Brian Fleck

Sometimes I think this column should be called Bik’n instead of Walk’n as I do much more of the former and less of the latter each year. The change is brought on by physical problems, gout and sciatica to be specific. As I age, my attention span becomes shorter and biking more accurately reflects how my thoughts flit about to different topics.
Besides, I’ve started a new company, Orange Hat Bicycle Touring. I could kill two birds with one stone by telling you about upcoming rides like the one to see the Cedar Rapids Kernels the weekend of June 27 and 28.

“Are you a socialist?” a Facebook friend asked me recently.
He’s very much a right wing, Limbaugh to Hannity to Fox, kind of guy. Not only does he hate liberals but he’s sure liberals, even the president, hates America.
To me there is no logic to this belief, and it makes me angry. I served four years in the Army; you can eat poison and die if you think I hate this country. And it’s as likely that Obama hates America as it is Steve Jobs hated computers.
“It just doesn’t track,” I want to shake them and yell.

Criminals in 18th century England were thought to be inherently defective. They needed to be separated from the law-abiding populace and there were two options: execution or exile. With the American victory in the Revolutionary War, convicts could no longer be sent across the Atlantic, so a new exile station was sought. The bush of Australia proved to be just the ticket. On our recent trip to Tasmania, we got to visit one of the first, largest and cruelest of these penal colonies opened on Botany Bay, on the island of Tasmania, in a place called Port Arthur.

As I write this we are on our last day of our visit with Lisa and Alan, Sabra’s sister and brother-in-law, who live in Brisbane.
We stayed the first three nights at their house and used the days to explore the city by bicycle and foot. Then we traveled about 60 miles north to an area known as the Sunshine Coast, where Lisa and Alan have a beach house, soon to be a retirement home. Located on an estuary, the house was a short walk, or swim, to the ocean.

Of the 10 deadliest snakes in the world, five make their home in Australia.
The Death Adder, despite its most ominous of names, comes in at only number nine. Able to strike and strike again in a little over a 10th of a second, its bite can cause death in as little as six hours if not treated. Then there’s the tiger snake at number six, which can kill in just 30 minutes. At number four is the Taipan, injecting venom capable of killing 12,000 guinea pigs (my source doesn’t list how many tourists).