Several weeks ago, while hunting down another item on eBay, I ran into an old lugged steel Trek 950 frame. It was just the right size at 19 inches, and was going cheap with several days left to go. I threw a couple bucks down on it and forgot about it until I got an email telling me I’d triumphed over my weak, cowardly opponents for only $41. As a bonus, it also came with a set of LX cranks, a RaceFace bottom bracket and an XT front derailleur. I’d been thinking about increasing the family’s cargo carrying capacity to two Xtracycles, and this seemed like a fine platform to make that happen.

It showed up needing more than just a little love. I haven’t figured out all the numbers stamped into the bottom bracket shell, but the serial number falls into the 1992 range. There’s also another set of numbers, that reads “930 20 B1 (something something)”. I’m assuming that means that I’m actually working on a 20 inch 1992 Trek 930. Additionally, the paint job was mostly what you’d expect from a couple cans of Krylon…

…except for that black flame job, edged in Sharpie! Bet ya didn’t expect that! It just looks fast layin’ on the carpet there, doesn’t it?

The fact remained that it’s a sweet, solid lugged steel frame with great geometry for what I had in mind, with a few dings here and there but mostly in good shape. So I got out the wetsand paper, and figured that bringing it back to bare metal, painting it proper, and getting that frame correct would be a spiritual journey worth taking. I’d pour my love and sweat and some choice swear words into it, sanding and soaking, until it gleamed naked and strong. And I did for about three days, starting with some really noxious chemical stripping agent and then taking the rest down to the steel.

The first day’s sanding, a roughly 5 hour session, saw the top tube and down tube emerge quickly. The head tube and lugs took more time and effort, but came out looking lovely. Unfortunately, the painted head tube badge (painted! dude! 5 minutes to mask it off! C’mon!) didn’t survive the sanding. But seeing the brazing at the joints come out from behind the paint residue was a joyful experience.

The next morning, I woke up with the outside edge of my right thumb, which had been my sanding block for getting into the nooks and crannies and lug edges, was raw, bruised, and beaten. External pressure from the frame pushing up, combined with internal pressure from my thumbnail’s edge pushing down, left it sore and swollen. Given the injury, it seemed obvious to me that the thing to do was to keep sanding. I got most of the front triangle on that run, focused on nailing the bottom bracket, and did pretty well.

But the cable stops, grouped in threes at the front and back of the top tube, mocked me all the while. “Keep sanding those parts you can reach, but you will never, never see the bare metal of our insides,” they taunted as I worked my way around the bottom bracket shell and bottle cage bosses. Every time I cleared paint away from the edge of a lug, I’d feel my sense of well-being swell slightly as the brazing revealed itself. Then I’d glance at the cable stops and lose that good feeling.

I could not for the life of me solve that riddle, given the effort it took to sand the parts that were easily reachable. So I asked for some advice from someone I consider a knowledgeable source, aware that I could end up on the business end of a blistering, wolverine-like flurry of teeth and claws, but desperate for the answer. He kindly suggested that an escalation in chemical warfare might help, and that wire brushes (especially drill mounted) might help.

But more importantly, he gave me a stronger suggestion to abandon my efforts and take it to a powder coating shop to let them blast and paint it. “Let someone else do it?” I thought indignantly “This is my project! How could I justify the time, the love, the effort I’ve already invested? How can I think of dishonoring my aching, damaged thumb by giving up?” (My thumb at this point had nearly grown it’s own mouth so it could handle the screaming closer to the source.)

Like a magic bean, however, the planted suggestion grew stronger as I slept. Not only would bead blasting be faster, reaching every nook and cranny of the frame, it would get the surface rust too. I let go of the excitement I had been cultivating from the thought of learning how to paint well. The reality is that I don’t have a booth, or a gun, and if I did I’d still need to fail horribly on several projects to achieve any kind of competency with those of tools. More than likely, faced with that challenge, I’d revert to rattle-cans from AutoZonePartsBoys and get results only marginally better than I’d started with.

And even if, by some miracle, I’d built a booth and picked up a decent sprayer and learned how to shoot Imron and candy and do airbrush flames with an uncanny, supernatural skill right from the get go, the fact is that powder coating is simply better for the environment. A strong component of my love of bikes is their light environmental impact. Using rattle-cans is flat-out damaging to the environment, and shooting urethane wet is several degrees moreso.

I woke up and knew instantly where this project was headed, and I felt some shame in surrendering so easily. For about 15 seconds, until my thumb made light contact with the bathroom faucet. In that illuminating instant, I realized that I’d just made a good solid judgment without being unduly emotionally influenced by sunk costs, and that seeing the light involved a pretty minimal waste of time and only light, temporary physical damage. That right there is reason to celebrate in my world!

