Gratuitous linkage

One of the cool things about living in Alaska is that I see wildlife regularly. Moose visit my yard, I can see a beluga whale or a brown bear during an after-dinner bike ride (hence the pepper spray in my bottle cage). On Monday, a bald eagle landed on a telephone pole right outside my third-floor office window and sat there for about 40 minutes. I'm gonna miss those birds after they get torched.

As go his pockets, so goes his brain.

I've been checking out another blogger's site recently. I don't know what she's talking about half the time, but I keep going back anyway. Maybe I'm just a sucker for a middle-aged babe on a bike.

I don't care how much you want to get in shape. If you go jogging past a government building wearing one of these things, your ass might get shot off. Handy exercise tip: Try not to look like a suicide bomber.

Here's one more reason bikes are better for everyone than cars. Even hybrids.

My sister-in-law calls them "cart people." It's not hard to figure out why some of them can't walk through Wal-Mart.

And just in case you were harboring hope that Utah isn't one of the strangest places in the nation, there's a judge there with three wives and he thinks it's nobody's business. His lawyer says it's not affecting his performance, therefore it's a private matter. Ooh, that's a good point; it's not like he's in charge of upholding laws or anything.

But to be fair, Utah also has Moab. The beer might suck, but the mountain biking kicks ass. Descending Porcupine Rim is about as much fun as you'll ever have on two wheels, unless those Liberator ramp people start making kinky bikes.

And on that pleasant thought, it's time to wrap this thing up. Thanks for stopping by. I recently started gathering statistics on how many people visit Bicycles and Icicles, and I appreciate the elite little crowd that checks out this blog. This week I've had repeat visits from Reston and Fairfax, Va.; Seattle; D.C.; New York; and London. I even one-time visits from people in Ireland, Italy and the Netherlands.

I could fit you all in my living room and afford to serve you drinks, but it's pretty cool whenever somebody bothers to make a second or third visit.