Mom

She stood elegant and beautiful

Graceful through time

Strong through trials

Cheerful through loss

Born in a long past May

In the fertile soil around

Como Lake

Waters of life

Life itself for me

She was for me

Of me,

Of her am I

Small and helpless she came

Such as she left

But with a strong wake

Fanning out, together apart

Each to our own but all from one

Joined with one

At the center 

Our from where

Grey November follows a bright life

Our from where comes here

Apart together, from all

Our then touches now

Rain falls from us, on us

A moment of sun,

A gust of wind

The flower succumbs

We remain, our immovable from where

Is now just the shadow

Elegant and beautiful

Together fanning out apart

President Obama!

I will sleep better tonight and thank every single volunteer and voter who made this dream possible.

Now it's time to get back on the bike and get those wheels dancing...

VOTE Dammit!

It's pretty simple really. 

The government is run by those who show up.

Unless you're a candidate you just have to do a little research and then show up to vote. That's it. Obligation fulfilled.

I hope you will vote for Barack Obama but the fact is that our democracy is only as strong as its' citizens participation level and diversity builds strength. If you don't agree with my choice, I need to hear from you even more than if you do because I already know what my ideas are. If your ideas are different than mine, they shed light to help me see my own strengths and weaknesses. 

I don't get to decide who runs the country and neither do you.

WE decide who runs the country.

Our direction stays most true with a diversity of perspectives so

everyone

 should get up off the damn couch

and vote.

Upper 30's start, 50 at the end, low wind, bright sun

I have been trying to keep track of what I wear for different riding conditions and I have a spreadsheet that I use as a guide but it's pretty rough. I am going to start capturing what I wear for my own review but thought that others might find it helpful too so I'll start putting it here for all to see with the Chilly Dress Code label. It'll look like this from today's ride:

Upper:

Merino tank, merino t-shirt, Icebreaker Bodyfit 260 long sleeve, Ibex climawool shell. Should have left off the Icebreaker and just went with armwarmers which I still would have had to remove for the second half of the ride but they would have been easier to stuff into a pocket.

Hands:

Nike wind-proof cycling gloves to start, regular long finger cycling gloves for the second half. These were perfect.

Lower:

Ibex wool boxers under Ibex wool cycling shorts with midweight tights. This combination was also perfect.

Feet:

Wool socks with Lake Winter boots. Perfect at the start but a bit warm for the second half though I would do this again since I don’t think regular cycling shoes with covers would have been enough for the first half.

Head:

Light balaclava for the first half under my regular helmet with a helmet cover. This was also perfect.

Riding pace:

I’m guessing a 16-18 mph average for about 35 miles with a very long coffee stop in the middle. It wasn’t a ding around ride but there were no real hill hammering or sprints either. I was on my commuter, the Surly Karate Monkey.

Enough whining, time for action!

I often rag about the situation but don't always get off my arse to do something.

But sometimes I do.

I have made a commitment to the Obama campaign by donating my data skills to the cause. Campaigns run on data and I'm a data geek (I think in 3NF...) so it's a perfect match.

I am an Obama Data Fellow.

It will take all the time I can offer and it's a volunteer position so I get no compensation.

Except for securing a sustainable future for us all.

How about you? 

Do you have an hour or two over the next few weeks to help get us back on track? There are lots of simple ways you can help, just go to the Obama site and look around. Perhaps you won't find as perfect a match as I have but wouldn't it feel good to have participated in changing our world for the better?

"Use what talents you possess; the woods would be very silent if no bird sang except those that sang best." - Henry Van Dyke

PBS asks if Palin is qualified; go tell them NO!

PBS has an online poll posted asking if Sarah Palin is qualified. Apparently the right wing knew about this in advance and is flooding the voting with YES votes. The poll will be reported on PBS and picked up by mainstream media. It can influence undecided voters in swing states. Please do two things -- takes 10 seconds. Click on link and vote yourself. Here's the link: http://www.pbs.org/now/polls/poll-435.html Then send this to every single Obama-Biden voter you know, and urge them to vote and pass it on. The last thing we need is PBS saying their viewers think Sarah Palin is qualified.

Why McCain doesn't want to discuss the issues

So Johnny and his girl-friend have announced that they will be launching a new phase of their campaign where they focus on smearing Barack Obama rather than discussing the issues.

