Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?

[ we'll be alright / we have our looks and perfume ]
[ Sunday, May 18th, 10:15am ]

the national - apartment story

As dr_nuk mentioned, Paris has a bike sharing system. It appears to be used quite extensively as I would guess that about 1/3 people on bikes seem to be riding one of these bikes. In general there are a lot of bicycles, vespas, and motorcycles on the street-- many more than what I see in SF. Of the bicycles I see, I would guess that about half are cruisers and half are hybrid bikes. I've seen only two fixies and only a couple road bicycles, which seems weird to me considering the popularity of the Tour de France. Maybe people just don't ride road bikes in the city?

The other really strange thing is that no one on a bicycle is wearing a helmet! Given how crazy the traffic is here (not all the streets have lanes painted on them, motorcycles and scooters regularly get in the lanes headed in the opposite direction to get around cars), I find that quite surprising. Maybe it's a function of socialized medicine?

Obligatory plug: The Aids/LifeCycle starts in two weeks! Get in those last donations before I start the ride from SF to LA.

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[ I wondered how fast is light speed ]
[ Sunday, May 11th, 9:08pm ]

matt and kim - lightspeedYesterday, I rode in my first >80mi ride to Point Reyes and the Cheese factory. It actually wasn't too bad and I don't feel that sore today. I think that means I'll be in decent shape for the actual ride.

There are only 3 weeks left before the ride. I'm actually going on vacation to Paris this Wednesday and losing a week of training time (the vacation was scheduled before I signed up for the ride), but I don't think I'll lose too much fitness during that time.

Also, suggestions for Paris welcome.

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[ we'll stay inside til somebody finds us ]
[ Saturday, April 5th, 11:52am ]

the national - apartment storyHere's a picture of me riding to work last week.

I've ridden to work a dozen times so far. Twice along the skyline route and ten times along the bayway route. Bayway is a pretty easy ride, it takes about 3 hours now with a rest break about half way. I mostly ride my fixie when going the bayway.

I've also accumulated a lot of bike clothes. I think distance cycling should be on stuffwhitepeoplelike. It's like snowboarding: predominantly only white/asian people do it.

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[ I glide and swan cause I'm the best slow dancer in the universe ]
[ Wednesday, February 6th, 9:59pm ]

the national - green glovesA few people have asked me what percentage of the money raised for the AIDS/LifeCycle actually goes towards organizing the event and what percentage goes into the hands of the charities. Last year, the number was about 1/3 spent on the event, although it looks like the general trend is for that percentage to go down year to year. Since this is an aggregated total, it comes out to an average of $4,274 raised per person and a cost of $1,402 per rider (assuming that there were about 2500 people last year).

The cost per rider seems surprisingly high to me, but I guess that provides incentive to raise more than the $2500 minimum.

I draw two conclusions from this: (1) It would be more effective to donate directly to the charities and (2) most people won't do (1) on their own, so this event still raised over $7 million last year.

(obligatory donation link)

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[ Out of my league, I have birds in my sleeves and I wanna rush in with the fools ]
[ Thursday, January 31st, 6:20pm ]

the national - squalor victoriaOn Tuesday morning, I biked to work for the first time. We went the slightly longer but substantially more hilly Skyline route (~45mi, 2500' climbing). The more direct Bay way is a bit more common ride (~41mi, 1000' climbing).

Andy rode with me and we brought in the tail of the pack, but finished the ride with no injuries or flats.

Once the rain subsides, I'm going to start biking to work a couple times a week and work my way up to going daily. This is still only about half the number of miles that I'll need to cover in a day during the ride to LA.

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[ And the road a-winding goes / From golden gate to roaring cliff-side ]
[ Wednesday, January 23rd, 9:33pm ]

It has been 209 days since I last updated. Rather than bore you with an uninspired list of activities I've partaken for the past half year, I'm just going to tell you about an upcoming event. I've signed up for the AIDS/LifeCycle which happens in June. Zack, Neil, Andy, Lisi, Adam, and I are signed up so it should be a lot of fun. More importantly, I need to raise 2500$.

I'll try to keep track of my training and post some pretty graphs in the upcoming months.

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[ You know I dreamed about you / for twenty-nine years before I saw you ]
[ Thursday, June 28th, 8:58am ]

the national - slow showI'm in love with The National. They put on a great show at Bimbo's last night to a packed house. They've come a long way since I first saw them play two years ago at Cafe du Nord. Last year, they played at Great American Music Hall. If they continue to have explosive growth in popularity, I guess they'll be at the Warfield next.

I've been avoiding Live Nation venues in San Francisco. Pretty much any of the places bigger than Bimbo's that The National would play at is a Live Nation venue, so last night may have been my last show seeing them. Well, at least, in this city. I'd travel to see them play elsewhere.

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[ left and right split at the heart ]
[ Sunday, June 10th, 12:19pm ]

matt and kim - no more long yearsBest and most confusing drunk text message I received:

"UK fee you inikke a second"

Which translates to OK see you in like a second. I wasn't able to decipher it on my own, I had to ask someone else.

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