Friday, May 26

Friends, today is Jack Kevorkian's birthday (no lie, it really is - born in 1928). Anyway, if this weather keeps up, I'm going to need his services.

I just can't get enough of this new Mass Ave Bridge bike lane.

Also, I have supplied a picture of Like A Virgin in all her rain-soaked miserable glory.

Wednesday, May 24

Now they've painted the bike sign on the Mass Ave bridge. Temp really isn't that much better than it was a month ago.

Monday, May 22

New white lines have just been painted on the Mass Ave bridge. This makes riding the bridge feel a lot safer. It's like your own bike lane without the spectre of a "door zone" incident.

Friday, May 19

National Bike-to-Work Day:

Just when you thought the sun might stick around for a while...

Wednesday, May 17

Massachusetts Bike Week - Day 3:

Here's a guy riding a tandem bike solo. There has to be a joke here, I just can't think of it.

Tuesday, May 16

Massachusetts Bike Week - Day 1:
I'm not going to talk about it. You know what I mean. Not going to mention it at all. Anyway, 40-something degrees. Photo is of traffic on Beacon leading into the Dragon. Never have seen this at this hour.

Friday, May 12

Morning:
48 degrees. The fog this morning was incredible. This is the densest fog I've ever seen in Boston. I said that to Stanley, the company janitor, and he said, "Yeah, Boston can get foggy." I said, "Yeah, no kidding Stanley, but but look at this goddam fog! I'm saying this is the absolute densest fog I've ever seen." But, as usual, he wouldn't budge. All I got was "Well...." and a shrug. I swear, if he had said that thing about tornados again, I would have hit the roof.
Anyway, I went overboard on the fog photos. First is from the MIT sailing hut looking toward Beacon Hill. 2nd one is Longfellow Bridge - you can barely see the other side. 3rd is of the Sinkhole. 4th is of a rather forlorn looking Betty, The Aluminum Canoe. She's listing to port, half filled with rain water. You can just make out a Duck Tour riding up the river behind her.

Evening:
Nothing of note. Game at Fenway tonight, so the Dragon was filled with POPs 'n SAPs. Photo is of a big, aimless group of SoxPOPs.

Thursday, May 11

Morning:
47 degrees, damp, no sun. The red car cut me off in the Dragon. The driver (beard, very thick glasses, confused) looked right at me then yanked the steering wheel to the left while I jammed the brakes. Then the UPS guy farted.

Evening:
49 degrees, dense fog and mist. I snapped the pic while crossing the Mass Ave bridge. Can't even see Beacon Hill. Forecasts through Saturday of next week call for rain every day.

Wednesday, May 10

This is a picture of May 10.

Tuesday, May 9

Morning:
Well now we're in for it. Nine days of crap. 55 degrees this morning, cloudy. See photo for classic Kenmore Chaos. #1 is SUV, #2 Crazy Cab, #3 Car that was double parked but is now trying to get out, and #4, Big Fat Van setting a pick. Moving Target passed me on Beacon riding a fixed and I snapped this of him right in the thick of things. Nice illustraion of why I call Kenmore "Enter the Dragon".

Evening:
Good Lord, what a godawful ride! 48 degrees, wind was howling, drenching downpour -- rain seems to have killed the rat in the photo! This was along the Cheese Grater. I was riding the sidewalk out of fear I'd be blown by the 30mph winds into the roadway when I espied this poor critter. Seems the Grater is vying with the Abbatoir for mammal-killing supremacy. Anyway, the abysmal weather did not deter me from leaving home this evening to procure the antidote to Spring in NewEngland. Screw the goddam freakish weather, I'm drinking martinis.

Monday, May 8

Morning:
55 degrees, sunny. But not for long. We're looking at eight days of rain starting tomorrow. There was an ungodly mess of traffic the whole way - chaos in Kenmore, people jamming on their brakes, doors flying open every 10 yards. I dropped my chain twice, tried using a twig (yeah, a twig) to get it back on so I wouldn't show up to work with grease all over my face and hands, failed - see photos. It seemed like everyone was doing 80 mph today.

Evening:
53 degrees. Now we're looking at at least nine days of rain coming up. Nine days of sitting at my cube in damp clothes. "So get a rain suit," you say. No. Not going to do it. I'll wear my scorching yellow rain jacket, but that's it.
Every once in a while I snap a picture that really says it all. Look at this beaut I took whilst navigating Enter the Dragon this evening. Several Perfectly Oblivious Pedestrians (POPs) , being skirted by a cyclist. POPs are different from SAPs (Suddenly Appearing Pedestians). Whereas POPs move like meandering cattle in plain view, SAPs are more monkey-like. They tend to dart out from between parked cars and from between cars waiting at stop lights.

Thursday, May 4

Morning:
This is more like it. 65 degrees, beautiful and sunny. I spent the ride breathing in the heady draughts of Spring and MBTA bus effluvia!

