You Take Your Car to Work and I'll Take my Bike

The new quarter is upon me, I've once again been immersed in the scholarly duties of being a student. Yet today finds me listless and unable to sit still for more then a few minutes at a time, which when you're in class from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM can be a problem. I think part of it might be the fact that yesterday found me riding my bike more then I have in the last four months.

I took my fixed gear to work after class which is about a 4 mile ride, then back to campus from work for an EARN meeting (again another 4 mile ride), then downtown for a study group (which had I read the book more I would have been more useful to the others. Oh yeah that's about 6 miles, for a grand total of 14 miles which is about what I used to ride in Shit Lick every day.). Sadly my ride back to campus was not to happen as the rear tire (yet again, fuck that pisses me off) was flat. After 8:00 PM the buses only run every hour so I had about half of that to kill before I could get back to my house. It was raining as well...

Taking the bus ended up being good because once we got close to campus it started snowing. I laughed a little then cried when I remembered that I had done so because my fucking tire was flat... AGAIN.

So now I'm in the midst of writing a paper about Overthrow: America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq, and I'm having trouble writing it. I've got a little over half of it done but really I'm fighting tooth and nail to get it down and done.

Going back to class earlier today, we did a workshop review of the fall quarter at the end of which we were to make an artistic representation of what Colonialism means to us. I drew a picture of the Earth on fire. My new faculty asked me about it and I explained that I see Colonialism, Imperialism and Globalization not as problems unto themselves but as examples of a larger problem. When she asked me what I simply told her civilization is the problem. As I've not fully explored this idea I fumbled with it a little but was able to get her to understand my idea for which she told me she wanted me to do that as my final project. I'm excited about it and need to start working on it.

Oh yeah, because of all the riding, which included a very large hill in the rain on a bike with no brake, my ass hurts. Looks like it's time to hit the gym.

If you want to have a good time check craigslist

So one thing I left out about my trip home from Portland Yesterday was the fact I did a rideshare. For those of you who don't know what this means is I checked Craigslist.org for people who wanted to leave Portland on the same day I did and who wanted to go to Oly. Well I found a person.

It was really nice, I had someone to talk to the way back to Oly and she chipped in on gas (the real reason I did this). All in all it was good, we discussed dogs, cats, shitty roommates, and bad movies. I hope that it will work out in a similar fashion next time.

I'm kinda in love with craigslist at this point. For one I found my current job and two, I got a cool traveling companion outta it.

Oh yeah, so the whole reason I wrote the above is that the person who drove back with me talked about doing a travel log. She talked about driving across the States and writing a book about it. I'm thinking about riding my bike from Oly to Pasadena soon. I thought it could be cool to write about it and maybe try and get it published (as she suggested I do), or just write about it here. We'll see.

For now I'm thinking I'll just ride my happy ass down to Portland in the summer. It's only about 100 miles, which I did no problem last summer. The only thing is last summer I had ridden all year and really didn't take any time off from riding. This year (school year is what I guess I mean) has been more then a little different. So if I want to ride to P-town I need to really start riding more and riding longer. It's just hard to find time what with work and school and tons of homework. Oh well I'll work something out.

Olympia an't just a cheep beer.

So I got back in to oly about two hours ago. I unloaded all my shit, put my bike back together and took a shower. I left Salt Lake on the 2nd rather then the 3rd because as much as I liked seeing all my friends and family, it was very much time to leave. Marleigh and I left Hate-01 at about 9:30 AM and tore ass across Idaho and eastern Oregon. It was as boring as it sounds until we hit Baker City. In Baker we were blasted by high winds and icy roads and did not have a break from that until we hit Le Grand. From Le Grand to Portland it was rainy but not too bad.

We rolled in to Portland around 11 PM and started drinking with all the lovely people we well, love in Portland. I don't think there was one night while I was in Portland that I wasn't drunk, and one of the first things I did was hug Chris and Lacy and tell them how good it was to be home.

All in all the trip was good, I saw Peter, Charlotte, Cassie, Neda, my Family and got to eat some good food I missed.

I love you all.