Mr Trail Safety Speaks!

I wanted a front rack on my urban MTB, but did not have a lot of money to spend on either a really good or really bad rack. This is how I built it. There are several DIY sites out there on how to build a bike rack. Materials used: [3] 36 x 1 x 1/8" aluminum bar stock 1 length of bar stock will be the horizontal box, overlapped and pop-riveted together. 1 length of bar stock will be both down-struts. 1 length of bar stock will be the deck w/ backstop. [2] 1" hose clamps [2] 3" double-stick foam tape, for each fork Pop rivets or stove bolts, as necessary for assembly I used a pop-rivet gun to secure the struts to the rack, and the deck to the assembled rack. You could easily use stove-bolts, I just had the pop-rivet gun handy. GENERAL ASSEMBLY This is all DIY improvised, based on available materials, and trying to get as much out it as possible. Your measurements will vary. BOLT ASSEMBLY ON FORKS Here is Mr Hose-Clamp/Strut Support. Take care when drilling the hole for...

"...the road to Genovia leads through Gevalia". I delayed putting in a fresh sheet in as I pondered this hard fact. My espresso got cold. The phone, an enigmatic onyx sphinx, remained silent. “Zastava Smackdown” , p 241. by Giovanni Nessuno Rome, 1991

I was admitted to Outward Bound as a probationary candidate. I was seriously underage. The normal minimum was 16-1/2, but my 16th birthday was 3 days before the end of the course. My dad was not enjoying watching me smoke lots of dope and becoming another white social parasite. I knew I needed it, and agreed. The weeks in New York before leaving for Maine were a swirl of overcast humidity and Lebanese Blonde. The ferry left Rockland in the fog. I was standing on the deck in a pea coat, dress pants, and leather street shoes, slippery on the steel plate. Pulling into Hurricane, we were met with our first surprise of many surprises. The instructors counted us off into our respective watches, and told us to find our tents. For the duration of the course, you had a number. Mine was 13. This was a device to make sure everybody was accounted for at all times, especially if the boat capsized and so on. PT in 45 minutes. Fetch! Thus began 26 days of basic training. Every day was an unc...

Original article appeared in the Feb 21, 2008 WSJ Text Analysis by Erasmus Binkster Rfp, SoQ, AMf, and Bucky Kibble III, Esq The jobless rate is hanging high -- for many of the roughly 3,000 political appointees who served President George W. Bush. Finding work has proved a far tougher task than those appointees expected. No shit. You got appointed, and didn't have to apply online with Monster.com "This is not a great time for anyone to be job hunting, including numerous former political appointees," said Carlos M. Gutierrez, Mr. Bush's commerce secretary. Previously chief executive of cereal maker Kellogg Co., he hopes to run a company again because "I have a lot of energy." read: "home life sucks, my kids hate me, and my girlfriend wants money" Only 25% to 30% of ex-Bush officials seeking full-time jobs have succeeded, estimated Eric Vautour, a Washington recruiter at Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. That "is much, much worse" than when...

(notes from the Estate of Dr Quadde, all rights reserved) Further Inquiries Into The Matter Of The Great White Fur-Bearing Freshwater Shark By Roccardo “Dick” Quadde, Rfp, SoQ, AmF. The waiting stack of arcana was irresistible. I began reading at the beginning. This Shark features prominently in the folklore of the indigenous Maeomo-Lipkat peoples: an enigmatic tribe who were regarded as peculiar by their Paiute and Shoshonean neighbors. Consequently little mixing occurred outside of trade. They were linguistic isolates, and spoke a language utterly unlike any other. They left little more than curious petroglyphs in isolated canyons. The first verifiable sighting of the Great White Fur-Bearing Freshwater Shark by a European came on August 25, 1787. Antonio Fuego de Culo y Ruidoso was lost in the High Dorkoliths while looking for a mountain pass that was the most direct route between Mojave and Tulare. His royal charter required him to note "all and divers Fishes, Fowles, Beastes...

(LA Times, July 22, 1990) by ELWOOD MARKWAYS III TIMES STAFF WRITER COPROLYTE NATIONAL MONUMENT, near Hellmouth, CA: The discovery of Giant Fur-Bearing Freshwater Sharks was announced today by State Fish & Game naturalists in conjunction with Dr Roccardo “Dick” Quadde, Prof. Emeritus of Hellmouth Amalgamated PolySci, Hellmouth California. State Fish & Game naturalists did not confirm or deny informed questions as to the exact location of these enigmatic creatures. Giant Fur-Bearing Fresh-water Sharks had been well documented on the Upper Agua Mojado further to the eastern edges of the Coprolyte National Monument, where the Agua Mojado drainage meets the confluence of the Chorizo Altiplano as it descends through the porous rugosities of the Stoeff-Topp strata. Freshwater sharks ( s. aquafrescum ) had been rumored but not seen in at least a generation, and the fur-bearing sub genus ( s. hirsuticum ) had not been adequately documented. Prior specimens had been exceedingly ...

