bike to work from home
Thu May 20 23:52:38 EDT 2021
Tomorrow is Bike-to-Work Day. B2WD was cancelled last year. Everything was shut down; few people were going to work.
This year, to allow social distancing, they have everyone signed up for time slots at the "pit stops". There's no "convoys" this year; they would promote gathering.
Biking to work, I would normally go to 4 pit stops, and pick up lots of swag, and a few T-shirts. This year I'm going only to the Rosslyn pit stop. It's always been one of the largest stops, and usually has good stuff to give away. (I got a nice backpack one year.)
They've been adding more evening pit stops. I've never gotten to those with my late work schedule, but my schedule is more normal now (08:00-16:00). I signed up for a 2nd pit stop, closer to home, and I'll pop down there after work.
Wednesday was the Ride of Silence day. DC didn't have one last year, and I didn't see us listed on the web site this year either. My home town scheduled 2 rides (30 min apart) to make the groups smaller.
Friday 08:15
Bike-to-Work Day was ... really scaled back. Their scheduling idea (for social distancing) worked; there were very few people there. Just 2 people to check lists and hand out stuff. And there wasn't much to hand out. This year's T-shirt is purple; anniemal says it's pink. (We've disagreed about colors before.) There was a spoke light (which may not fit my wheels), the county bike map, and another handout. And that was it.
People came and went; there wasn't much reason to hang around. I chatted a bit with a woman who was curious about the recumbent. She's having neck problems, and her husband suggested them as something she might try.
Covid restrictions have relaxed a lot in the last few weeks, and when this event was planned things were a lot stricter.
Traffic was surprisingly light around 07:00. I guess a lot of people are still working from home.
(The Agency has dropped the mask requirement for fully-vaccinated people working on site. Very few people are in the office.)
Back at home, we have cicadas. But they're still quiet, so far. Not a horde, yet.
Yesterday the temperature reached 93°F/33.9°C, and they have responded.
Some of them are climbing up things that are not trees. Good thing they can fly, because crawling back down to find something else doesn't seem to be in their toolset.
What happens to the cicadas that picked trees that didn't make it? Most trees live for decades, so that probably doesn't factor much in their evolutionary decisions. But we had a large oak tree removed several years ago. It's now a rotting stump that is less and less recognizable. That tree was probably supporting a lot of baby cicadas. Are they able to move far underground, and find another tree's roots if they are lucky?
Friday 11:42
I don't know whether it's coincidence, or an actual correction triggered by a customer complaint, but I just got a delivery of 3 jars of peanut butter in a tied-shut bag inside another tied-shut bag. The previous order of 6 jars was 1 jar short, delivered in bags open enough for jars to slip out; I suspect the 6th jar spent the afternoon rolling around on the floor of the delivery truck.
Friday 15:00
That spoke light turns out to be very interesting. I misunderstood how it attaches, and I think it will be fine on my wheels. It can be opened up, so the cell (CR2032) can be replaced. It has a multi-color LED. It does a fast white blink, slow white blink, or sequenced color fades and blinking colors. Good for being more noticed in the dark.
This looks like it. It can't cost anywhere near $6 if they're just giving them out to everyone. Today's also have the BikeArlington logo printed on them.
It would be really cool to make a mobile out of these, and have the color-changing lights floating around each other in the dark.
Friday 18:15
B2WD part 2 -
WABA introduced afternoon/evening pit stops a few years ago, and their numbers have grown. This year they added one at the Lyon Village shopping center, an old-style neighborhood shopping center that's on my commute route if I'm not taking Chain Bridge. The W&OD Trail Custis Trail, a major cycling artery, runs behind this shopping center, so it's a good spot for a pit stop. (The Custis Trail forks off the W&OD and goes towards several Potomac bridges into DC.) It's been a lovely afternoon, and there was a lot of bike traffic.
This new pit stop was nothing impressive, but it had more to offer than Rosslyn (normally a premier site) this morning. They only thing they had in common was the T-shirts. No spoke lights. ☹ But some other random shirts (unfamiliar (to me) local firms?), water bottles, snack packs of Ritz and Oreos, water, Capri Sun (iced; it was almost summerish), and coupons for places I'm not likely to go. People were more lax about masks; everybody had them this morning, and I didn't bother putting mine on either this afternoon.
