Catch Up

I haven't posted anything here in a while, but now that I am well on my way to a complete recovery from my many and varied vitamin deficiencies (knock on wood) I believe that I can bear down and focus for a few minutes and touch-type out a paragraph or two before the hundred-yard-stare sets in.

First: There is such a thing as moustache handlebars for bicycles. What do moustache handlebars look like, anyway? Well, like handlebar moustaches of course. Which came first?! This has been bothering me for days.

Second: A set of commuting observations and occurrences:

• I nearly hit a cat on 2007/05/09. Riding along 37th, I saw something out of the corner of my eye, it's moving fast from left to right. I look down and it's an orange cat and my front tire is just about to slice it in half. No collision, though. After completing that daring feat I assume that "Red" is now the unchallenged leader of the neighbourhood cat gang.
• Also on the way to work that day: I'm approaching a speed-hump/cross-walk and an old man is waiting there to cross. I slow down and give him the "go ahead" nod and wave. But the truck behind me has other ideas. It guns its engine and flies over the speed-hump. The old guy and I look at each other and come to an agreement that the driver of the truck is truly one of the world's greatest a**holes. Bonus: I lane split and jump the yellow at the next light and make it through the intersection before said truck.
• It was extremely windy on the afternoon of 2007/05/08. It was gusting up to 60km/h DIRECTLY IN MY FACE for my entire ride home. At Beach Crescent I caught up to a woman who was also battling the wind on her bicycle. I said something like "this wind is annoying, eh?" She looks at me and stretches a single syllable for about 5 seconds: "fuuuuuuuuuuucccccccccckkkkkk".
• Rain started about 5 minutes into my ride home. Got completely soaked. Could see clear blue skies in the distance, and was riding toward them. But at that time was under a large downpour. Also ended up underneath some hail for about 1 or 2 minutes. Very painful on my bare hands.
• Quite a while ago, I'm not sure precisely when: I cycled through a California crime scene on Beach Crescent. I approached the scene cautiously, and a Vancouver Police Department officer told me that it was OK to go through because they were not shooting currently. It was a film set, of course. So I went through, weaving in and out between several Los Angeles Police Department cruisers and an ambulance.
• Here's an oldy from 2007/01/30: At Nanaimo/40th, a guy in a jacked up SUV came around the traffic calming circle and gunned his engine. It was quite frosty and he fishtailed pretty dramatically (I would characterize it as "losing control of the vehicle"). I gave him a big smirk and an enthusiastic "thumbs up" as I rode by in the opposite direction.