Sunday, October 23, 2011

Too Little Miles and Too Many Links: Blame Bill & Aeolus

What I Didn't Do
Man what a beautiful day! It is seventy-three degrees Fahrenheit out of doors, right now, the sun is crisp and the day is clear and fine. I just got back from a little eighteen mile ride on my bicycle. I am a bit disconcerted at the short mileage: there is only one Sunday left in the month and I have yet to ride a Monthly Sunday Century, a custom I have been loyally observing since I got my “81 Schwinn Super Le Tour back in April, I think it was...of course, there have been a few occasions when that Sunday Century happened on a Saturday, if I check my records I think there is a Wednesday Sunday Century also, an accidental Century...

But the point of course is to get out there and just do it, get the ride in and log the mileage.

What I Did Do
But not today. I did not set out with the idea of doing a hundred miles today. I was only planning my usual 25 mile “training” run. I didn't take any beer money or food. Also, I have been guilty of quite a bit of Practice Carousing in celebration of the changing of the season and as a warm up for the strenuous, professional-level carousing that takes place in the coming Holiday Season.

It starts with the Waiting for the Great Pumpkin down at Uncle Bill's house. Sometimes I think that dang UB likes beer as much as I do even though he is always trying to convince me that he only drinks beer when I am around. What a crock. That little rascal always has a case or two of Bud when he shows up here at the Park.

After the Pumpkin doesn't come, we start the pre-Thanksgiving eating and drinking. Hams and ribs (always ribs) and whatever else comes around. This necessitates the Drinking of the Beer and along about sundown the Rum comes out. What a bunch of sinners.

Blame the Big Box
Anybody who ever goes to Wal-Mart already knows that Thanksgiving and Christmas are all one month-long holiday and there is nothing to be done about it. Except drink heavily.

Bicycles, TJ...What About the Bicycles?
But what about the Bicycles, you ask? I don't know. I was not a roadie last year. I just goofed off around the neighborhood (and beyond) on my old Mongoose Alta Single Speed. Training rides? Hah! Training for what? The Apocalypse?  Then it happened. My Buddy Coyote brought me an old Schwinn and the rest is history. Suddenly I was Fast (a little) and sleek and geared up and rockin' and rollin' and staying up late shopping for bicycle parts on the Internet and thinking about bicycles and then I wrote a guest Post for Fat Cyclist and then I started this here Blog and started writing down how many miles I rode and what the weather was like during the ride and thinking about riding my old bicycle  to California to see my son and become a Movie Star and get a really nice trailer in Malibu...

By the way, last week  I wrote another Guest Post for Fatty called Life and The Wind. You can see it here, anybody who is interested.

What's the Point?
Frequent Readers have probably given up looking for any rhyme or reason to my posts. I just get on here and free-style type and what comes out comes out. Today, for example, if there is any theme, it is one of Confession and Expiation. Confessing for not riding a hundred miles today and all the boozing I have been doing. And preparatory confessing for the hell-raising I am planning to do in case I forget to feel guilty about it later. Feel free to join in, both with the guilt-producing behavior and the expiation. I won't tell.

OK, We Give Up. Send In the Sauce
As some of you are aware, Uncle Bill and I have hatched an evil plan of Gastronomic Hijacking and World Domination based on his Mother'sSuper-Secret Barbecue Sauce. She got the recipe from her mother, and that mother got it from  hers, and so on back in line to the first Lost Buccaneers to ever wash up on the shores of our remote little corner of Florida. I have applied my minimal marketing skills to the problem and it shows. While we produced a few bottles of sauce, shipping costs are such that we are at a loss as to how to get the Sauce to you guys without making it so expensive that it becomes impractical to sell over the Internet.

What I decided to do last week was to send out samples to my Booger friends in a kind of Betty Crocker Ponzi Scheme. If any of you will send me the price of shipping (about $5.00) I will send you the Sauce. Then you get your friends hooked and put together a case order. I figure if I send it out in 12 bottle or even 24 bottle cases shipping will be spread around and get the per-bottle price down to something reasonable.

