Rode a metric century (~65 miles) today, the last 20 or so in apocalyptic-value rain.
specs:
total miles: 66.18
total riding time: 4:00:44
max mph: 37 mph
average mph: 16.4
max rpm: 131
avg rpm: 73
Excellent ride! Toward the end, repeated lightning and thunder in the very near vicinty, and the last 20 miles in rain thick enough that at various points we could barely see and it stung exposed flesh, not so fun, but super entertaining, and an excellent ride overall.
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
Bicycles and feasibility
Many of you know that I think bicycling in the sprawl of Atlanta is hideous, and only rewarding because I'm a bit of an obsessivist freak: the more difficult it is, the more committed I am to doing it.
In my reading for this New Urbanism course, there is a recurring theme, namely that you can't exist in daily life in most American cities without a car:
Yes, it can be done: yes, we CAN do most of this stuff by bicycle. By foot. By public transportation. If absolutely need be, by car.
But many of us, at least those of us with the leisure time and internet connectivity to sit around and read random, mediocre blogs like mine, CAN avoid the car 98% of the time. We just have to decide to.
In my reading for this New Urbanism course, there is a recurring theme, namely that you can't exist in daily life in most American cities without a car:
Low-density, single-use development that is spread out over large regions has created a settlement pattern that is completely dependent on automobiles to carry out even the simplest daily tasks such as going to school, picking up a loaf of bread, visiting a friend, seeing a doctor or dentist, visiting a park, or going to work....Well actually, in the 72 hour period starting yesterday morning, I'm going to do every single one of these tasks by bicycle with the exception of going to school (which I'm doing online) and going to work (which I do from home, but which J does five days a week by bicycle.)
Yes, it can be done: yes, we CAN do most of this stuff by bicycle. By foot. By public transportation. If absolutely need be, by car.
But many of us, at least those of us with the leisure time and internet connectivity to sit around and read random, mediocre blogs like mine, CAN avoid the car 98% of the time. We just have to decide to.
Atlanta as miserable place?
From a video lecture by James Howard Kuntsler, Our Civic Spaces, at minute 38:
“...Atlanta is now becoming perhaps the most miserable city to be in in America.”
To paraphrase, he was referring to the barracks-like concrete buildings on central Atlanta streets (including "about four miles of Peachtree Street") that are built more to repel people than to invite them in.
“...Atlanta is now becoming perhaps the most miserable city to be in in America.”
To paraphrase, he was referring to the barracks-like concrete buildings on central Atlanta streets (including "about four miles of Peachtree Street") that are built more to repel people than to invite them in.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Traffic sewers
My favorite thing from my reading today for the new urbanism course I'm taking:
"Streets that once served vehicles and people equitably are now designed for the sole purpose of moving vehicles through them as quickly as possible. They have become, in effect, traffic sewers."
Still irritated by the lack of footnotes and conclusory nature of a lot of the statements in the book, though. That's probably the attorney in me.
"Streets that once served vehicles and people equitably are now designed for the sole purpose of moving vehicles through them as quickly as possible. They have become, in effect, traffic sewers."
--Suburban Nation, p. 64
Still irritated by the lack of footnotes and conclusory nature of a lot of the statements in the book, though. That's probably the attorney in me.
Wednesday, August 19, 2009
Per capita waste generation
If that last post wasn't enough, and you want to get really depressed about waste generation, you could start reading EPA reports on municipal solid waste generation and recycling.
Here's a tiny tidbit: despite steady improvements in recent decades, in 2007, the net per capita discard rate after materials recovery and combustion with energy recovery was 2.50 pounds per person per day.
Think about this: roughly, go take a good quality 10" skillet, or a pair of hiking boots (okay, I have big feet), or a one liter bottle of water or soda, package it up, and mail it to yourself for $4.95 (USPS priority mail; since you're mailing it to yourself, calculate it from your zip code to your zip code.) NOW DO THIS EVERY FUCKING DAY. That is the amount of trash YOU AND I generated per capita AFTER RECYCLING and energy recovery is factored in.
