It’s nice to have money on Grocery Day, and the Feed

Well all the checks cleared this week, so we had basically an unlimited budget for grocery day today. I finally have a full week worth of yogurt, enough for both me and the cats, and there was a 12 pack of Shiner in the cart as well. That will probably last until mid-March as much as I drink. We splurged on the mid-priced frozen pizza, on sale for about $2.50/pizza before we redeemed a coupon that took $0.33⅓ off each one. Some habits are hard to break, we bought the $1.99/gal milk instead of the $5.99/gal. The strategic ramen reserves are topped off, and the $0.79 instant meals are likewise at reserve levels. Those make a great light lunch or dinner when it’s just me or Mrs. the Poet and we don’t feel like heating the kitchen to make something more substantial. The spicy shrimp cup meal will probably be just for me. We spent roughly $125 on groceries that overflowed the trunk of my son’s car and into the back seat. Seriously we couldn’t get the lid closed and had to put some next to Mrs. the Poet in the back seat to get it all home.

Up first is this Big Story from Jolly Olde as in spite of multiple videos from the cyclist, LEO are unable to prosecute a hit-and-run driver. ‘Brutal’ cyclist hit-and-run captured on video – but police say there is still not enough evidence to prosecute and Shocking moment hit-and-run driver rams into the back of a cyclist and leaves him unconscious in the road before fleeing this too Police rule there is ‘not enough evidence’ to prosecute hit-and-run driver caught on camera (video) Simple really, bring them both in and tell them one will get charged and convicted of attempted murder for the hit-and-run, one will get the same amount of prison for obstructing justice for failing to identify who was driving at the time of the wreck but gets to keep his/her license, and give them 15 seconds to work it out. If nobody gives up the driver they both lose their licenses for life and go to prison. Now here in the great PX, Home Of The Free, all we would need to do is just have the NSA turn over their location via the constant GPS tracking of their phones to figure out who was there or not. Or just charge the people who rented the car out as accessories.

Next is Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Long Beach cyclist killed in Mt. Baldy hiking fall, and bike safety classes in Orange County

Also in L.A. CA. The Story Of The New York Citi Bike That Traveled To Los Angeles That was an Epic Ride, driving a 3 speed 45 pound tank more than 3000 miles. Who knew that the metal basket on the front of a Citi Bike could hold a useful amount of camping equipment?

Still in CA. Cyclist hit, dragged by alleged drunken driver near UC Berkeley yep, another link to the (attempted) murder of a cyclist. I’m sincerely hoping this stays at “attempted” and the cyclist survives to kick the driver in the face.

Infrastructure from America’s Copenhagen. PBOT wants to make W Burnside at 18th/19th safer for biking and walking So far nothing has been made public as to the plans.

More infrastructure, this time from NYC. Dangerous Stretch Of Sixth Avenue Will Finally Get A Protected Bike Lane Door zone bike lane swapped for a larger parking protected bike lane (and an army of parking monitors paid by the ticket to catch drivers encroaching the lane).

If you happen to be in Bermuda with your bike this weekend. Sign up for cycle charity event It looks like there is one ride that is a mix of on and off-road, and another that is a mix of single track and swamps.

Another link to that truck driver in the UK who killed a cyclist while driving a truck without a license trying to get his sentence reduced. Tipper truck driver who killed cyclist Alan Neve fails in appeal against sentence as I said before he should get at least double that if not triple, he should thank his lucky stars and shut up.

This at least has a better outcome in the end even if the cyclist died. Family hand over cheque to charity in memory of their son

Malta is one of the former UK colonies that has as bad cycle culture as the UK. Man fined for knocking down cyclist, magistrate calls for more road awareness Wow/s… €1000 fine and 8 days he can’t get caught driving…

I’m sure this is just coincidence, right? eBike World Championship set for same venue where hidden motor found There is a class for exactly the kind of bike that was found in the cyclocross championships.

And I’m out of links again, but I have Girl Scout cookies.

Billed @€0.02, Opus

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Another day spent pounding pavements, and the Feed

This was a rough one as I went to the bank to get some money out of the firewalled account, and then went grocery shopping for the stuff we couldn’t get yesterday because we didn’t have the $ in the non-firewalled account. And I still forgot the yogurt, so no yogurt for me and the poor little kitties. 😦 And I discovered that I really need to get my toes done because my toes hurt like mad from getting the too-long nails pressed against the inside of my shoes as I walked. I really wish I could still get to all my toes by myself to trim my toenails.

And I keep writing about the Sprint-T (both sizes) but many of you don’t know how long this desire has been fermenting in my brain. U.S. Speed Sport “Instant T” T-Bucket History Not quite this long, but not very long after this.

