Author: rexnipper

I’m having surgery Wednesday.  The procedure is minor, to be sure, but the idea of being unconscious while someone sticks a tube into my urethra so they can cut into my bladder doesn’t bring me to memories of joy.  The fact is that I have never had surgery of any kind, and the prospect terrifies me.  All I do is think about all the horrible things that can happen.  When I ask the doctor about the risks, all he can do is tell me not to worry about the pain.  Well…I wasn’t really worried about the pain.  I’m used to pain.  Pain is why I’m seeing the doctor. 

What I’m not used to is being given Class A narcotics by someone I’ve never met, or by anyone else for that matter.  Not to mention giving over control to an establishment, that truth be told, has a horrible track record of keeping people alive, but a pretty good one at taking all their money.  Everyone is telling me not to worry, but as someone whose entire career is based on my ability to worry about the things that might happen and prepare for them, I’m going to prepare for the worse case scenario. 

So, since that’s the case I want to bring up a few things.  The first is that I want to have my funeral in Colorado and Iowa.  In Colorado, I don’t care where, but pick someplace where at least a couple of people from work can attend.  I love the job I do and all the people with whom I work, even the annoying ones.  I’ve rarely worked with a group who is as dedicated as they.  Even the ones that are annoying are only that way because they feel so deeply about the importance of what it is we are trying to do.  When everyone has the same goals, it’s hard to be angry, even if you do occasionally fantasize about giving a couple of them a swirly. 

In Iowa I want to have it at Capitol Hill Lutheran Church to be exact.  Why you ask?  Because I was Baptized, Confirmed, and Married to the most wonderful woman in the world in that church.  And while I’m by no means religious at this point in my life, that place is very dear to me.  I was raised there, and I made friends there.  Just like my family and my schools, that church shaped who I am as a person and as a man.  Besides, I just like to be consistent. 

So now that the particulars are out of the way, let’s talk about religion for a moment.  While I was raised in the church, I have lost my ability to follow that, or any other faith.  Why do you ask?  Because while God is a creation of nature, religion is a creation of man.  There are people who argue that man is the tool by which God provides direction.  But let’s face it.  The key word there is “tool.”  Man is certainly a tool, and in my opinion not a very good one.

I think we can all agree that whether you call it nature or God it is the thing that binds us and the universe and all things together.  However, I don’t think that what people call God is aware of us.  Just like the sun rising in the sky, ancient people used to worship it because they didn’t understand that whether they worshiped it or not, it would still rise in the west and set in the east.  The same is true of God, or what many people understand to be God.  It doesn’t matter if you worship it or not, it will still be there.  By man applying some perceived consciousness to it is an invention of man.  And since man is the aforementioned tool, I’m taking the safe bet that spending my Sundays listening to an idiot tell me how to live my life while paying them 15% of my weekly wages makes me an equal idiot.  As Bono said “The God I believe in isn’t short of cash, Mister!”  So, I’ll keep my money.  After all the doctors want it.

Now a bit about politics. Trump is an idiot, and Republicans are cowards, is too easy. What’s happened is that an entire generation has lost the ability to communicate, think critically, and question the information they are provided regardless of the source. “Mom said it. This agrees with my world view. This is obviously fact.” Nope. People need to learn to question their perspectives on EVERYTHING. I actually listened to an interview yesterday from a guy who said he’s tired of being called “racist,” and then spent the next 20 minutes talking about how he didn’t trust Muslims, Jews, Asians, or Black people. Also, can’t we just agree on things like, you know, facts? What’s going on in this country today is a Farside cartoon gone too far. Can we bring it back to Family Circle?

Liberals are not free from hypocrisy either. They will spend hours talking about how kind and gentle they are, and how the world just needs to be nicer. Then when someone shows up on a college campus to talk about something they don’t agree with, they shun them, drive them from the campus and hold rallies to prevent them from exercising free speech. The double standard is astounding. My favorite one was a girl in the audience when another woman was talking about how “Me Too” had gone too far. She cried and spoke about being “micro raped.” The speaker asked her “What is micro rape.” The girl said “A boy put his hand on my thigh without asking.” Oh just kill me now ya fucking snowflake. No wonder we have a failed gameshow host as President.

