My face feels awful, and the Feed

To be honest I really did not want to do this post today, because I have an abscess in my jaw and my face feels like I did after the wreck. The best thing I have for pain is ibuprofen and ice packs, which only help a little bit. Ora Jel deadens the surface of the infection but doesn’t do anything for the pain caused by the swelling. Also I get watering of my eyes for no apparent reasons except pain. So if the advice about the wrecks in today’s post seems more acerbic than usual, now you know why.

Up first in an update on a CA hit-and-run. Family, Friends Remember Cyclist Killed in Hit-and-Run Again, there was nothing a human cyclist could have done to avoid this wreck, and infrastructure would not have helped the driver not ignore the already-existing infrastructure. When they find the guy I hope they allow him to witness the recycling of the weapon vehicle “up close, and personal”.

Also from CA an update on another wreck… Thousands Of Cyclists Ride To Support Severely Injured Hit-And-Run Victim This was the guy hit by a left turning vehicle that was jumping line in a traffic jam. More Bicyclists Ride in Honor of Hit-and-Run Victims

A MN drunk kills another cyclist. Minneapolis cyclist killed in hit-and-run, driver arrested for DWI Apparent hit-from-behind wreck, use the protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent. Google Maps shows a mixed residential and light commercial area which would be served by bike lanes under the Dutch model. So maybe the real prevention would be slower speed limits and fewer drunks on the roads.

Finally appropriate charges in NY for a cyclist killer. Upstate NY man facing murder and other charges for death of cyclist during police chase The cyclist’s body was stuck on the truck during the chase at speeds up to 90 MPH. In my book just the DUI makes this wreck deserving of murder charges. Another driver that should be forced to “watch” his vehicle get recycled chained to the steering wheel.

Enn Zed sees another cyclist fatality. Cyclist killed in crash At the time of the posting there was nothing more known about the wreck except its severity, described as “gut-wrenching”. I’m going to assume that means “really bad”. The wreck was identified as “near” an intersection so perhaps intersection protocols would have made a difference, in a very rural area so infrastructure to keep high-speed traffic away from fragile human beings would have been useful as well.

Volvo introduces a gradual phasing out of human drivers with a car that refuses to run over cyclists… Volvo debuts world’s first cyclist detection system with full auto-brake

Last link is to an awesome Instructible that I thought at first was an early April Fool’s prank. Build a life-sized active volcano Secret lair not ready yet? Well build the volcano first!

And those are all the links I could remain upright enough to copy and paste.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Sharing of the Green on a Wreck-Free Sunday

Today is the day we celebrate the cultural genocide of Ireland at the hands of the early Christian church as Patrick “Chased the Snakes” out of Ireland. There have never been snakes in Ireland since the last ice age, the “snakes” that are talked about in the legend are the dragon tattoos on the arms of the Druid priests. What Patrick did was convert as many people by persuasion as possible and killed the priests so that there would be no competition after the current generation died out. That we know this is because while most of the priests were killed enough survived to pass the stories about the events down and to keep the religion alive. But now we remember this by eating corned beef and drinking green beer. In Ireland they celebrate in a more somber manner as befits the memorial of a holocaust.

The day race of the Cup series from Bristol is on the tube, with Jeff Gordon blowing the right front tire and taking out Matt Kenseth when they were running 1 and 2. I have been having a minor allergy attack and I’m feeling a bit out of it, so I’m having a little lie down after taking a allergy pill. My ability to concentrate is pretty much out the window at this time so I’m cutting this off early. I keep having to go back and fix random capital letters an other typos.

PSA, Opus

Another Bean Day, and another Feed

Yep, making beans and rice in the slow cooker again, with the levels of spice that somehow manage to be too hot for Mrs. the Poet and nearly undetectable by everyone else I like this little exercise every week, where I take a few cents’ worth of ingredients and make a nutritious meal out of them, even if it is pretty much the same thing every week. As I have stated before the only way I ever get this particular meal is to make it myself, which I really don’t understand. It’s not like this is a difficult dish to make, it’s 2 cups of mixed beans and 10 cups of water in the slow cooker for about 4 hours and then add 1 cup of brown rice and the spices for another 2 hours so that the rice is completely cooked and everything is uniformly spiced. The only major commitment is the time to put the ingredients in the pot and add the rice at the right time. For Mrs. the Poet this dish could only be cooked by her on the weekend, for me since I work at home it isn’t a problem to start cooking at 1100 to serve at 1800, and on Mondays Mrs. the Poet has a commitment to clean the church after work, which makes Mondays my day to cook and I make the dish that no one else likes to cook that I love to eat. There is something Zen in that, but I’m not sure what or where it is.

