Great Googly Moogly!!

Nobody really cares how much I weigh, but I DO, so nah nah...

After breaking the 250 pound barrier going DOWN this time, I've been celebrating perhaps a bit too... oh shall we say "energetically".

I bounced back up to 254 and 5 and am in danger of climbing higher if I don't stop eating half a carton of ice cream covered in nuts and chocolate every night...

Winter is coming and I sat for a spin on our recumbent exercise bicycle the other night. I was fiddling with the settings because I hadn't in a long while. Holy Crap! The guy who was using this bike before me punched in 283 on the weight setting!

Oh wait! That was me!

I think I posted this video long ago. I repost it because I am getting a couple of nuts together to go climb a similar tree.

Watching the movie "The Bucket List" and thinking about all the things my sister did before she died, made me want to start checking off a few items from MY list. I always wanted to climb one of the world's tallest trees. Something at least 340 feet tall (the tallest is about 365, I think).

So I told my friend Charles (who is a professional tree-climber) about my plans. He said he's too old and out of shape to climb up a 200 foot rope JUST TO GET IN THE LOWER BRANCHES OF THE TREE!, but that he had a friend who has been trying to get him to do the exact same thing and he'd put me in touch.

I suppose now I have to lose another 20 pounds... although I could prolly do that kind of rope climb today in the shape I'm in...

(Looks down at splendid bowl of ice cream, stirs some...)

Ever ride your mountain bike up in the hills all by yourself? It is kind of spooky. The other day, I said to hell with the bears, I'm gonna go do one of my new favorite rides. It's about 1,000 feet of climb on a fire road, then follows along a ridge before shooting down a very steep motorcycle trail and spilling out not too far from my house. It take about an hour to climb the hill, and about fifteen minutes to do the rest.

Off I went and started counting... one... two... four... six bear poops!

Crap. And the trail was full of berries just calling out to the bears...

"B E R R I E S... Get your berries heya!"

All I could think of was to make noise so that a bear would know I was coming. I figure a bear unstartled is not an angry bear.

But what kind of noise? I did an "Aaooga", like an old fashioned car horn. Then I shouted out "Hey You!" I felt silly, peddling up this long hill all by myself in the middle of the woods with sweat dripping off the tip of my nose shouting things that made no sense.

So I settled on "GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!"

Every hundred feet or so I'd yell out "GREAT GOOGLY MOOGLY!"

It didn't make sense when Frank Zappa said it either, but he was never ever mauled...