Mildred Loving has passed away (May 13, 2008)

Current mood: hopeful

I was saddened to hear of the death of Mildred Jeter Loving on May 2. She and her husband, Richard Perry Loving, were the focus of the 1967 U.S. Supreme Court case which struck down laws which forbade a black from marrying a white.

As I stated in a blog entry from last year, I had a small but very visible part in the June 1992 commemoration of the decision: I made the 38-foot banner that covered the front of the stage. (I still have it, too, rolled up in my basement.)

It's amazing to think that as late as 1912, there was a formal proposal for a U.S. Constitutional Amendment forbidding interracial marriages. It's just as amazing to realize that the last of the (unenforceable) state constitution clauses was not removed until 1998 (South Carolina) and 2000 (Alabama). Even then, a sizable minority (15 to 20%) of voters opposed their removal. Old ideas die hard.

Why is this important? Because we haven't yet beaten down these rotten ideas. Why? Because it's in the Bible. Read especially the Old Testament and you will find many rules against intermarriage of races (Gen. 28, Num. 36, Joshua 23:12, Ezek. 44:22) plus more in Catholic versions (2 Esdras 13:27). Even more objections can be found under the realm of differing religions (Exodus 34:10-16, 2 Cor. 6:14, Deut. 7). I could go on and on, but the bottom line to me is this:

Love conquers all.

Rest in peace, Mr. and Mrs. Loving. The world is better for your having been here.

June 12 has been proclaimed Loving Day. More info at http://www .lovingday .org

A “reel” project: Mowing tall, wet grass with a push mower (May 11, 2008)

Current mood:accomplished

Earlier tonight, I finished mowing the grass for the first time this year. It was tall. As in knee-high. Many of my neighbors have mowed theirs four or five times already.

More to prove to myself that it could be done than for any other reason, I used my reel mower. Yeah, it was tough. The term "plowing salad" crossed my mind. The grass was wet as well as tall. It rained heavily overnight and drizzled all morning, and even though I waited until 6 p.m. to start, there was no way it was going to dry out. Tomorrow's forecast also called for rain. So I chugged away.

Why use the reel? After all, I do have a fully operational power mower. Well, as I said, I wanted to see if it could be done at all. Not all of it was knee high. In some places I could zing right along. Where it was tall and thick, though, there was no denying that it was brutally difficult. Many places I measured progress an inch at a time.

Chunf. Pull back. Kick the blade backwards to dislodge a mound of grass. Step back, lean in, and … Chunf. Repeat. One after another, every two seconds if it didn't jam, every ten if it did. Three and a half hours. Many water breaks. No potty breaks. No need: I was sweating it out. It was more work than a couple of my recent bike rides into the city, probably comparable to doing 1,000 push-ups over three hours' time.

So it can be done. Tall, wet grass, done with a reel mower. As with my recent bike rides, all I really needed afterward was a shower. I'm a bit drained, but I feel pretty good. Nothing sore or strained, not even a blister. Much of the time I wasn't even breathing all that heavily, only a moderately aerobic pace.

What was really nice about it was the silence. I listened to the birds while I worked. After a while, I put the radio on. I wasn't moving that far so only moved it twice in three hours.

Do I recommend this for everyone? No, not everyone. A good many people would not have the physical stamina. Many would be taking their life in their hands, just like shoveling snow in the winter. But if you can, shouldn't you try?

Still: Why? Well, there is that matter of the annoying rising cost of gasoline (boo hoo). But even there, is that all that big a deal? After all, how much gas does a lawn mower use? Maybe five gallons all summer? True, all that work could hardly be justified simply on fuel savings.

Nor can I justify it on time. Well, this time, maybe there would not have been much time savings. With it being that wet, I would have been un-clogging the power mower's chute every half minute. Doing it this way, though, defined a baseline. It cannot possibly take that long next time, if the grass is dry and a reasonable height.

So maybe it's just a statement, me telling the world that if I can chow my way through 14-inch-tall, wet grass with a reel mower, then anything is possible. Or maybe I'm simply nuts.


