Wednesday

This wasn't the most exciting of days for the trip. The gist of things is that we wrapped-up our stay in Siracusa this AM, and drove to Argrigento, a historical town on the Southwest coast. Showing some signs of wear, we elected to laze the afternoon rather than chase more ruins for viewing. Not the worst choice. We found a couple of places not shut down for the afternoon, and had wine while checking out the Mediterranean.


This is a shot from a point not far from our hotel (B&B). Lots of these views from the Old Town where we are staying.

We had spent the morning in Siracusa, checking out a little before 1100 local. Beforehand, 2 walked over to one of the historical sites that had both Greek and Roman ruins to view. I did the manly thing...laundry! But let's be perfectly clear...my needs had been communicated in advance, and the proprietor of the establishment basically took my stuff, my 5€, and told me to come back in 75 minutes. Which I did, and the stuff was done. I did fold and put it in my bag. He wouldn't take a tip. Perfect Neighbor in Siracusa, eh?

While the laundry service was in motion, I strolled down to the local market and observed the town's commerce in action.





Kinda cool watching and listening to the activity. I bought a couple of peaches for my breakfast. And a bunch of grapes that are still in tow. 1.5€ total.

We decided to haul our luggage with us to our parking place (at least a half mile away) as the access to the B&B for a car was so poor. No problems, just a long walk. Exit out of town was relatively easy, with just nominal corrections required. Google Maps works.

The drive to Agrigento was half just fine, and half a pain in the putooskey. With no direct route from Siracusa, we went back North toward Etna, and then West toward Palermo, all on Interstate-like roads. But once we had to turn South, we ran into your basic two-lane road with lots of construction. For around 50 kilometers. That's why we elected to do wine rather than tour upon arrival.

After some minor walking around town, and a short siesta in our room, it was off to dinner at a near-by place recommended by our host. It wasn't too bad of an experience, but not up to the standard set last night in Siracusa.

Our first courses: sorry about the lighting, but we just didn't have our act together. 2's was a sausage and egg plant pasta, and mine was some pesto pasta whatever. Both were good, not great.


The main courses: 2's was a meat combo that was average, and mine was swordfish that was equally average. We may also have eaten too much in the earlier courses, but neither of us could finish our meals.


The wine was a Sicilian Cabernet Neo Aviola or something to that affect. It also was good, not great. One of those bottles that you say, "Yeah, not too bad", but don't make a mental note to buy a couple of bottles for the Maplecrest driveway.


Here's a Top Ten list of random observations from the trip thus far:

1. Graffiti defaces almost every surface in the Italian public domain, including the historical sites.
2. Motor-bike traffic has NO rules.
3. The ocean water at the pier in Siracusa was Tahoe-clear.
4. Shopkeepers, wait-staff and other tourist contacts are all very courteous and helpful. (Maybe, ALMOST all.)
5. Diesel gas runs around 1.70 - 1.90€ per liter. When I fill up the car, which I have done twice, it costs more than a night's stay at our hotels.
6. Restrooms at the public sites (Isle of Capri, Etna) charge .50-.60€ for use.
7. In Sicily, they still dig everywhere. Between roads and ruins, this place has got to be a gold mine for Caterpillar and Deere.
8. Many, many English-speaking tourists at almost every site/restaurant. We're hard to miss!
9. The Internet makes the world a very small place. Amazing that we can communicate while being so far away. That FaceTime with Harvest Path last weekend was amazing.
10. We miss many of the little conveniences of home. We can do without them, but like for me, ice, an Americano MY WAY, and pop cycles are things that make home, home. So I'm a spoiled American! I can live with that.

OK. Obviously no literature award for this entry, but that was our day. We'll do the temples here in the morning, and then go over to Palermo tomorrow afternoon. We both have doubts about Palermo, it being a big city and all. We like simple. Think positive thoughts for us.

Thanks for reading. Ciao!!

BCOT

Tuesday

This was actually our only full day in Siracusa, but we spent a majority of the day on a trip to and from Mt. Etna to the North. If you're on Sicily, how can you NOT go to Etna?

I did a morning ride around Siracusa for an hour and a half or so, and 2 did a bit of a walking tour of the old city. My impression of the "new" town was not too high. Lots of apartment buildings and indirect streets. Little sense to it all. (I did receive a couple of gratis nectarines from a fruit stand, but I think that the generosity was driven by the gal's lack of change for my 10€ bill.)

Our drive to Etna required almost 90 minutes back up the coast on the freeway. The mountain became visible almost from the start. Funny how one hill can dominate a skyline. We had difficult traffic once we got off the freeway and into the city of Catania that we had to traverse to access the climb. It was just short of 20 kilometers to the tourist station once we got out of the city.

From the tourist station, we took a ski lift to the next staging point. We guessed that that the lift was maybe 3/4 of a mile or so in further distance up the mountain. The lift ticket was 28.50€ each. You could have upgraded to a jeep/excursion vehicle trip further up the mountain for another 20€ each, but we declined the privilege.




Here's a pic of 2 on the cable car to the mid-mountain station. We'll have some other photo's to add to the travelogue at a later time.

