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What a fantastic idea – rent your own patio space!
Archive for May, 2007
30
May
07
links for 2007-05-31
30
May
07
An expensive “experiment”
First the good news – I’ve managed to ride to work three days in a row for a total of 115 km. Cycling has increased my appetite and yet I am still losing weight slowly but steadily. I’m now about 20 lbs lighter than I was back in early March. I think health and fitness was never “marketed” to me properly. As a kid it was always portrayed as something you did to look good to meet superficial people who cared about how you look – either that or to help you perform better at sports you play with people you can’t stand even to be in class with let alone spend time after school with. Had it been portrayed as something to make you feel really good I might have been more likely to try it.
Since starting to ride to work I’ve seen a number of photos I wanted to take but never had a camera. There’s a fair bit of wildlife – lots of hawks, attacking geese protecting their babies from cyclists riding by – some nice city streets and of course lines of traffic that I can pass by effortlessly since I am on a much smaller vehicle.
Unfortunately as a part of yesterdays commute I performed an unintentional “experiment” To repeat the experiment at home you will need:
1) Waterproof panniers
2) A 1 litre bottle of water
3) An iPod
4) A digital camera
5) A blackberry
6) misc. other items to place in your panniers
Place items items 2-6 into # 1 and begin ride. Be sure to loosen the cap on the bottle. Travel for a minimum of 30 minutes before stopping at the grocery store then open the pannier and see what happens.
In my case I stopped at the health food store to do some shopping so I opened my bag up to get my lock out. When I reached in the first thing I grabbed was my bicycle map of Toronto which was, oddly enough, completely soaked. Digging deeper I found out that my ipod, camera, and blackberry were all completely submerged in drinking water.
What did I learn? First off, my panniers are watertight – I found no leaks. The iPod and Camera were DOA, though. But what the experiment did show me is that while the other items are not the least bit water resistant, my blackberry (or rather my company’s blackberry) did just fine and showed no ill effects.
I doubt I’ll replace the iPod any time soon. Sure, I’ll miss it but I’ve spent enough on mp3 players for a long time. Sorry to the podcasters whose shows I’m sure to miss out on (but then, I’m not listening when I ride my bike anyway – sorry!). I’ll find a new camera, though, as Paul really loves to work on his lego movies and can’t do it without a camera.
Oh, and those of you over on facebook, I’m a little embarrassed to say so but I’ve started to set up a page there. Would love to see those of you I haven’t seen already.
I’m having an interesting pairing of feelings these days. Physically and for the most part mentally I feel really great. I’ve been working quite a bit (weekends too sometimes) and 2-3 days/week now I ride to work. Overall I’ve been extremely cheerful and upbeat.
On the other hand, since I’ve been riding my bike I’ve been thinking a lot about the mess this civilization has managed to get itself into. Drivers are a good illustration of this. Every day I see hundreds of people driving to and from work, often in cars that cost more than I make in a year or more.
My French tutor and I were talking last week – wondering if this city could ever become a truly bike-friendly city like, say Copenhagen. After a bit of thinking, I came to the conclusion that this isn’t going to happen now. There are, in my mind, two big reasons.
The first reason is habit. Car drivers’ routines are centred around their cars. They may not be able to easily switch from their current routine to one with a bike without making other changes. The drop the kids off at school, go to work, get the coffee, have the conference call on the way to work, drive home, pick up kids and groceries on the way routine doesn’t work in exactly the same way. While I enjoy a change in routine, not everyone does. Sure, the suburbanite’s routine can be managed on a bike but it isn’t as easy. And you look less successful. That’s right – we all thought that striving to be cool ended in high school and the cliques and stereotypes ended when you grabbed your diploma but really it hasn’t ended. You’re still judged by your clothes, car, and accessories. There are still the cool kids and the ones who go unnoticed and at least at this point in many circles the cool kids just don’t ride bikes.
