san diego by bike at xmas

jeff and i wanted to get outta dodge this holiday. heck with a furlough day tacked onto either end of an academic holiday, it was my longest span of time off all year. never let it be said that i was caught sitting around wasting a holiday. so a little air mileage trade in, bargain bike and car rental, and most importantly, a house-swap with old friends who just happened to be out maximizing california furloughs...in new zealand, and we were off! one week + in south park san diego, anza borrego desert, palm springs, los angeles, and la jolla. twas a fab time and quite nice to have 65-70 degree temps at xmas vs. frigid ones. bikes were $75 bucks for the entire week! and it included helmets, locks, and maps....oooh maps. we biked the silver strand right down to imperial beach at the mexico border, la jolla at sunset, the desert, out to coronado island, up to college of the nazarene, way past ocean beach up on some hill, and just tooled around the brew pubs, coffee shops, and foodieville that is south park. $3 belgian ales on mondays at toranado, 2-4-1 tacos at el camino on tuesdays, free zoo day at balboa park. everywhere we went, folks mistook us for locals. well we did shop at trader joe's, bike to all our meals, and i must say jeff's hair was gettin kinda long. so, we'll take it. locals we are.

Bike-less City Locked Monkies Get Their Bike Fix Via Bike Sharing

i think a UGA student proposed a bike rental program for athens and i hope it works...we need one like paris, munich, and barcelona have...and apparently NYC according to this link. NYC bike share "Bike-less City Locked Monkies Get Their Bike Fix Via Bike Sharing"

fall is here, and the drought is comin back...believe it or not

no i dont like all the rain thats part of the fall picture, but i darent complain since we had such a drought for a few years and also since my plumber informed me today that another one is on the way. yep, that's right i get my weather from a plumber. he rescued me a third time in the five years that i've owned my little cottage and described how roots looking for water can squeeze a pvc pipe just like a python until it cracks and they get in. yikes! meanwhile it means the sweetgum tree in that area, a very old majestic sweetgum tree mind you, is VERY happy with its access to my water/sewer lines. yuk.

so what did we do on this fine fall day other than pay a plumber $200 bucks? plant 3 new trees! yay.
i know, kinda nutty, but they were a white flowering natchez crepe myrtle, and an orange flowering tea olive. i mean, orange. how could i not? my sweet man picked them up at the atlanta tree sale this weekend and gave them a fine home here on sunset...far from the water lines...for now. oh and we moved a redbud that wasnt in a good spot.

next weekend we'll head north in search of real fall weather and color. i wanna soak up some of theirs and then come back and enjoy ours, double dose! yeh. i love fall best.

and no, the plumber's name wasn't joe.

i must be doin some clean livin...

...as dickie rigdon would say. because i've go no complaints these days. i mean i couldnt find one if i turned my life upside down and shook out all the pockets. school = intriguing, man = most awesomest, dog = best friend, work = easy enough, home = cozy, friends = nearby, family = healthy, bank account = not on zero. and i'm recently traveled. what's a girl to do with so much goodness?

watching le tour online

thanks goodness for versus, although i preferred their previous name, outdoor life network, but nonetheless one can watch the entire tour online. today was a one of many delights, as the tour passed thru leysin, switzerland, a town where i worked one fall/winter/spring at the hiking sheep guesthouse. now that the tour is in the Alps, it should be more exciting. but in the meantime, we've had contador take an early spring and leave lance behind, levi break a wrist on a sad day, hincapie robbed of a yellow day, cancellara lead for a solid week, thor and cavendish battle in the sprints, and a sweet solo by haussler. it's now been 10 years since i went to le tour live...might have to rally next year.

