Serendipity

It's always incredibly gratifying when one's obsessions collide together.  Like when you realize that the woman you just started dating ALSO has an asiago cheese infatuation AND owns the Triplets of Bellville on DVD.  This is the stuff of serendipity.

As I sat in Addison's the other day, I looked at the coaster underneath my beer and saw that it was a Fat Tire coaster/postcard made by the New Belgium Brewing Company.  Let me digress briefly from the coaster for a moment, which we need to discuss further, and talk about the beer.  Being rather fond of both beer and cycling, I cannot help but admire New Belgium beer, not only for the cycling and ecologically related themes of the entire enterprise, but also for the actual beer.   In visiting their website, one can find any number of cycling-related items and general advocacy topics. Take, for example their "Libation Location" beer finder which allows you to locate the proximity of any one of their kinds of beer reachable by bicycle specifically. For example, with our recent foray into a bit of an Indian summer, if you wanted to find a summery Skinny Dip ale that was reachable by bicycle from the center of Columbia, you could plug the variables into the beer finder and voila.

Each glass represents a location where you can ride your bike, get lit on sweet New Belgium nectar and then drag your ass back home. And as we've already learned, the drunk bar bike of choice, according to bike-artist, Portland native and COMO CYCO contributor Chitty, is the cart bike.

Other bike promotional ventures of New Belgium include the Tour de Fat, the sponsorhip of the Urban Assault Ride, offering a trade-in program for your car in exchange for a new bike, and hosting a bike-in cinema in the brewery parking lot.  In case you decide to check out the website yourself, make sure to join their Team Wonderbike before you leave.

And yet again - in an effort to keep my peace with the Federal Trade Commission, I need to disclose that I've not yet received any free beer from the New Belgium Brewery for this glowing endorsement, but when it arrives, I promise to not only disclose it - but to throw a party for my two readers.

Back to my beer in Addisons.  As I was sitting at the bar, enjoying my Fat Tire, I looked down at the image of a single-speed cruiser mounted to an inverted car on the rectangular carboard coaster, and it struck me how incredibly effective their advertisements are for a simple-minded PooBah, like myself.

Then I turned the coaster over and saw this.

Now, I consider myself a bit of a connaisseur of 'found' objects and have been rather obsessed with the voyeuristic appeal of the 'Found Magazine' project for years now.  If you don't know what I'm referring to, you can check it out here.  And among found objects, this little gem truly is a triple-threat.  Not only is there a graphic sexual suggestion, but a supposed ball-point self-portrait of the bearer of the "manhood" himself.  Then lastly, who can not appreciate the mispelling of the word "crevices" as "crevassses" with three "S's". Now, maybe our neanderthalic artist is truly from the Pleistocene, when glaciers covered Missouri and he may have been able to insert his supposed manhood in any of several real "ice-holes".   But methinks, he's referring to Ms. Eaton's naughty bits presently.  Nevertheless- finding stuff like this on the back of a bike-coaster makes the PooBah very, very happy.  Beer, bikes and found shit.  Serendipity.

This got me to thinking what other cycling-related 'finds' exist out there.  So after a bit of searching on Found's website - I bring you these.

Titled "Beware the flip" this was found by Evan in Boston, MA.  he says "I left my bike locked to a parking meter overnight, and this note was stuck to it when I came down in the morning.  Perhaps left by Concernced Citizens Against Quick Release Wheels? I bet it's whoever drives the Herbalife van I parked next to."

Titled "Nah, Let's Ride Bikes!" this was found by 'Bookworm' in LA.  He/she says, "I checked a book out of the LA Public Library and someone who had previously checked it out left a receipt for some other books inside it.  Sounds like they got distracted while doing research...written on the back was, "Nah, let's ride bikes." 

Titled "The Bike Message" this note was found by Sean in Lawrence, KS.  He says "I came outside for my lunch break this afternoon to find a note on my bike.  No idea who it was from, but apparently they'd really like to park their bike where I've parked mine for the past two years."

Serendipity usually is used with a positive conotation and, in my mind anyway, refers to finding something really good when you were looking for something else.  Like a girl with an asiago cheese fetish, or a dirty note drawn on the back of your beer coaster.   But it's a fickle thing, isn't it?  Because once you've had the sweet taste of serendipity you get greedy and start looking for how to create it.  But danger lurks in those muddy waters...

Pedal on!