5/4/08
Phone's fixed, I think I'm going to ride up and through Garden of the Gods on Sunday rather than Saturday. I'm managing my anxiety.

After I locked up my bike, shared my personal triumph in the early morning hours and logged into my computer in anticipation of Friday's toil I went outside to sit. Parked my fat ass next to the front door and faced the rising sun.

When the sun finally broke the horizon and its light touched my face I felt myself high over the plane of the solar system. Earth was covered with green and full of life and I understood the tenacity of life and how this property was embraced by life throughout the universe. Life is everywhere.

For a moment I believe I understood the religious zealotry which accompanies SETI. I felt some disappointment for being caught up in it. My belief in extraterrestrial life is simple because there are so many stars and so many planets there must be life somewhere in the universe. Perhaps some of that life might be sentient.

On Friday night I puzzled out why my ride back home took substantially longer than my morning commute. Automobile traffic. I had to stop and wait for the red lights because crossing Chelton, Union and Circle. Did I mention I ended up walking my bike for two blocks?

One thing that I noticed were the signs spelling out how to interpret the pedestrian lights. Walking man means you can cross the street, flashing red hand means finish what you started but don't cross if you haven't started and finally the red hand means do not cross.

Lots of the crosswalks I encountered didn't even go to the green walking man. These just started out as a flashing red hand which means drivers most likely won't get into any trouble if they happen to smear someone because the law is on their side. Plus the police really don't give two shits about citizens since the police consider citizens to be units which will fulfill their quotas in addition to generating revenue for the local government rather than actually enforcing the law and being just.