this is why i should stay on a bike

a friend from class calls last night...newly back in town, bored, will i grab a bite with him. sure! a neighbor runs a new restaurant and business is slow in summer but they have awesome seafood and music on the patio so we go there. i've already biked home for the day when i get the call so i pop back into town in the car since its so dead in town during summer and there's plenty of parking. i pull up and they arent featuring valet parking, as they usually do, b/c well, its dead. i scout the patio, it has a handful of folks sitting outside and about 4 cars out front in a lot that says dont park here. mind you, its the lot attached to the restaurant and the logical place to park, but it's owned by the evil PRESTIGE PARKING, as is every other slab of asphalt in town, and although no one is using it or ever does, one cannot park there. but the restaurant is on the edge of town and not in the center of beaucoups parking and honestly i'm not really giving it that much thought at the time, i just see 4-5 folks are parked there, at the restaurant, and no cars in site anywhere else. so i pull in and park.
i meet my friend, have a delish plate of bocorones, seared ahi, and oysters rockefeller sloshed down with a cucumber & ginger martini. refreshing summer fare. we finish up at the bar chatting with the owners and having a fine evening for a wednesday in athens in the dead of summer. then we walk out to the lot and it all changes.
there it is, the dreaded ugly boot on my front wheel with a cheesy NOTE WRITTEN IN ALL CAPS about not attempting to move this vehicle and who to call to get the boot off. let me just say, i have never been booted ever, i feed parking meters, park legit, and follow the rules, usually. but more importantly, i rarely ever have to b/c i bike everywhere. i even receive 24 free deck parking days in winter from the university for being a member of the alternative transit program. but i digress.
so my friend waits while i call the number of the note which only makes the evening worse. matt, the dick, answers the phone, "yea", and proceeds to treat me with such beligerence that i in turn ask him ridiculous questions that i dont really wanna know the answer to, but i just feel the need to try to stump him b/c he's so nasty. so i ask like 5 times, who owns this lot, who am i paying $50 bucks to at midnight in a dark parking lot? who do you work for, what's your name? what do you mean you dont legally have to tell me? idiot. i'm difficult, he's annoyed, although paid to 'handle these things so the owner doesnt have to' so he offers to have the police meet him there when he comes to collect the cash from me in the money making scheme and i say, 'indeed i would like that'. i guess he assumed a patron exiting a bar at midnight might not want to see the poilce but i was in fine form and sober, so i insisted.
when matt arrived, petite blonde mariah, the real employee of PP, per her business card, jumped out of the vehicle to greet the police and thank them for their time and bothering to waste it on such a situation, to which they promptly responded that the town was indeed dead and nothing was going on. my original point exactly. certainly i wouldnt want to detain police from solving real city problems. so my real beef here, is PRESTIGE PARKING. sure i saw the sign that they own the lot and no one can park there ever, 24/7, 365, but of course its wide open for you to do so and the 47 folks who were downtown last night didn't pay them a dime to park b/c there was so much available. and of course paying an attendant to staff a lot with a uniform and sign to collect $5 per car would be too much trouble for a slow sultry summer evening. aha! but cruising by a lot that you can get $50 a pop if anyone uses ever is a much better return on your evening.
so part of me thinks, hey karma, what gives? i know it doesnt work this way but i still find myself questioning it. i play by the rules, i'm out befriending a lonely friend, showing patronage to a local business and neighbor and it costs me an extra $50 bucks! but a bigger part of me wonders, hey mariah, cant you find another job and partner, you seem nice enough, but this is your life's work? ugh, and that matt guy? surely you can do better.

snowball...the good kind

so its 90+ today and i'm on the bike. quittin time rolls around on a friday in athens and we all knock off a little early. been packing up our offices for a monday morning move and we're grubby and hot. i jump on the bike to sprint to five points eye care to pick up my new specs w/groovy new rectangular frames BUT i have a flat which i notice after10 feet or so after i finish checking the very wet brakes, post daily afternoon thunderstorm. hmmm, 20 minutes til closing, i lock the bike back up, flag down an officemate for a ride and she helps me out and i arrive only to find...the glasses came in and they were all bulging, and not the right shape kyle says, oh and they forgot to call me and tell me they had to send them back. cool, no worries, i'll be back next week. um hey, can i have a drink of water? thx.
its 90+ still and sticky (post rain) and now i'm on foot without my new specs that i rushed over for. no worries, the outfitter that ordered my keen's 2 weeks ago says they are in, so i hoof it over there b4 closing time and schweet, grab my new keen's. i put 'em on, stow the flops in my timbuktu bag and go downstairs to the Hub to see bout fixing a flat that i dont have with me, and avoid buying a 3rd pump, and maybe find a ride or whatever. the owner and i chat about what i might do: mini pump, CO2 cartridge, new tube, combo pump, yada yada and closes with oh, we're having microbrew happy hour, feel free to join us.
well that's the best plan yet! so i crack open a magic hat, meet graham who rides and went to my college, and lives in montana now w/her hubby tommy and is making a documentary on microbrewerys. cindy and i talk about work on campus and her husband owns the shop. nick, one of the jittery joes team riders and i compare notes about the dudes at five points eye care. all in all a great happy hour that i totally snowballed into. good thing i had a flat.
p.s. offered to buy aubrey a burrito if he'd come get me and haul the bike home...its good to know your neighbors.

my bike-to-work route: a photo essay

julie shared her route in munich and i was inspired to do the same, so here is mine. in 3 short miles i coast out of my tree-lined neighborhood and pass almost every one of my favorite places to eat and a few murals to boot. i logged just under 800 miles since my students gave me the cyclometer last year at graduation. i can pretty much ride 10 months out of the year solid. dec/jan are icky.