I felt like the mid-mountain point was very similar to Squaw Valley's upper lodge area in concept. They had a restaurant and souvenir place, and some other options, but mostly, there was more "up" if you were willing to walk or pay for the experience. We elected to take the tram back down the hill.




This pic is one from down the hill on our return drive that I may need to doctor-up to get the contrast. What I was trying to show is the outline of the island in the distance. You could see the shape and contour of the shore for miles from high on the mountain. Maybe another case of you having to be there to appreciate it.

After getting back to Siracusa, we did the obligatory wine sampling in anticipation of a higher-end dinner at a place just down the way from our B&B. We had purchased a bottle from a wine shop up the street last night, and it was not a bottle that we were going to hold for 10 years to properly age. It was worthy of an earlier usage.

Dinner was a home run. Period. Antipasti. Wine. Main course. Service. Atmosphere. Less than 130€ all tips included. Pics to follow. 2 went with the veal and I had tuna. The hit of the evening was a mushroom pasta pre- main course dish that was over the top delish. The head waiter was a star. These folks have served Yankees before.




We ended the evening with a glass of house wine in one of the piazza restaurants not far from our B&B.




So really a great day for the tourists.

A couple of other points. Our B&B is basically in an alley off of one of the streets in the Old Town. I would NEVER have found it. Leave it to 2 to locate us close to the action. But it's a nice room with our own bathroom/shower. Breakfast included. Parking is on the street as we did yesterday, or in the town public lot which we are in tonight. About 5€ per day. Not so bad.

Lots of tourists in Saracusa. Most on group/guided tours. Many nationalities. They all have phones. There was a gal at the top of Etna yelling in a phone!!! And there are countless motor bikes, the drivers of which follow no rules. They will pass on either side of your car, and will wind their way down the middle of lanes with abandon. Madness on wheels!

So I'm going to post this and then add a couple more photos from today. I apologize in advance of the appearance of the blog as this app just doesn't help me out much. Thanks for reading. Really. Sometimes I feel like my ruminations are just whispers in the breeze. Kinda like Kierkegaard. Does that tree really make a sound in the forest when it falls when no one is there?




Tomorrow is a combo-day. We're here in the AM, and then travel to Agrigento for the evening. Greek temples, I think. There will be additional Sicilian wine in the equation.

More then.

BCOT

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Monday

Another travel day for the Dynamic Duo, but not your ordinary day. After about a two-hour drive South from Salerno, we hopped aboard a HUGE ferry and crossed over to Sicily. It was actually a bit surreal to me.

I need to first admit that we did near-zero investigation into this part of the trip. I mean, taking a trip to Sicily via mainland Italy, why should you worry about how you actually got to Sicily? So I finally did pull up some information last night about the names of carriers and the costs associated with the trip across the Straits of Messina. In this case, the Internet came through.








The ferry boat was much bigger than I expected. I mean, they had a couple dozen semi's on our trip! And dozens of cars. A truly well oiled machine. We bought our ticket shortly after we exited the freeway and got in line. (This is where LtPC messed up on the directions and we had a tour of the local area.). It was maybe a 15-20 minute wait, and then they directed everyone onto the ferry. These guys had their act together. We were underway in less than 10 minutes once we were parked.

I was a little surprised that there were no chains, locks or other security devices for the cars and trucks. They didn't even tell you to us your emergency brake. (Which was good because we still haven't located the emergency brake on our car.) I'm thinking that in the USA, you'd have TSA agents all over each vehicle with a flag to denote that it was safely secured.

When we docked in Messina, they were putting on cars heading to Italy as we exited the boat. We decided that they likely had 3 boats in service as the schedule had ferries leaving Italy every 40 minutes, and the trip took around a half hour. They might have been able to get by with two vessels, but a third made sense. Our one-way fee was 38.50€. Plus a 2€ tip to the hawker who who directed me to the ticket counter and gave me the directions that I blotched.

It was another 90 minutes on the road from Messina to Siracusa. Interstate-like road with few construction spots and not all that many exits.

Google Maps got us into town and to our near-City Central B&B. We did a once-around town after check-in, and finally found a street-side cafe with a decent bottle of wine.




Without asking, the wine came with the antipasti shown. Very cool. And the wine was a Sicilian Merlot that was quite good. 18€.

We ended up with a walk on the seaside at sunset. Again, very cool. I'll try to add a pic of the sunset from my iPhone that didn't make it over to the cloud.




Now headed out to din-din.




2 at dinner. end of a great day

Thanks for reading. Ciao!!

BCOT

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Sunday

Not a lot to add today. It was check-out day from our place in Salerno, and then a 3+ hour drive to our interim stop here in Cosenza. Sunday is a good day to travel since almost everything is closed in Italy. That would be a fixed piece of advice I'd offer for anyone looking to visit Italy.



So this gives you an idea of where we are on the map. We could have driven further, but the plan had been to make sure that I had time to take a bike ride today, so this became the stopping-off town. It's very blue-collar-ish, with lots of 6-8 story high-rise apartment buildings. From my bike ride and our subsequent drive around town, there's little to distinguish the place.

