Monday, October 30, 2017

2017/10/30 - Talking to an asshole

So I’m lying here in bed with my new puppy in the dark, watching Standups on Netflix. 
This is so special. I’m holding her close, and wispering that you and I will be friends for life, at least for my life. I’m telling her that you’re the smartest dog on the whole block, and this is just the beginning of a wonderful life for you! You are just starting life, and you so fucking lucky to have me as your daddy! You could be the luckiest dog in the whole wide world!
But as I’m fondeling her in the dark, I realize she was facing the other way!
I was talking into her asshole! 

Sunday, October 29, 2017

Friday, October 13, 2017

2017/10/13 - Fall Foliage


The crazy house. So benign from the outside, who could possibly imagine what goes on inside?

Friday, October 6, 2017

2017/10/07 - Audible.com

I spend about 12 hours per week cycling and I like to listen while I ride. 

Even though I have well over a thousand songs on my iPhone, eventually they get repetitious.

So a couple of years ago I started listening to podcasts. I started with WTF and Stuff You Should Know, and then got into political podcasts like The Daily, Up First, Weekly Roundup, Seth Meyers, and Bill Maher.

But to my chagrin, podcasts started to get just like AM radio, with annoying commercials. At first it seems nice that the podcaster actually reads the commercial script, but since there are only a handful of advertisers that sponsor podcasts, the commercials get extremely repetitious, and the sincerity of the delivery starts to sound more and more like bullshit.

So 10 weeks ago I signed up at Audible.com, and now I can listen to media commercial free. I’m lovin the new option while riding. 

I highly recommend this Google application and I’ve already ordered and listened to all or part of 16 books. For what it’s worth here’s my recommendations:

The Home Front - Narated by Martin Sheen. Excellent account of life in America at home, while the men (and women) were overseas fighting. It was a lot different than any wartime we've seen in America since then. 

The Butterfly effect - Very interesting theory about how the slightest thing could have a huge effect. 

Life - by Keith Richards. Perhaps my favorite so far. Two of the chapters were narrated by Keith. I was so inspired, I actually went out and bought a guitar! He aptly points out that there’s a little Keith Richard in all of us. While waiting for my front teeth, I told my buddy Zeh "This is bringing out the Keith Richards in me".

Mr Mercedes - by Steven King. Great thriller. It inspired me to order anorher Steven King novel. Unfortunately I ordered the unabridged version of The Stand. I soon realized why they cut all those pages out. 

Al Franklin, Giant of the Senate. I love the man. A story about his life so far. He’s both brilliant and funny. He narrates the entire book. I just loved his quote "When most people think of a cruise that is full of shit, they think of Carnival. We in the Senate think of Ted.”

Five Presidents - by Clint Hill. He tells his story about serving as a secret service agent for 5 consecutive US presidents. He was the guy who jumped into the automobile during the JFK assignation. Great insites to the different presidential styles. 

Total Recall: My Unbelievable Life - by Arnold Schwarzenegger. Truly one of the most successful men alive. Mister Universe, The Terminator, and Governor of California all by one poor ambitious Austrian immigrant. The American Dream come true.
   

2017/10/06 - My friend from NYC: Frank

When I was just a wee lad in my 20’s, I had good friend Frank who came over my apartment every Wednesday night to play chess. I was the first in my crowd to leave the roost and get my own apartment. As you might imagine it was a popular hang out.
Frank would show up every Wednesday night around 7:00 PM with a half gallon of Almedin Mountain Rhine wine, and we would play chess until the wine was gone. Then we would go out bar hopping.
Between the hangovers and the memories of the close calls and crazy shit we did the night before, Thursday mornings at work were almost unbearable. We’d both swear, “Never again!”, but the commitment would only last until the next Wednesday night.
One Wednesday night we wound up on Rikers Island, a state prison, with guards yeilding machine guns surrounding Frank’s car. They thought we were convicts trying to escape, when actually we were just two intoxicated idiots lost while looking for Coney Island! 
Frank and I have kept our friendship alive for the past 50 years, and he’s coming out to visit me in Colorado again next Tuesday. We are not the party animals we were when we were in our twenties, but we still play chess!
During his visit last Fall, we invented “Team Chess” (a topic for a future post), and since then Zeh has joined our team, “Team Heisenberg”.
I’m as excited as a kid, and looking forward to a week of mountain biking, good laughs, and of course, chess!

Tuesday, October 3, 2017

2017/10/03 - An Eight Turtle Day

Sunday during my birthday bike ride with Zeh, we spotted eight large (10 to 12 inch) painted turtles, sunning themselves on the trunk of a tree that had fallen into the still water alongside Clear Creek.
Typically I see only one or two of these turtles here on a sunny day, but one time I saw three and got so excited! So you can imagine how thrilled I got when I saw eight! 
This once-in-a-lifetime turtle sighting can only be explained as Mother Nature giving Steve a birthday gift.

2017/10/02- Treadmill Chess

Another one of my chess inventions is "Treadmill Chess". This idea came from a need to exercize in winter while I was working full-time dawn-to-dusk in downtown Denver. 
Normally I dispise machine exercize, but when I thought of playing an online chess game (against a real person) where each player gets 30 minutes, all the while walking/jogging on the treadmill, that sounded interesting!
And normally I don't have the patience for that long of a game, my "need for speed', typically finds me playing speed-chess, where each player gets 10 minutes. 
As it turned out, the marriage of chess with exercize worked out extremely well for me. The extra time helped my game, and I found it very invigorating to have a release for the stress associated with chess. This probably sounds crazy, but my heartrate is tipically higher playing chess, than when I'm cycling. 


2017/10/01 - Happy Birthday to Me

OMG 67, thought by now I'd be in heaven!

Sunday, October 1, 2017

2017/09/30 - Contact Chess

Many many moons ago, omg too many too remember, my college girlfiend asked me to teach her how to play chess.
She wasn't technically my "girlfriend" yet, but I was working on that. And believe it or not, I was actually dumb enough too think that she really wanted to learn how to play chess.
So I was using this request as my chance to "make my move", and suggested we take the first lesson someplace quiet and secluded, so as not to be distracted. We chose an oak tree in the middle of a grassy field on campus.
To make a long story short, within a few minutes into the lesson, I stole a kiss and then we spent the next 20 minutes or so "making out", which meant kissing in those days.
When it was time to go to our next class, we packed up the chess pieces and Mary-Lynne said "I think I'm going to like chess!" 
I replied "Me too, and I think we just invented "Contact Chess".
A few years later we got married.

Later,
Steve

PS: Thanks again for the birthday wishes MLH!