Adventures on road bikes

My birthday is August 28, and for a present, a very good friend of mine fixed up an old Peugot he had at his house. The bike is glorious; silver with light and dark blue logos, very chic at the time it burst onto the biking scene.

The bike has toe cages on the pedals, which helps prevent the foot from falling off when cycling at higher speeds, and amazing tires that have treated the bike and the road well.









And so, my adventures with Polly the Peugot began.

At first, Polly and I just rode around the neighborhood, getting to know each other, how she handled hills and her very touchy shifters which are very different from today's standards.

This wasn't to long before school started, and so I figured what better way to save money on gas then to ride the bike to school whenever possible.

Once school got into gear by September 2, and the first week of classes was through and done, i figured out the days that would be easiest to ride my bike to school. I have a few night classes, and so I knew that a parking permit was an inescapable fate. A twenty something girl riding her bike home along the river at 9:00 at night doesn't exactly spell out s-a-f-e-t-y. At least the gas money saved would make up for the cost of the permit.

So, my second or third day riding to school along the American River parkway (during the day) I was speeding home from my last class. Shortly after I got onto the trail a friend of mine yelled my name after I whizzed by her. I stopped and turned very abruptly to return the hello.

In trying to dismount the bike for balance, I tried to put my foot which was lodged inside of the toe cage on the pedal on the ground. Thinking that my foot will just slide off the pedal.

It became apparent very quickly that my foot was still very firmly within the confines of the toe cage. I quickly tried to recover, but London bridge was already falling down.

I took what would have been to huge staggering steps while still committed to the plastic prison around my foot, and finally with all my wit and grace decided it'd be a good idea to take my foot out rather than off of the pedal and all it's "racing" accessories.

I stumbled, but thankfully didn't eat gravel for an early dinner.

So, I picked myself up with valor and decided to saddle back up, give myself a few chuckles and ride off into the soon to be sunset.
I laughed and turned to my friend to say, "Don't be that girl..."




And it became very clear that I had become "that girl", the sober one, of the road bike world for a brief lapse of time.

Follow your heart, Natalie

Natalie Dylan, she's got the picture. Way to stimulate the bowels of the economy as well as of men Natalie, you really hit home with this one.

The 22-year-old Sacramento State graduate of the woman's studies program, who is going by the pseudonym, Natalie Dylan, decided that in order to pay for the schooling she can't afford, she's capitalizing on her long saved virginity to make an extra dollar. To help with her education to get a masters degree in marriage counseling.

So, Dylan, after being denied by eBay for her auction, went to Dennis Hof at the largest brothel in Carson City, Nevada - The Bunny Ranch, who said he would handle the transaction. Dylan is not, however, giving it out to the highest bidder, but to one man at her discretion. She is screening the bidders to make sure that it is just the right guy.

CNN interviewed Dylan earlier this month and Dylan is said to have "definitely wanted to be 100% about the romance," when she was younger, but she describes that as she grew up, "reality kind of hit" and so she "capitalized" on what she saw as the only option to go.

Hof mentioned in an interview with CNN that Dylan's step dad applied for student loans fraudulently, and once he received the checks, cashed them and ran off. There is a warrant out for his arrest.

The woman obviously comes from a broken home. Her parents are obviously either divorced, or never married. And if her step father was bold enough to fraudulently sign for student loans, and then run off, I can't imagine how good of a father he really was to her, if he was even there in the first place. A fleeting image of a man. He seemed like he just used her for money, sound familiar? And like Freud said, if fathers are a model for what women look for in a husband...

Oh, but how the tables have turned. Now Natalie is getting money, but instead of cash from the government in loans and grants, she's getting it from the one thing she can think of that's left. Cashing out the check that she has held onto for 22 years.

It's hard to fathom the awkward nature of the feelings to which she would be going through on the night when her bidder comes to take his bidding. He has put a price on something precious to her, on an area of the body and of life that is private, and secluded. A place we have spent our whole lives saving; covering; hiding from the public view.

But Dylan has "capitalized" off of this view.

There have been to many instances observed of completely unhappy, moneygrubbing people who crawled their way to the top of a ruthless society by being just as equally as ruthless to their inferiors. While some of the most poor people are some of the most content, not because of what's in their pockets or because of what's in their closets or garages, but because of what they have in their hearts, as cheesy and as cliche as it may sound, but a warm heart and an empty wallet are better than a cold heart and a fat money fold.

No, the two cannot go together. Think about what it means to have a warm heart. Think about what it means to have a cold heart. What are the characteristics of each?

So, Ms. Dylan, is a masters degree really worth losing something you once thought to be precious? Something you once thought you would wait till marriage for? For that right guy? I guess the one with the right price will be the one. And you will be joined in the matrimony of capitalism, opening those good old legs up for business.


There have been way to many girls who once thought that they were the last virgins on earth. That losing such innocence was a shameful badge to be bashfully worn, but worn with a sense of accomplishment. Slut if you do, prude if you don't.

Empowerment is not taking advantage of what women fight to keep from getting taken advantage of. Empowerment of a woman is taking every stereotype and throwing it out the window. The sluts, the hoes, the prudes, the tomboys, the bitches, and the dikes. Throw it out of a moving car, and keep moving. Open up the mind and the heart, connect the two and let the mind be content blind to everything but what a woman's heart is after. Whatever that may be.

Law

Laws. They're everywhere and no where all at once. They regulate our traffic and keep us from killing each other.

We don't see them on billboards and they aren't played in between our favorite TV shows, but yet they are seared into our memory, building boundaries around all of our provocations and plans, imprinted darker than the cleverest of commercials.

They corral our most sporadic of thoughts to "keep the peace". They have been memorized since we could first understand our mothers' gentle "NO!"

Almost all laws, most would agree, are for a good cause and keep good stature. They keep civilization civilized. With law enforcement there to crack the whip on those coloring outside the lines, life can be pretty civilized in suburbia.

But what happens when we realize that some laws aren't dictated by safety, but by money? Where do our assembly women and men draw the line between what's good for their state and what's good for them?
What could one law, cloaked in safety, covering up the truth behind the pushing and logrolling, be hiding? What was the real reason for Senate Bill 1613?

The law requires that all Californians use a hands free device to talk on the phone, or face a first time offense of $20. From then on, the offender is faced with a $50 fine. The law seems futile and doesn't carry as hefty as a fee of a speeding ticket, or a red light violation, but the fine isn't what's really getting some Californians all twisted up in a fever pitch.

Mostly everyone who owns a phone in California either texts or knows about text messaging. So why is this not banned either? Text messaging requires both hands and eyes while talking on the phone requires just your ears and one hand. Both eyes are still fixed on the road. And if it's the conversation that's the killer, look at the dial of a phone and try to spell out a sentence such as, "No, I can't I'm busy". See how long it takes.

Now, with the advent of technology, there have been many modifications to the text messaging phenomenon such as full keyboards on phones and a word predictor called "T9". But even with all the new technology, text messaging while driving is still more dangerous.

No where in the California Wireless Telephone Automobile Safety Act of 2006 does it mention anything about text messaging. Whoever wrote this bill could not have been so naive to not realize the dangers of text messaging while driving.

It seems that phone companies didn't want consumers to stop text messaging, or calling. So the solution? Why, this handy-dandy hands free device. And it seems as though if our congress men and women were really concerned with safety that they would have outlawed it all together, no questions asked.

The use of cell phones should either be completely forbidden while driving, or advocacy against driving and talking on the phone or text messaging should be implemented.