CBS is ripping off the BBC Sherlock series. They are casting Jonny Lee Miller and Lucy Lui in a series called Elementary. I like Jonny Lee Miller. Or rather, I liked him up to and including the Aeon Flux movie. He was in Dark Shadows, and that was awful. And he was awful. And CBS is going to ruin Sherlock Holmes. You bastards.

Season Finale of The Mentalist. I want to like this show. It is similar to Sherlock Holmes. They did not cut off his fingers. THAT WOULD HAVE BEEN INTERESTING. But no.

And on the CBS 11pm news, they announce that they killed the bear found on the UAlbany campus. We live in the 21st century and our solution to a problem is to just FUCKING SHOOT THE POOR THING.

The question came up when I was daydreaming about being nomadic. Wandering the Earth, carrying everything you own with you. Everything has at least one purpose. Everything is built to last. Nothing is superfluous. I got to wondering, if that is all you really need (whatever that is), why do I have all this stuff?

For example, a record collection. If I were nomadic, I would not be hauling around a crate full of records, nor a turntable, nor all the stereo equipment necessary to hear anything. So why do I have them at home? Because I have the space, and the stability.

Once you become stationary, you can accumulate things. And we are Americans, and it is Our Great Dream to accumulate things, so we have all become stationary to make that possible.

Now, I have a tough time imagining being at home with nothing. It would be weird living in a three bedroom apartment when the only things I own can fit in a backpack and a duffle bag.

I have read that many apartments in Tokyo are about 100 square feet. The porch on the apartment I currently live in is around 114 square feet.

Maybe our conceptions and expectations about our living spaces are what they are because we’re so used to, for example, being able to rent a 3 bedroom apartment.

I thought, I’ve done well getting rid of so many books. I don’t have so many left. Turns out, I have about 8 boxes of books, and some of them are really heavy. I also thought, I’ve cut my collection of cds down considerably. I have less than 100 now. No big deal. Turns out, they fill a box that is roughly 18x18x24 inches. If I had to carry that around with me, if, for example, zombies rose from the streets and I had to run, or a meteor crashed nearby and everything was destroyed and I had to cross the country to live in a refugee camp, I would not be carrying this stuff with me. I *could* not carry this stuff with me. But I don’t have to make a big deal of it because there is plenty of space. We take this space for granted.

One of the cities I was most impressed with was Bogotá, Colombia. They have a sophisticated bus line that is almost like light rail. Buses have dedicated lanes so that they are not stuck in traffic. They also have bike lanes, and bike routes, connecting neighborhoods (especially poor neighborhoods) to the rest of the city. The (former, I think) mayor was saying that each person is given space under the law, not each vehicle. So a bus with 100 people on it deserves 100 times more resources than a car with one person in it. They showed a bike route through a neighborhood, the bike route was gorgeous and paved and clean and wide and there were lots of people on it. The “road” for cars on the other side of the concrete barrier was mud. The mayor was wearing a suit and tie while he road a $30 bicycle.

In Copenhagen, 37% of their population go to work by bicycle. They have dedicated bicycle lanes on the right side of the parked cars, so that the parked cars protect the cyclists, not the other way around. Also, no door zone.

In Detroit they spoke with some urban farmers. They are teaching people that carrots come from the ground, not from a plastic bag. They also have chickens and goats.

This is a really engaging film. They begin by describing how bleak the urban populations are, how over-crowded and how in many places more than half of the city’s population live in slums, so it sets a rather dark tone. That’s pretty short, though. They spend the next hour and something going from city to city showcasing things that are working, and working well. And many of them are “bottom-up” solutions.

I once attended a lecture by Sir Ken Robinson. He posed the theory that children are born creative, and they gradually un-learn their creativity. His point was illustrated by a famous experiment conducted by George Land, where 1600 children were given paper clips and asked what they could be used for. Then they were re-tested at five and ten year intervals. The results showed that 98% of the children initially tested at a genius level for divergent thinking, then 30%, then only 12%. The same test given to 280,000 adults yielded a 2% genius rate.

What strikes me as interesting is that I hardly know anyone who didn’t ride a bicycle as a child. Certainly I would be wrong to postulate that 98% of the US population learned to ride a bike as a child, but I’m sure the percentage is significant. Yet figures from the League of American Bicyclists indicate that only one quarter of the population rides a bike even once during the course of the year. And the numbers get even more discouraging when you look at what percentage use bikes for transportation as opposed to recreation.

As children, we all saw bikes as fun. But they were also how we got to our friends’ houses, to the playground, to the pizza parlor. The fun went hand in hand with transportation. So my rhetorical question is, “What’s changed?”

Of course everyone reading this knows that bikes are still fun. But it’s interesting that along with the loss of creativity, the brunt of society has un-learned how to have fun. Actually, it’s not so much interesting, as it is sad.