Perhaps I need to go back to pictures of container gardening and lay off the harping for a while...
Here's a tiny tidbit: despite steady improvements in recent decades, in 2007, the net per capita discard rate after materials recovery and combustion with energy recovery was 2.50 pounds per person per day.
Think about this: roughly, go take a good quality 10" skillet, or a pair of hiking boots (okay, I have big feet), or a one liter bottle of water or soda, package it up, and mail it to yourself for $4.95 (USPS priority mail; since you're mailing it to yourself, calculate it from your zip code to your zip code.) NOW DO THIS EVERY FUCKING DAY. That is the amount of trash YOU AND I generated per capita AFTER RECYCLING and energy recovery is factored in.
Perhaps I need to go back to pictures of container gardening and lay off the harping for a while...
Making it easy/easier: recycling
I really do think that most people want to do good, and would do good, if they could. Unfortunately, most people are also fundamentally lazy, or uninformed, or overworked, or stressed out, or some combination of the above, and don't have the time to do good.
I was thinking about this yesterday in the context of recycling. A friend just moved to Atlanta, and I was helping his partner move them into his new condo. We were generating a lot of cardboard (oh, Ikea, for all your grandstanding and fairly hypocritical claims of environmental responsibility, you really suck. Really bad. Here's a hint as to how to be more environmentally friendly: quit selling so much fucking crap with a built-in product life of a year or two. Quit selling junk food on paper and plastic plates, with plastic flatware, and a side of paper cup. Your in-store recycling is lovely, but how about more reduction so less recycling is necessary? How about you quit passing on the financial savings of flat-packing to the ecologies and communities which are impacted by the immense amounts of cardboard, styrofoam, and plastic your flat packing demands?
On a related note of Ikea sucking, check out this article in the Economist laying bare the revolting faux-charity corporate structure of the cheap furniture powerhouse:
My quest to find the recycling area is aided by several signs that say IN LARGE LETTERS THAT ABSOLUTELY NO GLASS CAN BE RECYCLED. Oh, and mandating that NO CARDBOARD CAN BE LEFT BY THE RECYCLING AREA. But there's another direction indicating that there is a special area for cardboard recycling at the back of the loading dock. Right on! Recycling obsessivist that I am, I don't mind walking a little farther to the special cardboard recycling area. What I do mind is that when I get there, it turns out the extra super special area for cardboard recycling is a HUGE DUMPSTER FULL OF ASSORTED GARBAGE. Booooooooo!
I left our friend a note on how to get to his recycling, and that he can recycle both his cardboard and glass at our building. I have faith in this particular friend that he actually cares enough to go to this extra trouble, and also to consider the issue in his purchasing.
But c'mon: do we really have to make recycling this difficult? Do we really have to contract it out to greedy private corporations who only care about making a profit on it? Isn't the value of keeping the material out of toxic landfills that destroy communities and water tables sufficient to have municipal recycling, even on relatively low energy return material like glass?
Let's remember, this is a waste hirearchy for a reason: think about this the next time you buy bottled water, a genuine and ongoing ecological catastrophe that even McNewspaper finds a problem:
I was thinking about this yesterday in the context of recycling. A friend just moved to Atlanta, and I was helping his partner move them into his new condo. We were generating a lot of cardboard (oh, Ikea, for all your grandstanding and fairly hypocritical claims of environmental responsibility, you really suck. Really bad. Here's a hint as to how to be more environmentally friendly: quit selling so much fucking crap with a built-in product life of a year or two. Quit selling junk food on paper and plastic plates, with plastic flatware, and a side of paper cup. Your in-store recycling is lovely, but how about more reduction so less recycling is necessary? How about you quit passing on the financial savings of flat-packing to the ecologies and communities which are impacted by the immense amounts of cardboard, styrofoam, and plastic your flat packing demands?
