I was raised by wolves. Very kind, very nurturing wolves. I love riding to a town a just barely learned the name of on a Friday, making a decision at the intersection to get myself lost 1000 miles away from home on a Saturday, and trying to figure out how the hell I can get home on a Sunday. Just ride a place and see a thing.
Got this in my Email today:
Dear MrZip,
You are receiving this e-mail because of your application for a ride
certification. This note is to let you know that your ride has been
approved and although your ride documents may take a few more weeks to
arrive, your membership has also been approved and entered into the
Iron Butt Association’s member database.
I’ve had the flu all week. I’ve felt like shit. Was originally planning to go with my brother Pat through Nevada to test our our tents and do some riding, but it wasn’t meant to be. I’m still not anywhere near 100% and it was raining in Salt Lake we blew that off and made big plans to hit route 66 up next week.
4th of july weekend. Pat will come down thursday night to St George, then friday morning the 4th we’ll blitz to kingman and show him some of my favorite places on route 66 toward Albuqerque. I’m pretty stoked. Pat is my brother, he’s blood, and he’s a damn good friend. We get each other, and we ride like banshees.
More to come….
Ever since I first saw the movie Rocky with my parents in 1975, its been my favorite movie. Not the rocky sequels, and the jokes that its become, but the movie Rocky. I remember driving home with my mother and father from salt lake at 8 years old and basking in the emotion that this movie made me feel. To this day, I still remember the feeling, sitting in back of our station wagon on the way home and how I felt. I felt determined. I got in the fight on the playground the very next day… haha, its funny thinking back on that now.
Sylvester Stallone in my eyes has earned his knocks. He was a starving actor with an idea for a movie back in 1974 and wrote a script for a movie while living out of his car and wondering where he’d eat next. He was offered hundreds of thousands of dollars for the script if he walked away and didn’t act in it. Think of that: You’re starving, and offered six figures in a world you’re not sure you can make it in. He didn’t take it. He stuck by his guns, and took less to act in his own creation. The movie was rocky. To me, the movie is a testament to the underdogs of the world and their dreams. He didn’t want to win, he just wanted to go the distance, and he did. You might laugh, but the original rocky brings a tear to my eye every time I watch it. It’s a man making his way through the world. A man with a whole world of fears and doubts and naysayers, yet he gets in the ring and powers it out. Powerful.
So I’m watching Rocky Balboa tonight on Cable. You may think the movie was a joke by a guy trying to cash in on his franchise, but you can’t say Stallone, who is not the brightest bulb in the package doesn’t understand EXACTLY what he’s saying here:
“The world ain’t all sunshine and rainbows. It’s a very mean and nasty place and I don’t care how tough you are it will beat you to your knees and keep you there permanently if you let it. Nobody’s gonna hit as hard as life. But it ain’t about how hard ya hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”
– Rocky Balboa
No matter where you are in the world: Take your punch. Take all of them. Then, move foward.
You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you’re used to it you don’t realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.
On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.
This was sent to my inbox today. I rather liked it. SHERIFF JOE IS AT IT AGAIN!
Sherriff Joe
Oh, there’s MUCH more to know about Sheriff Joe!
Maricopa County was spending approx. $18 million dollars a year on stray animals, like cats and dogs. Sheriff Joe offered to take the department over, and the County Supervisors said okay.
The animal shelters are now all staffed and operated by prisoners. They feed and care for the strays. Every animal in his care is taken out and walked twice daily. He now has prisoners who are experts in animal nutrition and behavior. They give great classes for anyone who’d like to adopt an animal. He has literally taken stray dogs off the street, given them to the care of prisoners, and had them place in dog shows.
The best part? His budget for the entire department is now under $3 million. Teresa and I adopted a Weimaraner from a Maricopa County shelter two years ago. He was neutered, and current on all shots, in great health, and even had a microchip inserted the day we got him. Cost us $78.
The prisoners get the benefit of about $0.28 an hour for working, but most would work for free, just to be out of their cells for the day. Most of his budget is for utilities, building maintenance, etc. He pays the prisoners out of the fees collected for adopted animals.