The second reason is somewhat related to the first. As a culture I think we have an overdeveloped sense of entitlement. We are entitled to live in a big house or one with a big yard even if we can’t afford one near work. So we live an hour’s drive away. We have an hour’s drive to/from work every day so we’re entitled to a nice car to do it in. (In years past I’ve used this one myself). To put it simply, most people who live in North America believe they are entitled to everything they want – big house, nice car, big yard, plasma TV, etc just by the mere fact that they exist. Furthermore, we are so pleased with ourselves that no matter where we live we believe we should be carried everywhere we go like some sort of medieval Asian emperor.
I think that this is one of the shortcomings of much of the green movement in this society. We are still trying to figure out how to get everything we’re entitled to and be environmentally friendly. We want our hybrid luxury SUVs that is half as efficient as our 1992 Honda Civic was because gosh darn it we deserve it. Excuse me – just what did you do that makes you so deserving of all those resources at the expense of the climate and our health?
Of course the other question that comes up for me is just what is so special about the human race that makes us worthy of saving from extinction? Sure, we might totally change the climate and kill off a few species along with our own but perhaps we are just paving the way for some other species to rise to the top – one that might do it right this time.
This weekend is the first weekend in several weeks that I haven’t had to work at all and let me tell you it feels like a vacation. Yesterday, I got Paul’s bike ready for the season – raised his seat and we headed out on a 10 km bike ride. It was Paul’s first time riding outside of circles in the playground and I was really pleased with how he did. At first he fell a few times and got really nervous when bikes or people would pass but by the end of the day he was doing great. i think I wore him out, though. He was really sleepy when he got home, went to bed fairly early and is still asleep now.
I wasn’t sure he would join me at first. When I suggested the idea he hated it and thought he wasn’t ready for it. Still, I persisted and changed the goal from our final destination to just riding as far as we can in one direction before heading back. He was up for this one since it meant we could turn back at any time. Not only did we make the destination, we managed to add another destination and had a great time as well. I’m really glad I was able to do this since it was really good for him to find out he was capable of more than he thought he was.
Today’s going to be spent working on my French this afternoon followed by a trip over to Kensington Market for Pedestrian Sundays. I should also admit (speaking of entitlement) that today we’re also having a few vegan meals delivered for the week. While we’re doing it partly because of the convenience and because they’re really delicious, we’ve also been much better about wasting food now that we have a few meals already made. And the food is all organic and wherever possible locally grown so it isn’t all bad, I suppose.
Next week promises to be a crazy crazy week and will likely be that way for another 2-3 weeks before it settles down again so it may be another dry spell before the next update.
24
May
07
links for 2007-05-25
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On the upside, sushi fans will be happy to find a cheaper source of fugu.
20
May
07
links for 2007-05-21
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One of the first Aardman Studios films I saw. Funny stuff though I prefer the Wrong Trousers, myself.
15
May
07
links for 2007-05-16
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A fantastic childrens film made by the Ms. foundatation in 1974 without which Sage and I would never have met.
13
May
07
Weekend Update – 13 May
This weekend I haven’t much interesting to contribute since I have to work some both yesterday and today. Fortunately I won’t be doing it all day. Unfortunately it is likely that I will be on 7 day weeks for another week or two in order to get the projects I’m working on done on time.
Yesterday I rode in to work again – it’s getting easier every time. The drivers aren’t any nicer but I’m learning to deal with it. By the middle of the afternoon, I’d had enough of work and decided to meet Sage and some friends down in the west end at Trinity Bellwoods park – adding about 30 km to my trip. By the time I got there I was ravenous and the apple I brought just wasn’t cutting it (60 km of cycling seemed to work up an appetite) and so when we all decided to go home I stopped at a vegan cafe in Kensington market and picked up a sandwich ($8) before heading towards home (add that to the $6 I spent at Subway and you have about $14 in purchases I could have avoided had I planned ahead a little better – add that to the $70 in used clothes I bought to replace the clothes that Sage accidentally left in the dryer for several days before they disappeared and you have me spending a little too much…)
I’m going to take a couple of days off from cycling now. Today because my legs are really tired after riding yesterday, and tomorrow because I’m visiting a client out of town that is too far to reach by bike (but close enough to take a train and carpool with a colleague so we’ll go with that) Still, I exceeded my goal for cycling this week. I cycled approximately 170 km or just over 100 miles in the past week.
