Walking

Another Day In Oldmanland

The highlight of the day was my once every second fortnight haircut. And when I say haircut, it is more like mowing a lawn, in that I have them put the #2 comb on their shears and just cut everything they can see.

The standard Senior Haircut is twenty-one bucks, but I’m not sure I’ve ever paid that. The first few times I went there I had a $5 off coupon, but ever since then it has been $15 or $16. They always say something like, “If the boss were here, I’d have to charge the full price.” And although I usually go to the same shop, it’s always different stylists.

Today’s haircut price hit a record low; she charged me just ten bucks. I don’t get it; what is the reason for the random price cuts? They are on a salary, and it is so low that they are “sticking it to the man” because they get to keep the tip? Maybe they found that the price cut makes the tip go up? Also, what’s with the “if the boss were here” thing? No one is keeping track of how many haircuts they do and comparing it to their money taken in? Whatever it is, I like it; it’s anarchy.

Morning Walk

This morning’s sunrise appeared like normal, but after breakfast and I stepped outside to go for a walk, the unusual higher temps turned that into a lot of low level fog. By the time I finished my 2 mile trek around Salish Ponds the fog was gone. And the sun sort of came out, there was scattered blue to be seen. After making a coffee I hopped into a Miata and went for a short drive east of here where the roads have more curves.

After lunch I went back out and gave both the boys a bath, even though the rains returns tomorrow and will probably reverse the cleanliness in short order.

Wetlands, Not Wet Man

Bonus Monday Post
I had already done the indoor cycling this morning, so I figured I’d just rest on those laurels, until I noticed a sunny day outside while making my lunch. After eating, I checked what the weather called for and if AccuWeather was correct in their local forecast, the rain in the area wouldn’t materialize until around 3PM.

So around 1:30pm I changed the sweatpants for some grownup adult pants and drove over to City Hall because there is a small park there where I could get onto the trail over to the Salish Ponds. I wanted to start here because the last time I had done this trail walk I stared on the other end. And you know my guiding rule of life, always mix up your route, when possible, it makes it harder for any hitman your enemies may have hired to find you.

The sky was dappled with both blue sky and gray clouds when I set off, but as I walked the blue became harder to find. About a half mile in the sky was all gray and getting a little darker. I continued along. Until the breeze turned from cool to cold, when I remembered that discretion is the better part of valor. I turned around and headed back. Almost back and it started to sprinkle. I was maybe 20 yards away, I could see the car…right about here I could create big drama by telling you that the heavens opened up and I got soaked through in sight of my destination, but the rain held off until I was inside the Miata.

It rained all the way home. After changing back into those sweatpants, I went into the kitchen to make a warm beverage, I looked out the window and the sun was shining brightly.

Quiet Sunday

Watched a couple of car videos on YouTube, watched an episode of The West Wing and then listened to corresponding podcast episode of The West Wing Weekly and then watched a Red Sox spring training game on MLBTV.

After lunch I headed over near the Troutdale Airport where there are some paved and unpaved trails and took a 3 mile saunter. Now, ripping a bunch of Noir Jazz off of YouTube for listening to in the car when I have to drive somewhere and it’s raining.

After dinner I’ll probably watch an episode or two of something called The Story of Film: An Odyssey. It is fifteen roughly one hour long episodes covering film from all over the world. The first couple on the origins of motion pictures was real interesting, but now it is starting to fracture and my interest is wanning, but it kills some time and it is still interesting in spots.

A Good Walk Spoiled

Turns out my favorite coffee shop is a mile and a half away. Because today was a nice day I decided to walk there and get a 16oz Salted Caramel Latte and walk back.

There are two ways to get to Stomping Grounds coffee shop and each is roughly the same length because it is on one side of a rectangle and home is on the opposite side. Probably will not do that again, it was not a lot of fun, all four sides of the rectangle are busy roads.

Donna and I used to walk to our favorite coffee shop in Klamath Falls, Brevada, and it too was a mile and a half away. The difference was that we had three different routes between our home and coffee. Two of the routes were very quiet, one was mostly on a multi use trail and the other involved quiet residential streets and a short trail. Only one was via a busy road and it was no where near Portland Metro busy.

Since The New Year

Right now the Miata is getting driven on average about 1 out the 7 available days of the week. Since the beginning of 2022 it has traveled a bit less than 100 miles, 98 to be exact.

I would say we go for a 2 to 3 mile walk on average about 5 out the 7 available days of the week. Since the beginning of the year we have walked a few miles less the Miata has been driven, or 89 miles.

Because I’m a weird individual, even if I will have no use for one, I have to carry car keys in my left front pocket or I will feel unsettled. Usually when we go for a walk I carry the Miata key because it gets less use than the Mini’s, so that means that key has been walked nearly as far as it has been driven.

34,000 Pounds of Thrust

This Friday and Saturday was the 43rd Annual Aiken’s Makin’ Arts and Craft Show. Two rows of tents along three blocks of downtown full of hand made knickknacks, gewgaws, bric-a-brac, trinkets, trifle, baubles, gimcrack, whatnots, thingamajigs, tchotchkes, doodahes and whim-wham. Also about a dozen purveyors of fair food for your dining pleasure.

Because we are people of leisure, we thought a good idea would be to beat some of the crowds and go on Friday, but by the time we did the usual morning stuff it was too hot outside to deal with it. So today we went with Plan B, we walked the 2-1/2 miles up to it, timing our arrival for the official 9:00 AM start. After walking the whole thing and finding absolutely nothing we wanted to buy, except a “fresh” lemonade and an ice cream, we checked out all the food vendors and decided that we would drive back later to get lunch.

Halfway home Donna said, “Oh, I forgot, we were supposed to go to the Indie Arts Vintage Market.” I said, “We’ll do that at lunch. We can even park there and walk the 2 blocks back to Aiken’s Makin to eat.” The vintage market is every other weekend and this one coincided with the big one. After seeing literally 6 blocks full of crafts in the morning we breezed through the market, right until we got near the other exit. Both of us stopped and went, “Cooool!” There was one guy1 there with these vintage cameras turned into lamps. They were sitting on old wooden tripods with an LED bulb in the metal flash reflector.

But the cameras weren’t what we were looking at, it was a couple of Flash Gordon spaceship looking lamps made from explosion-proof light housings and other found metal objects. We just had to have one.


On Monday the Ladybug passed through the 34,000 mile mark.