The Coffee Guy's blog

Cruising, Down the River on a Sunday Afternoon

No trick or trade today.  Just here for the trunk sale.  Since when were trunks so desirable?  I remember when they were worn all summer, just in case you came across a pond, or river, or creek, or lake.  Jump in, swim out and back or across.  Never had a direction so we just went there.

Out and dry off.  Nows’a days chew gonna need a towel, permit, permission, guardian, and probably a responsible person.  How was it that when we were so irresponsible, we lived long enough to be responsible?  What is your response to that?  Repossession of your potentiality will lead a predilection of your pulchritude.

Make it and they will materialize I say.  The doctor is in, not indulgent.  A scant few have seen my scantling collection and how it has been deployed and employed.   I implore you to seek it out and allow those ideas morph and meander into your group crania.  Perhaps the dissemination not inseminating of this germ impregnates your grey matter enough to open the seven orifices of the head to glean creative insight.

The art is within the beholder not in the object.  I object to the objectification of that which has not been criticized as art.  Otherwise why else would we have Art “Critics” and not Art “Appreciants”?  Film Critics, not Film Fanatics?   We have Car or Auto Reviewers, not Car Critics.  We have Program Evaluators and not Program Dissenters.

Nothing but flatulent flabellums foisting their fancy on folk.  Creation was not done in seven days.  Creation is an ever-changing, ongoing, everlasting, advancing, forever unfolding, open ended, continuing, circulating, cutting edge, rampant forge down an unknown path.  You cannot be boxed in.  Need I bring futurists into the picture?  Gene Roddenberry, Robert Heinlein, George Orwell.  I could go on.  They were not talking the future so much as creating a possibility.  Creating.

We don’t need a book review to tell us what was creative about the output from these guys, it just was.  Come into my garage and hand me a wrench.  That is an act of creativity.  Or part thereof.  A large stint in my humble surrounds below our house is spent looking and evaluating, parsing possibilities, holding up a piece of steel and thinking, “will it work only if I can……”.

There are times when the old, tried and true, works.  That is when art has been transformed into technology.  First there is art.  Then it is quantified.

Plead me not into temptation to buy technology when I can create a solution.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau, and with Turkish Chai.

 

 

 

Trivial we Speak of the Travails of Weather

And sundry and no other Sunday malaise filled occupation when all else fails.  We orate blithely about that which we have no control.  We make up theories and theorems to explain our attachment or the etiology of it all.

Posit that the world is flat.  Our complete prognostication techniques would be as useful as a specimen of defecation on a comestible.  You wouldn’t touch it.  Primary  prognosticators parry particular performance submissions from “AROUND” the world.   Massage them with historic and physical properties known, then suggest what “MIGHT” happen hence.

Bingo, bongo, bango, the world is flat prior to Columbus and his cadre gadding about with no direction.  The prevailing always coming from the west; what some big ass fan over there and some goof turning it on and off at the switch whenever he wants?  What would the early harbinger hang his hat on?  Accuracy?

“The wind cometh eastward matey, all day till night falls.”  And so it doesn’t, now what?  You are seaward and heading in some unknown direction till you run into a chunk of terra firma again.  Thata’ guy whoda’ told ya to go sailing is somewhere else, and before you get back to him he may be dead or you may be.

With what weather witch would you wear your explanatory notes of freezing rain?  Super-cooled water only freezing on contact.  That is the modern day explanation.  Did they even have the word “super”?  What about “duper”  How did they sing that song then?  Possibly in the mainstream development of man, weather was moderated by the generally tropical and equatorial surrounds of modernizing man.  No freezing rain there I suspect.

The ease of which you can see weather develop form a height leads one to believe mountain residents figured it out first.  With the onset of valley cloud, moist air, convection currents, and downdrafts, you have a lot of information to start your theory on that a flatlander would never experience.

None the less, once the weather went past you, and past the Near East, and past the Middle East, then beyond the Far East, Where did the Polo of Marcus think that the wind went?  How come the ocean would no just drain off the edge?  Did people in Japan commit Hari-kari on the far edge of the earth?  I can see the romantic side ot the Flat Earth Society.  Simplicity in singularity of sameness.  Sameses.  Coined. It’s taken sorry.  But we of the in Lyn know of this.

Let it roll Raoul, I like it on the side.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau, and with Turkish Chai.

 

 

From Sarnia to Narnia and Nari a Sari

The Griffin gone, obscure as it is built. The connexion to Kingston through the Cataraqui is ineffable.  In 1938 this fair burg was enjoined to the others we whopped in the war of 1812.  Then again doubled in 1999.

The aqua blue waters passing without a nod wend towards the Lac St Clair.  The not too distant shore bearing those brethren of the lake and land.  One thing of note you cannot miss is the unending clank and bang of the rail cars shunting and shifting in their languid movements to and fro from the States United.  A subway not marring the fall scene for me makes the connexion.  Who’da thunk?  In all these years crossing the Blue Water, I never knew trains moved under.  What a boring project!

The day the murderous Red Ryan shot and killed by an officer of the local constabulary might have changed this small city.  The intrepid constitution of the people rose up and celebrated the end of an era as this rouge was dispensed with.  This all along the stretch with the House of Morden.   What would the Lampel and Zierler Theater be showing that week on the newsreel?

There is no point of ole Eddy getting in a snit about the blow of ’53.  Seen dat scene, been dare.  And ‘iffin it wasn’t for good ole Jimmy Williams, where would we all be now?  Here is a guy digging and drilling, boring and coring, toiling and oiling in the lesser Enniskillen and lo and behold out comes the flow.

Black Gold

Texas Tea

Bubbling Crude

Did John Shaw draw the first barrow of the liquid below in a volume which then situated the industry here in The Valley, no girls there.   I know the sudden growth brought the ware and wherewithal for the development to city hood!  Were the Trillon group that glitzy and glamourous with and almost untouched store after the 53?

Sarnia Always I say over and under my breath and river.  Truly an intermodal crossing although the waters run fast, you would have to be one strong swimmer to cross within ten miles of your start.  No Weir can stop that water.  No Guernseys left or right here.

A nice spot to cross the water.

Slip in the Chicory Chance, I like the sense.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau, and with Turkish Chai.

 

Fall Drawl Flails the Grail

While un-inebriated my podiatrist treats smothered in hose soak as I trudge through sodden horse fodder; that into which my demense has turned.  With lawn mower honed and topped up I have been trudging and slogging around and across the expanses of the lawn all summer.  A quick start in April, no rest in August, and now weather for growth in October.   How is it in one year I can blow snow for 7 months, have a 6 week hiatus from yard work in the spring, mow the lawn for seven months, and still have two more months of question before the snow flies again?

Am I fully satiated with the green activities? Yup!  I could give less than one cut grass blade of a rats ass if I ever push those spinning metal knives again this year.  In the year of 2 K plus a fortnight of years I expect a closer trim on the turf.  Turf trimming taxing the top of my cranium till I teeter on the verge of the berm.  In some time I may even ponder to deposit some chlorophyll enhancing material on said plot of grass.  Not until it slows down.

The wall was erected and stabilized with geo-mesh and grade A backfill.  It matches the house and has leveled my parking.  No more of the good burgers of Cambridge sending around the mockstabulary with their little cameras and thermal paper printer pooping out citations.  Score to date, The Big Bad City at 6 ½, resident here9 ½.  Nuff said.

Get out and make your wishes known. The franchise is not extended to everybody on the orb so if ya’ can, then do it a cuz’n you should.  Definitely there are options.  Those that suckle off the public teat need to be curbed not coddled.  Though those eggs are nice at times.  Ask Darrin, he can attest to the nature of the coddled; he will read poached.

In our small corner of the circle, we run at tangent to the obtuse.  Hopefully the bearded meister of’a dis stadt will be sent keister sliding into obscurity.  Running rough shod and deef to the vox poupuli, he needs to control the four walls of his residence and let the rest of us plebes get moving.  The old is out the new is in, and.  We need no legacy, our deeds speak.  We have no LRT, and 11 roundabouts are still on the table.  Has there been any audible voice?  Minimal.

