📅 November 2013

So I was thinking about Veterans Day and how weird the idea behind it is. It's so tightly wound with the cultural worship that seems to go along with the US military. Besides the veterans of World War I and II, what is being celebrated? The day originally marked the armistice of World War I, but it seems to be so far from celebrating peace today.

Why is someone who spent 18 months slogging around a base, or drone bombing random Pakistanis considered a hero, to be protecting our freedoms, to be serving our country? Who in this country are they actually serving, and what are they actually protecting us from? When people use that kind of language they expect that it makes the military exempt from any sort of criticism, disconnected from what they actually do. I don't see what invading Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, or Somalia did to protect or serve the US. I don't see why we should be proud that $682 billion will be spent this year on an army when our Congress claims we can't afford food stamps, basic research or healthcare. Obligatory cost of war link

I know the military is an employer of last resort for many, making it difficult to blame the soldiers on the ground. But they still choose to take part in a unit that instigates rather than defends. This isn't to say there is no good in the military, or those in it haven't done good where they're deployed - I just don't think signing up for a fighting force is a job worthy of the language and reverence that it currently gets. There are so many people in this country struggling to make it a better place through service and self-sacrifice - we could be celebrating them in the name of peace instead.

Maybe I am jealous of everyone who got off of work.

On Sunday, @paul and I took a break from our computing and @terry his anime to go out for a walk on a really nice day. We ended up stopping at Hu's for some chalk so we could advertise estrip on the busiest corners.

I think it'd be awesome if more people joined and this place was bumping.

We stopped at the coop for some groceries. I forgot to take pictures, but they were selling organic cucumbers for $3.29 each! That seems insane! I thought of you @tinypliny.

We also grabbed some soup from Globe before heading home. The pumpkin curry with coconut flakes was amazing, I love their soup. they also had these desserts that looked amazing - can't remember what they're called.

At home Terry put on the movie Christopher and his Kind, about a gay writer Christopher Isherwood living in Berlin in the 1930's. Paul looked into his life more and apparently he was super famous - he collaborated with Truman Capote.


I had never been up these apartment stairs on North Street before. It was like a little street with a drawbridge at the end.


Rainbow, so schwul!


They knocked down a house on Elmwood recently, north of Bidwell - was this on fire? I can't remember.


Presbyterian Church construction - concrete formwork that looks like a moat. Someone lost their baby in it


Delicious things and figures made from sugar at Globe - surprised I was able to resist

On Friday, @paul, @terry, @YesThatCasey and Tanya and I crammed in Tanya's truck to see Infected Mushroom at the Town Ballroom. We were expecting an EDM show but it was more like an electronic jam band, who apparently are Israeli. It was still a crazy fun show even though we came late.

Paul said the music and crowd reminded him of Germany. Between electronic music coming back, people riding bikes and moving back to cities, are we becoming more European?

Afterwards we had a failure at going out, which is okay because I passed out as soon as we got home anyway.


In bed (in Tanya's truck)





Someone's mom came with them and supervised from above the whole show

So yesterday I got into an accident on my bike. I was in hurry to get to work and riding on the sidewalk on Route 5, which I know is dangerous. I usually take a lane for the most of it but I hadn't been able to across the street yet. I started to approach a driveway where a car was waiting to turn borth . I made eye contact with the driver, he waved and I kept going.

when I started to pass him, I saw him slowly rolling forward, right into my wheel. I freaked out, rolled onto his hood and got off my bike.

The driver was panicking like crazy, he was so worried that he hurt me. Normally I would have been pissed (I always have dreamed of administering some u-lock justice) but I think was I was in just as much shock. My bike seemed okay and I wasn't hurt at all. Somehow I managed to dent his hood and bent his license plate off. He got out and just kept apologizing but the only thing I could about after that was getting to work, so I rode off.

Later, Bert's Bikes said my bike looked fine. Still, it was so stupid for me to not get his information, or yell at him for waving me on. An accident could have been so much worse if he pushed me into the road. I guess it shows why taking the lane is important. The only thing that I damaged was my ego. I like to think I'm a good cyclist but that was so ameuter and avoidable.

On the plus side, I rode every day this week, with my best time to work ever, averaging 19.4 mph!

Last night I got in a debate with @paul over buying organic/local/fair-trade food. @terry had sent us a link ranking Tops as one of the worst grocers in the country, and I said at least they're semi-cheap. Paul wanted to know why I value price over quality when it comes to food.

I definitely see the value in buying organic, local, and/or fair trade food when possible. I am well aware of the impact pesticides have on the environment and how unsustainable most of our food supply is without tons of petrochemicals. I've heard about the potential health risks of residual pesticides. But I've never been able to get myself to spend for organic.

I've been shopping at Aldi for close to 5 years now. Of all the discount stores, I think they're the cleanest and best run (that ruthless German efficiency!). I don't know where they source any of their mostly non-organic produce and food, but I know that their workers are paid at least $12/hr and managers $20, plus benefits. I could always get by shopping on a $30/week grocery budget, where Giant Eagle in Cleveland would have cost me closer to $60. Same thing for Wegmans and the coop costing much more. I would love to get my food from there but I sink my budget into my loans.

