Song Lyric of the Day

"I don't mind worry following me like a dinosaur"
-Soul Coughing, "So Far I Have Not Found the Science"

I've always liked this lyric. It's kind of interesting because the comparison works, even though none of us have ever been followed by a dinosaur.

(I picture a medium-sized dinosaur lurking behind you all day, slyly reminding you of things you should be worried about.)

Spring

The weather was incredible in DC this weekend...high 50s yesterday, around 70 today.

The frisbee game I usually go to on Sundays was moved to an astroturf field to give our muddy regular one a rest. Running on the fake grass in the freakishly warm weather (after temps in the 20s a few days before) made it all sort of surreal.


This was also the first weekend in a while when I've done much purely recreational cycling. (Though I do maintain that every time I go somewhere on my bike, it's both functional and recreational.) Yesterday, I went on a ride with Aron up to Bethesda via Rock Creek Parkway and the Capital Crescent Trail. Later, while out picking up a new Craigslist DVD player, my rear shifter cable broke. After consultation with the folks at the bike shop, I replaced it myself. This felt like an accomplishment, even though it's really quite easy. My bike maintenance skillz are improving! (The progression is something like: pump up tire > lube chain > replace brake pads > fix flat tire > grease squeaky parts > replace pedal > replace shifter cable.)

Songs of the Moment (An Occasional Feature)

> Silver Jews - Like Like The The Death
> Wolf Parade - It's a Curse
> Talking Heads - Crosseyed and Painless
> Pearl Jam - Hail, Hail
> Jose Gonzalez - Down the Line
> Elvis Costello - Every Day I Write the Book
> Clark - Ted

Also, I ran across this great video of TV on the Radio performing Golden Age on a BBC's Later. (Can't match their legendary Letterman performance, though.)

I think he sees his shad--OW!

Mayor Bloomberg was apparently bitten on the hand by Chuck the Staten Island Groundhog at today's festivities. According to someone in Chuck's entourage:

[Chuck] was probably nervous. There was a lot of activity outside, and he was probably nervous. He was basically concentrating on his food. The mayor’s fingers may have just been there. He wasn’t necessarily going for the mayor.

Not necessarily. Or maybe Chuck simply objects to the Mayor's end-run around the term limits law, and decided this was the most participatory form of democracy available to him.

The NYT writeup has more details, including the Mayor's thoughts.

Texas

Just as DC got its first measurable snow of the season, I went to Texas for work. I would have liked to have been around for the snow, especially since the weather in Dallas and Austin was cold and wet/icy for the first couple days. But things warmed up once we moved on to San Antonio, so I did get a dose of the sunshine that we won't see in DC for another couple months. And despite being a work trip, it's always nice to see someplace else for a change. One thing I can say with certainty is that Texas is very different from the East Coast.

Foggy, cold Dallas:


Near the Mexican border, where it was much drier and warmer:


See Flickr for a few more pictures.

Inauguration pics

I finally posted my Obama inaugural pictures to Flickr. I didn't actually take that many pictures on the day, as it's hard to take good pictures of a crowd, and we were of course way too far back to take pictures of the actual event.

It was pretty cool. So many people.

Leaving the Metro station:


Moving toward the Mall:


The crowd behind us:


As an aside, in the summer of 2004, I remember being at a BBQ in Minneapolis, and we were talking about Barack Obama because he was running for Senate and had just been chosen to keynote the Democratic National Convention. Everybody thought he seemed very promising, and several folks thought he might be president someday. One was heading off to public policy grad school that fall and said, "Well, we want him to wait a while and get experience so that we can start our careers and have a chance of working in his administration." Didn't work out that way...

Anyway, I'm off to Texas all this week for work, which I'm looking forward to.

Pre-gaming the inauguration

The big weekend is finally here. It's cool to see DC so abuzz...even in my neighborhood, three miles north of the Mall, there are a lot more people than normal. And many are wearing pins, hats, t-shirts, anything with Obama's name on it. Alex and company are in town, and he bought a Barack Obama action figure while at Giant getting stuff for tonight's potluck. I put my DC Vote "I demand the vote! No taxation without representation!" sign out on the front porch.