Stir this pot and put your foot down in the Kah Kah.  If you are afraid to do this, then wash your tender feet and stay out of the barn. There is a stallion in the wings waiting for release.  Move aside and let the big boys play.  No ego should be so big as to hinder growth and acceptance of the new and life on the edge. 

Persevere Portia, I like it smooth and dark.  Someone said I had to mention coffee……

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau, and with Turkish Chai.

Mods and Rockers, here we Came and Went

So for a long time this board has been stagnant.  This ends today.

The Brat and I bust’ a gut to the smoke on Saturday for a rumble from Ossington through Leslieville.  The south part of the smoke will never be the same.  Have had some small issues with the transport this summer, but on the whole a puller and a looker.

Did Dover and Snake Canyon.  Let er rip, blown off a cool 160 but never to look back.  Still the four across pulls better than the XLS, but what do you expect with so many power strokes per rev and so many more revs per linear foot.

Foot pounds aside, I am not sure what the real push is on this bike, might run it to the dyno this winter.

Up for some Uni-filters too, a lot of talk about pods, some good some bad.  After all I am running a street bike and not a picture bike like so many on the web.

Been through some digit protection this summer too, still lean toward the deer hide.  No matter what is said, they are cool, protective, pliable yet durable.  Fingerless is fine but the grip loses.  Black with black and tanned with the summer apparel.  Like I give a rat’s ass what the plebes say.  Love the deer hide.  Getting low on em too so’s a gotta get dem more on my next visit chasing the sun.  Hope they have my size again.  What am I the only one who wears that size?

So picked up some goggles there, at the Town Moto, good thingy too I poured on the way home.

Ride was great with a couple of hundred of us Modders and Rockers hooking and wheeling the Big Smoke.  Then to the Duke for a coupla’ before setting out in the rain home.  A little clear here and there but rain most of the way.  Forged ahead, to the hood and ended up a sopping wet road dirt soaked mess. The jacket weighing in over 30 pounds and falling flat on my face extricating my habiliments from the denim.

All in all, a good day seeing and making friends with like cranial humanoid blobs of protoplasm.

Pour it hot Adriane, the chill runs deep.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau, and with Turkish Chai.

 

 

Ease up on the Ethiopian

So for those that are in the habit of black and white, driving is not a right, and it is not a race.  Mania on the bitumen bites.  If you can F1 yourself, its time you NastyCar’ed your way to the Indy’pendant tarmacs.  Go find a private place to sniff my exhaust.  I couldn’t care an iota less that you can recite the serial number on my tailpipe.

The heterogeneity between you and the closed circuit guys and gals is the single focus of’a dem.   One goal, one direction, one desire, one training level, one professional race car drivers license, one performance level, one set of rules, one compilation of safety devices, one type of road surface, one kind of tyres, one overseer, one set of penalties, one knowledge base, they are in it together.

The ones and twos of you who “might” have had any race or even skid skool training are generally the ones not doing the jocose maneuvers on the ole Four Oh One.  It’s the Wannabe Wallaby brained bozos Dodging and weaving between the crying Chryslers and aching Acuras. 

Let’s get to the basics.

Pass on the left.

Slower traffic keep to the right.

Leave one car length for every 15 KMPH, between you and the guy in front of you.  (For those wholly awake and alert, this is “just” enough time to apply the brakes and stop when the guy in front of you stops.)

Drive as far ahead as you can see.

Use one foot in an automatic vehicle.

Heavier larger vehicles (read SUV) take longer to stop.  (It’s just Physics)

If I have a line of traffic ahead of me, I am moving at their speed, I will not move over for you, so stop flashing your lights and riding my ass.

And finally, if you think you are smarter than me, don’t ride my ass.  You will become rudely awakened about all the other rules.

I toyed with a trinket brained hack automobilist the other day from mile marker 286 to mile marker 336.  In one morning he probably peeled off a good 20 thou on his brake pads alone.  He was ever so surprised to see how bright my brake lights were each time. (you think he woulda’ learned)  he dodged and changed lanes 5 score times at least.  Sped up slowed down this lane that lane, this lane, another lane,  I stuck to following the car in front between a buck 20 and a buck 25 the whole time, on cruise control at that!

In the end, I exited ahead of him.  