(And thanks muchly, Mr. Thill, for the excellent advice. I have always depended on the kindness of Internet strangers.)

So last night, Rebbie and I played around with some graphics, spent too much time looking at the wrong colors, and hotly contested their merits and faults. Don’t ever let anyone tell you that aesthetics are subjective, there’s a way things should be done and for some reason you’re always wrong. It’s probably your upbringing or perhaps a genetic flaw, but it’s amazing how you always pick the wrong color. You should see a doctor about that, so that we can all stop laughing about it. God I can’t believe you picked that color, you knob.

What we should’ve done right off, perhaps if we’d been less tired and had been thinking more clearly, was explored our connection to the rich heritage of British racing cars. Which is to say, we don’t have any, but the fucking green works! Check it out, situated for proofing on top of the awesome Creme Fat Franks we picked out for this project.

I look at those tires and can almost taste a vanilla milkshake. And in case you were wondering, yes, they do bring all the boys to the yard, and, that’s right, they’re better than yaws.

So I dropped off the frame, Free Radical, and V-Racks with Chris the Powder Coater in Hyattsville this morning, hung out for an hour chatting and getting the full tour of his shop. He’s going to do the whole shebang in a lovely Forest Green for less than $200, should be done in about a week.

What’s better than that? Nothing, that’s what.

Fourth of July’s around the corner, nice long weekend to hang out with the family, finish a couple projects, maybe grill some veggies and meats at the pool. It’s been hot and stormy this year, like New Orleans in D.C. Last weekend was Tent Night at the pool, Ruby’s first shot at camping overnight. She and Rebbie had been backyard camping all week to get ready, and she loved it.

On Saturday, we broke down backyard camp and loaded the tent and tarp and thermarests on the longtail (noting that Wideloaders are in our near future), and pedaled ourselves to the pool. We had a nice dinner and a swim to cool off, and around 7:30 p.m. the announcement was made to set up tents, which we did.

Roundabout 9:00 p.m. lightning was spotted and we all had to retreat to the covered area by the dressing rooms. A few had to defy the order to bring it in, since they hadn’t gotten their rain flies up and there was pretty clearly a squall moving in. So for a couple hours a hundred or so parents, kids, and toddlers hung out under the eave, handed out beers to one another, enjoyed a dramatic storm and hoped our tents were staked well enough.

I got the opportunity to look another parent square in the eye and say, con gravitas, “I see lightning, and it always brings me down. ‘Cause it’s free, and I see that it’s me that’s lost and never found.” The person I said it to looked at me quizzically, but another overheard and gave me the look that said she understood. The storm passed, the stars came out, we had a great night and a splendid morning replete with cantaloupe, coffee, and an early swim. Ruby had a blast, I wasn’t sure if she was ever gonna want to sleep inside again.

There’s 200-ish days left of Bush’s Reign of Error, the Constitution’s in trouble, and there are signs about that we’ve seen the end of the cheap petroleum era. We’re in the beginnings of something else entirely, and what the weather will be like in the new era, no one can say.

“Fourth of July” makes me flash on X, but that’s not the song that’s going through my head this weekend.

No one is united, and all things are untied. That’s what’s going through my head. Exciting, and not entirely in a good way, but given a choice between uncertain existence and certain doom, uncertainty’s alright by me.

Enjoy the bonus interview and… aw hell, ya know, that’s just not enough X.

Have a great holiday weekend, and remember, must not think bad thoughts!

Via the foyn folks at Car Free Days, check this out:

I’d say that’s worth more than a thousand words, eh?

Also, they’re drawing attention to a July 4th Cargo Bike Ride meeting at Pioneer Square at First and Yesler at high noon, partner. If it weren’t 2700 miles away and two days from now, I’d totally be there.

On the commute home last night:

• Coming up T St. NW, I come upon this fellow with his truck parked across the bike lane, which was both narrowing the lane for cars and forcing cyclists out into the traffic trying to get around his pickup. He had, oh, 8 bags of mulch or soil or something like that. I let him know that there was a parking spot 14 feet behind where he was double parked, and he yelled back that he was unloading. Evidently, he couldn’t be bothered to move those bags 14 extra feet, so commute traffic had to accommodate him.
• Don’t mistake my anecdotal evidence for real data, but I’m pretty sure that I’m one of the very few cyclists in D.C. who stop at lights and stop signs downtown. So I’m stopped at a light on New Hampshire, with about a foot and a half or so between me and the car stopped next to me. A woman on a road bike in business casual mode squeezes between me and the car, then blows through the intersection forcing cross traffic to brake. I only realized she was shooting the narrow gap between the car and I as it was happening, because she didn’t see fit to break her ninja silence at any point during her approach. She looked annoyed with me as she snaked past.
• Coming down the east side of the Taylor St. overpass, where it crosses over the Red Line, I’m doing about 30, keeping up with traffic, and taking the lane. Much to my astonishment, a yuppie scumbag (now now, no need for that) young professional in a Yukon passes me on a pretty tight part of the street, with traffic oncoming, giving me about a foot of space on my left. Since I’m on pace with traffic, I actually have to slow down to let him back in (or not get hit by him as he floats right, though I can’t say for sure if he’d have actually hit me). I look into the Yuke’s window to see if he’s doing this because he’s pissed at me, and he’s got the blankest, most apathetic look on his face imaginable.

