Archive for the ‘My Weird Life’ Category

September ’75 I was 47 inches high
Mom said someday I would have
A bad ass mother G.I. Joe
for your little minds to blow
I still got beat up after class
– ben folds

“Wow, those are some impressive numbers Greg.” “Yes, they are Marve. Now let’s see what the judge from Denmark has to say.” - So here’s the thing.  I’ve been pissing a lot of folks off recently. I even pissed off the manager of the local homeless shelter! Unusual for me, really.  But I’ve been told if you are not making someone mad, you’re hiding.  I get that…

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And if I only could / I’d make a deal with God
And I’d get him to swap our places
Be running up that road / Be running up that hill
With no problems…
– kate bush

Let’s go off topic a today just because I feel like it! That’s what’s great about a blog after all, the ability to just sit down and blather about whatever madness comes to mind. Today I’m going to talk about my other bad habit… trail running! Read the rest of this entry »

We told each other that we were the wildest
The wildest things we’d ever seen
Now I wished you would have told me
I wished I could have talked to you
Just to say goodbye – springsteen

The city of Two Rivers, Wisconsin has a Current Designs kayak on every corner along the main street.  Kayaks also decorate the fronts of a variety of businesses in the area as well.  The city even dedicated a park to the local kayaker’s called appropriately “Paddler’s Park”.   Two Rivers is a kayaker’s town.  Paddlers have the tireless advocacy of local businessman and kayaker Phil Rohrer to thank for the city’s attentions.  Thanks to Phil and the local clubs he inspired Wisconsin had a paddler’s mecca in the making… Read the rest of this entry »

I don’t want to be crippled cracked
Shoulders, wrists, knees and back
Ground to dust and ash
Crawling on all fours
– radiohead

I’m boned!  Yesterday I did my second trail run of the new year… and crashed!  Every spring I find myself waiting for the ice to clear off the trails and for the boot suckers to disappear back into the bowls of the earth, then it’s time to run! I admit it, I’m one of those people who get’s a big rush out of running.  A nice exhausting run leaves me almost giddy in fact.  Heck, even after my big crash yesterday Read the rest of this entry »

I’m fixing a hole where the rain gets in
and stops my mind from wandering
where it will go
I’m filling the cracks that ran though the door
and kept my mind from wandering
where it will go
– beatles

I spent my life around “manly” men.  You know, The rootin’ tootin’ deer shootin’, beer drinking, demolition-derby drivin’, football watchin,’ “pull my finger”,  average guy.  That meant I had all the many influences I needed to learn to hang a car engine from a tree branch or build a slanty tool shed with just a bit of old timber and a few nails.  There’s nothing wrong with being a craftsman or a mechanic mind you (And yes, I do watch football.), it’s more the half-assed, Red Green approach that I have an issue with.  Read the rest of this entry »

Among the many odd things I’ve done in my life, I used to work at the International Crane Foundation.  It was there that I learned to impersonate Mama Crane.  That allows me to occasionally get up pretty close as in the picture above.  Here’s that story.  (Just in case you didn’t see it before) One thing I can tell you.. Mama don’t whisper!

It’s wonderful.  Everywhere, so white.
The river has frozen over.  Not a soul on the ice.
Only me skating fast.
I’m speeding past trees, Leaving little lines in the ice,
Splitting, splitting sound, Silver heels spitting, spitting snow.
– Kate Bush

It’s not like you ever think you know everything.  It’s just that sometimes it’s hard to go so far back to the beginning that you feel like you don’t know anything!  That’s what it was like this weekend when we decided to give cross country skiing a go.  Every single step I took during those first days of kayaking I am reliving with cross country skis, right down to being pretty sure the sales guy thinks I am much less athletic than I am capable of being.  Oh well, some things never change.  After a day on the trails I’m not sure this is my thing, but when it’s January in Wisconsin you’ve got to do something. -  I wrote a bit more about day one on the skis here.