A trip to an Iconic skate spot

by | Jun 2, 2021 | Children, Choose Your Own Adventure, Crime, Fitness, GlibFit, Sports | 207 comments

As usual, this seemingly mundane outing had an unusual twist. Seems like most of what I do goes just different enough to make me wonder what it is about me that attracts such things. At least this time, it was a happy outcome.

Some of you know that my kid has taken up skateboarding. I used to skate back in the seventies and was actually a decent skater. I’m not nearly as good as I was, but I still can skate at least somewhat, and not too badly for an old guy.

We decided to go check out Mt. Baldy full pipe. It’s been skated since back when I last skated. There’s photos of many great skaters riding it and it was on the cover of skateboarding magazine at one point back when. It’s a 16 foot full pipe, about 200 feet deep into a dam. There a 12 foot “gap” one must traverse to access the skateable portion. Usually there’s a plank one can walk across to get there ( thankfully, it was present for us.)

From where we parked, we had to hike about a quarter mile, half of which was a very steep incline with loose gravel and steep drop offs. My kid was quite scared and stopped often, needing coaxing to continue. The second half included slipping under a chainlink fence and walking up a long drainage ditch. As we approached, the sounds of skateboarding and loud banter were audible. Transition skating has a very distinctive sound. When you hear it, you know exactly what it is.

When we finally got there, there was a crowd of about 8 guys skating. Well, 4 of them were skating, the rest were spectating and filming/photographing. The pipe itself is filled with graffiti and seemingly much larger than it’s actual dimensions. It turned out these guys were pro skaters, and it was obvious by how good some of them were. I took a small vid of them skating.

In the vid, my kid is the, well, kid. The guy directly behind him, in the white shirt is a highly skilled pro and obviously the big shot in this crowd. The guy in the red shirt I believe is Salba, an old school legend. Not sure who the guy skating in this vid was. Anyway, I tried to lay low and let them get their footage before making any runs. Well, that and it’s mildly embarrassing to do my old guy skating alongside the pros. My kid took a few runs and I took one before they left. The big shot kid was grinding the flat edge from around 10:30-11:00 until 9:00 where it disappears. That seemed to be the money shot.

Anywhoo, my kids board is a bit chewed up from his abusive riding style and the pro crowd seemed to notice. Just before they left, the big shot took his trucks off ( the trucks and wheels are the most expensive parts) and gave his deck to my kid. It turns out it’s a signature deck built by his main sponsor. They told us we were ripping it and to keep skating ( narrator voice: we were not ripping it.) It was such a cool move, I was speechless. I didn’t even have to make my kid thank him as he did it on his own.

The pros have a whole different way of skating this place. They had a drop down chain ladder ( it’s visible in the first vid, on the left side of the wall) hooked directly above the pipe, on the pipe side of the gap. They pulled up all of their gear with a rope and waited for the truck to pick them up, right at the top. I can only assume they have some way to unlock one of the gates. I wondered what was up when they kept talking up top for about 15 minutes after they pulled the ladder up and then, a truck pulled up and whisked them away. Must be nice. We had to hike up a crazy steep hill with loose gravel and deep ruts. Luckily, it was right around 70 degrees out. However, I had to carry both boards, the backpack and the new deck because my kid crunched himself right at the end. Not easy, especially after skating for a couple of hours. I rested a few times. I am getting too old for this stuff.

So, I got a shitty pic of me floating around at about 4:30 ( in the pipe. Imagine a clock face as the pipe.) My kid was almost as good as the one pic I got. Honestly, I got a bit higher after a few runs, but nothing spectacular. I hit up near 3:30 and 8:30 at best. The hiking slowed me down a lot. The hike out was damn brutal!