Some days, there’s just no winning. Last night’s ride didn’t trip any serious pressure valves, but it did depress me enough to consider riding the Red Line for the rest of this week to relax and maybe catch up on some reading. I woke up and shook that off, it’s a beautiful day and I couldn’t let the jerks steal my morning ride.

But it did get me thinking about whether or not it was realistic to expect anything but ignorance, arrogance, and self-centeredness from our single-strand society. If I’m not well acquainted with the people who provide my sustenance, or my entertainment, and my job doesn’t involve me directly providing anything to the people in my community, then where’s the value in kindness, consideration, or humility? Why wouldn’t I adopt a philosophy of I got mine, now fuck you? What’s the penalty for treating my neighbors and fellow citizens contemptuously in the pursuit of my own goals, or the benefit of putting my own desires aside for the good of the community (much less my country or the world)?

I mean, aside from avoiding a physical attack. But is that what it’s coming down to, where the only reason for me to signal a turn is so that I don’t end up having another driver pull a bat or a gun on me? Is that the end state of a society where we dispense money and fuel from machines that say “Thank You”, order every scrap of our Chinese-made clothes and every shiny gadget from the internet, get our food from factories a thousand miles away, and only find pleasure in entertainment made by professionals? That courtesy is self-defense, and nothing more?

(I should make clear that, for me, the answer to “why” is: “My kindness, consideration, and humility shouldn’t be a response to you as a reward or punishment. That’s about who I am, and who I want to be, not who you are or whether or not you deserve it.” I should also make clear that I don’t think I’m particularly overflowing in those qualities, but I care enough to keep workin’ on it. I don’t know what other people’s answer to those questions are.)

Makes one feel like heading into eastern Pennsylvania, growing a mustache-less beard, and learning to live Amish just to see what it’s like. Hell, I don’t even need a barn, but I’d sure like to raise one in the neighborhood just to build something with my neighbors and share some lemonade. Ya know? It also makes me want to redouble my efforts to find a local bike shop in which I don’t feel like a plebe diminished by the whithering gaze of a barrista with a bone through his nose because I made the mistake of ordering a “large” coffee instead of a “venti”. Or maybe to open one.

Of course, I could be wrong, and I’ll probably do something on the way home tonight out of obliviousness that will convince someone else that the world is gone to Hell. And maybe I just rode through the wake of a few people having a bad day. Fuck do I know, anyway?

Ya know what? I don’t think that getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down in and of itself qualifies anyone to be president either. I’m of the opinion that one’s shoddy service in the Air National Guard, barely limping through one’s tour, possibly going AWOL, drinking and snorting your way through to the end while your cohort fights and dies halfway around the world is a far superior benchmark of judgment and true grit. Haven’t we learned anything from the last 7 years?

Also, a little note to the media: up yours. Take your collective faces out of McCain’s taint long enough to do your fucking jobs. With a press corp like this, it’s amazing that we’re not already irrigating our fields with Gatorade.

[Update]: An astute commenter takes Joe Klein to task for his tut-tutting at Time’s Swampland, and notes:

Republican Congressman Duke Cunningham was a vastly superior fighter pilot in Vietnam than John McCain becoming the first Ace of the war.

Where is Duke Cunningham right now? Sitting in prison for taking bribes as a congressman.

George H. W. Bush was trained as a pilot, was shot down and then had a largely ineffective presidency.

George W. Bush was trained as a jet fighter pilot and he’s the consensus choice for the most incompetent president in American history.

Seems to me that being a fighter pilot ain’t such a great thing to put on your resume these days, eh? Perhaps some intrepid reporter will note these facts. Yeah, no I don’t think so either.

[Update Again]: Wes Clark isn’t going to back off, renounce, denounce, or reject a got-damn thing. Broadcast punditude, go ahead and invite him on your show to talk about it, but don’t be surprised if you get more than you bargained for. He’s whip smart, he’s got some service experience of his own, and he ain’t rollin’ over. Democratic leadership, please take notes as this unfolds, this is how it’s done. Take special note of the exceptional display of conviction, confidence, and spine.