Up first practically in my back yard a woman is killed by (with) a truck. Woman Cyclist Killed in Collision With Truck I’m still trying to figure this one out as the cyclist was riding on the shoulder and was hit from behind after moving a little to the left presumably still on the shoulder or the very right edge of the travel lane. Hit-from-behind protocol to avoid, get the infrastructure right to prevent. Although since this happened in the largest city in the US (maybe even the world) to not have public transit of any kind I’m thinking any transportation infrastructure that dies not involve consuming large amounts of fossil fuels is doomed. More Woman struck and killed while riding bicycle in West Arlington

A CA cyclist is hit-and-run and somehow avoids making the MSM news. Downtown Hit & Run Driver Busted The driver was in illegal possession of a deadly weapon as he had no license but I don’t think the DA will think of charging him like that. Given the number of times the driver changed direction immediately before the wreck with the cyclist (in the bike lane) there was no way for a human cyclist to avoid the wreck, and other than something that would prevent people without licenses from retaining control over a motor vehicle after a license is revoked, or preventing them from buying a motor vehicle prior to getting a license, I don’t see how infrastructure could have prevented this wreck either. What would have prevented this wreck would be laws that required people without licenses to relinquish their motor vehicles for the duration of the revocation, either by impounding them or by requiring a forced sale. Without the car there would have been no wrecks.

Another cyclist dies after getting hit by a train. Cyclist hit, killed by Light Rail in Sacramento No information about the wreck given, but how hard is it to not get hit by a train? Trains run only on railroad tracks, are usually noisy (horns and bells), and in this case are brightly colored. Just stay off the tracks when trains are coming and you won’t get killed.

A MN cyclist is hit by an extremely drunk driver. Rochester man arrested for DUI after allegedly hitting woman on bike At the level of BAC% “preliminary breath test indicated an alcohol content of .173” the fact that the driver was able to get into the car and operate the ignition indicates the driver is alcoholic and has driven while impaired many, many times. Hit-from-behind protocols might have enabled the cyclist to avoid serious injury, but as in the previous paragraph the only way to prevent a wreck like this is to deny habitual drunks and others with revoked licenses access to motor vehicles.

Good news from CO as a killer driver is found guilty, even though they weren’t allowed to bring up the 3 other cyclists this one driver has assaulted with a motor vehicle in the last 5 years. Boulder County jury: Christopher Loven guilty of careless driving resulting in death Now if they can just ban him from owning a motor vehicle ever again… More Dump-truck driver convicted of hitting, killing Boulder bicyclist

Also in CO a salmon cyclist is hit-and-run. Bicyclist killed, driver arrested in Thornton I have several problems with this report, first and foremost being how they knew the cyclist was riding salmon. But if the report is accurate, the way to avoid this wreck would be to ride on the right side of the road and not run red lights, to prevent get the infrastructure right.

An AZ cyclist is hit-and-run twice in quick succession. Bicyclist killed after 2 car hit-and-run The picture show an impact point that is consistent with a cyclist hit from behind while riding in the right wheel track. I don’t know why LEO had him as “crossing” the road mid-block when there is nothing pointing that way. If I could see the wrecked bike I could say for sure which way he was going when he was hit the first time. Since I don’t know for sure what happened from the report, I can’t say for sure how to avoid the first wreck. Obviously there was no way for the cyclist to avoid the second wreck.

A cyclist is injured in the Great White North. Cyclist critically injured in west-end car crash and Cyclist critically injured in Bloor Street crash Assuming the report in the second link is accurate, the cyclist failed to yield to oncoming traffic when turning. Since I have seen this in all kinds of vehicles I feel safe in saying that intersection protocols would have helped avoid this wreck, and getting the infrastructure right, including the bike lanes that used to be on Bloor, would have prevented the wreck. I blame Rob Ford for this wreck…

Another cyclist hit on Bloor St. Cyclist injured in downtown hit-and-run Be on the lookout for a vehicle with front end damage and a peeling Rob Ford for Mayor bumper sticker (J/K).