Liberals talk about how mean the right is, running to their “safe spaces” on college campuses and covering their ears when they hear an opposing opinion rather than listening. They need to spend less time on MSNBC, and more time listening to Chris Wallace, or, I don’t know, learning math? If you think Bernie is going to get Medicare for all, you’re living in a fantasy world. It would be nice, that’s for sure. However, the only way for that to happen is to convince an entire industry of healthcare professionals and executives (a.k.a. criminals) that they need to make less money. Good luck with that. I mean if I had a 6000 square foot home in Beaver Creek Colorado, I’d be hard pressed to say “Sure! I’ll give up my seven figure salary and now make 50k a year!” Good luck with that!

OK…now that I got all that off my chest, I honestly don’t believe I will die tomorrow.  I’m really more worried about waking up and puking my guts out.  To be honest I’d almost rather die.  In fact, if given the choice between the two, I can tell you I’m not sure which one I would pick.  This is why I never drank as a teenager.  I preferred to get stoned and place my face in a a gallon of Orio ice cream than spend my evening with my face in a place that was never meant for my face.  So just take this as the rantings of a terrified 54 year old man with an 85 year old prostate.  I’m more likely to go with my bicycle wrapped around a pine tree, or if my wife has her way with a shovel wrapped around the back of my skull.  For as she says, it’s not a matter of “if,” but a matter of “when.”

I love you all,

Rex   

Yesterday, a seventeen month old baby was shot in the face by an AR-15.  Seven more were killed, and many, many more injured as a gunman fired off shots while being chased by Odessa Texas police.  While the little girl did survive the ordeal, it turns out that this was just another day at the office for President Trump.  Per his quote about the shooting “this really hasn’t changed anything about gun control.”  Those present at this announcement were in shock beyond belief to hear the President say something truthful.  It hasn’t changed anything…and it won’t.  In fact just yesterday, Texas passed laws to expand gun ownership.  How astonishingly brilliant of them.  

Really this shooting is just another example of one more deraigned white guy exercising his right to kill everyone he feels like killing.  Afterall, according to modern Republican dogma, the right to bear arms supersedes the right to Life, Liberty, or Happiness.  I mean how can anyone be happy if they can’t kill their neighbor?  Isn’t that in the Bible?  Kill thy Neighbor?  It must be. That’s the only book the gun lobby reads.  I know…I heard La Pierre say it in an NRA speech.

I also just heard on Fox News that the only way for this to be prevented is to add more guns.  I’ve heard this little gem for far too long. Add more guns?  What the hell do you do when you see someone choking? Choke them?  If you think like this, I’m sorry, you’re an idiot.  More weapons never, in the history of forever, prevented less death.  Ever. Look it up!  In a book.  You know what books are?  They’re in these buildings called Libraries.  You should go in one once in a while.  It will help you when people use words with more than one syllable.  

Maybe you’re right though. Maybe we do need more guns in the world. After all, the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun, is to have a good guy with a gun.  Then again, I’d like to try option B.  That being neither guy has a gun.  We could try that option.  Then again, according to your beliefs it’s the responsibility of the victim to protect themselves.  That’s the law of nature after all.  I guess someone should have told that little girl.  I guess if that little tiny defenseless baby would have had an oozy or something, she’d have her face today.  

You know, you’re right. A good guy with a gun is a defense against a bad guy with a gun.  That kid should have had a gun, and she’d be just fine today.  She should have gone out and bought that oozy.  Then today she’d have a perfect, priceless little face, with teeth and lips and everything so she could eat and be a normal kid.  How dare she ruin the life of a murderer by not being able to defend herself.  Damnit! She should have gone out and bought a gun.  What was wrong with her?  Stupid kid.

Rex

I honestly don’t know what to do with what’s considered conservative media today.  They sit and listen to the President of the United States, members of Congress, and people of the public spout the most ridiculous claims, and then either hop on the band wagon, or deny entirely the things that were said. Think about that.  Imagine being on a ship that is sinking, with thousands of guests on board, watching it sink, and the captain and crew are saying “Nope…it’s all good!  Go back to your cabin, you’ll be fine.”

I was in my early 20s when I first started watching the news and paying attention to what was being said. I became fans of people like George Will, and William F. Buckley who espoused conservative ideas that really made sense to me.  These were, and for Will, still are, ideas based in fact and reality.  I didn’t, and don’t, always agree with them, but I could respect where they were coming from, and if you provided them with new information, they were and are capable of changing their point of view.  

