I wonder...

...how many of the jerks who try to run me off the road as I ride to and from work every day are aware of the important role bicyclists played in getting them their paved roads they now feel bicycles don't belong on.

I have a close call several times a week. This morning's moron brushed my arm as he drove past 3 miles an hour faster than me rather than pull out a bit since there was no oncoming traffic. Nearly every day someone hollers at me to get onto the sidewalk or trail. Last week some jerk crossed the center line coming at me from the other direction to try to run me off the road while giving me the finger. For what purpose I wondered since he was traveling on the other side of the road.

Anyway, perhaps they should read this:

The League began as the League of American Wheelmen (LAW) in 1880, and was responsible for defending the rights of cyclists from its start. The League of American Wheelmen is credited with getting paved roads in this country before the reign of the automobile.

There, I feel better even though I know not one of the mouth-breathers who should read it will have...

Priorities

Last week my mountain bike developed an issue with the hydraulic brakes, an issue for which I don't have the tools to address though that may change soon. So what did I do? I took it to the best shop in town, you know, the one that has all the high end bikes, sponsors a race team and has some of the best mechanics. Nothing but the best for one of my bikes, it just goes without saying, no questions asked. It's a little different story for The Beater I drive on those rare occasions I'm not on the bike. It's a single-owner car, maintained well and still very reliable but as will happen, The Beater has this, um, little problem: I can generally just push it back together and it's good to go for a month or two but inevitably it pops out again. When something goes wrong with one of my bikes, the fix is generally in place within hours and usually with the best parts available. This problem, however, came with The Beater when I took possession several years ago. I could repair it myself, it's just a broken lens that I could pick up for half what I just spent on my mountain bike's brakes. But I'm so tight with my money, yes I do squeak when I walk, that just don't want to spend any money on The Beater so it just keeps getting worse and pops out more frequently. While it's true The Beater is worth less than any of my bikes, it still didn't seem quite right. I started feeling sorry for this reliable, taken for granted, transportation alternative not getting the attention it deserved so I pulled out my beater repair manual and fixed it: I decided to go with the upgraded clear tape rather than the duct tape the manual recommended for this type of repair. You know, to show it a little respect...

I'm a fly!?!

I've been taking some pictures on my commute. Many of them haven't turned out but enough have that in a post real soon I'll be documenting my ride in to work every morning. This one, typically too blurry to post, really caught my attention however, since with my commuting pack on my back I have become a fly. No wonder so many cars seem to be trying to squish me in their grills!

My Holodeck

Touching life,
Dotting the I's of other's lives as they
Cross the t's of my transformations.
There are many times I look out my digital window and find a richness for which I could never have been prepared. Friends I have never known reaching into places my closest confidants rarely see and doing so with the casual flare of a "How are you?" flung down an office hallway by a stride unbroken.

I decorate my emotional lawn with these holodecks created by distant minds and walk through their familiarly foreign landscapes, pleased to find my old slippers waiting by a door I hadn't thought to open. There are some who speak of the human spirit's strength and many who ponder out loud the vistas through which they pass. Sometimes with humor, sometimes to pick up their own thoughts and hold them in a different light, sometimes just the random glance of a lightning strike. Yet others set them on the table near the door as they head in or out to their next experience on the chance that someone will pick them up and find a place for them. I often do.

I wonder, today aloud, about sprinkling my lexical regurgitations about the cyber garden. I think I am all of the above in my motives and beyond the wonder of the wheels, don't know that I can detect a theme in my missives. I do know that as life unfolds before me, kicking as I do at the dirt clods of possibility, I mostly just enjoy the diversity taking root before me.

It's Saturday and while the possibilities are endless the weekend is not. I'll toss this post into the digital winds knowing it's as likely to never germinate as it is to become a flower. It doesn't matter though since I only sow seeds here, I harvest the plots of others.

Franken In, Palin Out

Al heads for Washington

Sarah returns to oblivion

It's all good.