Discouragement

I started into the weekend with huge plans to get a lot done. Yesterday I was pulling the broken siding off the house and was relieved to find no termite damage. However as I got to the back door, which has all ready been patched by myself, and others, just like the Dentist, going uh-oh.. I found soft wood up the left side of the frame, and in the sill. So I'm working on that now.

Now don't get this the wrong way, there are quite a few things pressing on me these days, none serious, none urgent, but just lots of them.

With so much to do around here, I really could use someone to coordinate and prioritize those things. And someone to maybe get a little work out of me come the afternoon after work. When its just yourself, you tend to let things just slide. Yesterday it seemed that half the county was on the move, and those that weren't were together, walking, hanging out, having drinks. I have no idea why i get like this, but i do.

Tomorrow I'm going riding with Alex in the morning, which is good, and will be fun, and I'll enjoy it. She pushes me a little bit further/faster than I might go on my own. But those ground rules are out there.. just going riding with a friend. I guess I'll take what I can get, but its whatever. I'm trying to rope Kristen into showing up somewhere too, since she'll be around. Monday Jessica is coming down off the mountain, and south of Kingston to the real world of the flatlanders. After she has some stir stick practice I'll rope her into chauffeuring me around with the bribe of gasoline and food.

Well, at least my laundry is caught up...

I need a new Battery

With the approach of Memorial day this year, things are different for me. Last year I sold my camper, which is just as well anyway, but this is the first Memorial day in like 13 years that I will not be camping, and the weather looks to be the best it has been in say, the last 13 years!

I have a ton of work to do around my house, and I hope to get to it this weekend. I am even looking at taking Friday off now because I'm just in a funk and want away from work.

Hopefully I'll use some of the time productively, but who knows. I don't do well without a plan..

Jessica may come by on Sunday, down to where the rest of us live, which would be good. I could bore her to tears around town.

Things that I am guilty of

Turn on the radio, pick up (or type in the web address of) a newspaper, stop for coffee or just listen around work. The main topic is energy prices.

We are, and pretty much always have been the worlds largest consumer of petroleum products. We use them for heat, cooling, transportation, manufacturing, computing, product packing, fertilizers and just about everything else.

The world is changing, farmers in China are not hitching up the donkeys any more, they all have ying-zing tractors. Now that China is making all of our stuff, and our economy declines, their population is starting move out off the farms, and into towns to make happy meal toys out of plastic. And to get to work, they are parking their bicycles and buying scooters. The plant managers are buying cars. China is buying oil, alot of it, and so is India. What was once cheap and plentiful for us is now a competitive product, and the rules of supply and demand have taken over.

In Europe, where all petroleum is imported, and the countries smaller, personal use fuel has always been heavily taxed, funding a very good public use infrastructure. This is socialism, but it also stabilized England, Germany, Norway, Sweden in a way that we are now starting to see anarchy here. To an extant we have done this in New York with dedicated taxes funding the MTA, so the Long Island railroad, Metro North, New York city surface and transit are in very good state of repair, poised to handle growth and have long term plans. NJ transit is in trouble, so is NJDOT, soon they are going to have deal with funding for NJ transit and highway repairs, Connecticut is learning, and the administration is showing signs that they understand that good, frequent public transportation is a plus, not a cost.

Because energy was cheap, we used as much as we wanted, it was a small part of budgets. Beyond the cost of energy we ignored the effects of the environment from all the fuel we burned. Smarter people made the government force changes on the automobile industry, the power produces and manufactures.

In some ways they were hated because it made our cars cost more, and the auto makers fought them. As the automakers went through the process of learning how to produce a more efficient car, the quality suffered. The cars were anemic and trouble prone. Meanwhile the Japanese were making cars the polluted less and still burned regular fuel rather than unleaded fuel.

The rules for cars, did not apply to light trucks.... Same with the safety rules.
So Americans, whose energy was still cheap, could buy a pickup truck, with large powerful engine to go fast, and they were cheap. Not needing all those silly safety features like headrests and crash standards. If you crashed a full size 1970's-80's truck, you got hurt.

Suddenly people were shopping for utility vehicles with cloth interiors, power steering, cruise control and tilt wheels. Why buy a Ford Fairmont that was anemic and small for more money than a F-150 with air and nice seats?? Around this time the mini-van appeared from Chrysler, and they classified it as a light truck because it didn't have to meet any CAFE standard, hell the first couple years of what was obviously a passenger car didn't even have head rests on ANY seats, something that had been required in cars since 1968!! And they sold bunches of them because they cost less than a car. That game is still played today, but trucks today have to meet a CAFE standard, but cars like the PT cruiser and the HHR show up in government data bases as trucks.

