Chasing the Tour

The local news has been talking about the Tour coming through Bryan this week, so I thought that today would be a good time to take a short ride on the bike and get out to watch the excitement. I haven't had the bike on the road since Thanksgiving, so it was a good opportunity.

The Tour, over 100 wheels strong, had overnighted just a few miles from my mother's house, and went north on Highway 6. When I was running an errand earlier in the morning, I had run into a roadblock caused by the tour, before they crossed Briarcrest. I figured that I could catch them later in the afternoon.

I got on my bicycle and headed north on Highway 6. The wind was blowing pretty strongly out of the north, giving me a good headwind. I thought that I would come upon the Tour within a few miles, but wasn't seeing any sign of them. I finally happened upon a couple of pickup trucks parked on the side of the road, with people standing beside them. Since one of them had a camera, I figured that they were waiting for the Tour to come by, so I stopped and asked them what was up.

"They couldn't get under the bridge back there," he said, "so they had to detour over to Highway 21. If you cut over there and double back, you should run into them."

I started off again, north, to the next overpass, then turned around. The tailwind was great, literally doubling my speed on the bike. I took the next exit onto 2818, and saw my first sign of the impending passing of the Tour: a gendarme on a motorcycle, directing traffic.

Feigning ignorance sometimes worked in getting around the gendarme in France, when we followed the Tour there, so I thought I'd give it a shot here.

"Bon jour, non parlo Francaise," I told the officer.

"Boy," he responded, "I don't speak none of that namby-pamby Frenchy stuff, so you just get your stretchy-pantied self and your skinny-tire bisickle off of this here road!"

I detoured off with the rest of traffic, and rode over to the Davila Middle School, where I joined other locals who had gathered to view the show.

Before too long, more motorcycled gendarmes showed up, and the caravan started showing up. I didn't hear any helicopters, which are the signal for the approaching peloton in the European Tours, but I thought that may have been due to the heavy winds. The caravan itself wasn't too impressive, consisting of more motorcycles, a few pickup trucks (this is Texas, afterall), and some trucks with "Mammoet" emblazoned on their sides.

Soon, some pretty purple trucks, accessorized with cherry pickers, showed up. They used the cherry pickers to raise the overhead wires.

Finally, what we had been waiting for, finally began to pass, at an estimated speed of 1-2mph:




(You can see more photos here.)

This was a 1.7 million pound generator being moved, at the rate of 10 miles per day, from the Port of Houston to the town of Riesel (yeah, I've never heard of it, either). It's 38 feet wide and 100 yards long. More information can be found here.

I Know What I Like

While I'll admit that I don't know a lot about Art, I do know what I like. I recently found this picture, and, for some reason, became a bit infatuated with it.


The first thing that jumps out at me is the photographic quality of what is obviously a painting. The sharpness of the eyes and whiskers really stands out. Then, upon closer inspection, the snout really draws me in. The smoothness of the bridge of the nose, the curves of the upper lip. Yes, indeed, I believe that it is those curves that intrigue me the most. It's almost as if they jump off of the page.

If only I could see this painting from another angle.

Oh, wait, here's one:


Ah, yes, that would explain it.

Edit:

Here's another one:



I'm not sure what the dude is doing there, though.

Images found on Hawtness.

A Day Late

I was looking through my blog archive, searching for a video that a friend of mine said she found here. I don't doubt that I posted it somewhere, but I couldn't find it on this here blog.

What I did find, however, is that it was a year ago yesterday that I started this here blog, more as a joke than anything else. Of course, like most of my jokes, it seems, most people didn't understand it, and expected me to actually write stuff for it.

So, after 34 posts, here we are!

A Christmas Song.

I'm not one for Christmas music. Not just the frilly froofy jingle jangle Christmas music, but even if a "normal" song mentions Christmas, I turn it off.

Maybe I'm just not one for Christmas.

Anyhow, here is a Christmas song that I do like, and I hope that you to, too!

Money-making opportunity

If I can't figure out a way to make money by commenting on people's blogs...

Here's Mine

Bev asked her readers to show her where they do their blogging.

Here's my special blogging area:



Sorry, but I would've cleaned if I knew you were coming over.

Weekends Wrapup

Well, this weekend was pretty boring, so I'll write about a different one. Three weeks ago.