A drunk driver in Brazil drives off with the cyclist’s severed arm in his car. Brazil outrage over Sao Paulo cyclist’s lost arm The cyclist looks to survive but all hope of reattaching the arm is lost even if they manage to find the arm. This is another driver that needs to watch his car recycled from the behind the steering wheel…

A taxi driver in the UK driving in the bus/bike lane and running a red light hit-and-runs after hitting a cyclist in a crosswalk, AKA winning the trifecta. Driver ‘killed 17-year-old cyclist on pedestrian crossing after running red light’ Ugh! there is so much wrong with this I can’t even begin. No way for a human cyclist to avoid and the driver was driving on the bike infrastructure trying to get someplace faster than the actual roads would allow.

From the Florida of the Antipodes, Enn Zed, another hit-and-run. Hit-and-run leaves cyclist injured The cyclist got a broken leg but survived because he had a plastic hat on? Please, spare me. BTW infrastructure to prevent a similar wreck.

When it comes to road safety bicycles count for nothing in Wyoming, literally. WDOT doesn’t count bicycle fatalities That’s right, unless you get killed by getting run over be a car or truck your death means literally nothing in WY if you’re riding a bicycle when you die.

Another viewpoint of how to get more women to ride. How To Get More Women Into Cycling It isn’t “put more pink on it”, is it? Nope, “more pink” does not enter into it at all, not every woman even likes pink.

I’m not sure if I should classify this as infrastructure or what. GUEST OPINION: Why I’m no longer a cyclist “Y’all are crazy behind the wheel and I don’t want to die” is as good a reason to quit as any, but it’s sort of like letting the terrorists win.

Last link, I wish I could have been this magnanimous after my hit-and-run. Man turns to YouTube after hit-and-run I suspect that I would have hugged the driver that hit me around his neck until he passed on, had he not passed on as a result of his bad judgement first.

And those are all the links that gave me fits Monday (because it’s Tuesday now).

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Waiting to lose the hair, Wreck-Free Sunday

Yep, I’m waiting on the shear the sheep ceremony still, we were supposed to do it this morning but none of the people that showed up were willing to participate in shaving my head (actually clippers with no guard that leaves about 1/32″ of hair behind) I’m losing everything except the eyebrow; hair, beard and moustache will be gone at the end of this ceremony The hair will be set out in a way that enables the local birds to use it as nesting material, the idea being my sacrifice of a warm head will result in warm baby birds.

I’m watching the Cup race in Vegas while I’m trying to figure out what to write in the post today.

The tattoo contest is progressing nicely with several submissions at the moment, remember they all have to be in my the end of May, see last week’s Sunday post for rules and the image of what you will be working with. Shout out to Giselle Lagase for posting the contest in the news section of Ma3 . That link has been sending most of the site views to this blog about the contest, and that single post had more views in the last week than I normally get in an entire month. And what really makes me feel good, most of you have been hanging around and reading the other posts, too. I hope I can help a lot more people because of this contest, even thought that was not the idea behind it. The idea was I wanted a tattoo but had no idea what I wanted on the tattoo, and that idea is also working out great.

I have been looking for a better way to document the danger and destructiveness of motor vehicles. I’m trying to find a tally of gun deaths to compare to motor vehicle deaths as published by the NHTSA in the FARS reporting system. The links I have found so far for gun deaths do not even come close to the tally published by the NHTSA. What I have been able to find has not been favorable for motor vehicles, with the most complete tallies I can find putting gun deaths at several thousand less than motor vehicle deaths per year, year after year. Something I had not expected to see was gun deaths roughly paralleling motor vehicle deaths per year. I hope to pursue this further with good links to hard numbers to make my point.

OK the race is over and Matt Kenseth won in the Dollar General Toyota run by JGR, Great race with drivers riding the ragged edge of “loose” and “too loose” all race long as they had major condition changes between practice and the race. I tell you it was a great race to watch, with the last 20 laps being a real nail biter.

PSA, Opus

Still getting a massive number of clicks, and the Feed

I’m not going to fib, I expected a few more clicks than normal when I started the contest, maybe a new record for site views, but I did not expect anything like what I got. Monday and so far today are equal to my record day before this week. Tuesday was almost FOUR TIMES THE PREVIOUS RECORD. I am happy that WordPress has huge bandwidth servers, because if this had been on a dinky low-bandwidth server like this blog was originally started on I would have gone through my monthly data allotment by the end of the day yesterday. Of course part of that is the image that is taking up way more bandwidth than my usual wall of text, but that does not even compare to the number of site views I got yesterday, I mean yesterday would have been a very nice WEEK from before.

