[sic]

Riding home last Friday I somehow managed to hit a big enough bump or pothole to dislodge the business end of the awesomely bright rear blinky light on my bike, leaving me with nothing more than than the rear casing attached to my saddlebag.

I used some of my small strap-on LEDs in the interim until a couple days ago when I could roll to the Bicycle District Square Gateway Homeland Zone Quadrant Town Epicenter at Heliotrope and Melrose where the literal hole-in-the-wall shack that ist Orange 20 Bikes is located.

Honestly, my last couple visits haven’t gone so well. I was sold the incorrect style of brake cable on one occasion, and most recently I purchased a new set of tires only to get home to find they weren’t the same size.  Trifling and resolvable matters too be sure, but frustrating nonetheless. Coincidentally, both of those visits took place while co-owner Jim C. was elsewhere.

See, Jim besides being a legendary cyclist who knows a looooot about bikes, is also a guy who will take the time to do right by you, and he’s the reason why on my way home Tuesday I passed by Palms Cyclery on Motor north of Venice and Chubby’s on La Cienega south of Guthrie and kept on going straight to O20 — whether Jim C. was there or not.

If he hadn’t been, I would’ve just bought the light and bailed without asking anyone else working there for advice with a situation my bike had developed because frankly and in all likelihood I would’ve been blown off. It’s happened before. Never by Jim C.

Fortunately he was there, and as such after purchasing the light I troubled him to check out the clicking sound emanating from around the headset/stem area that had started sporadically enough but had since grown to be a maddening almost-constant reminder that something wasn’t right.

But what? Was it damaged? Was it metal fatigue? Was it a potential hazard either way?

Keep in mind Jim C. coulda said  “well it could be symptomatic of a problem that will require me to take a look and cost you money for labor and parts,” and I would’ve been all “OK.” But instead Jim C. stopped what he was doing, came outside and manhandled the bars of my bike a bit and heard a couple clicks and said there’s no damage, there’s no fatigue, and no it’s not a potential hazard either way. Then he told me a simple DIY fix that involved me greasing the stem bolts that hold the handlebars in place and also the insides of the stem because by most accounts he said it’s just simple dry metal-on-dry metal contact that’s occuring somewhere in there that’s in need of a little lubricationalization.

I did that this morning and guess what: no more clicks. None.

And that is why Orange 20 is my go-to bikeshop.

So last Tuesday I went to the 5th Annual Blessing of the Bikes at Good Samaritan Hospital and among the shwag I accumulated was a 15%-discount coupon for REI. In the ensuing days since my bike was blessed the coupon has been sitting on my desk, having survived several attempts to discard it because I just don’t do a lot of shopping at REI — not only because there isn’t a store near me but also because I’m one of those snarkos who thinks the company’s acronym stands for Really Expensive Indeed.

Well boy howdy am I glad I kept that piece of paper around because yesterday as I was perusing my Sitemeter referals to see who other than The Google was coming to my blog, I found an inbound link from www.jokeisup.com and as it looked wholly unfamiliar of course I clicked on it and found the blog of a cycling dude I believe I met if not on previous Midnight Ridazz or RIDE-Arc rides than last summer during the Hot Knives’ Le Grand Crew ride. Anyway, he had written this post about Bike To Work Day, which discussed the event’s significance and then segued into bike clothing — ultimately concluding with a link pointing readers to my favorite footwear maker — KEEN — who’d apparently decided it was high time to come out with a badass commuter cycling sandal in full SPD-compatible clip glory:

The catch was the link was to REI.com where the shoes were listed at $115. Immediately I tried to do better on the price via Zappos.com and a couple other online shoe sources where I’ve made previous Keen buys, but the best price I could find was $114.75. Oooooo, a whole quarter! And shiny!!

It was then that I remembered the coupon and in a few minutes spent filling in a few form boxes and entering the discount offer’s code, suddenly the shoes were undie a hundie at $17.25 cheaper and I clicked the submit button in triumph!

So thank you Good Samaritan Hospital for hosting the Blessing of the Bikes. And thank you REI for having a table there at the event from which I took the coupon. And thank me for not repeatedly pitching that coupon away. And thank you Sitemeter for logging the hit from Jokeisup.com. And thank you Doctor J at that blog for coming on that beer ride last summer and meeting me. And thank you for putting my blog on your blogroll. And thank you for whoever clicked that blogroll link and came over to my site. And thank you again Doctor J for being a cyclist and writing about Bike To Work Day and discussing your clothing options and linking to those shoes.