When I got home, I looked up the kid. He’s a rising star who skates with Salba all the time. He started out by being brought to these skate spots by his dad. He actually sells a board (his sponsor does, anyway) with a pic of him and his dad standing in this exact pipe holding their boards. That kinda explained why he was so cool to us. Not to say he isn’t cool in general, but they seemed to be extra cool to us after learning that I am trying to expose him to skate spots and he’s been skating for just a few months. I felt really good about these guys after meeting them.

https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/photo/AF1QipOuAd0_FrgXdCevD_CYRFk5ZtouOTTPm4ubSPTM

This vid is my kid’s third run. He’s not bad for eight years old.

https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/photo/AF1QipMmnd5EcXD6eDwsVGEl1BudMqEM8_SPq2frOvQM

This is the deck the skate star gave him. Rennie from “Blood Wizard” Skates.

https://photos.google.com/search/_tra_/photo/AF1QipOvITKJ4WLZMLgV7OPk57Hm57BKo59p8ahZN9LM

And this is my fifth or sixth run. I did a lot better on some of the others but my kid is not very good at taking pics. Finally, I propped the camera against the plank and took a video and screenshotted this. It ain’t much, but hey, I’m 55! I skate a lot better at Pedlow, partly because you don’t have to hike there and partly because a pipe is non stop energy. There’s no flat spot on the bottom. You knees have to bend constantly. It’s tiring as hell. The best pic would have been my first run. I pushed a bit harder because the pros were all still there.

So, I hope you all find this at least somewhat interesting. It’s probably too local or something. For a minor libertarian angle, there’s no trespassing signs everywhere and you have to violate a few fences to get in there ( unless you’re a big shot). It’s all Corp of engineers land. It was an epic day for us and now my kid gets to tell his skate buddies ( most of whom I’ve never met) that he was given a deck by the skate pro. Once again, fate? Luck? whatever it is, transformed a normal experience into something memorable for both me and my kid. Most kids probably have to just ask that guy to sign their board at an event or something. Thank a Dog or whoever is in charge of this kind of thing. A good day.

About The Author

blackjack

blackjack

207 Comments

  1. Yusef drives a Kia

    Yarg! that’s SteveO for sure, looks just like it should. I was 12 when I first went to The Pipeline, the great Muckus took us from the L pool in his microbus, hiding from the rangers hiking in, good times. By 14 I was Pulling frontside aerials at 1:30 out of the pipe, landing on the deathwall.Good times, I lived I stopped skating when I turned 50, even with pads and a helmet, injury ain’t easy to recover from anymore,

    • westernsloper

      injury ain’t easy to recover from anymore,

      *Raises right arm over head. Ya, shoulder still hurts from last winters snowboarding experiment.

    • blackjack

      He sure matched Salba, except for the bushy goatee. We were laughing and joking the whole time. Everyone in that group was exceptionally cool. It’s a huge contrast to the pros from back when I was skating the first time around. They would have probably sabotaged your board just so they could take more runs.

  2. Yusef drives a Kia

    404 on the links,

    • blackjack

      Copy/paste should work.

      Here is the whole set.

      • westernsloper

        Ya, that don’t work either. Might be my browser. Who knows.

      • blackjack

        Btw, the first one loaded right up, but the rest gave me some kind of error message. I made the google image page to get around that.

      • kbolino

        If you’re using the address in the browser, it won’t work. You have to intentionally create a share link. It should look something like this:

        https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QXXXXXXXX2dBA?key=amkzXXXXXXXXSUdR

        (there’s gonna be a lot more characters than there are Xs, and the other letters will probably be different too)

      • blackjack

        When I click what I linked it goes right there. Anyway, copy pasta works with the text.

      • kbolino

        I should say, without intentionally creating a share link it won’t work for anyone *but you* (since they’re your photos, on your account, the link works for you, but not anyone else).

      • rhywun

        Yeah, they want me to sign in. I don’t have anything to sign in to.

      • blackjack

        I’m trying to do that, but I can’t figure out how.

      • blackjack

        Can someone tell me how to get these pics visible?

      • kbolino

        Open the photo or album, just like you’re doing now, and find the icon that looks like this in the upper right corner. Then in the popup that appears, don’t add anybody from your contacts, instead at the bottom choose “Create link”.

      • blackjack

        Nowhere in my page does that icon appear. Nor anything making it clear how to share other than “copy the link to this pic”

      • Count Potato

        I think you can upload images to glibs. That’s how I did it for my article.

        You can also use an image host such as https://postimages.org/

      • blackjack

        Yeah, I had a weird issue with that. The first one was no problem, but the rest gave me an error message. That’s why I made the google pics page. I should have figured it all out beforehand.

      • Fourscore

        It went to my Google photos, I saw lot of pictures, fishing, reunions, kids when they were young but no skaters.

      • Fourscore

        Copy/paste/404

        Anyway I saw the video, impressive to an old guy.

