Today's Activities Include: Bicycle!
Oct. 7th, 2011 01:54 pmI wouldn't want to imply that I haven't been on the bike at all recently, because I have been picking up A. some days on the bike. However, I haven't run errands of any significance on the bike for a while for complex reasons that you may feel free to summarize under the headings of Too Damn Hot and Lazy. It is a gorgeous fall day here in New England, and I finally finished _Retrofitting Suburbia_ (which I knew perfectly well I wasn't going to like and therefore wasn't going to want to keep and therefore got via inter-library loan, rather than forking out the $50 it might otherwise have cost me), so it was time for a bicycle trip to the library.
Of course, I missed my turn and it was longer than I had planned, but that's okay. I picked up _Railroaded_ while I was there. It's got really favorable professional reviews, but the Amazon customer reviews are not the sort to inspire confidence. If it's good, I'll buy the kindle edition (the hardcover is heavy enough to border on unwieldy). If it's bad, I can give up and return it.
R. took a break from working on taxes to meet me at Not Your Average Joe's for lunch. Afterwards, I looked at my bike and thought, hmmm. I'm on the Bianchi, which means I have two rear panniers. And Roche Bros is _right over there_. And I've taken to maintaining the grocery list in Evernote (after that debacle with T. erasing all my notes in the Apple Notes application, which has the added attribute of Not Backing Itself Up Anywhere, which is one of those brain-os that defies belief), so I had it with me. Returned library book and got another, check. Lunch with husband, check. Grocery shopping done, check.
R. and I spent part of our lunch discussing pedestrian pathways (our experience as kids, the ones in town that we know about, pedestrian-only roads in Seattle like the long stairs on Cap Hill, etc.) and what might be involved in using those to "retrofit" dentritic suburban subdivisions, instead of paved, wide roads suitable for emergency vehicles and cars.
Of course, I missed my turn and it was longer than I had planned, but that's okay. I picked up _Railroaded_ while I was there. It's got really favorable professional reviews, but the Amazon customer reviews are not the sort to inspire confidence. If it's good, I'll buy the kindle edition (the hardcover is heavy enough to border on unwieldy). If it's bad, I can give up and return it.
R. took a break from working on taxes to meet me at Not Your Average Joe's for lunch. Afterwards, I looked at my bike and thought, hmmm. I'm on the Bianchi, which means I have two rear panniers. And Roche Bros is _right over there_. And I've taken to maintaining the grocery list in Evernote (after that debacle with T. erasing all my notes in the Apple Notes application, which has the added attribute of Not Backing Itself Up Anywhere, which is one of those brain-os that defies belief), so I had it with me. Returned library book and got another, check. Lunch with husband, check. Grocery shopping done, check.
R. and I spent part of our lunch discussing pedestrian pathways (our experience as kids, the ones in town that we know about, pedestrian-only roads in Seattle like the long stairs on Cap Hill, etc.) and what might be involved in using those to "retrofit" dentritic suburban subdivisions, instead of paved, wide roads suitable for emergency vehicles and cars.