Sun, July 16, 2006
UPDATED: 2006-07-16 03:48:12 MST
City hall powers that be in no hurry to force businesses to kick butt
By BILL KAUFMANN, CALGARY SUN
It's a smouldering issue that won't be extinguished, as long as cigarettes are allowed to burn in city eateries and bars.
Three-and-a-half years after a deal was struck between the city and its hospitality industry to postpone a comprehensive cigarette ban in public spaces until Jan. 1, 2008, the fight to fast-track prohibition has flared anew.
Increasing evidence citing the dangers of second-hand smoke -- as exemplified in a recent U.S. Surgeon-General's report -- and a trend towards butt bans in other jurisdictions have fired up foes of Calgary's slow-burning approach.
Anti-tobacco activist Robyn Hefferton says a year of fruitless lobbying that often felt like head-butting a brick wall took its toll, but the latest foray has her back in the fray.
She'll be in council chambers tomorrow when aldermen vote on possibly imposing a blanket smoking ban in public places Jan. 1, 2007, rather than a year later.
"I'm telling aldermen Calgarians support the ban, why is a deal with business taking priority to what the general public wants?" she says.
A former city nightclub manager, who wished to remain anonymous, says he knows one important reason the hospitality industry lobbied to delay cigarette prohibition until 2008.
Some watering holes, he alleges, receive major support from tobacco companies, which they use for booking bands and even renovations in return for promoting cigarettes on their premises.
Tobacco companies fight tooth and nail for the right to sign contracts with bars, worth easily $100,000 a year, he says.
It's a charge echoed somewhat by smoking opponents in B.C.'s Lower Mainland, who say tobacco firms made large donations to a hospitality industry group there that sprang up to block an anti-smoking bylaw.
Calgary restaurateur Al Browne, who was instrumental in negotiating Calgary's 2008 pact, vehemently denies any of the outcome was linked to tobacco money.
"That is completely false -- I've never heard of any of that happening here," says Browne.
It's a view echoed by Charlie Mendelman, vice-president of the Calgary Pub and Bar Association.
"We never got one cent from the tobacco industry in Calgary," said Mendelmen.
That's a preposterous denial, says Les Hagen, executive director of the group Action on Smoking and Health.
"Those companies' presence is everywhere, whether it's the cigarette girls or the signage in those places," he says.
In any case, says Hagen, Calgary's current bylaw forcing restaurants to choose between tobacco and minors while leaving bars unfettered has left the city the butt of black humour among the health conscious across the country.
"Calgary is considered a Chernobyl among smoke-free circles in Canada -- people are constantly bringing it up," says the Edmontonian, noting the city is the last larger centre in Canada not to institute a comprehensive ban.
- - -
A host of health-care-related conventions have passed up Calgary due to its archaic smoking bylaws, says Hagen.
"We're not just talking about the anti-tobacco groups, it's the entire health community that notices," he says.
He insists the city's 2008 prohibition is based on health concerns that are as valid today as they'd be in 18 months.
"Protection delayed is protection denied," he says.
So far, though, only six of 15 aldermen are solidly in the fast-track camp, with a total of eight needed to win the day.
Ald. Ric McIver is one of those backing the status quo, insisting health factors are only one part of the equation.
"Health is an important concern, but freedom and personal responsibility are also concerns," says McIver.
Backtracking to reduce health worries would only place council in ill-repute, as flip-floppers, he says.
"It's stuff like this that led to an 18-percent turnout in the last civic election," says McIver.
Despite numerous polls showing a majority of Calgarians want a swifter butting out, McIver said he has no reason to believe it's a majority desire.
And Calgary, he says, has nothing to be ashamed of in resisting speedier progress towards full tobacco prohibition.
"Some of the other cities are ahead of Calgary in personal health, but Calgary's led in personal responsibility," he says.
Some have suggested city council knew the deal hatched three years ago with its 2008 deadline guaranteed the issue would be an open sore well before that date was reached.
But McIver says the bottom line is, a deal's a deal.
- - -
It's one of the most maligned and bewildering aspects of Calgary's current smoking bylaw -- a cigarette ban on outdoor bar patios while patrons inside are free to light up.
Ald. Craig Burrows admits he brokered that part of the pact nearly four years ago while also engineering the 2008 date for a total tobacco ban in such places.
But now Burrows has changed his tune and wants a 2007 kibosh on smoking in public -- an altered stance that's drawn the ire of some in the hospitality industry.
Restaurateur Browne, who haggled with Burrows and anti-smoking activists in backroom sessions three years ago, says he and his allies were stunned when Burrows offered smoke-free patios in exchange for a postponed ban indoors.
"We were flabbergasted ... it was a weird request," says Browne, a director of the Canadian Food and Restaurant Association (CFRA).
"We protected Burrows all these years, because there's been ridicule over that part of the bylaw -- he's gone unscathed."
But he says the gloves are now off, adding Burrows has proven himself a turncoat.
"When you give us your word, then turn on us, this is no longer a smoking issue, this is a credibility issue," says Browne, who recalled bargaining sessions so rancorous, they almost came to physical blows.
He's convinced if Burrows had approached the negotiations differently, Calgary bars would be smoke-free today.
Burrows, however, remains unruffled, explaining his position on patios was influenced by his own unpleasant experiences while having a cool one outdoors.
"It's the only place I had a problem with smokers -- they wouldn't put their cigarettes down, they'd put them in your face," he says.
Such outdoor smoking, Burrows adds, is visible to the young and sends an unhealthy message.
Three years ago, his concern over the fate of mom and pop operations had him favouring the 2008 deadline.
Since then, however, business owners have told him their fears of a financial hit from a cigarette ban have gone up in smoke, says the alderman.
"They're saying now things have changed. They're doing fine," says Burrows. "It would have been one thing if we'd changed our minds six months after, but now it'll be four years.
The ability to be flexible and admit one might have been mistaken is more valuable than misplaced loyalty, he adds.
And bowing to the demands of the majority, which includes the 80% of Calgarians who are non-smokers, says Burrows, is just plain intelligent.
"Do what the majority says and you'll have a long life in politics," he says.
Offering a smoke-free environment would also make it easier for for businesses to overcome a rising recruiting challenge, said Burrows.
Browne says his side isn't necessarily opposed to the 2007 deadline, but resents having the decision sprung on them.
"We're willing to bite the bullet, but let's have the same process of consultation we had before ... what they're doing is ram-rodding it down our throats."
He said three years ago, the CFRA appealed to the province to bring in an Alberta-wide smoking ban -- in a bid to create a level playing field -- but were rebuffed.
It's one thing both Burrows and Browne can agree on -- the province has abdicated its responsibility on a legitimate health-care issue by downloading it on municipalities.
"The province is missing the boat in this -- they should be doing this," says Burrows.
But he dismissed Browne's call for another round of stakeholder consultation that proved so torturous three years ago.
"By the time we finish that, it'd be 2008," he says.
Browne says time has taken its toll -- on smoking in establishments, adding 98% of Calgary restaurants have butted out voluntarily.
"It's already being taken care of," he says.
"This issue's being used as brownie points by politicians."
17 July 2006
mimafy
Further to Skybar's post on the spam emails that get into your inbox but don't make any sense, I've been getting them more and more frequently at work. Oh how I wish that I could find out which magical database contains my contact info that these emails are being generated from.
They are getting more coherent though, so I guess things could be worse. I'd still like to know what a mimafy and Glamdring are though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shripati Simson [mailto:shri@assembly.ca.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 5:43 AM
To: Reid Dalgleish
Subject: mimafy
Good heavens! Can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark,
everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly
chopped off my head with Glamdring, and Thorin Was stabbing here there
They are getting more coherent though, so I guess things could be worse. I'd still like to know what a mimafy and Glamdring are though.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From: Shripati Simson [mailto:shri@assembly.ca.gov]
Sent: Monday, July 17, 2006 5:43 AM
To: Reid Dalgleish
Subject: mimafy
Good heavens! Can you ask! Goblins fighting and biting in the dark,
everybody falling over bodies and hitting one another! You nearly
chopped off my head with Glamdring, and Thorin Was stabbing here there
13 July 2006
Ridiculous
Excitement over Milwaukee gas giveaway leads to crashes, arrests
19:08:43 EDT Jul 12, 2006
MILWAUKEE (AP) - Two car crashes and four people were arrested in excitement over a gasoline giveaway Wednesday to reward the city for its safe-driving record.
For the most part, hundreds of drivers waited patiently for hours for about $30 US worth of free gasoline each that Allstate Insurance provided at one station.
However, some motorists started lining up before midnight and the queue stretched far from the station into a residential area, trapping some residents in their driveways, said police spokeswoman Anne Schwartz.
That led to fights and arrests for disorderly conduct. In one case, three officers were sent to a hospital as a precaution because they were spattered with blood from someone's bloodied nose, Schwartz said.
The two crashes apparently occurred when queued-up motorists tried to let friends into line, Schwartz said.
"Any time you offer free gas when it is $3 a gallon, it is not surprising people would get excited," she said.
Allstate gave away a tanker truck load of gasoline as a reward to Milwaukee for ranking No. 1 among mid-sized cities on its safe drivers list.
Clarence Jefferson said he thought he'd be first in line when he got there at 4 a.m. - but found hundreds of others already ahead of him. Pumps were turned on at about 6 a.m.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It helps. Every bit is worth it."
© The Canadian Press, 2006
How stupid. Well, with oil being at $77/bbl today, I suspect examples of civil breakdown will only become more the norm than the exception.
19:08:43 EDT Jul 12, 2006
MILWAUKEE (AP) - Two car crashes and four people were arrested in excitement over a gasoline giveaway Wednesday to reward the city for its safe-driving record.
For the most part, hundreds of drivers waited patiently for hours for about $30 US worth of free gasoline each that Allstate Insurance provided at one station.
However, some motorists started lining up before midnight and the queue stretched far from the station into a residential area, trapping some residents in their driveways, said police spokeswoman Anne Schwartz.
That led to fights and arrests for disorderly conduct. In one case, three officers were sent to a hospital as a precaution because they were spattered with blood from someone's bloodied nose, Schwartz said.
The two crashes apparently occurred when queued-up motorists tried to let friends into line, Schwartz said.
"Any time you offer free gas when it is $3 a gallon, it is not surprising people would get excited," she said.
Allstate gave away a tanker truck load of gasoline as a reward to Milwaukee for ranking No. 1 among mid-sized cities on its safe drivers list.
Clarence Jefferson said he thought he'd be first in line when he got there at 4 a.m. - but found hundreds of others already ahead of him. Pumps were turned on at about 6 a.m.
"It doesn't matter," he said. "It helps. Every bit is worth it."
© The Canadian Press, 2006
How stupid. Well, with oil being at $77/bbl today, I suspect examples of civil breakdown will only become more the norm than the exception.
11 July 2006
I love my bicycle!
