Fire Wally @firewally@mspsocial.net

Ride a Bicycle
And Keep Well

Every [person] who lives a sedentary life NEEDS A BICYCLE

(From what I can tell, this is a real advertisement that ran in the Roanoke Times (Virginia) in 1918)

It was fine. I was 18 and a humbling walk across the road was probably good for me. I stopped for a sub on the way back

Years later, a friend who's a transit planner joked to me that Dallas was infamous in urban design circles for having thousands of transit lane-miles that still don't do a very good job getting folks to places.

Through the magic of technology, we can re-create the walk I took on that hot October Saturday in the suburbs of Dallas

"And let me tell you that I would have found one particular detail very useful in the day's planning: the fact that upon leaving the train station I would be standing on the east side of the north central expressway, in plain view of guitar center, with nothing but 14 MOTHERFUCKING LANES OF TRAFFIC between me and my destination. but ah well, such is the fate of the pedestrian these days. "

I opened up my circa-2005 livejournal (which I will *not* be linking) and found a record of a formative experience in my feelings about bike/ped/transit advocacy: the time I tried to take the train to the Guitar Center in Plano, TX

These Doubletree Hotel cookies are a very tasty, very versatile cookie recipe: https://newsroom.hilton.com/static-doubletree-reveals-cookie-recipe.htm

I was low on chocolate chips and ending up throwing in everything I could find in the pantry: walnuts, pecans, chocolate chips, almonds, and dried cranberries. They still came out great!

File this under “failed quarantine experiments”. Had to give it a shot though

Did I wait an hour for these to cool?

(Jennifer Lawrence looks offstage and pantomimes an ironic “Yeah OK”)

Cookie recipe says "cool on baking sheet for about 1 hour"

I made my first custom path design! It's based on a pink brick pattern that Jessie found, but expanded to a two-wide path with ragged edges #ACNH

So um, flour mites. Nobody ever told me about flour mites. Yikes! Airtight flour containers: not just for looks, people!

It turns out I did not make biscuits this morning (went out for donuts instead). Didn't lose all that much, really, but still feels bad to have to throw out bread flour and self-rising in These Times

One of the things that give me hope about $YOUNGER_GENERATION is they seem not to care so much about this sort of posturing? That maybe the avoidance of "selling out" to the detriment of all else is losing steam as a cultural phenomenon?

These rules are stupid, arbitrary, 100% bullshit. And yet I am bound by them like an ancient curse

"What is your favorite song by [band]?"

It is absolutely forbidden to answer this question with:

* Their biggest hit
* Their first hit
* Anything you'd know from a movie soundtrack
* Anything stylistically closer to "pop" than their usual material

Local dog discovers lawn care robot. Instinctual hilarity ensues: https://gallusrostromegalus.tumblr.com/post/618714943606423552/while-i-cant-fault-your-reasoning-on-robot

I made the fuckin’ soup, champions! Drizzled a bit of cream in to make it extra flossy, like it came from a 𝓇ℯ𝓈𝓉𝒶𝓊𝓇𝒶𝓃𝓉 . Plus some homemade oatmeal bread on the side! (Bread came out a little under-risen but still makes pretty kick-ass toast)

If you like the idea of biking alongside wildlife, today on the Mississippi River Trail between South St Paul and Inver Grove I saw cardinals, finches, robins, turkeys, blue jays, these fine turkey vultures, and a whole bunch more birds I don’t know how to identify. It’s a fun trail! #bikes #bikeing #MastoBikes