I couldn’t have done it without you!

About a month ago I probably glazed most eyes over writing about the concerns I have regarding the proposed satellite radio acquisition of XM by its rival Sirius. I won’t bore you again with the specifics other than to say that as a long-time Sirius subscriber I’m still just as wary of the rumors that the individual companies’ existing hardware might not accommodate the combined programming of the new single entity and thus require some sort of cash outlay for a new radio.

The vague explanation that remains on the Sirius Merger website coupled  to the silence that’s greeted my specific correspondence to Sirius on the topic has served to only increase my apprehension, and prompted me to write my U.S. senators about it.

I heard first back from Barbara Boxer whose platitude-loaded form letter pretty much boiled down to “this is an important issue,” and “thanks for writing to me.” Thanks for nothing, Babs.

Would that Sen. Feinstein had been so generic. Instead her response blew me away with how much she — or more specifically one of her staffers — blew it in misreading my letter as one expressing wholehearted support of the proposed merger:

Dear Mr. Campbell,

Thank you for writing regarding your support for the proposed merger between Sirius and XM satellite radio. I appreciate your taking the time to share your views.

The Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission share concurrent jurisdiction over merger enforcement. It is their duty to carefully review, among other things, the potential implication of mergers on consumers and businesses. This is a crucial function of both agencies and it is often a very lengthy process.

Although mergers do not require congressional approval, the Senate Judiciary Committee has oversight jurisdiction over mergers and held a hearing last year to consider the implications of the proposed merger. Although I was unable to attend that hearing, I have been following this potential merger closely because, if it takes place, it could have a major effect on the media market in this country. On one hand we would go from a market with two satellite radio companies, competing fiercely to develop their content and attract subscribers, to just one satellite radio company. This could limit the choices available to consumers. On the other hand, I recognize that XM and Sirius have raised concerns that there is the potential for both companies to go out of business if the merger does not go forward, leaving the satellite radio market void. Please be assured that I will keep your support for the merger in mind should the Senate consider these issues further.

Once again, thank you for writing and I hope you will continue to write to me about issues of importance to you. If I can be of further assistance, please do not hesitate to contact my Washington, DC staff at (202) 224‑3841.

Best regards.

Sincerely yours,
Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator

My “support” of the merger? Of course I WTF’d an email right back at Dianne:

Senator Feinstein,

Did your staff even READ my letter? I ask this with pointed incredulity because you reference my “support” of the Sirius/XM merger twice in your response when in fact my letter to you expressed the reservations I have regarding the acquisition of XM by Sirius and how it might make current subscribers’ existing equipment obsolete, thus necessitating costly purchases of new hardware in order to take advantage of the new hybrid programming.

If you or your staff even bother to read this I only hope it’s clear how absolutely disappointing  it is to be so grossly misinterpreted.

Sincerely,
William Campbell

The satellite radio scene got bumped to a bigger blip on the radar in large part because of the announcement this week that the Justice Department’s anti-trust busters have given the proposed $4.6-billion merger of Sirius and XM corporations a hearty thumbs-up.

Chances are this doesn’t mean much to most people who receive their radiowaves terrestrially, but as a long-time Sirius subscriber I’m paying it some attention, primarily because of the rumors I’ve heard that should the merger be approved by the FCC, my current Sirius equipment might become obsolete in that I would still receive Sirius programming, but not whatever former-XM channels get ported over. In order to do that I would of course need to “upgrade” my hardware at a cha-ching of a several hundies.

Coincidentally this morning I got a call from a Sirius telemarketer looking to send me a new free radio with a 45% discounted additional subscription ($irius is $et up in $uch a way that one can’t get a new radio added to a current $ub$cription; each box need$ to have it$ own… but that’$ another topic entirely and all right I’ll stop it with the dollar signs).

I expressed my concern to the telemarketer as to buying equipment now that might be programming impaired post-merger and the representative put me on with her supervisor who assured me that would not happen, and when I asked him to provide me with something in writing, he instead directed me to siriusmerger.com where he told me the writing I sought was there in black and white.

Sort of.

Here’s what Sirius has posted:

“If our merger is approved, the combined company will offer consumers the best of each service on your current radio - at a price well below the cost of the two services today.”

