Tag Archives: rant

Not to rant on cyclists, but…

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Yesterday evening, I took the Little Man to the park and, as we always do, we walked there along the bike paths that go through Bluemont Park in Arlington. Most of the time, walking on the bike paths is no problem, the cyclists are exceptionally good at keeping an eye out for pedestrians and vice versa. They will shout, “On your left!” or ring a bell well in advance of their approach and all I have to do is lift an arm in acknowledgement to let them know I heard them. But last night was an exception.

The trails were busy with both bike and pedestrian traffic and on three separate occasions, I saw cyclists behaving badly. The first time, I saw a cyclist nearly crack up because he wasn’t looking where he was going. Instead, he’d turned his head to yell at a little girl, 8 or 9 years old I’d guess, who wasn’t wearing a helmet. Granted, this is a bad idea, but it is an equally bad idea to not look where you are going to yell at the little girl to wear a helmet. Wearing a helmet is good, but not looking where you are going (to say nothing of frightening a little girl you don’t know) is bad form and nearly cost this biker an injury.

Next, where the trail dips below Carlin Springs road, one biker had to slam on his brakes because there was a fairly large group of pedestrians walking (on the right, as they should) and other bikes coming the opposite direction. Slamming on the brakes is not so bad, although you’d think he would know better on that particular part of the trail. What was bad was his outburst, “Come on! Move out of the way!” which was completely uncalled for.

A short while later, there was a similar incident, this time with a woman riding a bike. She was coming up behind us as a jogger was passing to our left. She shouted, “On your left”, but still had to move over further than she’d have liked since the jogger was passing us. So she shouted again, “Move over! On your left!” and zipped by us. I take it she was annoyed that maybe we didn’t hear her, or that there was a jogger passing or both, but I noted that she had white ear buds in her ears so who knows what she could or couldn’t hear herself. And besides, it’s a multi-use trail and cyclists don’t own it. But last night they were acting like they did.

So I offer some simple advice that should keep everyone happy, a philosophy I borrow from Wil Wheaton:

Don’t be a dick!

Follow this rule, cyclists and pedestrians alike and we’ll all be happier.

Idiots

What’s up the all the idiots out and about in their cars with California-King-sized mattress blocks of snow on the tops of their cars. Some of these blocks look to be 15 inches thick!  Is it really that hard to scrape off the snow?

Originally published at Jamie’s Blog. Please leave any comments there.

The Oscars

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I’m disappointed in the outcome of last night’s Academy Awards.  Perhaps part of the reason is that I saw only three of the pictures up for awards:

  1. Vicky Christina Barcelona
  2. The Dark Knight
  3. The Wrestler

Of the three movies, The Wrestler was far and away the standout of the batch, and Mickey Rourke’s performance in the movie was better than anything I’ve seen in a long time.  Vicky Christina Barcelona was the first Woody Allen movie that I didn’t like.  It’s not that I just didn’t like it.  I thought it was terrible.  The Dark Knight while a fun movie, didn’t come close to what was capture by Batman Begins.  Yes, Heath Ledger made a good Joker, but I didn’t think it any better or worse than Jack Nicholson’s performance in the same role.  Of course, Jack is still alive and Heath is not and perhaps that made all the difference.

I didn’t see Slumdog Millionaire, but I’m not surprised it won as much as it did.  In a bad economy, people are looking for hopeful stories.  It was an underdog and had buzz and that is why it won.  The story it told is a very old one, and from what I’ve gleaned there was really nothing new that it added, except perhaps setting.  It’s touted as a story of triumph, but I mean, come on, we’re talking about winning a trivia game, right?  Rich or poor, no matter where you are in the world, if you have a trick memory, you can do it.

I was pulling for Mickey Rourke for Best Actor and Marisa Tomei for Best Supporting Actress.  What we got, with the possible exception of Sean Penn in Milk, was mediocrity.  I mean really, why bother anymore?  We got the same actors playing the same roles that we expect of them in the way we expect them to play.  Perhaps that’s what we call an award-winning performance these days, but I think we are setting the bar way too low.

Lead by example or not at all

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I don’t care if you are a Republican, Democrat or something in between, if you are going to lead people, you have to lead by (good) example.  If you can’t do that, then you shouldn’t lead.  Period.  Not paying income tax is leading by poor example and it should automatically disqualify someone from serving as a leader in government.  There may be excuses, there may have been mistakes, it may be "complicated".  Regardless, it distracts from the business of the public and worse, it creates a bad example.  Finally, even if you make it through the confirmation process, you’ve got something hanging over your head, an example that can be pointed to by others to say, see here, you did it, and you got away with it.  Why not me?

It shouldn’t even be a question.  I appreciate folks like Governor Richardson and Nancy Killefer who bow out as soon as this issues arise, and thereby setting a good example of the right thing to do when you’ve done the wrong thing.

Fire alarms

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The Fashion Centre at Pentagon City, atop which my office building sits, and into which the windows of my office look, seems to have fire alarms blaring several times a week.  Sometimes, there are signs up warning that they will be testing the fire alarm system.  Other times, it seems to happen randomly.  When it happens, I look out into the mall to watch people’s reaction.

Everyone ignores them.

Shoppers ignore them.  Children carted about in Bugaboos ignore them.  The security guards ignore them.

I’d like to point out that if there is ever an actual fire at the Fashion Centre at Pentagon City and the carnage is particularly high, investigators need look no further than this blog to understand "what went wrong".

For Pete’s sake, give the damn alarms a rest, or force people to evacuate.  Don’t train people to ignore alarms!