safer bike routes anyone?

apparently London's mayor and some other politicians found out first-hand that biking on city streets can be a little sketchy.  Here's the video.

sigh...

do you ever feel that while you are writing about something, someone else is actually doing it?

How David Beats Goliath, or, why basketball is stupid

I'm a fan of Malcolm Gladwell.  Tipping Point, Blink and Outliers are both awesome and awesomely embarrassing.  I wish I could write like that.  The thing about Gladwell is that he's not usually pointing out anything terribly new or fantastic; it's just that he seems to do so effortlessly.  It's another example of how form matters -- and how form shapes content. 

Anyway, thanks to Vicky for sending me this essay.  

www.nataliedee.com

thanks for this to Lee Anne at Little Bites....

so i walked outside and here's what i saw...

I had trouble sleeping last night. Actually, it was this morning around 430 when I got out of bed. It was getting light out so I figured a bike-ride in search of sunrise was in order.  I'm pretty sure I live in the most beautiful city -- if not THE, certainly ONE OF THE.  Enjoy. 

oops...

So, I went to the beach yesterday. My face and neck have been getting some good sun lately and I decided to even out the rest of me. So, I slapped on the SPF 30 from the collarbone up and left everything else to fend for itself. Turns out that my skin is weak and that 3 hours in the sun can burn you.

BOB and the Solitude Project

This guy, Bob, wrote his PhD dissertation on his time alone on a remote island off of the Chilean coast. He called it the Solitude Project. There are pictures and videos, but the narrated slideshow is my favourite -- mainly because it takes so little effort to view and I like words with my pictures. 

http://www.bobkull.org/index.html

One of my favourite things is to see stuff happening where and when you don't expect it; a kind of resistance to the status quo, a push-back against the usual. Deleuze talks about deterritorialization and while it is not the same as his meaning, I think of these kinds of acts as a changing territory in some sense.  In any event, I'm not so good at creating these moments myself but I can find them here and there and share them with you. Here are a couple recent finds (thanks to Joanna's fb page for 'flutebox').

it begins...

Well, here it is. Welcome to themusingsofgrandpa. 

You will find here a combination of my own pictures and text, as well as links to stuff I like. I don't imagine anyone will read this, so I'm treating it as a space for me to remember the things that I usually forget.