On the XOXO I had to fiddle with the front fender, which was slightly out of alignment since the wind blew it over. Fenders are nice to have but seem finicky, almost fragile.

Then I set about cleaning the drivetrain. I started by scraping gunk off the rear pulleys, and trying to clean the gunk off everything else. Then I removed the rear wheel and clean the gears.

Happy with that I put the rear wheel back on and ran the chain through the scrubber. (Note to self: almost out of chain cleaner.) I carefully wiped that down and then lubed it, and then wiped it down again.

Then I messed with the cable that goes to the rear derailleur. Today’s stupid trick: release the cable and then put your shifter all the way to the smallest gear; the derailleur will go to the smallest gear; re-attach the cable, tightly. I have much better shifting performance now.

Not a bad way to spend an hour and a half in the backyard.

Other things of note: the tire walls are dirty and won’t come clean, may have to try degreaser on them; the kickstand is sloppy but I don’t know what to do about it; at some point I am going to have to get the front wheel trued.

So I took a shower, got dressed up, and walked to the Gastropub. I was happy to see there was plenty of outdoor seating. It was also Happy Hour all night, so I had a few beers. And I ordered that fried chicken.

Wow. The potatoes were good, the cole slaw was good, the chicken was amazing. It was tender, succulent. The breading was firm, with hints of maple syrup, and just a bit of spice. A fantastic meal.

I left for the Troy Farmers Market just before 11am. I was at the boat launch at 1121, and at the other end of the trail at 1142. I wasn’t hauling but I wasn’t dawdling either. I had my bike locked up outside the market at 1157.

I bought tomatoes, onions, bread, granola. Fox’s Fancy. The guy who makes the stuff told me about the salad recipe on the back, so I took a quick look at that. It has chèvre in it, and I like chèvre, so I bought some. Rolled in black pepper. Oh boy. For lunch I had green enchiladas. They were a little tough but everything else was good so I was happy. Really when you’ve spent an hour on a bike, everything tastes good. And you feel like you earned it.

On the ride back I saw a boy, maybe 3 or 4, on a bike with training wheels. His helmet was askew, and he had a basket on the front of his bike, with a stuffed monkey. He had a big smile on his face. I thought about a pet monkey of my own. I would name him Jack, of course, and we’d drink rum and ride bikes. I have some other thoughts about what Jack would do but they aren’t nice thoughts. *smirk*

By the time I was back in Albany I was out of water and very thirsty. I really wanted a lemonade and started trying to think of where to go. Then I had to climb Morton Avenue. Half way up that I saw the Stewart’s, but then realized that Delaware was just up there. So I took a left at the light and went to Ultraviolet Café. I parked my orange bike next to a hot little orange Motobecane. They gave me a large strawberry mango smoothie and I sat in the shade for a bit.

Then I went home and took a nap on the porch. I’d earned that too.

I don’t own either, so a lot of this kind of thing is lost on me.

Here are some of my criteria. Can I put my lunch in it? When I get where I’m going, will I still be able to eat my lunch? Is it waterproof? How waterproof? Does it have stupid straps that will blow around in the wind and get caught in the spokes of my bike, or hit me in the eye while I’m standing on a cliff?

Can I put a book in it? I am currently reading Neal Stephenson’s The System of the World, which clocks* in around 900 pages. This sort of thing is not uncommon for me. If I put a book in it, will there be room for anything else? Like a thermos?

So, yeah, that classy little rucksack with the clever pockets looks nice. But to me? Useless.**

* Clocks. Get it? Ha ha.

** This is not entirely true. If I had to, I could fill it with clothes, or newspaper, or leaves, and use it as a pillow. I suppose I could fill it with rocks and fend off at least one zombie. But as far as it’s intended purpose? Useless.

But I digress. I like running because I am not very good at it. It doesn’t matter what my day was like, after a quarter of a mile I cannot talk any more. Shortly after that, I cannot think anymore. And that’s how it should be.

I am forced into the here and now. Not with mental exercises or by repeating mantras, but by physical exertion. It becomes my meditation. It ceases to be about my parents, or work, or how our front “lawn” has gone to seed already; it becomes about breathing, moving my feet, keeping my back straight, breathing, hands low, breathing, head up, abs tight, breathing, breathing, breathing.

A “Samaritan” is a run along Hackett that begins at Forest and goes to St. James, where I stop and do 20 pushups, continues to Samaritan, where I turn around, stop again at St. James for another 20 pushups, and ends on Forest again. It is a smidge over 2.5km. I can usually do this in less than 14 minutes. I consider it a pretty good run if I can do it in under 13:30 and don’t feel like I’m going to die at the end.

Today I did it in 12:59:89.