There's an Old Town section that I rode through and where 2 and I went back to have a glass of wine, but it is really just OLD.


This is not my pic, but it easily could have been. (I had my mini-digi, not my iPhone, so my pic's are not up-load able today.) Anyway, the Old Town has pretty well got away from the locals. It's a slum, at best. Even the church at the top of the hill (out of this photo) is rundown.

The drive from Salerno was on the A-3, this region's equivalent to an Interstate. I've never traveled on a road with as many tunnels. Much more mountain-y down this way than what I had expected. Several large valley's. The A-3 had several sections under serious re-building. The normal flow was two lanes per side, but there were multiple times where it was one lane each way using just one side of the road. Just like I-80.


An interesting factoid that I surmised from the day's trip...they seem to NAME their bridges in Italy. Each one with a proper name. Not a number.

We're staying in a very conventional, Western-style hotel of 7-8 floors that 2 says was once a Holiday Inn. Since we're just here for the convenience, and are not expecting a lot of culture, this hotel works just fine. They even speak Inglese' at the front desk!



My bike ride around town was un-eventful. I mostly wanted to get in a ride and checkout the surroundings. Virtually all of the shops and eating establishments in town were closed. Very little traffic. The Italians make an effort to lay out their streets in a non-grid pattern...to great success. With many one-way streets and few direct cut-throughs, getting from here to there is a bit of a science. Add in round-abouts and narrowness, and you have an adventure!

One other small point that 2 and I put through the LtPC over-analytical wringer was my thought from the Isle of Capri day that I wasn't sure if I had ever been on a true geographical island before Capri. It's still a fuzzy topic, although I think I was probably on a small island in Canada those 20 years ago when I was on that Guy Trip for fishing North of the border. I've never been to Hawaii. Nor any of the Caribbean resort islands. (Cabo is not an island.) But I may have landed in Tokyo when going to/from Korea in the USAF. Whatever. Unlike Kenny Chesney, I am NOT an island guy.


So rather than bore the Peanut Gallery with more minutiae, from a rather ordinary day, I'll sign off for now. The schedule tomorrow is our further drive South...ferry across the strait at Messina...and head to our two-day stay on the Southeast tip of Sicily in Syracuse.

Thanks for reading. Ciao!!!

BCOT

Saturday....UPDATED

So we have elected to make this a "relax" day in Salerno. We had talked last night about a drive over to Amalfi to do more sightseeing, but our host at the B&B told us that today was a big day for a town celebration in Salerno. She said that vehicle traffic this afternoon would be a mess, so we have opted to hangout, watch the parade and fireworks, and generally take in the city. After two days of walking...a lot...a day sitting seems like a good choice.




This is a shot from our park bench looking out into the bay.




And here is 2 reading her book. We're definitely not over-doing it today.
2 pointed out to me last night that the restaurant fare is more seafood oriented here than in our stays in Verona and Turin. Geography related as obviously, we are on the ocean here, whereas the Northern cities have more pasta on the menu. Hadn't put that math together myself. Anyway, I. Had a seafood combo last night, and she went with the only pure pasta entree on the menu. She rated here's as average, while mine was definitely above average.

The highlight (lowlight actually) of the IofC trip yesterday was a waiter trying to scam us out of €24 at our small lunch, 2 not being able to finish a questionable-looking pannini not with standing. Anyway, I tried to pay with a credit card, and the guy came back with an obviously troubled-looking computer tape, saying that the machine wasn't working. So I paid him in cash. But before we could leave, the Mama-san (Korean-speak for the head gal of the place) came over and said for me to wait, motioning for me to come to the pay station. Long story short, the machine DID work, she had me sign a very clearly-readable tape, and had the waiter pay me back my cash. I wonder how many times that that waiter had used the "broken machine" schtick to scam a tourist? Thank you, Mama-san.

We ended up sitting with our hosts for at least half an hour for breakfast this AM. Coffee, fruit, quiche and home-made croissants. The 30-year old daughter is the communicator...pretty good English. Mother is the operator, but has little English. And there is a Spanish maid who does much of the house-keeping work. They rent out a total of just 3 rooms. In the account of this trip that 2 and I vow we will put together about this trip, I'll describe a little more about their operation and some of the facts we learned about their lives.

So just to spark-up this travelogue, here's a Top Ten list of factoids since our departure from the QCA Tuesday morning:

1. The Google Maps app has been an adequate GPS alternative. We got right to our hotel in Salerno, and to Pompeii without any trouble.
2. Tourist shops at Pompeii and IofC are carbon copies of shops at every mega attraction in the world. Lemoncello on IofC compared to holy water at Lourdes or Lincoln heads in Springfield.
3. Italian street markings still rate a Worst in my ratings system.
4. Smart phones have taken over the world. And people can rudely talk loudly on them in public places in Italian/German/Pick-em.
5. The promenade here in Salerno is heavily saturated with shoes/bags/make-up/lingerie/apparel shops for women. I think the guys show up to girl-watch and carry bags. Like at the mall in the USA.
6. Seems like 3 days is the number for my jet lag reversal. Today seems like a normal day.
7. Biaggi's in Davenport does an excellent imitation of authentic Italian Margarita pizza.
8. Every place we go, they know we're tourists when we walk in.
9. We haven't turned the TV on in our room since arrival. Pretty sure I could live without one on Maplecrest.
10. Great to have Twitter to stay up with the fam. PLD and CJ are stars!!!