        I tried to get on my son’s skateboard in my ealy 40s, driveway had a small angle. I was close to being on my ass before I got my second foot on. I never did get on, balance sober even was not too good.

        I also couldn’t ride a bike a few years ago, forgot how apparently.

      • DEG

        Gotta log in.

    • blackjack

      The links at the bottom should work, I think.

  3. Yusef drives a Kia

    Thank the Badland Boys, Steve is the King,

  4. westernsloper

    Sounds like a great day!

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      I grew up right there, in Upland, back when Cali was glorious, other than Jerry Brown, flush it it down,

    • Gustave Lytton

      And let me say, despite not being my thing, thoroughly enjoy this just like other posts where Glibs show off their interests. Thanks bj! One happy memory was taking my much younger youngest brother down to the skate shop one Christmas and getting tape put on his board.

      • blackjack

        Yeah, it’s more fun watching my kid learn to skate than it was skating in the very beginning. Everything he experiences is a memory for me, too. Good and bad.

  5. blackjack

    I think what prompted the pro to be so cool to my kid was his story about his dad taking him to these kinds of places.

    I found this. The pic on the one board is of him and his dad standing in that exact same pipe. Really cool guy.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      very cool

      • blackjack

        You should have seen him grinding from 10:30/11:00 down to 9:00 where the edge ends. Everyone there was oohing and ahhing. He kept getting higher and higher with it. I should have filmed him some, but I too awestruck.

  6. The Hyperbole

    Yusef, If you have questions I left a burner email in the last post.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      cool thanks,

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      email sent,

  7. Count Potato

    Awesome!

  8. dbleagle

    Interesting article about the relative dangers of the “far enemy” and the “near enemy”

    https://thefederalist.com/2021/06/02/dont-let-john-cena-distract-oppression-is-here-at-home-and-politicians-dont-want-to-talk-about-it/

    That was a fun article. I nearly knocked out my front teeth on a curb and being simultaneously run over by a Chevy Van in 1972 with a ancient pre-time skateboard. Since then I have watched other but do not partake. The suspected pros seems like good folks.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      The thing is, Old guys skate Vert, pools and pipes, and the young guys are impressed, so we are all pretty much pro at this stage of life,
      I can throw 10 foot Frontside aerials all day long, but can’t do backside at all, if I look down i panic, frontside, I know how high I am, but can’t see it so I stick them, Psych!
      I’m old…

      • Ownbestenemy

        I have a very soft spot for Rodney Mullins cause that is just pure poetry that will never be matched on the street.

    • hayeksplosives

      That was a good editorial, Dbleagle. Maybe a touch of the “big man when the windows are rolled up” syndrome. They can pose and strut and say they’d never be intimidated by China because they never intend to go and they won’t lose their job over it.

      But if they don’t use the right pronouns or they don’t have a #BLM screen saver they will be fired or at least shunned.

      So far I haven’t had to deal with too much woke, since I’m in a conservative profession in a conservative industry, but even that is changing.

  9. kbolino

    That’s pretty cool. I never got into skating but it seemed like a lot of fun (and a bit of danger). My brother skated for a bit but I don’t think he’s done it in a long while.

  10. rhywun

    So day 2 back in the real world of offices and shit, and on the way to microwave some lunch I walk past a conference room (the walls are all glass) and see an entire room packed with middle-aged white guys gasbagging at each other with no masks, with maybe two still practicing safety.

    I almost fell over.

    There were a few more brave souls than yesterday, and I have to say a lot of folks aren’t paying attention to New Jersey’s diktats here.

    • Count Potato

      You’re already in New Jersey, how much worse can it get?

      • rhywun

        Barely. My office is on the Hudson River.

      • UnCivilServant

        Proximity to the Hudson is a punishment all it’s own

        /lives and works close to the Hudson River.

      • rhywun

        Feh. The Hudson is very picturesque in many spots. It’s not its fault it’s in New York State.

      • Not Adahn

        I wanted to take my parents to Dinosaur BBQ when they came for a visit, but because of the hurricane somebody-or-other, it was IN the Hudson river.

    • Chafed

      I hope you went in and told off color jokes.

      • rhywun

        It’s weird because I worked in this office three years ago when they canned me. Now I don’t know more than a handful of these clowns. My department (IT) was almost completely wiped out.

