So I finally got off my butt and took a real bike ride. I went up the mountain to the Fortino’s in Ancaster and back, on Brad’s bike, Bella. Bike: light and fast. Me: not so much. I can’t keep up with those fast Italian women. Who am I kidding? I did pass a couple of commuters on the way up the hill, but overall, it was a hard climb. I was inching along. By the top, my lungs and legs were asking me for severance pay.

Going up was an ordeal. Coming back down was an adventure. First, I got passed, before the serious descent, by a guy on a Trek mountain bike. With knobbies. Sheesh. Then, I got passed by a couple more people, but they were on expensive road bikes. At the light just before the Rousseaux St. intersection, the right-hand lane was turn-only, so I politely placed myself between lanes, on the right of the going-straight lane. When the light changed, a guy in a Buick or something on my right decided he was going to go straight instead of right (as he ought), and cut in front of the guy on my left, and very nearly hit me (which would have smacked me into the middle of a fairly busy street). Excuse me, can you tell me where your lane is at… a**hole?!

At the Rousseaux St. intersection, some lady raced in front of the oncoming lanes to turn left, a few seconds after our light turned green to go straight. There was honking, and some yelling on my part. And more honking as she nearly hit another car on Rousseaux St.

The hill was fun. Single speed = my feet can’t go fast enough. I coasted a lot, and passed the time exercising my perceptual-motor system and telling myself I can totally trust Brad’s bicycle maintenance habits. That’s interesting. That engages your attention. I can’t imagine fixed-gear on something like that hill.

Now I’m home, my knee is on ice, the cat is being homicidally entertained by random inanimate objects, and Alex is at Mac, rehearsing for her play. Cool breeze from the window, the light is starting to get golden, and there are lawnmowers growling pleasantly in the neighborhood. Nope, I still don’t miss Winter. Give it another few years.

The Virgina Tech shooter did something horrible. That’s his fault. But he existed in an environment in which he knew with a certainty that he would become famous for it. That’s the news media’s fault. That’s our fault. All of us.

The news media’s predictable vulture-like picking at the corpses of the victims is sickening. The most revolting thing about this, however, is the fact that the media are giving the killer everything he ever wanted. And, of course, this is because they’re giving us what we want. So, in the end, we are the problem. Continue reading →

Last Saturday I acquired (for better or worse) this Centurion Cavaletto for $40: Continue reading →

On my way to work today, I passed a Lotus in the visitors’ parking area. Yes, a Lotus. At least it was in the visitors’ area, not in the administrators’ parking spots. I think the car was one of the models here (the Exige or the Elise). What’s this car doing in our parking lot? We’re a university. Actually, now that I thik about it, perhaps it belongs to some wealthy person giving a donation to the school. That would be acceptable. If there must be huge income inequalities in the world, some of the filthy lucre should trickle down to the educational system. You know, for the students’ increased learning outcomes. And my paycheck.

On the other hand, I looked up the prices on these things, and it looks like the Elise only (heh) costs between about $40,000 and $50,000, while the Exige goes for approximately $50,000 to $60,000. If I’m not mistaken, you can buy an SUV for the same price. OK, so that’s not exactly a ringing endorsement; it’s still luxury car pricing (a la Acura or Lexus), but despite the extremely sexy looks of this Lotus, it’s not in the price range of a quarter-million-dollar Lamborghini or Ferrari, or the million-plus McLaren F1. So I guess conspicuous consumption has fine gradations of magnitude.

Discussion of British cars (like Lotus) Reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw on an MG once: “The parts observed falling from this car are made with the finest British craftsmanship.”

Diane Arbus would be proud.

I don’t know why I suddenly started to like this little snapshot. maybe because it looks so surreal, with the contrast of the three different qualities of light. I find interesting incongruities in the subject matter, too. Actually, it’s just Alex and me having dinner at a cabin in Tennessee, and I didn’t intend any of the interesting aspects of the photo; accidentally interesting.

In other news, this morning on my ride to work, I understood how I will eventually die. I will be lying in a hospital bed, and the doctor will have a grave look on his face (he will look like the doctor from BSG), and Alex and the children will be shaking their heads, sadly, as if they knew it all along. The medical chart will show that I have multiple cancers, respiratory problems, and probably some kind of brain damage, all due to biking to work while sucking down the exhaust of a hundred pickups and SUVs per day. In the next hospital room over, there will be a soccer mom and her yuppie husband, in for a checkup, and in perfect health. In fact, they’re so healthy, they’re scrapping their plans to start cycling, or taking walks. The doctor tells them they’ll live to be a hundred, as long as they avoid breathing any of the air outside. Cause that stuff’ll kill ya.

Roof puppies in Oaxaca also like the sun

It was sunny outside! For only a few hours, true, and now it’s back to an overcast thingy, but at least it’s a bright overcast thingy. I got up late (7:45), fooled around with stuff, then finally left the apartment at 9:00, got to work at 9:30 (I took the extremely long way; my commute is actually about 7 minutes if traffic cooperates), and didn’t even mind all the mud on my bike. And on me. It’s been lead-dark and cloudy for 2 weeks, now. And ridiculously cold for this part of the world. maybe we’re starting to have a normal winter again (i.e., sunny and warm).

In other amazing and excellent news, I went into the locker room in the gym, where I have a locker in the non-faculty area (menos cool). I shower, however, in the faculty lockers, because it’s a much better shower experience. So, I browsed around the locker area (as is my wont, from time to time) and saw what I was looking for: a free locker! I’ve waited for a year and a half. So, I snatched it. With the requisite paperwork, of course. I now have a faculty locker. No more wandering the length and breadth of the undergrad locker room in nothing but the way-too-small university towel, on my way to and from the shower. Yay! Plus, if your gym shorts are really stinky, you can hang them on the outside of your locker without worrying that the staff or the other students will trash them.