Why Am I Biking In This Weather?

The Mate would really like to know.  There are probably a few other people who think I'm nuts. They might not be wrong.

It comes to this: curiosity; stubbornness; solidarity; convenience; that car accident; environment.

The service industries have a whole raft of employees whose job it is to keep moving, whatever the weather.  People who are largely invisible to the middle class except when they make headlines by biking on sidewalks or the wrong way in traffic.  I ride in solidarity.

I biked to the train to get to work yesterday in the beginning of the snowstorm, and discovered my bike handles pretty well in just a couple of inches of fluffy stuff.  In the middle of the snowstorm on the way home, I discovered my bike doesn't handle so well in four inches of snow that's been driven in.  Also, the derailleur freezes and doesn't work so well.  I pushed my bike where I had to, I rode it where I could; I made it home.

I grew up in New Hampshire, and played and skied and snow-shoed and walked in conditions considerably colder than what New Yorkers consider reasonable.  I'm also aware that people live in far colder climates.  The saying is, there's no bad weather, only bad clothes, and there's a fair amount of truth in that.  People typically own clothing appropriate to their own climate, so dressing for significantly colder temperatures can be a little complicated.  Lots of layers is a good start.

I biked to my physical therapy appointment this morning because it's the quickest way to get there.  Public transit takes at least an hour; I could walk the distance in somewhat under an hour.  Plus, curiosity again.  Turns out bike lanes were plowed but not salted, and blocked by the usual obstacles such as parked trucks.  Also, people were shoveling snow into them off the sidewalk (plowed and salted) and their parked cars (buried).

Plus, after an "accident"* in which my car was nearly totaled by a runaway truck, I still have a phobia about getting in a car, any car.  (I also still have chronic pain, weakness, limited range of movement.  Hence the above-mentioned PT.)  If I can avoid it by taking my bike and/or public transit, I'll almost always choose that option.

Finally, the environment.  Riding my bike and taking mass transit require far less fuel than driving a car.  I'm committed to doing what I can to reverse climate change.  On my own, it's not much.  Biking in all kinds of crazy weather gets people's attention and, I hope, gets them thinking, "I can do that too!"  (I would recommend that anyone who hasn't been biking regularly wait until April.)

Even I have my limits, however.  I'll be driving to my 4:30 class this afternoon.  And I'm grateful I have the option.

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*The NYPD has recently started using the word "collision" instead of "accident," in recognition of the fact that at least one of the drivers screwed up almost every time.

On (Not) Logging Exercise

For years, decades, I kept lists and logs of the exercise I'd done each day: runs, bike rides, trips to the weight room, swims, hikes, in preparation for triathlons, running races, backpacking trips or biking vacations.

A few months ago, I quit.  Quit making notes and deleted all the records from my iPad.

Because for the past several years, this has been a cyclical record of getting sick, too sick to do any exercise, and then recovering slowly, and then working slowly back up to a moderate amount of exercise.

I came to the conclusion that keeping these records wasn't functioning as encouragement to get more exercise, but rather making me feel inadequate for not getting more exercise.  Kind of like keeping records of my periods during the long years of infertility wasn't doing anything to get me pregnant, but just making me attend to each failure to conceive, month after month, year after year.

I like exercise. I feel better if I'm active every day, and the more the better.  I work out to the extent I can, given a full-time job, a relatively high-needs child, and the sometimes disabling demands posed by living with chronic illness.

I don't think I'm getting any more or less exercise than I would be if I were still recording it all.  Yet not keeping these logs feels lighter.  The change feels incremental, and I suspect there's going to be additional evolution that goes with letting that go.  I'm curious about what it might be.

Pedestrian Fatalities

That would be pedestrians killed by cars.  Because let's face it, pedestrians aren't killed in collisions with each other.  One pedestrian in New York was killed in a collision with a cyclist several years ago, and what with the publicity surrounding the event, you'd be forgiven for thinking it was part of a plague of bike-related pedestrian deaths.  But no, as far as I can tell that one was a unique event, in the actual unmodified sense of the word.