Up first in the bike links is Out Daily Ted. Morning Links: Notes from Neil Storm Stephany sentencing, and update on new Camp Pendleton bike policy

Still in CA is this infrastructure link. They’ve Invented An Ingenious New Type Of Intersection That Could Save Lives The don’t noticeably slow bike or car traffic and protect the cyclists from the cars. Good show.

With SnowmageddonII hitting the entire east coast north of FL this weekend here’s a cheery thought about the road conditions. Why rain is more dangerous than snow

This SC hit-from-behind wreck may have involved excessive speed. Woman Killed While Riding Bicycle to Work The driver had to be hospitalized, this usually means the cyclist caused a spray of glass inside the passenger compartment which requires a fair amount of velocity. LEO are not elaborating on this aspect at the time of filtering.

Meanwhile in NYC. 15-Year-Old Boy In Critical Condition Following Williamsburg Hit-And-Run When I filtered this link there was a bicycle in it, but I can’t find the bicycle now. Just a body in the street, and a red minivan.

Still in NYC a driver moving an SUV at a service garage manages to hit several parked cars in the street and two pedestrians pinning one to the side of a building. NYPD: Gas Station Worker “Lost Control” Of SUV, Ran Over Cop’s Foot, Pinned Woman To Wall I can’t believe they didn’t say “No criminality suspected” on this one. I guess that’s because he ran over a cop.

Not done with the city yet, here’s some infrastructure bad news. Say Goodbye To Jay Street’s Vital Bike Lanes “Do any of these lane designers actually ride bicycles in the city? Or is “bicycle lane” just a button in their CAD program?” j44ke. He (she?) said it better than I could. Making the street more dangerous so that cars had easier access to the BQE. (SMH)

Over in SD they are trying to force cyclists off the roads. Bicyclists Belong in the Traffic Lane

They finally got around to charging the driver in this case in MI. Suspect charged after hit-and-run death of cyclist in Ann Arbor At least they didn’t wait until the driver killed himself in another wreck like in my case. October to January…

Up there in West Canuckistan they gots an attempted killer on the loose. RCMP seek hit-and-run driver who injured cyclist in Willowbrook They turned the Mounties on him, and you know what they say about Mounties and suspects.

Still up there in the Great White North. Killer of LaSalle cyclist sentenced to nine months in jail I don’t think there is an “m” in years. There is a serious disconnect between the seriousness of the crime and the severity of the sentence.

When the building used to store your bike gets condemned, while you’re recovering from a severe chronic illness they might lose the bike. Disabled woman’s lifelong dream of cycling across Canada dashed after bike vanishes Woman has a relapse of the disease that left her riding a hand bike and had to put the bike in storage while she went home to recover and then the bike turns up missing.

In Jolly Olde a cyclist is stopped for having a flashing light 10 years after the law was changed to allow flashing lights. Police mistakenly stop cyclist for flashing rear light “We Googled it and we were wrong.” Really, the law changed in 2005 and you’re just now finding out about it?

Good news from the UK. Yeovil cyclist who suffered head and leg injuries thanks mysterious Good Samaritan When you’re hurt don’t try to “tough it out” like this guy. He had serious injuries that needed attention from medical personnel, not a home fix-up.

Rider down in Malta. Cyclist, 79, seriously injured in Birzebbuga traffic accident and Cyclist, 79, hit by car in Birżebbuġa And that’s about all LEO are saying about the wreck.

A bus hits a cyclist and takes out 3 more and leaves the scene in Oz. Gold Coast bus hits cyclists, one injured The hit-and-run is barely mentioned. “It is believed the Surfside Buslines driver was unaware he clipped the cyclist, with the bus continuing after the incident without stopping.” Seriously, WTF?

Useful art from discarded bike parts. These Awesome-Looking Chandeliers Are Made From Salvaged Bicycle Parts Used chains and wheels and a few eectrical bits, et voila! Let there be fashionable light.

Old post just brought to my attention today. So I Went Automobile Shopping… What if car buying was like bike buying? How many cars would get sold?

As the weather gets colder your e-assist bike (and your EV) will lose range because batteries don’t like cold> There’s a worrisome problem with electric cars that no one’s talking about For cars there are a couple of things you can do, pre-heat the car interior while the car is still on the charger so you are using grid rather than battery power to do the heating, and switch over to seat heat rather than cabin heat while on the road to stay warm without using as much battery power. On an e-assist bike you provide the heat inside your clothing, but the battery losing range because of the cold slowing down the chemical reactions inside the battery still applies.

Last link, this is why I have to take so many mental health days from this blog. Feeling More I know to some it seems like I can report on some serious $&(^ and it doesn’t phase me, but I have to take a lot of breaks and go read comics or other stuff between making links on this blog.

And on that note I’m going to throw a couple tags on this post and try to unwind a bit before bed.