I couldn't get close enough to this to mow it because of the gas shutoff pipe.


Unmowed and mowed sections in the lot near church sign.


Unmowed and mowed sections in the lot, by stop sign. There are a couple of small green marker flags behind the church sign.

10,000 steps (May 6, 2008)

Heard a news report today that encouraged people, in the spirit of wellness and personal fitness, to try to walk 10,000 steps before some-date-or-other.

So I tried it. Well, at least I figured out how far that would be. I needed to take something to be dry-cleaned. The cleaners are 0.8 mile away, an easy walk. I counted steps: 1,800. Then another 1,800 back. Total 3,600 for a simple errand.

Doing the math, that would make 10,000 steps a little less than four and a half miles. (1,800 steps = 0.8, therefore 2,250 steps = 1 mile, 10K/2250 = 4.4 miles)

That might be a bit much for a single day (though I've done it many, many times), but not at all difficult for a couple days' worth of walking around. Just ride public transit on a regular basis, and you will get many opportunities to work in a few hundred steps.

Somewhere else I'd read that walking a total of 30 minutes a day was your best hedge against weight gain now, and heart trouble later in life. For seven years, I had a five-minute walk to get to my first bus that got me to work, and a ten-minute walk from the second bus to my place of employment. Reverse that at day's end, add it up, and bingo, 30 minutes of walking. I miss that commute.

one car, four people, eleven places to go (May 2, 2008)

Current mood: thoughtful

People often ask me how me manage as a family with only one car, especially with one of them holding a daily job. Well, I'll tell you, in three words. First word, planning. Next two, public transit.

Here is how we dealt with today's travel needs. Wife needed to work a day shift, but early hours, 6:15 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., and getting there on public transit is not an option. I needed to get to a meeting Downtown at 7:15, followed by a mid-day errand. The kids needed to get to school, but that doesn't count since they each have a school bus. At end of day, though, one needs to make a quick shopping trip. Dinnertime, the other one needs to get Downtown to a meeting at 6 p.m., and so does the wife. After that meeting, which lets out around 9, they both need to get home. At 10, we have an errand to run, picking up a large package.

OK, how do you do all that with one car? Note the overlapping difficulties: I had two mid-day errands to run, one absolutely requiring the car (daughter's shopping trip). Wife could potentially have tied up the car all day, as busing to work is not an option. Son needed to get Downtown at dinnertime. He doesn't drive, so can't just drive Downtown. Picking wife up at work to take her Downtown is a potentially extra side trip. After all that, everyone needed to get home, but there's that late errand, too. I don't need to go to the Downtown meeting, so need to get home after delivering son and the car.

So here's the choreography:
* Wife and I drive her to work.
* I take keys and bus pass.
* I walk to bus stop and take a bus Downtown.
* I attend meeting.
* Son and daughter get themselves off to school via school bus.
* I bus back out to wife's work.
* I drive toward home.
* I run mid-day errand while on the way home.
* Son comes home on school bus.
* I drive to daughter's school to pick her up at day's end. She needed a note from home in order to do this.
* I drive daughter to store, then home.
* After 4:30, wife buses Downtown. At start of day, I made sure she had pre-paid bus fare in the form of a ticket. (I needed the pass to get to and from my meeting trips.)
* Wife probably sits in a library or coffeeshop for an hour, or shows up at the meeting over an hour early.
* Around 5:30, I drive son Downtown.
* I park car, and walk with son to meeting.
* I hand wife the car keys.
* I walk to bus stop and bus home.
* If meeting done before 9, wife drives son home.
* If meeting done after 9, wife drive son to run the 10 p.m. errand first.

Net cost of this is one pre-paid fare ticket. The car makes three maybe four trips out:
(a) 6 a.m. to go to work, 10 a.m. my return. (one round trip).
(b) 3 p.m. to take daughter to store.
(c) 5:30 p.m. to take son Downtown, 9 p.m. their return.
(d) 9:30-10 p.m. errand may be worked in with (c).
By my figuring, the one car travels 80 miles.