Quotations about Bicycling
The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets. ~Christopher Morley
The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine. ~John Howard
It would not be at all strange if history came to the conclusion that the perfection of the bicycle was the greatest incident of the nineteenth century. ~Author Unknown
Tens of thousands who could never afford to own, feed and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life. ~Frances Willard, How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle
Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle? ~Flann O'Brien
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. ~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green
When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle. ~Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells
When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ~Diane Ackerman
[T]he bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon. ~Bill Strickland, The Quotable Cyclist
A bicycle does get you there and more.... And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun. ~Bill Emerson, "On Bicycling," Saturday Evening Post, 29 July 1967
[T]he bicycle will accomplish more for women's sensible dress than all the reform movements that have ever been waged. ~Author Unknown, from Demerarest's Family Magazine, 1895
The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong
Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. ~James E. Starrs
The bicycle had, and still has, a humane, almost classical moderation in the kind of pleasure it offers. It is the kind of machine that a Hellenistic Greek might have invented and ridden. It does no violence to our normal reactions: It does not pretend to free us from our normal environment. ~J.B. Jackson
Until mountain biking came along, the bike scene was ruled by a small elite cadre of people who seemed allergic to enthusiasm. ~Jacquie Phelan
I took care of my wheel as one would look after a Rolls Royce. If it needed repairs I always brought it to the same shop on Myrtle Avenue run by a negro named Ed Perry. He handled the bike with kid gloves, you might say. He would always see to it that neither front nor back wheel wobbled. Often he would do a job for me without pay, because, as he put it, he never saw a man so in love with his bike as I was. ~Henry Miller, My Bike and Other Friends
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live. ~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
Cycling is unique. No other sport lets you go like that - where there's only the bike left to hold you up. If you ran as hard, you'd fall over. Your legs wouldn't support you. ~Steve Johnson
The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson
Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history. ~P.J. O'Rourke
After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow. ~H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance
Messengers and mountain bikers share a common chromosome. ~James Bethea
If we all, mountain bikers, cyclists, multinational companies, Jo Public, respected the land like old civilizations we wouldn't get so many punctures. Earth's revenge. ~Jo Burt (Thank you, Jacquie.)
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~Ernest Hemingway
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. ~John F. Kennedy
Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. ~H.G. Wells
It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep. ~Gurdon S. Leete
The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked. ~Amy Webster
Bicycling is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own. ~Louis J. Helle, Jr., Spring in Washington
There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast. ~Paul Scott Mowrer, The House of Europe
You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day. ~Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles
I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it. ~H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance
The secret to mountain biking is pretty simple. The slower you go the more likely it is you'll crash. ~Julie Furtado
If you ride you know those moments when you have fed yourself into the traffic, felt the hashed-up asphalt rattle in the handlebars, held a lungful of air in a cloud of exhaust. Up ahead there are two parallel buses. With cat's whiskers, you measure the clearance down a doubtful alley. You swing wide, outflank that flower truck. The cross-street yellow light is turning red. You burst off the green like a surfer on a wave of metal. You have a hundred empty yards of Broadway to yourself. ~Chip Brown, "A Bike and a Prayer"
All bicycles weigh fifty pounds. A thirty-pound bicycle needs a twenty-pound lock. A forty-pound bicycle needs a ten-pound lock. A fifty-pound bicycle doesn't need a lock. ~Author Unknown
Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world. ~Grant Petersen
Most bicyclists in New York City obey instinct far more than they obey the traffic laws, which is to say that they run red lights, go the wrong way on one-way streets, violate cross-walks, and terrify innocents, because it just seems easier that way. Cycling in the city, and particularly in midtown, is anarchy without malice. ~Author unknown, from New Yorker, "Talk of the Town"
All creatures who have ever walked have wished that they might fly. With highwheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet. ~Karl Kron, Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle
What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor. ~David Perry
Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things. ~William Golding
The bicycle, the bicycle surely, should always be the vehicle of novelists and poets. ~Christopher Morley
The bicycle is a curious vehicle. Its passenger is its engine. ~John Howard
It would not be at all strange if history came to the conclusion that the perfection of the bicycle was the greatest incident of the nineteenth century. ~Author Unknown
Tens of thousands who could never afford to own, feed and stable a horse, had by this bright invention enjoyed the swiftness of motion which is perhaps the most fascinating feature of material life. ~Frances Willard, How I Learned to Ride the Bicycle
Why should anyone steal a watch when he could steal a bicycle? ~Flann O'Brien
The bicycle is the most civilized conveyance known to man. Other forms of transport grow daily more nightmarish. Only the bicycle remains pure in heart. ~Iris Murdoch, The Red and the Green
When man invented the bicycle he reached the peak of his attainments. Here was a machine of precision and balance for the convenience of man. And (unlike subsequent inventions for man's convenience) the more he used it, the fitter his body became. Here, for once, was a product of man's brain that was entirely beneficial to those who used it, and of no harm or irritation to others. Progress should have stopped when man invented the bicycle. ~Elizabeth West, Hovel in the Hills
When I see an adult on a bicycle, I do not despair for the future of the human race. ~H.G. Wells
When I go biking, I repeat a mantra of the day's sensations: bright sun, blue sky, warm breeze, blue jay's call, ice melting and so on. This helps me transcend the traffic, ignore the clamorings of work, leave all the mind theaters behind and focus on nature instead. I still must abide by the rules of the road, of biking, of gravity. But I am mentally far away from civilization. The world is breaking someone else's heart. ~Diane Ackerman
[T]he bicycle is the most efficient machine ever created: Converting calories into gas, a bicycle gets the equivalent of three thousand miles per gallon. ~Bill Strickland, The Quotable Cyclist
A bicycle does get you there and more.... And there is always the thin edge of danger to keep you alert and comfortably apprehensive. Dogs become dogs again and snap at your raincoat; potholes become personal. And getting there is all the fun. ~Bill Emerson, "On Bicycling," Saturday Evening Post, 29 July 1967
[T]he bicycle will accomplish more for women's sensible dress than all the reform movements that have ever been waged. ~Author Unknown, from Demerarest's Family Magazine, 1895
The bicycle is just as good company as most husbands and, when it gets old and shabby, a woman can dispose of it and get a new one without shocking the entire community. ~Ann Strong
Melancholy is incompatible with bicycling. ~James E. Starrs
The bicycle had, and still has, a humane, almost classical moderation in the kind of pleasure it offers. It is the kind of machine that a Hellenistic Greek might have invented and ridden. It does no violence to our normal reactions: It does not pretend to free us from our normal environment. ~J.B. Jackson
Until mountain biking came along, the bike scene was ruled by a small elite cadre of people who seemed allergic to enthusiasm. ~Jacquie Phelan
I took care of my wheel as one would look after a Rolls Royce. If it needed repairs I always brought it to the same shop on Myrtle Avenue run by a negro named Ed Perry. He handled the bike with kid gloves, you might say. He would always see to it that neither front nor back wheel wobbled. Often he would do a job for me without pay, because, as he put it, he never saw a man so in love with his bike as I was. ~Henry Miller, My Bike and Other Friends
Get a bicycle. You will not regret it if you live. ~Mark Twain, "Taming the Bicycle"
Cycling is unique. No other sport lets you go like that - where there's only the bike left to hold you up. If you ran as hard, you'd fall over. Your legs wouldn't support you. ~Steve Johnson
The hardest part of raising a child is teaching them to ride bicycles. A shaky child on a bicycle for the first time needs both support and freedom. The realization that this is what the child will always need can hit hard. ~Sloan Wilson
Mankind has invested more than four million years of evolution in the attempt to avoid physical exertion. Now a group of backward-thinking atavists mounted on foot-powered pairs of Hula-Hoops would have us pumping our legs, gritting our teeth, and searing our lungs as though we were being chased across the Pleistocene savanna by saber-toothed tigers. Think of the hopes, the dreams, the effort, the brilliance, the pure force of will that, over the eons, has gone into the creation of the Cadillac Coupe de Ville. Bicycle riders would have us throw all this on the ash heap of history. ~P.J. O'Rourke
After your first day of cycling, one dream is inevitable. A memory of motion lingers in the muscles of your legs, and round and round they seem to go. You ride through Dreamland on wonderful dream bicycles that change and grow. ~H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance
Messengers and mountain bikers share a common chromosome. ~James Bethea
If we all, mountain bikers, cyclists, multinational companies, Jo Public, respected the land like old civilizations we wouldn't get so many punctures. Earth's revenge. ~Jo Burt (Thank you, Jacquie.)
It is by riding a bicycle that you learn the contours of a country best, since you have to sweat up the hills and coast down them. Thus you remember them as they actually are, while in a motor car only a high hill impresses you, and you have no such accurate remembrance of country you have driven through as you gain by riding a bicycle. ~Ernest Hemingway
Nothing compares to the simple pleasure of a bike ride. ~John F. Kennedy
Cycle tracks will abound in Utopia. ~H.G. Wells
It is curious that with the advent of the automobile and the airplane, the bicycle is still with us. Perhaps people like the world they can see from a bike, or the air they breathe when they're out on a bike. Or they like the bicycle's simplicity and the precision with which it is made. Or because they like the feeling of being able to hurtle through air one minute, and saunter through a park the next, without leaving behind clouds of choking exhaust, without leaving behind so much as a footstep. ~Gurdon S. Leete
The sound of a car door opening in front of you is similar to the sound of a gun being cocked. ~Amy Webster
Bicycling is the nearest approximation I know to the flight of birds. The airplane simply carries a man on its back like an obedient Pegasus; it gives him no wings of his own. ~Louis J. Helle, Jr., Spring in Washington
There is nothing like walking to get the feel of a country. A fine landscape is like a piece of music; it must be taken at the right tempo. Even a bicycle goes too fast. ~Paul Scott Mowrer, The House of Europe
You never have the wind with you - either it is against you or you're having a good day. ~Daniel Behrman, The Man Who Loved Bicycles
I came out for exercise, gentle exercise, and to notice the scenery and to botanise. And no sooner do I get on that accursed machine than off I go hammer and tongs; I never look to right or left, never notice a flower, never see a view - get hot, juicy, red - like a grilled chop. Get me on that machine and I have to go. I go scorching along the road, and cursing aloud at myself for doing it. ~H.G. Wells, The Wheels of Chance
The secret to mountain biking is pretty simple. The slower you go the more likely it is you'll crash. ~Julie Furtado
If you ride you know those moments when you have fed yourself into the traffic, felt the hashed-up asphalt rattle in the handlebars, held a lungful of air in a cloud of exhaust. Up ahead there are two parallel buses. With cat's whiskers, you measure the clearance down a doubtful alley. You swing wide, outflank that flower truck. The cross-street yellow light is turning red. You burst off the green like a surfer on a wave of metal. You have a hundred empty yards of Broadway to yourself. ~Chip Brown, "A Bike and a Prayer"
All bicycles weigh fifty pounds. A thirty-pound bicycle needs a twenty-pound lock. A forty-pound bicycle needs a ten-pound lock. A fifty-pound bicycle doesn't need a lock. ~Author Unknown
Think of bicycles as rideable art that can just about save the world. ~Grant Petersen
Most bicyclists in New York City obey instinct far more than they obey the traffic laws, which is to say that they run red lights, go the wrong way on one-way streets, violate cross-walks, and terrify innocents, because it just seems easier that way. Cycling in the city, and particularly in midtown, is anarchy without malice. ~Author unknown, from New Yorker, "Talk of the Town"
All creatures who have ever walked have wished that they might fly. With highwheelers a flesh and blood man can hitch wings to his feet. ~Karl Kron, Ten Thousand Miles on a Bicycle
What do you call a cyclist who doesn't wear a helmet? An organ donor. ~David Perry
Consider a man riding a bicycle. Whoever he is, we can say three things about him. We know he got on the bicycle and started to move. We know that at some point he will stop and get off. Most important of all, we know that if at any point between the beginning and the end of his journey he stops moving and does not get off the bicycle he will fall off it. That is a metaphor for the journey through life of any living thing, and I think of any society of living things. ~William Golding
10 July 2006
The party (in video)
Okay, you really can't see anything, but the dialogue is hilarious! Burnt downstairs carpet! Put it out! Put it out!