OK. 2 tells me it is time for lunch. If we see anything worth reporting later, I'll add some pics.

Have a great Saturday in your part of the world!

BCOT

Evening pic's.

This first one is just looking up the street at the parade around 6:30 PM local. This was kinda at the start of things. Big crowds throughout the downtown area.




Now we have walked about a mile, ahead of the parade, to a restaurant district that we visited a couple of nights ago. We just chose this place because there was at least one other couple at a table. None of the other adjacent places had anyone sitting at their tables. We wondered if it was bad form or something to dine while the parade was still in progress. I snapped this pic to illustrate an empty dining area with literally a throng of people stood just a few feet away.












Dinner. Both very good.




This pic just doesn't do justice in representing the thousands of people out and about as we made our way home at 8:00PM local. Streets were still blocked off for the parade that had started over two hours previously. All ages were represented. We both celebrated that we weren't in a car in this mess!!! It was a cluster!!!!

All for tonight.

BCOT

Friday - Pic's Only

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2-hour boat ride to get to the Isle of Capri from Salerno. Round-trip for two €89. I had said last night that it would likely be €50 each. Not so far off, eh? Huge number of tourists. Kinda like Times Square. Lots of little shops half way up the hill from the beach. 2 Americano's and two croissants for €15. Just like the airport or the ballpark. Suite.

Still looking around the corner for a Bond girl from the 70's.

Will be doing a long lunch here and then back to the beach/harbor for the return trip at 4:30 local...which is 0930 back in the QCA.

I'll try to add more here once we get back to our hotel. We're both tired...didn't sleep well...#jetlagstill.

Ciao!!

BCOT

Thursday

I'm not entirely sure of my time and place in the world as I sit down to post this entry. As my closest of associates will know, I don't re-set my Ironman wrist watch when I travel...and it tells me 10:55. Add 7 hours and we're at 5:55 local...which is what the iPad is showing at the top of my screen. So those of you in the New Country are not quite past mid-day on your Thursday. OK...my mind is now on point.

I did get out on my bike for a little over an hour this AM on the walk-way along the beach in downtown Salerno. Nothing special about the ride, although I need to do so oiling of my break lines before going out tomorrow. Kind of surreal to be riding seven time zones away from my last ride. On the same bike.

2 and I both slept like 12 hours once we hit the bed last night. That over-night flight is a beach. I don't sleep on planes. The lay-over in Dusselforf was just long. Then it was the time to rent the car, and the drive to Salerno. The autostrade is just like an Interstate, but with less land on the sides or in the medium. It even had a couple of points of construction to make it seem more like home.




Our room is very basic. We do have our on bathroom and shower. We are close enough to walk downtown...and to the ocean-front. Salerno is an old town...and we are past the Summer beach season. Classic European narrow streets, small cars...and lots of motor scooters. We have a hotel parking spot a couple of blocks from our location.

The trip over to Pompeii today was a success. The archeological dig is several dozen acres and a person could spend days there if they we really into that sort of thing. We were there for 2+ hours and that was enough. It's a huge tourist attraction and there were many guided groups with leaders speaking several different languages. It was about a 30- minute trip from here back towards Naples to get to Pompeii. Vesuvius is the big hill above the town that caused the problem.

I had serious doubts about finding the parking entrance upon our return. But after a couple of mis-hits, we made the right turn and got there. Lucky. If there was a lottery ticket place available, I'd be buying tonight.

And the bottle of wine that we picked-up on the walk to our hotel from the parking place is one that we used to drink at Biaggi's!! A barbera that is ok, but not great. Funny that we go a world away and find a bottle of wine that we drink in Bettendorf!


This one was a screw-top. 2 noted that I paid $8.50 Euro...which is about the price that the Hy Vee on 53rd charges for the same bottle. She said that we could use it as our wine-currency reference data-point for the trip. Not a bad idea!




I guess 2 gets to be Daughter of the Day...for getting us to and from Pompeii!!! You're a long way from home, Baby.

So that's all for today. If you were looking for deep thoughts, sorry.

Will try to post another entry tomorrow.

BCOT


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Tuesday

Not much of an entry today. Boarding for Dusseldorf now.

The trip to Chicago was ok, although the counter agent noticed a small difference in my name between the passport and the ticket. I got through Security ok. Must have been my Senior Citizen status.

They took the bike. I wonder how that will work out? Right before I went to bed last night, when I was mentally going through my checklists...again!!!...it occurred to me that I hadn't packed the peddles that I had had the bike shop take off over my lunch hour. I got up, went out to the garage where I had done the bike-packing, and sure enough, the peddles were sitting on one of my small plastic patio tables. Wow!!! That would have been a pleasant surprise come bike-assembly time! (Provided the bike makes it to Italy!)

