NicolasNelson's Xanga

Rights and Responsibilities of Riders

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 21:07:27 GMT

Much has been made over the past year about angry confrontations between motorists and bicyclists, as some folks try to cast it as a war for street rights. That's making a mountain out of a molehill... but most mountain-caliber political issues began as festering molehills, so it's worth taking a look at the issue.

This article by Bob Mionske, at Bicycling.com, is the best overview I have seen in years and a terrific primer on the issue.

If you drive, or ride, you ought to read this article and become familiar with the various issues at stake. Please weigh in on the side of sanity and courtesy, when you drive, when you ride, and when you write. Most of us do the first; I hope more of us will do the second; and many of us must also do the third if we want to keep this issue a mere molehill.

...or, if this grows mountainous, that the mountain eventually defends the right of cyclists to the road, even as it educates everyone as to what those rights... and responsibilities... are.

Got balance?

Wed, 26 Aug 2009 04:32:51 GMT

Can you ride a bike? How about a unicycle (all you Mudders out there)? Ever tried doing a trackstand-- balancing on a bicycle while at a standstill? Granted, that's a lot easier to do when you have a "fixie", a bicycle with a fixed rear axle that lets you pedal both forwards and backwards, but means you have no gears and no freewheel (no ability to coast while holding the pedals still).

Once you have mastered a trackstand, try it on a trampoline.

While jumping.

These guys have waaay too much practice:

I am in awe. Awe.

Kudos to Car Free Days and Bike Commuters for posting this video, and to the performers for giving me another reason for deepest humility as I behold, and enjoy, their mastery.

Friday, August 14, 2009

Fri, 14 Aug 2009 17:25:04 GMT

Dean Sharp is back to blogging! Perhaps his example will help me get back into the habit myself. It is well worth reading his take on why he will never be homeless.

It is great to hear Dean say so eloquently what I have been trying to say in clumsy fits and starts for 15 years. Many years ago I grew my beard out to biblical proportions (actually aiming for a ZZTop look) and spend significant time with a variety of homeless folks, trying to rescue them from addiction and, well, homelessness. It was soon obvious to me that a dearth of relationships-- and an inability to form or maintain close relationships, for varied reasons-- is the root of every chronically homeless person's plight.

Since then I have contrasted this with the obvious un-homelessness of several people who, by fate or by design, were without a place to stay for significant lengths of time.

One fellow suffered from cerebral palsy and hydrocephaly, but he had so many friends that he managed to "couch-surf" for more than a year before a UCP apartment opened up for him. And this despite his hosts (including us) having to help him dress and undress and even help him in the shower. Because he had friendships strong enough to share those burdens gladly, and many enough to spread the burden between us all so none of us got "burned out" caring for him.

In contrast, another fellow "went homeless" for one calendar year in order to better understand and empathize with those living that lifestyle. He found it very difficult to do so in an authentic way because his friends kept checking on him and helping him out! At last he had to cut himself off for several months and intentionally "go missing" in order to feel "homeless" in any real way, despite living under an overpass for weeks and eating out of dumpsters. This from a person TRYING to "be homeless"-- he knew, and his genuinely homeless acquaintances knew, that it wasn't real until those close healthy relationships were severed (at least temporarily and artificially).

Makes me wonder how many well-housed, well-insured, well-fed, fully-employed people feel "homeless" in the deepest sense: living without really belonging, without a band-of-brothers or any tribe to claim them as its own...

Fully functional home at last!

Wed, 28 May 2008 00:19:08 GMT

Yes, you heard it here first: the Nelson home has hot water, as of 11:40am today!

It took a Dream Team of professionals to connect the dots and shoot the troubles, but in just a couple of hours, we went from "you're kidding me" disaster discovery, to "you're good to go" final recovery.

The Team (never before assembled in one boiler closet until today):
Danny Castro, the ElectroMan-- electrician who wired the house and the boiler himself
Seth Spangle, the RadiantMan-- contractor who assembled and installed the whole radiant-floor and domestic hot water system (but left the wiring to Danny)
Mac, intrepid engineer with Howard Industries and manufacturer's rep for the boiler itself.

Wish I had been there to take photos and hand out chocolates, but I left for an appointment with an author soon after Mac had arrived this morning. More on that later.

The important thing is that now, after five weeks and three days of living in our new home sans hot water (and sans gas for much of the time, too), we really feel like the house is DONE. Now we can do laundry here. We can use the dishwasher. We can put away the crock pots that have provided hot water in every bathroom. We can take showers!

I cannot tell you what a relief this is. A huge weight off our shoulders. Just three days before my mom comes to stay with us for the weekend, too! Yaay.

(Next big challenge: unpacking and organizing all our books! woohoo...

Furniture-moving day!

Fri, 11 Apr 2008 06:34:22 GMT

March 29-31, Kathryn's dad & aunt helped us empty out the storage space that held our books and wall art (photos, paintings, posters), Christmas decor and all the kids' stuff that didn't fit into our small apartment. It felt great to close out that storage space and not have to pay rent for it the first of April.

Now, with the help of Reggie and Sheldon of Starving Students Moving Co., we have emptied out the storage space that held all the furniture we salvaged from 29th Street (plus chairs from my parents). Those guys were great-- friendly, efficient, and very strong:

"Um, do you want me to remove the drawers from that file cabinet for you?"
"Nah, I'm good." Sheldon hoists it into a hug and starts marching.
"Those drawers are stuffed full."
"Yeah, I can tell!" Sheldon trots up the stairs as if the cabinet is empty.

(...You go try to pick up a full file cabinet. Or a decent-sized empty one, for that matter...)

Because of them, today's impressive moving-in progress was actually fun. We even invited them to dinner but they had to get the truck back to the lot, etc. Maybe we'll see them at the housewarming in May.

I sure hope so, because in all the excitement and busyness, I completely forgot to take photos! By the time I remembered, it was just me and Kathryn and the ubiquitous Dorothy Steventon. She took this photo of us, all sweaty and grubby, with a happy huddle of furniture behind us:
[insert photo soon!]

Next major steps: getting our gas meter installed and gas service turned on, and the Big Moving Day coming up, April 19th.

Not to mention completing a slew of draft posts that cover the past several months of the life of this nascent urban home...

Freed from its steely shackles

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:40:55 GMT

Ah, the house can breathe again! Getting rid of the scaffolding feels like getting a cast removed. The house did not necessarily feel shackled or trapped to me, although the scaffolding certainly restricted movement around the outside... but now that it's gone, what once felt "normal" now feels like wide open space. The sky is visible from anywhere you stand outside! If you take that for granted, wrap your home or work in scaffolding for 10 months.

With the scaffolding, our view of the stucco and roofing was mostly myopic, getting a close-up view of every inch of it, but only being able to see what's right near you, both due to the scaffolding everywhere.

Without the scaffolding, the big picture is suddenly in better focus, but I find myself squinting up at window recesses, wondering "does that need another touch-up or is it just a shadow?" To find out I'll need a really tall ladder. Or go upstairs and lean out a window.

Other news: the mini-split for the garage apartment is all hooked up and ready to go, except for the power cable, which Danny might take care of this afternoon.

A Worthy Holiday Tradition

Tue, 06 Nov 2007 18:30:32 GMT

Some background: besides Easter, my favorite holiday has to be Thanksgiving. I once saw an info package for college students who were preparing to leave India for a course of study in America, which described Thanksgiving as a "high holy day celebrated by a feast with close family members." At first I laughed because so few Americans consider Thanksgiving a "holy" day or at least do not celebrate it with anything like a traditional American understanding of "holiness" in mind. But think about it: Americans do go to great lengths, make surprising sacrifices, to be with their families on Thanksgiving day. It is the sort of commitment that normally applies only to very important religious events in cultures like Hindu/Buddhist India or many others around the world. And the "feast" bit is spot on.

If we Americans were to add God to our Thanksgiving, and really made it a "holy" day, what might that look like? A prayer before the feast? A round of toasts after the feast?

How about helping the less fortunate to feast as well?

My fellow Xtracyclist "Tone" has been combining his love of biking, his career as a bike messenger, and his concern for the less fortunate for eight years now, and makes me long to join him in his happy madness.

Here is his description of it:
Many People probably do not know what Cranksgiving is, so I will describe it briefly. Cranksgiving is an open-course bicycle race where riders go to different supermarkets and get one item of food at each store, then after visiting about four or five stores they go to the finish and all the food is donated to a soup kitchen or food bank.

I started Cranksgiving over eight years ago among the messenger community in New York City, but now that I moved to York, PA I am going to be running it for the ninth year in a row with non-messengers. Fortunately, a friend of mine back in NYC has stepped up to take over Cranksgiving there to keep the tradition going. Also, a messenger couple I am friends with in LA will be organizing their own version for the seventh year in a row. Cranksgiving has also been set up by various people I have known in Chicago, Illinois and Madison, Wisconsin!

I will spare you further details, but If you care to learn more, you can check out a web site I set up to present the first eight years of Cranksgiving as they were organized by me in New York City:
http://www.moon-shine.net/cranksgiving/
Also, if you want to check out the flyer I designed for this year's Cranksgiving in York, PA, I posted it as an Adobe Acrobat PDF file here:
http://www.moon-shine.net/cranksgiving/Cranksgiving-YorkFlyer.pdf
.And if anyone in NYC wants to ride in the Cranksgiving race "under new management" there, then here is the NYC flyer:
http://www.nybma.com/images_flyers/cranksgiving2007flyer.jpg

I'm going to search the web for something about Cranksgiving in LA, and hope that he meant Los Angeles, not Louisiana.

