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Thursday, August 29, 2013

A 1958 Plymouth Fury by any other name.

ChristineChristine by Stephen King
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Remove all evidence of mysteria, (yep, I just made that word up, it means 'mysterious hysteria'), from a typical Stephen King novel and you're left with simple avarice, greed, obsession and average citizens caught up in extemporaneous circumstances - more often than not by their own failings.  King's sense of humor comes through in his characters, but also a certain disregard for most people and their interests.
The mysteria in question, Christine's demonic possession, is caused by Ronald's murderous spirit, formed by his own dented and scarred childhood.  Unable to repair himself, his life as a mechanic revolved around an oily thumb and a gift for keeping old cars and trucks "motorvating".  Pretty standard fare for a King novel, and I saw a very concise review stating any King novel can be summed up as an inanimate object, (car, toy, hotel), a lingering evil possessing a morally susceptible person, (Jack Torrance, Arnie Cunningham) and then everything gets put through the meat tenderizer until one or two characters are left standing.
So, remove all of the mysteria, forget about the demons, the possession, the impossible and impractical, and the reader is left with a handful of murders, a drug dealer, Arnie somehow caught up in all of it and Dennis, wanting to save his childhood friend.  There is no mystery more significant than watching somebody you have known all of your life make wrong decision after wrong decision and gradually implode.  Stephen King would like to fantasize about it, as a lot of people with escapist fetishes would, but reality is more terrifying than this book.


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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Thursday Westerly Ride




That's 48.48 miles for mankind, and two steps back for the Einstellung Effect.

Wait: The Art and Science of DelayWait: The Art and Science of Delay by Frank Partnoy
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I appreciated the wide set of examples used to construct a solid thesis.


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Friday, August 2, 2013

Nice Ride 170

Fort Snelling State Park.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Nice Ride!  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney.

Nice Ride 170 riders.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney

Nice Ride 170 riders.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Paul Jan.


Glenwood Avenue, MPLS.  7-28-2013.  Photo by Michael McKinney
So here's the thing - a Nice Ride bike is closer to eighty pounds than fifty.  It's a beast of efficiency and small wheels, with three gears and a basket and lights for safety.  If you need a bike to get somewhere, and you've got no access to one yourself, and yet crave the freedom of riding a bicycle, the Nice Ride will get you there.

There have been failed attempts at bike share programs, the only one I can recall off the top of my head is the Yellow Bicycle Coalition, started back in the 1980s I believe - St. Paul Minnesota had their own fleet of Yellow Bikes, stationed at what was the old Sibley Bike Depot in downtown.  That initiative failed, I was told, due to simple theft.

A Nice Ride bike is not something a typical person would enjoy stealing.  Though I wouldn't have expected Big Wheel racing to be a thing either, so it goes to show you never can tell.  Last year a mutual acquaintance invited myself and whomever felt brazen enough to ride with him on the Nice Ride 145, an excursion throughout St. Paul and Minneapolis, stopping at all 145 Nice Ride stations.
The heat was the biggest factor that day, with a couple of technical glitches, (professionally and quickly dealt with by the Nice Ride Technical support team), and a few riders dropped out due to the heat.

After receiving an invite and the smallest bit of encouragement, I joined in again this year and enjoyed the same mind numbing, back breaking, thigh crushing, eye opening zeitgeist that must be the threshold of the incredibly brave or the incredibly foolish.  Five participants completed the whole route, consisting of 100 miles, 170 Nice Ride kiosks, many bridges, many patient and courteous drivers, (though a couple of nasty ones were in there too) and a stop at Northbound Organics, (YUM) and Psycho Suzies, (BEER ME).

To my understanding the Nice Ride phenomenon is not slowing down, not giving in to the occasional technical difficulty or allowing the even more rare theft to prevent the idea of the Yellow Bike Coalition from being silenced.  The radical concept of saving the environment through conserving what fossil fuels remain may start with a simple demand for more efficient urban commuting - think global and act local.  Get out and (Nice) Ride.

Editor's Note - if not for the other riders and the sequential manifest, I would not have completed this by myself.  I would suggest connecting a few kiosks at a time, as a start.  8-24-2013