Record-Breaking Smackdown Entry!

My Autumn Tree Smackdown has officially hit new heights! Last year's contest garnered 12 entries including my own. Today's entry from PaddyAnne (last year's top legitimate vote getter) of Pedal Talk brings this year's tally to 13! Considering the fact that I've been less active on the blog lately, I think that's awesome.

I'm hoping somebody else (aka Steve A or Keri) will enter something so that odious number of entries won't bug me. Superstitions are silly in my opinion. I break mirrors for fun, our black cat crosses my path almost daily, I walk under ladders, and so on. I'm not so much superstitious as kind of OCD, which means that nagging little number will bug me like a valve stem without a cap if only because others (silly others) may not like it.

I hope PaddyAnne isn't superstitious because I just called her silly... here's her email message:

Hello Mr. Rantwick. I have just woken up from a long sleep, but I think still in time to submit my entry into this years Autumn Tree contest.

While last year I sent in a photo of the golden "Empress", this year I am submitting a photo of "Princeling".

Princeling is 7 years old. I bought him for $5.00 at the farmers market when he was just a twig about 9 inches high, with one side shoot. I planted him in a spot up at our cottage, and last year, at 6 years old, transplanted him into a new spot where he would not be so crowded. He survived the process, thank goodness. To keep him company this summer I planted my vegetable garden around him, so you can see some of my leeks and lettuce. And some weeds. Princeling is magnificent all year round, and all though small in stature, give him a few years and he'll be a real knockout. Perhaps I'm entering him a bit pre-maturely, but this year I was hankering to enter a red tree, since last years' was a golden colour. It was sort of a foggy day in October when this photo was taken.

Cheers

PaddyAnne 

Thanks PaddyAnne! It does my heart good to know that people have begun growing trees solely (hee hee!) for my contest.

Be good, everybody, and I'll see you soon. Figuratively, of course. I mean, I won't actually see you... although wouldn't that be cool (for me, at least)? Like, some sort of futuristic "reader viewer" where if you landed here I could watch you! Quick flashes of the image seekers. Longer views of the reading nose-pickers and belly-scratchers and comment typers. I would only want such technology if only I could use it. I sure as hell don't want all you people to be able to see me and my 12 inch Pikachu chest tattoo as I engage in my always shirtless blog reading and web snuffling. But I digress. Come back soon, and thanks for reading.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

MEC London Ontario - Opening Non-Update

Disregard the following stuff, because London MEC is open as of Dec 1, 2011. Thanks to Mike M who left me a comment letting me know. If you want to check it out, you can click here for my info on location.

Hey there. Just a quick note to all you people who are landing here looking for info on the Mountain Equipment Coop opening... I called MEC and they still don't have a hard opening date for the store. The signs say "Late November" but I got the feeling from the guy I talked to that it may be postponed a little.

Staff are on site and inventory is going in but that is all the detail I could get for now. For every scrap of information I've posted so far, you can click here.

Important unconfirmed non-update update: Anonymous has commented that "the buzz is Sunday, Dec 4th". As of Dec 1, MEC is open! Thanks to Mike M in the comments for the heads-up.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Nostalgia Attack! In Search Of... A Cool Cycling Jersey

The title of this post (for those too young to know or others too smart to have watched) is an homage to the In Search Of... TV shows hosted by Leonard Nimoy, aka Spock from Star Trek. The show premiered when I was 7 years old and finished when I was 13. Here's a sample:

Those were some pretty formative TV viewing years, but thankfully I was the second youngest in an intelligent and completely cynical family of groovy monster and paranormal naysayers. Whew.

The thing is, cycling jerseys can be just as freaky. I don't even currently own a real cycling jersey; I've always opted for the cheaper, wicking, and  generic athletic shirts sold by gigantic cut-throat unethical big-box retailers because, well, I'm selfish and cheap.

What got me on to this topic was thinking about creating a RANTWICK shirt to wear when I go out collecting SARATS votes. I figure it would promote the blog with local readers and add some legitimacy to the freak asking people to look at tree photos out of the blue. So, which to choose: The more widely accessible and cheaper to produce cotton T-shirt, or the often visually striking and much more expensive to produce Cycling Jersey?

I personally wanna go cycling jersey, because they can look so damn cool. Trouble is, there are SO MANY that could trump anything I could come up with. I visited a major online retailer looking for inspiration, and man oh man...

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Who wouldn't be into sporting a navel-sniffing (or is it grazing?) giraffe, or for that matter a giant giraffe butt mocking all those you overtake? The maker of this jersey also makes this intimidating item:

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Whoa. You just don't mess with a tiger, especially one worn by people who appear to have time-travelled straight out of the 80's... they are hardcore, for sure.

Although I started my browsing with an eye for weird jerseys of any kind, I ended up finding several novelty cycling jerseys I really liked. When I look at the ones I chose to post about here, a theme has emerged... nostalgia. Perhaps it was the blast-from-the-past hairdos of the tiger wearers, or the "In Search Of..." thing I kicked off with... who knows? Nostalgia is a symptom of growing older, I guess, and I expect it will only get worse. Just the same, check it out; there's a cycling jersey for every stage of my young life, starting with pyjama-clad cartoon watching:

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What can I say? Awesome. After some early-morning TV, I might well have been served something rather alarming for lunch...

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In the interest of total accuracy (which is of paramount importance in a blog post of such gravity) I must make a couple of notes here. First, although I believe Spam was available on Canadian store shelves, it was more likely that I would receive a Canadian equivalent called Klik.

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Secondly, my Mom wouldn't normally put a slab of the stuff in a sandwich, but rather create a "ham salad" kind of mixture with it and do the sandwich that way.

Moving from cartoon and mystery meat nostalgia to the musical, this jersey really took me back...

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The album cover art from Dark Side of the Moon by Pink Floyd is imprinted on many people's brains. In my case, it was featured on a big poster that graced the wall of the bedroom that I shared with my two older brothers when I was a kid. That bedroom was in the house I wrote about in a different nostalgic post over a year ago. Sigh. Those were good times. As I grew older, the band providing the soundtrack for my life became...

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Every guy I hung out with was into RUSH, the extraordinary Canadian power trio that featured three remarkably talented individual musicians all in one band; Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson and Neil Peart are widely regarded as among the very best at what they do. They also wrote songs that appealed to my adolescent brain. Though it sounds kind of childish to me now, I still get pumped listening to "Red Barchetta" in particular. Strangely, I have never met a girl or woman who liked RUSH, even a little. If you happen to be such a woman, don't tell me, because I might have to visit you in person just to confirm that you are for real.

Soon after those teenage years, my memories become somewhat more fractured and clouded. I can't imagine why.

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When I emerged from the haze, I found I was a fully formed old man, well ahead of literal old man status:

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So there you have it; my life as told by cycling jerseys. I started this post meaning to write mostly about RANTWICK shirt design considerations, but this blast-from-the-past tangent has already hijacked your time for long enough. I'll write about my RANTWICK shirt production planning and woes another time, for which you will no doubt be waiting in a state of breathless anticipation because it is just so fascinating. All I can say is...

Keep Yer Shirt On!

R A N T W I C K