End of the Year List

Things I accomplished (in convenient bulleted format):

• Reestablished my passion for graphic design, and am finishing my certificate at UCLA Extension.
• Had a couple of fun art openings, and sold some paintings. Quite happy with the direction paintings are taking.
• Gained 20+ pounds, and lost them by getting back on my bike. Joined a club & a team, got a Cervelo S1 and am starting to train for the next racing season.
• Managed to live better with less, in every way.

An I'm sure there's a bad side to the sport...

These bladder wheeled bicycles are diabolical devices of the Demon of Darkness. They are contrivances to trap the feet of the unwary and skin the nose of the innocent. They are full of guile and deciept! When you think you have broken one to ride and subdued its wild and Satanic nature, behold it bucketh you off in the road and teareth a great hole in your pants. Look not upon the bike when it bloweth upon its wheels, for at last it bucketh like a bronco and hurteth like thunder. Who has skinned legs? Who has a bloody nose? Who has the ripped breeches? They that daly along with the bicycle!

from a sermon, Maryland, 1896.

As quoted from: A social History of the Bicycle, Robert A. Smith

All the while

While you're up

While you're waiting

While you're at it

While you were gone

While you were out

Worth your while

Wiley Coyote

Health Insurance

We were talking about insurance last night. For 3 of us, it is $750 per month for an HMO (in my opinion, HMO is legalized genocide).

So why have insurance? Why not open an account (savings, IRA, whatever) and put money aside for visits to the doctor?

The only downside is if something happens like your appendix bursts, then it will be expensive.

But really, $750 a month? And with the likely risk that the insurance company will deny your claim for any reason they see fit. Would it not be better to abuse a credit card in an emergency and see a real doctor than pay an insurance company?

Share the road and please don't kill

Dr. Thompson slammed on his brakes and seriously injured two bicyclists. We have all heard the story. He was thought of as such a menace, the judge ordered him to stay in jail until he is sentenced on Jan. 8th. He faces ten years in jail, but is not expected to get the maximum sentence. There was even a post on the internet about how to contact the judge to request he get the maximum penalty.

The other side of this story is the one nobody is discussing. And that is how can a successful doctor, living in a nice house in an amazing neighborhood be filled with so much hatred? He had to move because of this mess, lost his job and is now in jail, wondering how long he will have to be there. All because of an unimaginable sense of entitlement. Me first, get out of my way, I'm so much more important than you. His life is pretty well ruined, and he has become a poster boy for cyclists to point at and hate.

And rightly so.