when i bought my house in 2007, one of the reasons i chose to buy where i did was because it was so close to where i work (< 2 miles). i figured that, when the weather was good, i could easily bike to work. it should be noted, that i grew up in suburbia and, before this year, had never biked on roadways with actual cars before, so i have to admit i chickened out a little and avoided the biking for the first year. but when may rolled around, with gas prices quickly approaching $4 a gallon, i reconsidered the bike. so i pulled my ten year old, completely unmaintained mountain bike out of the basement, and, on a whim, rode to work one morning…on the sidewalks…because balitmore city drivers are cold, heartless beasts when it comes to bikers. since then i have reworked my route a little to include several largely untraveled roads and parking lots, allowing me to get off the sidewalk and into the road, which ive found to be much easier. ive been trying to bike to work at least twice a month. it doesnt seem like much, but i think its a good start. the issue i have run into is that im never going directly home after work and wherever im going requires a car to get there. the only day of the week where i am going directly home after work is fridays. so when the weather is good on a friday, i bike. now that its starting to get cooler out its definitely easier, but soon there will be a fine line between cool and absolutely not in the morning, so we’ll see how that goes.
the biking has been very educational. ive discovered i actually like biking in the city, even with the ridiculously bike-unfriendly streets, pot holes covering more square feet than my living room, and angry, spiteful drivers. you notice so many more things biking than you ever would driving and it forces you to discover different roads and areas that you normally would never visit. j even brought her bike over and biked with me to the fells point festival earlier this month to avoid the traffic and parking, which was really cool, (despite having to secure the bikes with three padlocks and a small, hungry monkey with an eye patch and a big stick).
i read somewhere this summer that baltimore would be getting a cyclovia for four sundays in october which they would be calling “Sunday Streets”. (I was going to link to what a cyclovia was here, but for some reason wordpress has decided not to close any tags. ) The idea of a cyclovia is to close off certain streets and areas for the majority of a day (usually sunday) and to encourage people to bike, walk, rollerblade, skateboard or anything else other than drive those streets. i thought it was a great idea and would probably be a great thing for vendors and shops (as people are more likely to shop when they are able to actually notice the places they drive by every day at 45mph and never even blink at), but i never heard anything more about it. i did a websearch earlier this week and saw that they were considering it for April, not October, so maybe it was delayed, but im kinda sad to see the delay. with gas prices as high as they were a lot of people went out this summer and bought a bike, and i think october would have been a perfect time to get out onto the streets before winter hit, but alas, it looks like i will have to wait for spring to see if anything comes of this.
So just a few thoughts on last nights vice presidential debate:
1. I appreciate that Palin reverted back to calling herself a “hockey mom” instead of “Joe Sixpack”. Most likely this was because Bidens name is Joe, but either way, I couldnt stand Joe Sixpack.
2. If Palin played rolled derby, what do you think her roller derby name would be?
3. its NU-CLE-AR. there is no Q in this word. anywhere.
4. “...her reward will be in heaven.” WTF?
5. Biden did start to bore me when he was talking Senate crap. But I think boring is necessary in order to come off as intelligent.
6. im hoping for a SNL skit involving scenes from “Top Gun”.
7. Biden won, but Palin definitely did a lot better than I expected. She clearly had no idea what to say about certain things, but she did a good job of avoiding her nonsensical rambling and stuck to the script.
8. im a little sad that neither candidate said something horribly wrong. i was hoping for some better comedic value.