I just checked my email and it was from the World-Herald. The subject line got cut off but it was for Neil Armstrong's death at 82. But what I could see in the screen it said, "Breaking News: Neil Armstrong, first man on the moon."

The Lorax

Speaking of the "Lorax", I just remembered today at 4pm, there's a debate between Deb Fischer and Bob Kerrey. Larry talks about Laytonville's education getting better because of the new breed of people moving into the area, but nothing against the former residents, but more that they had "brought a variety of ideas and ways of thinking into an environment that had been quite homogenous. All great advances in civilization can be traced to the cross-pollination of cultures and philosophies, and we should welcome new ideas into our own community, not try to stifle them."

This is what frustrates me with conservative people and it's the whole idea behind the Garden of Eden story. Adam was the conservative set in his ways and Eve took a step further and liberated them and humanity (for better or for worse) progressed from there. Most of the campaign against Bob Kerrey is that he's a New York liberal who hasn't lived in Nebraska for 12 years, so as a result he is out of touch with the state.

So this guy with intellect and years outside in a progressive city, understanding more of the ways in which the world works and how things could be better for our state is worse off than some conservative lady with no outside cultural experience and only very rural experience to make decisions for our state and country? She's part of small town who takes advantage of government program for her farm and aggressively goes after big-city tax dollars to help out her people. So in a bitchy way, she's doing what our country is supposed to be doing which is everyone helping out everyone. You can't just have limited government where and when you want it.

If I were all these people in the US, look at why Mitt Romney is killing Obama in fundraising. There are less donors who are multi-millionaires and billionaires, corporations, where's the middle-class/poor representation? Look who donors are and see if they are in it for your best interest.

Speaking of, yesterday, Ayana had her black baby doll wrapped in a ribbon thing stuffed in her netted bag in her backpack that she was taking around all day yesterday. I wish I took a picture of it before she took the black baby out, because it looked very bad if she produced that out of her bag in certain company.

So I'm riding to school this morning and ahead on the GD Elmwood path is a runner. He's to the right, which is correct. As I approach, as always happens, he starts veering towards the center of the path and then to the left. There's no turn so he's not trying to keep a straight path. As I approach I yell, "On your left!"

He keeps his path so I pass on his left on the grass, because I hate passing on the right especially with these morons who have no common-sense who could at any moment jump back on that side.

As I pass he yells something so I slow and turn back and say, "What?"

He says, "You need to let people know you're passing."

I snap back, "I said, 'ON THE LEFT!'"

Then I had a good swim

C'mon, Man!

So of all the things that Mitt Romney has been evasive about, he relented on one (for public relations, of course) to have them go to yippy, skippy church with him. First off, this must be only for the elite members since Ali Marriott (yes, of the Marriott hotel fame) was talking about her recent missionary work. Mitt had his grandkids all over him. Then the women's choir were about to sing a song and with a knowing look and nod from Mitt, she goes to sing, of all songs (totally random, right?), "Because I Have Been Given Much."

Now, I grew up Mormon so I know this song and it's not a feel-good-for-being-rich song, but rather one which states "Because I have been given much I too must give...I shall divide my wealth from Thee with every brother that I see..." Blah, blah, blah.... This guy's too much. How does he sing a song like that so reverently with no sense of hypocrisy or irony?

Started my swim class today. For warm-up I was told to swim 600 meters. That took about an hour. Next was 300 meters, 75 butterfly, 75 backstroke, 75 breast stroke, and 75 freestyle. After classes my body was worn out and I had to bike home into gusty wind.

I'm glad to be swimming again. It's been 8 years, but at least now I got a trainer to direct me.

Aside from running into every former employee from Ted & Wally's and Cali that go to the school, I feel like kicking every fucking person walking and texting. Could you at least stay to the right, moron! You also walk down the hall and people are lined up for their classes and everyone it texting or something.