If we could have culled the heard of these Neanderthals before, we would all be able to drive while texting, phoning, probably playing Xbox too!

But no, this scourge on our roads has debilitated the able to no longer be able to do simple activities.  Its’a cuzza’ those are da ones who woulda’ got caught doing da dirty.  First off they can’t drive let alone do something else at the same time.

If your foot is made of plummet material, find and oval outside of my area.

Pour it hot Mabel, I need the Iron on the road soon.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

 

 

 

Snow Off Already! Oh but we put in a Snow bar!

With my tabula rasa looking like the environs on the wind ward-side of the wind-ow.  I pond-er the unseen pond, its depths below 2 meters depth of snow.  My rink now adorned with a rink-side bar as requested by the rellies in Germany.  Thank-you Arianne.

Follwing the catastrophic fault in the engine of my trusty Ariens, the con-rod threw its bearings and rammed straight through the side of the block.  BANG.  Picked up a newbie like my oldie for a few notes and am back ready for the depths to increase as this year they are inevitably gonna do!

“We think it trivial the speak of the weather, yet there is nothing more important”. Emerson.

An we find it so 150 years in advanced thought and invention, as you peruse and cruise the FacePlant or the Interweb Thingy, the chatter and clatter like Klaatu is all about the weather.  Are you up with that referent?  I have inamabilis sciurus trussing about my trestle snapping up the munchy buns staled out on our counter.  In the antiquity of yesterday, a couple of couples of Cardinals were spiriting about in the neighbours trees, when my eagle eye spotted a large Hawk of sorts espying the aforementioned Tabula for a snack of sorts.

Need I remind thee loyal readers of the Merlin episode of some years past?  The naught grey boy sat and feasted on starling or other such bird on my now bloodied rink.  And here another rink year and the raptors scan my frozen glazing from more eats.  Back off!  Get your own sandwich.  But as I speak the Snow Bar is being stocked and locked for another raucous running of the weekly game.

Olympic efforts warring on who will Woody beat to the puck?  I think he has a better stopping goals rating than most NHL goalies.  Perhaps in the next incarnation he might even sport a real glove hand.  Seems they come available at the waning of the season.

Well off to the outside with the inside warmed.  No cockles on my watch.  Might just Barbie up some proteins, and add some spuds and veggies, have the gang over for a bit of a bash. 

I will be watching from the bar.

Add some Amaretto Angel, I will be in the bar.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

The Large to Medium Small Debate

On my bottom, my men’s medium is now my men’s small.  The women’s 10 is now a 12, nobody ever wore a 0 before, and fewer socks are available to me wearing a size 9 shoe.  Now shirts are different; my men’s medium is now a large.  So let me check out the numbers, a Cuz’in of da way you like me to do dat.

Vanity sizing is one thing where, “in 1937 a size 14 dress had a bust size of 32 inches (81 cm). In 1967, the same bust size was a size 8. In 2011, it was a size 0”.  So much for the Incredible Shrinking Whoa’ Man.  Where have all the prizes gone?  Long time wearing?  Well let’s take the socioeconomic POV for a minute.  Studies have found, “expensive brands tended to be smaller than those from cheaper brands”.

Which is a good thing I think.  Those who are more needy, get more for their buck.  A truly humanitarian, anti-Atlas Shrugged marketing ploy.  However, Ole Sam Walton and his cadre are paying more on freight for those with more freight to carry.  One feeble mouthed clothing executive stated, “A manufacturing tolerance is given to factories which they are required to adhere to, while allowing for some flexibility during the production process. This can result in a slight variance in the measurements of the finished goods”.  Knowing that this means “offshore” manufacturers is basically vituperation about their own contract suppliers covering for ineptitude and sub-menial pay rates.

Nope let me slip into my Cuppa Joe shop and continue to order my small but medium large black coffee,   whaaaaaaaaaaatttttttttt, STOP RIGHT THERE!   Ever one of our own has succumbed to gallonage gaffs.   Yep I used to order a Medium Black Coffee,  now it’s a Small.  Even in the Schmuckerette shop I get a Small for a Tall!