Yesterday we braved the chilly-for-DC weather (Target was entirely sold out of hats, gloves, and long underwear) and went to the We Are One concert at the Lincoln Memorial. It was almost comically star-studded, with Bruce Springsteen, U2, Shakira, Garth Brooks, Tiger Woods, Beyonce, Tom Hanks, etc., etc. We arrived about an hour and a half before it started, and were pretty far back, but within Jumbotron view. It was actually pretty enjoyable -- they let Bruce open with The Rising, and Obama spoke at the conclusion. Some pictures follow, full set on Flickr.

People streaming past the Washington Monument on the way to the concert.


The crowd in front of us, looking toward the stage at the Lincoln Memorial.


The crowd behind us, which stretched to the Washington Monument.


Of course, even in a crowd estimated at 400,000, I managed to run into someone from work and someone from Carleton. (Someone else from work ended up in the first picture of the NY Times slideshow of the event.)

The actual inauguration tomorrow should be pretty exciting. We'll be leaving the house at 7am to walk there -- wish us luck!

In the Times

Today, the New York Times had an article (which has now made its way to the top 10 most-emailed list) about restaurant scene in DC coming into its own. It name-checks my neighborhood, and names two places I pass every day -- Rumberos and Columbia Heights Coffee. I don't go to either very often, but it's still strange to see them in the Times.

Bike miscellany

A vignette: Riding my bike home in the dark this evening, I saw something in the intersection ahead that I thought might be a flare from an earlier car accident. As I approached, the regular red flashing revealed it to be a bike taillight that had fallen off, now merely pleading not to be run over. I paused to scoop it up, and rode on while trying to figure out how to turn it off (there weren't many cars around, so my divided attention was not a huge problem). I went on examining it for a few blocks, and I could not figure out for the life of me how to turn the darn thing off -- it sort of felt like I had picked up stray baby bird, fallen from a nest, and it was still chirping for its mother despite my attempts to muffle it. When I came to U Street, I stopped to find the switch and put it in my bag. I was thinking about the futile craigslist lost-and-found posting I would make, as well as potential uses for my newfound light, when I noticed there was a guy without a taillight waiting at the stoplight. "Hey, you didn't just lose your blinkie, did you?," I asked. His head snapped back and forth from his seatpost to the flashing light in my hand. "Oh, yeah! Thanks, I really appreciate that." And that was that.

An upgrade: I put the puncture-resistant tire on my front wheel this morning, joining the month-old one on the back wheel. Hopefully I won't be needing to fix more flats anytime soon. In the spirit of Consumer Reports, I will report back here the first time I get one.

An estimation: I've had my Cross-Check for a bit more than a year now, and it didn't seem like I should have already worn out both tires. I've not kept track of my mileage in any way, but a rough estimation might be as follows. I've been in town for about 48 work weeks, and probably ride an average of 10 miles each work day. I've been in town for about 42 weekends, and probably ride an average of 15 miles per weekend day. That comes out to (48*5*10)+(42*2*15) = 3660 for a one year period. I guess a few thousand miles is okay for bike tires, which can't be as chunky as car tires.

Flats

I've been getting a lot of flat tires on my bike. (I counted five patches on my current front inner tube when I fixed it last night.) They're almost always from shards of glass that embed themselves in my tire. I think the bike lanes actually increase the frequency with which this happens: When car windows or bottles are broken, the glass that falls in car travel lanes is quickly pulverized and pushed aside by the traffic. In the bike lane, this takes a long time to happen, and the cars push the glass into the bike lane.

This is, of course, a huge pain. But I am taking decisive action. When I last got a back flat (a few weeks ago), I bought a puncture-resistant tire made with a tough rubber compound and woven kevlar in the tread. Now that I've gotten a front flat, I'm going to get one for that wheel, too. The brand is Specialized Armadillo, and according to this promotional video, I should be in good shape: