{"id":5637,"date":"2011-03-08T11:19:38","date_gmt":"2011-03-08T18:19:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=5637"},"modified":"2011-03-09T21:04:10","modified_gmt":"2011-03-10T04:04:10","slug":"fat-tuesday-blogging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=5637","title":{"rendered":"Fat Tuesday Blogging"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My sisters and <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"130\" height=\"173\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-5639\" style=\"margin: 10px; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 130px; height: 173px;\" title=\"fat tuesday\" src=\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/fat-tuesday.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/>I grew up in a non-Mardi Gras home: Mom, like all Southern Baptists, observed Lent the whole year round; Dad, an agnostic, pretty much did whatever he wanted to do regardless of the time of year.\u00a0 I married a Catholic girl, but Mardi Gras wasn&#8217;t part of her family&#8217;s tradition either.\u00a0 Oh, Ash Wednesday and Lent for sure, but no pre-Lenten revelry, no last-minute letting down of hair.<\/p>\n<p>I walked away from religion as a teenager, but that didn&#8217;t cut me free from those Southern Baptist roots.\u00a0 I&#8217;m not only a Puritan at heart, these days I don&#8217;t even drink.\u00a0 Basically what I&#8217;m saying is that I&#8217;m the last person you&#8217;d come to for Mardi Gras bloggage, but hey, what a great cat-in-a-Mardi-Gras-mask photo!<\/p>\n<p>So party on, y&#8217;all.\u00a0 <em>Laissez les bons temps rouler!<\/em><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Kim Jong Il, you&#8217;re killing me!\u00a0 Here are three sequential headlines from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.kcna.co.jp\/index-e.htm\" target=\"_blank\">today&#8217;s KCNA website<\/a>:<\/p>\n<ul> US-S. Korean Joint Military Drills Censured<br \/>\nUS-S. Korea Joint Military Exercises Slashed<br \/>\nUS-S. Korea Military Exercises Flailed<\/ul>\n<p>&#8230; and an excerpt from the first article:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The United Confederation of Koreans in Sakhalin, Russia in a statement  on March 3 berated the madcap Key Resolve and Foal Eagle joint military  exercises.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Kim can&#8217;t be <em>too<\/em> pissed off, though &#8230; he didn&#8217;t threaten to turn Seoul into a sea of fire.\u00a0 Let the madcap military exercise of the bellicose US Imperialists and their puppet government rage on!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>This morning I came across a guy selling a &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/cgi.ebay.com\/ebaymotors\/ws\/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&amp;item=170611971862&amp;viewitem=\" target=\"_blank\">1971 Moto Guzzi AMBASSADOR, ELDORADO, CAFE RACER<\/a>&#8221; on eBay.  The accompanying photo shows a bolt-stock 1971 Moto Guzzi Ambassador, and the writeup confirms it: the motorcycle has been &#8220;restored to original specifications.&#8221;\u00a0 Now I like old stock Guzzis, but a stock Guzzi is not a cafe racer.\u00a0 Cafe racers are modified motorcycles, stripped for speed, usually with improved suspension components, clip-on hand grips, elongated fuel tanks, and solo saddles.<center><\/p>\n<table>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><figure id=\"attachment_5644\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5644\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5644  \" title=\"moto guzzi stock\" src=\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/moto-guzzi-stock.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"133\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5644\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guzzi for sale on eBay<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<td><figure id=\"attachment_5645\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-5645\" style=\"width: 200px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-5645  \" title=\"moto guzzi cafe\" src=\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/03\/moto-guzzi-cafe.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"200\" height=\"139\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-5645\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Guzzi cafe racer conversion<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><\/center>There&#8217;s a motorcycle show on the Discovery Channel called &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.caferacertv.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">Cafe Racer<\/a>&#8220;; for a welcome change, a motorcycle show that&#8217;s not Harley-centric.\u00a0 Suddenly cafe racers are hot again, and here&#8217;s a guy trying to get top dollar for an old motorcycle by calling it a cafe racer.\u00a0 Republicans do the same thing, calling themselves the party of fiscal conservatism when in fact they&#8217;re anything but.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Interesting.\u00a0 MSNBC&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/littlegreenfootballs.com\/article\/38190_Video-_Chris_Matthews_on_Mike_Huckabees_Mau_Mau_Dog_Whistle\" target=\"_blank\">Chris Matthews<\/a> picks up on Mau-Mau Mike Huckabee&#8217;s blatant race-baiting.\u00a0 Please forgive me for noting that <a href=\"http:\/\/littlegreenfootballs.com\/article\/38190_Video-_Chris_Matthews_on_Mike_Huckabees_Mau_Mau_Dog_Whistle\">I said it first<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8212;&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Saturday morning I went on a bicycle ride with my <a href=\"http:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/?p=291\">Trail Trash<\/a> friends.\u00a0 We stopped at Saguaro National Park East on Old Spanish Trail (the trail the Trail Trash is named after) and after a short break got back on our bikes to ride back to the start.\u00a0 My bike felt funny, as well it should have &#8230; there was a thorn in the front tire and it was partially deflated.\u00a0 Whenever I have to replace a tube everyone watches closely, so it turns into not just a repair job but a demo on how to do it.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve had a lot of practice replacing tubes, but even so, with three people watching intently you&#8217;d think I would fumble a bit.\u00a0 Not so &#8230; it was the quickest, most trouble-free tube replacement I&#8217;ve ever done.\u00a0 One of these days some other Trail Trash member will get a flat and I&#8217;ll be a spectator.\u00a0 Won&#8217;t that be nice?\u00a0 Not that I&#8217;m wishing a flat on anyone!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My sisters and I grew up in a non-Mardi Gras home: Mom, like all Southern Baptists, observed Lent the whole year round; Dad, an agnostic, pretty much did whatever he wanted to do regardless of the time of year.\u00a0 I married a Catholic girl, but Mardi Gras wasn&#8217;t part of her family&#8217;s tradition either.\u00a0 Oh, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[25,10,5,2,8],"tags":[86,85,84,91,83,90],"class_list":["post-5637","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bicycling","category-current-events","category-motorcycling","category-personal","category-politics","tag-cafe-racer","tag-chris-matthews","tag-huckabee","tag-kcna","tag-mau-mau","tag-north-korea"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5637"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5671,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5637\/revisions\/5671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5637"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5637"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pwoodford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5637"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}