Stampede weekend #1
What a weekend! The Stampede officially started on Friday, and so far I've been able to avoid any association with it. Other than the Parade (which no one can avoid) and the fireworks which we still get a great view of - until they build yet another condo tower to block out our view. That will definitely be the sign to move!
Snowbirds overhead during Stampede parade
Friday night fireworks
We celebrated that fact in grand style and another kickass soiree chez Skybar on Saturday night. No party at Skybar's would be complete without a ridiculous amount of great food - which everyone certainly took over the top, right Doug! This picture is priceless! Doesn't he look like a nine-year-old kid in heaven? Some of the following pics were taken by Jerome...
Funniest. Picture. Ever. Wing madness!
Evidence of the carnage
It was so great to see everyone again - all those I haven't seen in a long time - Shawn and Jeanette, Maroshka and Rachel, Debbie and Debbie, Derek, Elle, and Jetboy.
Dance bitches!
Studs
What?
Wall of contemplation
We drove up to Skybar's place with BK, Nick, Jerome, and Joe.
Jeff and Haley
Another pose?
The three best things in the world...Joe, Juicy Fruit weed, and the Jesus Action Figure with REAL GLIDING ACTION!
Earth Blends Raid...do I smell toxic irony? (this was funny at the time)
What time is it?
No one is drunk.
No surprise, Curtis and I were the last ones standing. For some reason we figured we could hail a cab or two at 4am on Saturday night during Stampede. Needless to say, there were many bodies all over the house when Jeff got up in the morning. What a great party! Stay tuned for Stampede weekend #2....
Snowbirds overhead during Stampede parade
Friday night fireworks
We celebrated that fact in grand style and another kickass soiree chez Skybar on Saturday night. No party at Skybar's would be complete without a ridiculous amount of great food - which everyone certainly took over the top, right Doug! This picture is priceless! Doesn't he look like a nine-year-old kid in heaven? Some of the following pics were taken by Jerome...
Funniest. Picture. Ever. Wing madness!
Evidence of the carnage
It was so great to see everyone again - all those I haven't seen in a long time - Shawn and Jeanette, Maroshka and Rachel, Debbie and Debbie, Derek, Elle, and Jetboy.
Dance bitches!
Studs
What?
Wall of contemplation
We drove up to Skybar's place with BK, Nick, Jerome, and Joe.
Jeff and Haley
Another pose?
The three best things in the world...Joe, Juicy Fruit weed, and the Jesus Action Figure with REAL GLIDING ACTION!
Earth Blends Raid...do I smell toxic irony? (this was funny at the time)
What time is it?
No one is drunk.
No surprise, Curtis and I were the last ones standing. For some reason we figured we could hail a cab or two at 4am on Saturday night during Stampede. Needless to say, there were many bodies all over the house when Jeff got up in the morning. What a great party! Stay tuned for Stampede weekend #2....
The next real estate boom
Dense settlements, not sprawling ranch houses, are the future of housing - and could make for a smart real-estate investment.
By Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine senior editor
July 7 2006: 2:50 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Picture the scene: it's 2025, and you and your family are living in a beautiful, leafy-green village that seems more 19th century than 21st, even though it has only been in existence for ten years and is just 20 miles from a major American city.
You know all of the 150 or so souls in the village; you see them at the market where you pick up a box of locally-grown produce once a week. You see half of them in the morning as they board the commuter train for school or work in the city; the other half are the network warriors who work from home or, on warm days, use the free Wi-Fi in the village square.
It all seems a world away from the crumbling old 20th-century suburbs people used to live in, if you could call it living. You shudder to think you could still be living there. Oh, and you see that really nice house just down the bicycle lane? That's yours, the fruits of your smart move to plunk down a payment on a piece of the hottest new trend in real estate.
Streetcar stops desired
Sounds like a far-off future? You can already see such a development opening up in Hercules, Calif., 20 miles northeast of San Francisco. And you can bet on seeing many more across the country if changing consumer desires and economic trends dictate the direction of the housing market.
"New Villages," as community planner Robert McIntyre dubs them in the latest issue of The Futurist magazine, are compact, pleasantly urban settlements located well away from city centers. They share some of the charms and amenities of cities, thanks to their density, but have the mostly rural surroundings that originally drew people out to the suburbs, as well as the friendly feel of a small town where you know your neighbors.
The concept of New Villages shares some similarities with the so-called "transit villages" you can already see around the country. Starting in the mid-'90s, when architects and local planners became more interested in more pedestrian-friendly, urban developments, transit villages started to spring up outside cities along revitalized rail lines, from Mission Valley near San Diego, to Ballston and Bethesda outside Washington, D.C.
They were very attractive to young city workers and empty-nest parents. Their defining characteristics: They were eminently walkable, densely constructed without feeling overcrowded, and offered a real community feeling with plenty of common spaces.
The difference between transit villages and New Villages is location: While transit villages mostly reinvented older suburbs that are close to cities, New Villages promise to reinvent the sprawl further out.
The demand for such developments is real, and it's only going to get greater as consumer preferences rapidly shift away from the McMansions preferred by boomers. According to a study by the nonprofit Congress for New Urbanism, while less than 25 percent of middle-aged Americans are interested in living in dense areas, 53 percent of 24-34 year olds would choose to live in transit-rich, walkable neighborhoods, if they had the choice.
Demand for housing within walking distance of transit will more than double by 2025, according to another nonprofit, the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. Even now, properties within a 5- or 10-minute walk to a train stop are selling for 20 to 25 percent more than comparable properties further away - a price premium that's likely to increase as traffic jams worsen.
And as the effects of the Internet continue to kick in, it won't be so necessary to be in the big city - you'll just want access to it every once in a while, for the occasional business meeting or nightclub outing. But as social animals we'll still want to cluster together for face-to-face contact, local food and local culture.
The payoff
All of these consumer trends suggest that New Villages just may be the future. But there are also compelling economic arguments for developers to build and sell such properties, as well as for consumers to buy them.
Rising oil prices notwithstanding, sprawling car-culture cities and vast suburbs simply do not make economic sense in the long run. As much as 50 percent of the land surface area in any given city or subdivision - we're talking prime real estate - is taken up by roadways. For developers, less space given over to roads means more space for housing.
Not only are roads a drain on landlords' potential income, they're a turnoff for residents -- and are only going to become more so as gridlock, road repairs and air pollution increase.
While you might assume that a higher density community would have more traffic, you'd be wrong. When neighborhoods are dense and walkable, studies show, people make fewer car trips. And some may even forgo owning a second car, especially as families realize that living with one less car can save them $6,000 a year on average (and again, that's not counting price rises at the pump).
And then there's simple math. While standard subdivisions have five units per acre, transit villages tend to pack in 20 to 25 per acre - still mostly single-family dwellings or townhomes, but without the vast lawns and backyards of suburbia. And with transit village homes selling for more than similar houses in traditional, sprawling suburbs, developers will make considerably more per acre, while fostering community and being kinder to the environment.
Pocketing a nice real-estate gain while saving the planet? That should help you sleep very well at night in your nice, safe, quiet, neighborly New Village home.
By Chris Taylor, Business 2.0 Magazine senior editor
July 7 2006: 2:50 PM EDT
SAN FRANCISCO (Business 2.0 Magazine) -- Picture the scene: it's 2025, and you and your family are living in a beautiful, leafy-green village that seems more 19th century than 21st, even though it has only been in existence for ten years and is just 20 miles from a major American city.
You know all of the 150 or so souls in the village; you see them at the market where you pick up a box of locally-grown produce once a week. You see half of them in the morning as they board the commuter train for school or work in the city; the other half are the network warriors who work from home or, on warm days, use the free Wi-Fi in the village square.
It all seems a world away from the crumbling old 20th-century suburbs people used to live in, if you could call it living. You shudder to think you could still be living there. Oh, and you see that really nice house just down the bicycle lane? That's yours, the fruits of your smart move to plunk down a payment on a piece of the hottest new trend in real estate.
Streetcar stops desired
Sounds like a far-off future? You can already see such a development opening up in Hercules, Calif., 20 miles northeast of San Francisco. And you can bet on seeing many more across the country if changing consumer desires and economic trends dictate the direction of the housing market.
"New Villages," as community planner Robert McIntyre dubs them in the latest issue of The Futurist magazine, are compact, pleasantly urban settlements located well away from city centers. They share some of the charms and amenities of cities, thanks to their density, but have the mostly rural surroundings that originally drew people out to the suburbs, as well as the friendly feel of a small town where you know your neighbors.
The concept of New Villages shares some similarities with the so-called "transit villages" you can already see around the country. Starting in the mid-'90s, when architects and local planners became more interested in more pedestrian-friendly, urban developments, transit villages started to spring up outside cities along revitalized rail lines, from Mission Valley near San Diego, to Ballston and Bethesda outside Washington, D.C.
They were very attractive to young city workers and empty-nest parents. Their defining characteristics: They were eminently walkable, densely constructed without feeling overcrowded, and offered a real community feeling with plenty of common spaces.
The difference between transit villages and New Villages is location: While transit villages mostly reinvented older suburbs that are close to cities, New Villages promise to reinvent the sprawl further out.
The demand for such developments is real, and it's only going to get greater as consumer preferences rapidly shift away from the McMansions preferred by boomers. According to a study by the nonprofit Congress for New Urbanism, while less than 25 percent of middle-aged Americans are interested in living in dense areas, 53 percent of 24-34 year olds would choose to live in transit-rich, walkable neighborhoods, if they had the choice.
Demand for housing within walking distance of transit will more than double by 2025, according to another nonprofit, the Center for Transit-Oriented Development. Even now, properties within a 5- or 10-minute walk to a train stop are selling for 20 to 25 percent more than comparable properties further away - a price premium that's likely to increase as traffic jams worsen.
And as the effects of the Internet continue to kick in, it won't be so necessary to be in the big city - you'll just want access to it every once in a while, for the occasional business meeting or nightclub outing. But as social animals we'll still want to cluster together for face-to-face contact, local food and local culture.
The payoff
All of these consumer trends suggest that New Villages just may be the future. But there are also compelling economic arguments for developers to build and sell such properties, as well as for consumers to buy them.
Rising oil prices notwithstanding, sprawling car-culture cities and vast suburbs simply do not make economic sense in the long run. As much as 50 percent of the land surface area in any given city or subdivision - we're talking prime real estate - is taken up by roadways. For developers, less space given over to roads means more space for housing.
Not only are roads a drain on landlords' potential income, they're a turnoff for residents -- and are only going to become more so as gridlock, road repairs and air pollution increase.
While you might assume that a higher density community would have more traffic, you'd be wrong. When neighborhoods are dense and walkable, studies show, people make fewer car trips. And some may even forgo owning a second car, especially as families realize that living with one less car can save them $6,000 a year on average (and again, that's not counting price rises at the pump).
And then there's simple math. While standard subdivisions have five units per acre, transit villages tend to pack in 20 to 25 per acre - still mostly single-family dwellings or townhomes, but without the vast lawns and backyards of suburbia. And with transit village homes selling for more than similar houses in traditional, sprawling suburbs, developers will make considerably more per acre, while fostering community and being kinder to the environment.
Pocketing a nice real-estate gain while saving the planet? That should help you sleep very well at night in your nice, safe, quiet, neighborly New Village home.
10 things to do on the last day of your career
By Sean Coughlan
BBC News Magazine
France's football hero Zinedine Zidane ended his glorious career in spectacular style - getting a red card for headbutting an opponent in the World Cup final. How are you meant to leave the office in a way that won't be forgotten? Here are some ideas...
1. Use your leaving speech to deliver a verbal Zidane-style headbutt. Affairs, expenses scams, inflated bonuses, wigs, how the place has gone to the dogs. Feel the room get colder than an eskimo's beer fridge as you give them your wit and wisdom.