  11. DEG

    It’s probably too local or something.

    Nah.

    It’s interesting that you have places like that.

    • Yusef drives a Kia

      BJ’s article makes me wish for my home, but I remember….

    • Ownbestenemy

      So Cal has a myriad of channels that are almost always dried out. It really was a skateboarders paradise there.

      • rhywun

        Watching a lot of 70s and 80s TV lately… the world must have got the impression that the US was mostly dried-out scrublands and bald moutains because that’s all you see.

      • UnCivilServant

        I watched some seventies TV lately. It was Kojak.

        It was funny seeing criminals take shelter in a NYC gun store stocked with Automatic weapons, and no one really batting an eye beyond the tactical difficulty of a well armed gang with hostages.

      • blackjack

        That’s always a great joy for us who grew up here. There’s no end to the films documenting everywhere we went as a kid, exactly as it was. The cars, the old haunts, everything is in every episode of Chips, Charley’s Angels, hell, almost any TV show from back then and most movies. We call out things we remember from the background constantly.

      • zwak

        Most movies about Vietnam, the South, Africa…

        All shot on LA’s backlots.

        There were a few flix that showed my neck of the woods, but mostly they shot an exterior of the Madonna Inn and called it a day.

      • hayeksplosives

        I always enjoyed the beautiful views of the mountains over Vancouver featured in the background of Jackie Chan’s “Rumble in the Bronx.”

      • blackjack

        I went to Vancouver in winter once. It’s an amazingly beautiful place, especially all covered in snow. The border cops can all rot in hell, though.

      • Not Adahn

        Quebec City in winter is some kind of child’s paradise. They installed little slides to take advantage of the snow and ice. I saw so many bundled-to-the point-of-immobility children go zooming down, sometimes bowling over packs of tourists.

  12. blackjack

    I think I got it. Had to create an album.

    here’sone

    • blackjack

      This is the deck Rennie gave my kid with all the hardware transferred over.

  13. blackjack

    Here’s two

    • blackjack

      This my kid skating. He’s eight and has been skating for just a few months. Maybe 9 or so.

      • rhywun

        I shudder to think about the bruising my fat ass would get if I attempted that. Ah, youth.

  14. blackjack

    And three

    • kbolino

      Those all worked for me

      • blackjack

        Now, you can match them to the captions above, and laugh at grandpa messing around down at 4:30 in the pipe.

      • TARDis

        Nice! Thanks for sharing. Don’t break anything.

      • DEG

        #metoo

    • rhywun

      Doxxed yourself, BTW

      • blackjack

        Meh, I’m already on all the lists.

      • rhywun

        Right on ?

    • blackjack

      And this is me after struggling to get a pic and having the camera fall about three times. My kid got some shots of the sky and one of just my head. Finally, I got a short vid and this was the best still from that. I did much better on a few of the other runs, really.

      • Libertesian

        Time to get a GoPro to strap on.

      • pistoffnick

        “Time to get a … strap on.”

        Kinky!

    • Libertesian

      These are great… Thanks for sharing! However, be advised that Google shows your first/last name as the album/image owner. I don’t think it can be hidden, so hopefully you’re using an alias.

      • blackjack

        Yeah, that’s it! I’m using an alias. Honest!

      • Q Continuum

        Next time use imgur.

      • blackjack

        Yeah, I expected to upload them to here, but got the error thing. Shoulda had a plan B.

      • hayeksplosives

        I doxxed myself when I did a GoFundMe.

        Fortunately this site is obscure enough I might be ok.

        And I’m not a total loon most of the time. For example, I prefer the head-first woodchipper method for minimizing suffering.

  15. blackjack

    Here’s a vid of some locals skating there a few days earlier. The long haired dude is the one skating in the first vid. I felt a bit better seeing the older dudes skating in this one, because I did at least as good. It’s very taxing skating pipes. In a pool, you have some flat at the bottom which slows down the action some. The pipe is full throttle the whole way.

  16. blackjack

    This one gives an idea of what an ordeal it is to get to it.

  17. Ownbestenemy

    Not sure if you saw a few days ago Yusef. We probably crossed paths if you ever skated Pipeline in Upland in the 80s. I was only a snot-nosed brat but was there a lot.