Not today’s conservative!  To be a conservative today you have to deny that the earth is round, poison kills, conservatives lie, and believe that, radio, eyewitness, notarized, and gold-plated evidence is nothing but fake news.  As long as it is the guy on your team that’s making shit up, you’re good with it.  However, let that be the other team then we should just hang him.  Hell…the other team doesn’t even have to be lying.  They just have to be stating a fact that is contrary to your doctrine, and you seem to have the right to disavow, dishonor, and many cases murder him.  Spanish Inquisition anyone?

Take the example of Fox New’s Stuart Varney.  This guy actually went on TV the other day and stated that he doesn’t believe the President ever lies.  Really!?! Never?  He never, ever lies?  Even though we have all watched him lie?  According to the WashingtonPost, Trump has lied more than 12,000 times in less than 1000 days.  Seriously…Fox…you know we have video recordings now.  We can actually review what he says and compare it to…you know…facts?  We can also review when he says one thing, denies that he says it, and then says it again, denies it again, and then says something else.  It’s called TECHNOLOGY!

I really don’t know what’s going to happen to this country in the next few years.  However, I do know that I’m considering Canada and Mexico as options when the shit hits the fan.  At some point the wackadoodles on both sides are going to come to a head, and the end result is going to be bloody. I’d just as soon not be a part of that. Am I a coward?  No.  I just don’t want to be in a situation where I’m fighting an idiot for no other reason than they’re an idiot.  That just seems a ridiculous reason to sacrifice my life, and when it gets to that point, that’s when there’s nothing worth fighting for.

Rex

When I first moved to Colorado Springs in 1994, I went to a bike shop, bought a Pike’s Peak Atlas and started my quest to ride every trail on the map.  I almost completed it too, finding that many of the trails weren’t really mountain bike friendly or I didn’t have the skills to ride them.  Then over the course of the next couple of years, I got stronger. I was able to ride things that before, I could only dream of riding.  That’s the way it is supposed to work.  You keep trying until you can achieve the goal.  Not anymore.  Now some mamby-pamby, breast-fed-till-puberty wannabes have destroyed some of the greatest trails in the world.

About twenty years ago common knowledge was that if you wanted kick-ass single track you stayed far, far, far away from Denver.  First the trails were so busy that it made it impossible to ride, second, the trail organizations were such wussies that you wouldn’t have been shocked if you saw handrails.  Groups with great intentions for removing trail erosion destroyed the natural characteristics of the trials, turning them into what amounts to a nature path designed for 90-year-olds who can still make it to the bathroom without shitting themselves.  

Now these groups have moved south and the trails are really starting to suck!  The most recent indication is that they have started venturing into Cheyenne Cañon.  This used to be one of the most premier areas to ride.  For decades it was primarily motorcycle trails, but after the Waldo Canyon fire the trails were closed to motor vehicles and the hikers and mountain bikers began to enjoy some of the most primo trail network on the planet.

There is a history here, however. Before the canyon the first place the trail police showed up to was Red Rock Park.  This was an old landfill the city acquired from private owners.  At one point it was even a trailer park.  About a decade or so ago they opened up the area to trail users.  This area was awesome!  You had to have some skill to ride there and it was a nice foothill trail system that before was just an eyesore.  Then all of a sudden the trail police showed up and turned the park into a shadow of its former self.  Now all you need to ride there is a 16 inch K-mart special with training wheels and hard rubber tires.  It’s sad. No skill level is required. Oh sure…they have a very small freestyle park, that 2 people use, but that’s about the end of it.

Back to Cheyenne Cañon. Just last year they took great effort to screw up one of the best single-track sections in the state. You got there by climbing up Buckhorn and into a small canyon along Bear Creek. Then you would ride along a stream bed over some chunky brick-like rocks to an area called Jones Park. From there you could ride all the way up to a fence that blocked access to a mountain reservoir.  Another route to get to this trail was to ride up to a place called Frosty’s off Old Stage Road and take the BEST DOWNHILL EVER into Jones Park and then the trail back to Cheyenne Cañon. It was the shit!  I could rip that thing like a boss!  Now they removed the downhill all together replacing it with a set of gutless, worthless, whimpy switchbacks you can ride no-handed up or down.  To top it off they’ve let the motorcycles back and the trails are so guttered and loose that the only way to get any speed is to have 125cc’s.

This summer the group moved into Ute Valley Park.  It wasn’t the most technical place to ride already, but it did have some nice natural challenges.  Over the last few months though, they have turned it into another gutless waste of dirt. Every minor bump has been turned into this flowy, no jump, zero challenge, little sissy-pants piece of nothing. It makes a real man cry.  Seriously…stop! You’re making me cry!  