2. Leave a challenge for your successor. When President Bush's staff took over the White House they complained that the Ws were missing from the computer keyboards (as in George W Bush) and that an office had been renamed Office of Strategerie.
3. If David Beckham can cry when he's leaving his job (as England captain) then so can I. Don't. Bad move. Nothing is going to fill an office with more horror than the prospect of Jeff from accounts showing emotion. It's not what open plan is about.
4. Leaving speech II. Talk at interminable length about your own glittering career - that time you really showed them who was boss over the faulty photocopier - and deliver rambling anecdotes about characters who left years ago. Just keep talking, it's your last day. What are they going to do? Sack you? You've listened to them for long enough. Look, I can just keep going...
5. Hand your identity dog tag to the craziest frother in the shopping centre and tell them where they can get free coffee and meet lots of new and hospitable friends.
6. The Mozambique chardonnay has all been drunk at the leaving party, they're playing the get-your-coat-on music ... and that special co-worker is just about to say a final goodbye. But it's never, ever a good idea to tell someone you've worked with for 20 years that you love them. Life isn't a Christmas special edition of The Office. It's much more cruel.
7. When you read your leaving card there's always a great big signature and a message from someone you've never heard of. Find out who they are and promise to meet them for a drink... since you're such big friends. It'll scare the hell out of them.
8. Check your e-mail in-tray for the bitchiest messages from your colleagues - you know, the ones slagging off people in earshot - and then threaten to send them out to the entire organisation. Watch your leaving present fund grow and grow.
9. Refuse to admit that you're leaving and just carry on as if nothing has happened and that you'll be there forever. This is technically known as "the Prescott".
10. That "exit" interview. This will be the first time you've come across the gleaming 20-storey office block occupied by floor upon floor of the "human resources" team. It's your big chance to tell them exactly... Are they listening? Hello?
BBC News Magazine
France's football hero Zinedine Zidane ended his glorious career in spectacular style - getting a red card for headbutting an opponent in the World Cup final. How are you meant to leave the office in a way that won't be forgotten? Here are some ideas...
1. Use your leaving speech to deliver a verbal Zidane-style headbutt. Affairs, expenses scams, inflated bonuses, wigs, how the place has gone to the dogs. Feel the room get colder than an eskimo's beer fridge as you give them your wit and wisdom.
2. Leave a challenge for your successor. When President Bush's staff took over the White House they complained that the Ws were missing from the computer keyboards (as in George W Bush) and that an office had been renamed Office of Strategerie.
3. If David Beckham can cry when he's leaving his job (as England captain) then so can I. Don't. Bad move. Nothing is going to fill an office with more horror than the prospect of Jeff from accounts showing emotion. It's not what open plan is about.
4. Leaving speech II. Talk at interminable length about your own glittering career - that time you really showed them who was boss over the faulty photocopier - and deliver rambling anecdotes about characters who left years ago. Just keep talking, it's your last day. What are they going to do? Sack you? You've listened to them for long enough. Look, I can just keep going...
5. Hand your identity dog tag to the craziest frother in the shopping centre and tell them where they can get free coffee and meet lots of new and hospitable friends.
6. The Mozambique chardonnay has all been drunk at the leaving party, they're playing the get-your-coat-on music ... and that special co-worker is just about to say a final goodbye. But it's never, ever a good idea to tell someone you've worked with for 20 years that you love them. Life isn't a Christmas special edition of The Office. It's much more cruel.
7. When you read your leaving card there's always a great big signature and a message from someone you've never heard of. Find out who they are and promise to meet them for a drink... since you're such big friends. It'll scare the hell out of them.
8. Check your e-mail in-tray for the bitchiest messages from your colleagues - you know, the ones slagging off people in earshot - and then threaten to send them out to the entire organisation. Watch your leaving present fund grow and grow.
9. Refuse to admit that you're leaving and just carry on as if nothing has happened and that you'll be there forever. This is technically known as "the Prescott".
10. That "exit" interview. This will be the first time you've come across the gleaming 20-storey office block occupied by floor upon floor of the "human resources" team. It's your big chance to tell them exactly... Are they listening? Hello?
07 July 2006
Couldn't have said it better myself...
A PHILOSOPHY OF BICYCLING
What is it that gets a grown person riding a bike? After all, most Americans think of bikes as child's toys. Those few that don't worry about the supposed dangers seem to worry about just looking silly. So why bother with bicycling? Well, here's my answer - my philosophy of bicycling.
There's a lot I love about bicycling. I love the machines themselves - so elegant, so efficient. I love the exercise - keeping me in good health, and keeping me able to be active and enjoy life. I love biking for getting me out of doors, into nature and the countryside. I love it for the wandering and exploring of new roads, new places. I love it for the people - for the many, many friends it's brought me. I love it because it's a family activity, and I love doing things with my family. I love it for the independence - because I can actually ride my bike across the state, carrying all I need, and not rely on Exxon. I love the excitement of pushing myself to climb a steep hill, or to go fast, and the friendly competition with someone trying to go faster. I love relaxed cruising, too, and the great conversation that always seems to go with bike riding.
But one thing I love most about bicycling is: I think bicycling does something positive for the world. I love the earth that God has created, and I feel we have a moral obligation to care for it. It's a concept of stewardship. And I think bicycling helps. It's good for the earth.
In particular, anytime a person uses a bicycle instead of a car, it's good for the earth. Think about this: Isn't it strange that we Americans use twice as much energy per person as the British, or the Japanese, or the West Germans? And isn't it strange that we'll use a belching machine that weighs more than a ton, with the power of over 100 horses (and fuel consumption to match), to move a person and a briefcase a couple miles? It's like using a 100 pound bag to carry 10 pounds of groceries. It's like using a cannon to swat a fly. It's a clumsy use of technology.
The bicycle can be appropriate transportation - at least, much of the time. And in many countries, everybody (not just poor people or weird college professors, but everybody) knows this, and rides one all the time. So it can be done. And so I like to promote it - for the good of the earth.
But there's more. I think the bicycle is good for society as well. I see America as a country where the isolated, insulated, glass-enclosed mobility of the automobile is severely damaging society. Neighbors don't know the family two or three doors down, because they never pass them at less than 30 miles per hour. Impatient drivers, anonymous in their cars, curse or cut off drivers that somehow offend them. Middle class families abandon the cities to decay, using their mobility to move further and further into the countryside, which quickly becomes flattened and paved. More and more of the world becomes ugly and commercialized. In many fashionable areas, a 14 year old kid - who really should be out kicking around the woods, exploring the world - literally can't get anywhere without begging a ride in a car. Nobody plans or allows for anybody to travel any way but by car. So, nobody travels except by car!
I would like to see a society where transportation alternatives exist. More important, I'd like to see "development" take human beings, not just cars, into account. A person should be able to walk or bicycle to every shopping center, without feeling threatened with assault by automobiles. A kid should be able to bike out to get a loaf of bread for Mom. There should be enough neighbors out and about that parents would know their kids are safe and behaving.
I like to think bicyclists can help bring about this kind of world. If we use our bikes more often, maybe we'll begin regaining the streets. Maybe more folks will see us enjoying the outdoors, and be inspired to walk or bike on short trips. If we can make it popular enough, maybe they'll help us ask for more rational development plans. Maybe it will actually get to the point where the average suburbanite can bike to the mall without being terrified by traffic!
And of course, maybe it's all a fantasy. But in the meantime, I enjoy biking anyway. I enjoy it so much, for so many reasons, that I'm willing to keep on doing it, and keep on promoting it. If, ultimately, it does some good for society, and some good for the earth, so much the better.
- Frank Krygowski
Source: Bicycling Life
Five, uh, Different Reasons to Ride a Bicycle
You probably think that you've heard all the arguments for riding a bicycle. Sure, the bicycle doesn't use non-renewable resources or pollute (including noise pollution), is inexpensive both for ownership and in terms of public infrastructure to support it, can be parked anywhere, and is a healthy activity.
"Blah, blah, blah. Tell me something new," you say.
O.K., here's five reasons to ride a bicycle that you've never before heard of. Not in your wildest dream. And if you don't already ride a bicycle for fun, fitness, or transportation, this will surely convince you to get your gears spinning.
1. Bicycles are more technologically advanced than motor vehicles.
Don't let the shiny, complicated looking engine on that Ecstasy S.U.V. fool you. A bicycle is in certain ways the most intelligent vehicle ever created. It has the world's most advanced "engine" controlled with the most wondrous and sophisticated "computer." The engine often knows what's wrong with itself and usually fixes itself. A bicycle is also the world's most energy efficient mode of travel, using just 35 calories per passenger mile versus 1860 for an average automobile with one occupant. And the engine can run on all kinds of strange fuels, like broccoli.
Affordable bicycles are manufactured with exotic materials such as titanium, carbon fiber, incredible aluminum alloys, and high strength alloy steel. If you've never ridden a high quality modern bicycle, you're in for a treat.
In comparison, cars are dinosaurs. Actually, they burn decomposed dinosaurs in an internal combustion engine that, evolutionarily speaking, is about at the Paleozoic era. We've had rocket ships that go to the moon and back since 1969. We have limitless solar energy and enough nuclear technology to atomize the earth, but our motor vehicles still use fossil fuel. Cars are made with steel, iron, and plastic. You can't pick them up. And try to fix one!
2. Bicycle manufacturing is not controlled by special interests.
Well, special interests are EVERYWHERE, but relatively speaking, this is true. Bicycle manufacturers could have invented the Army recruiting slogan "Be All That You Can Be." Their goal is to produce the best vehicle possible. Bicycles are the perfect synthesis of body and machine. Be a cyborg.
Cars on the other hand, are the epitome of special interest controlled products. The oil industry wants cars to get the worst gas mileage possible. The steel industry wants cars to be big and heavy, ostensibly in order to be safe.
So, reject the greed of huge multinational corporations. Tread lightly and ride a bicycle.
3. Bicycles are faster than cars.
In urban areas, this is sometimes literally true. Congestion, traffic signals, parking-space-search time, and walking-to-final-destination time all conspire to reduce the speed of even the highest powered motor vehicle to about that of a bicycle. However, if you consider that the time cost of travel also includes the amount of time spent working to pay for the vehicle, bicycles come roaring ahead. Also, why spend loads of time working to pay for the car to get to work to pay for the car?
Since exercise is mandatory for optimal health, and riding a bicycle to some necessary destination incorporates exercise which would otherwise take time in the gym, pedaling to someplace can be considered as taking zero time. Therefore, bicycles are infinitely fast. That's faster than light, which, according to Einstein shouldn't be possible, but nonetheless reverses time. Riding a bicycle makes you younger. Be a kid again!
4. You can be part of a cutting edge movement.
According to the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, only 0.7% of all transportation trips are made by bicycle. Ninety percent of trips are taken in a personal automobile with the remainder via transit, walking, or other modes.
Lets face it, bicyclists are a minority. But, by the same token, we're unique. So why be normal? Be different, ride a bicycle.
5. Someday you'll wish you had.
Helen Hayes, the much beloved "First Lady of American theater" who died at the age of 92 was asked in an interview if she regretted anything. She said she had only one regret. "I never rode a bicycle. I wish I had. That's all."
While few of us can hope to achieve the stature of Ms. Hayes, we certainly can fulfill a dream that she never did. The simple pleasure of riding a bicycle — effortless motion at one moment, challenging yet empowering hill climbing the next, followed by the thrill of the descent.