I have long wondered when the rest of the country would take a look at the way he runs the jail system, and copy some of his ideas. He has a huge farm, donated to the county years ago, where inmates can work, and they grow most of their own fresh vegetables and food, doing all the work and harvesting by hand.
He has a pretty good sized hog farm, which provides meat, an d fertilizer. It fertilizes the Christmas tree nursery, where prisoners work, and you can buy a living Christmas tree for $6 – $8 for the Holidays, and plant it later.. We have six trees in our yard from the Prison.
Yup, he was reelected last year with 83% of the vote.
Now he’s in trouble with the ACLU again. He painted all his buses and vehicles with a mural, that has a special hotline phone number painted on it, where you can call and report suspected illegal aliens. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement wasn’t doing enough in his eyes, so he had 40 deputies trained specifically for enforcing immigration laws, started up his hotline, and bought 4 new buses just for hauling folks back to the border He’s kind of a ‘Git-R Dun’ kind of Sheriff.
TO THOSE OF YOU NOT FAMILIAR WITH JOE ARPAIO
HE IS THE MARICOPA ARIZONA COUNTY SHERIFF
AND HE KEEPS GETTING ELECTED OVER AND OVER
THIS IS ONE OF THE REASONS WHY:
Sheriff Joe Arpaio (In Arizona ) who created the ‘ Tent City Jail’:
He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.
He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails. Took away their weights Cut off all but ‘G’ movies.
He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects.
Then He Started Chain Gangs For Women So He Wouldn’t Get
Sued For Discrimination.
He took away cable TV Until he found out there was A Federal Court Order that Required Cable TV For Jails So He Hooked Up The Cable TV Again Only Let In The Disney Channel And The Weather Channel.
When asked why the weather channel He Replied, So They Will Know How Hot It’s Gonna Be While They Are Working ON My Chain Gangs.
He Cut Off Coffee Since It Has Zero Nutritional Value.
When the inmates complained, he told them, ‘This Isn’t The Ritz/Carlton…… If You Don’t Like It, Don’t Come Back.’
More On The Arizona Sheriff:
With Temperatures Being Even Hotter Than Usual In Phoenix (116 Degrees Just Set A New Record), the Associated Press Reports:
About 2,000 Inmates Living In A Barbed-Wire-Surrounded Tent Encampment At The Maricopa County Jail Have Been Given Permission To Strip Down To Their Government-Issued Pink Boxer Shorts.
On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 Degrees Inside The Week Before.
Many Were Also Swathed In Wet, Pink Towels As Sweat Collected On Their Chests And Dripped Down To Their PINK SOCKS.
‘It Feels Like We Are In A Furnace,’ Said James Zanzot, An Inmate Who Has Lived In The TENTS for 1 year. ‘It’s Inhumane.’
Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear p ink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic. He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates: ‘It’s 120 Degrees In Iraq And our Soldiers Are Living In Tents Too, And They Have To Wear Full Battle Gear, But They Didn’t Commit Any Crimes,So Shut Your Mouths!’
Way To Go, Sheriff!
Maybe if all prisons were like this one there would be a lot less crime and/or repeat offenders. Criminals should be punished for their crimes – not live in luxury until it’s time for their parole, only to go out and commit another crime so they can get back in to live on taxpayers money and enjoy things taxpayers can’t afford to have for themselves..
You never know who is going to rise up and take over a game. Max Talbot felt it on this one, and the rest of his team got behind him and held it. It was awesome.
The last 10 seconds of this game were intense.
Mrs Zip and I haven’t missed a game this year, and we’re still in shock. Our boys battled hard and refused to lose against a great team in Detroit. My wife is the most balanced person I know, but when it comes to our team, she’s a rabid fanatic. It makes it fun.
What a great season. I’m going to miss watching hockey with my wife for the next few months.
I don’t know if it was my hosting, or some of my add ons nuked my blog, or If I’m just retarded. Either way, got tired of the down time so I moved my blog back. Lost a couple of comments from friends, but I’ll try and get them back.
Also lost that really cool flash picture gallery, which is why I moved it there in the first place. Oh well.
Changed my oils and plugs yesterday. Also Put new rear brake pads on The Street Glide. Washed the bike after.
Court Today w/ BACA. Then Game 7 of the stanley Cup. I’m as nervous as a whore in church.