To add insult to injury, last weekend I was up at Indian Creek west of Sedalia. This used to be one kick ass downhill. Years ago someone built a set of jumps on the east leg of the trail down toward Waterton Canyon, and they were awesome! With moderate speed you could get two to four feet in the air. Now all of them have been carved down. Some witless twit ripped out all the jumps. Sure, you can go fast now, but all the challenge is gone. Congratulations…your mommy will be so proud. Go have some breast milk.

It has become clear to me that the E-bike generation has taken over.  No more is it required to actually pedal.  You just get a group of West Coast Wanabees to come out and pave the trails for you so you can ride your wannacycle.  “But Rex…if it wasn’t for my e-bike, I’d never have gotten off the couch.”  Sure…be proud of yourself.  You put down the donuts for 15 minutes and got on your moped.  I’m so impressed. Yesterday I had a guy with no lower legs, on a regular bike, pass my ass up a climb. You’ve done nothing.  Your e-bike is an electric motor scooter, and you’re a gutless pussy. Seriously…dude had prosthetic legs!  

We are now in the era where the generation that’s supposed to be having children were once getting trophies just for showing up. I see it in my professional, and in my personal life.  They have no idea what it takes to work.  Life should just hand things to them.  Their parents made so many excuses for their worthlessness, that now they can’t be anything but worthless.  They just sit there, wet their Gucci diaper, and wait for mommy to take their lazy 30 year old, living in their parent’s basement ass, up the hill so they can coast down. 

No wonder birth rates are down. No one has any balls.

Rex

Addendum:

Over the Labor Day weekend I decided to go to Crested Butte and ride Deer Creek. The reason this trail was so cool was because about half-way through the 30 mile loop around Mt. Crested Butte you had this miserable gut-wrenching climb to get to one of the most beautiful views in the State. It was a REALLY hard climb and those of us who made it without dabbing, got to brag about it for a year until we did it again.

Well…guess what! Not anymore! They took out the climb and put in about 10 switchbacks for the e-bike crowd. Seriously…it makes me long for the days of rigid bikes (what I was riding the first time I did that climb) and cantilevers.

Sure…the climb is still hard, but it’s not noteworthy hard. I weep for the future.

Granted I’m follicly challenged so it’s fair to assume that my complaint of the man bun might just be sour grapes.  I will openly admit that if I had the choice, I would have a full head of hair rather than the shaved nut I sport today.  Then again, as I sit here in my Levi’s, Brooks Brother’s button down, and Lucchese boots, I’m also reminded that my style is the polar-opposite of what you would expect from a man with a bun.  In other words, I lean more Marlboro Man than Little Debbie.

When I make it into a gym, or on a run, I’m incessantly met with immature man-boys who think somehow a beehive is a good choice over the simple pony tail.  It’s not.  Go with the pony tail.  Hell, you can even go the full Willy Nelson and braid it.  I don’t care, but when you pile the hair on top of your head, you look like an idiot.  No man should strive to look like their mother going to a dinner party unless you plan to also wear her chiffon as well.  This isn’t a gay straight thing.  It’s just…bad…taste.

I seriously want to know what goes through a man-boy’s head when he wakes up in the morning, checks his facial tattoos, puts rings in his nose, and gauges in his ears and thinks “Hey…you know what will set this look off?  A bun!”  No! NO NO NO NO NO!!!  Don’t do that!  You’re settling for a life of pushing your skateboard to the bus stop for your dish washing job.  Think ahead lad!  Think ahead!

Attitude is everything in life, and while there might be a few of people who think they can pull that look off, most of them are working carnival row at the county fair…as the freak.  No one should want a life where parents look at their children and say “Keep screwing up, and that’s where you’ll be.”  I’m not judging you on whether you’re a good person or not.  Tammy Faye Baker was a GREAT person (her husband was an ass).  I just wish someone would have stopped her before she got to the makeup counter a the Dollar Tree. 

Let’s face it, unless you’re Marlon Brando, or Joe Manganiello, you really shouldn’t try the style.  It’s also fair to point out that one of those guys was a bisexual man-whore, and the other one is married to Sofia Vergara.  I challenge you to question either man’s masculinity.  I do hope however that at some point during their relationship, Sofia has looked at the top of Joe’s head and said “no.”  Then again, my wife pointed out, if he’s coming sweaty out of the gym, she’s likely not looking at his hair. 

Fair enough.

Rex