  18. Yusef drives a Kia

    Great article, see y’allins on the others side,

    • DEG

      I’m on Project Veritas’ e-mail list. I smile whenever they win.

  19. zwak

    NIce. A bit farther up north there wasn’t any great spots for skating like that pipe, so we build half and quarter pipes, and terrorized the local colleges. But I have an old friend who manages a board and skate team down in OC.

    On the other hand, we had some ripping surf spots, being right on the border of NorCal and SoCal, places like sewers and hazards, the Ranch wasn’t too far away if you knew the right people, and so on.

    • blackjack

      That’s really cool that the park is a memorial to him.

  20. blackjack

    I’m prowling through Google earth to try and find an easier way in and out of this place. I think next time, we’re bringing bikes and just riding all the way on the access road. That hill was way to tough to climb after skating and hiking down. My kid is begging me to take him back there. I really wish I had all the “executive” tricks the pros used that day.

  21. Chafed

    “We decided to go check out Mt. Baldy full pipe.” I’m delighted we’re back to doing euphemisms.

    /yes, I’m a child but still proud of myself. Sorry blackjack. I enjoyed this post.

    • hayeksplosives

      When the shot is perfectly teed up, you have to take the swing. Don’t feel bad about it.

      • Chipping Pioneer

        +1 fat hanging curve

      • Q Continuum

        Euphemism worthy of Tres.

    • slumbrew

      I can’t fault you, there’s a lot to work with there.

    • blackjack

      Hey, I’ve stooped way lower than that, and as stated, it was sitting there, like a duck.

      • Chafed

        You are a gracious and forgiving group.

    • Q Continuum

      In my experience, ladies don’t really like the pipe bald; trimmed maybe but not bald.

  22. hayeksplosives

    I too know nothing of skate boarding but enjoyed reading about it. And anyone can relate to or at least imagine the father-son experience.

    Very cool stuff indeed.

    Perhaps I can think of a hobby or experience from my own life that would be new material and interesting to the Glibs. I’ll let that turn over in a secondary wheel of my brain for a while…

  23. mikey

    Thx blackjack. I enjoy these glimpses into the interests of this site’s denizens.

    I’m old enough we had to make our own skateboards (the Bay Area was always behind Smogvile). Old steele-wheeled roller skates attached to a 2×4 with bent-over 16d nails. Didn’t last long. My best friend destroyed his knee going down a hill. No such thing as turning.

  24. hayeksplosives

    Gwen Sefani making sense:

    Grammy-winning, multi-platinum musical artist Gwen Stefani says that there was more “freedom” before “social media narratives” began to divide people, in a new interview with Paper Magazine out Wednesday.

    “If we didn’t buy and sell and trade our cultures in, we wouldn’t have so much beauty, you know?” Stefani said. “We learn from each other, we share from each other, we grow from each other. And all these rules are just dividing us more and more.”

    https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/gwen-stefani-blames-social-media-for-cultural-appropriation-claims-says-rules-are-just-dividing-us/

    • Chipping Pioneer

      I don’t know if I’d put her on the upper end of the intellectual bell curve, but it sounds like she may have taken the children’s formula red pill.

      • Chipping Pioneer

        I really liked No Doubt back in the day, and I thought she kicked ass.

      • Chafed

        Yup. That’s a winner.

    • slumbrew

      A breath of fresh air. More push-back, please.

    • Gustave Lytton

      Shes been a target for a while.

      • Gustave Lytton

        And there’s a part of me that wants to throw her under the bustrain for the brainworm pronunciation of 原宿.

      • Urthona

        She refused to say she’s not a Republican.

        And back in 2016 Blake Shelton said he understood why some people like Trump. Basically sacrilege.

        He has a house about 3 houses down from my family’s in Lake Texoma and he’s a super nice guy. We’ve run into him a few times.

    • tripacer

      Gwen Sefani making sense:

      Grammy-winning, multi-platinum musical artist Gwen Stefani says that there was more “freedom” before “social media narratives” began to divide people, in a new interview with Paper Magazine out Wednesday.

      It’s good someone is making sense. This shit is bananas.
      /low hanging fruit

  25. slumbrew

    I neglected to say – this was awesome, Blackjack! You’re a good dad.

    • blackjack

      Thanks. Nothing nicer you could say.