2 and I are not sitting together on the plane. Her seat was reserved, but mine wasn't. She thinks that there may have been some wine-induced selections the night that I bought the tickets. Hmmm. That's always a possibility.

It's a 7 hour time difference between here and Dusseldorf. Which means its coming on 2300 hours there. If we land at 0800 local, that means we have a 9-hour flight. Suite. It would be nice if I could sleep on a plane.

I did buy some data-time for the iPad while across the pond. With wi-fi in the hotels and coffee shops, I shouldn't need much other time, but I wanted to be able to make some entries as I saw fit. So there should be entries here most days. And that should also cover Twitter. You're never below radar.

OK. Departure is imminent. The next entry will be from the Old Country.

BCOT...we will.



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Sunday

The clock-time to Italia is no in sprint mode.  Less than 40 hours to out departure for ORD.  Yikes!

That visitation that I attended on Thursday night for my first-cousin Don was another reminder of how interesting family gatherings can be. There were three other first-cousins from that family also at the visitation: Dan, Shirley and Loretta.  (The fourth still living cousin from that family, Fran, was actually in the hospital for a stint procedure, but was possibly going to be at the funeral on Friday)

(I don't think that I had ever previously met Loretta.  She and I spent several minutes going through the family tree, as she is still 100% "with it."  We all remembered Fran having to go to the hospital at Elizabeth's funeral, some 30-40 years ago.  Daddy was one of the guys who helped Fran that day.  Loretta's daughter, whom I think has had some genealogy conversations with Tahoe Phil, was also there.)

For all of you rabid cycling fans in the Peanut Gallery, Chris Horner did win the Vuelta a Espana today.  The critics are already raising doping questions.  He's a 41-year old with a limited palmares, so these things can be expected.  He now needs to find a team for next year as he is currently without a 2014 contract.

In other sports news, the rain that we've been looking for came in and washed-out the golf in Chicago, and the NASCAR race is on hold as well.  Bad timing.

A hat-tip to the Hawkeyes for their victory last night in Ames.  I saw a few minutes of the second quarter before the Geneva party.  The final score may have been a little closer than the game?  The 'Clones go to Tulsa next week, and they need to be careful or they'll be Oh-for-2013.  I think Iowa has another Directional U on the menu.

My packing plan has been slow to formulate.  I did pull the box for my bike down from the over-head spot in the garage this afternoon, and patched up a couple of holes from the return trip from Bilbao.  I'm riding in the AM, and then will pack it up tomorrow afternoon.  If all goes well.  I have a few doubts.

I had a high school classmate, whom I haven't seen in forever, stop by my place this afternoon out of the blue.  Turns out he's been tuning into my Tweeter feed and blog entries in recent weeks since catching up on my program from another classmate whom I see regularly at coffee.  He was actually most interested in Margret, as he's a car-guy.  Why wouldn't he be?  Its a small world.

My Monday may be one of the craziest/scariest/stressful days of at least the last year.  Maybe longer.  Its a filing deadline.  No more extensions.  Its also a big day on my securities business vendor conversion.  And I have to finish packing for Italy.  I have multiple lists to reference.  Maybe a list for the lists.

OK.  Enough.  My mind is hitting warp-speed, but creativity is obviously not part of the route.  Probably my next entry will be Tuesday from ORD.

Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Friday

Not sure if this Home Page pic is a keeper or not.  Mt. Etna in Sicily.  A sign of the times?

Just a few lines this afternoon before heading out for the evening.  I'd say "heading out for the weekend", but that ain't gonna happen.  Still a few returns to dress up before the Monday due date.

Just to clarify the lay-of-the-NASCAR-land in Chicago this weekend, they DID make a late change to The Chase line-up, adding the 24 as a 13th eligible car.  I think Patrick was right that this wasn't going to happen as an additional result from the Bowyer kerfuffle as outlined in my post and his comment.  But then the NASCAR snoops uncovered some questionable chatter between a couple of Ford teams that seemed to suggest that a position was given up to help out Logano secure that 10th spot.

All said, I'd say this gave just about all of the parties their rightful place.  Gordon will have to win some races to make a true run at the crown since he really was the 13th best car most of the year.  Kyle Busch, 5-Time and Kenseth should be considered the favorites until someone else proves otherwise.

And Chris Horner has continued to amaze over in Spain.  He now has a 3-second lead going into tomorrow's final mountain-top stage.  And he's done it by chipping-away at the previous leader (and heavy pre-race favorite) in the last kilometer or two at each of the summit-finishes this week.  If he is successful tomorrow, it will be a huge victory for American cycling.  Good for him!

@srh4 is heading to Harvest Path for the weekend to help out with 1.01 and 1.02 while Mom and Dad participate in a training run tomorrow.  Hard to believe that the Twin Cities Marathon is less than a month away!  And that in two weeks, 2 and I will be BACK from Italia.  And then I have TT training to do.  (The good news?  Only one in-the-dark bike ride to do this year. Monday AM.)

