November 2024

      [A] young cycling champion...was killed at age 17 by a driver...on the Diagonal Highway...between Boulder and Longmont [CO.]  ...in the ER, dirt still stuck to his face, blood from his skull fractures...  -  Cycling West, late Summer 2024

     Okay computer club members. Last week, my kickstand became loose enough that it began kissing the spokes on my rear rim.  It did so again on my ride home after work on Halloween.  On the 1st, I awake after a fine sleep.  I'm out the door to the bike shop in the sporting goods supercenter.  I can wait across the street for a bus to the train, which may only crawl its way into downtown.  I elect to do the ride.  I'm across my boulevard and headed toward a steep downhill street.  The street is closed for some kind of work and I hop up onto the sidewalk.  A Public Works guy tells me I will have to slow down, before he confesses he's joking.  It comes across as odd.  Along the way, I'm detoured off the trail at a busy avenue.  I scout a route into downtown I don't recall, trying to pick the trail up past the detour.  I'm rolling past the city water headquarters and other industrial lots before I spot familiar landmarks.  Inside the supercenter, a tech has a look at my fancy, modern kickstand mounted next to the rear axle.  A rivet has come loose inside the stand, and it can't be tightened due to its design.  A new kickstand is fifteen bucks.  It's as old fashioned a kickstand as there is, and gets mounted where they have been located on bike frames throughout the decades.  The tech also tightens up my brakes, and I'm off to work.  Again, I ask myself if I want to risk the train to my bus.  I elect instead to simply ride to the train station to catch my bus to work.  On Saturday, I decide I have enough time to ride to work.  The overnights are frosty now.  This morning, my upper body is comfortable in T-shirt, hoodie, and windbreaker.  But even in lined pants, I wouldn't be uncomfortable had I put on long underwear.  And without a second pair of socks, my toes are just beginning to feel the bite of the chill.  When I leave work at 3:30 PM, it's at least 66 degrees F.  I grab a bus to the train station, where I do the short ride home without a shirt.  I snuck in one more afternoon.

     Sunday.  I get up and move my six clocks back an hour.  The day is in the 50s F.  I make a reservation for my bar and grill before I'm off to that stop before the gym.  I do the entire ride, arriving at the neighborhood with the grill and my gym.  I pause at a pedestrian crosswalk to remove my balaclava.  I'm not going through the crosswalk.  A homeless guy on the other side has pressed the button for the light to alert traffic that he's crossing.  He never comes across.  I move a short way down the sidewalk before I sneak across the street and to the grill.  I'm some 15 minutes early for my reservation.  I sit on the concrete just the other side of a fence where the outdoor patio is.  It's in the mid 50s F and the outdoor bar is open.  A patron is seated on a stool, his dog on a leash.  He's telling another patron how his dog, "is only scared by really sharp loud noises.  Shotguns.  He likes to chase squirrels."  I decide to move closer to the host so he knows where I am.  I sit on a bench across from a senior woman on the bench opposite myself.  She's telling someone that Tim Kane was on Saturday Night Live.  "I didn't like the band though.  They were silly.  The music was weird."  My table is ready.  WE enter through the outdoor patio.  The guy at the bar pulls his dog out of the way.  After lunch and a visit to The Chocolate Therapist, I hit the gym.  This gym has an annual used book sale.  Today is the sale.  I pick up a couple of books before my workout.  The hot tub is broken again.  After the gym I take the bus back to my neighborhood.  I grab a few items from my neighborhood supermarket before I ride home.  The lightest of rain begins to fall.  I hit the Vietnamese place for dinner before walking home past the Vietnamese supermarket.  Vietnamese shoppers are coming out of the door, past Not Guitar Bear.  He's asking each one of us, "Gotadollar?  Gotadollar?  Gotadollar?"

     ...we, editors and readers alike, can actually influence the course of human history.  [Those of us] concerned with the quality of life and the future of our species.  can become a formidable constituency.  ...eager minds anxious, if not determined, to advance science, peace, and intellectual prosperity in our world...  - Bob Guccione, publisher OMNI Magazine, 10/1983

     On Election Day, I get another late start.  So late that I ride toward the train station with doubts that I will make the bus.  As I approach the exit from the station, I see my bus pulling out.  I turn down a residential street to race it to the stop where I used to wait for it.  I'm yards away when I see it pass along.  Looks as if it's time to grab lunch at my cafe across the busy avenue from this stop.  There's a new local magazine.  A new what?  In 2024?  It's kind of literary, kind of historical, with featured local artists.  I think it's monthly.  The editor of last month's premiere issue, which I found here at the cafe, mentioned in the mission statement that he wanted to begin a new magazine which didn't employ artificial intelligence.  His editorial discussed the detrimental effects on writing students of no longer having to rely on the traditional organic human brain for things including my own computer which suggests which word I want to use next.  His opinion isn't evident in the articles.  It's not a collection of pieces which take a stand against software.  They strike me as having the kind of insight to local experience, not of city events or news stories, but simply living here.  The magazine has made it to its second issue.  And here at the cafe, it has its own rack.  It's been some time since I decided to collect and save issues of a magazine.  After lunch, I head across the street to the stop.  I notice a small few square feet which is fenced off for some kind of construction.  There's still plenty of room for the bus to pull up.  I just happen to notice the bus stop sign.  It's closed again, this time through Friday.  I should have plenty of time to ride to the next stop.  It's closing in on noon when I try to call the transit system.  Traffic isn't especially heavy.    I can't get a signal.  Then I see the bus coming.  It's 15 minutes late.  At work it's approaching closing time.  It's been a busy month so far.  I notice outside a blustery wind.  And it's darker than it should be.  I'm fine in my hoodie and windbreaker.  Not long after I leave, I feel the first drop.  A few minutes later, light white flakes are falling.  An hour later, I'm approaching the street where I exit the trail.  It's mountain snow a-blowin', tiny wet flakes.  I'm on my corner.  Throughout the year, I've seen the occasional pickup truck turn this corner, with an American flag mounted on a pole in the bed.  I've also us flags displayed on days when I don't know which holiday it is.  This early evening, a pickup with a pair of flags turns the corner.  One is a US flag.  The other is for one of the presidential candidates.  Is the driver attempting to influence voters at this late hour?  With a candidate's flag in English, and a neighborhood full of residents not all of whom speak English?  I wonder where you purchase flag poles for the bed of a pickup truck?  Not long after I get home, it begins piling up.  The next morning, there's a few inches on the ground.