Traffic was light again. I'm not normally out a rush hour, but when I've been crawling up Lee Highway (US 29) I've been a major inconvenience; today people had no trouble passing me in the other lane.
So it wasn't a good year for B2WD swag. It was the 'Rona. They didn't have sponsors engaged (sponsors were probably hurting financially - except bike shops, which have been sold out and crazy busy). But 2 vivid purple T-shirts and a Bike Arlington water bottle is fine.
Saturday 17:18
I haven't gotten around to trying to fix my broken noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones, but I really liked them. I'm going to try another pair from woot! (again). Somehow, not having that wire makes a really big difference.
This is an uncommon feature for headphones:... and it comes with 5 pairs of ear tips of different sizes to suit most ear shapes.
Do they have anyone reviewing their marketing?
BTW... You could save $6 on shipping on future Woot! orders by becoming an Amazon Prime member.
Prime costs, um, $100/year? Spend $100 to save $6? That's not a savings. After I made 17 orders/year I'd come out ahead. Most of my Amazon orders get free shipping. And I don't want any enticements to buy things.Estimated delivery date: Wednesday, June 9, 2021
2½ weeks? When I'm paying for shipping? (They're not saying Prime is faster, just free.)
Sunday 14:06
Annie's annoyed that the neighbor's trees have more cicadas than ours. I guess she doesn't remember how much noise they made when we had that big oak tree full of bugs droning for mates. I can't hear them in the basement (yet), but the sound's in the house upstairs.
Sunday 20:00
Our lawn got its 3rd mowing this afternoon.
I spent the rest of the afternoon clearing fallen leaves from a section of the deck. I didn't realize how much of Brian's stuff was on the deck. Everything has to be moved to get to the leaves. And the things don't have places they belong. A lot of what's on the deck should not have been left outside, and some of it has been outside for years.
Monday 22:40
I wonder how much more I would pay for potatoes I didn't need to wash? That I could just take out of the bag and nuke?
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1229977.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]
Tomorrow is Bike-to-Work Day. B2WD was cancelled last year. Everything was shut down; few people were going to work.
This year, to allow social distancing, they have everyone signed up for time slots at the "pit stops". There's no "convoys" this year; they would promote gathering.
Biking to work, I would normally go to 4 pit stops, and pick up lots of swag, and a few T-shirts. This year I'm going only to the Rosslyn pit stop. It's always been one of the largest stops, and usually has good stuff to give away. (I got a nice backpack one year.)
They've been adding more evening pit stops. I've never gotten to those with my late work schedule, but my schedule is more normal now (08:00-16:00). I signed up for a 2nd pit stop, closer to home, and I'll pop down there after work.
Wednesday was the Ride of Silence day. DC didn't have one last year, and I didn't see us listed on the web site this year either. My home town scheduled 2 rides (30 min apart) to make the groups smaller.
Friday 08:15
Bike-to-Work Day was ... really scaled back. Their scheduling idea (for social distancing) worked; there were very few people there. Just 2 people to check lists and hand out stuff. And there wasn't much to hand out. This year's T-shirt is purple; anniemal says it's pink. (We've disagreed about colors before.) There was a spoke light (which may not fit my wheels), the county bike map, and another handout. And that was it.
People came and went; there wasn't much reason to hang around. I chatted a bit with a woman who was curious about the recumbent. She's having neck problems, and her husband suggested them as something she might try.
Covid restrictions have relaxed a lot in the last few weeks, and when this event was planned things were a lot stricter.
Traffic was surprisingly light around 07:00. I guess a lot of people are still working from home.
(The Agency has dropped the mask requirement for fully-vaccinated people working on site. Very few people are in the office.)
Back at home, we have cicadas. But they're still quiet, so far. Not a horde, yet.
Yesterday the temperature reached 93°F/33.9°C, and they have responded.
Some of them are climbing up things that are not trees. Good thing they can fly, because crawling back down to find something else doesn't seem to be in their toolset.