(notes from the Estate of Dr Quadde, all rights reserved) Alone With the Fur-Bearing Great Whites of Big Quimfire Lake By Roccardo “Dick” Quadde, Rfp, SoQ, AmF. Early in the summer of 1969 I was taking a summer sabbatical trip through the Rhümpe-Wrangeling foothills. The slopes were a verdant riot of majestic trees, which extended from their roots through their wooden trunks all the way to the tops. As we wound up the scenic George Murphy Highway, I was listening to the resonate static of the Hellmouth (Amalgamated) PolySci radio station KGFY. Between sibilant hisses of static one could enjoy the melodic strains of Thomas Schnabel’s Divertimento in D Minus For Brazilian Nose Flutes, opus 9 1/2 , which I had seen performed live when I was an undergraduate back in my sunny tropical years at the H. Wallace Beddoes Institute. Today however, I was on a different ichthyological errand. Reports had come filtering out of the chop-sleeved, snuff-dipping, chain-sawed uplands that had cau...

(one of an occasional series from the archives of the "Journal for Crypto-Ethnology" Spring 1991) by Dr. Roccardo F. "Dick" Quadde; RfP, SoQ, AmF. The long winter passed uneventfully, a slowly leaking bladder full of inert gas. I was occupied greatly by the continuing investigations into the previous summer’s disastrous expeditions to the lofty and distant Dorkolithic spires. But as the days lengthened and the snows began to retreat from the the alpinid meadows, I became anxious and eager seek a remarkable vanished remnant of Hellmouth’s glory-hole days during the fabled Kaopectatum Boom. The object of this quest was to locate the remains of a startling aeronautical prototype that had literally gone in a blaze of glory from the small mining hamlet of Hellmouth back in the summer of 1909. Wherefore the shift from coprolytica to aeronautica? One typically blustery and cold November afternoon I had been doing research in the Archival Manuscript Section of the He...

MoveOn asked the question "What Would You Tell A Bank CEO?" Seems some CEO's might be asked some hard questions in committee in DC this week. They might cry a bit, and hope they can make it home without losing their pants. Or their place in line in Jackson Hole. Don't know what you would do, but this is what I said: Hey Bank President: 1/ Do you spend 50% of your take-home on rent? 2/ Are your incomes flat—for the last 15 years? 3/ Are you unable to take time off for healthcare because that would cut into your hourly pay? 4/ Have you missed a credit card payment and been told by the bank that your APR is now 25%? No. Didn't think so. I spit in your face. If I saw you walking by the side of the highway pushing a shopping cart, looking for cans and bottles, I'd be tempted to hit you. Just to watch you fly.

1. The money I didn't make in my earlier years was inversely proportional to the cool things I was doing 2. I shoot film in mid-century semi-vintage cameras. By the time I die I'll be shooting with an 8x10 view camera using very slow film. 3. I'm really glad I quit smoking. Everything. In 1981. 4. I've been riding bikes since I was 7 yrs old. The thrill never fades. 5. Garlic and cayenne are Nature's way of saying you're special 6. I hate looking for work 7. I don't believe in God, or any of the prophets. My religious notions reside between Haitian Voudou and Tibetan Buddhism 8. I have better friends now than I ever did before. 9. Other people do marriage way better than me. 10. I've got at least 5 good photo books in me. Getting them out is going to be the fun part. 11. Tango gave me a new viewpoint. 12. I need to travel more. 13. Espresso 14. 86% of the drivers in Los Angeles should be on bicycles—everyone would benefit. 15. My math grades in elementa...

I just pulled out of the CNN Inaugural vortex. Everything today has found me happier, more emotionally touched, proud, welling up, excited and moved in ways I never imagined for an inaugural. The events were bigger than the supporting players, voluntary or mandatory. Rick Warren's touted presence and invocation bleated away in the thin winter air, while Dr Lowry's came, sat, and made themselves at home. W looked shrivelled and puny, which he already was, but was now without the props to sustain him. Obama stood tall, and spoke as an adult to a nation that had been spoonfed drivel and jabber these last eight years. And who can deny the delicious symbolism of Dick Cheney in a wheelchair; a final symbol of the cripple he's been, and inflicted on the nation. Obama's inaugural speech was clean, tight, and gas-free. Thank Gawd—'bout time too. A nice backhand rebuke to the pasty-faced torture mendicants sitting in the departing seats was all good. The GOP leadership sat st...

