Well, it isn’t an infection, and the Feed

I don’t know exactly what is making me sick, but I’m pretty sure that I don’t have an upper respiratory infection (yet). So far everything coming out of my nose is water-clear, and depending on my hydration it has about the same viscosity as water. So, no infection, but not sure exactly what it is. I just know that when I take allergy medicine it doesn’t help much. A little, but not much. It slows down the drip but does nada for the aches and pains. I don’t quite feel like I was hit by a truck this time, but maybe a motorcycle? Lots of aches and pains there…

NYC has a massive infrastructure problem, but nobody wants to admit it. NYPD: 1,399 Pedestrians and Cyclists Injured, 16 Killed in Traffic in October 1415 dead and injured people in 31 days tells me that the infrastructure is not optimized for anything but motor vehicles and that mode is not really optimized. The 15 dead pedestrians are almost twice the number killed by bicycles in NYC since 2001. Stop and think about that for a moment. Motor vehicles have killed almost twice as many people in 31 days as bicycles in 15 years. And yet people keep insisting the bicycles are the problem?

Still in NYC they deal with the lack of space for bicycles and pedestrians by permanently making ²/₃ of the roads permanently off-limits to anything except cars? Eyes on the Street: The Part of Central Park That’s Only for Cars Yep, they be nucking futs.

And just how nucking futs are they? For Traffic Violence Victims, Cy Vance’s “Moneyball” Still a Field of Dreams Yep, really nucking futs.

And from CA why we have so many hit-and-runs against cyclists. Hit a cyclist, help a cyclist? These readers aren’t so sure Yep, hit ’em and leave ’em in the street to die because you saw a cyclist riding salmon once, or running a stop sign (nevermind that everybody runs stop signs in CA hence the sobriquet “California Stop” applied to slowing to bicycle pace and rolling the stop sign if it is clear), or riding in the middle of the lane…

More of the same from ³/₄ of the way across the country. Bikers vs. Drivers: Chattanooga is ‘bike-friendly’, but there is tension between cyclists, drivers Yep, forcing a driver to lift his foot off the gas for a few seconds is a death penalty offense. Enforcible immediately upon slowing the driver down. The graphic that goes with the article is really scary. I hope they got the ISP addresses of all those threatening comments, because if one of those dudes hits a cyclist it will prove premeditation.

Pantani (was/wasn’t choose one) murdered… Doctor debunks murder theory in Pantani death investigation Seriously now, the dude was poisoned without a physical struggle, that can mean only one of two things. First was that he did it on purpose. Second that he didn’t know what was in that drug cocktail he took, because someone changed the drugs he was using… And they still haven’t established this fact one way or the other.

A little Lifestyle north of the border. Salim Aoudia, cyclist killed in Griffintown, remembered with ghost bike

From the most deadliest state in the US to walk or ride a bike, an opinion. Guest commentary: Cars and cyclists safely sharing the road Thing is it should be easy, but for most drivers, it ain’t.

Back to CA for our last link. Bike Bakersfield to Light up the Night by installing free bike lights for cyclist

And again I have run out of links before I have run out of things to say about links.

Billed @€0.02, Opus the unkillable badass Poet

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Mental Hygiene Day, again

There was no post Monday and yesterday because I was riding the bus again, from NY to Nashville TN (Nashvegas for those of us who are hip) and the bus this year doesn’t have the same room as the bus did last year. Can’t put my finger on what changed, but the leg room and the room under the seats seems unchanged, but this year I could not stand in front of my seat nor get out without lifting myself on the back of the seat in front of me and neither could I sleep by resting my head on a pillow in my lap. Last year I could type on the laptop and read the screen at the same time, this year I had to put the keyboard on my chest to see the screen, or fold the screen to the point I couldn’t see it to be able to use the keyboard, making typing futile. Last year you may remember I did an entire post while caught in construction traffic in OH. This year no traffic but no post either.

I’m not doing any links today because I don’t want to spend a day looking at wrecks when I only have a short time to see my friends and do things here in TN. Fortunately we have beautiful weather for it this year courtesy of the Summer Polar Vortex caused by a super typhoon in the North Pacific redirecting the jet stream well south of where it usually stays in the summer. This is for those not paying attention to weather reports and just enjoying the weather 😉

Now I have someplace I have to go so I’ll be back tomorrow and keep you posted.

PSA, Opus

Just a tiny bandwidth to work with, so no Feed today.

I’m sitting next to Mrs. the Poet blogging on a moving bus. I have done this before, but this time there are so many other people using laptops and tablets on board that there is almost no bandwidth available. In fact the compose page for creating this blog post took forever to load and I keep losing connection when the system tries to autosave my progress. the wi-fi in the terminals is even worse if you can believe that. Of the two stations I have tried to log on at, one would not let me connect and he other the sign-up page timed out…

Getting ready to go had some amusing moments. I had to go to the local haircutting establishment because I was very shaggy and while I was getting my hair cut the stylist asked if I was busy that evening, which sounded a bit like she was asking for a date. When I told her I was preparing to take a trip to NY she got very interested. We conversed some including some on the changing terminology of haircutting (what we used to call a “high and tight” is now a “military taper” for instance, and what used to be “military taper” is now a “low taper”) then when we got done with my hair I went to pay and it happened again, I got another unsolicited senior discount. Apparently she likes older men?

The trip so far has been a struggle to get sleep against an army of crying babies. The babies were winning for a while but exhaustion has a way of overcoming that after a while. Eventually you will get some sleep, no matter what.

We had a pleasant surprise in Nashville. First when we asked for condiments for our packaged sandwiches instead of little packets we were given single-serving Serv-a-paks of mustard and mayo. Second pleasant surprise was those packaged sandwiches were pretty good and tasty. We were hoping for edible, tasty was beyond our expectations.

The AC on this trip has been interesting so far. The big thing has been too much AC either overall or on particular body parts. Right now, for instance, everything is fine except my right knee, which is in the direct blast from the AC vent for this row of seats and is turning blue…

And it turns out I do have enough bandwidth for a couple of links today. for instance, did you know that when you have more bicycles on the roads you get fewer car wrecks? More bicyclists on road means fewer collisions, study shows Gee, whodathunkit? more bikes = fewer car wrecks, specifically wrecks with bicycles, but fewer wrecks overall as well. 5 guess it turns out that when you have a finite number of vehicle operators and you swap out light armored vehicles for vehicles that totally expose the operator to all impacts those operators start having fewer impacts.

And now there is a new kind of warning device that falls between the traditional bell and the new standard of alerting drivers the air horn. Ring MyBell The programmable light and sound show can be customized to your environment to alert pedestrians and drivers alike.

OK it’s getting dark now, so I guess this is a good stopping point for this Live Blog of A Boring Bus Trip.

PSA, Opus