On the Civic Plaza

On Friday I ride my bike downtown to see Barack Obama. Around 11:30 I take a gander at the line to get into the convention center, where he's due to speak on the economy at 1:30. It doesn't look too long, so I go and eat a BLTG (G for guacamole). When I return, I follow the line from the door backwards all the way around the entire city block.


As I'm not much of a concert goer, this is by far the longest line I've ever stood in. But I'm game. I've never seen a potential president either. After waiting a while, my line-friends and I find out that we accidentally line-jumped. The end of the queue was actually across the street, behind a series of zig-zags on the civic plaza. We feel a little guilty but keep our places. In the end, it doesn't matter because the convention center and all of the overflow rooms are full. However, this works out great for me because Obama decides to speak to us out on the Civic Plaza before going inside. This means I get to see him up close, hear a short campaign speech, and get home in time to make brownies for girls' night.

I guess these pep talks are always vague. He says some things about hope for the future and an emphasis on cooperation rather than special interest. As a preview to the talk on the economy that he's giving inside, he says that we need to stop giving tax breaks to the top 1% and start making it easier for average, working Americans to climb the ladder of success. That sounds pretty good, but the "ladder" image always makes me furrow my brow a bit. It seems to imply constant climbing-- that everyone (except maybe that top 1%) can and should get richer and richer and buy more and more stuff. But isn't there a reasonable rung where some of us should just hang out?

Though Obama is the best speaker of all the candidates, and it would be a relief to hear his voice in the sound bytes for the next four years, I'd listen better if he said something like this:

"In a nation that was proud of hard work, strong families, close-knit communities, and our faith in God, too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption. Human identity is no longer defined by what one does, but by what one owns. But we've discovered that owning things and consuming things does not satisfy our longing for meaning. We've learned that piling up material goods cannot fill the emptiness of lives which have no confidence or purpose. . .

We are at a turning point in our history. There are two paths to choose. One is a path . . . that leads to fragmentation and self- interest. Down that road lies a mistaken idea of freedom, the right to grasp for ourselves some advantage over others. That path would be one of constant conflict between narrow interests ending in chaos and immobility. It is a certain route to failure."

Jimmy Carter said that in 1979 in his "Crisis of Confidence" speech. It was mostly a speech about energy, and in it he asked Americans to "take no unnecessary trips, to use carpools or public transportation whenever you can, to park your car one extra day per week, to obey the speed limit, and to set your thermostats to save fuel. Every act of energy conservation like this is more than just common sense - I tell you it is an act of patriotism."

My problem with today's politicians is that they don't ask me to do anything except elect them. I don't believe that they can do a whole lot to make this country better. But I believe that I can. Ask me to do something specific. Ask me to sacrifice for the good of my country and the world.

I am the people, and I am not as selfish as you think I am.

business idea

As part of piecing together my weltanschauung -- perhaps more on that later -- I've come up with a sure-fire business plan. Feel free to use it because (1) I'm sort of busy with my current job and (b) I don't have any capital with which to start it.

Here goes: A new health insurance company. Now you might be saying, that's really dumb, there's a gagillion of those already. The critical difference is that this company doesn't ALLOW for tests that use expensive, high tech equipment (e.g., http://www.gehealthcare.com/usen/mr/index.html and http://www.gehealthcare.com/usen/fun_img/index.html). Another feature of the company is that the CEO won't be paid $120 million per year like William W McGuire of United Healthcare (healthcare provider for my work). How about $100k? All the details need to be worked out, but this is just a blog, not a free business plan center.

So now, more people can afford health care. Great! They just won't have the best possible technogadgets at their service. Could be a bummer. But now more people get decent treatment.

Friday trip to the zoo

This week was my friday off week. Since the weather was just fabulous, we went to the zoo -- via bicycle of course. Lunch was at Cecilia's downtown, yummy!

Flamingoes make the best pictures, but my favorite animals to watch were the hippoes and polar bears -- big and fun! Jill liked liked the small monkeys with lion's manes in the tropical America area. I learned from this visit that winter is the best time to visit the tropical displays -- in the summer, it's downright oppressive in there.

Observe Jill's bike riding clothes for a warm winter day. It really is winter -- see the snow on the very top of the mountains.

a fun coincidence

This evening I stopped by to meet in person a guy that I know through the amazingly informative and fun bicycle internet discussion group 'i-bob'. The main objective of the meeting was to buy a bike part, but I was excited to meet another bike rider in the area.

While looking at his very nice bike collection, I saw his cars, including a newish orange Citroen. I said, "I saw an orange Citroen just like that in Taos about a year ago." He said, "That was probably mine... I don't know of any other in the area." I thought, well, that's just too funny. It was parked right outside the hotel room that we stayed at for the weekend.

But then it gets better. I relate the story to Jill, and she said, "We actually took a picture of it." What I remember is that I really enjoyed repeatedly saying "Citroen" with a Frenchish accent.

Is it really yours, Ryan?

UPDATE: Yup, it's his. If you see a lovely orange Citroen, give the driver a wave. Or better yet, say, 'Why aren't you riding your bike????!!!'

what's old is new

I bought a pair of Dr. Martens boots in 1996. They were my main shoes for several years, but as they got older, I wore them less and less. This winter, I was inspired to see if a local shoe repairman(woman) would be willing to resole them. Well, Jill took them to a Russian guy, and he did the job. Good as 12 year old shoes can be!

When I got home from work today, this was adding some mood to our living room. Jill also bought 'The Essential Billy Joel' today.

Someone tell me the date again!

Christmas vacation

We continued our tradition of visiting Park City, UT, for Christmas. What can one do there? Lots!

Here we are sporting our Christmas gifts to each other. Wool shirts. We had probably the quietest Christmas ever. It was just the two of us, as my parents didn't arrive until the day after.

It was really cold, so we played indoor mini golf, using a bottle cap as the hole. Watch out for hazards!


We made some Christmas cookies. We had forgotten to buy eggs, so Jill substituted yogurt. Yummy!

And there was lots of snow. Here's Jill enjoying a cozy soft seat on the powder.

There were a couple really big storms just before we arrived. During our stay, we had a one 6" storm and then a 2' storm. Lots of white!

Did I mention that there was lots of snow. At the top of the hill, the snow went to the bottom of my grip. DEEP! Our snowshoeing arrangement was for me to break trail and Jill to follow in my steps. With each step, the snow was squished about 1 1/2 to 2'. Despite the 'greatest snow on earth', this was still very hard work for me. Really fun for Jill!We really enjoyed our time with mom and dad. Lots of yummy food, playing games, and watching football in HD.

Mom, dad, and I went skiing one day 'together'. Well, mom and dad skied together for part of the day. I was skiing stuff that was too hard for me over and over again. Now that I only ski once or twice a year, it's a lot harder to ski the steep chutes. It took about 4 runs to get back any sense of what I was doing. I felt pretty good for maybe 2 runs, and then my legs just got completely worn out.

On my last run of the day, I mistakenly ended up skiing the chute where an avalanche had killed a skier just before Christmas. It was a very eery feeling, as I don't think anyone else had skied it since. The 4' wall of snow where the avalanche had broken was clearly visible, and the debris field was scattered along the run.

Thanks to the kindness of my parents, this was a very inexpensive vacation. No charge for lodging, about $200 in gas, about $250 for food (thanks again, mom and dad), $79 for skiing (for one ticket -- really -- ouch), free snowshoeing, $50 in Park City mementos. Pretty good for a week and a half vacation. Anyone wanna' join us this summer for a week?

rack on rack

We got a message from our landlord saying that porches aren't for 'storing stuff'. I don't know about you, but I don't consider bike parking to be 'storing stuff'. But we don't want to cause any trouble, so we have come up with this new solution. Let's hope it goes over well.

We picked up this handy rack from our favorite bike shop (Cycle Cave on Menaul). I had first used only zip ties wrapped once around the rack and my rack, but after two bumps, 4 of the 6 broke. Plan b was using velcro straps. Excellent!

Here's what we had before. The old grill is used as rack. Note that my gray bike is not locked to it yet because it is holding the new rack.

Here's 4 bikes locked to the new rack. Since the photo was taken, we moved it about a foot to the right. Much better I think.

If you're interested in a well-used grill, it's now in the dumpster outside our apt complex. We had left it outside our old house for someone to take. Someone did take the propane tank but left the grill. I guess it's not worth much. Anyway, the garbage truck comes Monday.