Sounds good, right? On the surface yeah, but my skepticality looks at “best of each service on your current radio” and sees a position that craftily reinforces the separation of the two entities. Notice the use of “each” and the singular “service” instead of “both” and “services.” Big difference.

But wait, there’s more at the bottom of that page:

“We guarantee no radio will become obsolete. Your current radio will continue to provide you with the programming you enjoy, whether you keep your current service or change to a new subscription plan. “

Again at first glance this looks solid. But on second pass it’s basically a thinly veiled statement of the obvious that tells me Sirius radios will continue to receive Sirius programming and XM radios will continue to receive XM programming.

As a result of that cagy language and at Sirius’ invitation I utilized a form letter page on their website to send the following email to my elected officials in Washington, DC, and the FCC, with the subject line: Concerns About Hardware Obsolesence Following Sirius/XM Merger.

Honorable Senators, Representative, and the FCC:

In the guarantee posted to the Sirius website, it states:

“…that that no Sirius radio will become obsolete as a result of the merger. The two companies have millions of radios in the market, including many that are factory-installed in automobiles. After the merger, you will not need another radio to continue to receive the programming you now enjoy.”

This statement is ambiguous and frankly disingenuous in that it does not specifically address new programming. While I understand that my current Sirius hardware will continue to receive the Sirius programming I presently access, what remains unaddressed and vague is whether or not that hardware will allow me to access any new programming brought over from the former XM.

I am a long-time and mostly satisfied Sirius subscriber but since the buyout was announced  I have abstained and will continue to abstain from purchasing new hardware in this pre-merger interim. I am satisfied that existing Sirius programming will be available to me with my old radio, but I’m not going to upgrade my equipment if there’s even the slightest doubt that it will not support any new programming should the merger be completed.

Unless this is specifically addressed by Sirius I will wait out the merger before buying rather than buy now only to be forced buy again to enjoy any combined programming — which would not happen because I would cancel my subscription rather than allow myself to suffer such bait-and-switch tactics.

Sincerely,
William Campbell

Sorry if this is gross-out material, but as to the freaking OMFG! humonstrocity of the cerumen impaction from which I had been unknowingly impaired, all I’ll say is that my doctor’s discovery of it a during a flu bout visit a few weeks ago prompted a return trip this morning so that his nurse could patiently flush the stubborn thing from its hideout in my left ear canal with some sort of medieval turkey baster suction/irrigation device.

It only took three tries over the course of several minutes, but having to suffer through the endlessly repeating and loud squish-splash-whoosh all up in my head made it seem like an eternity. The benefit of not having an indecently large globule of gunk plastered up against my tympanic membrane? Yay! I can hear like a 30-something’er again out of the left side of my command module!

To celebrate me stoically suffering the procedure and emerging from it a better hearing human being, I opted to reward myself (as if I needed an excuse) with a quick visit to Coco’s Variety Store that I previously raved about here on the Los Angeles Metblog. On that first visit with Susan I was satisfied with purchasing just one box of the notorious Hamster’s Lunch, but after discovering the wonderful hamster figurine included with the rather unpalatable snack, I’ve been wanting to collect all 12 of them!

Thankfully I limited myself to just two boxes this trip and I was pleased to find my lonely Roborovski hamster now has the company of the following two friends: a Dzungrian hamster on wheel (that spins!) and a somewhat worried and hand-wringing bipedal black-bellied hamster:

On the way out I also scored myself a couple gumball machine saints for the low-low of 5o cents each. It doesn’t get more dynamic a duo than the two the machine dispensed as if answering my prayers as to which ones I wanted: the Guardian Angel and the Virgin of Guadalupe!

Gotta admit I’m inclined to leave the guardian angel hanging because it’s tough to give five to someone who looks so unguardedly unenthusiastic. And on the subject of the lady in red, I almost hate to say this but can I also just point out that at first sinnerly wrong-way glance the virgin’s prayer hands could be misconstrued as an ample decolletage showing through a peekaboo gown.

Oh I’m so going to hell.