With a two- or three-car family, though, not using transit, that would have been:
* Trip 1: Wife takes Car 1 to work.
* Trip 2: I drive Car 2 Downtown and park in a garage ($10, please); later return home.
* Trip 3: I drive Car 2 to school and store.
* Trip 4: Wife drives Car 1 home.
* Trip 5: Wife and son drive Car 1 back Downtown for evening meeting.
* Trip 6: I drive Car 2 on late-evening errand.
By my figuring, Car 1 would travel 50 miles, Car 2 would travel 40 miles, and we would incur $10 in parking charges.

So doing it the way we do it doesn't save a lot of fuel (10 miles), but does save $10 in parking, and the wife herself driving an extra 30 miles. Here's the real biggie: It saves the cost of the second car. That would likely be thousands a year, lots more than $2 in extra bus fare (beyond the $990 for the annual pass) and some good planning. The only downside is her having to kill time for an hour after work. Solution: Always bring something to do or read.

It’s snowing in Pittsburgh (April 30, 2008)

April 30, 7:22 a.m., and it's snowing here in the northern suburbs of Pittsburgh.

I've lived in The 'Burgh for 27 Aprils (after living in or near Buffalo NY for 22 Aprils). In that time, I've not seen snow in April in Pittsburgh maybe three times. But only about three of those have seen snow after April 15.

This is the first time, though, that the first snow I've seen in April was at the end of the month.

Weird.

Barack or Hillary? We need more choices (April 17, 2008)

Current mood: selective

Is anyone else tired of the two current choices in the Democratic primaries? How much different would the discussion be if, since Super Tuesday, we had these four choices!

A) Hillary Clinton, President; Barack Obama, Vice President
B) Barack Obama, President; Hillary Clinton, Vice President
C) Hillary Clinton, President; To-Be-Announced, Vice President
D) Barack Obama, President; To-Be-Announced, Vice President

That said, I still don't know who I'm going to vote for, either next week or in November, so don't ask.

The 168-hour no-car challenge, week 1 (April 19, 2008)

The challenge is this: Can you go 168 consecutive hours without using your car?

I posed this originally as a response to someone who forwarded me the tired old "Boycott Gasoline Next Thursday!" email. What do you prove if, instead of spending $20 on Thursday, you spend $10 on Tuesday and $10 more on Friday? Nothing. If, instead, you lived your life for a full week, without significant changes, and not use any gasoline, then that would constitute a true boycott.

You could:
* Take a bus.
* Carpool with someone, assuming you are not doing so already.
* Bicycle
* Walk
* In-line skate
* Shop by telephone
* Conduct your meeting by telephone and/or PC camera

Don't do anything differently, at least not at first, and don't skip doing things you really should do. If you have to go to someone's calling hours or you have a civic responsibility to attend to, please do it, please go. If you go to church 10 miles away, fine, figure out how, but go to that church.

Weather, too, should not be a deterrent. If you take your car out in a downpour or a snowstorm, you always run the risk of a breakdown, and may have to be out in it anyway, so go.

Ideally, you want to avoid the car altogether for a week. Of course, this is about impossible for most people, even me, who's given this considerable thought. The goal for each person, really, is, each time before jumping in the car, to think about whether the trip is all that necessary. Can you get there by bus? Are you sure you can't? Will you need to make this trip again? Would you have been able to bus if you'd started sooner? Do you really need to carry all that stuff with you? Isn't there someone else going that way? Maybe there's someone else going that way who could use a ride? Maybe you can bus there, and someone who's already there can give you a ride back. Maybe you only need to bicycle the mile or so out to the edge of your neighborhood where there's bus service, and then either mount the bike on a bus rack or tie it to a post while you make your trip.

*

OK, so this week I'm putting my money where my mouth is. Working from a minute past midnight Sunday morning to midnight Saturday, I am going to see how little I can use the car. I am initially composing this Tuesday noon, but will modify it as the week goes on. For changes beyond Saturday I will merely add comments.

