July 1, 2025
Calling all Angels
How 'bout them blog lurkers
I'm sure you know I'm blessed to have a family of angels watching over me, in real life as well as right here on CycleBlaze. I'm coming to think of the CB CBers as a benevolent Pantheon of demigods, watching over me to see if I've brain farted once again, as when I left this new website for over a day named as Cortisone Blues when everyone knows that impotent cortisone gets assigned the wimpy assignments like relief from knee pain - but the hard stuff, like protecting you from rheumatoid arthritis or in my case GCA, goes to his big brother with the much bigger gun, Prednisone (and thanks for Horning in on that one, CJ!). Or like yesterday when my music demigod Frank tipped me that no, - Mr Bacharach not British in spite of a source I'd found and rashly trusted that claimed so; but he was instead born in Brooklyn or someplace like that close to where Frank himself grew up.
I'm sure some of you know some of these folks because they're registered on the site so you recognize their identities - you've noticed or followed their blogs, or you're one who follows comments from time and take note when an unfamiliar name starts showing up like Mrs. CJ Horn, my first wife who split with me over half a century ago. Things happen, we all change, it doesn't create a problem for us and anyone else in our religious or personal beliefs, including members of the congregation of the Church of the Great Outdoors - but unexpectedly and for her own reasons she had cause to get exposure to our blog without suffering any apparent injury, probably while we were coordinating Shawn's recent visit to see his mom and then drive the Raven back to its new home back near MSP - and she's been a regular follower ever since.

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And then there's this other group: Folks that aren't registered and can't comment but still have their reasons for following along. Lurkers we call them, which sounds dismissive but isn't meant as such and I hope none are hurt or take offense from it. These are folks who have a toe clip in the biking world for some unique reason but don't choose to expose themselves because maybe they're shy, maybe they used to bike but aged out of it or can't any more for some reason: or they're still a kid, likes bikes or trikes, but isn't so deep into that whole word thing yet; or maybe they never have been on a self-powered wheeled vehicle in their entire lives, but they're biker adjacent, maybe hopelessly saddle over spokes passionate about some figure close to her, and he or she likes bikes; or maybe the person's a business competitor, wondering why all those rats and lemmings jumped over into the sea and started dog paddling to a nearby cay in the bay and sees his ship suddenly foundering and taking on water and taking his lifelong dream and livelihood down the drain with him and is hurt or scared or enraged or confused but doesn't know how to stop the hemmoraging, because it's too late. That ship has sailed.
Endless personal reasons, all wrapped up into one term: lurkers. I'm not sure how else to think about them but to be understanding of their situation and hope for the best for them as long as they observe the Hippocratic Oath along the way.
I'm pretty sure that Mason Williams would know how to talk about them though, half a century ago when he was the musical demigod on the Smother Brothers Comedy Hour, a weekend show that was an early predecessor to shows like Laugh-In and SNL and which CJ and I followed with a CJ and I watched passion at the time.
So the bottom line though is that we and probably other bloggers on the site have a circle of angels watching over us - faithful early readers, folks that nearly daily get to the site early if we're moving into a region they have some interest or domain expertise in and want to protect us from our stupidities or point out that we just spewed another brain fart all over the page, or don't know something about the region we should really know: the purpose of that hut on the uphill, or the identity of some building I can't quite pick up the name from my research, air any other reason. They're our CycleBlaze Angels, watching over us.
And don't get me wrong: we love all of the comments we get back, spuds too for that matter - all common taters are welcome here - but we feel an especially deep gratitude to our angels: CJ, Frank, The Grampies, Betsy, Jonathan, Becky, Bob, Bill, Karen, and on and on and on. You're all special to us, and we thank you for watching over us.
So that's the post, but for a brief blurb on how the team spent its evening before this block got knocked off. First off, we went out to dinner at Alora again, one of the restaurants that works well because of its proximity - she can walk there in about ten minutes, and I'll bike in less than half that and meet her there. While there we score an outside table where we can keep eyes on Roddy so he doesn't unexpectedly go wandering out of my life forever, bound for some chop shop that'll make mince-metal out of my priceless Rodriguez.

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and we have a delicious meal - the grilled king salmon with veggies we both order and have no difficulty putting away. And then we bike/walk back, staying together because she's under does by some sketchy characters and about that need a fresh whack that frighten her, and I start whistling the first tune that comes to mind as I slow-pedal ahead or behind her.
And then we're home, and after Rachael models the new bike shirt that she picked up from the mail room at Elizabeth's condo earlier in the day I spend most of the remaining daytime hours outside on the deck, developing this post while occasionally glancing at the horizon to see what's up with the sky. It's worth the occasional glance, so we might as well let you take a look too as long as you're here.

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14 minutes ago
So that's a wrap. I'm always surprised by how often folks ten or fifteen or more years younger than me are unfamiliar or flat out never heard of some treasured song from when I came of age, but most folks likely know Ella Fitzgerald's version of this old jazz classic because it's on playlists in coffee shops and the like. You might be surprised by this role-appropriate version though, as was I.
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“William James describes a man who got the experience from laughing-gas; whenever he was under its influence, he knew the secret of the universe, but when he came to, he had forgotten it. At last, with immense effort, he wrote down the secret before the vision had faded. When completely recovered, he rushed to see what he had written. It was: "A smell of petroleum prevails throughout.”
― Bertrand Russell, A History of Western Philosophy
2 days ago
Writing it down really does change everything. Being in this strange state is opening doors and windows constantly - isn't there a Hitchcock film where Gregory Peck looks down a long hallway in an asylum and all the way down an endless hall the windows are all flushing open?
And behind each one is some piece of my life I haven't thought of for many years. It feels like overnight I'm rediscovering the lost years of my past. I'm very excited about it, but then us maniacs do tend toward excitability.
2 days ago
Writing it down really does change everything. Being in this strange state is opening doors and windows constantly - isn't there a Hitchcock film where Gregory Peck looks down a long hallway in an asylum and all the way down an endless hall the windows are all flushing open?
And behind each one is some piece of my life I haven't thought of for many years. It feels like overnight I'm rediscovering the lost years of my past. I'm very excited about it, but then us maniacs do tend toward excitability.
2 days ago
2 days ago
1 day ago
12 minutes ago