On a related note of Ikea sucking, check out this article in the Economist laying bare the revolting faux-charity corporate structure of the cheap furniture powerhouse:
What emerges is an outfit that ingeniously exploits the quirks of different jurisdictions to create a charity, dedicated to a somewhat banal cause, that is not only the world's richest foundation, but is at the moment also one of its least generous. The overall set-up of IKEA minimises tax and disclosure, handsomely rewards the founding Kamprad family and makes IKEA immune to a takeover.But I digress: back to recycling. So, we have a lot of cardboard, in a high-rise condo in Atlanta. I wander down and ask the concierge/security guy where the building's recycling is, and get the somewhat obscure directions (it involves taking the elevator to a parking level, going through one set of doors, walking across the parking lot, then going through another set of doors, then finding the big mixed recycling bin in a moderately smelly and very humid loading dock.
My quest to find the recycling area is aided by several signs that say IN LARGE LETTERS THAT ABSOLUTELY NO GLASS CAN BE RECYCLED. Oh, and mandating that NO CARDBOARD CAN BE LEFT BY THE RECYCLING AREA. But there's another direction indicating that there is a special area for cardboard recycling at the back of the loading dock. Right on! Recycling obsessivist that I am, I don't mind walking a little farther to the special cardboard recycling area. What I do mind is that when I get there, it turns out the extra super special area for cardboard recycling is a HUGE DUMPSTER FULL OF ASSORTED GARBAGE. Booooooooo!
I left our friend a note on how to get to his recycling, and that he can recycle both his cardboard and glass at our building. I have faith in this particular friend that he actually cares enough to go to this extra trouble, and also to consider the issue in his purchasing.
But c'mon: do we really have to make recycling this difficult? Do we really have to contract it out to greedy private corporations who only care about making a profit on it? Isn't the value of keeping the material out of toxic landfills that destroy communities and water tables sufficient to have municipal recycling, even on relatively low energy return material like glass?
Let's remember, this is a waste hirearchy for a reason: think about this the next time you buy bottled water, a genuine and ongoing ecological catastrophe that even McNewspaper finds a problem:
Plastic water bottles produced for U.S. consumption take 1.5 million barrels of oil per year... That much energy could power 250,000 homes or fuel 100,000 cars for a year...
Even if we can do a good job of separating and recycling water bottles, it still comes down to the fact that it's completely unnecessary... Strictly speaking, tap water isn't free — it costs about $0.00002 per ounce. But single-serve bottled water costs between 1,000 and 4,000 times more...
Thursday, August 13, 2009
My bike helmet hack
I saw this "bike hack" on someone's motorcycle helmet while I was on the motorcycle tour.
It made all sorts of sense, and I'm only surprised I didn't think of it before. This way if I'm splashed all over the road by some fossil fueled death machine, emergency responders and the hospital will know i don't have any known drug allergies (NKDA = No Known Drug Allergies) and that they don't need to waste AB blood on me, since my blood type is the most common in the country. It also tells them how to contact J (on a piece of duct tape inside); I.C.E. = In Case of Emergency.
It made all sorts of sense, and I'm only surprised I didn't think of it before. This way if I'm splashed all over the road by some fossil fueled death machine, emergency responders and the hospital will know i don't have any known drug allergies (NKDA = No Known Drug Allergies) and that they don't need to waste AB blood on me, since my blood type is the most common in the country. It also tells them how to contact J (on a piece of duct tape inside); I.C.E. = In Case of Emergency.
New York, and more garden pics
Just back from a busy but good trip to NYC, including a zany bike ride to the north Jersey coast for a lovely wedding/commitment ceremony. I have a bunch of pictures from the bike trip, but want to try to organize them into a trip report rather than just posting random ones. Here is one, however, of the sidewalk/bike path on the Passaic River bridge between Jersey City and the Port of Newark:
You can't really tell it clearly, but the "path" becomes primeval forest thick here at the end, as it was at the beginning, and you essentially have to bushwack to get a bike through. From everything I could tell, they just don't really give a damn about maintaining bridge crossing facilities for cyclists or pedestrians in New Jersey.
