Tuesday, November 16

Winston interlude

Despite no-fun November (papers and projects, anyone?), I was able to sneak away to North Carolina last weekend: one of my housemates was going to visit family and was looking for someone to help with the driving, so I signed up for a change of scenery.  It was relaxing and fun -- between the fall colors, silly talks, live music, thrift scores, yummy food, friendly dogs, and amazingly warm hospitality, a good time was had by all. 


 







Sunday, November 7

Procrastination

So, I'm supposed to be reading right now for my Urban Studies class at U.Penn, which has been a challenge for me. So much theoretical/philosophical/critical thinking is verging on the limits of my brain power. The rest of the class is filled with Penn prodigies who can talk endlessly about the Marx dialectic of the fetishization of commodities. The other hard thing is that we're sitting in a classroom filled with relatively wealthy individuals and we're talking about the working class like we (collectively) are all on one big team. Somehow I miss the connection between most of the class and their socio-economic background compared to that of the rest of Philadelphia.
I'll get off of that track before I offend anyone.

So yesterday I had several first time events. First, I bought coffee from the corner store. Nice to know that's available. Second, I went to a class through Greensgrow on fermentation where we made sauerkraut, pickles and mead. Third, I went to the new South St. bridge which is now open and there was a pre-opening (to cars) free time for anyone to walk/bike around. Fourth, I had a Vietnamese hoagie. So good. Then my amazing day ending with the neighbor complaining about my campfire in the yard, so I retreated indoors to read/procrastinate reading for the rest of the night, which has continued on to this morning.

Here are some pics, didn't remember to check my ISO before I started snapping photos, so they're kind of grainy. Lesson learned.

Stuffing sauerkraut into jars and prepping mead in the background.

Ya Philly, new bridge for all the Penn folk, I'm sure a lot of people are happy about this. I almost never go this far south and need to go to W. Philly so not that big of a deal in my daily life, but, if it's good for Philly, it's good for me, somehow.

The best part was that the Bicycle Coalition invited people to play bridge on the bridge, here they are doing their thing.


Now that 12 noon will soon be upon me, I really should start reading for class. 100 pages and 12 hours until midnight is only 8 pages an hour (eek!) better get started that sounds like a lot of reading. The book, by the way is by Alex Callinicos, Social Theory.

Wednesday, November 3

Philly Bike Expo

This past weekend the planets aligned and the result was a bunch of bike geeks descended upon Philadelphia. I got to go and mingle with folks I've only read about in magazines and just soaked up bike geekdom. It was the whole weekend, with seminars, trade show, competitions, flea market and assorted other activities.

so, where to start?


Well, I chatted with Mike Flanigan from A.N.T. bikes for a little while, nothing much really just talked about bikes, amazing though, his bikes have always caught my eye as much as his general philosophy about bikes and biking.

Then I walked around the trade show floor admiring all of the framebuilders that were there. Really beautiful bikes were on display as well as lots of other handmade bags, clothes, alcohols. So I wandered and talked and sampled. Then outside for some fresh air and lo and behold there were cool kids on bikes doing tricks, so I pretended I was a photographer and snapped some photos.


Off to the seminars after the tricksters, where I listened to the Exec. Dir. of the bicycle coalition of greater philadelphia (BCOGP ? Am I back in Haiti?) area speak. It was amazing, Philadelphia is doing it, we are improving, actually more so than any other city, really! It almost brought tears to my eyes watching someone get excited about our little crappy city, that I care for deeply. We're getting better and there are smart people doing it. Like that.

Then I stayed in my seat for the next speaker, Bike Snob. The room filled, there were people everywhere and rightly so B.S. was really funny and a total smart-alek (sp?), I laughed a bunch as did the whole room.

That's pretty much it, I did hang out for the post trade show fashion show. Not too bad, I was mostly tempted there because of the Root and Snap that was being poured for free. Good stuff. Overall I had a good time, went back on Sunday for the bike flea market and bought some goodies, like a new light and some chain lube. Exciting. Hopefully it happens again next year.