What happens to the cicadas that picked trees that didn't make it? Most trees live for decades, so that probably doesn't factor much in their evolutionary decisions. But we had a large oak tree removed several years ago. It's now a rotting stump that is less and less recognizable. That tree was probably supporting a lot of baby cicadas. Are they able to move far underground, and find another tree's roots if they are lucky?
Friday 11:42
I don't know whether it's coincidence, or an actual correction triggered by a customer complaint, but I just got a delivery of 3 jars of peanut butter in a tied-shut bag inside another tied-shut bag. The previous order of 6 jars was 1 jar short, delivered in bags open enough for jars to slip out; I suspect the 6th jar spent the afternoon rolling around on the floor of the delivery truck.
Friday 15:00
That spoke light turns out to be very interesting. I misunderstood how it attaches, and I think it will be fine on my wheels. It can be opened up, so the cell (CR2032) can be replaced. It has a multi-color LED. It does a fast white blink, slow white blink, or sequenced color fades and blinking colors. Good for being more noticed in the dark.
This looks like it. It can't cost anywhere near $6 if they're just giving them out to everyone. Today's also have the BikeArlington logo printed on them.
It would be really cool to make a mobile out of these, and have the color-changing lights floating around each other in the dark.
Friday 18:15
B2WD part 2 -
WABA introduced afternoon/evening pit stops a few years ago, and their numbers have grown. This year they added one at the Lyon Village shopping center, an old-style neighborhood shopping center that's on my commute route if I'm not taking Chain Bridge. The W&OD Trail Custis Trail, a major cycling artery, runs behind this shopping center, so it's a good spot for a pit stop. (The Custis Trail forks off the W&OD and goes towards several Potomac bridges into DC.) It's been a lovely afternoon, and there was a lot of bike traffic.
This new pit stop was nothing impressive, but it had more to offer than Rosslyn (normally a premier site) this morning. They only thing they had in common was the T-shirts. No spoke lights. ☹ But some other random shirts (unfamiliar (to me) local firms?), water bottles, snack packs of Ritz and Oreos, water, Capri Sun (iced; it was almost summerish), and coupons for places I'm not likely to go. People were more lax about masks; everybody had them this morning, and I didn't bother putting mine on either this afternoon.
Traffic was light again. I'm not normally out a rush hour, but when I've been crawling up Lee Highway (US 29) I've been a major inconvenience; today people had no trouble passing me in the other lane.
So it wasn't a good year for B2WD swag. It was the 'Rona. They didn't have sponsors engaged (sponsors were probably hurting financially - except bike shops, which have been sold out and crazy busy). But 2 vivid purple T-shirts and a Bike Arlington water bottle is fine.
Saturday 17:18
I haven't gotten around to trying to fix my broken noise-cancelling Bluetooth headphones, but I really liked them. I'm going to try another pair from woot! (again). Somehow, not having that wire makes a really big difference.
This is an uncommon feature for headphones:... and it comes with 5 pairs of ear tips of different sizes to suit most ear shapes.
Do they have anyone reviewing their marketing?
BTW... You could save $6 on shipping on future Woot! orders by becoming an Amazon Prime member.
Prime costs, um, $100/year? Spend $100 to save $6? That's not a savings. After I made 17 orders/year I'd come out ahead. Most of my Amazon orders get free shipping. And I don't want any enticements to buy things.Estimated delivery date: Wednesday, June 9, 2021
2½ weeks? When I'm paying for shipping? (They're not saying Prime is faster, just free.)
Sunday 14:06
Annie's annoyed that the neighbor's trees have more cicadas than ours. I guess she doesn't remember how much noise they made when we had that big oak tree full of bugs droning for mates. I can't hear them in the basement (yet), but the sound's in the house upstairs.
Sunday 20:00
Our lawn got its 3rd mowing this afternoon.
I spent the rest of the afternoon clearing fallen leaves from a section of the deck. I didn't realize how much of Brian's stuff was on the deck. Everything has to be moved to get to the leaves. And the things don't have places they belong. A lot of what's on the deck should not have been left outside, and some of it has been outside for years.
Monday 22:40
I wonder how much more I would pay for potatoes I didn't need to wash? That I could just take out of the bag and nuke?
[This entry was originally posted as https://syntonic-comma.dreamwidth.org/1229977.html on Dreamwidth (where there are
comments).]