Jonathan’s Mindless Blog

I’ve finally had my first incident on my bicycle. I was trying to cut across a street and jump up on the sidewalk over a curb, a big square curb, and didn’t time it quite right and the front tire hit the curb and I did a complete end-over-end flip. The handlebars actually hit the ground square, that’s how far over I went. I ended up doing a handstand of sorts and falling over sideways. I didn’t even break any skin which is fortunate, but now I’ve found a big knot above my left knee, which I’m sure is going to hurt later. I got up, checked myself and the bike then looked up to see several people looking, presumably to see if I was going to get up. Feeling like a big dork, but too cool to admit it, I just laughed, waved and went on my way. About 1/4 mi down the road the front tire completely let loose and I had to walk it the last 1/2 mile home. So I now have a brand new tube and know that I must concentrate very hard to jump large curbs… or just avoid the situation all together, which is probably a better idea. The bike now has some character marks on the front lights, handlebars and right pedal. Now the right pedal matches the left one where I scrape it almost every morning in a downhill left-hand turn on the way to work. I like symmetry

Welcome to some Southern Culture! Friday night a few of us went to Adams, TN to visit the annual Thresherman’s Show. Specifically we were going to see the mule and draft horse pull that was taking place on Saturday night.

It was really hot and there wasn’t much shade, but they were just getting started when we arrived. I’ve never been to any kind of pull, tractor, mule or otherwise so I’ll describe in as much detail as I can remember. There were four classes of mules, lightweight, midweight, heavyweight and big. The horses were all in the same class. They started off with the lightweight mules, which weighed in at less than 1950lbs for the team (of two). I can’t remember what weight they started by pulling, but they ended at 4,900lbs! The light and mid weight teams get three chances to pull the weight the specified distance. For lightweights I think the distance was 10 feet and the midweight’s distance was 15 feet. The judge stands behind the sled and holds a pole in place and watches the dragging chain behind the sled until the yellow tape passes his pole at which time he blows the whistle to signal a successful pull. If forward motion stops at any point the whistle blows and it is considered a pull. For the light and mid weights like I said they get three tries, during which the judge never moves the pole so the distance is an aggregate distance, but for the heavier animals after a single pull, the pole is reset to the rear of the sled and the participant gets to keep the best of 3 pulls, not add them together. The mules and horses wore cleated shoes, with one cleat in the front center and it looked like just a long shoe in in the back that had the tips turned down to make two cleats in the back. It was dark by the time they got to the horses so I didn’t get any pictures ’cause I didn’t want to use the flash since all the animals seemed to be really high strung and easily spooked. The biggest horse team was incredibly huge! Their feet were about the size of a good sized pasta bowl and their rear ends were close to the top of my head. There was only one pair of big mules that was pulling with the horses and they stopped at 6,500lbs. They didn’t get eliminated and didn’t seem to be struggling all that much, but he didn’t have anyone to compete against, so he was just pulling to win his class. The horses continued and 2 teams went out on 8,000lbs, but the really huge pair pulled it with no problem and took first. Check out the flickr pics I took! Some would say it’s cruel to the animals, but I don’t think so, just a friendly competition with an beautiful display of animals working in tandem and with their handler to pull some impressive weight.

WOW, THIS HAS BEEN AN INCREDIBLE EVENING!!! Yes, I really am yelling it! Judith & I ate at Sunset Grill and the food and service was great as usual. I had the pan seared duck with blackberry sauce and tomatoes and bree cheese, with okra as a side, and she had the sorghum basted pork tenderloin. Since there was room left for dessert we had the crème brulee, chocolate bombe and butterscotch habanera bread pudding. The bread pudding was an extremely unique combination of butterscotch and habanera peppers. The bread had a touch of the pepper in it and it was a really neat combination of flavors, quite possibly the best bread pudding evar. BUT, the crème brulee was the best of the three. It’s just hard to beat an awesome combination of milk, cream, eggs and sugar, especially when it’s topped off with some fresh strawberries.

But that was just the meal, the best was yet to come!! We headed down to TPAC to catch the Jamie Cullum show, and the Gabe Dixon Band opened. I had no idea that I would know so many of the opening band’s music. I’ve heard quite a bit of it, but I never realized who sang it. They did a great remake of ‘Hey Joe’, the Jimi Hendrix tune, that I had not heard before and it was really, really cool.

