But getting back to Richard, he's always seemed like the quintessential cool nerd (his Dad was astronaut Owen Garriott, which is also a bonus). Yeah, he wore jerkins and galligaskins and went around proclaiming himself Lord British, but he also remained engaged in the real world as well. From what I hear, he's actually a pretty nice dude as well and I wish him the best on his month about the International Space Station.
In other news, my cousin Marc has an interesting post here about the thought-provoking site of out-of-business gas stations. Out here in the west, it's not unusual to come across a remote station that was on the fringe of a long-lost boom town (a lot of mining in Colorado and Utah faded away in the 60's). One right out of the X-Files is the abandoned town of Cicso just over the Colorado border in Utah. One of the gas stations there still has a battered sign proclaimed 33 cents a gallon gasoline. Peeking in one day, I saw a handgun on the dusty, neglected counter of the extinct station--weird, eh? Closer to home, I've seen a lot of ghost gas stations with prices around $1.49, which I think went under sometime in 2001.
Speaking of Colorado, this was the third weekend in a row we've had lousy weather--so bad, I didn't get outside for much of anything other than a quick ride of Hall Ranch on Friday afternoon. Gettin' fat and watching sports isn't THAT bad, but it's not ideal either. And I may be doing more watching/fattening in the upcoming weeks. There's a very good (well, bad) chance that I've torn the rotator cuff on my right arm, evidence by the fact my fastball would probably clock about 18 mph right now. I had previously gone to a Dr. that misdiagnosed it as bursitis, thus my summer of ultimate frisbee, volleyball and other fun stuff may have making a bad situation even worse. Granted, in the scheme of things it's not the worst thing in the world but I really hope I don't need surgery. Having a feeble, old-man arm sucks but hopefully I'll have more news this week...