And I have already gotten my first entry in the contest, from the founder of Cool Cat Studios herself, Giselle Lagace who submitted a very nice redhead on a unicycle done in the style of Archie comics (a company she now works for). I can’t show it for obvious reasons, but take my word for it, it’s cute and uses the shape of the scar as a frame so plus points for that. You still have lots of time to come up with your own design as the contest won’t close until June.

Well, I just opened the Feed folder to nothing but dead links, and UK links which might as well be dead for all the information they contain about the wrecks. Waiting for the afternoon Feed has resulted in one live link.

A Clovis CA rider is killed by a driverless car run amuck. Cyclist killed Tuesday morning in Clovis Have I mentioned how much I hate articles like this:”The cyclist was struck by a car around 5:30 a.m.” that make it seem like cars are a force of nature that can’t be prevented from killing people? It gets worse “…in the area that has become very popular with bike riders but can also be very dangerous.” It’s dangerous because people are letting their cars drive around unsupervised? Or because area drivers have no comprehension that cyclists are human beings that feel pain and are not there just to screw up their morning commute?

In India bicycle infrastructure takes a back seat to motor vehicles as it seems to have done in just about every Anglophone country leaving cyclists to fend as best they can. 2 cyclist killed on e-way in hit-and-run cases In spite of the fact that the majority of the people in the country walk, use transit, or ride a bike for all their transportation, motor vehicles are the only mode of “traffic” that gets taken into account when building transportation infrastructure. No Idea how to avoid these wrecks with the built infrastructure, but getting the infrastructure right would probably prevent wrecks like these as they would keep high-speed motor vehicles away from soft and fragile human beings.

And those are all the links that stayed live long enough to put them in the post. And if the tone of today’s post was a little volatile I have been reading a bunch of reports about pedestrian hit-and-runs, as well as people killed by cars driving on the sidewalks. It’s enough to make a guy want to get a rifle or bazooka and take out some cars before they take out tons of people. What keeps me from doing that is the knowledge that there are actual people inside those cars, most of whom don’t deserve to die. I’m sure some do, but I have no way of knowing which ones are which, so I don’t.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

No beans for bean day, and the Feed

Yep, another Bean Day with no beans to cook, and I don’t know what to do. Fortunately I have lots of the brown rice and Spam dish I made for the potluck so it’s not like we are going to starve because I couldn’t buy beans the last trip to the grocery store. And the word on the rice dish is that it was tasty but “sneaky” in that the heat didn’t hit you until you were getting ready to put another bite in your mouth. Since I never felt any heat from it I’ll take them at their word, but Mrs. the Poet said it was “too hot” with her first bite, not even allowing for the “sneaky heat”. So the reviews have come back as tasty but too hot, tasty but not very hot, “needs more heat, and a little salt”, and “not hot”.

Apparently a non-drunk person hitting a cyclist from the back with a motor vehicle is just hunky-dory in IN. Law restricts making case in fatal bike crash According to this article there is no law against a sober person hitting a cyclist with their car and killing the cyclist. So as long as you can say “Oopsie” with a straight face and have no published statements that you want to go out and run over a cyclist, go ahead and run over a cyclist.

Road rage in Enn Zed results in assault charges. Ironman training road rage: Cyclist attack OK to avoid don’t throw the finger when drivers almost kill you, to prevent get psychopaths like that driver off the roads except walking or maybe riding a bicycle.

Still in Enn Zed, a cyclist is in a wreck similar to mine, but has a whole lot less in the way of broken bones and scars to show for it. Cyclist: I should be dead Hit-from-behind protocols to avoid, and get the freaking infrastructure right to prevent.

And I think we found a “volunteer” to pay for that infrastructure in Enn Zed. Businessman declares ‘war’ on cyclists With a published statement like that, I think a “slight” tax placed on his stupidity would cover installing a nationwide bicycle system with a few bucks left over for maps…

What cyclists in Oz are doing to combat the menace of road rage. Road rage on record: cyclists get armed “Armed” in this case means hidden and visible video cameras, not Uzis or Mac-10s.

Infrastructure! from the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike for 9 years in a row (2012 data is still not tabulated). Complete Streets: Traffic program adds pedestrians, bicyclists to the equation As one person put it in the comments section, unless drivers and other road users are educated in how to use complete streets it won’t make a bit of difference especially in the entitled drivers that think every bit of pavement is theirs by right (including the sidewalks).

