Who are you? I am the Multitude?

When walking today, from my apartment on Burnet Ave to my job on North Salina St - approximately 15 minutes or so - I counted the number of other walkers who I encountered, and came up with a whopping number of 15! Yes I am being sarcastic. At 9:00 am on a sunny Friday morning, albeit quite cold, i would expect to see more people outside going places, that indicates a healthy neighborhood to me.

Cause when it is warm outside you see more people in any case, people just hanging out on the sidewalks, playing outside, etc, but when it is cold out you know the people you encounter out on the streets and sidewalks are participating in some sort of engaged endeavor, thus the number of folks out would indicate more economic and social activity.

I was just thinking all this cause of the differences in my perceptions from this walk compared to the more dynamic walk I used to have from Westcott to the University. Tons of people out on the sidewalks going to do their thing, and I wondered if the lack on the Northside could be realistically taken as a deficit in community?

I want the multitude out with me, even when my breathe freezes as it escapes my mouth. What better time really?

This Is Not Your Bike.

Someone tried to steal my bike this morning. Even with the nice "Please Don't Steal My Bike" sticker that i have plastered on the handlebars - I always knew that wouldn't be enough to stop them!

I was at my apartment on Burnet Ave, making a quick pitstop between an appointment in the morning at the Tech Garden for a meeting with a business client, and then biking up to my regular office on North Salina St. I wanted to run in and grab my lunch which I forgot to take along with me in the morning, and while I was there I was going to use the bathroom and check my email on my laptop.

So since it would be a relatively quick stopover I didn't bring my bike inside my apartment, something I would normally always do, instead just locking it to the stair banister with the cable lock. So few minutes later as I'm sitting at my laptop I notice a shadow against the venetian blinds on my windows. This is a normal occurrence when anyone walks by the front of the apartmentt, but this time the shadow stopped right outside the window next to my bike and I knew immediately what was happening. I walked over and peaked through the blinds for a few seconds watching this young teenager fiddle with my lock, then pounded so hard on the window that I would have felt bad if I would have given him a heart attack with the surprise.

He moved off down the sidewalk and I came outside and told him that was my bike. Whence he proceeded to tell me it was his bike, he walked over to me now caught in his guilt and proceeded to tell me that he had a bike just like that stolen a few weeks back on Hawley. I showed him my Syracuse bicycle license plastered on my tube and he asked me if I was sure it was my bike cause he thought it was his. And that if he called the cops to come to check it out if I thought it would check out ok? Seriously, you're gonna call the cops, ok.

Now, you really don't go fiddling with someone else's property unless you know for pretty sure that it is what you think it is - in this case - your property and not theirs. So I was pretty worked up over it. Can I give him the benefit of the doubt - probably not, and I won't really feel bad about it either. Call me militant and harsh - but I sometimes have a short fuse when it comes to bicycle issues - why, who knows, probably because most people just don't give a damn even when you try to explain things to them - like my bicycle license here.

And please, Don't mess with my bike, don't even touch my bike unless I tell you it's ok or I'm standing right next to it - This is not your bike. Just because it is parked on a sidewalk or outside an apartment or a business, it is not your bike to touch, you wouldn't touch someone's car would you? Nuff said.