On the subject of low impact living, have a look at this. This doctor has decided to forgo using cars and planes in favour of transport that doesn’t contribute so much to the detriment of the environment. He also makes conscious choices about the food he buys to minimize the impact of its transport.
While I’m thrilled that he’s doing what he’s doing, I’m not sure it was presented in the best light. It still seems like a “look at this weird person” piece at worst or at best a “look at this person really doing great things that most of us couldn’t dream of doing.” How do we get to the point where this is just everyday news? One way, I suppose, is wait until the oil runs out but I’m sure there’s a better way than that. The other thing that rubbed me a little bit the wrong way was how he was portrayed as an anomaly by taking bike and transit and his housemate was portrayed as doing something unusual by giving up his car. I am sure he is not alone considering how many people I see on transit, many of which are also avoiding cars and planes by the simple fact that they can’t afford them.
But still, another side of me (probably the same side that comes up with many of my entries here) thinks that it is a good thing to show that choices made by much of mainstream western society are just that – choices, and we can choose not to make them when they aren’t good for us even if we can afford to.
At work yesterday a colleague I hadn’t seen for some time asked me why I ride to work now and then corrected himself: “Oh, right, you don’t have a car.” My answer, though, was “Because I can.” I ride because I live close enough to work that it isn’t much of a big deal to do it. I skip transit in part because of the fact that the buses still create pollution (albeit less than cars – by the way Paul pointed out yesterday that the manufacture of my bike also created pollution), and in part because it is less convenient to travel by bus. Mostly, though, it comes from an idea that I’m still working on putting in effect in my own life – taking what I need and no more. Just as I don’t take food that I can’t eat (and that someone else can) at a buffet, so to do I want to get to the point where I’m taking what I need in other ways – food, consumer goods, transportation, energy. Living in the city is an excellent opportunity on the one hand to consume like crazy everything that is available. On the other hand, there’s a great deal of opportunity to use less – to share accommodations (highrise in our case), shop at large co-ops for local produce, travel by sustainable transit – all without as much effort as it might take in a village or in the country (there are ways to have a lower impact there – they’re just different). I agree with Tomislav Sloboda – by being out there, showing it can be done and encouraging others to do it we can hopefully change the minds of people who fund things like transit, bike lanes, and environmental programs. We can also hopefully change the minds of others who may also be able to make lifestyle changes in their own cities.
12
May
07
links for 2007-05-13
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A documentary on the life of John Lennon, with a focus on the time in his life when he transformed from a musician into an antiwar activist. Full Version – probably won’t be up long so watch now.
12
May
07
Angel & Devil
Yesterday morning the angel on my shoulder encouraged me to give cycling to work another try – and good thing too because I had a fantastic ride in. The weather was perfect and traffic wasn’t bad. i also ended up leaving work at about 5:00 instead of 4:00 and the difference was enough to make traffic much better than last week and I ended up not hating every driver and suburbanite in the city.
On the downside, though, as promised, I do owe you a confession. I ordered takeout last night. Hakka chinese food (chili tofu, manchurian vegetables (with pakoras in the sauce – delicious!), and chili paneer for Paul) and ended up spending $25 that I didn’t need to spend and had food much less healthy than the pasta and sauce I was originally going to have.
Working again this weekend and leaving shortly (by bike again – total km this week about 130 by the way)
Toronto is a very strange city with all sorts of really weird things happening. I still don’t understand the whole road rage thing. I can understand getting upset (I get upset too sometimes!) and cursing or gesturing but to actually get physically aggressive is beyond me and only makes things worse (where does physical aggression make things better?). Still, it’s assholes like this that only encourage that. Of course what did I expect from the National Post (for people outside Canada – think Fox News but in print)
Not the biggest vote for my cycling to work but I think I will continue to do it anyway. I have managed to find showers at work (I work on a large campus and only have access to some buildings and only a few buildings have showers) and figure I’ll ride there a few times a week. Work is getting busy and I may be on 6-7 day week schedules and long days so cycling actually makes more sense as I can be sure to get a workout in as well. I was also thinking that leaving later in the day after the evening rush may make for a more sane commute home.
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