Category — general

So last Tuesday I was riding home after work in my typical neon-yellow blinky getup when a funny thing happened.

As I was pulling up to stop at Divisadero I noticed an extremely stylish woman about to cross the street. She caught me looking and I smiled I tipped my hat helmet (as a proper Tejano would do).

I thought- hrm, she looks like that popular bike-blogger and coffee drinker Meligrosa. But I didn’t think it was her because she’s normally with her trusty blue bike, Frenchie, and she wasn’t tonight.

But it was her!

So, I tried to say “hey there, I like your blog, keep up the good work.”

But what I *think* came out of my mouth was “hurrrrrr durrrrrrr I liek ur blogggggg”.

“Smooth move, ex-lax” – I told myself.

Either way, she smiled back and kept on going to do whatever it is the stylish youngins in SF do and I rode through the Panhandle and the park and the rest of the way home to eat the rest of my leftover empanadas and play with my new thumb war lucha libre gift!

But apparently– I didn’t make as bad an impression as I feared.

my new luchadores!

Although I rode most of this week, I had taken about two weeks off from bike commuting due to weather. Well, half weather and half after work plans like hanging out with friends at Burger Bar, Rickhouse and wine bars in the ferry building and The Embarcadero.

So not being on the bike means I’m taking my lovely Muni Express to and from work. On the bus recently I *plowed through* some books. I had picked up a bunch of books at Green Apple over the holidays and the rainy bus rides allowed me to really catch up. It was quite nice actually.

But at the back of my head I started to feel guilty health-wise. I was starting to feel lethargic. I was anxious for a break in the SF rain. But at the same time I felt that I was enjoying my books and that was more important. Well, maybe not important, but maybe a feeling that reading books was a more valuable use of my time.

I was back on the bike this week and trying to read at home at night. I felt healthier… but I wasn’t keeping up with the reading. A classic tradeoff.

What do you guys do? I know Angie can’t read on her bus- she’s too popular. But she reads at home- Jodi does as well, I follow her (and Tessa) on goodreads.com and I know they read a ton of stuff.

Those Who Save Us by Jenna Blum

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
This was recommended by a friend and I dove in w/o knowing much about it.
I thought it was a good story, but just okay. It’s a heavy and depressing subject, but the author did do a good job in keeping me interested.
I found some of the editing a bit distracting- and normally I don’t notice or care about that.
I also wore a bit weary of the device of jumping back and forth from the two timelines- although I wouldn’t know how to present both Anna’s and Trudy’s stories any other way. I must get annoyed easily by that timeline literary device because it really distracted me in Water for Elephants a lot too.

Despite my two stars, I’d recommend it.

View all my reviews >>

Edit- maybe I need a 3 day rule for books too. I was thinking more about this book today (and then wound up talking to the person who recommended it to me to begin with)… and I think while my criticisms remain, I should bump up the rating a bit more for the way the author handled the Anna character- especially at the end of the book…. I’ll chew on this more.

btw- if any of you are on Goodreads.com, add me as a friend

I’m not going to write one… or am I?

Seems like a lot of people are anxious for 2009 to be over. I guess I didn’t think it was that bad. Sure, I’m ready for a new year, but I’ll be officially OLD in 2010 and I’m not looking forward to that.*

But looking back on ‘09, things weren’t that bad for me. They weren’t perfect, but there was some good stuff. (I’m not going to bitch about work in this post… that’s another ball game, and I’m pretty decent at separating my personal/work life)

We got a new president…

I met a cool girl (things didn’t work out, but we know what Tennyson said)

I started the year out jogging a lot, then in the spring switched to bike commuting and that’s helped my health (and mental health a lot)

The biking helped me look forward to more Wednesday Waffles…

I had a lot of good great wine with a lot of good great friends

Friends got married!

And I got to see a lot of you all, including a lot of you Texans who I miss a lot…both visiting you there and those of you who visited here!

I don’t think I’d change any of it.

I hope all of you had a great ‘09, and here’s to a even better 2010!

*I’m sure there were some negative things… I raise a glass to those who aren’t with us any more, and those of you who have had some bad times, or bad health. Here’s to you….

Pencil in Saturday, Jan 30th for me. I’m going to have a party. I’m still trying to figure out the location.  I’ll send out an evite thing soon.

btw, I have a list of bars to call about their availability & rental prices, but if any of you have ideas/requests send me an email and I’ll add them to my list.

Looker trailer and opening clip. That opening clip was hot hot hot for a 11 year old (still is). I was talking about Looker last week and it showed up in a movie blog post on Wired this week too. Now I can talk about Looker and Runaway and maybe people will know what I’m referring to.

READER QUESTION: Do any of you use Remember the Milk or Google Tasks? Do you like one more than the other? (My RTM pro account is expiring and I’m not sure I’m going to renew)

Transjordania – Wikipedia link. If I was talking to you about this it’s because I was telling a story about trivia. Painful story

Don’t forget to add The Flood to your RSS readers: http://theflood.kenneths.org/

Freak Angels – a weekly serial comic from Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield. I really like it, but I get frustrated that I can’t just grab the pages through the screen and skip ahead a few weeks. I guess that’s why it’s a good serial though right? Keeps me interested.

READER QUESTION: Are any of you flickr users planning on migrating over to Picasa given the sale that Google’s having on storage space? (Other than Patrick who is an enthusiastic “yes”)

Rant: The Prisoner on AMC. I recorded this on my DVR and gave up in the 2nd episode and deleted the whole series.

Rave: Google Voice’s transcription and online voicemail. When Kuz calls and leaves a message it reads: “Hi, I’m on a cruise.” I love that. I’m on a boat mofuggas! Oh, and I got another message from Christine (oh she of the beautiful cupcakes) and she said “Hi darlin’” at the start of the message– I’m not saying I looped it and listend to her call me darlin for a full 5 minutes, but one *could* … just sayin’

Rave: American Cyclery (map) – They rebuilt my back wheel… and it’s awesome. Great service. I just try not to look at the custom bikes when I go in… too tempting.

Link: I know this blog will offend some people, but they have great links. Like this video of the Christian Side Hug. There’s another post about Christian mimes performing to Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb. Mimes, people, mimes!

Hitting snooze a few too many times isn’t a good way to start the morning, but I saw someone have a much worse start to their day which put mine in perspective.

I saw a nasty bike wreck this morning after I stopped for a red light. A girl riding behind me rolled up and asked, “What happened?”

“That biker ran the light and turned in right in front of the woman’s car that had right of way and was going straight. Her car hit the guy sending him over the bars and messing up his bike.”

She said, “Wow, I don’t get why some drivers are so aggressive.”

I said, “No, he turned in front of her. She had the right of way”

She added- “I see what you’re saying, but still…”

:o

The rider was ok. He’ll probably be sore later though. I offered to call an ambulance for him, but he didn’t want one. He just had a bit of a bloody elbow. He’s lucky he wasn’t more banged up- no helmet, listening to ipod…

His back wheel is a pringle though. I’m not sure if there was any other damage to the bike.

The car’s front right headlight was toast- totally cracked and the signal and signal mounting was knocked out and was only hanging on by the wires.

I wish SF didn’t have those stupid countdown yellow light/crosswalk timers.

After seeing that I took it easy riding in and just shook my head whenever a hipster on a fixie w/ no brakes blew through busy stop signs on The Wiggle or on Market.

FJ on a dutch commuter

At least on Market I said good morning to the cute girl on the dutch commuter and she gave me a nice smile and said she loved my yellow blinky light, she could see me coming from a mile away. Then she flashed that great smile again, and we went our separate ways.

note:  no, I did not meet Famke Janssen.

And then I stopped for a waffle and had a nice ride in to the office.

Angie and Mike had (have?) a map in their back room that looks like this one. It’s the names of the various neighborhoods blown up in the shape of SF, like a tag cloud.

I don’t know why, but it was on my mind this morning. Even though SF is already pretty small, I think most people just stay & play in a very small part of the city.

I always think I’m out and about a lot but there are spots on that map where I never go… and it’s not like I’m intentionally avoiding them (except for you Hunter’s Point).

While talking about bike commuting in SF with friends recently,  I was trying to explain a crosswalk gaffee to friends recently. It’s a phenomenon that happens quite a bit, usually on Market St. -especially at the busier crosswalks w/ longer lights. BikeSnobNY calls it “shoaling” and has some funny diagrams of it here. (although this older post has some pics of it too).

I need to figure out how to carry a camera around so I can start taking commute pics (safely). I’m sure y’all are bored to death of the waffle pics.

I occasionally read some bike blogs or the bike forums for bike commute inspiration. Sometimes I really need inspiration like this morning, when I was feeling very tired and just wanted to sleep in and take the bus (I wound up riding, and felt better once I was rolling). I usually read them because the posters are people with much longer and more difficult commutes than mine.

On the forums, there are references or nicknames for complaining about specific annoyances. For example in threads about most annoying things on the commute- they usually complain about cars, specifically, pickup truck drivers (from Southern posters), male bmw drivers (urban posters) and female SUV drivers (everyone).

But in one of the threads there were references to Salmon. I didn’t know what they were talking about at first- I thought “hrm, a lot of riders from Seattle and Portland are on the boards, must be a PacNW thing?”

I realized they were referring to people who ride against traffic (in the street or bike lanes).

I thought- “surely no one is that foolish, especially during rush hour or in big cities.”

But sure enough, I started seeing them. And so far, only a have been  lost or confused tourists on those rental bikes coming off the bridge and taking the wrong trail. But this past week I’ve seen quite a few downtown on Market and some on Fell going the wrong way.

If you’re interested in Salmon spotting in SF, I’d suggest the afternoons. Look for them traveling East with the wind trying to swim upstream against the other commuters heading West out of downtown.  Anywhere between 5th St – the Civic Center on Market would be a good place to start.