So fuel remained cheap, we kept buying SUV's which eventually caught up safety wise with cars, but still burned more fuel than any thing else going because it was cheap, and we paid no mind to the environment, myself included. In my defense, All my trucks were stir sticks until 2001 when GM stopped offering it in extended cabs.
And the slush box gets 15 in town, 19 on the highway, where the 5 speed in my 97 did 18 in town and 21 on the highway. Same EXACT engine and rear end. No one wanted the 5 speeds, well, not exactly, since I did.

So changes are coming, we must embrace then, cutting the tax on fuel is not going to help, we'll just burn more again. It's time we understand that our petro based economy is ending, and we are going to suffer along with everyone else. We need to start changing by not using plastics for single use short term things, like grocery bags and water bottles. We must pool our trips, car pool and drive smaller cars. It's time to right size our homes, use less water, and even less hot water, embrace European low cold water use washing machines and air dry our clothes. Yes, the rich will still heat a house the size the Rhode island because they can, and drive Yukon's. But the rest of us must start asking for changes, and embrace what the law of supply and demand is telling us, that we need to innovate again, show the established larger bribe paying corporations that we are going to change things and start with grass roots efforts.

I'm just as guilty as everyone else, but we need to really start looking at what where doing, and stop letting the Saudis control on our economy.

What a Difference a day makes.

I'm sitting here, washed of grit and very very pleased with my performance in today's ride, the bloomin Metric.



I rode 63.18 miles in 4 hours and 22 minutes, giving me a pace of 14.3 Miles per hour, not a lance, or even an "A" rider performance, but pretty good none the less. About the only discomfort I had was my neck was getting sore around 50 miles, and the bottoms of my feet, when I got off the bike were screaming. I could have ridden some more, no killer hills, but I still had some juice in me. As long as I continue to ride, my level of fitness is not going to be a issue in July on the FANY ride.

This morning dawned clear and fresh, the air clean and just beautiful. The first 10 miles or so are along Long Island sound, you could see clear to Long Island this morning. I thought for sure that I would be getting wet today, and keep a good attitude about it, but the weather gods were nice, and held off.

A marked difference in my riding is that I wasn't counting the miles left to go, I was enjoying the ride, handing the hills, and just looking around me. I think I will plug the route in and see what sort of climbing I was doing, because we were up and down all day.

On the way home I stopped and saw my sister for a little while.

Ok, so that's it. I'm past Friday night, and the gelatinous mass that I was yesterday (i did plant flowers) but that was it. Today I worked my legs and heart. Tonight I'll rest.

A dark, rainy, early Saturday morning.

I wanted to believe, or hope. Each time I'm left with the same emptiness, where I just want to depend on myself. That is usually short lived and I think about being able to reach out to someone, have a hand to hold, or just watch the water on the river with.

Is there any possibility that I could be any Stupider?

And yes, it hurts.

Who put the Errm in Erban Transit?

I didn't know Leanne went to work for the Transit Authority, but this is the new interiors for the New York city buses on the "select bus routes"



Sort of reminds me of a 1970's Delta 727.... Or... a 1970's Amtrak interior

Philadelphia train trip, day 2.

Sunday morning the sun was up, and I awoke from slumber, refreshed and ready for... More Trains!!

First we visited the 69th P&W shops, where the manager of equipment maintenance gave us a tour. What a well run and clean and organized shop that is. There is a lot of pride in what they do there, and it shows.

First was the car barn, which was built when the N-5's were delivered, for 60 years the cars with the wood and canvas roofs were stored outdoors, and when they get stainless steel cars, they build a barn for them? Sounds like a government run organization in action.






Out in back, are a couple of CTA cars that were used in the interim between the time the N-5's arrived, and the Brill bullets were dying. I rode those cars on a trip to Chicago back in 87, they weren't air conditioned, so all the windows were open as I rode the Evanston Express.

What has always fascinated me about the Norristown line was from 1963 until 1976, the old electro liners from The Chicago & North shore called the P&W home.




After 69th street we went to the SEPTA heavy rail shops where the work is done on the Silverliners.



This Silverliner II car and I have the same birth year in common, it was purchased by the Reading Railroad, back when you could still take a ride on the Reading!



As part of the N-5's being delayed so long, Septa was "awarded" this ALP-44 as compsaetion for the delay. The first coach behind the locomotive is the same as a Metro-North Comet-III, SEPTA added 7 to the MTA's order.


Back at Reading Terminal, we had lunch, and Ryan and I went off on our own.

Said Hi to Philbert..


Stopped at 30th street station..


Went to Independence hall and visited the Liberty bell, which you can't really see in in this picture, but its in there... really. (It's still got a crack in it too.)



And on the subway, back to Frankford to catch the bus home...