Bloody well the best news I’ve heard all day:

The barley harvest is underway and it looks like a good one. Soon another year’s-worth of headaches will be on its way to a store near you.

Thanks, Sr. Swenson!

Funny…it was practically a year ago to the day that I got together with some friends to play water volleyball. We’re doing so again tonight. So what is it with the other 51 weeks of the year? What confluence of events allows this? Is it in the stars, somehow, Mr. Astrofish? Puzzling.

A more likely explanation is that after three months of working on it, the pool is in acceptable shape for company. That’s the way my stupid pool has been going. anyway. I’ve had a run of three weeks of “nice pool”, thanks to overdosing it with chlorine once a week. That, and cutting down four or five huge magnolia branches that hung over the pool. That made my wife mad at me, the cutting. I just couldn’t take the “carpet of leaves” any longer. If I’d had a strong back to help me that day, one of the two stupid magnolias in the backyard would be firewood and sawdust now (and it probably still will be by winter time.) What kind of an idiot plants a magnolia next to a pool?

DISABLED LIST UPDATE: Poor old Otis plowed his own self into the rock wall that lines the pool, and scraped off about an acre of skin. That’s gonna hurt tomorrow. My deepest sympathies. I landed on a step with my supremely padded ass, and that still hurts…but nothing like two square feet of strawberry.

My little shakedown ride on the old Specialized reveals nothing horribly wrong, except for a useless front derailleur. Not too terribly bad for something that hung on the wall for probably four years. Lord only knows what kind of crap has sifted into the inner workings over that time. I stopped at the local bike shop for a diagnosis, and that’s what they said, anyway. So, I’ll drop it off with them tomorrow for a tune-up. The brakes could use a bit of tuning, and there’s no doubt that the whole thing could use a total lube job. Hopefully, that won’t run too much. Too bad for me all my buds are completely out of the bike bidness…I used to get that kind of thing done for a case of Bud.

I’ve also got to go digging and find my baggy shorts with the padded seat. I remember now how VERY much that helps, even on the most padded of asses (as mine undoubtedly is.)

Back to the trails for now. I can’t believe I’ve lived here for three years, and never once set foot, or tire, on any part of it.

OWIE UPDATE: That was a shorter ride, but I found a dirt road leading down to a nice little creek that winds through a few of the golf courses in this neck of the woods. Looks like it would be some good kayaking. I took a spill on the dirt track — hit some ruts going too fast, and got slung out of the track. The dumb thing is I could see it unfolding, but I didn’t hit the brakes. Scraped up my elbow, and I bet I’ll hurt like hell tomorrow.

I’m starting to feel like the protagonist in Larry McMurtry’s final entry in the Thalia, TX trilogy, Duane’s Depressed. Except that Duane was rich when he went off the deep end.