Errands By Bike

Here are a few justifications for doing errands by bicycle that I tallied up today.

I decided to meet a couple of friends for lunch while out for errands. I had to return something to Lowes (moisture barrier from my wood laminate flooring experience) and pick up a couple of other items (caulk, drill bits, etc.).

By the way, this is my We Add Up shirt. The idea behind "We Add Up" is that no one can do everything, but everyone can do something, and together we add up and make a difference. The shirts are individually numbered as each person orders one. The backside is chosen based on what you hope to do to make a difference. These include things like recycle, eat less meat, shower together, or, as I chose bike. There are several others as well.

I also wanted to run by Summit Hut to buy a cool SIGG sippy cup for my beyond-cool grandson, Julian. It's all environmentally friendly aluminum, non-leeching, non-toxic drinking goodness for my little man. Plus, it has a twisty top that will allow me to "turn it off" so he can't spill it everywhere. Mmmm. Sippy goodness.

Anyway, let's get to those numbers I was talking about. Running my errands took me about four hours. It would have, probably, been a bit quicker in a car but not by a whole lot, really. Probably less than an hour difference in all likelihood. I ended up riding 37.3 miles. This would have likely been just a tad longer if I had driven due to some bicycle "shortcuts" here and there. But the difference would have been negligible. My car averages around 23 mpg. This means I saved 1.62 gallons of gasoline, or rather, 1.62 gallons of gasoline were not used. At current prices of $3.63 per gallon for regular, that's $5.88 not spent! Using the carbon calculator at CarbonFund to figure out how much carbon per mile my car emits, I figure there were just over twenty-two pounds of carbon not pumped into the atmosphere by riding my bike today instead of driving. And, despite my appearance in the above self-portrait, I wasn't miserable doing it, either! To top it all off, gas prices went up four cents while I was out--seriously! Gas was $3.59 when I left the house, $3.63 when I came home. That's just crazy.

Anyway, the money I saved on the gas I didn't use didn't quite cover lunch, but it was close--within a couple of dollars. That's pretty good. And I got some exercise to boot! Oh, and I picked up a perfectly good drumstick on the side of the road, too. I'm going to clean it up and give a light sanding and some color using food coloring and let Julian use it to bang on his new set of bongos. Should be fun. I never would have pulled my car over to pick up a drumstick. Hell, I would have never seen the drumstick.

The Future of Cycling is Now!

Is this the cutest damned kid in the world, or what? Eat your heart out Lance!

Cyclilng...Must...Go...Cycling...gasp

I have to get out on my bike. I need to go on a tour. I need to accomplish that this year. My one failed trip (silly!) is a glaring black mark on my cycling agenda.

It has been so windy here lately. The winds in the morning have been in the 13 mph range. Yesterday and today they are 25-35 mph and there are supposed to be gusts of up 50 mph. That's crazy windy. I was riding back from a ride one day and there were 50-60 mph gusts that I didn't realize we were supposed to be getting that day. I had my bike literally blown out from under me. It was scary.

I rode my Lemond road bike the other day for the first time since El Tour. I have been exclusively riding my touring bike. It was weird. It was all fast and twitchy and frankly scared the hell out of me for the first couple of minutes. It's amazing how fast you adjust to a different geometry and how fast you can forget one, too.

Damn it. I need to go on a long, long ride.

Wrong Again. No Surprise.

Amazingly enough, David Cook won out over David "guhguh" Archuleta. I have to say I'm surprised. I gather somehow the "judges" know who wins because Simon actually took a moment to apologize to Cook and to say he misjudged on the previous night and they had both done just peachy. And then Cook won.

Or did he? As I said, history has proven that winning American Idol isn't necessarily a true "win." More often than not the ones who don't win are more successful in the end. We'll see how this one plays out.

So, as I said, it's no surprise that I was wrong. It is a surprise, however, how this one turned out.

American Idolatry

There's an old maxim that a million people can't be wrong. It's an old favorite of the marketing world. The truth is that of course a million people can be wrong. It's ludicrous to think otherwise. And there is no evidence more clear than the television show American Idol.

A gazillion people watch this show.* At least half a gazillion** vote in the end. Many are mindlessly led along by the judges--even ditsy, drug-addled Paula Abdul sways some of the audience. It was clear this evening that the judges had crowned the differently-abled boy, David Archuleta, as the winner, even though he is only capable of singing one type of song in one way with no variation. Simon, in fact, has an obvious man-crush on the underage boy, which is at once disturbing and unsurprising. This guy consistently tells contestants their performances were "old fashioned," yet his boy-love is practically from the last century when it comes to song choices.