Bicycling is the wind in your face and your senses on hyperdrive. It's life at its best. Try it. Ultimately there will come a time when you won't be able to.
Source: Bicycling Life
Transcon-holics Anonymous
by Rich Testardi, Jack Dingler, and Ken Kifer
Rich Testardi wrote:
Hi. My name is Rich and I'm a transcon-holic. I started riding 20 years ago as a boy -- 10 miles here, 10 miles there, on weekends... I really never thought anything bad would come from it -- it was just like a game... The next thing you know, I was riding during the week, missing work, even missing T.V. sitcoms in the evenings. And I was even convincing my FRIENDS to go with me... It was an addiction and I didn't even know it.
All of a sudden, a three speed roadster wasn't good enough for me anymore... So, I borrowed a ten speed from a so-called friend... One thing led to another and, before I knew it, I bought my OWN 24 speed mountain bike with twist grip shifters... I honestly thought the fresh air and thrills were all that mattered. I was out of control -- especially on the long rocky descents... I began hanging out with people who wore bike shorts, gloves, and even helmets... I began to think that was all normal.
Of course my co-workers tried to help me get back into the 40 hour work week and evening sitcoms, but I was convinced I knew better. I thought I had found true peace of mind, but I know now all I had found were some technical challenges and cheap thrills...
Anyway, last summer it all came to a head... I never even saw it coming... I really thought I was still in control... Anyway, like I was saying, last summer it all came to a head. I left my job and took THREE MONTHS OFF just to ride and ride. No T.V., no work, no nothing. I just wasted and peddled away. To be honest, some days I didn't even have a DESTINATION... I'm so embarrassed. And the WORST thing is that I thought it actually felt GOOD at the time, and I even believed in my so-called friends encouragement... I was THAT far gone.
I got back to work afterwards and I honestly couldn't even see WHAT was so IMPORTANT about work. I actually thought I would like to NOT WORK! That was when my boss finally called Transcon-holics Anonymous and my healing began.
The first thing they did was separate me from my bike and so-called friends. It was hard at first, I have to admit, but after just a few months of shock treatments intermixed with video tapes of mid-day talk shows, I began to see the soft blue glow of the tube... Then they started easing me back into work -- a short phone conference at first, then a meeting or two, and finally multi-day touchy-feely offsites. It was so strange. I had completely forgotten the warm glassy-eyed look of my co-workers as they nodded off in the back of a meeting room...
As I started nodding off myself, I knew I was on my way home, and my transcon days were behind me...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Dingler replied:
Man, didn't anyone ever tell you that there are ways to beat the system?
1. First off, find a safe place to park your car and bike, near your workplace. Then commute to your car by bicycle and then drive your car the 1/4 mi or so to work. This way, no one will suspect that your slipping back into your old ways.
2. Sneak your sports drinks in using a thermos or carry it on a nondescript lunch bag. You can probably fit a Camelback into a briefcase.
3. Rewrap your Power Bars so that they look like Snickers. Bring some real Snickers in case a coworker wants one. Don't leave any Gu Gell wrappers, or the like, in the waste baskets.
4. If you must take biking mags or catalogs to work, insert them into boring looking trade magazines so that it looks like your researching. If you drool on the pages, they'll be even more impressed with your dedication.
5. Never forget to change all of your clothes when getting ready for the office. Wearing Sidis into the office is a dead giveaway that you've fallen off the wagon. Be careful with the sunglasses too. Don't take the hat to work.
6. Make sure that you never wear anything that might not cover unusual tan lines. Some of your office mates may have been trained to watch for little details, such as these.
7. When climbing stairs with office mates, act like it's difficult. Get winded, try to make your face turn red. Showing any superhuman abilities like climbing stairs with ease is a sure giveaway that you are a cyclist.
8. Be sure to act droopy and half asleep when you get to work. If you're too alert, some people might get suspicious.
9. Occasionally make up some story about something that you saw a cyclist do. Faking derision will be tough, but we all have to make sacrifices for our addictions.
10. Wear baggy clothes. Don't give anyone any reason to believe that you are fit.
11. If #10 fails, don't say, I work out, jog, swim, etc... Next thing you know, a coworker will call you on it. Your form will suck and they'll suspect that you might be cycling again. How many times have had a friend come along on a ride, bragging all the way to the start, only to wander all over the road and quit five miles into the ride? You probably won't look any better pretending to be a tennis player. Blame it on your genes and change the subject.
12. When people tell you they called, drove by, your car was there but you didn't answer, just lie. Say you were out with your grandma. You were sleeping, drunk and passed out, etc...
13. If someone calls right after you've finished a ride and they ask why your out of breath, say, I thought it would be you, so I ran to the phone...
14. When people comment on your weight, blame it on a high metabolism. respond with, "I wish I looked healthy like you, everyone thinks I'm anorexic."
15. If you're caught. Don't blame it on an evil twin. That never works. Admit your weakness, blame it on stress and don't get caught again.
Television will be the tough part. You'll need to pick a series of show that are to be your favorites. Try to pick shows that don't interest your coworkers but try to pick inane ones so that you'll still fit into the herd. Then you'll need to come up with a means to keep up with the shows without watching them. Web pages and TV and cable guides can all be used for resources. Unfortunately, you can find yourself entrapped by your own deception if you offer an opinion on a show that didn't actually air due to a game overrun, special report or Presidential Address. For this reason, don't volunteer to much information. Chances are, if you pick the right shows, you won't need to talk about them anyway. If discussing television is unavoidable, you might invest in one of those little radios that pick up TV stations so that you can listen while you ride.
Hope this helps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Kifer replies:
Wow, Rich and Jack; you have really helped me see the light. You know, I wouldn't tell this to another living soul, but I too have betrayed the American work ethic by enjoying cycling. Oh, I try to cover it up the best I can; I moan and groan about how I'm too poor to get my van fixed, or I talk about my tendency to fall asleep and wander off the road when driving (the next thing I know, they're telling me not to drive), but I know they see through me. For one thing, when I come in in the morning, I am bright and cheerful and friendly. My cheerful mood spoils their whole day. And then at lunch time, I quickly wolf down my meal, eating twice as much as they do and looking slim, while they have to ponderously and slowly chew their ways through their greasy meals, and then slowly raise their ponderous bodies from their chairs. Then, in the afternoon, when it's time to go, I skip out of the building light on my feet, feeling gay. That's a terrible way to act when every other decent soul is complaining about tired legs and feet. It's no wonder no one likes me.
I just really need to change my ways before it's too late. Someday, everyone else I know will be dead and gone, and I'll feel young and healthy. Won't I regret it then!
Source: Bicycling Life
What is it that gets a grown person riding a bike? After all, most Americans think of bikes as child's toys. Those few that don't worry about the supposed dangers seem to worry about just looking silly. So why bother with bicycling? Well, here's my answer - my philosophy of bicycling.
There's a lot I love about bicycling. I love the machines themselves - so elegant, so efficient. I love the exercise - keeping me in good health, and keeping me able to be active and enjoy life. I love biking for getting me out of doors, into nature and the countryside. I love it for the wandering and exploring of new roads, new places. I love it for the people - for the many, many friends it's brought me. I love it because it's a family activity, and I love doing things with my family. I love it for the independence - because I can actually ride my bike across the state, carrying all I need, and not rely on Exxon. I love the excitement of pushing myself to climb a steep hill, or to go fast, and the friendly competition with someone trying to go faster. I love relaxed cruising, too, and the great conversation that always seems to go with bike riding.
But one thing I love most about bicycling is: I think bicycling does something positive for the world. I love the earth that God has created, and I feel we have a moral obligation to care for it. It's a concept of stewardship. And I think bicycling helps. It's good for the earth.
In particular, anytime a person uses a bicycle instead of a car, it's good for the earth. Think about this: Isn't it strange that we Americans use twice as much energy per person as the British, or the Japanese, or the West Germans? And isn't it strange that we'll use a belching machine that weighs more than a ton, with the power of over 100 horses (and fuel consumption to match), to move a person and a briefcase a couple miles? It's like using a 100 pound bag to carry 10 pounds of groceries. It's like using a cannon to swat a fly. It's a clumsy use of technology.
The bicycle can be appropriate transportation - at least, much of the time. And in many countries, everybody (not just poor people or weird college professors, but everybody) knows this, and rides one all the time. So it can be done. And so I like to promote it - for the good of the earth.
But there's more. I think the bicycle is good for society as well. I see America as a country where the isolated, insulated, glass-enclosed mobility of the automobile is severely damaging society. Neighbors don't know the family two or three doors down, because they never pass them at less than 30 miles per hour. Impatient drivers, anonymous in their cars, curse or cut off drivers that somehow offend them. Middle class families abandon the cities to decay, using their mobility to move further and further into the countryside, which quickly becomes flattened and paved. More and more of the world becomes ugly and commercialized. In many fashionable areas, a 14 year old kid - who really should be out kicking around the woods, exploring the world - literally can't get anywhere without begging a ride in a car. Nobody plans or allows for anybody to travel any way but by car. So, nobody travels except by car!
I would like to see a society where transportation alternatives exist. More important, I'd like to see "development" take human beings, not just cars, into account. A person should be able to walk or bicycle to every shopping center, without feeling threatened with assault by automobiles. A kid should be able to bike out to get a loaf of bread for Mom. There should be enough neighbors out and about that parents would know their kids are safe and behaving.
I like to think bicyclists can help bring about this kind of world. If we use our bikes more often, maybe we'll begin regaining the streets. Maybe more folks will see us enjoying the outdoors, and be inspired to walk or bike on short trips. If we can make it popular enough, maybe they'll help us ask for more rational development plans. Maybe it will actually get to the point where the average suburbanite can bike to the mall without being terrified by traffic!
And of course, maybe it's all a fantasy. But in the meantime, I enjoy biking anyway. I enjoy it so much, for so many reasons, that I'm willing to keep on doing it, and keep on promoting it. If, ultimately, it does some good for society, and some good for the earth, so much the better.
- Frank Krygowski
Source: Bicycling Life
Five, uh, Different Reasons to Ride a Bicycle
You probably think that you've heard all the arguments for riding a bicycle. Sure, the bicycle doesn't use non-renewable resources or pollute (including noise pollution), is inexpensive both for ownership and in terms of public infrastructure to support it, can be parked anywhere, and is a healthy activity.
"Blah, blah, blah. Tell me something new," you say.
O.K., here's five reasons to ride a bicycle that you've never before heard of. Not in your wildest dream. And if you don't already ride a bicycle for fun, fitness, or transportation, this will surely convince you to get your gears spinning.
1. Bicycles are more technologically advanced than motor vehicles.
Don't let the shiny, complicated looking engine on that Ecstasy S.U.V. fool you. A bicycle is in certain ways the most intelligent vehicle ever created. It has the world's most advanced "engine" controlled with the most wondrous and sophisticated "computer." The engine often knows what's wrong with itself and usually fixes itself. A bicycle is also the world's most energy efficient mode of travel, using just 35 calories per passenger mile versus 1860 for an average automobile with one occupant. And the engine can run on all kinds of strange fuels, like broccoli.
Affordable bicycles are manufactured with exotic materials such as titanium, carbon fiber, incredible aluminum alloys, and high strength alloy steel. If you've never ridden a high quality modern bicycle, you're in for a treat.
In comparison, cars are dinosaurs. Actually, they burn decomposed dinosaurs in an internal combustion engine that, evolutionarily speaking, is about at the Paleozoic era. We've had rocket ships that go to the moon and back since 1969. We have limitless solar energy and enough nuclear technology to atomize the earth, but our motor vehicles still use fossil fuel. Cars are made with steel, iron, and plastic. You can't pick them up. And try to fix one!
