Visitors from the North.

Tonia and I have had a couple busy and very enjoyable weeks.  First of all Kelli Z. came down to visit Tonia. It seemed like she had a good time seeing the sights and lounging by the pool.

  

She and Tonia went out on the town on St. Patrick's day.  The same day that J came for a visit.

Since she's been here we went to the Hole in the Rock at Papago Park in Phoenix where we climbed up and took in the views.  

We also walked around the park near the Zoo and saw these very friendly and demanding Geese.

We've spent some good times hanging out and exploring the city.  Last night Duane and Janet Wheeler (parents of Danette Abraham) took us out to an interesting restaurant in Mesa called Organ Stop Pizza.  From the outside it looks like any other restaurant, but when you go inside the place is huge!

They have a huge pipe organ that comes up out of a pit below the floor.  The organist plays requests and a selection of standards.  Two of the more enjoyable were the Star Wars montage complete with the cantina song, and the Little Mermaid Under the Sea. 

As you can see the place is a favorite of the snowbirds.

Seeing how many people were milling around the place, J decided to play 'Where's Jordan'.  

Good luck!

In other news, Tonia has stripped the Antelope down to the metal getting it ready for its future paint job.  She has some bold ideas for its new look.  All I'll say is Yuk.

Also I have decided to try one last quick polish on the first novel and I'll send it out to agents.  If I hear back that it needs editing then I will pay the $3000 for editing.  I just can't justify paying that kind of coin on something that isn't a sure thing.

We have J for a couple more days and we are having a great time with her.  We may have to cancel her ticket and make her stay.  We'll see.

Mister Peanut is dead. Long live the 'Lope

It's been a while since I last posted but there has been a tragedy in the Litchy home.  Mister Peanut, the most awesome single speed bike ever built has been stolen.  For those of you who don't know Brian built me Mister Peanut a few years ago as a commuter for the North Dakota winters.  He was a great bike and so named because of the Mister Peanut stuffed animal face stuck on the front of the bike thanks to little Mario's hatred of stuffed animals.  

Basically Tonia and I went to a movie downtown and locked our bikes outside. While we were gone someone cut my Kryptonite cable lock and stole my bike leaving Tonia's Trek 800.  In addition they took the severed lock so I couldn't even see how they cut it.  So since the bike was gone and never coming back we began the hunt for a replacement.  What we found in Phoenix is that bikes are a commodity and finding a used one is both difficult and often over priced.  

After looking at thrift stores, bike shops and a couple pawn shops I finally picked up this old Trek 820 Antelope.

We've already started fixing it up.  As soon as I get it stripped down I'm going to build it back up as a single speed.  Tonia found a community bike workshop called Bike Saviours where we took it in and picked up a new seat and strait handle bar for it.  The people there volunteer their time to help others fix or build bikes.  Everyone was super nice and they even have a ladies only night where women can work on bikes without feeling intimidated by all the weird guys who work on bikes.   I'll take some picks of my new parts and the bike as the it moves forward and post them next time.  Tonia wants to paint it so we'll see if I'm patient enough for that or not.

As far as activities, Tonia and I have been hiking and biking whenever we can and a couple weekends ago there was a Japanese Matsuri Festival downtown so we walked over to that and looked at some interesting art and people.  

Tonia also ran into an old high school chum at her work, so we had a double date at a cool piano bar downtown called My Florist.  I had Merlot and one kick ass Ruben.  The pianist played nonstop for over four hours and even covered the Super Mario Brothers theme montage.  She was amazing!  It was a good time and we had lots of good conversation.  

In other news my forth novel is under way.  I finished the third one a week or so ago and was so excited that I leaped into the fourth one that same day.  So here are my current dilemmas and I could use some advise.  I sent novel number 1 to some professional editors so see what it would cost to edit it.  The quotes came back ranging in price from $3000 to $6000 dollars for the project.  So do I wait until I stumble upon $3000 or do I give it one more cleaning and send it off to agents and see if they say it needs polish?  Please send me your advise.

Dilemma number 2 is not so much a question as a statement.  I need to do some major polishing on Novel #2, but I'm having trouble making myself do it.  I know I just need to bite the bullet and get after it; plus Heather is asking me to send it to her, which I want to do, but it needs polish.  So this is just me whining about it.  Buck up mister, right?

Anyway, I thought I would end the post with some of the interesting art in our neighborhood. The first image is an odd little sketch that's on the wall of a building next door to the Church of Scientology.

The second one is truly amazing.  I intended to take a better picture since the sun was shining so brightly and the lamp post is casting a shadow in the painting, but this is what you get for now.  Here's what I found amazing, the entire mural was done with aerosol spray cans and all done in less than a day.  It still blows my mind when I see it.

Alright, that's it for now.  Everyone stay safe and warm.