Poets Day US

I wanted to write this post a few weeks ago after the passing of Gene Wilder but I couldn’t quite get it done – hopefully I can now since I have been to alot of Nowhere Specials since then. You might recall the line ‘Nowhere special, I always wanted to go there’ at the end of Blazing Saddles just before Sheriff Bart and the Waco Kid rode off into the sunset (and then a limousine). It was one of those throw away lines that were all through one of the greatest movies ever and was the perfect way for it to end. Webster (the kid from the show not the wordy book thing) defines Nowhere Special as not anywhere distinguished, which really doesn’t help at all as there are a tonne (metric) of places that are not anywhere distinguished, possibly more than there are places anywhere distinguished, actually most definitely more. So essentially wanting to go nowhere special means you want to go anywhere apart from New Zealand, some parts of Europe, The Valley of the Gods in Utah, Machu Piccu an...

I really hope Mum doesn’t read this blog, not that it is going to be particularly crass or have any more use of foul language than usual. I just hope she get’s confused using the Bing search engine trying to find out what Tinder is. She will probably end up wondering why I am now a dry flammable piece of material and how that has anything to do with my need to “quit smoking and lose some damn weight, fatty” as she likes to put it. Mum is a great motivator, seriously awesome at it, she motivated me to move 8,453 miles away she is that good :) In all honesty I have not joined Tinder, I tried the traditional dating route, well traditional for this smart phone generation, following people on the Book of Faces and SnapChat. It didn’t work that well for me, as quite frankly it seemed a bit, well, stalkery. I am more used to getting rejected in person in a bar than in digitized 1s and 0s. Technology has denied us quite a few of the more satisfying things in life, like slamming down a ph...

It is a day after the race here in Austin and I thought whilst I still have some memories of the event I would put pen to paper – or in this case digital renderings of the alphabet in random order on a screen. I came, I saw and it kicked my ass however I did finish, which was the goal so there is celebration in that fact. I will probably, maybe write something about this whole trip to nowhere special once I return to base camp Raleigh but to some a recap of this event, which was the reason for the whole trip in the first place, might be of interest. The whole thing started with a conversation with my brother about doing a triathlon again one day and the fact that he might like to do one with me. I have been riding a mountain bike pretty consistently lately and had been trying to get in the pool a bit in the summer as I knew swimming was good for my back and that if I swam in the ocean the Japanese would take me for scientific research. All I needed to do was to be able to run a...

I had to go to my back cracker today, Snap, Crackle and Pop in North Raleigh, as I had a rib lock up just below my right shoulder yesterday and they needed to get it moving again – and yes it is quite painful and it hurts when I breath. I have been going to S,C & P for as long as I can remember (which is not long in my case but that is another story) and as much as they probably hate me calling them S, C & P they don’t read my blog so what are they going to do about it J Dr Crackle was adjusting my back, shoulders, neck, knees and hips today and we were talking about the fact that I cannot run without crippling shin splints. He asked how was I going to finish the triathlon I am doing in just over a week and I just said I would deal with the pain later (I am taking the good pills with me). He knows better than most that I have a pretty munted chassis but he also knows that I am a full basket short of a picnic so somehow I will get across the line. As I headed into work I ...

If you haven't noticed that the Olympics are on in Rio de Zika currently then you are either completely oblivious to the world around you or you are reading this in the future in which case humanity survived the clusterfuck that is 2016 – yay!!!  I have recently been paying attention to the sporting event happening south of the equator, and have also been watching the Olympics - in fact I might be multi-tasking right now watching the Men's team pursuit at the velodrome whilst typing this (it is a lot like NASCAR in that they make a lot of left turns and most people are just watching for the crashes). There is a cacophony of sport to watch thanks to the wonderful people at the Peacock Network if you have a computer, otherwise you would be led to believe that the only sports so far have been scantily clad beach volleyball (they should make the men wear Borat thongs to even it up for the ladies), swimming and gymnastics - and I don't want to watch the gymnastics. But wh...

So the other night I was briefly watching “Running with Bear Grylls”, or what should be called “Bear Grylls interviews celebrities after making them eat maggots and sleep with him”. He had just spent the night spooning with one of the Jonas brothers (Alec I think, or Daniel, might have even been Stephen) and was conducting an in-depth interview whilst both of them were chilling their stones sitting in the snow. The Elephant Dung Drinker made the comment during his Oprah moment ‘It’s the cracks that make us interesting’ and I had to send that line to myself immediately as I knew it was a great theme for a blog. I also knew that if I didn’t send myself a note I would forget what it was he had said and would have to come up with a theme for this weeks blog all by myself. Yes that was a long intro to nowhere but remember to be eligible for a Pulitzer I actually need to write something J So this week it is all about the cracks, of the non-plumber type, that make us interesting. Le...