2 and I are getting togetherr tonight to do some Italy planning.  With a little wine-training as part of the process.

Hope everyone has a good weekend.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Wednesday

Tuesday

The countdown clock to Italy rolled over the One Week To Go banner today.  I feel like my world is running on military double-time right now.

Not that all of you share my racin' interests, but....

NASCAR has stepped in and made a partial correction on the mess made at the end of Saturday night's race.  They penalized the team behind the shenanigans some serious cash, and took away the spot in the championship races from the team member who benefited from that fake crash.  But they didn't give redress to the 24, nor was there any direct punishment to Bowyer who purposefully spun out his car.  I'm thinking that there may be a tweaking of this ruling before this weekend to give the 24 an extra spot in the finals.

4's Twitter post yesterday about an in-store GAP sale on women's jeans...that wasn't applicable to the jeans she had selected...was a follow-up to my experience with the on-line discount offer I tried to utilize last week...which turned out to be a non-discount on the jeans that I had ordered.  Classic advertising, eh?  Whether it be in clothing stores or the grocery, signage is almost always deceiving.

My early morning rides (in the dark) now have me packing a back-up set of batteries for my head-lamp after the light died in the middle of my ride yesterday.  Whoa!  Didn't expect that light to go dark, particularly since I had done a preventive replacement the night before with a couple of batteries that had been in my re-charger device for the last two weeks.  Note to self: 2 batteries in the 4-battery recharger don't recharge if not placed in the slots specially so labeled for when you are charging just two batteries at a time.

For those of you with an eye on the financial markets, they have made change in three companies in the Dow Jones Industrial average.  Out are Alcoa, Hewlett Packard and Bank of America.  In are Nike, Visa and Goldman Sachs.  Understand that the DJIA is comprised of only 30 stocks, so this is a significant change. 

But Dow Jones points out that the average is a price-weighted average, and that the three out-going stocks were the lowest priced securities in the average, and accounted for only 3% or so impact on the composite average.  Thus, the higher-priced issues in the average had a larger impact on daily changes in the average.  I think this kind of adjustment is interesting, but not likely to change the lives of too many folks.  It is certainly another testament to the axiom, "the only constant is change".

Let's make all the girls Daughters of the Day.  Everyone is busy.  Everyone is successful.  Everyone has many good things going on in their lives.  Its Glad Game Tuesday!!!

All for now.  Stay cool!

BCOT

Sunday

I'm still trying to grapple with the fact that it is September 8th.  Where in the world did the last month go?

So Iowa wins yesterday, rather unspectacularly, over a team without many Big 10 athletes.  But when you"re on a 7-game losing streak, the old adage applies:  A win is a win is a win.  ("old adage", of course, being redundant.)  It will be interesting to see what happens next week in Ames.  The 'Clones scheduling an "open date" after their first game?  Really?

ND showed little at The Big House.  Can you say, "9 wins"?  And a trip to the Boise Bowl?

I recently got caught by Gap in an ad misinterpretation on an on-line "sale".  It was a 30% Off For the Day deal.  I had previously decided that I needed a couple of new pairs of khaki's for the Italy trip, so when the 30% ad hit my email, I figured it was a good time to make my purchase.  For good measure, I added a pair of jeans to freshen my wardrobe.  I went through the process and  thought I had applied the discount and had the right net cost as I hit the "check-out" key.  Wrong-o, Bucko!

When the package arrived last week...on schedule, as usual, for Gap...the slacks were all the right sizes and the colors that I had ordered.  When I checked the  enclosed packing invoice, I finally noticed that they had not given the discount on the jeans.  My first thought had been that there was a computer error, as I was fairly certain that the ad had been a 30% Off Everything type of promotion.  But when I went to my email confirmation from the order, the jeans showed no discount on the original invoice.

I then mentally exercised that there must have been a small-print exception for jeans (and maybe other selected merchandise) which generally hacks me off when retailers do that, and capture some sales that might not otherwise get made.  So I called the Customer Service line, actually got through in a short period of time, and registered my gripe with the Service Rep.  The gal was actually very nice, credited me with a 20% Off on the jeans, and took down my Old Men Think 30% Off Everything means 30% Off Everything complaint.  I'm sure that my feedback will influence Gap to change their business model. 

A couple of comments on my other sports of interest...

Yes, I do consider NASCAR a sport.  Anyway, the 24 had the pole for last night's race, the final one before the 10-race schedule to crown the annual champion.  He had to have a high finish to get one of the last spots.  Bottom line?  Uh, he be racin' for wins in these next 10 events, not the championship.  He finished 1, yes 1, point out of the final spot. 

There was  some controversy at the end when one driver, Clint Bowyer, perhaps did an intentional spin-out to get a Yellow flag, which meant that the field then had to reset for a couple-lap dash to the checkers.  If not for that Yellow, the 24 and Ryan Newman looked like they'd have made it in for the championship running.  It just so happens that the 24 crashed-out Bowyer in a late race last year, and the other benefactor of this Yellow flag was a Bowyer teammate who would have been outside looking in if Newman had won.  In the garage, they know that this Yellow was not an accident.  These boys have memories.