OOhh! All the pretty bikes! 2013 Handmade Bicycle Show I can’t say which one is my favorite because I would gladly take them all or any of them…

And more on e-assist bikes joining the mainstream. the e-bike revolution? I have been in conversations with many of the manufacturers in that article about things both intrinsic and extrinsic to e-assist bikes. As I have pointed out before I like e-assist as something that makes using bike as transportation more convenient.

And those are all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

Trying to stay calm on Wreck-Free Sunday

First of all, before I get into this post I need to let everyone know I got the post on turning a Halloween costume mask into winter gear fixed. I got the right URL for each picture and loaded that URL into the post where that picture went, and Voila!, pictures in the blog post. I still can’t get the alt text to work, but that’s not as important as the pictures were.

At the moment I’m watching the Daytona 500 on the idiot box. I can’t help it, I love NASCAR. Some of those guys are family to me, and I’m a geek for technology and finding an engineering solution to a competition problem. The new car is a very small box to work inside metaphorically, and the crews are NOT allowed to “think outside the box”. I’m still trying to find out some of the changes that were made for safety in the new car. I have heard that there are new roll bars added to the cage front and back, but all I have seen so far is the front bar that goes across the top of the windshield just in front of what used to be the halo hoop under the roof. So what I can find out about the car is that the extra bars are to give more bearing area to keep the roof from collapsing into soft dirt in a roll over. This allows the roof to be lower without much chance of the roof getting into the driver’s head in a wreck.

I had planned to do a huge diatribe about how dangerous cars are with the release of the preliminary numbers from the government of the people killed by motor vehicles, but that would be redundant for this blog. We already know that motor vehicles are more deadly than guns, by about 6K per year last year. All told more than 36K people died as a result of motor vehicle crashes, while just over 30K died from getting shot. But the attention is on guns because children were killed at school by a man with a gun. Make no mistake Sandy Hook was a tragedy, but guns are not even in the top 10 of things that kill children in this country. What’s the number one killer of children in the US? car wrecks. Until recently with the introduction of infant car seats that are miniature crash cocoons that make an armored car even more armored for infants, that statistic went all the way down to birth, now car wrecks are the number two killer under the age of five. Guns are not even close at any age up to 35.

Back to the race, Danica (yes, only one name just like a real celebrity) led some laps under green to be the first women to lead green flag laps at Daytona after being on pole to be the first woman to be on the pole at Daytona. Two of the three JGR Toyotas had engine failures just a few minutes ago, one a big blow-up (Kyle Busch) and the other just a bit of smoke. And after watching the race instead of blogging, the race is now over and Jimmie Johnson has won the Daytona 500. Danica finished 8th after the fustercluck behind Jimmie sorted out, and Mrs. the Poet’s favorite driver Mark Martin finished 3rd. The driver I was cheering for was taken out in an early race wreck, sorry Smoke (Tony Stewart). It was such a good race that even Mrs. the Poet was glued to the tube watching it with me. She usually hates racing (“cars going around in a circle”), but this one was such a nail-biter that even she had to watch. My friend Mikey managed to finish 22nd (I used to hang out in Darrel Waltrip’s speed shop in Franklin TN, and bought kart parts from Bobby and talked to Mikey from time to time).

OK I don’t like cars on the roads, but I love cars on the track. AFAIK nobody has killed a cyclist on track during a NASCAR race.

PSA, Opus

Stuck in a ridiculous situation, and the Feed

I don’t have any coffee today, just tea. This means I will be in a less happy mood than normal, because no coffee. Why we have no coffee is such a ridiculous thing as to cause hair-pulling. Allow me to explain: Mrs. the Poet took a job cleaning a house, for which she gets $75. The check bounced and the bank charged us $35 for the privilege of being paid with a bad check even though we had isolated the check in an account we can’t spend from until we go to the bank and transfer the money from that account to another. That $35 was most of the grocery budget. We also got a rather large check from the insurance that my Dad had that was held 90 days while they tried to prove Dad was not dead (and considering the fact he was buried in a veteran’s cemetery if he wasn’t dead then he most certainly is dead now). The bank is holding that check for 7 working days (9 calendar days) to make sure it isn’t fraudulent. So we have just under $10k in the bank and can’t buy groceries because the bank is holding all our money. I wonder if I should charge the bank $35 for the privilege of holding our money and not letting us have it?