Sunday, 4/13: I bicycled to church. The family took the car because we had a large package to transport. (Side note: We changed churches a couple months ago from one that was 14 miles away to one that's just over a mile away. We often walk there. On two occasions I bicycled the 14-mile trip, as did two other family members at least once each, but that was too much even for us to try regularly.)

Later Sunday, I bicycled to Squirrel Hill and back for a meeting. The weather was not ideal, as it was in the high 40s and spitting rain most of the trip. I did bike the 13 miles there, and most of the way back, only using the bike rack on a bus to get me up the huge hill on Perrysville Avenue and into West View because it was getting dark and I don't have a light. The trip was a qualified success in that I did make it home without major problems, but hit a pothole and bent a rim, necessitating repairs.

Monday, April 14: For a trip Downtown, I biked into West View, left the bike at the shop for repairs (see previous paragraph), then hopped on an 11D Perrysville to get Downtown. For the return trip, I caught a 13A North Hills Express. I would have liked to leave a bit earlier, but there is a huge hole in the availability of mid-afternoon buses. Once off the 13A, I hiked 0.8 miles on Perrymont Road, which was not unpleasant except for the absence of sidewalks.

Monday evening, my wife used the car to get to employment. Transit was not an option; neither was a bicycle. Sometimes she can get home from work by bus, but it triples the travel time, from roughly 30 minutes to roughly 90, which to her is not acceptable. Getting to work on time is simply not possible at all. The trip there can be made by bus, but requires a double transfer, 30 minutes of layover time, and climbing a 130-step staircase. I've done it (to drive her home on blizzardy mornings, for instance), but it cannot be relied on as a routine method of travel. I am not even sure how one would bicycle out to the Jct. 51/88 area from Downtown, even if a 15-mile trip in the dark to the top of an immense hill were otherwise viable.

Tuesday, April 15: Major fail for the morning. I had to go into Oakland, but had to wait for my wife to arrive home with the cell phone, which I needed on the trip. By the time she arrived, I had run out of choices to get to Oakland on time by bus. I could still get there, and would have bused but three other people were waiting on me, and I had called the meeting. So I drove!

I had planned on using the car anyway for a very brief trip, as I had a tire that needed repair. This I normally get done at the tire shop less than 1/4 mile from my house. However, the 24-mile side trip into Oakland should have been avoidable.

Tuesday, 5:00 p.m.: At 2:45, I picked up the car from the tire shop, but had to go Downtown. Just like yesterday heading out of town, there's also a mid-afternoon hole in the inbound schedule, meaning it would have taken nearly 90 minutes to bus there. I drove to the Park & Ride the other side of West View, and waited just a couple of minutes for an inbound 11D. Ran my errand in town and caught an express back to the P&R, then drove home. What made the trip unique was someone recognizing me getting off the bus and offered me a ride home. Thanks, sorry, I have a ride this time ... but it's nice to have friends.

Tuesday, 6:00 p.m.: My son needed to do some shopping for a school project, necessitating a trip down McKnight to a big plaza. We know from past experience that the bus, while it will get him there, does it so slowly that he may as well walk, which you cannot very well do on McKnight Road. (It takes the 12A 18 minutes to go from Perrymont to Browns Lane, a distance of 0.9 mile. From the left side of the bus at Browns Lane and McKnight, you can see the Perrymont traffic light. To get to Jo-Ann Fabrics, a distance of 1.6 miles, requires 27 minutes. The belated 11K Cranberry route made this trip in about 4 minutes; thank you 2002 service cuts.) Bicycling McKnight is damn near impossible, too. So we drove. Actually, he drove, but that's a tale for a different blog entry.

Tuesday, 9 p.m. Wife drove to work. Just now I built the little table at the end of this blog, but I suppose I should start keeping track of miles traveled, too.

Wednesday, 5:00 p.m.: I avoided using the car for any part of my trip Downtown. I simply walked Perrymont, caught a 13A into town, and returned via 12A and another hike of Perrymont. I left myself plenty of time, so didn't need a lift.

Wednesday, 9:00 p.m.: Wife drove to work; again, unavoidable.