Tim's girlfriend Sophie ran and stopped me to say hi and that Tim got hit on his bike yesterday - on campus. They just drove off after as well. I also read in the NY Times today that the bike lanes in NY are an issue, only by drivers, though.

Had a good BBQ on Saturday which met some new people and hung out with Headley and Jenn, Jeff and Margaret, Abbie and her kids, Barrett, and Jennie (who is dating the manager of the Upstream and I told her how I got fired after going there being shifts on my double and got fucked).

Earlier in the day I drove by the strip mall where the Democratic headquarter is at since they are giving out tickets to Obama's speech on Monday in Council Bluffs. The line was long. I called Megan who was in line near BW3's and got home and rode my bike down and talked to her. I asked if they knew how many tickets were being issued and she didn't know. I figured there wouldn't be enough and left to buy her a pop. I did and came back and produced the pop from my messenger bag and said I should be a bike messenger for people in line which they all agreed would be good.

Turns out I should've stayed because everyone in line got tickets. Oh, well. My hopes were up because Abby said something about being offered tickets and wasn't planning on going, but turns out she was told she could get them if she did the Council Bluffs version of what we did.

This dog keeps placing this alligator toy near me and pulling back in pouncing position. If I don't do anything, he lunges forward to push the alligator towards me. If I still don't do anything, he lunges and picks it up and places it further up so as to, presumably, get my attention. If I throw it, he'll keep doing this. As it's been going on for an hour. Here we go.

Tomorrow we're supposed to meet up with Vince and Mary Jo for lunch. It's going to be great to see him as I've not seen them for a couple of years, and they've not seen Ayana yet. I also don't know why I read the World-Herald's Maha festival review. I just checked to see if Landon got a picture. He did, on their website. Matt didn't. I also didn't know Teal was in that UUVV;dfjafj;aljf band, nor did I know that that band was a Creeker band.

Had a nice bike ride today. I got to do that deal where all lanes are filled and two trucks are turning right up ahead (and signaling) so I pull to the left of the turning vehicles and sqeeze between them and the adjacent lane. I love that.

BTW, I awoke to the news that Paul Ryan is Mitt's VP candidate. More on that later.

I mean there are parts I like, but the overall effect of it is dumb. Like the Matt Hoffman type deal is just dumb and wouldn't work with a fixed-gear (though I've never tried, I've seen fixed-gear bikes and I don't think they'd handle them well), and then when the scene where he gets hit he's not paying attention to cross traffic. Me and every other bicyclist I know automatically scans for traffic for safety and, especially in NYC, there's no way you'd just nonchalantly breeze through an intersection without even glancing in that direction. I may just stick to Quicksilver.

Jack White played a secret show across the street from Ted & Wally's yesterday. I wish I could care about that...but not really. He looks like Robert Smith...a fat clown.

I switched bank accounts because they charged me a $10 fee per month for my free checking and I can't afford to pay (though, even if I did I wouldn't want to) and they said I could keep a $1000 daily balance in it. Fuck off!!!

They sent me a statement last week about me being $10 under balance which was the monthly fee so I called and they said my account was still open. F-them. I called to talk and said I closed it and all that jazz and now, supposedly, it's done. Though I haven't received the statement they said I would.

I re-opened an account I used to have but had closed due to the whole Discover card deal, but it is free and available. Their online banking sign up sucks, and now this sucks: I cashed my check today which is through their bank and with my other one I could deposit this and have the money immediately available.

I deposited half of it so I could come home and order my school books; which I did. Then I get a notice saying the payment couldn't be processed.

While this is going on, I'm trying to go onto my school's bookstore page to order the one teacher's textbook I cannot get through Amazon and I'm being redirected to this other stupid page. So I call them up and can't get shit done and am progressively getting extremely pissed. Then in the backgroung Ayana's yellins for me to put on "more cony" (which is pony) and then I hang up and call my bank to ask my balance. I'm told I have no available money and I ask why and explain my situation and she tells me that through protocol, I have to wait a day until my funds are available - even though the issuing bank is theirs.

