggage by summer.  This is also the year that I would like to spend less on shit the I want and truly determine the things that I need before my debit card comes whipping out.  I WILL finish all my current cabinet projects, rub my wife’s feet more – it makes her happy. Eat MUCH less sugar, have a prosperous garden and mini-orchard this year. On the literature front, I am planning to put a big dent in the Conan Doyle Sherlock Homes tales, spend some time writing, read all the new crap that I have bought for my Kindle that just sits there and moves farther back in the queue as I keep buying new Kindle crack.