2. Bicycle manufacturing is not controlled by special interests.
Well, special interests are EVERYWHERE, but relatively speaking, this is true. Bicycle manufacturers could have invented the Army recruiting slogan "Be All That You Can Be." Their goal is to produce the best vehicle possible. Bicycles are the perfect synthesis of body and machine. Be a cyborg.
Cars on the other hand, are the epitome of special interest controlled products. The oil industry wants cars to get the worst gas mileage possible. The steel industry wants cars to be big and heavy, ostensibly in order to be safe.
So, reject the greed of huge multinational corporations. Tread lightly and ride a bicycle.
3. Bicycles are faster than cars.
In urban areas, this is sometimes literally true. Congestion, traffic signals, parking-space-search time, and walking-to-final-destination time all conspire to reduce the speed of even the highest powered motor vehicle to about that of a bicycle. However, if you consider that the time cost of travel also includes the amount of time spent working to pay for the vehicle, bicycles come roaring ahead. Also, why spend loads of time working to pay for the car to get to work to pay for the car?
Since exercise is mandatory for optimal health, and riding a bicycle to some necessary destination incorporates exercise which would otherwise take time in the gym, pedaling to someplace can be considered as taking zero time. Therefore, bicycles are infinitely fast. That's faster than light, which, according to Einstein shouldn't be possible, but nonetheless reverses time. Riding a bicycle makes you younger. Be a kid again!
4. You can be part of a cutting edge movement.
According to the 1990 Nationwide Personal Transportation Survey, only 0.7% of all transportation trips are made by bicycle. Ninety percent of trips are taken in a personal automobile with the remainder via transit, walking, or other modes.
Lets face it, bicyclists are a minority. But, by the same token, we're unique. So why be normal? Be different, ride a bicycle.
5. Someday you'll wish you had.
Helen Hayes, the much beloved "First Lady of American theater" who died at the age of 92 was asked in an interview if she regretted anything. She said she had only one regret. "I never rode a bicycle. I wish I had. That's all."
While few of us can hope to achieve the stature of Ms. Hayes, we certainly can fulfill a dream that she never did. The simple pleasure of riding a bicycle — effortless motion at one moment, challenging yet empowering hill climbing the next, followed by the thrill of the descent.
Bicycling is the wind in your face and your senses on hyperdrive. It's life at its best. Try it. Ultimately there will come a time when you won't be able to.
Source: Bicycling Life
Transcon-holics Anonymous
by Rich Testardi, Jack Dingler, and Ken Kifer
Rich Testardi wrote:
Hi. My name is Rich and I'm a transcon-holic. I started riding 20 years ago as a boy -- 10 miles here, 10 miles there, on weekends... I really never thought anything bad would come from it -- it was just like a game... The next thing you know, I was riding during the week, missing work, even missing T.V. sitcoms in the evenings. And I was even convincing my FRIENDS to go with me... It was an addiction and I didn't even know it.
All of a sudden, a three speed roadster wasn't good enough for me anymore... So, I borrowed a ten speed from a so-called friend... One thing led to another and, before I knew it, I bought my OWN 24 speed mountain bike with twist grip shifters... I honestly thought the fresh air and thrills were all that mattered. I was out of control -- especially on the long rocky descents... I began hanging out with people who wore bike shorts, gloves, and even helmets... I began to think that was all normal.
Of course my co-workers tried to help me get back into the 40 hour work week and evening sitcoms, but I was convinced I knew better. I thought I had found true peace of mind, but I know now all I had found were some technical challenges and cheap thrills...
Anyway, last summer it all came to a head... I never even saw it coming... I really thought I was still in control... Anyway, like I was saying, last summer it all came to a head. I left my job and took THREE MONTHS OFF just to ride and ride. No T.V., no work, no nothing. I just wasted and peddled away. To be honest, some days I didn't even have a DESTINATION... I'm so embarrassed. And the WORST thing is that I thought it actually felt GOOD at the time, and I even believed in my so-called friends encouragement... I was THAT far gone.
I got back to work afterwards and I honestly couldn't even see WHAT was so IMPORTANT about work. I actually thought I would like to NOT WORK! That was when my boss finally called Transcon-holics Anonymous and my healing began.
The first thing they did was separate me from my bike and so-called friends. It was hard at first, I have to admit, but after just a few months of shock treatments intermixed with video tapes of mid-day talk shows, I began to see the soft blue glow of the tube... Then they started easing me back into work -- a short phone conference at first, then a meeting or two, and finally multi-day touchy-feely offsites. It was so strange. I had completely forgotten the warm glassy-eyed look of my co-workers as they nodded off in the back of a meeting room...
As I started nodding off myself, I knew I was on my way home, and my transcon days were behind me...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jack Dingler replied:
Man, didn't anyone ever tell you that there are ways to beat the system?
1. First off, find a safe place to park your car and bike, near your workplace. Then commute to your car by bicycle and then drive your car the 1/4 mi or so to work. This way, no one will suspect that your slipping back into your old ways.
2. Sneak your sports drinks in using a thermos or carry it on a nondescript lunch bag. You can probably fit a Camelback into a briefcase.
3. Rewrap your Power Bars so that they look like Snickers. Bring some real Snickers in case a coworker wants one. Don't leave any Gu Gell wrappers, or the like, in the waste baskets.
4. If you must take biking mags or catalogs to work, insert them into boring looking trade magazines so that it looks like your researching. If you drool on the pages, they'll be even more impressed with your dedication.
5. Never forget to change all of your clothes when getting ready for the office. Wearing Sidis into the office is a dead giveaway that you've fallen off the wagon. Be careful with the sunglasses too. Don't take the hat to work.
6. Make sure that you never wear anything that might not cover unusual tan lines. Some of your office mates may have been trained to watch for little details, such as these.
7. When climbing stairs with office mates, act like it's difficult. Get winded, try to make your face turn red. Showing any superhuman abilities like climbing stairs with ease is a sure giveaway that you are a cyclist.
8. Be sure to act droopy and half asleep when you get to work. If you're too alert, some people might get suspicious.
9. Occasionally make up some story about something that you saw a cyclist do. Faking derision will be tough, but we all have to make sacrifices for our addictions.
10. Wear baggy clothes. Don't give anyone any reason to believe that you are fit.
11. If #10 fails, don't say, I work out, jog, swim, etc... Next thing you know, a coworker will call you on it. Your form will suck and they'll suspect that you might be cycling again. How many times have had a friend come along on a ride, bragging all the way to the start, only to wander all over the road and quit five miles into the ride? You probably won't look any better pretending to be a tennis player. Blame it on your genes and change the subject.
12. When people tell you they called, drove by, your car was there but you didn't answer, just lie. Say you were out with your grandma. You were sleeping, drunk and passed out, etc...
13. If someone calls right after you've finished a ride and they ask why your out of breath, say, I thought it would be you, so I ran to the phone...
14. When people comment on your weight, blame it on a high metabolism. respond with, "I wish I looked healthy like you, everyone thinks I'm anorexic."
15. If you're caught. Don't blame it on an evil twin. That never works. Admit your weakness, blame it on stress and don't get caught again.
Television will be the tough part. You'll need to pick a series of show that are to be your favorites. Try to pick shows that don't interest your coworkers but try to pick inane ones so that you'll still fit into the herd. Then you'll need to come up with a means to keep up with the shows without watching them. Web pages and TV and cable guides can all be used for resources. Unfortunately, you can find yourself entrapped by your own deception if you offer an opinion on a show that didn't actually air due to a game overrun, special report or Presidential Address. For this reason, don't volunteer to much information. Chances are, if you pick the right shows, you won't need to talk about them anyway. If discussing television is unavoidable, you might invest in one of those little radios that pick up TV stations so that you can listen while you ride.
Hope this helps.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ken Kifer replies:
Wow, Rich and Jack; you have really helped me see the light. You know, I wouldn't tell this to another living soul, but I too have betrayed the American work ethic by enjoying cycling. Oh, I try to cover it up the best I can; I moan and groan about how I'm too poor to get my van fixed, or I talk about my tendency to fall asleep and wander off the road when driving (the next thing I know, they're telling me not to drive), but I know they see through me. For one thing, when I come in in the morning, I am bright and cheerful and friendly. My cheerful mood spoils their whole day. And then at lunch time, I quickly wolf down my meal, eating twice as much as they do and looking slim, while they have to ponderously and slowly chew their ways through their greasy meals, and then slowly raise their ponderous bodies from their chairs. Then, in the afternoon, when it's time to go, I skip out of the building light on my feet, feeling gay. That's a terrible way to act when every other decent soul is complaining about tired legs and feet. It's no wonder no one likes me.
I just really need to change my ways before it's too late. Someday, everyone else I know will be dead and gone, and I'll feel young and healthy. Won't I regret it then!
Source: Bicycling Life
Peak Oil: A Shattered Myth?
Canadian Tar Sands: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly
Dr. Joe Duarte Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Some are saying that peak oil is a myth since there is plenty of low grade oil to still be recovered around the world. The question is whether it's worth the price being paid to mine the stuff, and whether the problems spawned by its extraction will be worth it in the long run.
The Wall Street Journal suggests that peak oil is not truly happening. "The surging interest in Canadian oil sands is stark evidence that the world isn't about to run out of oil. Instead, it is running low on readily accessible light, sweet crude -- oil that flows like water, has few impurities and can be easily turned into gasoline. As the good stuff gets scarce, Big Oil is turning its attention and pouring money into extra-heavy crude, such as the giant deposits near Fort McMurray and another similar one in Venezuela."
We were proponents of the same concept since we wrote "Successful Energy Sector Investing," in 2001. But five years later, a great deal has happened that has led us to a new perspective, that of joining the camp that believes that oil is perhaps at the start of its final stage as the primary fuel on planet Earth.
And while it could still be decades before we know who's right and who's wrong, the real story is being written now, in the forests of Canada and in the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela, two ecologically sensitive areas of the world.
The New Top Ten
According to the Journal, there is an oil sand deposit the size of Florida under an "ancient" forest in Northern Canada. And France's Total is likely to begin extraction of the tar sand "sludge" by May 2006.
The net effect is that "Heavy-duty oil-extraction projects like these are turning Fort McMurray into the first great oil boom town of the 21st century."
In fact, due to high oil prices, major oil companies have finally been moved to spend money going after low grade oil reserves, and are expected to spend some "$70 billion" to do so.
There is so much low grade oil around, that countries with large reserves, such as Canada and Venezuela, have been vaulted to the top of the reserve list, if the sludgy stuff is included in the estimates.
For example, according to the Journal, if you include the tar sands and other low grade oil deposits: "has vaulted Venezuela and Canada to first and third in global reserves rankings, although Venezuela's holdings in extra-heavy crude are a rough guess. Saudi Arabia is No. 2. Not including the oil sands, Canada would fall to No. 22."
In other words, the oil reserve map has been redrawn, and a whole new ball game is unfolding.
The Dark Side
If this seems to good to be true, as you prepare to pay $3 per gallon to drive your car this summer, as could well happen if current price trends remain intact, there is an even darker side to the use of low grade oil.
According to the Journal: "heavy oil has big economic and environmental drawbacks. It costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing Fort McMurray's heavy crude releases up to three times as much greenhouse gas as producing conventional crude. And upgrading it into refined products, such as gasoline or diesel, will require a gigantic investment to retool global refineries."
The extraction process is so labor intensive and requires so much heat, in order to extract the oil from the tar sand that "Total briefly floated the idea of building a nuclear-power plant" in Fort Mc Murray.