  26. PieInTheSky

    Interesting place. Here skateboarding is no longer popular with the kids. The skate parks are full of scooters

    • slumbrew

      Is rocking a scooter really going to get you laid? SMDH

      • Chafed

        Maybe it’s vampire culture.

  27. Gadfly

    In case you missed it, the Babylon Bee decided to celebrate Pride Month by having their staff members vote on their top 2 favorite genders. Spoiler alert: women won, but men came in a close second.

      • Chafed

        Ouch. That’s going to leave a mark.

    • Chafed

      I can’t believe you gave away the ending.

    • KSuellington

      Both of those genders are highly overrated.

    • KSuellington

      I’ve spent a good part of the last year hoping that the Health Gnome would get his comeuppance. Certainly there will always be a population that lights Fauchi votive candles, but I want to see him regarded as a terrible doctor and human for his huge part in the shitshow.

    • Ownbestenemy

      And right on time, reports are emerging that Joemala is looking to quietly exit him from government life.

      • TARDis

        I want his last words to be something along the lines of, “I just did what The Powers That Be told me to do!”

        Will he be robbed before he commits suicide, I wonder?

      • Ownbestenemy

        At least with the FOIA dump, he personally has a hard time putting the blame elsewhere. That though, only goes so far because the media right now is still treating him as if he is dragging his cross through the streets of America on towards his impending sainthood.

  28. KSuellington

    That’s a great story for your kid and you, blackjack. Right on you, good fathering, enjoyed the tale.

  29. Ownbestenemy

    Submitted my package for a promotion. I’m done going in early morning (like tomorrow at 3am) and done with the technical side. Done basically running the shop for less pay. All the techs come to me anyway before they go to management.

    I figure if this doesn’t pan out, I’ll be getting my degree anyway in a year or so and I’ll find some telecommunications company that can use a old electronics technician.

    Hopefully by then the leaches will be moved out and wife and I can go off in the sunset on a nice piece of land somewhere no one will mess with us.

    • hayeksplosives

      Best of luck! I imagine they should realize you are in a good position to test your market value if they don’t promote you.

      Fingers crossed.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thanks!

      • Gender Traitor

        Ditto (that word isn’t cancelled, is it?) on the good luck wishes. Hope your employer(s) know a good thing when they’ve got it.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Thank you. We will see…it is FedGov afterall

    • Tulip

      Good luck!

  30. Sean

    Neat article.

    Morning Glibs.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, Sean!

      • Sean

        Good morning.

    • TARDis

      Ban children.

    • TARDis

      Agreed. Except when played by young scantily clad cis-females.

  31. Yusef drives a Kia

    I’m out, there are some things here I just can’t deal with anymore, I need off this roller coaster for a while,

    • TARDis

      What happened? You okay?

      • Yusef drives a Kia

        No, not OK, I am an emotional trainwreck, and I need to step away for a while, I need to reevaluate my priorities,

      • TARDis

        I understand. Take care.

      • Ownbestenemy

        You know where to reach us Yusef. Best of luck and nothing wrong with taking stock.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Landlords are the bad guys. Grubby mini-capitalist that swim in towers of gold. You want to bail them out? Look at this guy over here.

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        What gets me is the conglomerates that rent stuff will mostly ride this out while Smallfry Jones who owns two or three rental houses to supplement his income is going to lose his shirt and will end up selling his properties to one of the aforementioned conglomerates. This is a slop to big business pure and simple.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Like all the other moves. No big box retailer struggled over the past year.

      • TARDis

        The lie about protecting the public from the pandemic is disgusting. How these people sleep at night is beyond me. I wonder what it’s like to have no conscience, and no fear of judgement.

  32. Ownbestenemy

    That hit in the Montreal game…good lord. Hopefully Evans is okay.

    Apparently my work has gone into lock down mode regarding websites. All sports sites are now blocked. Thanks Biden.

  33. UnCivilServant

    Morning, Glibs.

    It’s funny how I can be perfectly awake, look at the clock, see I’ve got more than an hour before I need to be up, decide I can just lay there for a bit longer… then when the time comes that I need to get up, my eyes go “you had your chance, now we don’t want to open until noon”

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, U. I dodged a bullet this morning – accidentally hit the NON-snooze button on the alarm the first time it went off, decided to give myself my usual five more minutes, and actually didn’t oversleep. Got up exactly five minutes later. Could’ve been dicey.