One of my new favorite artists paints chrysanthemums on any surface for free just to help you get your feng shui on. i ride on neighborhood streets and most of my ride goes thru cobbham historic district where the homes are grand and porch life is essential.



my friend mimi welcomed me into the neighborhood when i first moved back here and that's her house behind the cobbham sign.



there's porch art, folk art, and colorful houses in general. even my dentist is in the cute green 2-story. Dondero's international kitchen made a delish turkey apple cheddar chowder this week and it was perfect after my dental appt and just across the street. plus they offer 10% discount to cyclists!



the route is filled with historic markers, craftsman, georgian, victorian, edwardian homes. if i'm out of 1 or 2 things i can pop in the Daily co-op or just go next door to the Grit and let them cook up a golden bowl of vegetarian goodness. in the same block is a funky salon but i've only done waxing there when i need pampering.



big city bread not only has the lightest quiches in town, great coffee, bread and pastries, they make my fave italian grilled proscuitto panini and they have peaches & ginger black tea by harvey & sons. the outdoor area is dog friendly and they hold a christmas market here, fireside of course.



this is about the point where the neighborhoody feeling gives way to the commerce of downtown. but its only about a 10 block by 5 block grid and campus is just on the other side and it all just seems to fit together. the proximity of bars to campus isnt always ideal and i avoid satdey nite.



en route, if i need to tweak something on the bike, pump up the tires, buy a new saddle, or replace stuff, my boys at sunshine cycles, jimmy, ryan, and joel are right there and speedy. i dont think i've ever left my bike there for service, they fix it on the spot mostly. they have the coolest mural by far and i never paid much attention until today! love it, and they are located across from the famous 40 watt, the Clocked diner, home of the meteor burger w/bacon and feta, as well as farm255 known for cooking daily goodness from high acre farms.



plenty of folks live right at the edge of town tho and walk to dine out and have great in-town yards, gardens, art. kim and i lived on meigs and that picket fence is definitely new.



a couple blocks away is my aveda hair salon, home of matt, who knows curly hair, and his trusty co-worker craig who was really fooled by my park ranger halloween costume.



the salon is across from the restored art deco georgia theatre, and next door to the Globe, the hang out of all my peeps ('cept buck who has some old boycott). in fact there sits my optician at the globe for lunch. if ya really wanna be authentic tho, ya need to hit player's corner and get ya neckline buzzed, some soul food at wilsons, and a bourbon at the manhattan cafe.



course if grandma is with you, the last resort grill is the perfect place for a linen tablecloth lunch and still priced under $7. speaking of last resort, i saw their vegetable mural and the one behind the theatre; its not graffiti julie, but close enough.



once i get thru town, campus distinguishes itself from the flow of broad street with a iron fence all around it. back in the day they say it kept the cattle out, or the indians...



most everyone i work with strolls downtown for lunch if not every day, then every other. here's a trio of our top notch economists en route to taco stand most likely.



and the main drag is also the atlanta hwy which offers an easy 1-hour drive west to the ATL, well maybe easy is an exaggeration considering the back-ups at redlights on our parkway, yes we have lights on the pkway. we've never been big on infrastructure first here in ga. but know this, the arch below is the entrance to UGA and you can NOT walk under it until you graduate...or you just might not. peace and ride safe!

yoga with led zeppelin

i've had communication breakdown as my ringtone for a year and routinely walk down memory lane with the mothership but to be able to do yoga in a studio and get the led out (per jack black) would be awesome!
He Rocks, They Flock: The Yoga King check out this NYT story about a yoga rock god in santa monica. dang, they have everything out there!

giro d'italia time - every day in May

Tons of great pics and live streaming video coverage daily on www.universalsports.com. wish i could be in riomaggiore for the time trial this week. on may 21 they scream along the italian seaside from sestri levante to the southernmost town in the cinque terre, riomaggiore, home of my old friend simone, ciao simo! meanwhile i get my fix b/c i still bike to work daily, which is bout 6 miles RT and with great weather lately, i ride the jefferson loop some evenings. i did ride the gambler recently with a few buds. it's a 30k fun ride out to Kenny Rogers' old farmplace that they stage during Athens Twilight Criterium every April. looking forward to copenhagen this august where supposedly its so flat that everyone rides everywhere. if ya need more, see my links for biking in various cities. a couple of friends have commented on pics of lance and altho most of us have a bone to pick with him, he is riding a cool bike this year desgned by shepherd fairey, designer of the barack obama HOPE poster. and i liked this shot of race leader danilo di luca in pink. viva la giro! 100th anniversary.