arrested

How do you get arrested for resisting arrest? A bit paradoxical, isn't it? I sincerely hope that it all started as for some other reason, and the suspect was charged with resisting arrest...

votes

There's nothing but economic gloom and doom in the news - it's almost like the election has taken 2nd place in the headlines... As the election draws nigh, I seek refuge in the darker, less serious, more snarky aspects of it all - sort of a Politique Noir? Ever seen the bumper sticker "Cthulu for President - why choose the lesser evil?" Well I'm thinking... so if election law says that you can't display campaign propaganda within 100ft of a polling place - what about sarcastic campaigns for imaginary creatures? I mean, he/she/it isn't even on the ballot, and it's not like you can just write them in on a presidential race. So would campaign propaganda for a candidate that isn't on the ballot be permitted? Enh. I don't even have a T-shirt or button, so I guess it's a moot point.

But in the voting world, I stopped by the library to catch a screening of Election Day at the library. Call me jaded, but I had a hard time engaging it. So consciously lukewarm. Yes, voting is good. Yes, there were fucked-up problems at polling places in 2004. Yes, voter turn out is on the rise. And? Well, it didn't draw me in to have anything to discuss in the discussion afterwards.

But the one fun thing was that since I was in my car, I had to park, and seeing as how the lot across from the downtown library (William and Fifth) is open for business now, I thought I'd give it a try. While the voices ("please take your ticket") are far too loud, the asphalt surface is this cool permeable asphalt stuff that rainwater runs through. Cool, hunh?

Yup, asphalt was the most exciting thing of the evening so far. Bread in the oven, we'll see how that goes. Nowhere to go but up.

huntfest

Family came to visit last weekend and wanted to check out some local attractions. One on the list included Cabela's down in Dundee. I'd never been there, but have heard about it, and as one who isn't averse to shooting, I figured it would be like a big outdoorsy hardware store with lots of gadgets. That it was, sure, but everything there is for sit-down outdoors stuff. Seriously - outdoors activities that involve a lot of sitting and not much moving. Deer stands, boats, ATVs, fishing poles, that kind of stuff.

Almost all the clothing is cotton, which means if you sweat, you'll freeze your ass off. Very little technical clothing - mostly just big bulky stuff.

I was puzzled by how all the stuffed animal carcasses are posed. They're all weird dioramas of rage and conflict - emotion in the animal kingdom. Even the scavengers (vultures) posed to pick at a carcass are assaulting the carcass. Kind of weird. Sure, there's rage in the human world, but what is the message? As a Cabela's customer, am I supposed to want to buy a gun and shoot the water buffalo? Or the lions? Both? It's the question of whom I identify with in the scene, to watch the harsh brutal nature of predators/prey and just let the scene play out, or to intervene and shoot something.

argh

Okeedoke... just this one hope:

If I never ever, ever, ever ... ever see the phrase "Keep insert-name-of-municipality-here Funky", my life will be all the more better off.

Ok, I'm gonna go and co-opt some Youth Culture now for my own nefarious purposes.

Sheesh. People these days.

bike racks - useful vs. ridiculous

Municipalities installing bike racks - NYC and Ypsilanti. They've gone on a search for designs, trying to include some form of art, resulting in all manner of... well, I'll just call them contraptions. On the right, we have some of the finishers from the NYC competition.

Some sort of orange blog that surely is fun to look at, but if you aren't a usual locker-upper there, how do you know what is plop art and what is a bike rack? I'm going to start locking up to public art just for the heck of it.

And the chrome abomination... a pox on wheel-chenching bike racks. Something that you can only lock the front wheel up to - Shee-it. In New York? Yeah, right.

Speaking of cost - Ypsi went with a more conventional design "tree guard", but still - $300/piece for a bent tube and water-jet cut medallion doesn't sound right.

Alas, as a bike rack user, I'm giving my tip-of-the-hat to Detroit. Yes, Detroit. Down on the Riverwalk, they've got these fine, sensible, attractive, slanty stainless steel hoops. Fits bikes of all sizes, not painted so they can't rust, etc. etc. It's not rocket surgery.

It's not important that they be works of art. I mean seriously - no one cares what parking meters look like. Where's the uproar about parking meter aesthetics? We need to avoid the distraction of the touchy-feely and just make it useful. Spending city money should be on useful things, not projects that take these months and never really happen. The decision to go with this design was a while ago, but I've yet to see these installed. Heck, winter will come, Ypsi's perpetual budget distractions will prevent anything from happening, and next spring/summer, there won't be any improvement to bike parking dowtown Ypsi.

Heck, for my money, I'd go with the $99 hoop version just to get it done. Install 10-20 of them around town. If people want pretty ones, that can come after - start with the basic ones in the high-traffic areas, then if people want the fancy ones outside their storefront, then put a fancy one in and relocate the basic ones further from the center of downtown - people lock up there too...

if wishes were horses, I could ride out and make this lunch happen.

Beetloaf sandwich from the Atlas Cafe and a nice pint of stout. Served in a sunny corner of a pub.





I do sorely miss that such a sandwich isn't available to me right now. It was... delicious.

cheerier subjects (-ish)

A weekend past, of cabins, friends, bikes... pie. A trip up northward to Mackinaw. Sure, it was two weeks ago, but it was delicious nevertheless, and I'll reminisce if I feel like it.