A CA cyclist is hit from behind so hard his body was stuck in a tree. Simi Valley cyclist killed after being struck by car and Location: Tierra Rejada Rd / Sr23 N Tierra Rejada Rd Ofr, Moorpark – Feb 21 2013 1:27PM also Bicyclist Dies in Hit and Run Accident News from locals says that the cyclist was hit while riding in the bike lane. To avoid use the hit-from-behind protocols, to avoid you have to get all the infrastructure right, including driver’s licensing that makes sure only people that can actually keep a deadly weapon inside its own lane are allowed to drive deadly weapons for transportation.

From the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike closure approaches more than 3 years after a cyclist is killed by a DUI hit-and-run. Family Of Cyclist Killed On Rickenbacker Reacts To Suspect’s Guilty Plea The maximum sentence is 37 years, letters need to be sent to the judge now that anything less than 30 years is not acceptable for this case where the defendant kept out of jail and the court for as long as possible.

In what has to be a first in the US a man that killed a cyclist with a motor vehicle gets the maximum sentence possible under the law he was convicted of. Meegan gets 15-year sentence in death of cyclist I’m shocked, until I got to the part where the driver was HIV positive and taking shots at a bar. I suspect that the sentence was more to punish a gay man for having HIV than because he got drunk and killed a cyclist.

Another SC cyclist dies in a hit-and-run. Simpsonville Cyclist Killed In Hit And Run Hit-from-behind wreck, use the protocols to avoid and get the infrastructure right to prevent. More Simpsonville Cyclist Dies in Crash AAAAnd they blame the lack of a helmet for the wreck….

A cyclist in Oz is hit by an apparently driverless truck… Cyclist injured in collision with truck in East Fremantle Nothing much on the actual wreck including no identification on either the driver of the weapon vehicle or the victim, but they did quote a politician that the roads are crap. (!?!) If it wasn’t for that quote this link would have not gotten past the filter stage.

Another wreck in Oz. Cyclist killed at Corio The description of the wreck indicates there was something in the road that caused the cyclist to fall into the path of the weapon vehicle. The rider was part of a group ride to raise money for charity when he fell and was killed. Infrastructure-related so fixing the infrastructure is the prevention required.

A wreck report from Enn Zed that was in such a hurry to be posted that not all of the First Responders had responded yet. Cyclist seriously injured in crash near Whitianga At this point they have sent a medevac helicopter. The wreck has not yet begun to be investigated, nor have any of the participants been publicly identified.

E-bikes at Interbike to try to capture hearts and minds. Getting the E-Bike Word Out! The Interbike Electric Bike Media Event [VIDEOS] From what I could tell the videos were bikes going by and talking heads, my office computer still doesn’t have audio so I don’t know what they were talking about (probably e-assist bicycles). But the text was about people finding out that e-assist bikes are practical fun, and that riding one does not mean turning into a fat old person, just that fat old people are among the early adopters of this technology. I can say from personal experience that an assisted bike is just oodles of fun and really extends the human range as you can use the motor to get you going and up hills while you use a steady amount of power for riding the flats, only you use that same amount of human power all the time. Believe me, using a steady amount of human power makes doing that amount of power for longer distances doable, and using assist to get to speed and keep your speed up on hills makes getting there faster for the same amount of effort so you end up riding longer distances.

And those were all the links that gave me fits in the bicycle department today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus

I can’t dress properly for an entire ride this week, Wreck-Free Sunday

All of the rides I took this past week I was over or under dressed for part of the ride. The weather here in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell has been a pattern of temperature extremes lately. Last night it was mid-50s F on the way out to RPG group, and just over 40 on the way home. On the way to church it was right at 60 out, and almost 70 back. That wasn’t as bad as last night but I was still overdressed for the trip back. And there is a huge difference in the clothing for mid-50s and the clothing for 40 F. You can get hypothermia at either temperature but a whole lot faster at 40F, and what works for mid-50s will get you hypothermia at 40F. With temperature swings like we have here in Texas, dressing for the weather is a guessing game that I play to the warm side. I will be uncomfortable but not in danger, either way. On the days where I dress a little cool expecting warmer on the return trip I’m usually right, on the days I expect it to be a lot colder on the return trip I’m about 50/50 for the amount of drop, so some times I’m too warm in both directions, and some times I’m perfect on the way back, and once in a while it drops more than forecast and I’m too cool both ways because I didn’t pack enough additional layers.

