Grand!

I went down to the condo this morning to let in the concrete contractors, who will be transforming my dull concrete floor into a polished and colorful masterpiece over the course of this week. I then snatched a ride on MAX back to work and endured its exhausting dance through the downtown loop.

With the improvements of the transit system in KC and the advent of the Metro Area Express, many of the popular bus routes now have GPS-enabled computerized voice announcements of upcoming stops. Granted, it usually says the name of the stop as you pass through the intersection, but it is an improvement.

What I find most interesting about this system is that the computerized woman seems to have very thinly veiled opinions about some of our major urban corridors.

Broadway? She isn't so hot on that, droning out "Broad-way" in a laborious, two step statement with a deadpan inflection. She is still working on mastering saying the word in one smooth statement.

Main? She is firm. "MAIN and 39th." I always have the feeling she is a bit uninspired about the street and is just waiting for it to go away so she can say the fun things like "Union Station" or "Plaza."

The one she is excited about, counterintuitvely, is Grand. I suspect the programmers told the voice that "grand" is a word people use in positive contexts, so if ending a statement with it, it should have a dramatic ride in inflection. She complies. She chirps out the word "Grand" in a high pitched, excited chirp, as if she is encouraging you to pull that yellow cord right away and check out this street. It is simply GRAND!

I wish she were more right about that.

Reciprocal Inspiration

I occassionally venture through a few other local blogs of interest to catch up on the perspectives of others I've "gotten to know" through the internet. I'm particularly drawn to people who try to do what I do -- live completely or mostly without driving in the city.

One such blog is that of KC Skyscrapers occassional poster carfreekc. Heidi maintains Me, Myself and Infrastructure (clever, eh), and in catching up on her blog, I discovered this post.

Who would have thought someone was reading this thing, and even more that someone took something out of it? It inspires me to keep posting, especially after a job change killed my posting for awhile. It further inspires me to get out in the city so I can soak up those experiences that give me the stories to tell.

So, come back and look for those stories. I'll be working hard going out and looking for them.

Meanwhile, if anyone needs any pointers, routes or assistance with riding in the city, drop me a note.

Staubio Wins the Drag!

In what was hopefully just another run-of-the-mill dress up in drag and race your bike in the East Crossroads kinda night, I raced my beautiful new fixie to victory in the KC Drag Races.

Good times.

It is a drag race, you see, so you are to wear drag. I didn't have time, so I had to compete in more races. Basically, there is a "normally dressed" division that then goes on to race those in drag. I'm sorry I missed out on the dress up, though some of my friends are indeed quite sexy in dresses.

The brackets were split by single speed and geared bicycles. I won the single speed division after two incredibly close races and then went on to race the geared winner, who I beat for the grand championship.

My new bike now sports my winnings: a bright yellow feather boa. Sweet, huh?

You can find some of Vlad's pictures here

***
In other racing news, it all comes down to October 30th, the final race of the series in Manhattan, KS. A top 3 finish ahead of the points leader would get it done. Anything less... well, won't.

Perhaps I'll show up in drag for that one.

Commuter Challenge

I just found this results page after a friend asked me what you get when you google my name. Well, that was one of the things.

Aren't we cool? I rode 88 miles that last day trying to beat those Bulldog guys and a few of our members were riding 8 miles daily, so it was bringing down their average. I say good for us, though, because the point of the competition is to raise more awareness for alternative transportation. Biking to work was normal for me, but it wasn't for most of the people on our team. We had a lot of people and we got more people riding to work than probably any other team. In the future, teams should be incented to include anyone and everyone, whether their commute is a mile of 50.

That said, it would have been cool to win, but we made a good showing.

I hope some of those people are still riding their bikes to work. What a great bunch of competitors that team was.

Back in 10 Minutes...

I was walking through the glorified mall that is Crown Center today when I noticed a small sign on the door of a shop.

"Back in 10 minutes"

What does that mean? 10 minutes from when? 10 minutes from now?

Some poor soul is going to spend his entire life waiting just ten more minutes, because, really, that sign doesn't allow you to progress against your wait.

Perpetually just 10 minutes away. Oh, the wisdom of the stupid sign.