testy

Blogger has some technical difficulties periodically, and I lose all my archives. I can't figure out how to fix it.

basking in the blue glow

Tim and I spent the day in some random place called Duxbury working on the final edit for the Public Service Announcement. It wasn't terrible. Actually the final product was much better than I expected. However, it was almost nothing like what we had wanted. The guy at the government agency who contracted us to produce the spot nixed the kinda cute idea we had for the ad, and ended up leaving us with a pretty dull script. And then the production company (and the director) went in and pulled out pretty much everything else that was interesting or important. I have a feeling that our compatriots in the bicycle community will be disappointed with it, and there are some questionable behaviors that should definitely have been avoided when shooting it all. But, at least the general public will probably get something useful out of it. Plus, I got my cute little bicycle bell sound in the ad, and it works quite well at the very end as the image fades to black. And the experience of organizing the thing was definitely a learning experience for us.

On the way back into Boston, Tim and I had a couple of hours to kill before the annoyingly infrequent commuter train came, and we just so happened to be stuck in the middle of nowhere with a Toysareus store within walking distance. Tim hit the jackpot when he discovered a Star Wars Trivial Persuit game on clearance for 10 bucks. We got in an entire game (I won!) before we got back into civilization.

Tomorrow is supposed to be the big SCUL olympics. Bike limbo, bike tossing, and competetive donut consumption (while derbying) are just some of the events I'm curious to participate in... It's been too damn long since I've made it to a mission and I'm looking forward to it bunches. Hopefully Ms. tropical storm Isadore will be fizzled out before then, if she hasn't already.

I also really need to go food shopping, I've been surviving on Wheat Thins and M&Ms since I got home.

back

A nice trip, nothing shocking. I realized that old time Mainers had road design all wrong, and instead of putting the roads (and homes) in the valleys where it is level (and there is water for farming) they just put the roads in where ever they wanted to. Thus, roads go up and down the mountainous terrain. No fun for bicyclists - at least not ones carrying their homes on their backs like turtles do! Anyway, the trip was productive, I watched kids play with clay and paint in the children's area, helped them walk on stilts, parked bikes for all the people riding to the fair, ate a ton of good food which was all organic, (batter fried shiitake mushrooms, mmmmm), listened to a bunch of folks play the fiddle, heard my mom's friend's band Tree By Leaf (who I love), and walked 'till my feet nearly fell off for three days straight. I also picked up the new Critical Mass book, and several t-shirts with turtles on them. Oh, and I got more of the best maple syrup ever! I had some two years ago and only this year found the farmer's market table which had it again. I think they might put cocaine or something in it. It's just that great.

I didn't get that much time with my mom (as she was only at the fair for a few hours on Saturday), and she seems a bit depressed by my stepfather's continued illness. I felt bad that I didn't really get a chance to talk to her about it. She's kind of lonely up there. I don't know why she wants to be out in the middle of nowhere like that, especially in a place where she is utterly dependent on others to get her anywhere. The more involved I get in transportation issues the more insane it seems that in most parts of the country, you are really screwed if you don't drive a car. A woman at the fair found out that I'd biked the 20 miles from my mom's house with my camping gear and her response was "Good for you!" I had to explain to her that it wasn't like I had an alternative - walking was pretty much out of the question, and there really is no public transit. If I'd had an alternative I would have taken it.

off again

Well, now it's off to Maine. Tomorrow I head up for the grand event of the Common Ground Fair. Yay. I wish I was ready to go. Yesterday I got this sneaking suspicion that there were a bunch of things that other folks needed me to do, but I didn't get a chance to do them, or even remember that I was supposed to. Erf.

The new roommie came home lst night for the first time since I've been here. She was up at the Toronto Film Festival hanging with Bruce Campbell. She's funny. With all of us residents together there was a big push to get her cats to be social with my girl. Seth broke out the catnip tea (yes, for cats) and brewed up a bowl. It was pretty amusing to watch the three of them take turns growling, hiding, and rolling in the bwl of tea. I don't think cats really know what to do with catnip tea. Sometimes they would drink it, but most of the time they would just stick their faces in it and get all wet. Poor, silly fuzzy people.

Today I get to watch my boss try to present our Bike Law Education to a crowd of police officers. Should be fun.

drugged into submission

The masses that is. Not me. I got into a depressing argument with Mr. MP7 last night about the need for peace and how little the US is doing to work for it. He countered with his belief that sometimes you just have to kill people. Funny thing is he calls ME defeatest. I posted something on one of Kevin Smith's (movie director) sites about how people tend to give the impression that the US is full of arrogant, ignorant, racist, and self centered people, and that we don't actually want peace - we love war because it makes us feel all puffy and important. I was posting this just to make up for the deluge of postings that went on and on about how great "America" is and how the whole world should care about our little tragedy of 9/11 because Washington, DC is the "seat of democracy for the world". I try to remember that most of the kids who post on Kevin's site are 13 year old boys, but still...

