.It’s time for a chill pill.
This bike advocacy work has me worn down. In spite of tremendous efforts from several people, we’ve suffered significant setbacks in several cities in the South Bay over the past couple of weeks.
I especially love the comments in various social media from people who heretofor had zero involvement that I need to work harder! talk to more people! organize protests! you’re doing it wrong! They’re well-meaning, I think, but I am physically exhausted.
Constant stridency does that to you, so let’s watch this old bicycle cat video instead. Psychologists say these have a calming effect. Meow!
I have a cat (Torrey Pines) who is a lot like that cat. Even riding around on my shoulders. However, though I thought it would be cool to take her on the bike with me I never dared do it.
BTW, he must be wearing kevlar.
I’m very impressed by all the work you do. Nobody wins every time (unfortunately!) but in the long term you will prevail.
There are two people on this planet I’m jealous of. There’s the Japanese guy who remodeled his apartment into a 3D cat maze. And there’s this guy.
I love cats.
Richard, I appreciate your blog. I think you’re doing a great job keeping everybody informed.
I look at various advocacy groups and it sure seems like there is an excess of policy wonks. It seems like there’s hardly anybody interested in making small, relatively easy to achieve incremental changes that has immediate effect. It’s just not “glam.”
Most of the time the grunt work is all about reverting or preventing planning mistakes made by officials (Well, more appropriately civil engineers contracted by developers). Lobbying city councilors, county supervisors, department of transportation, and the like.
“Rome wasn’t built in a day” and “If the mountain won’t come to Mohammed, Mohammed must go to the mountain” come to mind.
I put in my time in the trenches before burning out ( I was one of the first Effective Cycling instructors, back in the days when you had to pull the coursework together on your own ) and really appreciate the people who stay down there fighting the good fight.
On the original subject, I was coming home on the Guadelope River trail one night and passed a guy who had a cat like that up at the 237 underpass. A real WTF! moment…
First we get cats on hang gliders. Now we get cats on bikes. Do scuba diving cats come next?