Now we march into the dark, and the Feed

There’s nothing deep about that headline, it means I’m working late again tonight. I have another burn test of the new 1K lumen headlight running at the 500 lumen setting to get an average burn time on the lowest setting and see if it’s an improvement on the Cateye LED light I got as a gift back when Blue was a new arrival. Given that I’m testing on the lowest setting against a light that only had one setting, and that this light has a daytime strobe setting that will put your eyes out (or maybe that’s the “disco party” setting?) the winner is predetermined. As far as value is concerned the new light wins hands down as it comes with a battery pack and charger where the “old” Cateye required the purchase of AA batteries, and a charger if you wanted rechargeables, plus had (has? I don’t know if the light is even still available) a higher price, about twice as much as I got the light for from Amazon. On a quick web search I discovered the old light is no longer available and had a rated burn time of 90 hours with alkaline AA batteries. Converting the old light’s candlepower rating (2200) to lumens (27.6K!?! WTF?) (more internet searching) OK cp is not directly convertible to Lumen without doing a spherical target test. Let’s just say that after a side by side comparison the lowest setting on the new light is roughly the same as the old light. The main thing is the old light had to be disassembled to change or charge the battery pack, the new one I just unplug the battery from the light and plug it into the charger until the light on the charger changes from red to green them I plug it back into the light. So, progress right?

Up first because of proximity to WoaB World HQ in the Beautiful Suburbs of Hell, they actually charged a driver for hitting a cyclist in OK. Charges in bicyclist’s death bring ‘sense of justice,’ his father says The amuseing in a black humor kind of way is with all the other charges they filed they remembered to include the 3 foot passing law which was obviously broken when she ran the cyclists over from behind.

In the same vein in DE. Driver gets 8 years for Hockessin cyclist death For those of you not reading this blog back then, this was the wreck where the driver was speeding and taking his half out of the middle and assumed drunk because he ran from the scene after hitting the cyclist head-on in the cyclist’s lane, preventing LEO from knowing his BAC% at the time of the wreck or close enough to it to file those charges.

Another unusual case in LA, where the cyclist drowned before he could die from getting hit. Driver in hit-and-run that killed cyclist Lon Lomas to be tried Tuesday

Our Daily Ted. Morning Links: Koretz aid promises Westwood bike lane removal, and the Bieb nearly takes out bikers in the ‘Bu No, I don’t know why the Bieb ran out into traffic either.

Still in CA is this sad story. Elderly Bicyclist Hit, Killed in Novato The 16 YO driver failed to yield to traffic in the sidewalk. If the old guy had been walking instead of riding a bike the outcome likely would have been the same.

Is your city increasing the amount of driving by making parking almost universally available? The problem with too much parking I know that there are places I won’t ride to because there’s nothing to lock up to when I get there, so this has at least some validity on the bicycle level.

A subtle way to kill the poors in your city. The inequality of sidewalks Build your city so that if you don’t drive you have to walk a lot just to do things like buy food or clothing, then don’t provide safe places to walk or jobs that pay well enough to buy that car. You have to be rich enough to buy a car to get jobs that allow you to make enough to buy a car, locking people into a permanent underclass. Insidious, ain’t it?

Gee, riding a bicycle instead of driving actually reduces GHG emissions. Pushing cycling to cut carbon emissions This is published in an area that has been a hotbed of climate deniers until recently, but hot, dry, summers and cold, wet, winters in an area that has been notable by the lack of either of those extremes has caused some to change. Hence the repetition of already-known information.

That idiot from MO has attracted attention in Jolly Olde. Proposed Missouri law to make cyclists carry 15ft high flag As I have pointed out previously the law would make bikes 2’6″ taller than the Federal limit without having to get an oversized vehicle permit. This would effectively ban bicycles from the roads.

Some UK residents are upset that they will be charged for storing their private vehicles in public space. Tamworth residents set to pay to park outside their own homes Ain’t it awful? XD

First of several links from Malta. Protection for vulnerable road users (1) and Protection for vulnerable road users (2)

Then there is this one also from Malta. Saints on the road

A South African driver is convicted for killing a cyclist. Tucville man found guilty of dangerous driving that resulted in cyclist’s death For some reason I’m unsurprised the driver was not Caucasian.

And a more complete report on the motorcycle cop physically assaulting a cyclist on his bike and causing a wreck. Police officer ‘pushed cyclist off his bike’ Interesting that LEO are saying the cop’s helmet cam video does not show the cop pushing the cyclist but they don’t release the video, and two witnesses from very different vantage points say the cop rode right up and gave the cyclist a shot to the shoulder causing him to fall.

And I’m ready for bed. There may be some misspelled words that slipped by the spell check, but the links should go to the right places.

BIlled @$0.02, Opus