Thank You for Your Patience

It is finally FARATS voting day but I'm not ready yet. I'm hoping to scrape together a little time at lunch to get it ready. Worst case will be a voting page posted this evening. Sadly, I have been running hard on everything but this blog lately.

Attention entrants: I am not going to associate trees with their "owners" in the interest of more fair voting, but I would like to post their locations.

Please comment on this post and give me the locale your tree pic is from. Even if you think I should know where you're from by now, it will simplify things for me if you comment and not all of your trees are from your home towns anyway.

Thanks to all who submitted a tree!

R A N T W I C K

Baptism In Snow

Well, the worst of that snow storm appears to be over and London Ontario continues to dig out. Last week's rides to and from work on Thursday and Friday were some of the most technically demanding I have ever experienced. I tried riding in on Wednesday, got a few blocks from home, decided it was too dangerous and went back home and grabbed the car. Things were made worse by the fact that I didn't get a chance to ease in to snowy riding, going from bare pavement to kookoo town just days after I started riding Mutant Winter again.

Thanks to the sheer volume of snow and cars mashing through it, the always treacherous "lightly trafficked" kind of snow often had strange hard snow/ice islands and ridges hiding underneath it. I walked my bike more than I ever have. "Giving Up" and walking it sometimes actually made the rides much less stressful, if a little tough on my ego.

This morning dawned much colder (approx -13 C / 10 F) than other recent ones. Warm wet snow yesterday and recent plowing made many of the backstreets into skating rinks. That is OK with me because the studded tires do fine on hard ice and I made much better time than in the shifting snow.

Just the same, it would have been OK to have one of these today...

pic source

I'm gonna be busy busy for a while, so I likely won't be posting again until Thursday when the FARATS voting begins. Try to behave while I'm out. Remember, Santa is watching and will punish you without hesitation because he is a very angry dude what with the melting of the icepack and everything.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

One Last Plea: Foliage Me.

As the deadline for FARATS (First Annual Rantwick Autumn Tree Smackdown) entries approached, I figured I had received all the entries I was gonna get. Then I got this email and entry from Sir Wallace, aka a-dude-I-won't-use-the-full-name-of-just-in-case-he-wouldn't-like-that. Here it is:



Sir Wallace sez: The name of my tree is Lady Guinevere, as she was (apparently) the only one standing after all of all of the knights of the round table perished. This was the ONLY tree left with colour when I went out to take pics.



Anyone who is reading about this for the first time might think Sir Wallace a little odd with all this "Knights and Ladies" stuff, but I started it with naming my tree the King of Autumn and inviting pretenders to the throne, usurpers, etc.

I was super pleased to get this late entry... it made the December deadline kind of worth it. Now those of you who haven't entered but were thinking about it have one last chance to make it EVEN MORE worth it!


LAST CALL FOR FOLIAGE Y'ALL!


The "y'all" is dedicated to the twisted Texans who choose to read this blog despite its decidedly Canadian (maple-y) flavour. I love you guys and gals, especially when you make worthwhile attempts at getting good fall tree pictures despite being at a distinct disadvantage in terms of foliagity. Yes, "foliagity" is now a word, because I used it and at least one person (you, I bet) understood my meaning. I feel like a God. I Make Words.

If you are reading this, have a tree pic suited to my contest and don't get it in before (or on) Wednesday, December 15, 2010, you will likely regret it for the rest of your life. Or for several really glum seconds. Depends on the person, you know?

Thursday December 16, the post featuring all entries and a method of voting for them will go up. Voting will end at 12:01 AM January 4, 2011. I chose that date because it gives people a chance to recover from new year's hangovers, return to work and start wasting time online again. Some people, you see, stop goofing off on the Internet and enjoy their families and stuff over the holidays. Other people, like me, will be riveted by the voting action on FARATS and pay attention to their loved ones when it is more convenient.

Can you feel the Holiday JoyJoys Yet? Try harder. I mean it. Get Happy, Now! But No Pressure, Really. Except from those you care for. Pressure from them.

R A N T W I C K