[Update Yet Again]: In case there’s any confusion about what it means to attack someone’s service record:

• Wes Clark stated that McCain’s service was exemplary, and stated unequivocally that McCain was a hero. He then stated that McCain’s military experience, in particular flying an aircraft and being shot down, does not necessarily qualify him to handle presidential foreign policy decisions. Got that so far?
• Here’s McCain surrogate, on the other hand, saying on a conference call with the press:
  

  …we all know that General Clark, as high-ranking as he is, his record in his last command I think was somewhat less than stellar.

That’s what it looks like when someone attacks and demeans someone else’s service record.

So, to review: Wes Clark’s comments bring up a point of discussion, about what actually qualifies someone to be president, and argues that even exemplary, heroic military service by itself doesn’t cover all the bases. McCain’s surrogate trashing General Clark’s service as Supreme Allied Commander of NATO is just flinging shit at a political opponent.

What in the hell do people actually do at journalism school?

I’m back at it, workin’ that is, and I’m delighted to say that I’m part of a real, honest-to-god tech department again. I’d felt like I was done with code and the internet, but a couple folks I listen to told me to hold off making that decision until I’d spent some time somewhere that didn’t suck (since, ya know, the suckage can color those decisions). This one doesn’t, and my enthusiasm for coding has returned and is blossoming. Joy.

Also, the old job prohibited supporting or contributing to primary candidates, even displaying a bumper sticker was considered over the line. That shit is over, and I’ve got some lost time to make up for.

And I’ve been thinking lately that, despite how much I despise Grover Norquist personally, and loathe his vision of the American Dream, I’ve gained respect for his tactics when it comes to holding his congress critters accountable. He didn’t complain about how the Republican Party didn’t appeal to him anymore, and he didn’t threaten to give his vote to the Libertarian Party. He organized, and let every Republican know that if they crossed the aisle to raise taxes in any way, shape, or form, that they’d face a primary challenge and get spanked. Say what you will about his politics and policies (no really, say it, use profanity if it helps), but the guy put Republican turncoats on notice, and he took action towards making the GOP his party again.

With that in mind, I just gave $100 to Glenn Greenwald’s effort to hold the Democratic leadership accountable for supporting the latest iteration of the FISA Bill (specifically the provisions providing telecom immunity and giving the Executive branch warrantless wiretapping authority). I’m hoping that Glenn’s campaign to punish these capitulating shitbags is an acorn from which a mighty oak will grow. We need an organization dedicated to protecting our Constitutional rights, that will support Democrats who are likewise committed, that will make sure they know we’re paying attention, and that’s willing and able to support primary challengers when promises are broken. If you’re of a like mind, consider throwing a few bucks in that direction.

That’s right Hoyer, you’re on fuckin’ notice.

So, I’m in the mood for a beer and some Pogues. Howzat sound, yeah?

Have the best weekend ya can.

It’s George Carlin Week for hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, of people, and I’m one of them. As I strolled the halls of YouTube gathering bits and pieces of old performances to savor and be grateful for, I ran across this one. Let’s enjoy a little bit of the master, and then talk about it after, shall we?

That is some nutrient-dense food for thought there, isn’t it? So why’s this commanding any more of my attention than any other particular 4 minutes of Professor Carlin’s insights?

It’s partly because I’m having a difficult time reconciling my optimism and excitement over the potential tectonic shift that an Obama presidency could affect in American politics with my bitter disappointment that only Senators Feingold and Dodd seem to give enough of a shit about the Constitution to stand on the floor of the Senate and fight like hell to stop this ass barnacle of a FISA bill. It’s depressing and disconcerting to watch so many Democrats cave on this issue. I mean, shit, there’s not even a significant political upside to giving the telecoms and the Bush administration a pass. The American people had their Constitutional rights systematically violated by Bush and the telcos, by some accounts as many as 7 months before 9/11, which sure seems like something that sits pretty squarely on the bad side of a bright line.

I also know that this would be a non-starter if our Senators knew for a fact that the American people wouldn’t stand for it. But the only real resistance is coming from a small (yet very vocal and surprisingly effective) minority of citizens who pay close enough attention to know what this fight’s about. If we thought of ourselves as citizens responsible for our government instead of consumers entitled to crazy low prices, or an audience craving entertainment, this wouldn’t be happening. But it is.

To put it another way, James Inhofe didn’t get to the Senate by accident. He is Oklahoma. To put it yet another way, we got an administration run by 4 year olds because we wanted it, and we got it good and hard.