Moving on to the RPG group, I’m still waiting to level up my warlock. We have been fighting with a demon that teleports in and out of the battle and has damage reduction except against magic, meaning the only people that have been able to inflict damage against this monster are the people with lots of muscle and big weapons (our barbarians) and me. The problem I have been having is the monster knows I can inflict damage unchecked against it and has been avoiding me and the barbarians while swatting the less powerful members of the party and inflicting huge amounts of damage against them. I find this annoying to say the least.I’m hoping that since it is now dark and everybody is tired (and the monster has taken a lot of damage) that we will get to let our characters sleep and recover (and let my character get his level up) at this rate I will be at level 7 before I can use any of my upgrades I get at level 6 as we go into the 4th game session since I reached level 6 without being able to claim my level up. With the quality of the monsters we have been facing we have been getting 300-500 XP per session with bonuses for good Role Playing and I’m about 1/5 of the way to my next level already… And next level I get a bigger attack bonus and 4d6 damage from my magic weapon. (That’s a lot of damage.)

I’m still working on the 20/20 crank forward full suspension bike so I have a bike that I can take on the bus bike rack. This is important because I can take a bus through places where riding a bike would be unsafe, and because full suspension means I can ride on the worst of the roads around here without permanently injuring my back. The combination would mean that I would have extended range from transit to about 90% of the DFW area pretty safely. And I have a year to get it ready for the Autorama that I won class in back in 2004, 10 years earlier. This is the bike that the solar bike light is being built for. I think that particular feature may be the tipping point to winning next year. The time I won my competition was a pedal car kit that was built stock with a fancy paint job versus my heavily modified bike with a simple monochromatic paint job. I don’t know that my competition will be so easy this time, so I’m thinking that little things like lights made for the bike will make a difference. I’m pretty sure there won’t be more than 2 other vehicles in my class because of the number of classes available to compete in. I know I won’t be in the lowrider bike class because this bike will have a fairly high bottom bracket and not having the pedals scraping the pavement. The seat will be low, but the pedals will be at a normal riding height.

And that’s all I have today.

PSA, Opus

I found some pictures of the parade, and the Feed

I managed to find a picture of the guy with the Roy Rogers bike over at the Dallas Observer site. I’m hoping this will work, my track record at getting pictures to post here has not been good lately.

My image search for the skunks on the tandem bike got me lots of pictures of Lance and politicians of both parties, but none of the people in the skunk costumes on their bike. Go figure. I managed to find one picture on Facebook of my back as I rejoined the main part of the parade after helping to sweep the route of stray pedestrians. All those people stopping me to take pictures, and not one shows up online…

The Big Story so far today is a cyclist hit by a driver running from police en route to doing major structural damage to a building. Pursuit Driver Strikes Cyclist, Crashes Into Venice Wurstküche and Driver in Venice arrested after reportedly hitting pedestrian, crashing into restaurant and injuring 4 another one Yikes: Truck crashes into Wurstkuche in Venice Notice the differing number of casualties reported, that the restaurant got more coverage than the cyclist (because structurally damaging a building enough to force closure is a big thing, not because hitting a cyclist isn’t) and there are already people trying to tie this to the Doerner (sp?) case. There’s virtually no way to avoid a wreck like this without barrier separated infrastructure and seeing what this wreck did to a building I’m not convinced that would have helped much either. Thanks to Ted Rogers for most of the links.

A FL cyclist actually does swerve suicidally into traffic. Boyfriend kills himself after arguing with girlfriend by cycling into head-on traffic… and the driver is charged with fleeing the scene Yet another case where the driver is charged for leaving the scene in FL. You would think that drivers would learn that LEO in FL consider cyclists and pedestrians fair game as long as you claim the kill… OK to avoid this one do not ride your bike when consumed with feelings of suicidal rage…

VA struggles with how to pay for infrastructure without taxes on anything ever… McDonnell says he’s willing to compromise on gas tax They don’t want to raise the sales tax, they haven’t raised the gas tax in 17 years, but they still want new roads built and the old roads fixed. And hate to pay for bicycles in spite of cyclists paying for it via the general funds that have been supplementing the roads budget for years.

Last link, if this had been a real Zombie Apocalypse you would have been instructed to get on your bike and ride… Weird News: TV station hacker warns of zombies in Montana

And those are all the links that gave me fits today.

Billed @$0.02, Opus