New Goal

I went over to D&D bike shop in Berkley today, looking for a small bag to put under my saddle for keeping my tools, keys, wallet, etc. I ended up buying a chain tool, a spoke tool, and some tire levers too. I'm disappointed in the bag itself though. I bought one of the cheaper models (it was on sale), and I've decided I don't like it. For one, it's a little bit too big, but the real problem is how it attaches. I'm not sure I can really describe it on here, but suffice to say it doesn't work too well on my saddle. So I'll probably take it back tomorrow for a different one (this time I'll actually try fitting it to my bike before I buy it). I later went by the used book store and got a new book, which I sat outside reading for a while. Yeah, I know, sounds weird, sitting out in the cold reading, but as long as it's above freezing, it's not bad at all. And I prefer it to my over-warm, smoke filled house (thanks to my mom's cigarettes and the fireplace with which we're keeping the gas bill down). It's nice to have living things all around me, too, instead of being shut in by lifeless walls. Sounds "touchy-feely" but it's true; and it gives me hope, with the birds singing up a storm and the squirrels acting as squirrelly as ever... Spring is almost here.

I've been riding (almost) every day lately, it's a new goal of mine. Ideally I'd ride everyday except weekends (I work all weekend and frankly don't feel like riding when I get home), but it got pretty damn cold the last few days and I have a hard time riding when it's below freezing. That seems to be the edge of my comfort level, I'm finding. And though I don't really count going to the store as a ride in the full sense, at least I'm in the saddle for a while, so it's good in that sense, so I count it anyways.

I don't really have much to write about right now. I could go on about Bush's plan to sell our ports (22, I hear, some military in nature) to the UAE, but there's nothing I could say that the rest of the pundits out there haven't. I'll simply say it seems ludicrous to have ANY foreigners in charge of our ports (essentially a sea-facing border). It'd be like putting China in charge of our border with Mexico. Though, they could hardly do a worse job than Chimpy McFlightsuit, given that an estimated 5,000 people stream through our southern border everyday. And yet almost daily he prattles on about terrorists and why he needs to be listening to our phone calls, making us take our shoes off at the airport, and is generally forcing us to surrender our rights daily, while him and his buddies wipe their ass with the Constitution. I guess cheap, illegal Mexican labor is probably the only thing left keeping our economy afloat, because where would the housing industry (90% of the economy's growth last year was in housing ALONE) without illegal laborers working for $2 an hour? But still, who is he to talk to us about security when he won't take the biggest step in actually keeping the country safe: securing the borders? Of course, I highly doubt this man, or Cheney (who is probably actually running things), or any of the rest are actually motivated by such high-minded ideals. They don't care about our safety, as Hurricane Katrina proved; they care about money and power, and the police-state they are instituting all around us every day should be proof to that.