Now in the Brogan-sphere, my size has not changed. Noticeably.  While a EEE 9 used to be the norm, an 8 ½ is more the norm now.  Now they do say that your bones shrink when you get older, maybe it starts at the bottom?  On the other foot, an Elected, Equal, and Effective Nine might get the pennant if not the Series, unlike the northern Blue Birds…

BITD the average family sedan came with 15 or 16 inch wheels. Smaller cars nowadays, bigger wheels, some have 19 or 21 inchers.  Is that penile envy?

What was that you said about size?

Don’t splash the linen Lily, pour my Java smooth.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

 

 

Sharing The Shiv Before Another Swig

The darkness stared me down, and I fell to the tapestry on the floor testing my Gluteus Maximus. Not on the divan, denting my ego, but lower articulating my knees beyond comfort.  The Shiv fallen and away, out of reach by comfort.

Last night the Fem Fetales and I decamped to the local.  Lately luckier than the lesser laggards, we partied like it was 1999. Tryin' to run from the destruction, you know I didn't even care.  'Cuz they say two thousand zero zero party over, oops out of time.  So tonight I'm gonna party like it's 1999.

I was dreamin' when I wrote this, So sue me if I go to fast.  But that Shiv is a danger, I won’t let it last.  And now the Leopards are looking for their skin, the Kalahari vacuous of the spotted cats.  What I would do when I woke. Stuporous fuzz blown from my eyes.  Staring down the interloper snapping Kodachrome of my stance.

http://instagram.com/p/iH5v7cvbEF/  Copy and Paste into your browser thingy for the subject matter.

We weather the Pin and trest our lives to the Aether of the interweb thingy.  Formulating actions and watches as time passages show us the way.  Pinned, Poked, Liked, Joined and Followed, we parry and post to the N’th.

After rising from the fuzzy form below my butt, the Java an blend with the dairy, my dendrites pinging alive again in my cranium.  Where are those that thought through the storm with me?  Sallied and slid to the solarium possibly.  The miasma I perceive as thought, drives me down the road of rumination, the five “W”s and an “H”.

Nothing coming forth to dispel my thaumaturgy. Pleadance and supplication won’t break my spell.  Where are the drivers, the inputs, the pick-ups, the Ports not of any calling?

Stream it in small doses Lieselotte, let it steam.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.

The Colour of Money or Muddy

It’s autumnal.  The sagacious of us will be aware of the Orange and Redding in our midst.   No Bay Dock being washed away by the tide of time here, you need to Tell The Truth.  From Schomberg to Orangeville, the green belt is skirted by the colors of Benetton in this manner.  The good Liberati of Ontario created a green belt, around that snugs a belt of Orange and Red.

While it has been appropriated by the aforementioned Liberati, Red is the National colour.  While overexposed carrots turn red, some ripe apples turn red, some ripe grapes turn red, and some discovered transgressions turn people red.  As is the newspapers; better read than dead.  The Toronto Star included. 

As fewer a fewer people actually read a paper paper, the news is easier spun and woven into a web defined by the writer not the reader.   When subjects are consumed on the CRT, or now LCD, the mind wavers and wafts in and out of concentration with bells and whistles chiming and clamouring for your attention as are the words written.

 

This is not by chance.  The writer wants you to buy into his digital supra-orbital ridge hair rising, which is achieved by your inability to maintain pointed concentration because of these diversions.  The circus clown is an obvious example of how spinning is done.  You are diverted from his motive by the funny face and big shoes, your pocket easily picked.  Or the magician with his waving wand and poofing hat, leaves you watchless or penniless as he hides and obfuscates his movements onto your person or into your garb.

The red grabs as you orange our affairs to suit the state today.  Tomorrow the state will make you red in the face by the cost of your next orange.  The diversionary tactics at this time of year take you way from the Coffee, and Pumpkin Pie in your life.

We are exactly 4726.5 Kilometers from Redding.

No java no joke Jake, Americano for me.

Mark Hull Du Calumet, First of the coterie of York, Son of Don, Scion of Karl in the House of Pfunkstadt, Connubial of Suzanne, Yeoman to the Hun of Honda, Prevailing in the Seat of Hespeler, Having been again to Australia, and now Grandad's Land, and for some, from The Dark Side.  Not am Main nor ab der Elba, but down the Donau.