Thursday, 10:00 a.m.: Major success: I took a bus to the public library, and brought along a bag of paper to recycle. Previously, each recycling trip was done with the car. I acquired a large canvas bag (it says "Le Bag" on it), which holds a full grocery bag. I arrived at a good time, too. One of the library staff was outside, commenting on the three cars in the loading area also with papers to recycle, and I piped in "...and I came by bus to do so!" which about dumbfounded the couple of people there. Nothing like making a point! Yesss! *yanks arm down*

Friday, 9:00 a.m.: I made a trip Downtown to an early morning meeting, and got back, all by bus. Wife drove to work; again, unavoidable. She had a daylight shift this time, but needed to get there by 6 a.m. It's not possible to get out of the North Hills before 6 a.m., let alone get to the South Hills. I've made it there by 7 by bus, but not 6. So, unavoidable.

Friday, 2:00 p.m.: Took a bus to West View to get the bicycle from the shop. Biked back via Babcock Blvd to run an errand, so made a six-mile return instead of the direct three, but avoided use of the car.

Actually, it was a little more complex than that. Earlier, someone had stopped by the house on an errand of her own, and I mentioned the pending trip to West View. She left, but called back about 15 minutes later to inquire whether I needed a ride into West View to get the bike. While a nice gesture, I declined. Aside from being in the middle of lunch, it would have caused her to expend extra gasoline to drive over to get me. If she'd offered while still there, I may have consented, as it was right on her way home. But since the gesture would have caused her to spend money and gasoline to do me the favor, I declined. The bus was going to be there anyway.

Friday, 8:00 p.m.: Trip to bank on bicycle to deposit paycheck. Avoided using car.

Friday, 10:00 p.m.: Errand had to be run in Cranberry Twp, about 15 miles north of me, so a 30-mile round trip. We had a large package to pick up, and there was no other way to get it than to drive.

Saturday. Mid-morning, I made one quick trip out. Daughter had a friend here on an overnight. Friend moved out of state last summer, so having her here was quite special. On a whim, they decided to make a quick visit to the school they shared, to get some photos. It's only a mile away, but very difficult to get to by any means other than car, a half mile up a long hill.

Afternoon, we combined several major needs into one big trip. Wife and daughter had a baby shower to attend, but first needed to stop at the mall to get the presents. Fortunately the mall is very nearby, less than two miles, and the party was in that same direction. After dropping them at the party, I made my cross-county trip to pick up my Judge Of Election supplies, most of 15 miles distant. My foot was heavy, as I knew I had barely driving time to get there. (The place closed at 4:00 p.m.; I pulled in at 3:59:45.) In November, I made this trip by bus, but this time I knew I had two suitcases. Actually I had more than that, special materials for my precinct that wouldn't fit in a third suitcase, because of its size. There really was no way I could have made this trip with anything except the car.

Coming back, I made an unexpected side trip. Stuck in traffic because the Parkway East (I-376) was shut down for construction, a lost family asked me for directions to a particular location in town. Knowing that there were easily 15 to 20 turns to get from East Liberty to The Waterfront, I told them to just follow me. I got them to Beechwood Boulevard in Squirrel Hill and told them to follow their noses, but led them through 'Sliberty, Garfield, the East End, Bloomfield, Shadyside, and Squirrel Hill (our Jewish neighborhood, on the first day of Passover). There really wasn't a more direct route, but yes, 15 turns. Returning from that errand, I took in a bit of Greenfield, Schenley Park, Oakland, Soho and Uptown, before finally getting to I-279 and back to the party. Bottom line, the trip was unavoidable, and pretty much the side trip was, too. Things happen.

*

So far, we have:
    Car trips avoided: 1+1+1+1+1+1+1=7
    Car trips that might have been avoided with better planning: 1
    Car trips that might have been avoidable but for circumstances beyond our control: 1+1+1=3
    Car trips that could not be avoided: 1+1+1+1+1+1=6
    Total car trips for any reason: 1+3+6=10

*

All in all, the car was quite necessary on several occasions. OTOH, I managed to avoid using it for several other trips.