The other chord this bit strikes in me relates to a conversation I had with someone about the late Tim Russert. I was chatting with a woman at a toddler birthday party last weekend, a D.C. local whose family has been involved in liberal Democratic politics for years and years. In the course of our discussion, she brought up that she was pretty broken up about Tim Russert, and what a great journalist she thought he was. I replied that, with respect, I wasn’t a fan of his “gotcha” style interview, and that I didn’t think much of him as a journalist after his testimony at the Libby trial, in which he admitted that discussions with government officials were off the record unless they said they wanted to be on the record. I also brought up the Mary Matalin note from Scooter Libby’s trial where she claimed that the best way for Cheney to get his message out and control it was to go on Meet The Press.

She gave a standard sort of apology for this kind of journalism, saying that they all do that, otherwise they lose their access to those officials. I countered that real journalists, like Sy Hersh for example, don’t need or want that kind of access, that real journalism is the result of doing real investigation. Tim Russert, I concluded, was a member of the court, and was primarily a performer.

This woman then gave me a knowing kind of smile, and remarked to me how great she thought it was that I’m so idealistic about journalism. I wouldn’t have been the least bit surprised if she’d pinched my fucking cheeks. And this was coming from a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat.

So there it is, garbage in, garbage out. If 95% of the American public doesn’t know anything about the fight over the FISA bill, then their Reps and Senators will pay no penalty for not caring about it either. Garbage in, garbage out. If the ones who do know something about it just don’t think that telcos sharing private information about our communications with an illegal government spying program is that big of a deal, then why would our elected officials oppose it? Garbage in, garbage out.

And though I miss the full hour, commercial free McNeil/Lehrer Report on PBS, I can’t blame any organization for its demise. They simply got out-competed by a trend toward celebrity journalism that’s seeped into every aspect of our media. There was no cabal that killed real broadcast journalism, we did that. One of the aspects of the whole open-society, free-market of ideas thing is that it’s up to us whether we want real analysis and policy discussions, or a dazzling theatrical performance with romance, fireworks, and buffoonery. We’ve chosen to be entertained, and both the performers and the audience are us.

So the next time you see one of those factoids about how we’re falling behind the the rest of the developed world in education, civil rights, and quality of life, remember this. Our government is made of us. Our media is made of us. And we suck.

Note: I’ve made several little edits for grammar and clarity. I suck too.

The new job began yesterday, and so far I’m delighted. Here’s a few observations contrasting the old job and the new one after the first day.

The old job was south of the Capitol, with a commanding view of the Capitol Power Plant, and a couple government buildings done in the 70’s “Brutalist” style. There was one place to score food within short walking distance, the coffee sucked, and when the half-and-half thimble packets ran out at 9:50 a.m., that was it for the day.

The new job is around Farragut Square, a few blocks from the White House and smack in the middle of DC’s bustling downtown. There’s pedestrian traffic everywhere, more eateries than my appetite could index in a day, urban cyclists of many varieties, and plenty of coffee (some of which doesn’t suck at all). Additionally, I saw several hundred people not wearing gray suits. Neat.

At the old job, trying to find so much as a BicStic and a legal pad was a pain. The new job has plenty of supplies, but there’s also a Staples right around the corner. I now have 4 gel pens with comfort grips and two brand spankin’ new spiral bound graph paper notebooks. I’d have gotten more, but there’s no need to hoard. I can just go back, it’s right there.

Code at the old job was a series of hacks on top of hacks. The main platform was PHP, and had no discernable architecture. Occasionally, I’d find SQL queries in the goddam templates. With the exception of one valiant team’s efforts, coding style, revision control, and release schedules were foreign concepts. One Tuesday morning after a 3-day weekend, we came in to find the site broken, because a couple cowboys decided to push some untested code into our production environment the night before (yep, on a holiday!) without telling anyone. Yeehaw!

The new gig is all about Perl. An initial survey of one application I’ll be working on revealed a solid architecture almost immediately, and the first few modules I opened up featured well commented code. I’m not talking about “this does that thing to the whatsit” kind of comments, I mean a paragraph in plain English explaining what a method does, how it’s meant to be used, caveats, and exceptions. I saw a copy of Damien Conway’s Perl Best Practices out on one developer’s desk. Aw yeah, that’s it.

The new gig has a wiki, and it’s useful. Besides a section of Perl coding practices they cleave to, there’s a Perl Cookbook section that gives real examples of how to use the various utilities and how to subclass important superclasses. This isn’t the kind of documentation you wring out of unwilling developers, this is the kind created by people who believe documenting code is important.