Here's to creative celebration of holidays! "Skol!"

Oh what a difference a coat of Varathane makes!

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 18:13:24 GMT

Yes, the floor finishing is in process. The first two coats are done and cured, the third coat is pending. I slipped in to take some photos of the results, sliding around in my socks on the slick, faintly fragrant floor... which bears only a passing resemblance to the dusty-soft grout-flecked floor of three days ago!

See for yourself: here is the dining room floor being laid...

and here it is FINISHED!

Here is the living room floor, sanded but unfinished...

Here is the living room floor, finished!

You're looking at Cinnamon Mix flooring, by the way.

Most of the rest of the house is Hevea flooring (orchard salvaged trees from rubber plantations). Here it is, all sanded and prepped...

Here it is, finished!

We are using Varathane water-based low-VOC "DiamondCoat" floor finish. It beat out Minwax on a test piece of Hevea, imparting virtually none of its own color and drying to a clear smooth finish. Good stuff.

STUCCO HAS BEGUN.

Sat, 08 Sep 2007 04:44:50 GMT

Okay, this blog has always meant to be "slow" (two or three posts per month, max) but I've been so busy IRL that the blogging glacier has frozen to a complete stop.

But something has happened that calved a fresh posting off this glacial blog: THE STUCCO HAS BEGUN.

It has already felt like the final stretch this past several weeks, with hardwood floors mostly done, cabinetry and tile in process, painting/patching/catch-up stuff really happening. But with the loooong delays on exterior stuff, from roofing to insulation cladding to lathing the whole beast, it felt like half the project still languished in the "rough trades" phase. Not any more! Now we really HAVE turned the corner toward completion.

Feast thine eyes on wondrous things:

First the doors and windows and front porch trellis and fascia boards are taped off with plastic to protect them from the stucco...

The stucco crew uses a hose to blow the stucco onto the lath, and it gets everywhere.

And it fills the lath nicely too.

Here is the stucco pump (noisy!), and its hose (twitchy!).

The stucco guys use plastic sheeting to protect the neighbors too. That pressure hose really does shoot flecks of stucco everywhere.

This first layer of concrete is called the "scratch coat". It fills the mesh and any voids, and is left intentionally rough so the next layer of concrete stucco will adhere to it. For that reason, when there's a lot of it, it gets troweled like this, with long deep "scratches" in it.
Stick around, you'll learn something here.

Here is the noble crew that is doing our stucco. They would have finished the entire scratch coat on both structures in a single day except that their boss noticed that certain bullnosed corners weren't turning out perfectly straight. More on that later...

As for the inside progress you've missed till now (which I hope to fill in later: I have a lot of half-finished draft posts in June, July and August that you can't see yet), we now have:

Hardwood floors! Here is one Terramai floor, in the master bedroom.

Tile floors! This is the guest bathroom, the only bathroom that's fully tiled so far (more on that later!)

Linoleum floors! This is the real stuff: jute fiber backing, made of natural linseed oil and fine-ground cork bark, all natural colorants. Thick! Sustainably harvested, no offgassing.

Cabinetry! This is the guest bathroom countertop (the only one that's finished so far). But a lot of the other cabinetry is done, including the other bathroom vanities and the kitchen cabinets:

As for me, I'm in the final throes of finishing my last intensive block of classes in my master's program, so you won't be getting another blog post for a while. Not unless something earthshattering calves off a post from this glacier-paced blog...

Painting has begun!

Thu, 19 Jul 2007 07:51:23 GMT

...sadly, there are a couple of drywall/framing details not quite finished! Here, Kevin Piero opens the laundry room wall to install a row of glass block, as the paint appears to creep along the ceiling toward him.

This is our Plan B to let natural light into the laundry room, since for various reasons we can't have the Solatube we'd wanted.

Other examples of drywall/framing details still to finish:
• the hearth and flue enclosure, and pocket door, for the master bedroom--

• the Loftroom flue enclosure--

• the Library door hasn't arrived, so it's not even installed yet--

As soon as it gets here, though, it will be hung, the pocket framed and drywalled and taped and mudded, and it will get painted along with the rest of the house.

And what a difference paint makes!

Just as getting the drywall hung was like putting skin on the exposed bones and tendons of the house (making a HUGE difference: make this a link to that post), now it is as if we are seeing the house go from "lounging around in its underwear" (being smoothly mudded but still obviously under construction) to "dressing up for company". Suddenly the house doesn't just look "better", it looks "NICE!"
[photo A & B]

...at least WE think so...
[photo B & C]

...we think the wall color is quite fetching. Of course, we picked it. And this is just the primer coat.
[photo D & E]

The best is yet to come: the hardwood floors are spreading fast thanks to Seth's "flooring ninjas", and the cabinets have definitely arrived.