The show's title has proven to be a joke anyway. More often than not the "winners" spend their lives in obscurity. Fantasia? Ruben? Taylor Hicks? Yeah. You'll see them the next time American Idol drags out their "success" stories, but nowhere else. Nowhere that matters anyway. Because the truth is that the true test of our American sense of idolatry is indicated only in the market place. And with few exceptions, American Idol winners aren't successful. Kelly Clarkson, yep. Carrie Underwood, yep. Anyone else? Nope. You hear a lot more of Clay Aiken than you do Ruben Stoddard. You certainly hear a lot more Chris Daughtry than you do Taylor Hicks. So the show is a great way for some of these people to get exposure they otherwise would not receive, but it seems like winning rarely does anything for your long term career.

Another factor is the control the producers of American Idol have over that first record. Kelly Clarkson's first record has far too many crappy ballads, pop, and pseudo-R&B moments. It's her second record that works to her success because she was able to exert more stylistic control. Do you honestly think if Chris Daughtry had won his first record would have been anything but crap?

So here's what happens next. David "Archie" Archuleta wins the title of American Idol (probably to David Cook's benefit, in the end). He weeps. He cries. He guhguhs his way through a moronic thank you. They trot him around the country on The American Idol Tour. Somewhere along the line he is allowed to put out a record that is purchased by grandmas who watch American Idol and by pre-pubescent teens who think they could one day marry the kid who won American Idol. And then he disappears from the minds of the true American consumer market. He might get work next year when they trot him out for a performance on the next season of the show. Who knows, it's even possible that Josh Groban might need an opening act someday. Hey, it could happen. Anything could happen. Who knows--it might even be actually possible that someday the show American Idol could actually discover and produce a true American idol. Doubtful, but possible. And I suppose it's that hope that keeps people tuning in to this crappy piece of offal they call American Idol.

*A gazillion is not a real number. It's completely fictional. But it represents a lot. A whole lot. Of course, what makes it fictional is that it represents both far more than the actual audience of American Idol and far less than the producers of said show would like you to think.

** See * above.

Sen. Obama, Meet The Establishment

Barack Obama has been getting ripped the last couple of days for some comments he made about "small towns." Here's what he said: "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them. And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations."

Well, of course, McClain and Clinton jumped on their out of touch with reality but sure as hell online in Washington high horses and immediately condemned the comments. They called them "demeaning," and "elitist." All, of course, for a lack of any real ammunition to use against Obama.

The problem is they ignore the truth at the core of his statements in favor of simplistic attacks. They feed right into the Government machine.

Of course, all the uproar is unfounded. I can clearly see what he meant. Perhaps it is Clinton and McCain who are being demeaning by believing that people can't understand the deeper meaning of what he was saying. A negligent parent (our government) leads to resentment and anger which leads to other outlets. The government does everything it can to get rid of American jobs by giving incentives to businesses to outsource, etc. So, of course, the problem must be with immigrants taking our jobs. Anger. Misplaced anger. And don't think the government doesn't do its part to encourage this mindset. Why won't they do anything about illegal immigration? Because it's a great scapegoat. If the people can't blame the poor brown people they might start looking at the Government! Heaven forbid!

When people are struggling, either personally, emotionally, or financially, they historically--and throughout the world--find deeper bonds with religion, mythology, and other "philosophies" that lead them to believe it will all get better if I simply pray and believe harder and go to church/mosque/synagogue/sweat lodge, whatever, more often. The Government loves this, too, because the problems aren't with the Government they are with the moral shortcomings of the
people. It's our own fault we don't have food and jobs because we just don't believe in God enough. So what if this world is a mess? We'll put our trust in the next one. Who cares if we're destroying the planet? Heaven will be waiting. In fact, the more I suffer in this life the greater my reward in the afterlife. This mindset works really well for the Government's use.

This is the type of sentiment that Obama was referring to. It's just a shame that the small minded and ignorant will continue to cast blame in the wrong direction instead of seeing the real problem and doing something, anything, to help solve the problem. It's so much better to blame the voices who are trying to reveal the real source of the troubles people seek comfort from. It's so much easier than actually trying to fix something.

Joan's a Star!

Joan shot a PSA with Mayor Bob Walkup of Tucson, AZ, regarding the upcoming American Heart Association Start! Heart Walk. Check it out! She was really nervous, but she looks great! Mayor Bob is kind of tall so I think they had her stand on something. The night before we had a practice reading and I was Mayor Bob. I think I was just as good as he was! This was filmed at the KMSB Fox 11 studios here in Tucson.