Here’s the kicker: we have a system that can configure and deploy a complete development environment from a code branch auto-magically by way of a web-based application. Very slick. Releases are once a week, assuming that the release passes a battery of automated regression tests. Sexy? You bet.

It’s hard to predict accurately how things are going to work out, even dream jobs are capable of turning sour, but the indicators are excellent so far. I was looking out the third-floor window, behind my desk, and the world was lookin’ pretty good. Best of all, I think there’s a solid possibility I’m going to enjoy coding again.

Now, I don’t believe in signs or omens or messages from the universe, other than obvious ones like a funnel cloud being a message from the sky meaning, “get in your basement and get away from windows”, or “fuck you, Shady Glen Mobile Home Park”. But this view off the back porch last night sure seemed to put a nice finish on the day.

Double rainbow for the win! WOOOOO!

Oh man, this is a hell of a thing to wake up to. George Carlin is dead. I’d say that he passed away, but he’d have thought that was a bullshit ideom. He’s dead.

Thank you George, for the laughs and the ponderings and the parts of me that you built. I miss you already.

Are you Aware of All Internet Traditions?

I had an errand to run downtown today, and I got an early jump on it so I could ride in the relative cool of the morning before we head towards the upper 80’s (which is a nice break from the upper 90’s we’ve had for the past couple days). My old commute to Capitol South flowed down the east side of the city, through residential areas that I’ve found to be pretty mellow traffic-wise. Often I’d float along, keeping up with traffic or even passing it by, and notice that the people in the cars weren’t having any fun. I’d sorta feel sorry for ‘em.

This morning’s route cut southwest across the city on some much busier streets, which left me feeling more vulnerable and brought my adrenaline up a bit. I found trouble on the way, getting into a spirited disagreement with a fellow commuter. The odd thing was that on any of the multi-lane, really busy streets, I was able to ride in and with traffic without trouble. But going south on 4th St NW through beautiful LeDroit Park (which is a slow, narrow street featuring a series of speed bumps), a motorist gave me an unfriendly honk before passing me dangerously. He also advised me that I should be riding on the sidewalk, and that the street was no bike lane. He also said, “fuck” quite a bit between the other words.

Now, the gentleman clearly was unaware of the municipal codes regarding bicycling on city streets, or the law regarding passing another vehicle safely and legally. Traffic ahead of us was stopped, passing me gained him nothing, so it’s unclear what advantage he was pursuing.

But none of that concerned me much at that point. What did concern me was the rather cavalier regard this hostile motorist had for my safety. Closely following the startled fear was intense, red-hot anger that I associate with car commuting. I loudly explained to him that I was well within my rights to be riding on the road, and that I was traffic.

It would be a lie of omission if I didn’t also mention that I used two shorthand terms that 1.) accused him of having sexual relations with his mother, and 2.) asserted that he was a provider of oral sex to men. (Please don’t construe this as meaning that I disparage those who are skilled at fellatio, it makes the world a better place, salute.) He attempted to rebut my points, but I let him know that I was no longer interested in continuing the discussion, and then invited him to stop talking. The words “fuck” and “fucking” were sprinkled liberally throughout my invitation.

Well, that didn’t get either of us anywhere. I’m reasonably certain that our discussion didn’t result in his rethinking his beliefs on sharing the road, and for my part I came away trying to remember how that Supreme Court decision came out regarding handguns in D.C., and whether or not I could apply for a bike-mount holster permit. And I don’t like either of those results.

One of the reasons I despise driving in the city is that driving among people who are casual about safety and oblivious to the flow of the world around them annoys the shit out of me, which accumulates over the course of the trip and converts to rage. And I don’t like being that way, especially when I’m piloting a few thousand pounds of metal. Bicycling, on the other hand, frequently melts away whatever concerns I had when I got on the bike, and leaves me feeling more alive at the end of the trip than when I started. What’s not to like about that?

So this is disconcerting. I don’t want to go back to the world of road rage, and I don’t want to inspire it in my fellow citizens. I’m mostly friendly to motorists and give them the benefit of the doubt when they violate my vehicular rights, because everyone makes mistakes, right? I’ve certainly pulled boneheaded maneuvers.

But there’s thousands of drivers in this town whose attitudes towards sharing the road with cyclists range between dull-edged apathy to aggressive hostility. It’s beyond my abilities to do anything about them, so I’m trying to figure out what to do about me, but some part of me thinks that without strong infrastructural support and traffic enforcement from the city, this is just how it’s going to be. Until the city actually treats us like traffic, the public won’t either.

I don’t know, ultimately I need to learn how to blow these things off, especially in those circumstances when my gorge rises because I feel like my safety’s been threatened. What do you do?

NOTE: I updated verb tense in a couple places, and made a couple edits for clarity.