In other words, just because new oil is likely to be more plentiful, processing costs will likely keep prices higher than in the past, and the toll on the environment won't be fully known for years to decades.
Indeed, some effects are already visible as "Canada, which exports more oil to the U.S. than any other country, already is having trouble meeting its pledge to cut CO2 emissions largely because of its mushrooming heavy-oil production. By 2015, Canada's Fort McMurray region, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people."
Even more alarming is this: "In northern Alberta, the oil-sands boom is remaking the landscape. The mining operations have clear-cut thousands of acres of trees and dug 200-foot-deep pits. The region is dotted with large man-made lakes filled with leftover waste from the mining operations. To chase off migratory birds, propane cannons go off at random intervals and scarecrows stand guard on floating barrels."
Conclusion
There is something new in the air, at least for the mainstream media. Aside from what is likely to be the new buzzword in the oil market, tar sands, it's also heat, and pollution.
The exploration and extraction for oil in Canada, and likely elsewhere, will have significant repercussions, which may not be known or at least acknowledged for several years or decades.
At some point an environmental disaster will unfortunately, but likely occur, which will raise red flags and bring political drama to the situation.
Already the battle lines have been drawn. [Alberta's energy minister, Greg Melchin, says oil-sands development creates a minimal environmental disturbance that is outweighed by the opportunities and jobs created. "It's worth it. There is a cost to it, but the benefits are substantially greater," he said.]
Meanwhile [Environmental groups are increasingly critical of the government's reluctance to regulate the oil sands. "The pace of development is outstripping our ability to manage the environmental issue," says Mr. Raynolds of the Pembina Institute. "Our unwritten energy policy is dig it up and sell it as fast as possible."]
But far beyond the near term, it is unlikely that the tar sand phenomenon will permanently fix what has become increasingly obvious to anyone who cares to have their eyes open about the world's energy situation.
The price of oil is unlikely to fall significantly anytime soon, due to higher extraction and security costs, limited refinery capacity, and the writing on the wall, the easy oil has been found and the hard to find stuff is now on its way to being used up.
Alberta
Source:Rigzone.com
Dr. Joe Duarte Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Some are saying that peak oil is a myth since there is plenty of low grade oil to still be recovered around the world. The question is whether it's worth the price being paid to mine the stuff, and whether the problems spawned by its extraction will be worth it in the long run.
The Wall Street Journal suggests that peak oil is not truly happening. "The surging interest in Canadian oil sands is stark evidence that the world isn't about to run out of oil. Instead, it is running low on readily accessible light, sweet crude -- oil that flows like water, has few impurities and can be easily turned into gasoline. As the good stuff gets scarce, Big Oil is turning its attention and pouring money into extra-heavy crude, such as the giant deposits near Fort McMurray and another similar one in Venezuela."
We were proponents of the same concept since we wrote "Successful Energy Sector Investing," in 2001. But five years later, a great deal has happened that has led us to a new perspective, that of joining the camp that believes that oil is perhaps at the start of its final stage as the primary fuel on planet Earth.
And while it could still be decades before we know who's right and who's wrong, the real story is being written now, in the forests of Canada and in the Orinoco Basin in Venezuela, two ecologically sensitive areas of the world.
The New Top Ten
According to the Journal, there is an oil sand deposit the size of Florida under an "ancient" forest in Northern Canada. And France's Total is likely to begin extraction of the tar sand "sludge" by May 2006.
The net effect is that "Heavy-duty oil-extraction projects like these are turning Fort McMurray into the first great oil boom town of the 21st century."
In fact, due to high oil prices, major oil companies have finally been moved to spend money going after low grade oil reserves, and are expected to spend some "$70 billion" to do so.
There is so much low grade oil around, that countries with large reserves, such as Canada and Venezuela, have been vaulted to the top of the reserve list, if the sludgy stuff is included in the estimates.
For example, according to the Journal, if you include the tar sands and other low grade oil deposits: "has vaulted Venezuela and Canada to first and third in global reserves rankings, although Venezuela's holdings in extra-heavy crude are a rough guess. Saudi Arabia is No. 2. Not including the oil sands, Canada would fall to No. 22."
In other words, the oil reserve map has been redrawn, and a whole new ball game is unfolding.
The Dark Side
If this seems to good to be true, as you prepare to pay $3 per gallon to drive your car this summer, as could well happen if current price trends remain intact, there is an even darker side to the use of low grade oil.
According to the Journal: "heavy oil has big economic and environmental drawbacks. It costs more to produce and takes more energy to turn into gasoline than traditional light oil. Recovering and processing Fort McMurray's heavy crude releases up to three times as much greenhouse gas as producing conventional crude. And upgrading it into refined products, such as gasoline or diesel, will require a gigantic investment to retool global refineries."
The extraction process is so labor intensive and requires so much heat, in order to extract the oil from the tar sand that "Total briefly floated the idea of building a nuclear-power plant" in Fort Mc Murray.
In other words, just because new oil is likely to be more plentiful, processing costs will likely keep prices higher than in the past, and the toll on the environment won't be fully known for years to decades.
Indeed, some effects are already visible as "Canada, which exports more oil to the U.S. than any other country, already is having trouble meeting its pledge to cut CO2 emissions largely because of its mushrooming heavy-oil production. By 2015, Canada's Fort McMurray region, population 61,000, is expected to emit more greenhouse gases than Denmark, a country of 5.4 million people."
Even more alarming is this: "In northern Alberta, the oil-sands boom is remaking the landscape. The mining operations have clear-cut thousands of acres of trees and dug 200-foot-deep pits. The region is dotted with large man-made lakes filled with leftover waste from the mining operations. To chase off migratory birds, propane cannons go off at random intervals and scarecrows stand guard on floating barrels."
Conclusion
There is something new in the air, at least for the mainstream media. Aside from what is likely to be the new buzzword in the oil market, tar sands, it's also heat, and pollution.
The exploration and extraction for oil in Canada, and likely elsewhere, will have significant repercussions, which may not be known or at least acknowledged for several years or decades.
At some point an environmental disaster will unfortunately, but likely occur, which will raise red flags and bring political drama to the situation.
Already the battle lines have been drawn. [Alberta's energy minister, Greg Melchin, says oil-sands development creates a minimal environmental disturbance that is outweighed by the opportunities and jobs created. "It's worth it. There is a cost to it, but the benefits are substantially greater," he said.]
Meanwhile [Environmental groups are increasingly critical of the government's reluctance to regulate the oil sands. "The pace of development is outstripping our ability to manage the environmental issue," says Mr. Raynolds of the Pembina Institute. "Our unwritten energy policy is dig it up and sell it as fast as possible."]
But far beyond the near term, it is unlikely that the tar sand phenomenon will permanently fix what has become increasingly obvious to anyone who cares to have their eyes open about the world's energy situation.
The price of oil is unlikely to fall significantly anytime soon, due to higher extraction and security costs, limited refinery capacity, and the writing on the wall, the easy oil has been found and the hard to find stuff is now on its way to being used up.
Alberta
Source:Rigzone.com
06 July 2006
Oil hell has broken loose
Oil surges to 23-year high
Oil prices surged past US$75 a barrel to a new record yesterday, amid predictions they could reach US$80 before the end of the year due to drum-tight supplies and rising political tensions. Crude oil jumped $1.26, or 1.7%, to $75.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange -- the highest close since oil futures began trading on the exchange in 1983, which could make for another painful summer for drivers at the pump. Earlier, it popped to a high of $75.40, eclipsing a peak set in April as fears over the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea began to escalate. "I think you're headed up on oil prices now," legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens said yesterday in an interview on CNBC. Pickens, chairman of hedge fund BP Capital Management and a former oil executive, has been correctly predicting rising oil prices for the past two years. Those increases have been passed on to consumers in the form of a similar rise in the price of gasoline. Canadians were paying an average of C$1.084 a litre for gasoline across the country this week, according to MJ Ervin & Associates, just off a recent high of $1.104 in April. Increasing tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program, the war in Iraq and sabotage in Nigeria may further spur oil prices up to US$80 a barrel, said Pickens.
(National Post 060706)
$80 by year end? I think that might even be a little pessimistic. You can estimate the price of oil now by the estimated height of Kim Jong-il's bouffant. Or how many kid's bellies Vladimir Putin kisses.
Cost of Athabasca could hit $20B
Costs to expand Shell Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands Project have soared 50% in just one year, which means the roughly $7.3-billion price tag for the first phase could rise towards $11B. The cost of the full three-stage expansion, pegged at about $13.5B last year, now might come in at more than $20B. “Intense demand for construction labour, material and supplies . . . have resulted in unprecedented increases in capital costs. This demand is further intensified in Alberta by the development of multiple oil sands projects,” said Western Oil Sands in a press release late yesterday. Western, along with Chevron, is a minority partner in Shell's Athabasca operation. The announcement is the loudest statement yet that development in the oil sands north of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta is coming unhinged and that the demand for steel and workers is reaching untenable levels. Pressure in the oil sands also means that initial production from the Athabasca expansion won't occur until 2010, Western Oil Sands said, a year behind schedule. Shell said the expansion plan has “great potential” but svp Brian Straub added, “In this heated marketplace, cost and schedule control is the top priority.” Every player with an oil sands project in the planning stage - including the world's largest energy companies such as Exxon Mobil - is feeling the bite, and those involved say some proposals won't hit their targets.
In other news, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board yesterday began public hearings in Fort McMurray on the proposed expansion by long-time oil sands miner Suncor Energy. The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes the completely overheated town of Fort McMurray, has decided for the first time to intervene in such a hearing, arguing that the area's infrastructure is stretched to the limit and not able to handle more action north of the town in the epicentre of the oil sands. The region wants a “redefined relationship” with industry and the federal and provincial governments. Also, the Oil Sands Environmental Coalition, led by the Pembina Institute, asked that the Suncor application be denied. The coalition argued that rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the worsening air quality and the destruction of the boreal forest were major issues and said if the project is approved, stringent conditions were required.
(Globe and Mail, Calgary Herald 060706)
It appears there is still lots of O&G to be found and exploited, but not enough talented manpower to get it out of the ground and processed. The irony is crude-like thick.
Energy czar to visit oilsands
US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is expected to visit Alberta next week where he will meet with oilpatch leaders and politicians as well as tour the rapidly developing oilsands region in the northeast corner of the province. Bodman is expected to join a round table of ceos with several big oilsands producers and take a tour of oilsands operations before travelling to Calgary where meetings are scheduled with Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.
(Calgary Herald 060706)
Funny how they are calling Bodman an 'energy czar', like he's an Emperor or something...hey - wait a minute....isn't he? The fat-cat schmoozing is getting so thick I can't breathe. You ain't seen nothing yet.
By the way, I read this morning that Calgary's average home price has jumped another $20,000+ this month to $408,000. The headline was something to the effect that 'It's starting to scare away workers'. I'm not surprised this is finally happening, I'm just surprised it took so long!
Oil prices surged past US$75 a barrel to a new record yesterday, amid predictions they could reach US$80 before the end of the year due to drum-tight supplies and rising political tensions. Crude oil jumped $1.26, or 1.7%, to $75.19 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange -- the highest close since oil futures began trading on the exchange in 1983, which could make for another painful summer for drivers at the pump. Earlier, it popped to a high of $75.40, eclipsing a peak set in April as fears over the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea began to escalate. "I think you're headed up on oil prices now," legendary Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens said yesterday in an interview on CNBC. Pickens, chairman of hedge fund BP Capital Management and a former oil executive, has been correctly predicting rising oil prices for the past two years. Those increases have been passed on to consumers in the form of a similar rise in the price of gasoline. Canadians were paying an average of C$1.084 a litre for gasoline across the country this week, according to MJ Ervin & Associates, just off a recent high of $1.104 in April. Increasing tensions surrounding Iran's nuclear program, the war in Iraq and sabotage in Nigeria may further spur oil prices up to US$80 a barrel, said Pickens.
