God wants me to have $19,230,000

The Big Guy wants me to be rich! Seriously. I have an email to prove it. See below:


DONATION FOR THE LORD
From: Mrs. Amorie Santos

I am Mrs. Amorie Santos from Angola. I married to Dr. Filgueiras Santos
who was one of the Diamond directors for seven years before he died on
October 2006. In the first place, I know that you will be surprise on
how I get your contact but bear it in mind that contacting you is not
by my power, rather a divine direction from God. My purpose of
contacting you is that, God who knows the heart of human beings than we do has
choose you to be a helping hand to the lives of helpless once in your
country. Ask me how? God has chosen to handle an investment of Nineteen
million two hundred and thirty-two thousand American dollars ($US19,
232,000.00). I know that this word will come out from your mouth Oh my
God, is this JOKE or what my dear, is not a JOKE. Remember the word of God
in Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in him and he will
act God has come to act in your life and entire family. As a human being,
I know that you will ask yourself how
somebody who has not seen you will trust you with this huge amount of
funds. My dear, I am not the one trusting you with this money rather
God who created heaven and earth, who knows your thinking at this moment
as your reading this message, who knows that you have no power in
betraying his trust in you. I am just a messenger and have done what God has
directed me to do by giving you information of this work he has chosen
you to do for his obediently children suffering financially at their
respective homes in your country. Nothing will make me in applying fears
in you. Praise is to the holy name of God, Amen.

Again, this work does not count on your religion. We serve one God and
our God does not count your religion rather your obedience to his
commandments. I decided to donate these funds to God for the benefit of
widows, orphanage homes and disable organizations since I have no one to
inherit these funds. I am childless. I supposed to use my hand to handle
this work but my health position will not grant me the opportunity to
do so. My physician has told me that I would not last for the next six
months due to cancer problem and the one that disturbs me most is stroke
sickness. I have giving everything in the hand of God. If it is his
wish for me to die today, there is no problem but I have the faith that
his word will surely be fulfilled because he has made us to understand
in the Holy Scripture that with faith, we shall sub due every situation
in our lives.

My dear, I want you to make an agreement with God in this service he
has chosen you to render to his children, he will surely reward you
abundantly. I wait for your immediate reply as you finish reading this mail
so that I will confirm your acceptance to work for God, to enable me
introduce you to the security company where my husband deposited trunk
box containing this funds so that they will recognize you and have a
direct communication with you for the release/shipment of this trunk box to
your hand.

God bless you.
Mrs. Amorie Santos

Utility cycling

Have you noticed that there are A LOT more people getting around on bicycles lately?

I’m not talking about The Usual Suspects – the bike nuts, oddballs, kids without cars and the homeless. Nor am I talking about the recreational riders and The Lycra People. These folks are always on the road, especially during the summer. Their numbers are small, although there’s a spike in recreational riding when the sun comes out, especially on the weekends.

What’s been rare until recently is to see REGULAR people engaged in what’s called UTILITY CYCLING. That’s using a bike for regular transportation, like you would a car. You bike to work, the post office, Kmart, Safeway, a friend’s house, the Farmers’ Market, etc.

The new riders are obviously influenced by the price of gas. I didn’t see them when gas was $2.50, $3 or $3.50 a gallon. Somewhere between $4 and $4.80 a gallon, a bunch of folks decided that biking was a good idea. Trips they used to make with their cars they now make on their bikes. That makes sense. Why use a car when you can use a bike?

Don’t get me wrong – we all have different transportation needs. Bicycling may not work for everyone, nor for all occasions.

But it’s not an all-or-nothing proposition. Use a bike when a bike makes sense. Use a car when a car makes sense.

If something is within two miles of your house, you should seriously consider using a bike, especially in a flat town like McKinleyville. Visit this site and take the TWO MILE CHALLENGE.

You’ll have plenty of trips when you opt to take your car. Sometimes you’ll have legitimate reasons – the trip is too far, maybe it’s raining or you’re hauling two-tons of concrete to build a bomb shelter. Or, if you’re like me, sometimes you’re just lazy.

But if you commit to riding a bike for short distances, and factor in car use for a variety of reasons including occasional laziness, you’ll still realize serious gas savings, health benefits and lots of fun.


You’ll also discover that some of your excuses for using a car are bullshit – kind of like today when I was about to take the car to the office to pickup 2,000 inserts. At the last moment, I realized I could easily complete the task with my Schwinn Suburban.



I stuffed the inserts in my panniers, circa 1984, and transported them across town without incident. You can squeeze a lot of stuff in these bags.

Take my bike, please!

When the semester ends in May at Humboldt State, most of the students stagger back to where they came from. They return home a little smarter, with all sorts of esoteric knowledge, maybe some job skills, a few books, and a fat sack of locally grown chronic.

A few leave behind their bicycles, some still locked up on campus. The university collects these bikes and then disposes of them. This year a thrift store that I frequent in Arcata got a load of bikes. Most were cheap mountain bikes, the kind that I wouldn’t touch with a ten-foot pole. Mixed in with the junk was a decent Specialized Hard Rock. I didn’t really need another bike, but I do a little horse trading with the store, which meant the bike was virtually free. I couldn’t resist.

After about 40 minutes of wrenching, the bike was ready to ride.



Here it is during my morning stop at Sutter’s Mudd. I usually get a latte, which makes me a “latte liberal.” Then again, sometimes I’m a conservative, And sometimes I’m an anarchists. But I digress.

A Hard Rock is a decent mountain bike. Not fancy, but very respectable. Being that I don’t really need this bike, I’ll probably end up giving it away. Someone will tell me how they need a bike, and I’ll say “Here. You can have this one.” There’s only one catch: Whoever takes this bike has to promise to ride it.

Either way, it has to go. Panniers not included.

The Mighty Panasonic is famous!

I was a happy camper today when I learned that two of my photos appear in the "Redwood Coast Map & Guide," published by the Humboldt County Convention and Visitors Bureau. I got a sexy shot of some redwoods on page 2, but I'm most proud of the photo of my bicycle on page 15.



That's the Mighty Panasonic during last year's epic ride from McKinleyville to Willow Creek and back. I assume the Visitors Bureau meant to crop out that wood carving in the background and just show tourists a picture of my bike. I guess they fell short of copy for page 15 and had to leave in the top of the photo to fill space. That's OK. Nobody's perfect.

My only concern is that the billions of tourists who read the guide will travel all the way to Willow Creek looking for my bike and will be disappointed that it's not there.

I promise...

When I'm elected, I'm going to make sure the plans are implemented.