…we’re continuing our holding pattern while I enjoy some time with my whole famn damily. I’ll be back soon.

Cheers!

Last day at the old job: done.

Primary season: over.

Do I feel like Officer Slater right now?

Fuckin’ A.

The two points through which this line of thought passes:

I miss Harvey Korman. He was awesome. I loved him in Blazing Saddles, as many did and do, but I remember him from the Carol Burnett Show as well, and those memories are pleasant. Vaya con dios, Harvey.

Also, I ended up at work yesterday from about 5 a.m. to a little after 11 p.m., and was much too slammed to get the Friday Afternoon Interlude up.

I believe this intersects that line exactly between those points.

Coffee’s almost ready, and then off to the market on the… Coffee Donkey? Rumble Monkey? Flizzom Jasper? Roland Foogenshizzle? Huh?

That stings.

Of course, one of the reasons that Americans are so anxious to get away on a holiday weekend from the places where they live is because we did such a perfect job the past fifty years turning our home-places into utterly unrewarding, graceless nowheres, where the private realm of the beige houses is saturated in monotony, and the public realm has been reduced to the berm between the WalMart and the strip mall. Now, we barely have the gasoline to run all this stuff, let alone escape from it for a weekend.

Via TPM, care to take a guess at when this was written?

The average U.S. citizen completely ignores the regularity with which the automobile kills him, maims him, embroils him with the law and provides mobile shelter for rakes intent on seducing his daughters. He takes it into his garage as fondly as an Arab leading a prize mare into his tent. He woos it with Simoniz, Prestone, Ethyl and rich lubricants—and goes broke trading it in on something flashier an hour after he has made the last payment on the old one.

1947. Fast learners we ain’t.

But, enough of that, who wants some good news? Want some good news? Do ya? Do ya buddy?

How about the touching tale of a bike blogger who, with the help of an incredible posse of NYC Bike Samaritans, is reunited with his beloved fixie, green aerospoke intact? Excitement! Adventure! Romance! Here ya go!

(h/t BikeSnobNYC)

And lastly, I needed something yesterday to lift the spirits, so I watched this a few times. From StreetFilms, a glimpse at the 2008 Tour de Brooklyn, which coincided with the 125th Birthday of the Brooklyn Bridge. We may have to make the 2009 Tour a priority, that just looks fun.

Happy Humpday!

I had to come in early this morning to work on a server migration. Waking up at 4:15 a.m. sucked out loud, but hitting the streets at 4:45 under the low light of a cloud covered early morning was superb. It’s a perfectly refreshing 60 degrees or so, and there’s a medium wind out of the north that made it feel like I was sailing, on a broad reach, all the way down here.

And there’s barely a car on the road. Yummy.

As Howard Cosell might have opined, what a spec-TAC-yuh-luh weekend this was.

Saturday, Rebbie and I enjoyed a few early morning moments with coffee before she shot out the door to manage the Mt. Pleasant Farmer’s Market. On cue, the kids were up just a little bit later, and by 10 a.m. I had the Donkey (or whatever it is we’re calling it these days) loaded up with the kids, bottles, an extra tank of milk. Off we rode to join her, under crystal blue skies and marching clouds, at the market.

A Beautiful Day at the Farmer’s Market

The market was bustling and the kids found other children to run around with in short order. Rebbie had put out an appeal in the market newsletter for anyone that wanted to come and provide entertainment, and a couple of enterprising jugglers took up the challenge. They were excellent and had the kids attention all morning.

Jugglin’ Up A Storm at the Mt. Pleasant Farmers’ Market

(Before you start pointing and yelling and asserting that I photoshopped the defocused background in the image, it’s not true. I use The Gimp. The bird is real, though it is not freakishly large, nor is it threatening the juggler on the right.

We rode home after the market to relax a bit before preparing for the Grand Opening of the PG Pool. Shortly after moving to D.C., several folks we met independently suggested we join this pool that we knew nothing about. Pressed as to why, they’d rarely elaborate more than saying, “You just have to join. Just do it. You’ll see.” Of course, they were right.

It’s a community co-op pool, large and inviting, surrounded by a couple acres of grassy meadow and large shade trees. It also has a pretty big toddler pool, lots of play equipment, a couple sandboxes, a volleyball court, and propane barbeque grills.

Best of all, the whole thing is wrapped in a fence high enough to keep the kids inside. But it’s mostly symbolic, since the place if full of other parents and older kids, and they all keep their eyes open for toddlers who think they can make a break for it. Not that many want to, they love being there.

