Thursday, December 4, 2008

Winter Commute

this morning it was snowing and the temp was 20°F with the wind chill putting the temp at 10°F. The commute was a blast! I took the bike path most of the way because this is the first time I've ridden through snow on the roads. It wasn't icy so I didn't have to deal with that. And the city of Denver was plowing the bike paths! Awesome.


My bike with the wide 32 tires performed wonderfully. My commuting clothes were plenty warm as well, except that my finger tips were starting to get cold. Also I really need to get sunglasses for biking, the wind and blowing snow was distracting. Squinting into the snow is a bad idea when winter biking.

What clothes did I have?
Starting at the top, I have a Novara under helmet skull cap that was warm enough, it covers my ears too, although, 15 minutes in, the bottoms of my ears were starting to get chilled.

Next, I wore my Marmot wind and water proof coat, a wool sweater, a thermal long sleeved shirt, and a t-shirt on my abdomen. I need to get a balaclava or a neck warmer, as my neck and chin were cold in the wind! But otherwise the 4 layers were plenty warm.

On my legs, I wore my Novara headwind bike pants and long underwear. They were plenty warm down to 10°! And then on my feet, wigwam wool socks and my hiking boots/shoes. No complaints there! Warm toes!

So what do I need to add for these cold days? balaclava or neck warmer... sunglasses... and glove liners, or warmer gloves. Awesome!

I'm a little leery of commuting home tonight after dark, I'll just having to keep reminding myself to take it real slow and easy. Last night I rode through Denver with Kyle and because we took an easy pace, I spotted a red fox cross the road in front of us. Which reminds me I used to occasionally see myself biking through traffic as a trickster fox riding amongst a pack of brutish hunting dogs. Go Foxes!

Also two other people here at work commuted in on bike through the first week day snowy commute! (would've been hard to live down had I taken the bus...)

Friday, October 10, 2008

Creepy new Terrorism Theme Park in Denver

Creepy new Terrorism Theme Park at Denver Art Museum

I biked by this on my way in to work this morning. They claim its privately funded, but that's of course bullshit--its part of the new Denver Art Museum complex which was built with tax money, so now school kids can spend an hour at the Art Museum and the rest of the afternoon learning how to be paranoid suburban-americans. Great use of tax dollars!!

Creepy new Terrorism Theme Park at Denver Art Museum

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Seamus on his new Blanket

Seamus on his new blanket

The blanket is my first knitting project of the year. Very simple, but Seamus seems to like it.

Monday, September 22, 2008

Monday, March 3, 2008

Spring and a compost bin

We got a compost bin! I'm so excited! I put it together last night after work and then this morning, I cleaned up the garden and found a place for the bin and started filling it with leaves from last fall and food scraps. I want to paint it. I want to paint purple spirals and a green man on the top and perhaps a unicorn too. Its just all dark plastic and I want it to look less like dark plastic.

I biked for awhile today it was so beautiful out (and 70 degrees). I biked down along the cherry creek bike path down towards REI and then biked off west. There were many bikes out and kayakers too.

Last Wednesday as I was biking along the Platter river I saw this robin and I was so excited I said "Hi Robin!" out loud and completely unselfconsciously. It was an amazing faerie/hippie moment. Then as I continued biking I saw three more robins. I did not speak to them however. I did wave.

Tuesday, February 19, 2008

Riot Austerity

I just re-read the post below, which I backdated to November of last year... Hmm did we follow through on the Riot Austerity? Nope, not really. We are not composting like we should, that's my biggest guilty secret. We don't have a compost pile set up and I feel a bit strange always dumping our old food in our neighbors compost pile. Why?