The peloton is in the high mountains of the Pyrenees right now, today's stage finishing not all that far from where 4 and I rode last year.  Chris Horner, the 41-year-old American, remains in 2nd place over all.  But he's 50 seconds back, and it doesn't look like he has the oomph to get up to the top spot.  They still have 6-7 days to go, but the leader is in a strong position.  (If this placing holds up, the winner will have gained all of his time-advantage in the Individual Time Trial stage held last Wednesday, where he bested Horner by about 90 seconds in the race against the clock. Is that really racin'?) 

The race has had a lot of drop-outs, not an uncommon result for this event.  Only 150 riders finished the stage today out of the original 198 who took the starting line two weeks ago.  There'll be a few more who will cut bait before the finish in Madrid.  The long season, the up-coming World Championships, and the normal crashes/illnesses all have contributed to the attrition.  More so than the TdF and the Giro, the Vuelta pays the price of a somewhat reduced interest in riders thinking that they need to finish the three-week race to validate their bona fides for the peloton and their sponsors.  

Switching gears...

Just a comment on the Friday night concert that 2 and I attended at the River Music Experience (RME) Redstone Room.  2's contact at the RME had comp-ed her some tickets and we had a "Reserved" table with a personalized name-plate awaiting us.  Suite!  There were maybe 75 people in the room. 

I'd give the over all rating of C+ to the night's entertainment.  Gretchen Peters has talent both vocally and in her writing.  But we left after an hour or so of her music.  She has a moderate, feminist, life-is-hard edge, and I didn't feel like entertaining the crowd was as important to her as was getting her thoughts across to the audience.  Not overbearingly so, but I still got that "message" feeling in most of her songs.  (Plus, it was certainly after my bed time!)

Her opening-act was a gal singer with lots of dark perspective in her songs.  We left this presentation after 5-6 songs for better wine in the lower-level bar, returning with "go" plastic cups for Gretchen's performance 40-45 minutes later.  (We had rejected the wine offered in the Redstone Room. There might have been a box with a spigot behind the bar.) 
 
No other philosophy to offer here today.  Hope the Peanut Gallery has a good day.  Thanks for reading.

BCOT

Friday

Just a few lines today to give a report for the masses.  For a "short week", it still feels like it has gone on for longer than a "regular" week.

The BEATER lives.  The current problem was diagnosed as a failed "starter", and replacement was within my price/benefit window...less than $350, including the tow.  It makes me a little nervous to announce this news as Murphy's Law might bring forth a follow-on problem for a vehicle with a list of potential issues.  But I'm taking my chances. 

The shop that I took the car to for the fix was recommended to me recently by a friend.  I've used several places in recent years for this kind of work, including a Ford dealership.  The movement has been motivated by a combination of factors, not the least of which has been a constant stream of suggestions for additional work on the Taurus each time I have had it in for things as innocuous as an oil change.  These guys at Grant Street just replaced the starter and offered no further guidance.  The guy taking my check even said it wasn't the worst BEATER that he had seen.  I'll go back.

This shop is called Grant Street Auto Repair.  Located in Bettendorf.  On State Street.  They had to relocate last year as a result of their prior location being on the route for the new I-74 bridge (which is years away from even getting started).  Since all of my contact up to the time of yesterday's pick up of the car was via telephone, my pal Bill and I obviously went to the Grant Street location as given to us on the Internet, only to find an empty lot.  How long does it take Google to catch up on such things?

This is also an illustration of the dangers of naming your business with reference to your current location.  Times change.  There's another repair shop in Bettendorf called Duck Creek Tire...which hasn't been in the Duck Creek mall area for several years.

2 and I are scheduled to go to a concert at a small venue here in Davenport tonight featuring Gretchen Peters.  Until I saw the announcement in the local fish-wrap yesterday, I had never heard of Gretchen Peters.  Turns out she is an accomplished song writer in Nashville and does some concerts herself.  What got my attention was the fact that she was the writer of Martina McBride's hit, "Independence Day".  I'm suspecting that she might be a bit of a feminist crusader given the little bit that I read about her on-line, but I'm mostly interested in her music.  Report to follow this weekend.

The Perfect Neighbor's garden is producing lots of tomatoes.  Since tomatoes are one of my favorite vegetables, I think my relative good health is assisted by the anti-oxidants found in tomatoes.  You are what you eat, right?  Funny how different people's taste run on different tracks.  My pal Doug pulled the tomatoes off of his sandwich last Saturday at the football game.  Kinda like me and green peppers.

OK.  Now to the piles here on my desk.  Ugh!!!

Make it a great weekend in your neighborhood.

BCOT

Wednesday

I got the nudge last night that I missed proper recognition for 1.01 yesterday with her first day of preschool.  In fact, I had tried a couple of times to download the Instagram pic that 1 had posted yesterday morning for exactly that purpose...and failed.  I'm going to need a lesson on Instagram from 2.

Here's looking at 1.01...a day late...but GRANDDAUGHTER OF THE DAY for her first day at preschool.  You da' girl, Kiddo!

