They closed the tax office an hour early today, and the Feed

Cutting to the chase, they closed the GISD tax office as I was walking up to it at 1600. The line of people out the door were very vocally unhappy about getting turned away, to the point that police were on hand for crowd control. I think that this may have been a planned thing, because the police were there long before the office was closed. I know this because I was walking up to the door as they closed it and there was a cop inside already.

Up first is good news from just a half-day’s ride east from WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell. Injured cyclist rides again following months recovering WoaB and employees very happy to see this. Her recovery period was about the same as mine.

LAPD shows NYPD how it’s done. Suge Knight Arrested For ‘Suspicion Of Murder’ After Fatal Hit-And-Run This was a pedestrian death on a closed film set, but still, NYPD should be taking notes.

Speaking of NYC, they had another fatal pedestrian right hook. Woman Fatally Struck By Nassau County Bus Driver In Queens And in spite of a bus full of witnesses NYPD failed to arrest of even charge the driver.

Another article on the loss of who may have been the world’s oldest active cyclist. Long Beach loses its 106-year-old symbol of cycling

And that makes for a great segue into our next link, our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Atwater paper calls legal cyclists lane hogs, a handful of links and a long list of upcoming events

Update on a cyclist that a road-raging driver tried to kill. Donations help injured cyclist recover at home I like the remodeled bathroom, Mrs. the Poet wants a shower like that, too.

Infrastructure news from VA via DC. Bills in the Virginia General Assembly would hurt and help transit and cyclists I’ll withhold comment on this because I haven’t read the full text for any of the bills.

A hit-and-run driver gets a gentle caress on the wrist from a CO judge. Woman gets probation for hitting Fort Collins cyclist, fleeing They totally ignored the sentencing guidlines for felonies of this nature. According to one commenter if this had been treated like other crimes of this grade of felony the minimum sentence would be 2 years with the possibility of probation.

A little legal infrastructure in action in Jolly Olde. Marjorie Trappenden accelerated into Kevin Lane on High Road, Woodford Green, on February 9 Another dead cyclist with the killer getting community service in the UK.

I find it interesting that a surviving cyclist elicits more severe punishment than a deceased cyclist. Diabetic driver mum jailed for crash which left cyclist seriously injured

Another “bicycle safety” article from people who haven’t been on a bike since elementary school. Life in the bike lane: Riding responsibly Once again too much emphasis is placed on helmets to prevent wrecks.

Another article that should not have to be written, but was because too many drivers have the morals of a Chaotic Evil kinder. Attorney John Nojima of Lederer & Nojima, LLP Reminds Cyclists to Carry Uninsured Motorist Coverage in Light of News Regarding Hit-and-Runs Now if they would just provide a source for this insurance that doesn’t require buying a car and getting a license first…

A little humor from Spokesmama. 10 Reasons Not To Get A Cargo Bike The one I thought was hilarious was the one about not supporting the poor oil companies… HA!!

Last link is a bit of bike culture from the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike. Critical Mass Set To Take The Streets Friday

And I’m out of links again.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the Poet

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Good news and bad news after visiting the Lab Rat Keeper, and the Feed

I keep tearing up my chainsaw on a Wreck-Free Sunday

In the ongoing project that is clearing the ice damaged trees away from Casa de El Poeta the new chainsaw is taking the worst of it, jumping the chain off the bar at least 5 times requiring bar removal to return the chain to its proper place on the saw. The manual said this was to be expected as well as frequent tension adjustments in the first 10 or so hours of operation as everything “wears in” to where it fits and runs well, and now I’m out of bar oil to keep “wearing in” from becoming “wearing out”. Add the sawdust in my hair from overhead cutting on the live oak and it’s just a mess.

On the subject of that live oak, I could not believe how dense the wood was from that tree. I could barely carry a foot long chunk of limb not even as big as my arm from the tree to the pile that future firewood is going just a few feet away. I had no problem moving hunks from the ash tree out front that were almost as big, which is more than 3 times as far. I could actually carry two logs of ash from out front easier than one of the live oak basically 10 feet from the tree to the driveway and another 15 feet over the driveway. I know oak is heavy but for some reason I figured the evergreen version would weigh less than the deciduous tree.

Mrs. the Poet is concerned that our tree may have damaged the fence that was taken out by excessive rain and soft soils back in the summer. I say the entire fence was destroyed in the summer, just not all of it actually fell down but she says, “Fair is fair and right is right” and if our tree damaged the still-standing parts of the fence then we should help pay for it. I find it amazing the things she wants to pay for now that I have a little money…

And I’m taking a lot of cordless tools and lights to church tonight because the ice storm took out the line from the pole to the breaker box at church. The big problems are that the breaker box is no longer up to codes and basically everything needs to be replaced before we can get our power hooked back up, since the breaker box came off the side of the building when the power line went down. I’m not sure how many times this makes the main panel being replaced, because I know that what is now our church was originally a duplex with a fusebox (or 2) instead of a breaker panel when it was first built in the early 1950s, and the breaker box we have now looks like it might have been installed back in the late ’80s. From what I can determine from second-hand information had the breaker box not been damaged when the line fell we could have just gotten the power hooked back up and called it a day as the existing box would have been grandfathered in.

And as the Icepocalypse fades into memory the high temperature for today appears to have hit 61°F and stayed there for over 2 hours so far, practically t-shirt weather after all the freezing we did last week. That means even though the lights are out at least we won’t freeze at church tonight while we make and charge our Yule Log.

And that’s all that comes to mind about things to be written about today, back to death and wanton destruction tomorrow.

PSA, Opus