Ah yes… Going to see Monty Python’s The Holy Grail at midnight tonight. My wife has goaded me into wearing one of my many Python t-shirts, but I’m still unsure as to whether or not I should take my coconut halves for appropriate clopping.

Thank God I don’t still have my King Arthur costume from last year.

I was nearly ready to launch the fundraising effort to get Gareth a Pino when somebody went and referred him to Make-A-Wish.

The Make-A-Wish folks have contacted us and sent out medical release forms, which I sent back to them today. They need the release in order to talk to Gareth’s pediatrician as M-A-W relies upon the ped to determine whether or not the child is eligible and if the desired wish is acceptable considering the medical conditions.

We need to sit down with Gareth and see what it is he would like, but he has been very excited about the bike for weeks now. It’s a safe bet he’ll go for it. If so, this might mean we can get him out and riding without having to tap family, friends, and the community at large.

Assuming that M-A-W is going to grant his wish. If that falls through, we have the backup plan in the form of the fundraising.

Kettle Creek Lower Campground
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

We took one last weekend to get out before the weather becomes unbearably cold, staying at the camp in Hammersley Fork.

While we were in the area, we stopped by for the Renovo Flaming Foliage Festival, which proved to be interesting. Renovo is a nearly dead town in the middle of nowhere that draws a majority of its economy from Lock Haven, State College, and welfare. Every year, they host the Flaming Foliage Festival to celebrate the changing colors of the leaves. Certainly, there is some beautiful scenery around there, but the town itself is a bit of a throwback. What really struck us were the 12 year olds walking around smoking cigarettes and the eight year olds shooting each other with Airsoft knockoffs. But we’re privileged yuppie flatlanders, we’re supposed to be shocked by such things (even though I lived in and frequented Renovo in my youth).

The Festival parade itself similarly harkened back to much, much simpler times. Looks like everybody was having fun, though. I enjoyed almost all of my carnie food except for the semi-raw hot sausage sandwich. Pro tip… if you are ever tempted to eat at Rita’s sausage stand, don’t. Go elsewhere.

We also managed to stop in and visit my grandmother, who I hadn’t seen since 1998. This was her first time meeting Gareth, which made the trip all the more interesting. Even after spending two hours with him, my grandmother still didn’t seem convinced that he was a sentient, aware being. Most people think we’re delusional when we say he is as smart and aware as any other kid - they can’t get beyond his lack of muscle control - but 80 year old women are especially tough nuts to crack.

Lessee… what else… Oh yeah, I did a dawn kayak paddle, hitting the water about 45 minutes before the sun came up. Sure was cold, though. There was frost on my kayak when I unloaded it and frost on it when I put it back on the rack over two hours later. It was a very peaceful paddle. Nobody else was on the water, and the folks in the nearby campsites were all asleep. They didn’t start stirring until about 8AM.

After packing up camp for the weekend, we took a drive around Kettle Creek to take in some fall color. That’s what the pic is from.

While the Hase Pino I talked about earlier certainly is the most awesome solution to my father/son/disability riding problem, there are other, more economical solutions available.

And credit goes to Robert Gentry over at Recumbent Bicycle Riders for pointing that out.

I chatted with him about what I was trying to achieve, and he came up with a couple of different ideas that didn’t involve a $5000+ purchase. One solution was a $1300 used recumbent tandem he had in house, but the seating arrangement on it meant that Gareth would spend the entire ride staring at my back with little else to see or do.

Another option is to take a Burley Piccolo and mount a recumbent seat to it. The Piccolo is a trailer bike, so I’d still need to buy my own upright, but there’s a Piccolo on eBay right now for $120. They go for around $350 new. Either way, much more reasonable than the Pino.

But wait… there’s a third option. Hase also carries a product called Trets. It’s a two wheeled recumbent trailer, made for kids, and goes for about $1,200. It also comes with a three point harness, which Gareth would definitely need. If RBR can get it for me at that price, I could probably purchase it with my year end bonus.

I just need to talk with Gareth and see if he’d find a trailer fun. One thing I love about the Pino is that it puts him out front so he can enjoy the rush of air and the feeling that he’s in the lead position, pedaling us forward. The trailers would diminish that somewhat.

I don’t know why this page made me laugh so much, but it did.

It was the X-Men reference that really did me in.

My dear wife is out of town today for training on the pre-school components of No Child Left Behind. Yes, kids from age 2-5 will now be tested to make sure they’re progressing during their time playing with blocks, taking naps, and pasting construction paper.

Something about this strikes me as ridiculous, partially because of the juxtaposition of the philosophy that we should let kids be kids with this new approach of making sure they’re tested and trained for the future! That future being when they have to learn how to count to 100.

I was not a pre-school child. My parents certainly didn’t have the money for it, and I’m certain that it wasn’t quite as much of an issue between 1973 and 1978 as it is today. Still, I entered kindergarten and was able to be graduated to the first grade without so much as a single federally mandated test.

What has happened to our poor children that they must now endure entrance and exit exams just to make it to real school? Too much Power Rangers, not enough Electric Company? Are our children destined to be failures because two adults never approached them in silhouette to assemble monosyllabic words against an empty landscape?

Oh well, I guess it’s only fair that we start stressing out these kids as early as possible. Get them used to the whole routine of regular evaluation. I just wish there was an actual reward for the kids in doing all of this testing. Some countries reward you with a college education for that stuff. The only people rewarded in our country are the politicians.

Yeah, I bet you weren’t expecting that from the guy who posts dead fish photos.

Kayak lens flare
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

Wow, I did some kind of mini-marathon session today. Six hours paddling around the southwest half of Sayers Lake. 7.48 miles paddled in all (obviously, I wasn’t paddling the entire six hours).

Got some great photos out of it, though, and was able to observe some wildlife habits I hadn’t seen before.

Oh, and I did some trash cleanup while I was out there. A quart bottle of oil, a single flip-flop, three lures, 15 feet of fishing line, a Wal-Mart bag, and some other small items. I had to leave tires and seats from boats (?!) behind as they were too large for me to haul.