This whole thing is at the embryonic stage and I didn't start this Booger to sell barbecue sauce. But Hey! I told UB that I would see what I could do and so far nobody is complaining. Anyone who wants to can write a review on your Blog or write a Guest Post Review on here or at the Uncle Bill's Site. My buddy Matt over at Dillon Bikes wrote one you can see here. We swapped Sauce for a T shirt.

Aeolus LOVES Uncle Bill's Gator Sauce
Not really. I don't know if Aeolus ever even tasted barbecue.   He's a Greek God and me,  I don't know any Greek Gods:  I just hang out with Uncle Bill and various Pirates and Cyclists and Boogers. But I would bribe Old Aeolus  with a whole case of sauce if he would just make up his mind and blow from one direction or another. Part of why I ended up taking such an abbreviated ride this morning was that the wind was doing that blowing from everywhere thing so that no matter which way I turned the wind was in my face and frankly, I had a gentle but persistent hangover.  I also had a nagging list of chores waiting at home so I just packed it in and pedaled on back to the Park. It's not the first time this has happened, on the same route. It happened back when Agent KAZ visited, so I have a witness.  Sometimes the best way to beat the wind is to not be in it.

Tired of Typing (How Do I Blame the Wind for THAT One?)
Blah. It's a beautiful day but here I am saying Blah. There were a lot of Links in today's post, which I don't like to do, but I wanted you guys to see some of those Other Places. This Sauce thing, I don't know. I want to shift from talking it about here and move the ordering and promoting over to the Uncle Bill's site. You can link to it from my Blogroll. I want to set up a little bit slicker package but right now I don't know how, there's no money in it and let's face it, I'm basically giving it away. I'm giving it away to you guys for fun and something to do and I also think it is Good Stuff.

That's All For Now
That's all I got right now. There's beer in the freezer and the day is crisp and clear and cool and beautiful and Old Tim Joe is gonna go out and sit in the sun and rub Miss Daisy's ears. She likes it and I do too.

Whispering Pines Trailer Park and Bierstube
#40

8 comments:

  1. I am so glad that you have a blog now. Love your writings!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Ach Der Bierstube! zwei bier bitte, Danke es schmeckt zer gut!

    Ok that exhausts my limited German skills - but hey I can order a bier um beer.

    Tailwinds Brother, Tailwinds.

    Roadie Ryan

    ReplyDelete
  3. Ryan: You should get your sauce in a couple days...it went out Thursday, I think...

    Ocb24762: Thanks! My Mother's name was Ocb24762-fe39-11e-bc94-000bcdcb2996! Small World!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Hey Tim Joe

    A while back I had contact with a BBQ Sauce guy named Tim Patton after he won a Sauce Wars that we staged.

    http://swellguy.typepad.com/life_with_the_swell_guy/2008/10/sauce-wars---no-4.html

    He's a pretty cool dude and he has had some success with regional distribution of his product. Do you want me to see if he will correspond with you about how to get into stores and such?

    Yer pal - Zig

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sure Zig, if by "regional" you mean Total World Domination. But if his name is Tim he can't be all bad. Poor feller ain't got no middle name, huh? That's all right we'll just call him Bubba Tim. And listen, Make Sauce Peace Not Sauce War. All you need is love and good sauce. (although a few pounds of babyback ribs and a bucket of beans helps, too.) (and beer) yer buddy, TJ

    ReplyDelete
  6. Oh...OK...I just read your 2008 Battle of the Butt Juice post over at Swell Guy. WOW! What I will do is swap bottles with Bubba Tim and then stage a Trailer Park taste off. Dillon Bikes had a primary taste-off using chicken nuggets which Made Uncle Bill laugh because that's what his kids do with it. Now I'm going over to pester Bubba at his website. Captain Cook-Out.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Now Yer Talkin'! Trailer Park Butt Taste-Off!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Oh no! I'm current on your blogs now. I got spoiled, reading a handful per day.

    I'm glad you got a job again. You'll find time to squeeze in rides. Sleep can always wait...

    Notice I didn't say beer drinking can always wait?

    ReplyDelete