The Joy of an Untended Yard (Continued)

I hesitate to even call this a lawn. A yard? There are a number of rough yards in Oakwood. Across the bridge to the east is Shoreland Heights - a "better" neighborhood. There is not an untended lawn in all of Shoreland Heights. It is populated by conservative Republicans and buttoned-down Democrats who are proud of their knife edged turf and neat, crisp painted houses. The residents of Oakwood are split between Libertarians and wild-eyed Liberals. There are an awful lot of us that don't give a rat's ass what other people think of our yards. The late Bob Mueschler once remarked that Oakwooders are those people who could afford to live in Shoreland Heights, but wouldn't under any circumstance. I know I wouldn't.

Ray-Ban Aviators

I was at the optician to buy prescription sunglasses. Bi-focal sunglasses. They had a lot of stylish wrap-around glasses with made-up Italian names I'd never heard of. The optician looked at my prescription and mentioned that a wrap-around probably wouldn't be satisfactory because of the nature of my correction(s), but they would be getting in a shipment of Ray-Ban frames in a week or two.

At the time I was wearing my favorite t-shirt - brown XXL from Chuck Schmidt, with a race image of Fausto Coppi in the 1949 TdF, just radiating immaculate coolness in his Ray-Ban Aviators. He won the race, establishing Bausch & Lomb's Ray-Bans as being hyper-cool, and they became a style choice of the 1950s.

I was cool. I said, "No problem,  I'll wait for the Ray-Bans to come in". Yes! Ray-Bans!

Addendum:

Late last night Mimbres Man sent me this picture from his past. Ray-Bans still rule. (And the phone numbers are NOT still valid.)

A Leisurely Run To the Cafe and Optometrist

A quick hit to help Jackson deal with McLean fever. 

Giro d'Italia: Wouter Weylandt

Wouter Weylandt, of Leopard-Trek, died today in Stage 3 of the Giro d-Italia after falling very hard on a technical descent . It appears he died instantly. He was 26.

The Bulldog Team

My nephew, Chris (aka Beer Boy) and Meg, play on a couples softball team sponsored by The Bulldog in Minneapolis. There are two Bulldog locations, Uptown and Nordeast. I suppose they are technically sponsored by both, but it would be a lot more fun to play for a Nordeast bar than an Uptown bar. At one time Chris was simply known as "Coach", but he has apparently abdicated the throne due to family obligations. These guys are really serious about softball, note the intensity of both the bench players and their man Tyler on keyboards. And the outfielder in the background hip-shaking to the music to get warmed up.

Autos: A Tale of Two Nobles

Recently frequent commenter, Jack W. Gabus, aka Silk Hope, has become the West Coast Representative for Gabus Auto Distributors, a company founded by his cousin, Gene Gabus, set up to import the Shuanghuan Noble, a car manufactured in China which is available in both gasoline and electric models. This is from an article on the website, The Truth About Cars:

"For years now the Chinese automakers have been the bête noir of the global car industry, inspiring equal parts fear and contempt in boardrooms and editorial meetings from Detroit to Stuttgart. In an industry built on scale, China’s huge population and rapid growth can not be ignored as one scans the horizon for dark horse competitors. And yet no Chinese automaker has yet been able to get even a firm toehold in the market China recently passed as the world’s largest: the United States.

Certainly many have tried, as the last decade is littered with companies who have tried to import Chinese vehicles, only to go out of business or radically rethink their strategy (think Zap for the former and Miles/CODA for the latter). Others, like BYD (or India’s Mahindra), have teased America endlessly with big promises of low costs and high efficiency, only to delay launch dates endlessly. In short, a huge gulf has emerged between overblown fears of developing world (particularly Chinese) auto imports and the ability of Chinese automakers to actually deliver anything. No wonder then, that we found what appears to be the first legitimate attempt at importing Chinese cars to the US quite by accident…" continued

For Larr

Old guys swinging country.

And One For Rick H. Moffat

Okay, let's make it two:

For Leah

From the Mpls Star Tribune...

"Wow. did Matt Dean really say that? Did he really call Twin Cities writer Neil Gaiman a "pencil-necked little weasel" who "stole $45,000 from the state of Minnesota"? Did he really say, on the House floor, that he hated him?

Neil Gaiman, "pencil-necked little weasel"? (Star Tribune photo by Joel Koyama)

Wow. I'm speechless. But Gaiman isn't. He's been Tweeting all morning about the story in today's Star Tribune, which reported that Republican legislative leaders are trying to roll back Legacy funds earmarked for specific cultural organizations. Under the Legacy Amendment, approved by Minnesota voters, an increase in the state sales tax will generate more than $200 million this year for the outdoors, clean water and the arts.

Public libraries have used Legacy Fund money to help pay for programs such as Club Book, which brings nationally renowned writers to libraries in far-flung suburbs. And this is where Gaiman comes in. Gaiman was a Club Book guest in Stillwater last year, for which he was paid $45,000. Whether this is a reasonable amount of money to spend on a Hugo Award-winning, Newbery Award-winning, internationally known screenwriter is debatable. Gaiman, the Star Tribune reported last year, donated the fee to charity.

But on Tuesday House Majority Leader Matt Dean, a Republican from the nearby suburb of Dellwood, spoke out about Legacy money going to Minnesota Public Radio and to Gaiman, the author of "Coraline," "Odd and the Frost Giant," and other books for children.

On Twitter, Gaiman fired back. "Sad & funny. Minnesota Republicans have a 'hate' list. Like Nixon did. I'm on it," he posted this morning, followed by, "It's strange watching a grownup high school bully in power. But the bully vocabulary remains the same."

A few minutes later, "Any nice, sane Minnesota Republicans reading this, please vote for someone who isn't a bully with a hate list next time."

And, a few minutes after that, "Bizarrely, the twit who called me a pencilnecked weasel has posted my blog on his and claims copyright on it." Gaiman then posted a link to Dean's blog, which very quickly crashed. Gaiman tweeted one more time to apologize."

A Really Dead Fish For the Man Cave

Per Tony's suggestion 

If I dig around a little I think I make have some fossilized dry flies too.

Man Cave?