Oh Come On!

Kids get stuck in buckets! 

The boy is unstoppable! 

"Don't sit in that bucket boy! .... Listen to me I know!"

His favorite line... "Oh COME ON!" So despite my advise, he sits in the bucket... and... Ha! He gets stuck!

We spent most of the day together today, just hanging out, doing our favorite stuff. Amongst a bunch of other stuff, me scrounging at the tip shop and the boy scamming lollies from the receptionist at my work. 

I finally finished putting the Cargo bike together, (mostly) and we did some miles together in her, me peddling, the boy jumping around like a crazy monkey on a stick! Singing, laughing teasing joking. The kid cracks me up! Later in the day I loaded the cart up with three kids and we went riding in the rain with the roof on, our outfit looked just like a wagon from an old John Wayne movie. The kids ran amok in the cart, laughing and goofing around, screaming when we hit a bump and sticking their heads out and waving at people as we bounced along the bicycle path. It's about a 6 km ride to Rapid Creek where we dropped our temporary charge back to her folks. We then rode the Nightcliff foreshore path all the way around to Nightcliff and then branched off to the Mulch pit for a bit of gardening and to take a couple more kids for a short joyride in the cart.
As the sky began to darken we headed back home. Mission accomplished. The Cargo bike handled the load, three kids, easily but most importantly, they enjoyed riding in it.

Oh yeh and the boy surprised me somewhat this afternoon. His sister likes fairly heavy rock music but he seems to have finer taste. Well we spent a little bit of time in the car today and when I put on my new Chili Pepers album I was expecting to hear the standard "Oh COME ON!", which in this context would mean get this crap off and play the music I like, but it never came! I looked over my shoulder and there he was nodding his head to the music! He likes the Chili Pepers! His Mum is gunna kill me! I started tapping and bopping away... then from the back of the car I hear. "Arrrgh.... OH COME ON!".
"What?" I ask, (maybe he's changed his mind and doesn't like the music)
"Stop dancing that's MY MUSIC!"
 How do you like that! Only a few hours previously I'd rescued him from a bucket and here he is telling me I can't even groove to my music in the car!

Ice-cream Bike

I don't know where to begin with this story...
Once upon a time there was a kid... '...who had a big hallucination...'!
A stupid idea took root in the mind of an obsessive and compulsively deluded dilettante...!
Dive in jack and never mind the flack!

Ok, here we go and please try not to judge.
Firstly let me say that I have literally no spare time or money to devote to foolish flights of fancy, fairytale business ventures or hobbies! I'm fully booked! Do you get it?

That's right! So don't bother asking am I free to catch a film, go for a ride or sip f---ing lattes down at that cool caffe where everyone hangs out hoping to be seen wearing their hippie sandals or sporting expensive custom tribal tatoos coz I don't have the time!
OK... back to the idiotic tale.

So I'm gathering supplies for a work event and planning to put the gear and myself on a carbon hungry airplane to travel into a remote part of the country where I'll meet a bunch of other people who got there the same way in order that they may sit and discuss 'What God Wants' (apologies Roger Waters!). And I'm wondering couldn't we all just do this ourselves at home and save a few thousand years of rotting vegetation from being converted into CO2? Not to mention the money!
Anyway I'm at the shops doing this crazy shopping with other peoples money while I contemplate if I can afford to buy myself a softdrink... when I see an add on the wall.

FOR SALE
ICE-CREAM BIKE

With photos and a blurb about all the stuff that comes with this great bargain and business opportunity!



(First viewing of the machine)

I snatch the phone number off the wall and proceed to the supermarket to gather supplies... (Not enough coins in my purse for a can of drink for myself..!) I go home and sit on it for a few days. An Ice-cream vending 3 wheeled bicycle (tricycle). This could be the answer to my dreams! I have a great job but sometimes I struggle with the madness of the money and resources that get consumed to no apparent end! I feel like a dirty sellout every time I fly. I could leave all that and spend my days cruising the streets on my new Ice-cream vending bike! Not a care in the world. Hanging out with the kids on the street. Bringing pleasure to all with cool refreshments... and blah blah blah! Dream on dream on!
I discuss the idea with my wife and she (quite an amazing person) agrees! "Go for it" she says!
"WHAT?..
"If you really want to do this then just do it!"

OK! I busted into our savings! I got the cash out! Broke the contract! Stuff the interest! I'm following a dream. Actually it gave me great pleasure, less of my money being used to oppress the people! (Of course I'll pay it all back once I get into business!)

I purchased the Ice-cream bike.

So I've finally got it home, the bike and all the stuff that came with it! Including a gas powered fridge, chest freezer, deep cell battery, ac inverter, battery charger, original cart and gear for the 'cargobike.com MKIII' trike, ice-cream cones, a snow cone ice shaver, several litres of syrup, 5 kilos of crushed peanuts, and a bunch of other bits and pieces...



(The last time ice-cream bike was seen in tact!)

So I get all this stuff home and have a few days to think about what I've done... The questions pop into my mind. What about hygiene? What about regulations? What about health? What about time? What about how far I'd have to ride the bloody thing to get to where I want to sell this stuff? What about how heavy the frigging thing is? What about the fact that I've got two young kids and I'm seriously considering keeping tons of ice-cream in the house? What the f--k did I think I was doing?

(The chest freezer... after a couple of weeks...nearly empty)

Yep... Yet another ill-conceived idea... but this time I followed through! I've got all this crap and I've got no idea now what to do with it!
Well first thing's first! I reckon so we set about getting rid of the ice-cream! Yep! one tub at a time! We're eating it! There were about 3 2lt tubs plus a bunch of these little single serve tubs designed to be squeezed into a cone... We're eating them all! With nuts and topping!

The kids love me! I'm the Ice-cream man! When I get home from work at night it's snow cones all round! Ice-cream is garbage if you ask me, when the stock is all gone we'll turn the freezer off and save electricity and sell it! I won't be selling ice-cream! Actually I don't even like ice-cream very much and I don't want to be selling the crap to kids, soft drink either! But while it's in the house I'm eating the bloody stuff! I know it's not like selling drugs or grog but seriously if I'm not into it myself why sell it to others? I'm thinking of converting the whole thing into a 'portable film projector' or maybe I'll do fruit juices or something... I don't know, it was a crazy idea! For now we're just going to have to finish the ice-cream and use the cart to take the kids to school and do the shopping... reducing the atmospheric CO2 the hard way... one calorie at a time!

I was telling an aunty about this latest adventure and she couldn't stop laughing! She thought it was a great laugh that I'd purchased a business and had spent the past few weeks eating my way through the stock! I reckon I got off lightly! I once met a couple of fellas who bought a pub and thought they'd do the same thing with their stock! Now you might think that would be pretty cool... I doubt most of us have sailed so close to the wind! Believe me it got pretty bloody ugly and quickly... They'd gone bust and nearly killed themselves not long after they started.