Remember the Keating Five and the S&L crisis? No, not the SNL Crisis, the savings and loan crisis. Remember how John McCain was at the center of that crisis, not as a faux saviour like he has been in the current crisis, but as a participant in creating the problem. That's why he was called before the Senate Ethics Committee. 

If that were my legacy, I wouldn't want to be talking about it either. That crisis was huge at the time with a federal bailout of $124 billion, pocket change compared to our current mess.

Fortunately, the democrats have decided to help the voters understand McCain's role in the S&L crisis and the economic policies he favors that have brought us to the current financial debacle. 

Take the time to educate yourself on what it is that McCain doesn't want to discuss.

Safety, Awareness & Memorial

We've had a run of bad luck in our cycling community. Of course we are only sort of a community since we all ride different ways for different reasons. But our loose community, brothers and sisters all, rolling on two wheels for joy, health, and reasons unknown all have stories of near misses and worse...

It goes with the territory.

But does it have to? 

Sure we swim with fishes a hundred (or more) times our weight and many times as fast. We still each take our actions with a singular human brain whether it's pushing two pedals to propel us forward or only one. There are more two pedal people these days so it stands to reason there will be more problems but perhaps with more awareness for one and two pedal people, we can all be safer.

In order to reach that goal we all need to come together and look out for each other. It's easy to say it's the cars that need to pay attention to us. Just the other day I watched my sweetie nearly get T-boned by a car pulling out of a side street onto the busy road we were on. It was dark but we were lit up like christmas trees. Damn drivers I thought but then a day later when I was in a car, I saw a couple cyclists, also in the dark but wearing dark clothing and without lights weaving in and out of traffic. Damn cyclists I thought but it's really damn people I should be saying.

We all need to think how our transportation choices interact with everyone on the road. 

While we're thinking about this perhaps it would be a good start to join the memorial ride this weekend.

It's times like this that our loose community gets tight. If you can't make it this Saturday, Oct. 4th at 10:30 in the morning, pause for a moment right at that time and ask yourself if you are doing everything you can to keep us all safe.

Won't Get Fooled Again

 

Credit...

John McCain is attempting to extend the 9/11 panic, you remember, the one where we gave away our civil liberties and adopted a perpetual state of panic and fear? He wants to postpone the debate scheduled for September 26th with Barack Obama to focus on resolving the financial crisis and leave the campaigning behind for a while.

If I had been at the helm, say chairing the Commerce Committee "that oversights every part of our economy." I might want to avoid having a debate on the topic too but leadership is facing the issues not side-stepping them. Of course if McCain had an actual VP caliber running mate, that person could continue to drive the campaign and contribute to the solution rather than draining resources trying to get her up to speed for the second spot in world leadership. It's only in the cartoons that "Hold everything!" works, not for the President (or any other serious leadership position).

Seriously, the feds are prepared to dive in (with our money!) and save Wall Street but if we let our government fail, who will dive in to save it?

How about we leave behind the Henny-penny 'The Sky is Falling' approach and NOT put rational thinking on hold to deal with this financial crisis?

We need to be here:

We do not need to return here:

RUMSFELD REACTS-- "HENNY PENNY, THE SKY IS FALLING"-- AS IRAQ SPENDING GOES THROUGH THE ROOF

The real difference between liberals and conservatives

Jonathan Haidt presents this talk, from the TED Conference. It's just under 20 minutes long and he lays out the five moral values that form the basis of our political choices.

1. Harm/Care

2. Fairness/reciprocity

3. Ingroup/loyalty

4. Authority/respect

5. Purity/sanctity

The center of his thesis is that political leanings are determined by where people fall on a major personality trait known as openness to experience. 

"Open individuals have an affinity for liberal, progressive, left-wing political views, whereas closed individuals prefer conservative, traditional, right-wing views." (R. R. McCrea, 1996)

In order to progress through our current political season, perhaps we all can benefit from the realization that both perspectives are necessary. Since we have been swinging towards the conservative for the last eight years, perhaps its time the balance shifts, how ever temporarily, towards the liberal to balance out the equation. 

He includes the following quote from a Buddhist visionary:

"If you want the truth to stand clear before you, never be for or against. The struggle between "for" and "against" is the mind's worst disease." Sent-ts'an, c. 700 C.E.

He then juxtaposes it with this:

"You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." George Bush, Nov. 2001

Then he asks if we aren't also guilty of falling into the trap of being for or against.

Think about it...