Man did I just have an idea that might or might not suck. Well, in actuality it wasn’t my idea, nor did it just happen. It’s actually been sauteeing in my brain pan for a few months now. I think it originated from one of my fellow biking buds — Steve or Spencer perhaps — during one of the IAAL/MAF rides I’d routed. Maybe it was one of our small Thursday night rides or it could’ve been one of our larger invitationals. The Hello Dahlia ride comes to mind in which I led a score or so riders from downtown to the location where Elizabeth Short’s remains were discovered. Narrating at occasional points and landmarks along the way someone said that I should totally start up a company specializing in touring L.A. by bike. I laughed and shrugged because while it’s a great and appealing idea that combines my loves of biking and this city, that kind of endeavor would require little stuff like capital and a business model and promotion, not to mention a stable of bikes and a way to transport them. Then after all that it would be something with appeal that people would not only want to pay to do, but also feel comfortable doing.

Because let’s face it, being a veteran of many years and thousands of miles rolled around this town have left me somewhat fearless (not reckless) when it comes to swimming with the sheetmetal sharks. The guys and gals I roll with regularly are equally streetwise and tough, but it would be a whole different consideration with say for example me having to play tour guide to a couple nuclear families from the midwest out here for their first time to see the sights of Hollywood or downtown or Beverly Hills who’ve never seen these streets before much less from the saddle of a cycle. Hell, they might not even have been on a bike in years.

As I am so inclined toward all my aspirations I have little trouble finding the hitches and speedbumps and caution signs that allow me to talk myself down from such a flight of fancy. And yet, since it was first expressed in passing to me some months ago, all my internally naysaying hasn’t kept it from percolating, albeit on a waybackburner like a simmering dream that I reach out to stir on occasion.

And the reason it’s bubbled up again is simple: last weekend’s ride to the Watts Towers of Simon Rodia — not just because it was a really cool and unique ride, but moreso because I was profoundly moved by Rodia’s perseverence, dedication, vision, eccentricity and longevity in crafting his soaring creation which speaks to something very deep in me. And his quote “I had in mind to do something big and I did,” is something that I find myself repeating, half in awe and half in envy of what he accomplished.

What I love most of all is that he didn’t begin the endeavor until he was 42 and continued at it for more than three decades. While I remain perturbed at not seeing it for so long, there is something fitting in my seeing his masterwork at the same age he was when he commenced building it. 

I think we all have in mind to do something big, but most of us don’t. I certainly haven’t. And while I’m not sure if a bike tour company is my big thing, it certainly would be something that fulfills me. So it’ll keep percolating, and I’ll keep you posted.

Not that this post will register even so much as a distant blip from the far outer banks of any of the great blog lakes, but one never knows what rings of what pebble dropped into its waters might resonate out far enough to register. So at the potential risk of this post getting noticed and thus incurring the scorn of the Boing Boing loving world (of which I’m normally a devoted member), I sometimes have to wonder hopefully and in wide-eyed skepticism (and a good measure of greening envy) if self-promotional posts such as this one:

…by the site’s co-founder Mark Frauenfelder are cooked up with a sheepish wink and a nod and posted with at least something of a knowledge aforethought that apparently there’s nothing they can’t make, autograph, overprice and deliver — no matter how trivial — that their adoring readership won’t snap up.

Yes, I know Frauenfelder is a virtual lord of the internest and his cred is not to be questioned and certainly not be the z-list likes of me. But as a non-fawner I have to admit to a level of incredulity not only when I see stuff like that being so blatantly shilled, but that it sells like limited edition hotcakes.

Perhaps there’s some context or connection I’m missing. Maybe this gape-mouthed gremlin is much sought-after iconography that my lack of fimilarity with his work precludes me from understanding. But even so… six bucks for a palm-sized cahier notebook? Even one with a fancy cover, signature and gape-mouthed gremlin? Maybe that makes a ripple as a gott-have-it bargain in some ponds, but not in mine.

And just like that I’m about to re-enter the realm of the gainfully employed. Granted, it’s a temporary copy-editing gig with a four-to-six week window, but it is a gig nonetheless  and one for which I’m tremendously grateful — and the finite time frame makes the 20-mile commute through the thick of the city that much less unbearable. Plus it pays a bitchin’ hourly wage — a few bucks more per than I typically charge for my freelance webstuff services.

And as a bonus it takes a bit of the building pressure off a second interview scheduled this Friday for a full-time content management job much closer to home. In other words, if I don’t land that one, at least I’ve got this thing to fall back on across the threshold of the new year.

I report tomorrow at 8 a.m.