    • Sean

      The snooze bar was a communist plot to ruin America.

      Mornin’

      • Ownbestenemy

        You might even say the alarm clock itself also. Make the nation more lazy and more sleep deprived.

        It was the perfect long game

      • UnCivilServant

        I don’t use the snooze button. I just have insomnia, so I was awake before the alarm.

    • Not Adahn

      Biorhythms are real.

    • Fourscore

      Toss and turn all night, finally drift of at 3-4 AM, can’t shake myself out of bed ’til 8 or so. I know where you’re coming from, UCS.

      Good Morning to all, temps are gonna be close to 90, late July weather. Skeeters seem to be lovin’ it, though.

  34. Stinky Wizzleteats

    Interesting, John Hinckley Junior has an honest to god YouTube channel (hat tip to Styxhexenhammer):

    https://youtube.com/channel/UCck3J5KR3INUP1K-hrBe8iA

    The comments are interesting, pure Manson Family worshiping batshit level insanity.

    • Gender Traitor

      Scared to click that link, so I’ll ask – how many emotionally fucked-up women proposing marriage and/or having his babies?

      • Stinky Wizzleteats

        It’s more people lauding him for his attempted you know whatting of you know who and sort of thanking him for his (perceived, in their estimation) service.

      • Festus

        They hate everyone to the right of Castro and they really wish that you would just curl up and die. This is poison, folks. Unadulterated cyanide and they believe it. I’ve never seen the like and it breaks my fucking heart.

  35. Festus

    Mornin’ Friends! Need to go back and RTFA.

    • Ownbestenemy

      Morning Festus!

      • Festus

        How goes the freedom experiment? We’re still locked down tighter than a bull’s butthole in fly season.

      • Ownbestenemy

        Vegas has its pockets of double maskers but given the big turn out at the car show over the weekend…the people here are over it.

        It will be interesting to see if they will accept another lockdown play if and when it comes

      • Festus

        Up here it’s the young adults masking indoors and out. Old folks are pretty much Honey-Badgering unless we need to buy something. We’re polite, you see.

    • Gender Traitor

      Good morning, Fes!

      • Festus

        A fine one to you as well, Red!

    • Sean

      ?

    • Festus

      5 or 6 times this century alone.

    • Fourscore

      Isn’t natural mutation repeatedly releasing new deadly virusii (is that the plural?)

      CV-19 is just the Spanish model a 100 years later (Ted’S “Technically 101 years later”, yeah, I know)

  36. Festus

    Exceptionally cool story, BJ! I’m sure that my friends and I would have been right into that save for the fact that we were living in gravel road land at the time.

    • l0b0t

      HA! The roads in our South Florida village were paved with asphalt and crushed seashells. They were almost impossible to skate and led to rough road burn falling off bicycles.

      I hope you are well Festus, I Was A Teenage Communist!

      • Festus

        Awesome!

      • Fourscore

        Wow! You had a newspaper gig as a kid? My hats are off to you, l0!

    • Festus

      We were more pond-hockey types wherein the ice is “waffer-thin” near the beaver dam and somebody always broke through.

      • Ownbestenemy

        We played on Lake Placid when up there for a tourney and didn’t have the knowledge that pond ice will chew up your edges.

      • Festus

        I took up the sport rather late and played on outdoor rinks for the first few years. I neglected to get my skates sharpened for the indoor scrimmage. Picture Bambi.

      • Ownbestenemy

        That is what our team looked like the on our morning skate before the games started. So I can vividly picture it

      • Festus

        I fell down directly on my * . We were wearing half-pads because no checking. Just cups and shin guards, basically. Owee that hurt!

  37. Sean

    https://foodstirs.com/products/foodstirs-organic-keto-chocolate-chip-cookie-mix

    Review:

    Taste is OK, erythritol aftertaste noticeable. Not unpleasant, but there.
    Texture reminds me of the Keebler soft batch. Though it’s been years since I’ve had those.
    Not enough chips. If we do them again, we’re gonna have to add some Lily’s chips.
    For the price, kind of a let down.

    • UnCivilServant

      Cookies are carbs. Flour, sugar, fat, flavored sugar. Trying to imitate them without being carby is an insult to cookies.