On a lighter note, I put in a bunch of time at MassBike this week, and we managed to accomplish most of the stuff we needed to do. We got our campaign questionnaire mailed out to members. The responses were very, very encouraging, and reading them all, you'd think that all of the folks running for governor were avid cyclists and were out there ever day or something. One of them does do triathalons, and another did do his campaing tour of the state on a bike, but neither actually consider using a bike for day to day commuting. But, hey, it's a start. We also put together our script for the public service announcement that MassBike is getting paid to produce. It's going to suck though, I bet. And we are being forced (by the government contract) to use a really crappy videographer to create the spot. And it'll most likely air only at 4 in the morning during reruns of the Golden Girls... But I'm going to chalk it up to a learning experience - someday we may get to do a real one, and we'll know what not to do. Also this week Tim and I went out on a mission to take some example photos of dangerous bike/car interactions. Unfortunately, we had no car. (We bike afficianados are pretty much a car free lot, especially those of us in urban areas.) Tim plans to hang out at his parents house this weekend and wants to use his mom as the stunt driver for the photos. Cool.

Now that I've finally settled back into life in Beantown, I'm ready to go off again. This time I'll be biking/camping and generally hanging out at the Common Ground Fair in Maine. The fair is just so me. It's huge (though nothing compared to the Minnesota State Fair), filled with Miane art, crafts, non-profit organizations, music, kids, and 100% organic, healthy, delicious food. If you volunteer a few hours a day you can attend the fair for free and get a camping site too. I did it last year and had a lot of fun even though it rained almost the entire time! This year, I'll do a little no-rain dance before I leave. I'll also get to see my mom a bit. Yay.

(Originally posted Sunday, Sept 15th)

365 days

Well, it's been a whole year since the suicide hijackers took over four planes over the US. So where are we now? Have we learned anything as a society? Are all of those patriotic flag waving folks recommitted to creating a healthy democracy? Are we more more concerned about our communities? Are we taking measures to wean ourselves from Mid East oil? Are we providing the needed political support to our newly installed government in the country we tore up while seeking the big guy Osama B? Have we brought justice to those he plotted to kill by putting him in jail and on trial? Have we learned that negotiations are at least as effective as bombs in dealing with others? Are we making our own elected leaders accountable for their actions? Are we paying attention to the root causes of political problems and looking for solutions and not just bandaids? Are we putting people before profits? Are we working to make our world a better place?

Inclusion

In the interests of keeping this post from rambling too horribly, I'm going to try to keep my thoughts in little sections. Let's see if it works...

The Minnesota State Fair:

I got into Minnesota early on in the day, and had plenty of time to wander around confused until I found a hotel willing to provide a shuttle and a somewhat cheap rate. I checked into the hotel, called the information line for the State Fair and found out that I could catch a bus at the Mall of America to the Fair. So I hopped on the hotel's shuttle to the Mall. I made a lame attempt to check out the mall but was instantly bored (even the promising "Legoland" was highly disappointing). So I managed to find the Fair bus and was on my way. Now, I've been to the Topsfield Fair in Massachusetts, and that's pretty big, but it's nothing compared to the Minnesota State Fair. The place is gigantic. The size of a small city. It took me 4 hours of walking around before I even found the midway. It's about 70% food, I'd say. With "everything fried or on a stick" as the locals claim. I'd already eaten myself ill when I found the batter fried candy bars that are apparently so popular in England, so I had to pass. But I watched a very reluctant man take a bite, and he to live to tell about it, so I assume it was edible. In the agricultural hall, I encountered a room full of plant "art", including pictures made with seeds and several scarecrows made to look like Jesse Ventura. The governor is not particularly popular with his constituents these days... Other things of note I found at the fair included: a local, but fairly professionally done, version of robot wars; a huge dinosaur sculpture made from various intreguing peices of trash (including some bicycle parts!); more white people than you could imagine; and to top it all off, REO Speedwagon and Styx (Ok, I didn't actually get to see them, but I could hear them outside the stadium).

Thunderhead:

No, not an eighties big hair band, but a bicycle advocate's retreat. Every year representatives from bike coalitions from around half of the United States get together to join forces and share ideas with the goal of making people realize that bicycles are the coolest thing of the roads. Being a relative newby to the profession, I had a lot to learn, and talk to everyone I could about stuff I've been thinking about. The group was mostly all warm fuzzies and fun, though I had no idea how passionate people were about the segregation vs. integration issue of bike facilities (more on that on a later date). But as long as I didn't say the dreaded four letter words "b*ke l*ne", it was all good. I met a ton of great people, including my new buddies Clair from the brand spanking new North Carolina Bicycle Coalition, and Steve from the Sonoma County (CA) transit department and also a board member of the Sonoma Bicycle Coalition. I also got some much needed advice on the public service announcment and the candidate questionnaire projects that I've been working on lately, and I learned all about America Bikes' efforts to reinvigorate the US' trasortation policy through the renewal of the TEA-3 legislation. The idea is to spend a little less of our tax money on encouraging automobiles, and more money for other more effecient forms of transit, such as biking and walking. One of the big pushes these days is for a program called "safe Routes to School" which works directly with communities, schools, kids, and parents to provide safe ways for kids to walk and bike to school like they did in the old days when I wa a kid. (I was shocked to find out that only 2% of all kids walk or bike to school now, as opposed to something like 40% in the 60's. And I know of at least one parent who drives his kid 6 blocks to school, double parks, and then drives home because he says he doesn't have enought time to walk.) To finish off the great time at the Thunderhead camping extravaganza, we had a disco party, complete with a polyester requirement. Boy, are great incriminating photos of people from that party... And the morning after was spent riding the 40 miles from the camp to downtown St Paul. I was highly doubtful that I could make the trip, especially on a rental bike not really designed for such touring, but I was happily surprised to find the 40 miles an absolute joy. The easiest ride I've ever done. I think we passed a total of about 10 cars for the first 38 miles, and I've not seen terrain as flat as that in all of my adult life (If there is one thing that New England ain't it's flat). So yay, for that ride.

Pro Bike/Pro Walk:

So then it was on to the suit and tie bike advocacy event. Pro Bike Pro Walk is the big conference for professionsl bicycle and pedestrian planners. Mostly government traffic planning folks, some contracters, and a bunch of us advocacy organizers. Lots of lectures, with some good stuff, and even more of the dull stuff. But definitely a great place to schmooze. Andy Singer, the incredibly talented gentleman who draws the "CARtoons", was there and I got an autographed copy of his very cool book CARtoons. Oooh! I also got a chance to attend a discussion by David Engwicht who is a pioneer in the field of street reclaiming and wrote the aptly titled book "Street Reclaiming". He's a visionary in that he's promoting the idea of taking the streets back for our communities by putting the communities back in the streets. And he's got all sorts of really neat ideas on how to do that, including putting random art, toys, and furniture in the streets to slow car traffic down. I'll definitely have to do a little article about the idea when I get a chance.

The most fun I had at the conference was, of course, the partying with my new pals. We made an effort to storm Minneapolis one night, but ended up only finding some very dead clubs. It was entertianing though. And we got to see some pretty weird bike lanes. On the last evening there I managed to get myself into an arguement about the aforementioned b*ke l*ne dilemma and I ended up in tears while our audienced tried to shut us up by singing silly dirty songs about biblical characters. I still haven't quite recovered from the arguement, and at some point will need to get it all off my chest. But for now, I'm just happy to start making my way through the piles of reading material that I collected all week, and waiting to develop the pictures I took of my buddy Steve french kissing one of the Lucy (from Peanuts) statues that was dotting the streets of St. Paul.

Air travel:

I was under the impression, post 9/11, that airport security was searching people who happened to show up on some sort of FBI profiling list. But it doesn't seem to be the case. The searches were truly random, and were conducted by people who had not even seen people's tickets. And they didn't seem to be taking people who looked "suspicious" but pretty much a sampling of everyone. That's cool. I did forget to take my bike tools out of my courier bag on the flight home, and had to surrender my swiss army knife (and it's requisite phillips head). They also made a big stink about my 6 inch adjustable wrench for some reason. They had to go through four people before they decided that I wasn't a risk (I was wearing a bright yellow "safe routes to school" t-shirt with a cute little mouse riding a bike on it) and let me keep my wrench.

Finally, I can't strees enough how absolutely gorgeous the Earth is. From an airplane, you can really see this world for what it really is, a beautiful blue-green planet. Seeing it like that it reminds you of how important life is, and how stunning and precious the grass, trees, water, and dirt are. Humans with their technology may impressive, but nature is truly the master here.

astounding

Well, I made it to Minnesota and back (or was it all just a dream, like it seems right now?). What a week! I tell ya, that was one of the best adventures I've ever been on. 500 bicycle advocates and their bikes took over a fancy schmancy hotel. A significant portion of them worked for the government, including not just one but two mayors. I also met a few very awesome people on the first part of the trip, and was innundated with all sorts of information about running a bicycle advocacy organization, aas well as getting the lowdown about a whole slew of bike projects going on across the world.

I'll have a big wrap up of my trip as soon as I get a chance. Now, I'm just trying to deal with the having-been-gone-for-a-week stuff. It's a little depressing, because I came home tonight to find the house empty of people but full of someone elses stuff (the new roommate is even more of a packrat than I, and she's already put a ton of her stuff all over the house!), and two less than nice cats (I was only home for a couple of hours before one of them made me bleed!). But my little girl is very, very happy to see me, and that's cool, and I'm happy that I have web access again.