So I chose today to be the day to go down to City Hall (by bike of course since it’s L.A.’s annual Bike To Work Day) and take care of the business license/tax money I owed because the city somehow couldn’t find me to collect so they shipped my account off to a collection agency in the great state of Wisconsin that was able to locate me (I wrote all about it here).

I don’t know what it is about civil servants, but they just seem to be about the grumpiest and most easily displeased people on the planet, and the lady I had the pleasure to interact with was no exception to that rule. So after entering City Hall for the very first time in my life and having my backpack scanned through the machine and having to demonstrate my Alphasmart was a functioning text-input device and then stepping to a counter to wait in line to get the sticker you see at right I then walked about 50 feet to my left to the Office of Finance where I took a number from the Take-A-Number machine (48) and as they were presently serving the holder of No. 38 I grabbed a chair and pulled out Chuck Pahalaniuk’s Choke, which I’m about halfway through and frankly wondering while I’m still reading it… it just ain’t all that compelling to me.

Then, as if in answer after one of the clerks calls for No. 42, Chucky gets my attention with:

That mountain, for example,” she said. She took the boy’s stupid chin between her thumb and forefinger and made him look with her. “That big glorious mountain. For one transitory moment, I think I may have actually seen it.”

Another car slowed down, something brown and four-door, something too late-model, so the Mommy waved it away.

For one flash, the Mommy had seen the mountain without thinking of logging and ski resorts and avalanches, managed wildlife, plate tectonic geology, microclimates, rain shadow, or yin-yang locations. She’d seen the mountain without the framework of language. Without the cage of associations. She’d seen it without looking through the lens of everything she knew was true about the mountain.

What she’d seen in that flash wasn’t even a “mountain.” It wasn’t a natural resource. It had no name.

“That’s the big goal,” she said. “To find a cure for knowledge.”

For education. For living in our heads.

And right there in that waiting area of the Office of Finance on the first floor of the City Hall I’m nodding my head with a half grin on it and I’m sold on seeing Choke the rest of the way through. Even if that’s the only nugget in the whole strange damn novel, that’s enough.

“Number 48.” Oh shit, that’s me! I tuck Chuck back in the pack and scramble up to the window where I explain to the grumpy lady on the other side of some silly metal bars about receiving the collection notice and speaking with someone from the office who said it would be best to come into the office if I wished to request a waiver of the penalty —.

“Well you have to put that in writing!”

“Yes, I did that in this letter,” I tell her, sliding it across the counter. She snatches it up and barely looks at it, prefering to meticulously scan the collection notice from the company in cheesehead country. Then she launches into some condescending mumbly grumply speech about needing to provide documentation of my earnings corresponding with the tax year in question, but it’s all blahblahblah to me and now I’m thinking I didn’t even get a chance to piss this woman off and it’s already sounding as she’s going to to make me go home and get some verification of my wages as an independent contractor for 2004 and 2005, come back and put my backpack through the scanner, turn my laptop on and get another sticker so I can take another number and wait some more? At this point I’m ready to eat the penalty and pay the amount on the collection notice and be done with it.

Instead she asks me what type of work I do. I tell her it’s freelance writing and design work. She asks me how much I made in 2004. I tell her: $3,000. And in 2005? I tell her: $0. She gives me a look like what kind of lousy writer/designer are you and I squelch the urge to explain that I just wasn’t seeking work a whole lot during that period and all.

She wants my social security number. I tell her and for the next five surly hours minutes she’s mutely punching her keyboard and pulling up screens that I can’t see. For all I know she’s ordering From Grumpier To Grumpiest In Ten Unpleasant Days on Amazon. Or maybe stealing my identity.

Then without so much as a perfunctory grin or frown or any sort of explanation or reprimand, she punches her calculator and just says “$104.99.”

I slide my ATM card across the counter, a touch perplexed. See the $104.99 is what I was told on the phone that I owed for 2005, but there was also a matter of $114.93 for 2004. Before I can ask the woman’s walked away from me. A couple minutes later she returns with a temporary copy of my business license and a debit card slip in the amount of $104.99 for me to sign.

“But I was told I owed two amounts. Will you be charging that separately?” She ignores me as she makes a note in a ledger of my case with the Wisconsin agency being closed.

“What about the $114.93 I was told on the phone I owed?” And for the first time she makes eye contact with me and says in as ungrumpy a tone as she can muster: “Sir, it’s all taken care of.” I spit out a “But” but quickly stop myself from continuing on a fruitless course toward an explanation that would no doubt mire me in what I’m sure could be one be-yoot of a bureaucratic morass.