Someone gave me a beater commuter bicycle to use while I'm in NYC, and I'm abusing the kindness of another cyclist friend by stuffing it in his bicycle closet (thanks, T!) I had a great ride with the person who gifted the bike on me from Queens to the financial district in Manhattan. I discovered that there is basically no reason to even try to obey traffic regulations in Manhattan, since the cars, trucks, taxis, hired cars, and NYPD traffic officers don't. There were several cases where it was actually reckless to try to obey the law.
My favorite was when the asshole NYPD officer directing traffic yelled (literally) at us to get out of the way when we were at the front of a left turn lane just before turning into Chinatown (it was Delancy Street, I think at Allen Street, just after we got off the Williamsburg Bridge.) Baffled, we did, and the cop proceeded to yell at the cars behind us to ignore the no left turn red light and turn. He completely ignored us and after a while started to yell at more cars to drive through the still red light. Dumb asshole. This was basically the only thing this cop was doing, which caused the intersection to devolve into chaos, since the other drivers didn't know what to do, and we had to make our own way through the intersection. Dumb dumb dumb asshole.
While I was gone J watered the plants, and both the herb garden and tomato plantings are doing well:
the Bonnie Original hybrid
the herb garden planting and individual sweet basil...
Okay, I have some errands to run, and really need to get in a bike ride.
You can't really tell it clearly, but the "path" becomes primeval forest thick here at the end, as it was at the beginning, and you essentially have to bushwack to get a bike through. From everything I could tell, they just don't really give a damn about maintaining bridge crossing facilities for cyclists or pedestrians in New Jersey.
Someone gave me a beater commuter bicycle to use while I'm in NYC, and I'm abusing the kindness of another cyclist friend by stuffing it in his bicycle closet (thanks, T!) I had a great ride with the person who gifted the bike on me from Queens to the financial district in Manhattan. I discovered that there is basically no reason to even try to obey traffic regulations in Manhattan, since the cars, trucks, taxis, hired cars, and NYPD traffic officers don't. There were several cases where it was actually reckless to try to obey the law.
My favorite was when the asshole NYPD officer directing traffic yelled (literally) at us to get out of the way when we were at the front of a left turn lane just before turning into Chinatown (it was Delancy Street, I think at Allen Street, just after we got off the Williamsburg Bridge.) Baffled, we did, and the cop proceeded to yell at the cars behind us to ignore the no left turn red light and turn. He completely ignored us and after a while started to yell at more cars to drive through the still red light. Dumb asshole. This was basically the only thing this cop was doing, which caused the intersection to devolve into chaos, since the other drivers didn't know what to do, and we had to make our own way through the intersection. Dumb dumb dumb asshole.
While I was gone J watered the plants, and both the herb garden and tomato plantings are doing well:
the Bonnie Original hybrid
the herb garden planting and individual sweet basil...
Okay, I have some errands to run, and really need to get in a bike ride.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
Flights, but no flights.
I'm at the airport for a flight to JFK, which yes, I will walk out of instead of paying for the fucking Airtrain.
Being at the airport, I thought I'd book another set of flights, but Delta's crappy website isn't cooperating. So I have time to BLOG!
Or I could read my new(ly checked out) book, Suburban Nation: the rise of sprawl and the decline of the american dream . It's assigned reading for a really neat online course in New Urbanism I just signed up for through the University of Miami called The Principles and Practice of New Urbanism . I'm really, really looking forward to it.
Okay, back to about the best dried fruit mix I've ever seen in an airport lounge (yes, I did take a picture, but I don't have a cable) and trying to get delta.com to actually do its job.
Being at the airport, I thought I'd book another set of flights, but Delta's crappy website isn't cooperating. So I have time to BLOG!
Or I could read my new(ly checked out) book, Suburban Nation: the rise of sprawl and the decline of the american dream . It's assigned reading for a really neat online course in New Urbanism I just signed up for through the University of Miami called The Principles and Practice of New Urbanism . I'm really, really looking forward to it.
