Enjoy Your Canada Day in Obscurity
Happy Canada Day!
I was listening to Morning Edition on KPCC this morning, hearing an interview with Le Vent Du Nord. The article opens talking about how in the US we’re anticipating the 4th of July, while many of “our neighbors (sic) to the north” are all getting excited about Quebec’s 400th anniversary. It somehow failed to mention that pretty much all of “our neighbours to the north” are celebrating Canada Day today. That’s right, on Canada Day, they did a story about founding celebrations in Canada, and managed to find a way to make the 4th of July relevant, but they didn’t so much as mention Canada Day, the one such celebration occurring that day which is actually celebrated by everyone to the north.
Be careful about dissing Canada. If you really tick them off the Jay’s will win the World Series a few more times as punishment.
UPDATE: Apparently there is another noteworthy celebration going on today. It feels like there is some kind of significance to SOS being adopted on Canada Day, but what that significance is seems rather open to interpretation. ;-)
BTWD Summary 1
So, of course, after bragging about how every week is bike to work week for me… I ended up not riding my bike too much for bike to work week. This might have had something to do with being quite sick with what I suspect was food poisoning, becoming severely dehydrated, passing out, and having a nice little trip to the hospital. That’ll teach me.
Anyway, I managed to mend well enough by Thursday that I was at least able to participate in Bike To Work Day.
This morning I got out of the house a tad earlier to meet up with one of my co-workers, who was doing the trek all the way from Pasadena (I kid you not). We met up at a Del Taco at Hollywood & Santa Monica, and biked in together from there. I can’t say enough about how much more fun it was to bike in with someone else. 15-30 minutes on a bike by yourself is no biggie and can actually provide some useful “me time”, but for longer trips, I’m enough of an extrovert that having some company really makes the experience more fun. Better still, having someone else along for the ride made both of us work harder to maintain a good pace. Particularly since we had some… significant differences in gravitational forces applied to us, I had to work harder to keep up with him when going up inclines, and he had to work harder to keep up with me on the declines. Net effect: he actually set a personal best time for his ride in (and by a significant margin), even though he covered an extra mile from his previous record, and I likely did the same (if only I kept track of such things).
I didn’t make the effort to visit all the stations where they were handing out all the free schwag, but I was handed a Google-branded portable bicycle pump for my efforts. I actually already have one of those, so I’m offering it to anyone who actually has participated in Bike to Work Week. If you have other interesting schwag to offer in exchange, that’ll bump you to the front of the line.
The ride back was solo the whole way, but was still shockingly effortless, confirming once again that my body really does repair itself better on five days rest as opposed to four (or none), even if I’m dreadfully ill during the rest time. To those of you who don’t grok what this means, I’ll spell it out for you: I’m getting old. :-(
All, in all, this has made me more interested in trying to find like minded (and like-capable) parties to share the ride in to and back from work. I’m sure if I do some hunting around amongst the various biking interest groups in LA, I’ll find some good candidates.
Other bike-to-work observations:
- Bus drivers don’t care if it is Bike to Work Month/Week/Day. I probably should have just ended that sentence at “care”, but in fairness they do seem to care about the folks that are actually on their bus… just noone else.
- The Los Angeles area really does just have an insane number of potholes along the side of its roads, and Beverly Hills is shockingly one of the worst offenders.
- You might think that reporting potholes would be a wise way to address the above, but you’d be wrong! The potholes I reported last week were mended… resulting in a massive lump of asphalt rising from the street, surrounded by a protective moat that appeared as though dug by some diminutive siege engineer attempting to provide protection to a soon-to-be built castle at the summit!
- Bike to Work Day is probably the only day you can “take the lane” while going under the 405 on Santa Monica without anyone honking at you.
- Worst part of biking in warm weather: waiting at a red light while seemingly paradoxically producing more sweat than the entire time you spend on the trip actually moving.
- Biking to Work is good and all, but be sure not to accidentally take the car keys with you as you head out the door. I have a very forgiving spouse, but I think I still may need to sleep with one eye open tonight.
Bike to Work Week 1
May is “Bike Month”. Next week is Bike to Work Week. Actually, every week is Bike to Work Week for me, but I thought I ought to point out that everyone is supposed to make an extra effort this week. The LA Times has surprisingly good coverage. Apparently, Bike to Work Day is this coming Friday, although I’ve seen some confusion as to whether it is Friday or Thursday. Either way, I encourage everyone to give it a go. I assure you, it isn’t nearly as hard as it seems, and there are all kinds nice little benefits to the whole thing. That said, I *do* recommend not making the mistake I did earlier this week: doing Pilates for the first time, for an hour, before biking home for another hour. Ouchy.
One of the fun things to play with is the MTA’s “Bike to Work Calculator” which gives you an idea of the impact you can have by cycling to work. Apparently I’m saving close to $10/week, or ~$500/year in gas (not to mention LA’s insane insurance prices) by biking to work, not to mention 45lbs of CO2 emission reduction. This week I did more cycling than normal, so I actually saved 50% more than that. I expect the CO2 calculation in particular is missing some of the subtleties of the whole thing, but it is still fun.
Don't Vote
I glanced over at Corey’s get out the vote campaign, so I have to throw in a counter sentiment.
Thanks to a) the Primaries not being over by the time they come to California and b) the wonders of proportional representation, this is the first election I’m in where my vote might actually be meaningful on the larger stage. No longer are my votes largely meaningless outside the realm of state propositions, city measures, and the detestable judicial elections. I’m in a position to mess up the entire country, perhaps the entire planet.
Here’s the thing: the more of the rest of you hipsters decide to maintain a Zen-like aloofness and remain above such pedestrian things like politics and democracy, the more influential my vote will be. Past evidence suggests that you are more likely to vote against me than with me, so please, don’t vote.
Think about how difficult it is to vote. First, you’ll have to navigate the treacherous Internet(which, btw, provided a map which leads to a place at least a mile away from where my polling station is… thank Google for Maps!). You have to walk (either that or you contribute to global warming) through the desert for who knows how many feet to your nearest polling station. Not only will you have to brave the elements, but also violent militants trying to undermine the legitimacy of the election. Even if you make it to the polling place, you know it will be manned by partisans either from a union or some religious cult, who will be standing in the voting booth with you and making sure you vote correctly. Even if you manage to deceive them, you know that they or some partisans at the Secretary of State’s office will discard your vote if they don’t agree with it. Even if your vote does get through that gauntlet, what kind of choices do we really have? I mean, at the national level, we’ve got two Democrats with barely any experience on the national stage and who are virtually indistinguishable from the each other (just look at them!). Then, on the other side you have four guys to choose from who only differ on taxes, government spending, use of the military, religion, immigration and environmental policy. That’s practically no choice at all!
Really, when you think about it, you’re better off sitting at home and reading blogs and leaving the voting to me.