It is going to get a lot harder to bicycle up to the Continental Divide from now on. For the last month I was so inflamed with fear about being chosen for that jury that anger alone seemed to get me up the hill: as I ranted away internally, the miles and altitude slipped by almost without notice.
Now that I have escaped the clutches of the Leviathan -- that is, was rejected for jury duty -- I will have to go back to pedaling up that hill the old-fashioned way: by huffing and puffing.
There are other examples of how bicycling (or any aerobic sport) is affected by mind games. I was resting at the turnaround point today. (I was safely off the road.) A driver went by, on the narrow and curvy road, with a camera in her hand and the window rolled down. She had a smile on her face that would remind you of a kid's on Christmas morning.
I couldn't see, but did she even have a hand on the steering wheel? What the hell was going on? Oh that's right...there were a couple deer along the road a 100 yards back. Big deal.
But it was probably the usual explanation: the deer-loving driver was a tourist from the big city who "loves Nature", but is completely ignorant of nature or even of physical reality. She thinks deer are rare and exciting enough to endanger other people and herself just to get another look.
And these are the suburban masses of voters that environmentalists pander to. The result of the Bambi Syndrome is an EPA that tries to declare carbon dioxide a pollution that they can micro-regulate. So if I ever get hot-tempered about environmentalists, please forgive me, but they threaten my existence every day.
Now that I have escaped the clutches of the Leviathan -- that is, was rejected for jury duty -- I will have to go back to pedaling up that hill the old-fashioned way: by huffing and puffing.
There are other examples of how bicycling (or any aerobic sport) is affected by mind games. I was resting at the turnaround point today. (I was safely off the road.) A driver went by, on the narrow and curvy road, with a camera in her hand and the window rolled down. She had a smile on her face that would remind you of a kid's on Christmas morning.
I couldn't see, but did she even have a hand on the steering wheel? What the hell was going on? Oh that's right...there were a couple deer along the road a 100 yards back. Big deal.
But it was probably the usual explanation: the deer-loving driver was a tourist from the big city who "loves Nature", but is completely ignorant of nature or even of physical reality. She thinks deer are rare and exciting enough to endanger other people and herself just to get another look.
And these are the suburban masses of voters that environmentalists pander to. The result of the Bambi Syndrome is an EPA that tries to declare carbon dioxide a pollution that they can micro-regulate. So if I ever get hot-tempered about environmentalists, please forgive me, but they threaten my existence every day.
Comments
But the rest of the time I'm too busy to hug a tree because I'm driving around with my hands off off the steering wheel, screaming "Look kids, a pine tree!"