Okay, back to about the best dried fruit mix I've ever seen in an airport lounge (yes, I did take a picture, but I don't have a cable) and trying to get delta.com to actually do its job.
Wednesday, August 05, 2009
Compare and contrast...
A little sad, that this year's garden pics in the preceding post don't have quite the, uhh, grandeur of last year's garden in Alaska. At least I should actually yield some $44 tomatoes this year.
Back by popular demand!
I know my regular readers have been desperate for pictures of gardening, so to address all the clamoring, here are some pictures of my container gardening on the balcony:
Probably the prettiest thing on the balcony, this is container herb gardening. From the bottom, clockwise: kitchen sage (Salvia officinalis); French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus); lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla); Greek oregano (Origanum heracleoticum); and in the center, sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum). All are organic except the basil (which is oddly difficult to find except at the Home Despot.)
In the foreground, Bush Goliath tomato, Lycopersicon lycopersicum, and in the background, Bonnie original, Lycopersicon esculentum. The garden center guy told me to sacrifice one of the two stalks on the Bush Goliath, but I'm currently glad that I didn't. After a little insitial transplant shock, both are starting to show some new flowers. Not organic, as the picking were super slim this late in the season (purchased and planted two weeks ago.)
More of the tomatoes and herb garden.
Another view of the tomato plantings with a view to the east. If there were less haze, you could see Stone Mountain in the middle of the image, about 20 miles away.
A lower view of all the plantings, with more diffuse light. Hey, gardening is part art, right?
Probably the prettiest thing on the balcony, this is container herb gardening. From the bottom, clockwise: kitchen sage (Salvia officinalis); French tarragon (Artemisia dracunculus); lemon verbena (Aloysia triphylla); Greek oregano (Origanum heracleoticum); and in the center, sweet basil (Ocimum basilicum). All are organic except the basil (which is oddly difficult to find except at the Home Despot.)
In the foreground, Bush Goliath tomato, Lycopersicon lycopersicum, and in the background, Bonnie original, Lycopersicon esculentum. The garden center guy told me to sacrifice one of the two stalks on the Bush Goliath, but I'm currently glad that I didn't. After a little insitial transplant shock, both are starting to show some new flowers. Not organic, as the picking were super slim this late in the season (purchased and planted two weeks ago.)
More of the tomatoes and herb garden.
Another view of the tomato plantings with a view to the east. If there were less haze, you could see Stone Mountain in the middle of the image, about 20 miles away.
A lower view of all the plantings, with more diffuse light. Hey, gardening is part art, right?
Monday, August 03, 2009
Bikes and planes and weddings, oh my!
Rode a little over fifty miles yesterday, and accepted an invitation to do a really amazing sounding week+ of riding on the Great Divide mountain bike route in September. Woo-hoo!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, including a somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. I had to lie to google maps to get even a remotely accurate map, and tell it I was walking from Fort Lee, NJ. It simply refused to acknowledge that anyone would want to go down the Jersey side of the Hudson River rather than the Manhattan side. Damn New York provincialism. Should be around 60 miles all told. Big times!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, including a somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. I had to lie to google maps to get even a remotely accurate map, and tell it I was walking from Fort Lee, NJ. It simply refused to acknowledge that anyone would want to go down the Jersey side of the Hudson River rather than the Manhattan side. Damn New York provincialism. Should be around 60 miles all told. Big times!
Bikes and planes and weddings, oh my!
Rode a little over fifty miles yesterday, and accepted an invitation to do a really amazing sounding week+ of riding on the Great Divide mountain bike route in September. Woo-hoo!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, including a
somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. I had to lie to google maps to get even a remotely accurate map, and tell it I was walking from Fort Lee, NJ. It simply refused to acknowledge that anyone would want to go down the Jersey side of the Hudson River rather than the Manhattan side. Damn New York provincialism. Should be around 60 miles all told. Big times!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, including a
somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. I had to lie to google maps to get even a remotely accurate map, and tell it I was walking from Fort Lee, NJ. It simply refused to acknowledge that anyone would want to go down the Jersey side of the Hudson River rather than the Manhattan side. Damn New York provincialism. Should be around 60 miles all told. Big times!
