Wiggle

A friend suggested that we ride to Glden Gate Park on Saturday to hang put for a bit while we were riding around San Francisco. My memory of this park is that it sits at the top of a big hill at the top of Haight Street. But he showed me this route called The Wiggle. It turns out that this route avoids many of the big hills to get up to the Panhandle of GG Park. This was great learning an alternative route, as some of the hills on a straight course on a map can be tourtorous.

With that being said, I was amaze at the number of cyclists in San Francisco. I was surprised thouhg that not many wear helmets, and they are very aggressive in their riding tactics. I wonder if Bellingham has the same proportion of cyclists as San Fran?

It's nice to be back in Bellingham though. I actually stepped outside of SeaTac Airport and welcomed the clouds and mist on my face. But the winter is beginning to lighten up and signs of spring are emerging here in Bellingham.

SFO

Today is a day to make my way to the airport to return home to Bellingham. But yesterday's ride around San Francisco was a great time. Basically, this city (I've been told) is seven by seven miles. And having a bicycle to get around town is a wonderful to experience it on a warm and sunny California winter day.

I rented a bike from across the street from the hotel where I am staying in Cow Hollow and went to visit a friend in the Mission. The Mission is a neat neighborhood with funky shops and weathered appearance, but it was generally clean and full of activity.

From there we biked up to Golden Gate Park and then down to Ocean Beach (see picture) and then back to Dolores Park to end the day. It was a full day of cycling coupled with adequate relaxation. I was lucky to have a friend show me around too that was was in the midst of an apartment move.

Time now to get some coffee and then catch the Muni/BART to SFO.

Crash

So Thursday night we are working on this presentation into the wee hours of the morning. And basically - as I don't like talking about it, as it raises my blood pressure - my computer got a virus and I basically lost everything. Again. Hopefully a back up will prove effective, But living in the electronic age, I've come to understand the meaning of impermanence. Iwonder if this web blog that I've constructed over the past 500+ posts will some day just disappear? But we reconstructed everything on my colleagues 1999 Windows NT (the only decent Windows product ever produced) laptop with a faulty power cord.

So I sit here in a coffee shop that I frequent when I visit San Francisco. It is a beautiful day in the city whose nickname currently slips my mind and I am sitting here daydreaming about riding my new bike in Bellingham and thought, geeze, why don't I enquire about renting a bike here for the day? There's a bike shop right across the street where I am staying on Van Ness. So although there are many things happening my mind, the wonderful weather and city beckons.

And I was tempted to stay in the hotel all day and watch the hundred channels on a snazzy new HDTV.

Railyards

Mona tried to tell me
To stay away from the train line.
She said that all the railroad men
Just drink up your blood like wine.
An' I said, "Oh, I didn't know that,
But then again, there's only one I've met
An' he just smoked my eyelids
An' punched my cigarette."
- B. Dylan

Today I pulled myself away from the spreadsheets and e-mails and got dirty at work We have railcars full of biodiesel at a yard in Mount Vernon and today I learned how to unload them into a tanker trucks to send off to points north and south. It is nice to see how the nuts and bolts of our company work. And to come home with the sweet smell of biodiesel on my clothes and grease under my fingernails made for a hearty and fulfilling day.

But that will change, as tomorrow I am off to San Francisco with our dog and pony show, donning my suit and tie and suspenders and wingtips, and courting investors in our California project.

By the way, I pulled this picture off the Internet (it looks like somewhere in Wyoming) - our rail cars are much shinier, which means they are more slippery at eight a.m. when they are covered by the morning frost. Safety counts, as it is a long fall from the top of these tank cars.

I am not certain when I write next, although we are staying in our favorite San Fran motel, which is cheap as dirt, and right in the middle of everything. And thankfully we can take Bart and Muni everywhere. Not driving in the city makes it so much more enjoyable.

Buddha

Tonight I did something I had not done in a few years and that was go to a Theravadan sitting. They've since moved to a new place called the Red Cedar Hall near the co-op. Taking forty-five minutes for meditation out of my life of always being occupied was much needed.

A friend once told me that I needed to meditate.
"I don't have time to meditate," I told her.
"Exactly," she replied.

I hope I return.
The Red Cedar Dharma Hall.
Breath. Silently. Breath. - a haiku by me

Felt Curbside

Through a few logical maneuvers, I managed to convince myself how necessary a new bike was. So I picked up last year's model of a Felt Curbside - a single speed (or fixed gear, depending on how you mount the rear wheel) that is fast and designed as a messenger bike. My old cruiser bumbles along at a comfortable pace, but this new bike really flies. For example, getting to my moonlighting gig normally takes twenty-five minutes on my old bike versus fifteen minutes on my new bike. And did I mention it's fast?

But in with the new, out with the old. That means one of my bikes needs to go, and it looks like it will be the old 1973 Schwinn Suburban. It's in the garage and I haven't had time to replace the derailleur on it, so it will be given to a friend who can hopefully give it the attention it needs.

But now it's back to relearning Powerpoint, which I've been using since 1996 But the new version is an entirely new product, so it's back to square one - sort of like reliving a bad part of my life when I was introduced to Microsoft the first time around having this sensation that it would cause me immeasurable grief in life. I sometimes wonder if never having computers would have really made my life that disadvantageous. I wasn't that dissatisfied with Microsoft Multiplan that I began using in 1984 and the impovements never really offset the frustrations that accompanied subsequent releases through the decades. I wonder how much the new Office actually impedes productivity in our economy. Maybe Bill Gates is responsible for this recession?

But after the pains and rigors of using Microsoft during the day, it's aways good to be able to use the Linux Dell. What other company can deliver years and years or increasingly bad products and still retain such a huge market share?

Oh well, back to thinking about my bike.

Week

Another week begins and I awoke startled at the magnitude of things that need to get done. At least my trip to San Francisco the latter part of the week will make me ultra-efficient on the former portion. But I have along list of tasks to complete by Wednesday.

But as I cross the tasks off the list and my life becomes a bit more seemingly manageable on a Monday mornings, as the juncos and finches feed at the thistle feeder (I cannot see the sunflower feeder around the corner, although a large flock of Cedar Waxwings passed through last week) and the dog slumbers in front of the fireplace. And we're supposed to be this highly intelligent species as we work our entire life to aspire to the being that domesticated dogs have always and solely known, as well as the birds outside. At what price does this level of intelligence come?

At least I enjoy what I'm doing, and can leverage my disdain for prior livelihoods to have arrived at a point of existential self-satisfaction.

Back to the salt mines.