Hodge Podge Ben Dodge Monday

Hey all, looks like two days in a row.  Wow is right.  Now don't get all excited over there and think I'll be doing this daily because that's a lot of juice.  Let's just say that it'll be more often than what I've been doing for the past few years and leave it at that.  Anyway....

So today I set out on my bike ride with no particular place to go and no particular workout to accomplish.  I just wanted to ride and didn't care where I went or what I did.  So I'm kind of noodling down the boulevard trying to figure out a route and coming at me on the other side of the road was none other than Carl the Ranger.

I asked him where he was going and he said to Walnut Creek to pick up Dave.  Concord cop...retired.  Always good to have the law with you when you are muling all sorts of unknown narcotics especially when you are planning to run every stop light and stop sign encountered with an unknown quantity of warrants.  Okay, I don't run drugs or stop signs or lights and I don't think I have any warrants but it is good to have the law on your side. 

 



 

After we picked up Dave (and I say "we" because at this point they hadn't realized that I was basically stalking anyone I encountered so I didn't have to be alone with my thoughts.  If you've ever been alone with me and heard my thoughts, you know it can get a bit creepy or absurd or both). Carl likes to ride the mountain so I knew where the ride was headed even before I asked and I was good with that.  Carl had some time constraints and Dave only wanted to go to the junction so I pushed on and made it to the top. 

 

A bit smoky so the view was a bit lacking but still nice to get to the top of the mountain.  I peeled down the Walnut Creek side and back to the house and then hit the book store.  That's where you come in and your just in time.  "In time for what", you ask?  Audience participation time, that's what.

 

 

So I hit up Barnes and Noble in Dublin.  I know, shocking that they still have an actual store you can go to and browse and talk to sales people and pick up something and read a few pages, etc.  So this is where you come in.  Obvi, I got three books.  The one on the left is a book my son will be reading in his English class and since I've never read it, I thought I might give it a whirl.  I got the middle one because I just finished another one by the author and liked it.  The one on the right is one that won a Pulitzer and I'm kind of thinking I'd like to read all the Pulitzer winners.  Which one do I read first?  Let me know and I'll get started.

 

 

 

After all of that, I got to go to the best 30 minutes of my week.  That's my guitar teacher Bruce Hock.  I've been learning from him for about five years.  I can play parts of a lot of songs.  But I can only play one in its entirety.  So if you have a request and it's The Road Goes on Forever and the Party Never Ends by Robert Earl Keen then let fly with the requests.

 

Like I said at the onset, kind of a Hodge Podge Ben Dodge kind of Monday.  From creepy stalking to the top of Mt. Diablo to a real life and still functioning Barnes & Noble to my guitar lesson.  Not a bad day at all, I suppose.

 

I'll leave you with a couple of shots from yesterdays action.  In one, you will see Gannon Myall breathing down my neck.  That was a flowy fast section of the course and having a fast man push you to the limit can be a bit daunting early in the season.  The other is a shot of me running up the long dusty hill.  Running is also daunting.

 

 

Anyhoo, thanks for checking in and be nice to each other.

 

Johnny GoFast