cedar fever

And Iran, Iran So Far Away: A Bicyclist’s View on Another Looming War About Energy

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

I will be the first to admit that this piece probably isn’t going to be re-published in the New York Times, The Economist, Mad Magazine or anything with that sort of stature. However, I just had to put that Flock of Seagulls lyric to some good use. Sometimes titles are used to pique interest and have little to do with the content. And that’s largely the case here. I’m no Middle East expert, but I’m sure that bombing people who bomb to prove that bombing is wrong is… wrong. I will state the obvious: the more people cycling, the less we need to rely on the infernal combustion engine or even hybrids and the less energy wars we’ll have with other nations.

I will go on the record as saying I think that the future ex-president #45 of the US was well out of line, his legal authority and his friggin’ mind by ordering the targeted assassination of Iran’s #2 man, as deadly as he was. Later that same day that news broke, as I returned a car borrowed for visiting family over the holidays. I was only slightly relieved to be less a part of the problem. We in the developed nations rely on oil in many forms like plastic, to deliver food and other products. There’s not much A Dude can do to influence foreign policy. So this weekend, I let my legs do the talking as usual.

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I’ve Got the Fevah! It’s Cedar, and It Sucks

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

I had cedar fever – an invasion of the breath- and sinus-snatchers last year, and it really was un-fun. It feels like the flu — body aches, congestion, headaches, runny noise, cough — but is not viral. It’s “just” allergies. But it’s bad enough that I took myself to the community clinic to get checked out. For three long hours. They nice nurse practitioner jammed a sharp pointy swab deep into each sinus cavity, and then also gave me a breathing treatment with the stuff that’s in inhalers. The bottle I had was expired, I guess I didn’t deem it important enough to keep that current. Boy was that a bad decision!

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Austin, Texas Weekend Bike News: Around the Town

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A Visitor of Some Renown

Dr Lugo in town.png

Dr. Adonia E. Lugo, (maybe I’ll call her Doctor Wheelgood), who is Affiliate Faculty in Urban Sustainability at Antioch University Los Angeles, was here in Austin for the Imagine Austin Speaker Series.  Her talk was called, “Mobility Justice: People Power & the Future of Urban Transportation.”   Those in attendance said it was quite good.  I wouldn’t know.

That’s because unfortunately, I didn’t hear about it until after the fact, which really bummed me out.  A guy who knew about it said he was sure I was the one who told him — until he noticed I wasn’t there.  Well, duh!  I actually blogged about her recently in The Invisible Or Utility Bicyclist An Ignored Population.  In it I reference her book (which I need to get and read and review here).  It’s called  Bicycle/Race: Transportation, Culture, & Resistance, a memoir about racial justice and sustainable transportation.  The good news is that her talk was recorded on video and will be forthcoming at this City of Austin link. Continue reading →

Warren Beatty, Halle Berry, Bicycling, Capitalism, Health Care, Queen and The X-Files

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 2 Comments

It Will All Become Clear as Mud

Today’s blog is coming from my tired brain, but the title will make sense by the end.  It’s been a week or more since I began feeling bad due to cedar fever, or so I thought.  Austin definitely had a few days of very high pollen counts.  But when I continued to feeling bad after that went down, I wondered.  Still I’m having a dry, mostly unproductive cough.  This is the US, so unproductive is bad.  Because the US is all about capitalism, and if you’re not producing anything, you’re worthless, right?  Referencing the Dire Straits song from a few days ago, maybe I have “Industrial Disease”?  Let’s hope not and I’m back on the bicycle soon. Continue reading →

13 Years (Not) a Slave to Cars

~ A Dude Abikes ~ 7 Comments

Sick As a Dog, Happy As a Clam to Be Car-Free

Today was to have been one of celebration.  It’s been a baker’s dozen years since my 1991 Little Red Civic got smashed on Bee Caves Road by a guy in a truck.  We “t-boned” because he pulled in front of me; his fault.  I survived mostly ok, but the car didn’t.  The rest is as they say, history.  The first decade of my biking lifestyle was not recorded.  I biked for utility and in the process got some exercise, but never very much.  Continue reading →

A Potpourri of Cedar Fever, Perfectionism, Abundance, Vegetables & TV/Movie Links

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Perfect Is the Enemy of Good

I don’t know who said that, but my dear brother has repeated it more than once.  I was reminded of the phrase when I realized I was not going to be able to ride my bike today.  Despite a high temperature of 64 F, it was windy and cedar pollen count was in the high category.  This happens every winter in Central Texas as the juniper berries release a viscous, visible and very nasty allergenic yellow plume that coats everything and sends some of us into fits of paroxysm.  Another reason to not move to Austin!  Combined with other ailments, it is a “double plus ungood situation.”  British author George Orwell wrote that in his disturbingly prescient book 1984.  About 2018 government shutdowns, bi-partisan extension of US government spying on its own citizens, El Grande Pared de Mexico (great wall of Mexico), he would be saying “I told you so.”

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