Lost in OK

So today is my 35th birthday and it’s on one’s birthday that you start seeking new projects. I’ve been trying to figure out what to do with this site for quite some time. I’m still thoroughly bored with politics and I’m not really any the mood to rant about much else these days. The only thing I’ve missed lately is photography so I’ve decided to take on my own personal Project 365 and figured this site is the best place to host it. So for those looking for rants and ravings, sorry, you will instead get photos and more photos.

OK, I have to admit it, for a long time, Hipstamatic really annoyed me.  I think it was because I first learned photography several years before digital photography came into its own and as such, I learned how to do things the hard way.  The effects that Hipstamatic and similar pieces of software produce used to take hours in the darkroom and as such, I felt it was cheating.  I remember working for hours on creating and painting custom emulsions, doing large-scale negative to negative enlargements for special contact print effects and dozens of other labor intensive processes to achieve effects that can now be done in minutes.  Of course, all of that is really silly.  Art must, in the end, be judged by the final product not the process.  I know this may start an unrelated argument, but if I have to know how a piece of art was made in order to appreciate it, then the work is not complete.  In any case, I’ve been using Photoshop for years to fine tune contrast, perform burn-and-dodge processing and the like with no similar feelings of guilt even though even those changes would take several tries and a lot of darkroom time.  As I’ve seen more and more excellent photos coming out of Hipstamatic, I’m starting to get over my old fogey feelings about it.

So today was my first day back to driving.  I drove primarily just for the contrast and to mark and end to the experiment.  Boy, was the irony suddenly laid on thick. I climbed in my car, turned the key and nothing happened, just a clicking noise as the starter motor tried to turn over.  My battery had died.  I had to get a neighbor to come over and give me a jump-start.  I guess the heat combined with the lack of use had drained it dry.  I had noticed that it had a hard time starting on Tuesday for my short trip to work after my tires were punctured and apparently my short commute hadn’t been enough to top off the battery.  So the great irony of the experiment is that after all of my worry about being without a car for a month, the time when I really needed help was when I returned to driving.

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So I started the day furious and frustrated. The car free experiment for this month fell apart today and it fell apart for completely unnecessary reasons. When I left work last night, I found that both of my tires were deflated. I assumed this was some moron’s idea of a “harmless” prank. I filled the tires and successfully made my way home.  However, this morning as I prepared to head to work, I found both tires flat again which means that this pathetic excuse for a human being actually punctured both tires with something that created a slow leak, probably a thumb tack.  It was too late for me to have time to replace the tubes and make it to work on time.  After swearing and fruitlessly shaking my fist I climbed in my car and with heavy heart, drove to work.  I was sooooo close . . .  One day left and I would have done it.   Instead of a feeling of triumph and because of some small-minded imbecile with delusions of adequacy, here I am fighting with stop and go traffic and I can feel my blood pressure is rising.  “DON’T YOU KNOW HOW TO MERGE????” A headache is coming on.  I can feel that throbbing starting at the back of my head.  This is just awful . . . And just like that I had an epiphany . . .

When I lived in Chicago, grocery shopping was never really an issue.  For example, at my last apartment, my grocery story was literally 25 yards away from my back door.  Thanks to the re-opening of my local grocery store by El Mariachi, this is still true for me.  However, this isn’t the situation for most people in OKC and there are times when I need to get stuff that my local store doesn’t carry, so I thought it would be great to talk about grocery shopping by bicycle.

The Oklahoma Bicycle Coalition is putting together the first annual Oklahoma Bike Summit on November 4th and 5th at the Chesapeake Boathouse. This event is the first of its kind in Oklahoma and will feature a variety of speakers and sessions. From the event registration page:

Friday, November 4th

John LaPlante will lead a day-long bicycle facility design workshop. Mr. LaPlante is currently Director of Traffic Engineering for T.Y. Lin International. He has over 45 years of professional traffic engineering and transportation planning experience. He is involved in several national committees and was principal author of the 1999 AASHTO Bike Guide. His hands-on workshop, which includes updates from the soon to be published 2011 AASHTO Bike Guide, will benefit professional engineers, city traffic planners, architects, and anyone who is involved with redesigning the urban landscape on a human scale. Planning professionals can receive 8 hours of CM credit from the American Planning Assocation for attending.

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Someone asked me about this the other day and I realized that in my earlier absence from the blog I had forgotten to post about it.  The previously mentioned ordinance changes being considered by the Oklahoma City Council were passed on May 24th during the normal meeting.  The highlights of the proposed changes are as follows:

1. The proposal would allow cyclists to have full use of the lane on any road designated as a bicycle route.  A bicycle route is a designated piece of a road way primarily consisting of the 200 miles of bike routes laid out in the city’s cycling master plan, not just a road containing a “Share the Road” sign.
2. In relation to the proposal above, the ordinance would specifically state that a vehicle would be required to fully change lanes to over take the cyclist on designated bicycle routes.  If there is no room, to change lanes, the vehicle would be required to yield to the bicycle as a piece of normal traffic and comply with “all traffic control devices and pavement markings which prohibit lane changes.”
3. Limits the conditions upon which more than two people can ride upon a bicycle.
4. Broadens the places where cyclists can park their bicycles on sidewalks.
5. Limit the use of “tall handlebars” (handlebars taller than 12 inches) except upon recumbent bicycles.

You can read the specifics on all the changes here.

Spin Your Wheels has put together a nice video recapping last weekend’s great ride:

Congrats to Amy Petty for again being an excellent ride spokesperson! :)

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I’m often asked by non-cyclists about how I clean up after my daily commute. After looking over the comments from my recent post about the contents of my commuter bag, this subject is of great interest to cyclists as well. Up until just a few months I had the best possible option, an actual shower. I’ve now tried a number of products and as you might expect, nothing lives up to the real thing. However, just because you don’t have an access to a shower doesn’t mean you have to give up riding to work.

Though many of us believed that it would never happen again, over the last couple of weeks we’ve seen some decent rain storms make their way through the city. Not nearly enough to make up for the drought, but it is a start. Normally, I must admit, I am a complete wimp when it comes to riding in the rain. I will usually avoid it at all costs. Which is funny because I don’t have any particularly bad experiences, but it just doesn’t strike me as the thing to do. When you decide to go car free, you don’t really have a choice and last week I had to make a couple of trips in the rain.