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Monday, April 23, 2001
Clean windows, one of life's small pleasures on a clear spring day. Will be out of touch for a while so probably won't be able to post much here until early next week. (0) comments Saturday, April 21, 2001
George Hincapie came so close to winning Paris-Roubaix; if only his team could keep up with him. There's a short interview in CyclingNews. It would have been an historic win to add to his victory at Gent-Wevelgem. Maybe electric bikes are the next big thing. (0) comments Friday, April 20, 2001
Putting in lots of bike miles doing errands, and with the Nite rider headlight, enjoying the night rides down the Trail. It would be nice to live in a community where that wasn't considered odd behavior.  Painted a watercolor postcard of a scene from one of the great Calgary, Alberta bike trails, for a friend. He might even receive it before he leaves for a week cycling in Utah, through Monument Valley, the setting for a popular banner graphic (including the USGS). (0) comments Thursday, April 19, 2001
Brooding over the fact that all trail and sidewalk funding in Fairfax County is being cut for next year, because the schools have no money because the State has no money because we have a governor who was elected by saying he would cut our car tax 70%. (0) comments Wednesday, April 18, 2001
According to The New York Times, suburbs are gowing in different ways in the West and South. They are getting denser in the West and more spread out in the South, mostly due to geography. There are more physical limits in the more mountainous and dry West than in the agrarian South, which sounds like it's soon going to be one big burb before long. I can see the writing on the wall, I'm going to have to break down and get a DVD player in the near future. The Times has a good article on how DVDs are marketed. At least CD's are still around. I can remember going into the local record store/head shop in the mid 80's and being startled by the fact that all the albums were gone. (0) comments Sunday, April 15, 2001
There are a couple of things that would be hard to live without: peanuts, riding a bike, and the Sunday Washington Post Book World. This week's Book World is one of the better reads, with a review of Ultimate Journey about a 7th century Buddhist monk's journey from China to India and back in search of his roots, the poetry of Molly Peacock and others. (0) comments Saturday, April 14, 2001
Long, hard ride on the W&OD trail after an earlier attempt to sell one of our many bikes at a local bike swap. It was too much bike for the bargain hunters. Feel like sending Ralph Nader a letter thanking him for higher arsenic levels in water, reduced environmental program spending, reduced funding for birth control, etc. Unfortunately I can't find an email address that would have a chance of reaching him. Seems like I heard that he isn't connected with U.S. PIRG, but for some reason I want to take out my anger on them. Granted he had every right to run for President, but when it was obvious that Bush had a good chance of winning, and Nader appeared not to gain anything by staying in the race, he should have dropped out. Saying that there was no difference between Gore and Bush doesn't ring very true these days. (0) comments Thursday, April 12, 2001
Gotta cut back on the caffeine, after getting flipped the bird today by two people, the jerk in an SUV who cut me off when I tried walking across the street; guess he didn't like me smacking his rear panel, and the hotshot biker who wouldn't let me pass a pedestrian. He didn't like being called an asshole. Just got into one of those pissed off moods. Trying to learn more about the use of XML, and found this excellent FAQ. Decided to finally upgrade to IE 5.5. Now if I can only figure out a better (and free) way to manage email than NS 4.7. Suggestions are welcome. (0) comments Wednesday, April 11, 2001
Working on a redesign of a large government site based on templates created by the site designer. It's going to be a disaster, as there is a short time frame and about 100 people responsible for the various department sites, some with almost no web experience. Many of them are taking a 4 hour Dreamweaver course after which they will all be experts. The private consultants are drooling over the opportunities for overtime. It'll be a piece of cake for anyone who knows html and style sheets, but I can hear the screams from the rest of the minions trying to force their existing content into the templates. The cute graphic effects will also have to be replicated using hundreds of different photos, which will take a while. This would be routine for most dot.com startups but we're talking 7-3:30 government clerks. (0) comments Tuesday, April 10, 2001
Got fried yesterday riding downtown in 89 degree heat, nearly a record.The mobs were there but it was worth it to be surrounded by pink cherry blossoms. We barely made it back. It will take a while to get acclimated again to the hot weather (and ozone and CO2). (0) comments Sunday, April 08, 2001
Had a good 40 mile ride on the trail today, trying not to work too hard but couldn't help challenging the few who insisted on passing us, re-passing two of them, not to be seen again. The others were OK since we didn't have a chance to catch them. Still can't figure out the need to keep from being passed. Guess it's some basic human instinct. Riding down to see the cherry blossoms tomorrow. They should be in full bloom. Finished Lance's book, a quick read and written pretty well with his co-author. Can't wait to catch some live Tour de France action this year. (0) comments Thursday, April 05, 2001
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Anyone who will be in Austin this weekend should check out Lance Armstrong's Ride for the Roses, a ride to benefit the Lance Armstrong Foundation, which helps people manage and survive cancer. It's good to see that blogger.com is responding much faster after a recent upgrade. Put in a few miles on the mountain bike today. I've stopped keeping track of miles now that most of my bike computers don't work and I don't feel like fixing or replacing them. I'll make sure my BLT has one that works for summer tours, but for most riding I don't really care about the miles. It's sort of liberating in a way. (0) comments Wednesday, April 04, 2001
Back from 3 days in Charlottesville attending the 3rd annual Virginia bike/walk conference, held at a hotel miles from downtown. It was a challenge to figure out how to get there by bike from the Amtrak station. If ever there was an event when the participants whould "walk the walk", this was it. I decided to take my foldable Bike Friday with me on the train and ride to the event. While the trips down and back took much longer than by car, they were more of an adventure, and I got a good workout pulling the 45 pound suitcase trailer. It was worth it to see the look on face of the hotshot rider who passed me only to have me on his tail for the next couple of miles. (0) comments |