Pedestrians are routinely killed by cars, however.  It seems every week there's another report of a kid killed in NYC, usually crossing at an intersection in the company of a parent or older sibling.  The number of pedestrians killed in traffic accidents in New York State has been static over the past five years, hovering at around 300 deaths a year.

And most of the time, the driver isn't charged.  Unless the driver leaves the scene, or is drunk or on drugs, he (usually) apologizes, expresses his horror, and walks away.

Under Bloomberg, New York City's response to pedestrian deaths was to put in new traffic signals, with countdowns telling pedestrians it was time to get out of the way.  But the problem that pedestrians cross the street at the same time that cars turn from cross streets was not addressed.

There is no time when pedestrians are the only legal occupants of crosswalks: they always have to compete with motor vehicles.

So there's a simple solution: the city needs to re-time the lights, so that there are opportunities for people to cross without having to compete with turning cars.

Limiting street parking near intersections would also help, as it can now be difficult to see if someone is in a crosswalk when turning from a cross street.

This is going to be my advocacy issue of the year: letters, phone calls, blog entries until you're sick of them devoted to trying to persuade public officials to make real infrastructure changes to end this plague of pedestrian deaths.

Are you with me?

What Professors Do: Winter Break

Some of the stuff I've been doing since submission of Fall grades, and have to work on before the start of spring semester:

Read textbooks
Spider Solitaire
Work on syllabi
New toilet seats
Vacuum clean apartment
Sleep in
Facebook
Try to remember research plan
Read a book, for fun
Catch up on email
Cook
New shower curtain
Write assessment document 
Write an email explaining why I can't write the assessment document
Schedule appointments with doctors
Build on-line course environments
Kenken
Go to bed early
Review page proofs for an article
Watch a movie
Write a paper proposal
Think about curriculum
Edit articles for special issue of journal
Play with the kid
Review MA program applications
Hire graduate assistants
Finish research report

I also have to find my marriage certificate (from 1991) to prove that The Mate is eligible for health coverage on my plan.  I also need to submit The Offspring's birth certificate to prove that I'm his mother.  Bureaucracy is charming.

Plastic, Again

You can crush glass or melt aluminum and make another bottle or can, and it takes a lot less energy than making either from scratch.  But did you know that you can't recycle a soda bottle into another soda bottle? 

You can recycle the plastic into a fleece jacket or plastic wood-like composite that in turn can be used to make deck flooring or picnic tables, and that takes less energy than starting with raw crude.  The promises of recycling aside, all those soda and water bottles are single-use items.

The mantra of environmentalists has long been "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle."  Recently, though, people have been adding a fourth "R," "Refuse."  We need to refuse plastic packaging as much as possible.  Yet it's almost inescapable, unless maybe you make

Vegetables, for one, don't need to be packaged in styrofoam.  If your local supermarket does it that way, have a little chat with the manager, and then write a letter to corporate.  A lot of other supermarket food comes packed in plastic.  Farmer's markets, CSAs, and coops are an alternative, if there's one in your area.

For things like yogurt, ketchup, peanut butter, and mustard, I don't know of good alternatives.  Making your own is a possibility, but for most of us not a feasible one.

Iced coffee doesn't require a single-use plastic cup.  Make your own at home, or get a reusable container, preferably made out of double-walled stainless steel, which will keep your cold drinks cold and your hot drinks hot and can double as a water bottle when not filled with coffee.

When did all the laundry detergent manufacturers switch over to liquid detergent packaged in plastic, rather than powder packed in cardboard boxes?  Besides the unnecessary plastic packaging (and probably not either #1 or #2, which are the only types that most communities accept for recycling), the water mixed with the powder drastically increases the weight, and therefore the energy required for shipping.

Consider switching back to powder.  If it doesn't work as well, let me know.





