September 22, 2012

There's a Story Behind That

As a reader of this blog you're probably aware that I put an enormous amount of time and thought into each post. Like when I take a photo of my Fave and post it here — I usually take as many pictures as I can get away with, then strategically choose the one that entertains me the most. Take this one for example:
Yum, photo: P&P
She's probably not going to be too happy that I put this here, but I am sure there's a story behind it, however, I don't remember the anecdote at the moment.

I may not remember where we were when I snapped that photo, but as I browse through my iCamera photo library, there are plenty of photos that I've stored throughout the months that I remember thinking to myself at the time, "this will fit well on the blog." So as I sat this morning pondering my post options — I had to look no deeper than my pocket.

Slow going, photo: P&P

Guy raising a sail, photo: P&P
This came about because Cousin Short Shirt and Guy challenged me to cock off, I mean sail raising competition at some boat race in SF one afternoon. Side note: Boat racers dress similar to cyclists, just with Lycra covering their entire bodies. I was reluctant to participate in the competition for obvious reasons, so to tame their banter I stepped up and won. My prize; not having to watch this stupid sail being erected any longer.

Remember in my last post how I mentioned that I sit next to a person (Ellen) at work who tries to continuously roofie me? She's been on vacation for the past couple of weeks unable to defend her cube from incoming attacks. I am innocent here aside from the documentary photo journal I've been keeping when others come by and take future risks for themselves by fiddling with her space. I recently captured this next image of Ellen's keyboard — again, this was not my doing, I just took the photo.

A banana peel on Ellen's keyboard, photo: P&P
Ellen looks at bananas the same way that a you might look at someone who just licked the bottom of their shoe. Hopefully Ellen doesn't read this post.

This next one is pretty common practice:

Mauricio wearing a tutu on our Fourth of July ride, photo: P&P
I've been saving this next one for a quite a while and will someday get around to having it framed for my mom. This week was my dad's birthday so it's appropriate that I share one of his finest moments with you. Last year we put our lives in danger and went to a Raider game with my uncle and cousins. While we were tailgating with the scum of the earth before the game, the topic "shotgunning a beer" came up. At 55 years old, my dad had informed me that not only had he never shotgunned a beer, but that he didn't know how. Naturally, that led to this:

Shotgunning a beer
Keep pedaling,
You can find me on Twitter: @pedalandpetal

September 4, 2012

Digging up a winner, and avoiding a roofie-induced coma

Choosing a winner for my ground flower competition was tougher than I expected, however, I am happy to announce that I've finally green thumbed my way through the submissions with complete objectivity, and have now selected a winner.  Not only is there a winner, but I decided to award another prize to the most ridiculous participant of the ground flower competition. This doesn't mean there are two winners — think of it more like if by chance you had two kids and one of them had a birthday, but you bought them both gifts so there weren't any hurt feelings, but everyone knows whose birthday it really is.

With that said, there are two prizes to hand out, but since there's only one winner I've decided to hand them out differently. As for the winner —here's how he received his prize:

Remember Guy? He didn't win, however, he played an important role in the ground flower competition, and is really good at growing things like plants and children.

A section of Guy's garden, photo: p&p

Guy's beer toting pregnant wife; photo: p&p
Guy didn't win the competition for obvious reasons, like submitting a bouquet from the flower stand at his local grocery store. What guy doesn't know is that he actually grew the winning prize in his garden. When Guy leaves town for a getaway, he has me stop by and water his plants every few days. I usually delegate this chore to my almost four year old who has no problem following his strict instructions.

"Use one bucket of water here, and don't pet them or touch my pumpkins." photo: p&p
I know how much Guy loves his garden so we make sure to leave everything exactly as we found it, if not better.



And we make sure never to over water.



Sometimes leaving things better than we found them is easy, take for example Guy's pot of daisies. They are obviously way too crowded.

Guy's over-crowded flower pot; photo: p&p
Finally, we found the winner's prize; photo: p&p

Guy's much improved flower pot; photo: p&p
So who won? The choice was easy. Congratulations Jarod for winning the ground flower competition. Jarod submitted four flowers with this columbine taking home top honors.

Jarod's Columbine
So I awarded Jarod with the flower that we dug up from Guy's garden, where it will live comfortably in the middle of the forest and try not to get devoured by deer.

Guy's flower living happily in Jarod's garden
Jarod will go down in history as the first winner of the ground flower competition no matter how much Ellen cries about it, but I decided to numb the pain with a prize for her lack of seriousness when submitting flowers for the competition. Remember, Ellen submitted a poinsettia then tried to bribe me with a roofie-filled wall mounted hanger for my bike? Then, she went ahead and submitted another flower which I found out was her neighbors'. So why am I giving Ellen a prize? Well, I sit with my back to her at work and she watches my every move with a mirror that's taped to her monitor. She also was the only person who gave me a deadline for announcing a winner. The good news is that Ellen is leaving for vacation tomorrow, and today is my deadline according to her. My system can't handle any more roofies, so I decided to meet her deadline and provide her with the prize in the photo below. Hopefully it distracts her for a day much like how you would distract a raccoon with a shiny object in hopes of it leaving your garbage cans alone.

Ellen's handlebar sunflower; photo: p&p
Ellen - if you want this sunflower mounted on your handlebars, you'll have to ride your bike to work.

Keep pedaling,