Last summer, I had a recurring pleasant experience of taking a long pull off a beer, realizing I didn’t have a precise bead on either of my kids, and knowing that it was okay. Occasionally I’d look around and notice other parents having the same realization. It’s a real good feeling, I suspect from my mother’s descriptions of growing up in West Peoria that it’s what entire neighborhoods were like in the 50’s.

We lived there last summer, leaving only to attend to unimportant things like work or laundry. The day after Labor Day, when we realized that there’d be no more pool until May, was marked by howling laments, gnashing of teeth and rending of garments. So on Saturday, after the kids had woken from their naps, we loaded up and rode over to the pool for the first time this year. Glory, glory, hallelujah it was good to be back.

Sunday we actually got in the car, which is becoming a rare and strange occurence. We drove up to Baltimore to visit the big Farmers’ Market, and to watch the Indy 500 with my Dad. Pop doesn’t get into most sports, but he loves open-wheel racing, so Indy is his SuperWorldSeriesBowlCupChampionship. My little brother graciously brought his little television out to the deck, where we cooked brats, watched the race, and made the occasional ritual adjustments to the antennae to make the fuzz look different. We also had salad made with lettuce from Gramma Tawny’s garden. Outstanding.

On the way back to D.C., we stopped by Jo-Ann Fabrics in Columbia for foam and batting. We don’t make it up to that neck of the woods often, and it’s a little like docking in the Fabric Quadrant of the Death Star of Consumption. Columbia Circle’s real big, yeah that sucker’s huge.

Foam? Yes, foam! Check out the new pads on the Somethin’R'Nother!

White pads? Wait… are those… is that… it is! It’s Sparkle Vinyl! The seat pads still have to be done, but man those make me happy.

From the very beginning, when the Family Bike of Indeterminate Moniker was just a gleam in my eye, that gleam was sparkle vinyl. I was pretty sure that it was going to be Candy Apple Red. But as the bike came together, the black-and-white look started to assert itself, and it became pretty clear that Pearl Sparkle Vinyl was the way to go.

I can now add “shitty upholsterer”, as well as “inexperienced woodworker” and “inept finish painter”, to the list of skills I’ve acquired building this bike. Man, I can’t wait to add “dangerously unqualified welder” to my skill set.

So on Monday, we had perfect weather. We had the joy in seeing familiar faces, as well as the mostly-familiar faces of children grown 3 seasons older. We had a sweet sparkly ride. What could be better?

2 racks of spare ribs (pre-baked slow and low), asparagus to grill, a big salad, and a pie that I wish I’d taken a picture of before we ate the livin’ hell out of it, that’s what. Three-quarters cherry and one-quarter blueberry, with pastry stripes over the cherries and stars over the blueberry. It was the most delicious flag pie I’ve ever eaten.

How was your weekend?

As we head into Memorial Day Weekend, I wanna give three big cheers for the new GI Bill Amendment passing the Senate by a veto-proof majority. While this can’t possibly repay the debt owed these men and women for their service, it’s a start. For my part, it’s something I won’t mind paying taxes to support, not even a little bit.

On to this Friday’s Interlude, which covers two themes:

• To my fellow Washingtonians who had to drive on this most gloriously beautiful day, I grieve on your behalf. Today really is a prize, and soon enough we’ll be back in the sauna, so I want you to know that I feel your sorrow, and share in your remorse. Nevertheless, I’d like you to get your goddam cars out of the goddam way. (Wouldn’t kill you to use your turn signals from time to time either.)
• Chocolate.

So, on them notes:

Move aside, and let the man go through! Let the man go through!

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend.

Bike To Work Day was, for many of us in cities around the world, an opportunity to ride in solidarity with our fellow commuters, raise bicycle awareness at a time when it’s needed more than ever, and have a good ol’ time doing it.

But in our enthusiasm to celebrate all that is The Ride To Work, and the delight of cycling generally, we’ve left behind some of our brothers and sisters who’ve experienced a particular tragedy that I hope never to know myself.

I’m talking about victims of Low Clearance Height. It’s something most of us never think about, and hopefully won’t ever have to. But for those who’ve driven their roof-mounted bikes into low overhangs, whether they be at a McDonald’s dozens of miles from home, or the garage door of their very own house, the nightmare never ends. Or it does, but it takes a while. Or it really fucks up their weekend.

Thankfully, a dedicated group of San Franciscans is making sure that those crushed and mangled bikes, those horribly scratched cars, those somewhat messed up garages, and those seriously inconvenienced Wienerschnitzel managers are not forgotten.

It’s too late to participate this year. But next year on Drive Your Bike To Work Day, when you see them driving up your street, roofs overflowing with racked bikes, won’t you take a moment to remember?

(h/t Anonymous commenter at Planetary Gears)