July 2007

Bike to Work #21 - Kebab

Picked up kebab (gyros) at New York Lunch on the way home. Unfortunately, they leaked a bit. Next time, bring extra plastic bags.

Four more rides until my goal is reached! (Then what?) Not sure if I'm going to bike tomorrow...tired from today.

Bike to Work #20 and a Snake

No big deal. A beautiful day; biking is often easier than driving. Did some biking yesterday...saw an Eastern Massasauga snake on a road near Asbury Elementary while on an excursion to Axe Murder Hollow, or that vicinity. Evidentally, the snake is poisonous. However, due to it striking at us while we were a comfortable 4 to 5 feet away, we were never in harms way.

Looks like I'll make my goal of 25 rides pretty soon. I'm interested in knowing what the final number is going to be.

William's Scratch Drawing Program

Here's a program in Scratch that my 8 year old son William did. He wrote it by himself!

His instructions:

To use helicopter: wasd keys To use orange plane: arrow keys. To use blue plane: ijkl keys. and when u start it press space. press space also to clear.

Press the green flag to start!

Bike to Work #19

I'm tired. After getting out of work late, it was sunset and I had just missed the thunderstorm that rolled in through Erie. The ride back was fairly uneventful, but now I know it's time for me to purchase some lights. I just need to be more visible.

At least I'm not that soaked from the rain.

Chumazik

If you haven't seen Chumazik, the Russian "Dirty Guy", then you're missing out. Seriously.

The best part, in my opinion, is the video.

Bike to Work #18 - Rain, Lessons Learned

I braved the weather and made it to work with only a spattering of raindrops on me. Unfortunately, the rain on the road (not puddles, just the damp) sprayed up and thoroughly soaked my butt. Worse yet, when I got to work, I found out that my backpack was not as water resistant as I hoped, and I had a couple of large wet areas on my pants. Luckily enough they dried out soo enough, but the moral of the story is:

Put your clothes in a waterproof (plastic?) bag

I already do that for my lunch, time to do that for the clothes as well.

By the way, I thought I was much further along in my goal for 25 rides for the year. I'm confident that I can make it. For some reason, I thought I had hit #20 already.

Learn To Program Computers the Easy Way With Scratch

My son William has been playing with Scratch, a programming language that lets the user move objects around on the screen and interact with the user. People have even cloned Donkey Kong and Duck Hunt with it -- it's that powerful a tool. Even if you're not a beginner, check it out...it will make programming fun again as it's extremely easy to use and you don't have to worry about syntax errors or the like. If you ever played with Logo, you'll know what I mean.

GE Federal Grant - Me on TV

That's me in the red shirt. Pretty exciting, eh?

Here's the video.

Bike to Work #17 - Almost Rain

A cloudy day, a bit of rain in the air. Nothing to stop me, though.

Eros and Anteros

For anyone wondering what the statue the couple on page 106 of the July/August 2007 issue of Budget Travel ("Surprise Engagement") were looking at, it's the statue of Eros and Anteros by Alessandro Algardi.

Bike to Work #16 - Wind

Pretty windy.

Investigated the clothes a bit closer. Here's what I found:

• Leather jacket, maybe sheepskin
• Winter coat with Killington ski lift pass
• 2 pairs of shoes, one strange, the other wing tips
• One pair of underwear
• Did not appear to have anything in the pockets
• Lots of flies
• Still no body

I'm really not obsessing over this! It just kind of makes me wonder what happened.

Also saw a groundhog on the way back. It wasn't happy to see me.

Bike to Work #15 - Strange Clothes But No Body

Ten more bike rides to meet my goal. Need to set the goal higher next year, I suspect.

Sneakatron asked me if I ever see anything unusual on the way to work. I replied that no, I didn't. Usually it's roadkill, bunnies, and such. Today, by the library downtown, I spied a bunch of clothes strewn around an unused railroad spur. The clothes looked mostly like a businessman stripped down and threw them around. I circled back to take a look and to see if there was a body or anything else near there. Nothing but clothes. I can't help but wonder how they got there.

Bike To Work #14 - Back To Work

Met a fellow named Tom who bikes 8 1/2 miles to work. Seems like everybody has a road bike and is faster than me - I have a Swedish Crescent Lodur mountain bike, with knobby tires and lots of drag. However, I don't let it stop me, so don't let it stop you!

Greets to Rachel, who bikes a mile and a half to work! If I had that distance, I'd consider the wintertime too. I wonder how that's going to turn up.

My odometer, which I set in kilometers (part of the Swedish thing) should hit 1000 fairly soon. Looking forward to that one.

Bicycle Commuting - Reboot

Planning to do the bicycle commute tomorrow (Erie PA, for the search engines). This will be ride #14, but I realize that I haven't ridden the long commute in over two weeks! It's a bit daunting again, trying to remember how long the trip is. It's really not that bad, but a bit scary to think about after such a long time off. I did do quite a bit of biking while on vacation (Cape Cod has wonderful bike trails), so I don't feel out of shape. Not sure, but I'm getting butterflies in my stomach again.

If anybody else out there is bike commuting in Erie, PA, I'd love to hear from you! Or just even riding for fun.

Back From the Outdoors

Back from camping vacation to Vermont, New Hampshire, and Cape Cod. Did quite a bit of biking along the Cape Cod Rail Trail from Eastham, Massachusetts. It was very nice to base out of one location and just do lots of biking back and forth.

Back to reality...soon!