Fondly Fondled?

Dear Blog Reader.     

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. Lately, I had found myself being chased by the dark earlier and earlier on my evening after work rides. It is official. I have been caught. There is no dusk left by the time my 15 mile sprints have been completed. The worst part of dusk riding is not inattentive drivers, slow moving farmers traveling to the next ethanol laden corn field, or even assassin deer anticipating the big Hilly Hundred weekend next month. It is the hordes of insects that descend as the heat of the day starts to pass. I don’t what kind they are but they love to eat my legs. My legs are nearly eaten to the bone and I find mom’s “if you don’t stop scratching those bites, you’ll get impetigo” loop playing in my mind with my legs on fire at 3:00 a.m. every morning.

In my preparation for the Hilly Hundred, I have made a commitment to lose some weight. In May, I had the opportunity to go up and down some of the hills that are featured in the fall ride on the cover Indiana tour last May. I decided that it would be in my best interest not to carry an extra bowling ball of weight up and down the same hills this fall. I have stopped/slowed down eating processed sugars, promised to only eat one bowl of fudge covered ice cream a week, and started interval training during my bike rides. All of those things have come together quite nicely and progress is being made. Last night I looked back at my ride diary and found that two and a half years ago my rides were 7 miles long and averaged around 12 mph. Now they are 15 miles long and average 16.5 mph. That is a great feeling of accomplishment and very comforting.

While the Hilly Hundred may not be a race, the congregation of assassin deer and their families from all over the Midwest watching “2,500 slowly perambulating cyclists walking their bikes up really steep hills” from “the gloriously fall colored woods” gives one pause. (See the 8/25 blog for context) It behooves (pun intended) one to prepare and take precaution and not appear to be the weakest in the herd. As the old joke goes, I don’t have to be faster than the bear, just faster than the others running from the bear.

It was a busy news week. Two stories caught my eye in my digital version (sorry paper boy) of the Indianapolis Star. The first one was last Wednesday when a small article appeared that a prostitution ring was broken up in Carmel, Indiana. The ring was broken up when the prostitute “performed a sex act on an undercover (pun intended?) officer.” I was a bit surprised. Most of the time prostitutes are arrested when they “solicit” the sex act. In fact in my 40 years of news paper reading, I do not recall events proceeding to the performance stage. I put it out of my mind. Other weightier issues were competing for my news reading minutes; what with Justin Beiber growing a mustache and . . .

Low and behold on Saturday, a follow up article decrying police methods was published. The method being decryed was the fact that one sex act performance was not enough. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the fifth time that a prostitute had performed a sex act on an undercover Carmel police officer. Chief Justice Rehnquist may know pornography (or prostitution) when he sees it but it appears that Carmel law enforcement officers are more tactile, more hands on if you will, in their learning style. I can imagine the meeting in the Vice offices after each investigation.

“What do you think Larry? She fondled your genitals and you paid her $100 plus a $35 tip with tax payer money do you think it rose to the level of prostitution?”

“I’m not sure captain. It could have been a misunderstanding. I think that I need to go back and make sure. She may have fondled me unintentionally.”

“You do what you think is best Johnson. Here take another $135, and thanks for taking one for the team.”

The other story that caught my eye last week had many similarities. The powers that be ordered the evacuation of the Indianapolis emergency response center that had been set up inside of the old East Gate Mall. I have been in the East Gate Mall. In fact, my mother took me there by purchase back to school clothing 40 years ago. Yes, kids 40 years ago people would bundle up in their Conestoga Wagons and drive 30 miles to get clothing for their families. Today, we have 5 malls that are closer and more convenient. Not to mention 3 dozen Walmart, Target, and Meijer stores between here and there. You kids don’t know how good you have it. Of course, your gun toting peers do even out the cost benefit analysis of the shopping equation.

Any who. Three years ago East Gate Mall was the perfect place for Indianapolis’ emergency response center. It was empty. It was big. It was . . . empty and big. The Super Bowl was coming soon and as one official in the Saturday story said “you need a big empty space because you don’t project world class excellence in small cramped facilities in a basement someplace.” So on the surface, Indianapolis found a good looking big empty space that projected excellence to the world and stroked the egos of community emergency preparedness officials.

Alas, beauty is only skin deep. The old East Gate Mall ain’t what she used to be and appears to be, in a bit of irony, unsafe for safety officials. Inadequate fire walls and uncharged sprinkler systems appear to have ruled the day. Also, it appears that big, empty, dilapidated, unsafe spaces are very expensive. The monthly rent was $57,000 a month for the first 10 years and $63,000 a month for the next 25 years: $18 million over the 25 years. That’s not all. If you act now, the city would have to pay for the upgrades to the building to move it from a big, empty, dilapidated, building to one that met code. What a deal. Now, it appears that clearer heads and sharper accounting skills have seen that the emperor had no cloths. The city has abandoned the building, and the lawyers will be left to figure out the small details of what to do with the next 22 years of promises.

Of course it leaves a sour taste in everyone’s mouth. The landlord didn’t hold a gun to anyone’s head to coerce a signature on the lease of this sweet heart deal. The people who signed the lease may recognize in hind sight that it leaves them looking like less than savvy negotiators, so they are spinning their bad judgment trying to make a silk purse out of a sows ear, which according to my grandma you can’t do. Finally the opposition is trying to capitalize on the decision maker’s incompetence in hopes of throwing the bums out so that they will have the opportunity to make really stupid decisions at the taxpayer’s expense.

It appears that time is of the essence. The city has decided that one Super Bowl was not enough. There may have been a misunderstanding. The city may have entered into an $18 million lease unintentionally. We need to make sure that our security officials make a world class statement in the facilities where they set up to do whatever they do. “Here you go Johnson. Here’s another $18 million. Now let’s get out there and get fondled.”

Take care,

Roger