Wednesday, May 3

Morning:
46 degrees, NE wind, rain, fog. I think the pictures say it all. The thing about a NE wind is that you have fight it all the way down the Abattoir and finish with the Land Blvd Smackdown. I drew Stanley, the company janitor, into another conversation about weather. I was thinking that, at least, I could get him to agree that the unseasonably low temps are irritating. He wouldn't budge. All I got out of him was "Look, you got here all in one piece, you're alive. You're too much of a pessimist."

Look at my picture - Cod fishing off the Grand Banks or riding my bike to work? Who can tell?

Tuesday, May 2

Morning:
45 degrees, raw, raining, windy, miserable. Miserable, miserable, miserable. TS Eliot wrote "April is the cruelest month..." But May is rudely elbowing its way to first place. I made the mistake of bringing up the weather with Stanley, the company janitor, who said "Well, we need the rain." I responded that I don't expect this kind of weather in May, and he said "Well, it's better than having tornados." That's typical of Stanley. He'll never engage in New England weather-bashing with you. He just comes out with "well, it's better than tornados." He wants to make you feel like a whining baby for complaining about the weather. Anyway, the photo is of my red, raw, wind-raked, freezing hand this morning.

Monday, May 1

Morning:
50 degrees, grey and very windy. It feels like the wind has been blowing for at least 3 weeks. The new name for Mem Drive eastbound is The Abattoir. So, westbound is The Cheese Grater, and eastbound is The Abbatoir. I just want to make sure you've got that, because I'm going to stop using their real names. Look at this conglomeration of fur by my foot. I have no idea what it is except that it's just one more victim of The Drive.

Evening:
During the day the skies cleared and the sun was blazing. By the evening ride-time, though, all the clouds came rolling back. I really could have used a pair of gloves. Photo is of Enter the Dragon before a game.

Thursday, April 27

Morning:
Around 50 degrees. I had to get another picture of the jacket. You can tell that the camera can barely handle the glow - it sort of looks like I can't handle it either - I look like I'm in pain (I'm not, really. I had just finished battling the wind down Mem Drive). The camera doesn't know what to do with the blistering rays - look at my face - it looks red.

Monday, April 24

Morning:
Beautiful Spring day! about 45, raw, slight drizzle, wind, cloudy. Just beautiful! Anyway, see photo for the fruits of my weekend labors. Yes, that smart looking front tire is brand new. Check out the red stripes. I spent a good deal of Sunday wrestling with bike tires. I had to move the good front tire to the rear wheel and put the new tire on the front. My thumbs are in casts now.

Evening:
I received an interesting suggestion on my ride home. While I was crossing the Mass Ave bridge, a woman riding in the passenger seat of a white mini-van shouted to me "why don't you get on the damn f***ing pavement!". I was going to try to catch up to her to point out that I was already on the "damn f***ing" pavement, but then I figured out that what she meant to say was "the damn f***ing sidewalk!" Anway, this kind of thing doesn't really bother me - I take it as a good thing, actually, because it means that they are seeing me. Being seen, being visible is 80% of the battle when riding a bike. I've had pedestrians and drivers look directly at me seconds before stepping/driving directly into my path. My newest riding-related aquisition (a gift for my 21st birthday) goes a long way toward stacking the deck in my favor. See photo - this jacket is freakishly bright - you cannot possibly miss anyone wearing this jacket. I was wearing it at work earlier and someone begged me to remove it because it was giving her a headache. In light of that, I can only surmise that it was my jacket that promted the woman in the mini-van to make her crude suggestion.

Friday, April 21

See photo: No, this is not some springtime tableau. This is not a petit dejeuner au printemps. This is not jonquilles avec la bicyclette. This is not a picnic. This is not Dejeuner sur l'herbe. Nope. This is a flat tire. Five minutes after I had been on the road home, my rear tire went flat. No warning. One minute I was flying along, I had just navigated the Sinkhole, and the next minute the tire was dead-flat. I had a spare tube with me, but changing a bike tire is not pleasant. It usually takes me about 10 hours to change one and the effect it has on my thumbs is very unpleasant. Changing a bike tire requires super-human thumb strength. At the end of a tire changing session, my thumbs are usually black as coal and all the layers of skin except one have been rubbed off. So I walked the bike home.

Wednesday, April 19

Morning:
Nice gray, overcast and slightly nippy morning. Nice blast of wind coming over the Mass Ave bridge. Nice dead birds on Mem Drive. See photos for more proof that Mem Drive is hazardous to our avian friends. This particular fellow is either a) dead , or b) has been forced into a life of bipedalism. No way to tell, really, since there is no body in sight - just the two wings. This startling sight is at the Sinkhole outbound, right near Betty, the canoe.

Thursday, April 13

Morning:

Very nice out, 50s, light drizzle. As you can see in the photo, Betty has been launched for the season.

Evening:

Still very nice, although overcast and spitting rain a little. But does it matter any more? No. The temperature is nice, it's still light when I leave work (rode the Grater of course), so I have nothing to complain about. Photo is of Mass Ave bridge - it gets like this when there's a game - gets backed up to at least half way across.