Riding
Rode a little over fifty miles yesterday, and accepted an invitation to do a really amazing sounding week+ of riding on the Great Divide mountain bike route in September. Woo-hoo!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, and a somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Big times!
Yesterday was basically nice riding, with a long-time local riding friend, largely using the PATH Foundation trail from central Atlanta to Stone Mountain. Some downpour rain right at the end on our ride back home, but not for too long.
Later, we biked to dinner with other friends at a pretty good vegetarian Chinese restaurant a couple miles from our house, Green Sprout . The highlights were probably the seaweed tofu roll appetizer and the moo shu "chicken"; I was underwhelmed with the vegetable lo mein, and thought the basil "beef" with crispy (read: breaded & deep fried) portobello mushroom quarters was very tasty, which was good, since it's about the most expensive thing on the menu (!) at $10.95. Minimal beverage selection, large portions, friendly but vacant service, and a spare atmosphere: this place is all about the food.
Next weekend: a trip to NYC, and a somewhat ridiculous bike ride from the south Bronx to a friend's wedding in Atlantic Highlands, New Jersey. Big times!
Saturday, August 01, 2009
A new layout
Why not? I'm in yet another new city, so why not a new blog layout?
I'm not actually certain that I like this enough to keep it, so more changes might be on the near horizon. What do you think?
I'm not actually certain that I like this enough to keep it, so more changes might be on the near horizon. What do you think?
A very long time
Well, it's also been a very busy time, so deal with it. We completed the move to ATL, and are messily and about half settled in. We have fantastic views, though I haven't yet taken any pictures to do them justice. Maybe soon.
Bicycling in Atlanta is some of the most terrifying I've ever done. The drivers are astonishingly bad: slow to move, slow to react, and in a misguided attempt to be courteous, are actually often quite dangerous to the cyclist and other cars. The road are in horrendous condition, bike lanes practically non-existent, and even dedicated PATH Foundation bike lanes have significant brekas in them with mediocre signage, so they're difficult to follow when the trails has a break. This hasn't stopped me from riding well over 200 miles in the city in the last two weeks, but it sure has made it annoying.
Hoping to go mountain biking tomorrow, rain dependent, so hopefully that'll be better. Unfortunately, it does require a 45 minute drive.
I'm gardening on the balcony, right now just tomatoes and herbs. I know y'all are clamoring for pictures of plants, so I'll try to get those soon.
I have Great Divide Hercules Double IPA on tap (visitors welcome!) Incidentally, I would link directly to the brewery's page for that beer, but it's really annoying flash, so to hell with them.
Here are the muppets most on my mind right now. Those of you who know what my primary legal volunteer activity is can probably guess what this references:
More later, I hope.
Bicycling in Atlanta is some of the most terrifying I've ever done. The drivers are astonishingly bad: slow to move, slow to react, and in a misguided attempt to be courteous, are actually often quite dangerous to the cyclist and other cars. The road are in horrendous condition, bike lanes practically non-existent, and even dedicated PATH Foundation bike lanes have significant brekas in them with mediocre signage, so they're difficult to follow when the trails has a break. This hasn't stopped me from riding well over 200 miles in the city in the last two weeks, but it sure has made it annoying.
Hoping to go mountain biking tomorrow, rain dependent, so hopefully that'll be better. Unfortunately, it does require a 45 minute drive.
I'm gardening on the balcony, right now just tomatoes and herbs. I know y'all are clamoring for pictures of plants, so I'll try to get those soon.
I have Great Divide Hercules Double IPA on tap (visitors welcome!) Incidentally, I would link directly to the brewery's page for that beer, but it's really annoying flash, so to hell with them.
Here are the muppets most on my mind right now. Those of you who know what my primary legal volunteer activity is can probably guess what this references:
More later, I hope.
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