Instead I see the light and say “Then I’m just going to shut up and say thank you and good day.” I swear she almost chuckled. And I grabbed up my updated license and receipt and papers and got the hell out of there.

Now I’m not sure what happened that made her excuse the $114.93. I don’t think it was any sort of kindness on her part. Maybe it was bogus to begin with or maybe I was eating into her lunchbreak or she had to pee or both — who knows and who cares! All I know is that I went in expecting to be dinged for $219.92 and I got out of there having to part only with well less than half that.

Hallelujah!

My quick-’n-dirty business cards arrived via VistaPrint today. I ordered them after attending the blogger gathering at the Golden Gopher last week and I was practically the only one who didn’t have one to hand out. So I went home and whipped one up via VP’s handy cardbuilding tool — even used a photo I snapped exiting the Gopher of the defunct Italian Kitchen restaurant frontage across the street as the card’s background graphic:

Of course, the risk I run is that literal people will think I operate a business called Italian Kitchen. Whatever. All I care about and that is that they were cheap and easy and painless and now I have a not-your-every-day calling card where as yesterday I didn’t. Ta. Da.

Speaking of business, let’s talk about the freakin’ collection notice I get in the mail yesterday from some agency in Youbetcha Wisconsin telling me I owe the City of Los Angeles $157 and change. It doesn’t say for what honor I have of owing my native metropolis said amount, just that I do and that I’d better pay up and fast. Not that I don’t have some idea it has something to do with the business license I set up a couple years ago when I had delusions of some sort of full time freelance writing career, but I let it lapse in 2005 in part because I never received anything from the city offering to renew it and also because I didn’t do a thin red cent of freelance work in 2005.

So I’m wondering why I’m getting taxed $157.12 on a freelance income of Goose Egg. Typically I call the City’s Finance Office, which is listed as the creditor on the collection notice and — get this: they don’t have any idea who the hell I am. The lady on theother end of the line gives me some song and dance about accounts of less than $1,000 are automatically referred to these outside (way outside!) agencies. But I ask her why the hell didn’t the city first send me a freakin’ notice of money due? And before she can answer I say and besides why are you taxing me anyway since I didn’t make a taxable dime freelancing last year???

And all she can tell me to do is contact the agency — which I do and when I tell them I don’t owe squat they tell me to call the city again. Greeeeeeaaaaaaaat. Fortunately when I call the city I get a much more helpful and knowledgeable person who takes the time to find me in the system and to explain that the money I owe is not tax so much as it’s basically the renewal fee for the license. One that I never really needed in the first place. And certainly didn’t in ‘05.

When I ask why oh why didn’t the city send me a renewal notice she punched some buttons on her computer and said it was because the city didn’t know where I was. I had to laugh out loud that the city I live in couldn’t find me but some Green Bay Packer-lovin’ bill collector in Beerbatter Wisconsin was able to paint me with a laser beam probably in between bites of his brat and kraut sammich.

Sheeesh!

Anyway, it was nicely offfered to waive the $47 penalty portion of the amount and mutually decided that my best course of action would be to come down to City Hall and settle up the amount in person. Right before hanging up it dawned on me that I might be on the hook for mo’ money for the current year and sure enough after punching a few more buttons she basically said she was glad I asked because indeed there was another delinquent bill getting ready to be shipped via the Polar Express to Badgerland.

I told her howsabout we make my information more current since it’s obvious your office probably still thinks I live in the valley or something (close, they had my address on Del Mar — though I’m pretty sure I sent in a letter notifying them of my current Silver Lake addy when I moved in with Susan almost two years ago).

So essentially I’m on the hook for a couple hundred bucks — then I can cancel the license if I want. The good news is that I may have a use for the thing after being so long dormant. My friend Rodger Jacobs was kind enough to email me yesterday to say the editor of a trade mag he writes for on occasion is always looking for new penners and would I be interested in potentially gigging for the publication. I believe I responded with a diplomatic version of hell yeah!

Thank you for the assist Rodger and here’s hoping it pans out. And at least now I have a bizcard to hand to the editor if we ever meet. That and a current city license to operate a keyboard or a ballpoint pen.

Now I’m off to the downtown YMCA to swing a tennis racquet for the first time in about 10 months. No license required.