Another big source of plastic packaging is personal care items: liquid soap, shampoo, conditioner, deodorant, toothpaste.  Some of these are available in non-liquid forms packaged in paper.  Others are difficult.

So, do me a favor and think about it.  Is there one thing you can do to refuse single-use plastic packaging in your life?

Humanity on the 14A

I don't ride the bus much, and when I do, I'm always a little surprised to see that there's a community of riders that take the same line at the same time every day.

Today, one rider helped another get her shopping cart on the bus, and then gave her a hand. 

A little later, a man got on who didn't speak any English, but wanted to know where to get off the bus.  He showed a piece of paper to another rider, who read it out loud, and a third rider identified the address of the agency -- but no one on the bus spoke his language.  So the driver said, "Hold on, I'll get someone."

At the next stop, the driver found a man who shared the language of the first one, and could tell him where to get off the bus and what direction to walk from there.

The helper chatted with the other guy for a while before he disappeared into the back of the bus. 

A couple of stops later, a person got on in a wheelchair.  This requires lifting some seats near the front of the bus and then helping the rider hook the chair into the designated spot with some straps.  I've seen the occasional bus driver look put out by this, and passengers sometimes respond in kind by grumbling about the extra time required.

Today's driver, though, did everything needed with efficiency and kindness.  No one on the bus dared grumble.

At the stop before the man needing directions was to get off, the bus driver found another rider who spoke his language to make sure he got off at the right stop and walked the right direction.  He waited to make sure that guy was going the right direction before he left the bus stop.

I was a few minutes late for my appointment.  But I was glad to get a ride with that driver.

Letter to the President

My brother sent me a copy of a letter he wrote to the President back in September.  I asked him for permission to post it here, and he sent me a revision, and then I got busy and didn't get to it.  It's out of date now, but it's still a good letter -- so here you go.

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Dear President Obama:

As a lifelong Democrat who voted for you twice, I have supported nearly all of your political policies.

 

As an environmentalist who recognizes the need for petroleum, I welcome your middle-of-the-road environmental positions. As a member of the middle-class who was laid off during the recession, I appreciate your laws mandating health insurance for every United States citizen. As a common-sense Democrat, I have supported the many political positions that are both yours and the Democratic Party’s. However, the issue of military engagement with Syria has propelled me to speak out against U.S. involvement.

 

When George W. Bush was president and engaged the U.S. in numerous military conflicts, Democrats were up in arms. With the exception of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan — which most people supported — Democrats, rightfully so, spoke out against war, opposed the use of U.S. arms and personnel in foreign conflicts and derided the Republican propensity to start wars.

 

When you were elected president, you forged a new foreign policy. You pledged arbitration not arms, mediation not military action. I, along with most Democrats, have supported this ideology.

 

Today, as in the past few decades, the people most likely to support U.S. military involvement in foreign wars do not have sons or daughters in the military. (Personally I do not have military-age children). The question to ask those who ardently support U.S. military involvement in Syria or other countries is: “Is U.S. involvement so important that you are willing to sacrifice the life of one of your children?”

 

As you are well aware, the demographics of the U.S. military are overwhelmingly minority and low-income. This is the demographic who will lose their lives in any protracted military involvement — not the children of the white elite such as John Kerry, John Boehner or John McCain.

 

United States citizens are not only war-weary, but we are war-wary. Will Syria become another Egypt? Bouncing from one totalitarian regime to another? Or will it become another Iraq? Swallowing thousands of lives as well as trillions of dollars? Aside from the human death toll, what about the financial cost of war? With the U.S. still reeling from its depression, still mired in a prolonged recession, the country cannot afford to endlessly print greenbacks to pay for bombs.

 

For all of these reasons — ideological, financial and humanitarian — I am imploring you to retreat from your plan of U.S. military involvement in Syria. As a Democrat and a voter, I am asking you to implement your campaign promises of Peace not War.

 

Sincerely,

Chris Estes