Bryan Strawser

I set off at 4:30pm on what will likely be my last bike ride in Massachusetts. I headed to Massasoit State Park, just four miles away, and the scene of many biking memories over the past year. I’ve likely ridden about 200 miles within the confines of Massasoit…

So there I was, hydrated and loose, in the blue mountain biking top, cruising to the Six Feet Under Volume 2 Soundtrack - “Breathe Me” was ripping through the iPod, I was headed down hill. Life was good, when suddenly…

WTF, where is my bike?

I had been looking too far down the trail and had drifted too far to the right, caught a stump on a pedal, which brought the bike to a near halt, tossing me over the handlebars and into a nice roll into the brush - I ended up about eight feet from the bike.

No major injuries.. just some scrapes and alot of dust and dirt.. even some leaves ended up in my shorts…

So I got up, dusted myself off, and did the best thing I could.

I rode on.

Giro Atmos. And it rocks.

“I want to say one thing: This was not a terrorist attack against the mighty or the powerful, it is not aimed at presidents or prime ministers, it was aimed at ordinary working-class Londoners. That isn’t an ideology, it isn’t even a perverted faith, it’s mass murder.”

- London Mayor Ken Livingstone

Photo by the Sidekick with the new Nikon D70.

In Boston’s Old Granary Burying Ground near the Boston Common lie three of the five Massachusetts men who signed the Declaration of Independence. John Adams, cousin of Sam, lies six miles to the south in Quincy, Massachusetts next to his son - both Presidents of the United States.

Rest in peace….

Cox & Forkum have a great editorial cartoon and column up about Memorial Day:

In the sloppy terminology so typical of today, it is common to attribute the courage of our soldiers to “self-sacrifice.” But this misses the enormous difference between our soldiers and the malevolent fanatics on the other side, who declare that they want to die because they “love death.” American soldiers do not go into battle because they love death. They go into battle because they love freedom. They love the liberties we enjoy and the prosperous and benevolent society that these liberties make possible. And they realize that someone has to fight to defend all of this.

Our soldiers do not want to die, and they do not expect to die; they know they are far better trained and better armed than their adversaries. But they know that some of them will die, and they believe that freedom is worth that risk. Here is how the family of Petty Officer 1st Class Neil Roberts, the first American soldier to die in Operation Anaconda, expressed it: “He made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure that everyone who calls himself or herself an American truly has all the privileges of living in the greatest country in the world.”