I’m so glad the PIANO had become fashionable in pop music again!! I really like the sounds a piano makes and in the right hands, it’s an incredible instrument. Leading into Jamie Cullum, who’s primary instrument is, o come on, guess…. a piano! He had four supporting musicians, a bass player, drummer, and two other guys, one played guitar and trumpet and the other played saxophone, keyboards and percussion. It was an incredible show. We were taking bets before hand on what he would look like, and both lost! He was in holey jeans and a shirt and tie, with shirt untucked and unbuttoned with a blue blazer over. The jacket didn’t last long, and the button-up shirt soon followed. It was really cool to see him go from stomping on the piano (literally), then jumping off the top of it to playing some incredible solo pieces and singing some really soulful ballads. Gabe Dixon came back out and the two of them sang Elton John’s ‘Rocketman’ which was really well done. Towards the end of the show, Jamie started making a loop of voice and percussion on the microphone and stacked eight or nine layers in what seemed like less than thirty seconds, then used that to sing a wonderful version of the White Strips ‘Seven Nation Army’. I don’t know, if it is allowed to say wonderful and seven nation army in the same breath? Talk about running the gamut of musical experience… breadth wise he went from that to ‘I Could Have Danced All Night’ from the musical ‘My Fair Lady’, to the ‘don’t ‘cha wish your girlfriend was a freak like me’ song ( I have no idea who sings that one). I don’t think you can say consummate showman about someone who looked like they just rolled out of bed, but he did put on an awesome show. Not very many concerts can I say that I would go back and do it again, but I would do this one even if the tickets were twice as much.

Also, experiences like that one are always best shared with someone with whom you can later talk about it and laugh with, and I had the best companion possible for the evening. There was so much entertainment going on in the seats as well, like the usher lady chasing down the 11 year old looking girl because she had some life-savers candies (no food allowed), and everyone around laughing at her (the usher, not the girl), as well as the comment of ‘you can drink ‘till you fall out of the balcony, but don’t bring any food!’, which was made even more funny by the few stumbling drunk folks hanging out dangerously near the edge. Some evenings are just too great for words, but now you’ve read a few that vainly attempt to recreate one of the best experiences I’ve had in a very long time.

I love it when the weather man is actually correct. Yesterday was an incredibly beautiful day so I took off from work and took a little road trip. We went up to Franklin, KY then across to Scottsville, down through Red Boiling Springs, then down past Cordell Hull Lake and Dam (where I took a few pictures),
and then back home via interstate from Carthage. The Cordell Hull overlook was really cool, and we stopped for a while to rest, but the coolest rest stop was in… well the middle of nowhere beside this little church. We were ready for a break and the side of the church lot had two huge oak trees on it and lots of shade next to a gravel parking lot that really wasn’t much gravel anymore since the grass had kind of taken over. Ended up sitting under the tree for a bit, and while we were chillin’ (all laid out in the grass) a car horn starts honking as it passes… weird since that’s usually a sign that somebody knows you and we shouldn’t have known anybody out there, so I sit up to see the back end of a gold wing trailer and another Gold Wing behind that who also tooted their horn and waved, just saying howdy. It’s almost like a club when you’re on a bike; other riders are usually very friendly and helpful and everybody waves.
We did right at 250 miles for the trip, but by the time the getting to and from the rendezvous point is added I put on about 300 miles yesterday. This morning I’m riding with another friend, but I don’t know exactly where we’re going yet, maybe ride the Natchez Trace. Can’t be out too late though, ’cause I’ve got a date this evening! We’re going to see the Gabe Dixon Band open for Jamie Cullum at TPAC, now I need to get the meal part worked out… Talk about procrastination in planning! All this after this morning’s Political Breakfast with the District 17 folks, I guess you could say I’m a bit busy? Idle hands are the devil’s workshop, or so I hear, so if that’s true I shouldn’t be constructing anything evil in the near future.

Nothing like the 4th of July to celebrate two of the nation’s favorite pastimes: eating large quantities of meat and blowing things up. I went with the fam to a eat grilled hamburgers and some of the best blueberry pie anywhere at some of my parent’s friend’s house. There was also some home made butterfinger ice cream involved which was delicious.� After that, a few of us went to the the fireworks downtown, but we stayed out of the traffic of the true “downtown” by picking a spot on the hill near my house. Nashville’s fireworks this year were impressive, but not nearly as much so as last year. There were several places that listed different times for start of the show, some said 9, some 9:30, but most said 9:30. We arrived and staked our claim about 9 and ten minutes later the show started! Last year it seemed like the show went for almost 40 minutes, but this year’s was about half that. They still had some of the cool hearts inside of circles and planets with rings, but I didn’t see any smiley faces this year There’s just nothing like being outside in decent weather with friends, smoking a great CAO cigar, and watching an incredible display of colorful explosions. Hope everyone had a happy 4th!