A cousin of mine was getting married, so I drove into town on Friday night. I got a late start, so I drove straight to where everyone was having dinner. And by "everyone," I mean Mom, Aunt L, her husband, her daughter, and her daughter's boyfriend.

Luckily, Aunt L was at the other end of the table, so I wasn't forced into conversation with her. I just sat back and listened to her contradict everything that anyone else had to say. At one point, I asked her husband, who was sitting across the table from me, what time they had flown into town. He told me that they arrived at 11am, but had to wake up at 3am to catch their flight.

Then, from the other end of the table, came, "Nooooooooo, G! (Yes, AL really does talk like the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air.) We didn't get in at 3am, we got in at 11!")

*sigh*

When I mentioned that they woke up an hour after I went to bed, someone asked me what I was doing up so late.

"Pulling the hair out of my legs."

Then, from the other end of the table, "Nooooooooo, Frank! Don't be so vain!"

I just had to laugh, as this is the woman who's had a facelift, I don't know how many chemical peels, and paid for her daughter's facelift. Said daughter tried to come to my defense by talking about how "cyclists shave their legs for aerodynamics and stuff."

"No," I told her (quietly so that it couldn't be heard at the other end of the table), "I shave them because it looks better."

:-D

Aunt L started going into how she didn't like her worthless son's girlfriend (the girlfriend is not worthless). "She's over 40 years old, and never been married!" she complained. Mom was kind enough to point out that I, too, am over 40 and forever single. Good ol' Mom!

"Nooooooooo," Aunt L said, "Except for that last one, all of the women that Frank has dated have been married before."

Actually, including "that last one," only two of the women I've had relationships with had been previously married, but that wasn't the problem with her logic.

Finally, dinner was over, and we went home. Cousin mentioned that Mom had been walking a bit unsteadily all week, so I should keep an eye on her.

At Mom's house, she was coughing a bit and complaining about her breathing. I asked her if she wanted me to take her to the after-hours clinic, but she said no, and got into bed to read. I was in the other room, watching TV, and could hear her rasping breath and coughing. Eventually, she called me in, as she had just thrown up.

I took her to ER.

She got in pretty quickly, considering that it was around midnight on a Friday, and it turned out that she had pneumonia. She was in the hospital for a week, and was released the following Friday, but I had to be back in Austin to volunteer for the LIVESTRONG Challenge. They sent her home with a walker, since she was still a bit wobbly.

Fast-forward to a week ago last Wednesday, when I went back to Mom's to hang out with her for a bit to help out. When I walked in, her walker was in the kitchen, and she was in her bedroom. She had been getting around pretty well without it.

Thursday, Mom told me that she had fallen that morning, and banged her head on the bathtub. The brother-in-law of a friend of mine had just been in the hospital with a subdural hematoma, so I wanted to keep an eye on her for the day. She seemed to be doing ok, even walking next door (with the walker) to have lunch with my cousin.

Mom came home to take a nap, and when I was talking to her, I noticed that her left arm was just kind of hanging out in space, and pointed it out to her. She just shrugged it off, and went on to take her nap.

A couple of hours later, the lady that Mom had cleaning her house came in to get me, as Mom had fallen when she tried to get out of bed. I tried to get her up, but she just wanted to sit there for awhile. As she was teary-eyed, I got a kleenex for her, and handed it out. She grabbed at it with her left hand, missed it, but dabbed her eyes with her empty hand.

I took her to ER.

Luckily, my cousin had a wheel chair at her house, because Mom could not walk at all.

Thursday afternoons in the ER are even less crowded than Friday nights, and Mom got put right into triage. A CAT scan showed no hematoma, which was good, but an MRI showed two minor strokes, one to her right cerebrum, affecting her left arm, and the other in her cerebellum, affecting her balance. An EKG showed that she was experiencing atrial flutter, which the doctor said was probably what produced the clots that caused her strokes.

Mom showed great day-by-day improvement the next few days, and is now in a rehab center, where she's still showing great improvement. She was walking walkerless on Friday. I'm back in Austin, do take care of some things, and my sister went to stay with Mom for a week. I'll go back next week.

Aunt L flies back into town on Wednesday, and is talking about staying through the end of the year.

*sigh*