(National Post 060706)
$80 by year end? I think that might even be a little pessimistic. You can estimate the price of oil now by the estimated height of Kim Jong-il's bouffant. Or how many kid's bellies Vladimir Putin kisses.
Cost of Athabasca could hit $20B
Costs to expand Shell Canada's Athabasca Oil Sands Project have soared 50% in just one year, which means the roughly $7.3-billion price tag for the first phase could rise towards $11B. The cost of the full three-stage expansion, pegged at about $13.5B last year, now might come in at more than $20B. “Intense demand for construction labour, material and supplies . . . have resulted in unprecedented increases in capital costs. This demand is further intensified in Alberta by the development of multiple oil sands projects,” said Western Oil Sands in a press release late yesterday. Western, along with Chevron, is a minority partner in Shell's Athabasca operation. The announcement is the loudest statement yet that development in the oil sands north of Fort McMurray in northeastern Alberta is coming unhinged and that the demand for steel and workers is reaching untenable levels. Pressure in the oil sands also means that initial production from the Athabasca expansion won't occur until 2010, Western Oil Sands said, a year behind schedule. Shell said the expansion plan has “great potential” but svp Brian Straub added, “In this heated marketplace, cost and schedule control is the top priority.” Every player with an oil sands project in the planning stage - including the world's largest energy companies such as Exxon Mobil - is feeling the bite, and those involved say some proposals won't hit their targets.
In other news, the Alberta Energy and Utilities Board yesterday began public hearings in Fort McMurray on the proposed expansion by long-time oil sands miner Suncor Energy. The Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo, which includes the completely overheated town of Fort McMurray, has decided for the first time to intervene in such a hearing, arguing that the area's infrastructure is stretched to the limit and not able to handle more action north of the town in the epicentre of the oil sands. The region wants a “redefined relationship” with industry and the federal and provincial governments. Also, the Oil Sands Environmental Coalition, led by the Pembina Institute, asked that the Suncor application be denied. The coalition argued that rapidly increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the worsening air quality and the destruction of the boreal forest were major issues and said if the project is approved, stringent conditions were required.
(Globe and Mail, Calgary Herald 060706)
It appears there is still lots of O&G to be found and exploited, but not enough talented manpower to get it out of the ground and processed. The irony is crude-like thick.
Energy czar to visit oilsands
US Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman is expected to visit Alberta next week where he will meet with oilpatch leaders and politicians as well as tour the rapidly developing oilsands region in the northeast corner of the province. Bodman is expected to join a round table of ceos with several big oilsands producers and take a tour of oilsands operations before travelling to Calgary where meetings are scheduled with Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.
(Calgary Herald 060706)
Funny how they are calling Bodman an 'energy czar', like he's an Emperor or something...hey - wait a minute....isn't he? The fat-cat schmoozing is getting so thick I can't breathe. You ain't seen nothing yet.
By the way, I read this morning that Calgary's average home price has jumped another $20,000+ this month to $408,000. The headline was something to the effect that 'It's starting to scare away workers'. I'm not surprised this is finally happening, I'm just surprised it took so long!
04 July 2006
Glorb
Okay - I'm better now. Yesterday was painful but I spent the afternoon drinking beer again - hair of the dogging it (much slower this time) - with Ryan watching movies at his place. I had to watch "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" again. Jeez - Johnny Depp can play a hilariously accurate crazy person. I get such a laugh out of his Willy Wonka performance in that one. And those teeth, how beautiful.
Swan's has been short a cook AGAIN this week, so Joe's squeezed 85 hours of work at the bar in the past eight days. Needless to say we haven't seen much of each other - possibly a godsend for me since he's been a little difficult lately due to the soul-sucking hours of work and little sleep. However, we did manage to get out with Kirsten and Johnny on Sunday night after I got back from Edmonton for Natasha's b-day party at the Hi-Fi Club. It was lots of fun, but a little tipsy and late....
I crawled into work late this morning (give me a break...the TdF is on, fer chrissakes - I have my priorities) after watching Matthias Kessler make the jump on the peloton and win Stage Three. Having the Tour on is such a part of the summer experience. Watching that makes a person really get a sense of the scale of the human experience. Classic, that's all I can say! After work I headed to the track for some training. After my 'humiliating' work at the Crits this weekend, I figured it's best to stick with what I know! ;-)
The weekend was fun. More team bonding and such. The weather was hot, the racing was fast, and I got my ass handed to me on a platter, thanks especially to Tim Heemskerk - our provincial phenom ass-kicker, who is pretty much making all of us non-Belgians look fat and slow.
We got to see the firework display on Canada Day in the Saskatchewan River Valley in Edmonton. They were fired off directly in front of the Legislative Buildings in the valley just below the High River Bridge. It was a half-hour performance - quite impressive. I quite like Edmonton. It has many qualities that Calgary doesn't which is both good and bad depending on your perspective, but they are certainly quite distinct cities from each other. Its one winning attribute is its ginormous river valley which essentially cuts the city in half but provides a lush playground (in the summer, anyways) for the citizens. I dream of running on the valley trails in Edmonton. Okay, other than that and it's vibrant cultural scene, there maybe isn't too much more. ;-)
But what's any city without culture? Oh, right. Calgary.
That damned Stampede starts again at the end of the week, when we get overrun with yokels that can't drive and drunks that can't shut up. Great. Okay - it brings a lot of cash to the city (and we know that's what Calgary embodies -- a big stinking money whore), but really - is this all we're known for? I had an interesting conversation with Tony on the weekend about the demise of the gay community and we concluded the only part of the community that is flourishing right now is ARGRA - the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association! The Canada Day long weekend rodeo and dance has become one of the biggest events on the gay calendar in Calgary and is growing bigger each year. The only other event to rival it in size is Western Cup, I believe. I suspect with the realization by many gay wannabe cowboys worldwide that 'Brokeback Mountain' was filmed nearby that that will only help out the numbers even more. I can't believe that the hokey western theme (which is completely artificial of course - unless you live on a ranch in Longview or something) is the only thing Calgary has going for it...and everyone's perfectly fucking happy with that! It frustrates me to no end. I guess it's pretty harmless and naïve. I guess it's better than having no caché whatsoever.
I suspect Friday will be a short workday as all the O&G working stiffs queue at Cowboy's and Desperado's post-parade around 11am and proceed to drink the rest of the day. I'm not sure if I will partake, but it certainly won't be at one of the big commercial country bars-turned-superclub-for-the-week. I can't stand the garishness and blatant whorishness of it all. Oh well, one guy's opinion....some people appear to love it, for some reason.
Jeff's party is Saturday night! That will be the highlight of the weekend. Lots of pics to come, no doubt. The following weekend is Trezlie's first birthday, so I (and hopefully Uncle Joe) will be heading to Red Deer for that.
Swan's has been short a cook AGAIN this week, so Joe's squeezed 85 hours of work at the bar in the past eight days. Needless to say we haven't seen much of each other - possibly a godsend for me since he's been a little difficult lately due to the soul-sucking hours of work and little sleep. However, we did manage to get out with Kirsten and Johnny on Sunday night after I got back from Edmonton for Natasha's b-day party at the Hi-Fi Club. It was lots of fun, but a little tipsy and late....
I crawled into work late this morning (give me a break...the TdF is on, fer chrissakes - I have my priorities) after watching Matthias Kessler make the jump on the peloton and win Stage Three. Having the Tour on is such a part of the summer experience. Watching that makes a person really get a sense of the scale of the human experience. Classic, that's all I can say! After work I headed to the track for some training. After my 'humiliating' work at the Crits this weekend, I figured it's best to stick with what I know! ;-)
The weekend was fun. More team bonding and such. The weather was hot, the racing was fast, and I got my ass handed to me on a platter, thanks especially to Tim Heemskerk - our provincial phenom ass-kicker, who is pretty much making all of us non-Belgians look fat and slow.
We got to see the firework display on Canada Day in the Saskatchewan River Valley in Edmonton. They were fired off directly in front of the Legislative Buildings in the valley just below the High River Bridge. It was a half-hour performance - quite impressive. I quite like Edmonton. It has many qualities that Calgary doesn't which is both good and bad depending on your perspective, but they are certainly quite distinct cities from each other. Its one winning attribute is its ginormous river valley which essentially cuts the city in half but provides a lush playground (in the summer, anyways) for the citizens. I dream of running on the valley trails in Edmonton. Okay, other than that and it's vibrant cultural scene, there maybe isn't too much more. ;-)
But what's any city without culture? Oh, right. Calgary.
That damned Stampede starts again at the end of the week, when we get overrun with yokels that can't drive and drunks that can't shut up. Great. Okay - it brings a lot of cash to the city (and we know that's what Calgary embodies -- a big stinking money whore), but really - is this all we're known for? I had an interesting conversation with Tony on the weekend about the demise of the gay community and we concluded the only part of the community that is flourishing right now is ARGRA - the Alberta Rockies Gay Rodeo Association! The Canada Day long weekend rodeo and dance has become one of the biggest events on the gay calendar in Calgary and is growing bigger each year. The only other event to rival it in size is Western Cup, I believe. I suspect with the realization by many gay wannabe cowboys worldwide that 'Brokeback Mountain' was filmed nearby that that will only help out the numbers even more. I can't believe that the hokey western theme (which is completely artificial of course - unless you live on a ranch in Longview or something) is the only thing Calgary has going for it...and everyone's perfectly fucking happy with that! It frustrates me to no end. I guess it's pretty harmless and naïve. I guess it's better than having no caché whatsoever.
I suspect Friday will be a short workday as all the O&G working stiffs queue at Cowboy's and Desperado's post-parade around 11am and proceed to drink the rest of the day. I'm not sure if I will partake, but it certainly won't be at one of the big commercial country bars-turned-superclub-for-the-week. I can't stand the garishness and blatant whorishness of it all. Oh well, one guy's opinion....some people appear to love it, for some reason.
Jeff's party is Saturday night! That will be the highlight of the weekend. Lots of pics to come, no doubt. The following weekend is Trezlie's first birthday, so I (and hopefully Uncle Joe) will be heading to Red Deer for that.
Lots and lots and lots and lots
The CBTL Women and Children First Track Race
Intensity
H&R block team sprint
Our local Olympians - Joel Regimbald, Travis Smith, Cam Mackinnon
Lazing at the track....
Canada Day Criterium and Trofeo Leva Provincial Crit Championships
...a beautiful day for a bike race...
The powerhouses
Flex the dood
contemplating where I went wrong
Canada Day dinner
The Fireworks Crew - Happy Canada Day!
Intensity
H&R block team sprint
Our local Olympians - Joel Regimbald, Travis Smith, Cam Mackinnon
Lazing at the track....
Canada Day Criterium and Trofeo Leva Provincial Crit Championships
...a beautiful day for a bike race...
The powerhouses
Flex the dood
contemplating where I went wrong
Canada Day dinner
The Fireworks Crew - Happy Canada Day!
03 July 2006
Recap
Urgh....I'm not feeling very good today. After a wicked weekend of Crit racing in Edmonton, we all ended up going out for Natasha's b-day last night. I sort went overboard (again) and am paying the price today. Poor Joe had to work this morning. Once I get my wits back sometime today, I'll post something with a little more meat. In the meantime, I think I'm going back to bed.
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