So yeah... umm.... pie. Emily and Amanda made this awesome 1 of a 2 pie series with some apples from the farmstand up in the neighborhood. That rocked. Take some Euchre, add some Bourbon... let the trash talkin' flow as the cards slap down... And in the morning, the leftover pie makes a pretty awesome breakfast. Heck, what we need here is the apple (or peach... yeah, peach would be good too) equivalent to the calzone. A handheld pocket of goodness. Yesh. but I digress...

Bikes were rode. On the road and otherwise. On the way back, we stopped off at a trail and found that the Shingle Mill Pathway is a good place. No crazy rock gardens or anything, just nice trail, pretty forest, etc. etc. Definitely a place where camping and MTBing go together. Heck, if you're into fishing and such, it's probably for you too, what with the Pigeon River in the neighborhood.

Note to self - spend more time there. When it comes to camping these days, I find I can't tolerate the RVs and whatnot - the people who want their wilderness to be close to the Starbucks, where wood for the fire is bought instead of collected. What I want when I look for the forest is birds tweeting and leaves rustling - no cars, no hootin' and hollerin' - just leaves rustling and brooks a-babblin'. So USFS, you are the people for me.

But then, in the nicest possible way, the badness happened. If I'm going to have spoke pull out the rim and make the wheel almost unrideable, I'm glad that it happened on the last trail of the trip, on the way back to the trailhead, within 1 mile of the parking lot.

It was pretty awesome riding, but alas, it'll be the last mile for that wheel. That, and after I got home, I... uhm... proceeded with a bent derailleur hanger re-straightening technique that turned into a hanger breaking technique. So that bike is good and broke for the moment. Bummer. If absolutely necessary, I can make a singlespeed, but maybe it's just time to put that bike down. Heck, it's 20 years old. A good run, but it might be over.

no patience for anything

Alas, the distractability compounds, and it seems I've moved on to a regime where I have no patience for anything. Waiting, sticking with, muddling through, etc. Heck, I've been annoyed with iPhoto ever since I bought a Mac product, and it crashes ever so more often the more photos go in it, but my patience falls apart when I have to learn how to use Fink before downloading other software. So again, I'm dissatisfied with iPhoto, but it sits there, holding photos, crashing eventually, sucking up memory in the meantime. Argh.

so yeah, what was I talking about? oh yeah, fucking crackers... [sigh]

By now we've seen enough YouTube videos of Palin/McCain rallies where the supporters are spewing essentially naked hatred. But here I am parked at the pub, enjoying a pint on a sunny Saturday afternoon, the room quiet, and this guy, too loud to be ignored, spouting some sort of Osama/Obama bullshit. Un-fucking-believeable. If he wasn't standing up and about to walk out, I was *this close* to making a point of getting up and calling him out on it - but he got away. I'm sorely, sorely tired of the closet racists who are spouting what is, ultimately, closeted racism. With the current theme for a lack of patience, let's just say that I've got my "are you a complete fucking idiot?" ready for the next moron that encroaches on my eardrums.

Reminds me of the last time I was in a situation that I couldn't quite believe it was actually happening... or at least, the last time I made a note to myself about it...

I'm at the bar on St. Paddy's Day, stopping in for an obligatory pint, chatting with a friend. They leave, I stay to finish my pint, and the guy on the corner of the bar gets chatty.

At the time Kwame Kilpatrick is in the news, still in office, but the scandal is heating up. Conversation on the barstools drifts to current events, and since AA/Ypsi is sufficiently far away from Detroit to allow a certain amount of detached amusement at the goings-on, it's like talking about the weather, right?

he notices my U of Illinois hat... "You from Illinois?"
"Yeah, near Chicago... grew up there. Moved here a while ago."
"Is there as much of a problem with blacks there?

What... the... fuck. The assumption that a clean-shaven white boy would be assumed to share the same closeted racist opinions just shocked me into dumbfounded silence. I should have gotten up and walked away in disgust. I should have said any of a dozen different things, but all I could come up with was "I think you and I don't share the same opinions about race." Now, in 2008, this kind of shit exists? Alas, it does. I'm not naive, but I'm just surprised at how close to the surface it is.

I might be an able-bodied college-educated straight-acting adult white male, but that doesn't mean I share your assumption of closeted racism. Or sexism. Or homophobia.

But here's the rub: for minorities or women or LGBT folks, they also see the able-bodied college-educated straight-acting adult white male with a haircut and assume that I'm not an ally.

So yeah... it seems I've got no patience for anyone these days.

Dolores Park (redux... er, re-dogs)

I hear that there are people out there, desperate to conceive children, but in their desperation and longing, they find themselves so obsessed with the idea that they can't help themselves. They make field trips of going to playgrounds, sitting on the sidelines, and watching other people's children play - fantasizing about how their own future children might play. How Janey or Johnny might be at 2 years, 4 years, 6 years old.

Well, I had a little taste of that craziness myself, out in SF. Emily and I were out and about for a coffee and then a sit-out-in-the-park in Dolores Park, and we spied two professional dog-walkers each with their dozen or so dogs in tow, out romping and playing in the park, all dogs of different shapes, sizes, personalities... none of them the same.

So we sat there and watched, each of us with our own personal fantasies about the perfect dog, neither us being able to exactly bring dogs into our respective lives. Me, I've got an apartment, no yard, but no roommates. She, in a relatively new town and with a house-full and relationship.

Wistful. Creepy. But pleasure in the fantasy, no doubt about that.

Mmm... puppies. Gotta get me a couple of those.

oy gevalt...

I don't have any Jewish grandparents, but Sarah Silverman makes me want some... Heck, she makes me want some Sarah Silverman.



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