I'm like a motorcycle...

I have said it before and will say it again, over and over again if needed - although I do fear it might be a case of "The gentleman doth protest too much, methinks." (Nods to my boy Shakespeare.) - I am not a sports guy.

I'm not.

Despite a love for rock climbing, running, cycling, swimming, snowboarding, et hoc genus omne, I do not like sports.

I realise that this seems like a serious disconnect. But it is how things sit in my mind.

Growing up I never enjoyed sports. I had an adversarial relationship with them. While both my brother and sister played basketball and soccer and baseball and volleyball, I did not if I could in any way prevent it.

When I was about eight or nine, thinking that their youngest was most likely very much like their oldest, my parents signed me up for the local youth soccer league. I cannot remember being more miserable in my youth. I felt awkward and out of place. And clumsy. Frankly, I hated it. And I sucked at it.

But as an adult I do many sporty things. And apparently my body is very much like a motorcycle.

According to a little quiz set up by The Car Connection, my body gets the equivalent of 45.5 miles per gallon.

45.5 miles per gallon
And that's a good thing. I like being healthy. I like doing physical things. I like that my body is like a motorcycle rather than, say, a minivan or a mid-sized sedan. But I still maintain that I do not like sports.

If I take a step back and look at things from the here-and-now I realise it is team sports that are not my thing. Yet I cannot separate the "team" from "sport" and when I hear "sport" it invariable registers as "team sport". Sport to me means soccer. Or baseball. Or any of those other games that to my mind seem like military maneuvers, like empty and disciplinary repetition. I just don't like team sports. Not to play. And not even to watch for the most part.

Individual sports, however, I like. Both to do and to watch. Perhaps I don't play well with others. Perhaps I prefer to have it all about me - I am an Aries after all! If I could wash the association of "sport" and "team sport" from my mind I might be able to admit that I am sporty.

Until then, I'll just be happy to be like a motorcycle.

Wind. Rain. And hail.

The Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta got quite a send off by Mother Nature today. In just under two hours the play area at our local park was turned into a little lake.

The wind swept in, quickly followed by a deluge of rain. That was followed by a crash of hail stones. It was alarming enough that I felt the need to bring the car in to the garage to prevent it from hail damage.

By the time the storm moved on an inch of rain had fallen and left the neighborhood quite a mess. The Chickabiddy and I went for a walk in the late afternoon and we decided to take a pass on the play structure in the park. We had forgotten our swim fins.

Finns! Finns! Eveywhere!

As we do every year, we went to a Mass Ascension at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. It's always a treat - a feast for the eyes. This year there was a balloon from Hämeenlinna, Finland. This in itself is not remarkable. It is, after all, an international event and there are balloons from all over the world. But what is remarkable is how many Finns here in New Mexico - Finns who are not a part of my Finnish wife's rather extensive expat Finns-in-New-Mexico social network - showed up at the Hämeenlinna balloon.

I have long been suspicious that the Finns are trying to take over the world.

If the Finns are plotting for world domination (I point to Nokia, bluetooth technology and Linux as proof positive that there is some kind of plot) it is understandable that they are taking a slow and methodical way about it. That's how Finns work. They are good at it. But I fear that the intel might be lacking.

If they are taking over the world, one country at a time, they may have misjudged the importance of New Mexico. There are a lot of Finns here. And when they pull that mighty insurrection and gain control of New Mexico they are just going to find that the rest of the country will laugh.

If they notice at all.