Tippecanoe

According to the referral log, this blog has been viewed by someone in the house.gov domain. The link was via a Google search for Norb Fisher (I'm #4!), so whoever it was probably read my sarcastic comments about the Lafayette city election (which, by the way, won't be resolved until a special election in February).



It was probably the 3rd assistant to the temporary secretary for Rep. Steve Buyer (or some other war mongering Indiana conservative - there are a lot of them).

Aarrgghh! I've setup several RSS feeds using BlogStreet for blogs without built-in feeds, and I noticed today that they have quit working. Sites that have had no new entries in their feeds have, in fact, been quite busy. I recreated them today, but I'm looking for a better alternative.

The RSS feed I've provided on this page is also generated by BlogStreet, so all of my loyal readers will have to reset their aggregator to the new address:

http://feeds.blogmatrix.com/feeds/0850/085064.feed.rss

(I'm sure that the only one using the feed right now is me, so I'm not too worried about it.)

I guess I'm going to have to learn more about blogging software so that I can setup my own server. I thought that Blogger was going to provide RSS feeds soon to the free accounts, but I haven't seen it yet.

If you would like a fun feed to read every week, try This Is True. Randy Cassingham collects and presents funny news stories each week, along with his comments. Fun reading!The feed is:

http://thisistrue.com/freetrue.rss

Took the family to the award winning Wabash Landing in West Lafayette today.

It's a great place, with a theatre, hotel, pub, coffee shop, bread store, apartments, and other shops and restaurants. Across the street in River Market is my favorite Chinese place (Happy China - it just sounds fun) and the best ice cream in town at the Silver Dipper. Our favorite store is Borders. We don't buy a lot, but we browse there weekly.

We like to park in the garage so we don't have to make the slow march through the very small parking lot where there is never a free spot anyway. Not many others do, and I think it is because of the horrible odor in the skywalk connecting the garage to the main walkway. There is a strong urine smell in the wheelchair ramp, and while I haven't seen it happen, I'm guessing that someone is urinating there. (Who does that? The Homeless? The Mentally Ill? The Incontinent? Steve-O?) I'm sure the city knows about it, but they haven't done much.

What can they do? First, they need to clean it up. Get rid of that smell before it becomes permanent.

What's next? Do they lock it at night? Provide public restrooms? Increase police patrols? Something else? (These guys have it figured out.) Whatever they choose, it needs to happen soon. I would think that the businesses in the Landing would be complaining to the management about it daily.

(It is amazing what you can find when you enter "Public Urination" in Google.)

I'm not trying to make this into a cycling blog, but it has just been on my mind lately - probably because I can't ride - too cold!

Anyway, there is a little sidebar article in Bicycling Magazine this month (Jan/Feb 2004 issue) comparing the safety of cycling to that of other sports.

The next time someone tells you they don't want to ride because cycling isn't safe, bury them with this statistic, courtesy of American Sports Data's study of sports injuries in the United States: A recreational cyclist is half as likely to be injured as a golfer. Cycling is as safe as yoga, but twice as dangerous as bowling. The riskiest sport? Boxing.

They have obviously never been on the wrong end of a maladjusted ball return!

That's me on the right.

I drove over the new Twyckenham Bridge on the south side of Lafayette today. The project includes a mostly new 4 lane road from 18th street to Old Romney Road. And, as we'd expect from Lafayette, NO BIKE LANES!!! I've seen City Engineer Opal Kuhl ride a bike, so I would think she would have a clue as to how the citizens of her town use the streets. I lived in that part of town for many years, and my property taxes helped build the TIF fund that paid for part of the project. I sure hope she is one of the city officials that is replaced by the new mayor next month.

I received my 2nd ever comment yesterday (if you don't count the idiot that defaced my site last month. I don't). Xoe had some great points concerning my biking rant. Here is the text:

I don't know how much bike riding you do nor which parts of Lafayette you are riding/observing in, but there are many places where riding on the road is straight up scary. For example: Creasy Lane. If you're riding your bike down the side of that street, you're begging to be hit. The same is true of Greenbush, despite the fact that sidewalk isn't available the entire length of the street. The sidewalks are there for bicycles and for pedestrians alike. Besides, there are so depressingly few walkers in Lafayette that using the sidewalk for a bike doesn't inconvenience anyone. (West Lafayette is a different story)
Please forgive those of us who aren't confedent enough in their cycleing prowess to risk getting hit.
Also, the girl in your picture is not wearing a helmet.
Xoe

Xoe is right. Lafayette has done a horrible job making its streets available to bikers. There is no attempt to put biking lanes on new streets, and Creasy and Greenbush are obvious examples of their short-sitedness. The new jogging paths are OK, but they don't lead where a commuter on a bike wants to go. On North 9th street they added a bike path, but it is only on one side of the street, and actually crosses the busy road at one point. West Lafayette has added many new bike lanes (see Lindburg Road) and has even worked with the State to add lanes to South River Road.

However, I disagree with the assertion that sidewalks are for bikers. There are many safety problems involved with riding on the sidewalk, but a person riding in the right lane with a helmet (unlike the poor girl pictured in the earlier post), reflectors, and lights at night that follows the rules of the road is very safe. I cycle often from April though November (1250 miles this year), and I have never had a problem with an automobile coming up from behind. I have had troubles with drivers who are upset and try to scare me or force me off the road, but those stories are for another post.

Thanks for commenting, thanks for reading, and happy cycling!

Check out Xoe's blog at http://filyatova.diary-x.com