Road Warriors

Just in case you are one of those people who are holed up in your car on the way to and from work, and have even the slighest tendency to get miffed at the crazy folk walking on the streets in the winter - take a deep breath and please realize that this is what we have to often put up with.

Over a foot of the white stuff - snow bank from the plowing of the adjacent driveway - and not seen in this photo, but all sidewalks are not on level ground either, so yes it is slippery walking on this stuff as you slip and slide downhill. Thanks for your consideration as us walkers requisition a portion of your roadway :>)

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.

Are you kidding me?

Why is it that people only notice the bad weather in their lives? You understand? What do you suppose is the ratio of folks going around complaining on a daily basis compared to those going around happily and joyful? Who knows, maybe it is equal, but I think we tend to notice the negativity more.

So that is what has brought me back to this blog today. I make no excuses for starting a blog and then not posting for ages. I am busy with life, I have a full-time job, I am the Board President of a non-profit organization in my spare time, I have a girlfriend, a dog, a house I am buying to fix up, I like to take up time cooking meals rather than buying them, I like to lay in bed and read sci-fi ---- point being, time is precious and short, and blogging sometimes seems pretentious or otherwise pointless in relation to what I could be doing with my time.

But today I (along with U.) was verbally assaulted on James St in Syracuse, right on the 400 Block as we were riding past the EconoLodge, the Snowdon and the gas station on the Corner. And something ugly like this I notice and it makes me want to write. Turns out that a car of people couldn't be patient over the course of one half of a city block because they just had to get into the Sunoco parking lot 10 seconds sooner. I don't know, maybe they were afraid someone was going to buy the last ice cream sandwich before they got there.

So long blasts on the horn were followed by yelling out the window at me for being inconsiderate or something to that effect, yes, the effect was harsher believe me. I think they said they were gonna call my momma or something. Oh yeah, and here's the kicker, I got threatened that I was "In the 'Hood!" Honey, that's my 'Hood, you just don't know it yet. Get out of your car and soak up some of this beautiful November weather, and get a life.

Now that I got that out, I can be happy again, enjoy the day Syracuse, it's a beautiful world if you're willing to take some time and see it.

EconoLodge Not So Neighborly

I live on Burnet Ave. The Econolodge that resides on ### James St has it's parking lot and trash disposal area butting up against the backside of its property on Burnet Ave. I guess they don't have much respect for those of us around its back end. Apparently, form the evidence of this picture. The Econolodge folks feel it is ok to simply blow their garbage onto the sidewalk and street that I use on a daily basis.

Oh well, I guess if they do not have to look at or have it on its property then its not their responsibility any more. Well they are sorely mistaken. I went to the lobby on Saturday night after I noticed this mess, and had the desk jockey there call the manager to tell him about the problem. Unfortunately I couldn't understand 1 word of it as they were speaking Indian. But I was told it would be taken care of.


Well as of this morning (Wednesday) it's not. I think that's long enough to have your maintenance personnel, or even yourself if you are the manager, to go out and clean up your mess. 4 days is long enough for me to see this mess. Who do I talk to at the city about this?

At least the yard next door, in which much work has gone into cleanup and renovation of the previously discarded home there recently, presents some joy and beauty to our street. Beautiful little purple violets(?) popping up so sweet.

Throw Away Culture Pollution...

...or, can't you at least wait until you find a trash can?

Walking down any street in the city, especially in the spring once the snow has melted, shows just how careless folks are with their consumer lifestyles. There are a number of little pocket parks on N. Salina St. Like this one here, that have nice little rose bushes in them, which however, are perfect traps for trash.

Of course, the simple issue here is that folks are polluting their own environment with their own trash. But the deeper issue is that there is soi much trash in the first place. See all the objects in that first photo? Where do you think they were cradled from?























So, I ask you, who do you think is responsible for our throwaway culture? Throwing away our resources and throwing away our lives?

One More Go

I almost forgot a final issue concerning my need to better implement non-car use into my daily work life. One thing I also have to be aware of is my need to haul large items, like a conference display board and table materials like brochures, computer, etc, to events. So how can I make that easier?

Strategy #4 - Bicycle Trailer. Time to think seriously about buying, designing, building a bicycle trailer to accommodate this sort of need. I could have used this for the ESF Green Building Conference last week, as it was downtown and I wouldn't have needed to drive if I had a different way to transfer all the display items. So why not a cargo trailer for my bike. It would have to be weatherproof too though so as to not harm the papers and such inside. But it could also be used for many other things, like grocery shopping, transporting gardening materials around town, etc.