Frustrating, Strategies for the Future

After having a job at the university last year, as a student Teaching Assistant, in which I was able to do most of my work on campus, I now have a position that requires me to visit various sites around the city and beyond. How frustrating it is becoming to try and use my legs to get where I need to go. Just in the past week I have had appoitments in DeWitt, East Syracuse, and Turning Stone in Verona. These are realistically bikeable (except Verona) though the time required would prevent me from having that time available to me as productive work time in the office. So what is a person to do? Here are some thoughts I have on strategy for the future:

1. Schedule as many of these types of appointments as I can on a single day and link them together so that the driving route with my car is the most efficient one I can come up with. This will take quite a bit of planning on the front end, and won't always be possible depending on the schedules of my clients, but I can try my best.

2. Get very intimately acquainted with the CENTRO bus routes in the city. I don't have much experience riding the buses here in Syracuse, never needed to before as I relied on walking and bicycling mostly. I guess it's time to study the CENTRO website.

3. Take a step back from from attendance at numerous meetings and events that aren't 100% necessary. This sounds easy, but I do make many contacts and network quite a bit, so getting out and to these sorts of business and topical sessions are very valuable to me. I can at least give more critical thought to if I need to attend them or not for now.

Anyone else have any thoughts or ideas for these types of strategies? I'd love to share them on this here blog if ya do!

Start of the Day

The start of my daily walk, is heading up my front steps and past my prayer flags.

from wikipedia:
The five colors represent the elements,^[1] and the Five Pure Lights and are arranged from left to right in a specific order. Different elements are associated with different colors for specific traditions, purposes and sadhana:

• Blue (symbolizing sky/space)
• White (symbolizing air/wind)
• Red (symbolizing fire)
• Green (symbolizing water)
• Yellow (symbolizing earth)

Traditionally, prayer flags are used to promote peace, compassion, strength, and wisdom. The flags do not carry prayers to 'gods,' a common misconception, rather the Tibetans believe the prayers and mantras will be blown by the wind to spread the good will and compassion into all pervading space. Therefore, prayer flags are thought to bring benefit to all.

The I-81 Challenge

Here is a new website I have just come across (or at least it is new to me), although the subject is not new. What the heck to do with the viaduct portion of I-81 on the south side of Syracuse now that it is reaching the end of its built life and is going to need tons of money pumped into it?

Well some folks argue that it should just be taken down, and traffic routed around Syracuse via Rt 481, leaving a more pedestrian friendly and connected neighborhood and city, especially bridging the gap between University Hill and downtown.

The website doesn't have much content yet, but it might be worthwhile keeping an eye on.
The I-81 Challenge

Newest Umbrella Acquisition

This is my newest umbrella acquisition, from the Volunteers of America store in Auburn, NY. It was priced at $4, but I was able to get it down to $3 just by asking them if that price was the best that they can do.

Quite a good deal actually, especially considering I paid $2 for the folding gold lame Totes 'brella I picked up a few weeks back. This one has much more charm and sophistication to it, is made of cloth, and the wooden handle is stamped "Made in Italy". I think I got a keeper, someone else thought so too, as it is well used, but should still provide me lots of cover for the whole $3 I paid for it.

Can't wait to try it out when the rains start back again!

Clean Cities FY09 Petroleum Reduction Technologies Projects for the Transportation Sector

Anybody out there know anybody out there who would be interested in pursuing these monies for better alternatives to petroleum transportation structures. Just a shout out in the dark about a funding opportunity.

http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&flag2006=false&oppId=45498

Instruction posted for how to use the new-fangled hanging bike racks at SUNY-ESF. Any one out there know what the name of this kind of rack is or who manufactures it?











The hanging bikes in action at ESF, and underneath the eaves of the building, protected from the elements.














Though of course, it is Winter, and the majority of racks on campus are now nude, until the warm springy weather joins us again. How do you get students to bike more in the winter? Have a fender program on campus?

BikeCNY

"BikeCNY!" is a project of the Syracuse-Onondaga Cycling Coalition, a member-directed organization advocating for bike lanes, bike routes, and shared roadways throughout the Syracuse Metropolitan Area."

I must confess I do not know much about the workings of BikeCNY. I know a guy named Pete who is involved though and maybe it would be worthwhile paying more attention to their efforts and using my blog here as another source for distributing news from these guys. News hasn't been updated unfortunately since October 24, 2008. And the Google Groups email list for BikeCNY hasn't been active since Nov 20, 2008 wither. But there is an upcoming meeting scheduled, so they must still be relatively active - "Our next meeting will be on Monday March 23, at 7:30pm. It will be at 412 Kensington Rd. in Syracuse"

There is a lot of valuable info on the site though, so I do recommend checking it out. And they have a a cool Google Map about the proposed bicycle grid in Syracuse too.