I said that I could've just cashed my check and then deposited that because I could get the cash immediately and she said yeah. I then said, "Well that would've been great to know because now my day's fucked up and I can't do what I need to" and threw my phone and said, "Fucking bitch!" Even though she had nothing to do with it.

My day is wasted now, and the other thing on my mind is that Mike's friend Joey has a movie coming out where he's a bike messenger. Yeah, it's cool and I should be looking forward to it, but in this day and age I don't want to deal with the aftermath like more hipster, stupid fucking gear-head dumbshits. I watched the trailer and the first thing he says is how for him "it's fixed gear with no brakes." Now, I understand that in NYC or perhaps Chicago, being all flat ground, fixed gear makes sense - being no hills and the stopping and turns on-a-dime they must prepare for. But these hipster idiots in Omaha with that is just annoying. Single-speed makes sense and works here, but these fixed-gear idiots can go die. I'm still going to watch this, but I may hate being an urban bicyclists in Omaha soon.

Triathlon

I was going to ride up the check out the triathlon today, but I got up at 5 and couldn't so I stayed asleep until 8. I woke up at 5 the day prior and if I were to get some reading done today, I needed the sleep.

So after reading the paper and pretending to be a cow for Ayana to ride, I cleaned the house and rode to the hospital to see Judy. She's in a lot of pain and in a situation where we need to see if she needs surgery or need to move her.

Joe was there when I got there and then left and I stayed for an hour talking to her through the lucidity. Rode home and cleaned my desk and got dinner ready.

Currently listening to Thin Lizzy, Public Enemy, and GhostFace Killah, and reading Charlie In the Trees, the Plan, and In My Time, and had just finished An Economist Goes to Lunch.

.

I started on an 18 mile bike ride which turned out to be 20 since the river trail is still closed. I left at 5:30 and good temperature. The shitty thing was the storm that was sort of a-brewing made the last six miles consist of me riding straight into the non-stop gusting wind.

I helped Charlie sort-of practice his transitions for the triathlon tomorrow, though it rained while we did so. We then watched what seemed to be the Olympic bloopers. For instance, soccer, one team scored a goal and he seemed to be over-celebrating and I said, "It'd be funny if he slipped." Which a second later he did.

Then some other things like during the triathlon, they had shown this Russian bicyclist checking her tires and the announcer says, "Here she is checking her tires or something. Sometimes when you're riding it seems as if you have a flat or something, but I'm not sure why she'd stop to get off and check it."

A moment later shows a bicyclist fall and the announcer says, "Here's another crash...wait, it's [lady who they just showed checking her tires falling which was the reason for her checking her tire] who we just saw."

Go an important day ahead of me tomorrow and a week to follow. Wednesday may be the start of the masters swim class. We'll see. I do need to go get a locker then, but may start it then.

A lot has progressed in these past couple of day which could be life changing. I'm to blame and I'm working through them. One of which is that our neighbor's been getting his camper together for a trip.

For the past week he's had fellows over looking over thing. I looked out and observed outside several time to see what seemed to be his dad w/ a women. So I figured it's his parents. But then I see the lady and it looks like an older version of his wife. So is it her parents? Jeanne said it could be their older siblings who also married.

so the other day I go to throw another bag of trash to the curb since our trash hadn't been picked up yet. As I do, Lorrie says hi, and I turn to see her with the lady I assumed to be her mom but with another dude that wasn't Roger's dad. She said those are her parents and Roger left with the others.

point being that I actually saw Roger's Dad next to Lorrie's mom, every single time I had looked out before coming to the conclusion.

What does this mean? First off, Jonah is playing a festival which David Cross is headlining, along with the Hot Snakes, Quicksand, and Desaparacidos. Secondly, I'm meeting Margaret's family in a couple of hours at a pool named Pirates' Cove which has nothing to do with pirates, and I am starting my Masters Swim Class next week and am concurrently fucking up my life.