We interrupt this program . . .

I know . . . you're waiting breathlessly for me to finish what has become the saga of my doing laundry but I have to interrupt that story line for a moment . . .

. . . BREAKING NEWS . . .

I often, but not always, use a particular "cut through" on my commute to and from work. It all depends, as you might well imagine, on which of my routes I use. Nonetheless, this particular little back door treat allows me, and everyone who knows about it, to avoid two heavily trafficked streets near the LSU Campus. It also allows riders to enjoy a more or less serene view of one of the little lakes near campus and, a particular pleasure of mine this time of year, to enjoy the scent of the Banana Shrub (Michelia figo) in bloom at the intersection of May / July Streets and the cut through. Pure olfactory delight, I'm telling you.

Unfortunately, the cut through, though named on maps, is in fact a private street. Yes, you read that correctly - a private street.

Granted, part of it runs behind and through a series of apartment / condo developments and serves as their means of gaining access to the public roads at each end. And, granted, those are private properties. Given Louisiana land laws, the owners can do whatever they damn well please and do it they are.

It seems the owners of the large apartment / condo complex has succeeded in buying the two smaller adjoining apartment / condo complexes and wants to make all of them part of one big "gated community." For years the largest complex has had fencing and gates but the gates were either left open or were broken and left open by all the in-out traffic generated by the largely university-aged residents. In effect, the fencing and gates were a cosmetic touch, not a functioning defense against the outside world and we could use the connection to avoid often heavy traffic on State Street and Dalrymple.

No more . . . or not for much longer. I've been noticing the appearance, slow and gradual, of fence and gate posts, over the last couple of months, at the lake side of the compound. At the same time I've noticed fencing being dismantled on the State Street entrance side. I finally noticed the disappearance of the statue of the (unknown to me) LSU football coach that guarded the entrance. Now there is merely an empty concrete plinth in the middle of the street.

This morning I had to dodge around a parked pickup truck and a back-hoe at the lake side of things. The back-hoe was surprisingly delicate as it removed the turf to the side of the road exposing the soil beneath. Seems the owners of the private road are considerate of their driving compatriots and are constructing a turn-around for all those drivers who will soon find themselves unexpectedly facing a gated road. I imagine they may also find themselves facing some equally surprised bicyclists.

Now . . .  who will weep for us as we find ourselves on two-wheels mixing it up with the four-wheeled impatient children in much-too-large vehicles texting their way to the bar? Hum? Who is going to wonder why, all of a sudden, there are all these bicyclists on State Street and Dalrymple?

<sigh>

. . . We now return to our regularly scheduled program already underway . . .

Sunny day, lazy day - Part the Second

It's WAY too warm for this time of year. I mean, the days have been so very beautiful lately with highs in the upper-60s or low-70s, mostly sunny skies, relatively low humidity, and light breezes but, let's face it, it's FEBRUARY! If it's this warm this early what's it going to be like in July?

I suppose it can't really get all that much worse in July and August. Hot and humid is hot and humid, period. It's just the thought of adding another month or two to the length of summer that gets to me.

Still, once I got to the levee and turned downriver I couldn't help but sigh with pleasure at the sunny, cool yet warm vista before me. There was little traffic on River Road to my left, I suspect due to the parade. The river on my right had very clearly come up but wasn't too high. If there was a breeze it seemed to be at my back and all was well.

Having mulled over a couple of different possible routes, each depending on where I wanted to stop or what I wanted to see, and my time constraint to get back before the streets were closed again for the night parade I headed to LSU / Highland Coffee / The Bicycle Shop. It's The Bicycle Shop that changed my plans.

I should know better than to go to the Shop when I don't have to be anywhere in particular. I did want to borrow a full-sized Allen wrench to swap out my regular bottle cages for the Kleen Kanteen-specific bottle cages but that shouldn't have taken long. As it turns out I finished swapping them out easily but then asked about a new steel frame touring bike Specialized is making. Two hours later I headed out.

Much later than anticipated and very close to being parade-blocked, I headed home but chose a route that would take me past the home of a couple of friends. If they were home I thought I'd stop for a few minutes to say hello then head to the house. If not, no big, I'd just head home.

As I rode past their house I saw them in the kitchen window waving. Seems they WERE home. My u-turn almost turned into a crash because of all the gravel in the road but I kept it together, finished the turn, and rode up their kitchen path to the door. Before long I'd agreed to stay for dinner (oh-so-delicious pot roast) and a couple of beers. No need to worry about the parade now!

By the time I left there was nothing going on downtown. The parade was over and the streets were uncannily clean. I hardly saw any beads along the route and that's noteworthy this time of year.

It was too late to do much of anything, much less laundry, so I just chilled and eventually headed to bed. There's always tomorrow, right?

Sunny day, lazy day - Part the First

I've picked up a new . . . um . . . obligation? duty? responsibility? . . . on Monday evenings this Spring Semester. I'll spare you the details (though I may attempt to describe this thing in a later posting), so let me just say I volunteered to be the embedded librarian in an undergraduate architecture class.

This embeddedness is part of a pilot program that is intended to provide an improved undergraduate learning experience that is, in turn, part of a larger desire to somehow take standardized-test-taking-rote-learning-drool-zombies and turn them into "critical thinkers." Uh-huh.

Foolish me, I actually believe there is hope in this approach. I realize that's a big change, like, oh say, turning a Bible thumping, talking-snake-believing, Young Earth upholding fanatic into a Scientific Materialist but, oddly enough, even that kind of transition takes place on occasion. As the old saw goes, "If only ONE student makes the transition I will have succeeded." Of course, we know that even one in one hundred is asking a great deal but Hope lives with Belief and so on I go.

The fact that I like to learn new things and have an abiding interest in architecture helps.

So . . . with the class Monday evening, the screening of "Bicycle Dreams" Tuesday evening, a Bicycle Friendly Business visit Wednesday evening, two meetings on Thursday evening, and other like things eating my time, my laundry didn't get done for the past couple of weeks and I REALLY needed to do it.

Three loads take about three hours plus a little to wash and dry, assuming no other tenant is using the one washer and one drier in the complex . . .okay, so, the time won't vary depending on how many people in the complex want to do or, more accurately, NEED to do laundry at any given time. That only affects my ability to actually get access to the machines and DO my laundry.

I just couldn't bring myself to do the laundry Saturday. It was too nice a day and I really needed to slack off a little as well as needing to do laundry. The weather and sun won and I went for a ride after a leisurely morning at the Farmer's Market.

To leave the house I had to find a way around the street closures for the afternoon Mardi Gras parade. I just didn't want to head an extra mile east just to turn around and head back west so I could ride the levee to Farr Park. Instead, I opted for skirting the eastern edge of the route looking for opportunity.

The western edge of the route was River Road. That part of the route was closed tight given that the parade starts downriver on River Road then heads upriver to the Capitol. I didn't want to risk riding head first into the parade. Better to get ahead of it and then behind it, right?

Most intersections were either blocked entirely or had two or three motorcycle cops idling to one side. And then there was the barricade busting to get into the route and the parking lot trap at the Federal Building. I did get through but there were cops everywhere along the route. The open levee was a welcome sight.

End Part One of Sunny day, lazy day