I was recently asked to source a quote. The screenplay mentioned is probably representative of the post-Tito Serbian Modernist genre, and modestly, I quote: His face was side-lit from the blazing sun off the street. We were sitting inside, deep under the portico. Even the flies were somnolent in the afternoon heat. The barman indolently cleared a forgotten beer-glass from the counter, while idly watching the sun-beaten English girls across the square. “So I’m turning 29. This Sunday. Oh well.” He looked up over his glasses. The blend of irony and deadpan fatalism hung in the air like blue Gauloise fog. -- “Zastava Smackdown” by Giovanni Nessuno, p 183. Rome, 1991.

Actually, this is the gift you've been waiting to give that special someone. The Gift of Mr Trail Safety Bullshit. Think about it. What do you give that Special Somebody Who's Got Everything? Where do you go when you have Perplexing Questions? That's right. Mr TSBS is specially formulated so you can enjoy it as a hit-n-quit snack, or full-blown Roman Banquet. Here, have some wafers, Mr Creosote:  ================== DUBIOUS ADVICE 12 Advice Nuggets for Newbies & Others   Recently there have been a spate of anguished "drops" from the UltraList regarding content, tone, and suitability of the message, if not the messenger. Inasmuch as the majority of these messages appear to be from relative newcomers to the sport, or the List, some clarifications are necessary. MOUNTAIN BIKERS ARE PUSSIES Last summer I'd staggered to the top of Mt Wilson from Sierra Madre. I wasn't having an especially good day, but the water fountain was reason enough to continue. W...

Since I believe strongly in faith-based solutions, I wrote the GOP with my ideas for their Reconstruction. So to speak. They should resurrect Francisco Franco and Alfredo Stroessner. This would give anxious, fearful white voters not one, but two authoritarian figures they could venerate. And fear, if need be. As long as we're at it, lets gin up the Drum Circle to bring back Augusto Pinochet and Dr Salazar as well.

Image: Artist as yet unknown. Scan of original 11x17" graphic, swiped from a telephone pole in the Glassell Park/Eagle Rock area, Los Angeles, CA. Nov 4, '08 Yes, it happened. I didn't expect Johnny Mac to concede as early as he did. We'd just finished dinner and were about to head out when Karen said "lets check, I don't want to hear this in a cab". So we did, and saw the live video stream. This is all too perfect! I never expected to see this in my lifetime—esp after the last 8 yrs of hardboiled willful ignorance, thievery, criminality and pasty-faced incompetence. Obama's speech was simply perfect. All the right points, and didn't waste people's time saying it. Oh, the work that lies ahead. In the meantime, I'm savoring the joy of seeing the hosers and posers of the Johnny Mac Road show [Sarah the Impaler, Joe the Plumber, Willie the Pimp, and all the Angry White Faces] choke on a fucking chicken bone. Game over, bitches!

...back in 1980, I was subscribed to the National Review by my elderly grandmother. So I used to come home after working nights, crack open a Heineken, roll a joint, and read it. Surreal. One day an NR survey arrived in the mail. Actually, two. The killer question the GOP had that year was "Who would be the best candidate to defeat Jimmy Carter?" I took a long hit on the joint, and wrote in my answers. Jane Fonda, and Alfredo Stroessner. I'm sure somebody was amused.

The sudden rise of Sarah Palin prompted me to think about Andrei Codresceu's "Blood Countess" . Imagine what might happen if Johnny Mac dies on the campaign trail. Do you think Palin is going to let Cindy and Karl stop her? I don't think so. The tiger is well and truly out of the cage now. My money is that once she gets her sea-legs, she'll chew her way through these flabby white men like a chainsaw. More disturbing about Palin is her glittering capacity for cruelty. I have no beef on hunters who eat what they kill, but shooting wolves out of a helicopter is cold-blooded serial murder. If she's so much the shit, and the Freepers are jacking off in a frenzy over her, how come she doesn't run on foot and give chase with a spear? Furthermore, if she's all about less government, what's with the Books She Didn't Like as mayor of Wasilla? The first thing these self-styled Big Faith /Small Government types like to do is get inside your head and tell y...

Fashion Do's And Don'ts I hope you saw the original story on the Huffington Post, where Condi was nominally cheering the Georgians from the safety of a TV studio after their disastrous surprise attack on South Ossetia. Of course, she went dressed as a Russian sailor, continuing the Administration's fatal addiction to costume pageantry. I guess her Star Wars Dominatrix outfit was at the cleaners. Read the original here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/17/us-allies-contemplating-a_n_119441.html I found Putin here: http://blog.kievukraine.info/uploaded_images/3027-799072.jpg