Is it selfish of me to be cheap and buy crazy unknown Aldi food when now I can technically afford more? I definitely have noticed a quality difference between what I've been buying vs what Paul and Terry get at the coop and Wegmans. I said it's worse to be feeding the student loan monster with interest over industrial ag, but that's me justifying it after the fact.

Maybe I can become a couponer like @mike or my mom and shop at Wegmans. Or skip the local aspect and keeping going for cheap organic way out at Trader Joe's. Either way it's good to be challenged.

Yesterday I left work early to head up to the Park-In on Parkside, a protest to support changing the traffic configuration of Parkside Avenue. The goal is to reduce the four lanes of traffic to two, either with two parking lanes or a center turn and bike lanes. A "road diet" on a congested street like Parkside typically makes traffic flow smoother with less accidents, since you don't have cars constantly merging and changing lanes from other cars parking and turning. (Road Diet wiki) Same volume, less area.

There were probably about 30 people, a good mix of drivers, pedestrians and cyclists at Sweetness 7. The drivers all parked their cars in the outer lanes to make the street two lanes, and we all held signs protesting to passing cars. Surprisingly we didn't get too many angry drivers and seemed to get more honks to support us rather than people flipping us the bird.

Eventually the po-po showed up with 4 cars plus the police chief. They weren't aggressive or anything but isn't that an overreaction? I'm sure 3 of those cars would have been much more useful on patrol. And why did the chief need to come? Anyway, they threatened to give tickets to anyone who didn't move their cars. A few people refused to and took the tickets.

I hope that something comes out of it. There was a decent amount of press coverage from Channel 4 and 2, and the petition got over 300 signatures not counting the internet ones. If you want to sign it, you can online here.








A little dramatic, but why not!


Popo no 1


Traffic was pretty backed up with everyone rubbernecking


This school bus driver was so pumped up and was honking a ton


Henry from GO Bike - awesome guy


The po-lice shut us downnnn




Negotiation

I hadn't actually been to Sweetness 7 on Parkside before. The owner, Prish Moran was super friendly, the shop was pretty cool and there was free beer from Community Beer Works, aw yeah. On the way home, I stopped at Aldi, then took the metro back from Lasalle Station. It was the first time for me on NFTA since the summer. I need to make it my backup after my bike again, rather than my car.


I didn't know Sweetness 7 had a liquor license either.


Cute cell phone booth - who really makes that many calls anymore?


The tudor building across from Sweetness is getting redone - last use was a restaurant I think? Unfortunately they're removing the stucco for vinyl, yuck.


Ride home

Tuesday night, @paul, @terry and I went with @YesThatCasey, @Dianne, @heidi and Tanya out to Griffis Sculpture Park for the night lights. I hadn't been there before, but it looks like it'd be amazing to walk around especially on a nice day .

I'm not big on art so I can't tell you much about the statues except that they were huge and pretty cool. I'm especially a sucker for LEDs, and they had some amazing lamps thrown on some of the statues. I thought the best were the lasers projected on a bunch of tiny rotating mirrors. in the dense trees, the green lasers almost made it look like there were fireflies everywhere. Possible arduino project?

I brought my Canon, but had so much trouble hand holding in such low light, even wide open. I'll have to go through and post what turned out well.

Yesterday afternoon, I opened up my car to find my glove compartment and center console emptied out onto the passenger seat. I usually leave my door unlocked because I don't keep anything valuable in my car and I don't want my window smashed. I've never had a problem. But bish we ain't in Kenilworth anymore.

Of course they didn't find anything to take because I don't even have change in my car. They even left my old first gen Zune in there. I guess nobody would want one, even for free.

So Buffalo is now a bronze level biking city, according to the League of American Cyclists (only took 17 years after our first Bike Plan in 1997 and 6 years after the most recent in 2008).

Although there's still a long way to go before we're really a bike-friendly city, I definitely notice an improvement in infrastructure and culture in the past few years. The most recent Census data says we have the 14th largest share of bike commuters in the country, and we've seen an 88.6% increase in bike commuters from 2011-2012 .

Unfortunately there are still too many bike and pedestrian accidents and not enough good infrastructure (43 deaths for Erie county in 2012). There aren't many east-west bike lanes in the city, and almost no lanes at all north of Delaware Park. There are too many roads still being constructed and reconstructed with only cars in mind, despite a completes streets law for the city and the state.

Some of this can be changed relatively soon! This week there is a chance for the public to air comments on the reconstruction of the 198/Scajacuada. The NYS Department of Transportation wants to essentially reconstruct it as is, instead of turning it into a connected, bike and pedestrian friendly boulevard that there should be. There will be a meeting at Olmsted School 67 at 7:15 on Tuesday for input on how this can be changed.

There is also currently an effort to put Parkside Avenue on a road diet, down from four lanes to two and a turning lane plus some bike lanes. This Wednesday at 5 will be a "park and bike-in" at Parkside and Russell.

Parkside Neighborhood residents and supporters are organizing a day of action, calling for motorists to park their cars on Parkside and join bicyclists and pedestrians to show support for safer streets and come to Sweetness 7 Café to sign a petition demanding that the city put Parkside on a Road Diet (taking out traffic lanes, adding turning lanes & bike lanes)."

These two projects would fit perfectly together and definitely help link more parts of the city together for bikes.

@lilho you need to drop your single soon. chambord will license the hell out of that



maybe one day Paul will be pinked.