Interesting day...

Many observations:

As noted in the ShoutBox, I took my bike, Lilith, out for a ride on my lunch break. This also means I rode her to the Commuter Express bus stop in the morning and back from the stop at night. I'm much more alert during the day if I bike. Somehow, walking on my lunch hour just doesn't work as well.... I just realized, writing this, that when I walk in the city I feel trapped, but when I bike I feel free. That means when I bike, I evidently don't get those bad "trapped" endorphins going. Cameron suggests walking, but I think that in this I will ignore her and go with what's working for me. Hiking in the hills occasionally will have to serve for walking.

Last week, I took Lilith out to my old favorite riding spot, the Sepulveda Basin. Her low gear made the steep berm around Lake Balboa ridable without getting off, even as out-of-shape as I am, and her high gear made the flats much faster. Nonetheless, I was still passed by a group of road bikers with enormous thighs. Twice. Same group. I still have work to do...

Everywhere I go with Lilith, I'm stopped with shouts of "Cool bike!" I'm constantly demonstrating her fold, and letting people know that yes, many local bike shops carry them; this model's in the medium high 3 figures, but models are available for as little as $200; yes, you can take it on the bus or subway... Perhaps I should write up an FAQ, or get some Dahon brochures.

I'm in my apartment in North Hollywood now; it's a fine summer night, about 73F, and I'm listening to my neighbors' air conditioners running. I feel virtuous because I've set up circulation with four window fans and a portable swamp cooler (getting my apartment quite cool while using a fraction of the electricity of the AC) but in fact my setup more than paid for itself last summer when I desperately needed to save money on power bills. With any luck, I'll be able to repeat my performance -- keeping the AC off until it's about 80F in the apartment, then only running it at 78F until it cools off enough outside at night to run fans and cooler instead. I hope we don't get too many more weeks when it just doesn't cool off at night (we had one in April(!) and one in June. August and early September may be tough.)

Fading fast... g'night, readers.