The Zeitgeist

      

Something like my green resin Adirondack chairs, bikes in China, the Tech Talk guys from MetroPCS and Oliver Perez the Mets’ $12 million persona non grata.

Back on The Bicycle, Back on the Porch

About six years ago having a had burning need to feel the wind in my hair, I ambled down to South Shore Bikes in Woodmere and purchased something from China (a country that knows something about bicycles with zillions of people using them to get around) with fuddy-duddy fatter tires, padded seat and shocks that makes no pretence than I am firmly ensconced in middle age. The only cool aspect of this bike is the jet black color and chrome accents.

Now in my adolescent youth, I owned a series of French-inspired “10-Speeds” (this bicycle has maybe 40, I think, and I use perhaps four of them) that looked straight out of “Breaking Away.” Before obtaining my license at 17 I used to ride anywhere and everywhere, miles on end and without using my hands. I could navigate any traffic or terrain with both hands at my side or even eating ice cream, such was the measure of my teenage dexterity. Once I got behind the wheel of an unending series of cars however, bicycles were what Manhattan food delivery guys rode, not me.

As part of the “Battle of the Bulge” (a/k/a Middle Age Spread) I decided on more aerobic pursuits, so hence the bike purchase. Typically, once we get past mid-November, the bicycle remains in the garage and doesn’t reemerge until sometime about now – mid-March. I am proud to report that this past Sunday I made my Spring 2011 bicycle debut in that beautiful 55-degree day and promptly discovered that despite using the bike machines at the gym all winter that my knees were not in the least bit happy to be pedaling to Hewlett Neck. Now, I’m in reasonably good shape for a 52 year-old but there is no denying time. Clearly it will take a few weeks back on board to shake the cobwebs out so I can resume my routine ride from Woodsburgh through Hewlett Neck, with a stop at the Woodmere Town Dock to admire the clear vistas to Mount Garbage in Oceanside and the Long Beach skyline and then on to the back of Lawrence to soak in the mansions of the rich and famous on Ocean Avenue.

First Day of Spring

I was feeling so optimistic Sunday that I actually dragged out some chairs from the garage (and even cleaned them!) to put on my front porch where in nice weather I like to drink wine, read the paper and watch the geese poop all over the Woodmere Club fairways. Sunday’s chairs were of the molded plastic Adirondack variety which in Summer are consigned to the backyard. It takes real heat and warmth for me to put out the white wood Adirondack Rockers where I can truly morph into Bartles and James. Monday, on the first full day of Spring however, we were inundated with cold rain, clouds and 46 degrees. Wednesday and Thursday mornings was a smidge of January déjà vu all over again with snow on the lawn and all over my car. I thought we were done brushing snow off the car!? As I said last week, I need some sustained warm weather and this past week hasn’t been it. The weekend is not supposed to bring much relief either. Will someone please turn on the tanning machine and leave it on through October?

Metro PCS

About a month ago I switched my Blackberry from Verizon to MetroPCS. Why? No two year contracts. No contracts at all. My bill dropped from about $145 a month to $55 a month with unlimited web, email, text and phone to anywhere at anytime. That’s a $90 a month savings, or nearly $1,100 a year. That means more sushi for me and less lucre for Verizon. Happy to say that I’ve been happy with the service which has been 90 percent as good as Verizon for a whole lot less. On a family plan, you can get a phone with web and text for $35 a month. Taxes included. Good for the kids. They have a place near the Dunkin Donuts at Burnside and Rockaway. Something to think about especially if you own a bunch of phones.

Mets

The best $18 million the cash-strapped Mets have spent in years. That’s what it cost for the team to dump two of the loathed kings of bad Met karma that they let go of this week – namely the hapless Little League (and no insult meant to Little League) pitcher Ollie Perez and second baseman Luis Castillo, he of the “Let’s drop an easy pop fly in the ninth inning against the Yankees when we’re winning and can go home” variety. There is one last missing link left to purge the Mets from the miasma of the past four seasons – Carlos Beltran (whose knees are about as good as mine were last week on the bike) who can’t move and can’t hit but sure is getting paid a lot of money.

The Mets unbroken precipitous descent into the pits of baseball hell began in the bottom of the ninth inning in Game Seven of the 2006 National League Championship Series when Beltran, with two outs and bases loaded and with the tying run on first got struck out by St. Louis closer Adam Wainright on three pitches with Beltran getting caught looking as pitch three whizzed right by his head without him taking so much as a stab at it. I was at Shea that night. The air got sucked out of the stadium and the wind got knocked out of the Mets from that moment on. It was like the Curse of the Bambino for the Red Sox. Now, Carlos is a good guy (even if he’s a bit hobbled) but the fact is he’s the nexus point of all the Mets’ bad luck which was born at that awful moment in October 2006. Nothing the Mets did after that ever worked. Nearly all the dead wood from those days has been chopped away with the cutting of Perez and Castillo. Now is the time for another bold move – bring some young buck up from the minors to play right field and let’s have some fun watching an up-and-comer and not a faded star in his death throes.