More later.

BCOT

Tuesday

So these are some random pics from the last few days.

This first one is of sun-up on Sunday morning around 0630 a few miles North of Davenport, taken with my iPhone. It may become the Home Page pic if I can get it moved over to a PC in decent shape. It was a very neat skyscape at the time.





Obviously, this next one is taken while going 80 on I-80 on the way back from IC Saturday around 1800 hours. iPhone again, one-handed...which explains the angle of the dangle.




Here we have the Hawkeye March at the start of the game. Even if they play so-so, they have a great entry! I tried to Twitter this and other pics from Kinnick, but the mobile traffic had the airwaves on overload. Even messages and text-only tweets were delayed at times. I'm sure that there was some statistical support to attest the timing of timeouts based on Twitter-flow.




I snapped this one (from the iPhone also) one morning last week on the early ride near Davenport Country Club. There's a break in the trees that opens up this window view from the ridge line above the river of the lock-and-dam on the Mississippi below. I've seen it over the years and it always reminds me of a scene out of a war movie like The Dirty Dozen where some guerrilla soldiers go behind enemy lines to blow up a key bridge or ammo dump. (I may try to go back and get this shot with my "good" camera to see is I can get the zoom-focus and clarity a little better.)




And just for those few who might not have seen the Twitter post this morning, here we have the Taurus headed to the shop. It's never good to see your car taken away on the back of a hauler!






For the record, I'm a big supporter of the US military. Watching the current exercise in Washington, listening to all the posturing, and reading the contorted logic of historical Doves switching sides, all exclusively for the political protection of the current President, is an outrage.

Great weather day here in the QCA. Hope it was equally enjoyable in your neighborhood.

All for tonight. Thanks for reading.

BCOT


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Sunday

Giving up a few lines this evening to celebrate the first day of September.  In my world, September is the beginning of Fall. 

I would have felt much better about the football game yesterday if it had at least been in the month of September.  Not that the calendar would have assuaged the dismay of the game's unfortunate result.  (It didn't help the 'Clones either.)

Really enjoyed the DeWitt ride this morning with my good friend @bcbison.  I still can't keep up with him, but he always waits for me at the top of the hill, and lets up on the gas when he knows I need a break.  The waitress at the Sunrise has figured out that my preference for my eggs is "basted", as opposed to over-easy or over-medium.  Good information for the future.

Then there was a little unanticipated excitement with the BEATER this afternoon when I set out to complete a few errands.  In addition to a few standard household provisions, I figured that I could make the effort today to knock off a couple of tasks for Italy, namely, new memory cards for the two mini-digi's that I plan to take on the trip, and a pair of good walking shoes.  When I fired up the car after getting the household goods and memory cards at Wally World, there was that sick, sputtering sound as the engine started.  This being the same sound from an engine that wouldn't start earlier this week.

Rather than go straight home and let the BEATER rest in her spot in the driveway, I elected to make the fatal "one more stop".  Bad move.  Of course.  When I came out of the shoe store with my rockin' new Rockports, the BEATER was dead.  Of course.  Long story short...the BEATER is still in the mini-mall parking lot.  If history repeats itself, it should start tomorrow.  And she'll go directly to the repair shop...where the mechanic will say, "Starter or alternator.  $350, please."  Whatever.

The experience gave me pause to recall the #automotivefail experiences in my life time.  A partial list:

1.  That overnight South of Chicago with the original Margret.  Circa 1969.  Electrical failure.
2.  A Buick total-system fail near Brooklyn, Iowa on our way back from skiing in Colorado.  Circa 1972.  Uncle Doyle to the rescue in the bitter cold and snow.
3.  @srh4's Ford Maverick blowing an engine on my way from Chicago to Davenport in 1980 to start my new job in Davenport.  In the middle of I-88.  @srh4's Uncle to the rescue.
4.  My Chevy Blazer not starting one morning in Des Moines while staying with my friend Jake's Pants.  It took some calls to my local dealer who then made a call to DM dealer who brought a tow and fixed it that morning.  It pays to have friends in high places.
5.  The circa 1978 (and very forgettable) "dropped the keys through a sewer grate" when @srh4 and I were furniture shopping one weekend near Woodfield Mall, a few miles from our house.  We walked home.
6.  Drove my high-school car till it stopped, not that far from the farm.  Outta oil.  I walked home from that one too.  Grandpa not happy.
7.  The BEATER actually cracked-up a few years ago at the Davenport private airport on the night that we got back on my pal Roy's plane from the January golf trip.  Bitter cold. Front springs literally broke apart.  Fortunately, my pal Ron hadn't left the parking lot.
8.  There's gotta be others.  Running out of gas not counting.

Here's a question:  What causes the most heartache in life?  Cars?  Airplanes?  Technology?

And an even deeper point, if we all deal with these bumps in the road all the time, does anyone really have a smooth path through it all?  Hint...the anwser is not yes.

Okay.  I need to get some rest.  Golf tomorrow with my pals Ron and Cal.  It may be my last round of the year.

Enjoy the holiday!

BCOT