Confessions of a Fair Weather Cyclist

Well, it  appears that Spring has finally decided to show up for good. This means its time to dust off my bike for the warm weather and have another go at being semi-green or whatever the current popular thought is on environmental issues. Why am I a fair weather cyclist? Well, I'm not good in rain, snow sleet and hail and since I don't work for the U.S Postal Service, have no need to prove anything by riding in such weather! Another thing is , I live in the DC Metro area. While cyclists are tolerated, there is still the pervading sense that we don't belong on the road. I'm also more of a utility cyclist when I do ride. The occasional trips to the store, movies, noodling about my neighborhood at a leisurely pace.  What I have found is that I appear to be a rare breed in these parts. I have noticed that I tend to be the lone African American (ok, I'm tired of being politically correct, black is still safe to say around me without getting beaten, people) woman who dares to ride. I'm still trying to wrap my head around this. While there are more black people as you get into DC proper and Northern Virginia apparently, as you come North the numbers lessen shockingly. I'm lonely out here people!!!! Oh yes, I do occasionally don the spandex but more often than not I'll be in regular clothes for the bit of noodling I do.  I was pondering another bloggers post about riding gear earlier today. We Americans get in such tizzies over the littlest matters. Who cares what people are wearing when they ride. If they are comfortable in it and it isn't violating any laws, why get in a snit over their business?  Another issue, sidewalk vs. street. Lord what a war this one starts. If you are Lance Armstrong and can blast along in traffic at 20+ mph, hallelujah for you, go right ahead. As for me, my heart starts getting very anxious at high speeds for the moment so a leisurely (and courteous to walkers that I encounter) 10 and under it is for me, thank you very much. I would really like to see more people bike commute in my area though for real. I have a coworker who bought a bike with me last year and hasn't ridden it yet. I'm gonna have to get my bat out I think! This neighborhood is relatively safe for bikes, as we have a fair amount of sidewalks to accommodate the state's "50mph+-take the sidewalk laws" Since I work in a healthcare facility, I'd like to challenge folks who live less than 10 miles away to try cycling in now that gas had gone through the roof. I've been blessed to live next door to my job so I walk around the fence. Maybe I'll try again with Bike to Work day coming up.

Well folks, whatever your pleasure, racer, utilitarian, or noodler, be safe and happy as you peddle about.

Mac Attack

Well, I've officially joined the ranks of Mac user. I bought a 15 inch Mac Book Pro 2 weeks ago. I'm quite enjoying it. The reason for this switch was I was not in any way enthralled with Vista even though I hadn't used it personally. The negative reviews I was reading kept me from the cheaper Dell I was looking at. So now I have to learn new keyboard short cuts which is n't a problem, and buy some new software. I have also resolved to not put anything Windows on my new baby. I've had good luck finding replacements for word processing and several games that I like. The only problem now is when my still-lost-in-windows friends call and ask for help I hae to remember what to do for them!!! There is a thought going about that Mac's are getting more popular due inpart to Vista's nightmares. I think this is good and bad. Good because the barriers can finally come down between the two camps. Bad, because with more market share comes the greater potential for malware, hacks, virii (??) and other malicious attacks on the system, which up till now has enjoyed somewhat of a carefree life (the recent "hacking" of the MB Air not withstanding) We Mac lovers will lose the badge of nerds and geeks and antidisestablishmentarian people as others join on and see the intriguing things this OS offers.

ON TIME!!!

Ok, I admit. I'm a punctual person. I guess it comes from being in the Navy for almost 20 years. I learned to be wherever I had to be at least 15 minutes early. So I have a very big problem with grown people who can never make it on time to the same event they attend weekly or at least on a regularly scheduled basis. If you know that you have this particular activity SCHEDULED the same days at the same time, and no one had informed you there has been a change in time or a cancellation, why can't you be there on time. Yet when you do decide to grace us with your presence, you have the nerve to complain about the activity being too long!!! I feel its disrespectful to the person holding the activity as well as to the other people who show up on time, expecting to start and end on time!! If this was a job related function and you were getting paid for it, I can guarantee you would be there on time!!! Or the person who asks for a ride, you give them the time you will be there to pick them up and they have the nerve to make you wait. I've started driving off!!! That is the height of rudeness. Whatever happend to manners and respect

AND THIS YEARS GOLDEN FLIP FLOP AWARD GOES TO...

Hmmm.... well this one would be a real hard one to figure out. I've tried sitting through the debates to see who would gender my vote this year and NO ONE is impressing me at all. This is the first year that I've felt like not even bothering to vote. And I am big on voting. The main reason is I'm an African American woman, and on both counts, my people have had to fight entirely too hard to get the privilege. But this year, I jsut don't know. Hillary seems to flip flop a lot, Obama is ( a) too fresh and (b) African American, for which I truly fear, were he somehow to magically win the nomination, would place him squarely in the crosshairs of some racist kooks gunsights. I like Bill Richardson, but he's just too far down the line. What's a good American to do?

OFF THE TOP

Well, I guess I'm officially a blogger now. I started this venture because my soon to graduate son kindly informed me that I need a hobby. So after seeing an interesting piece about blogging on the evening news, I've decided to give it a try. My current train of thought is about the spate of recalls of products produced in China. My thoughts on this is that this is a "chickens coming home to roost" moment. America has tried to get goods and services for little or nothing and so outsourced everything possible overseas. It would make more sense to bring all the manufacturing jobs back home (we have a source of cheap labor here now but thats a rant for another day) where they can be more strictly overseen than to keep paying through the nose with recalls and loss of revenue. Is China's "Most Favored Nation" status soo important that the lives of Americans (and their pets) must be sacrificed to maintain it