2 minutes to support cycling in Los Angeles

Los Angeles Bicycle Club aka Crank Mob 1.0

Good News from my friend Alex Thompson, a bike activist working to improve cycling in Los Angeles:

The Bicycle Advisory Committee (BAC) unanimously voted last night to demand that the deadline for public input on the Los Angeles Bike Master Plan (LABMP), November 6th, be extended to January 8th. With the support of the BAC, the only official body representing cyclists in the city, the campaign for sufficient time is looking better.

Please send a short email to Rosendahl (Councilman for District 11, Chair of the Transportation Committee), Reyes (Councilman for District 1, Chair of the Planning Committee), and Jordann Turner, requesting an extension of the deadline. You might also CC your councilperson while you’re at it.

Here’s their emails:

councilmember.reyes@lacity.org, councilman.rosendahl@lacity.org, jordann.turner@lacity.org - and here’s the letter I’m sending:

Dear Councilman Rosendahl and Councilman Reyes,

I’m writing to request that you officially extend the deadline for public input on the Los Angeles Bike Master Plan from November 6th to January 8th. The plan was released on September 25th, which leaves only 42 days for public input. This makes impossible, or extremely difficult for many bodies to participate in forming the plan, and as you know, this undermines public support for the plan’s proposals. Moreover, it violates the terms being drafted for the LADOT Memorandum of Understanding with the Neighborhood Councils, which specifies a minimum of 60 days notice. The Bureau of Street Services is offering the public 120 days of public input on sidewalk repair program - surely we can have 90 days for cyclists!

Sincerely,

Feel free to forward this message to all progressive like-minded individuals, groups and pets!

The Golden Rule

Last night, we were treated to real gold covered chocolate twinkies courtesy of BonAppetempt. A glass of chamomille infused grappa only adds to the golden deliciousness of the dessert. So complete was my amazement that I totally forgot to photograph the amazing salad and soup we ate as well.

Breaking free from the chains of Epson

I love my old epson printer. Epson Stylus Photo R200. All I use it for is to print random things like Paypal shipping forms and movie tickets to the Arclight, perhaps a google map here and there.

The other day, the printer kindly notified me that 2 ink cartridges were out of ink, Magenta and Light Cyan.

"No bother", I told my printer. (I was only printing a B&W shipping form.) "Continue and print my form please."

"NO!" said the printer. "I will not! Not until you replace the empty ink cartridges."

"Printer, it's cool. It's not color, just go ahead and print it. I promise it will work just fine", I said, getting a little warmer. Was the AC on in here, I wondered to myself.

"You don't understand!" the printer scolded back at me, it's red light now blinking at a furious pace. "I cannot and will not print one more thing until you replace those cartridges."

Now I was angry. My printer thought it knew better than me what it could and couldn't do. I knew the black ink was just waiting to be spit out on the paper, giving me a shipping form that I now wanted more than a trip to Scoops!

So what's going on here? Why does my printer defiantly disobey my commands like it doesn't have any respect for me?

Epson cleverly, or rather deviously, placed a small microship in each ink cartridge that monitored the use of ink and once the level was determined to be empty, it would tell the printer to stop printing. Mind you, the cartridge doesn't need to be actually empty for this to happen. It could have many pages left and still be functionally useless due to this mis-application of technology.

Seeing that I was up against a corporation intent on forcing me to purchase their liquid crack at outrageously high prices even when I didn't need it, I decided to take matters into my own hands. I was going to give my little printer a lobotomy, and remove the parts of it's brain I found useless. It turns out people have been thinking the same thing for a while now, and even built special surgical instruments to quickly slice out this useless flesh in one stroke.

Making it's debut all the way from Nanshan District in Shenzhen China....Behold the YXD268-II! It's a multi-function chip resetter with the following specs:

1. YXD268-II can RESET the chip on the cartridge into full mode.
2. YXD268-II can also DETECT the chip status.
3. Red and Green LED for easy identification.
4. Both sides CONCAVES for easy holding.

It slices, it dices, it saves you money time. Folks, step right up and gets yours today!

Now my printer is happily printing in black and white, blissfully unaware it's almost out of magenta and light cyan. And when it runs out, I'll know, because my printouts will be ugly and weird. I don't care, it's just a google map...

Support Cycling in Los Angeles this weekend

This Saturday at LA City College, something special will happen. Stakeholders, like you and me, will gather together and share their ideas for making this city a better place to live, work and thrive in. The NC Action Summit:

provides community members from throughout Los Angeles the opportunity to engage in healthy political dialogue that concludes with a specific call to action.

Cyclists are encouraged to attend, specifically at 1030am for a presentation by Dr. Alex Thompson of the Cyclists Bill of Rights, which has already received endorsements from numerous neighborhood councils. If half the people in this video were to attend, it would be something special indeed.

Up From Below, Ed Sharpe delivers coz to Abbot Kinney

Easily one of the best new acts to come out of Los Angeles is Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, who played a set at the Abbot Kinney Festival yesterday. Their music is just perfectly harmonious, playful, energetic and soulful.



If you're free next weekend, my advice is to jump in your '72 Westphalia and head out to Joshua Tree where they'll be performing at the upcoming Manimal Festival in Pioneertown.

I can't imagine a better venue to see this great band. Something tells me there's big things in their future...

Los Angeles Bicycle Plan Update leaves little time for comment!

Westside Bikeside just posted news that the LA Bike Master Plan was just released today, and leaves little time for public comment, especially the Neighborhood Councils. You'd be well served by writing to your council member demanding an extension to the public comment period. Here's my email to Council member Bill Rosendahl

TO: Councilman.Rosendahl@lacity.org

SUBJECT: LA Bike Master Plan

Good Morning Councilmember Rosendahl,

As a cyclist in Los Angeles, I am outraged that the bike master plan released today (6 months late) includes a Nov 6th deadline for public comments. How can neighborhood councils provide input and comment on this plan with so little time. It seems time and again, the interests of cyclists are ignored, supressed and stymied by the various departments in this city. This is just another example of the city attempting to force through this plan without proper public comment and oversight. I urge you to introduce a motion to reschedule the deadline to January 4th, 2010. This will allow enough time for the public and neighborhood councils to read, comprehend and comment on the 212 pages, with 351 pages of appendices.

Respectfully,


the engaged observer

Go For It!

What did you do last night? Crank Mob

Last night, I joined a couple other cyclists on an amazing group ride through Los Angeles. Crank Mob organizes frequent themed rides that attract a large following in L.A. This was their last ride for a while, with only annual rides planned from now on. The video above was my attempt to survey just how many riders there were. Highlights include a couple dressed up on a tandem, 2 tall bikes and a guy on a franken child bike dressed as a dark overlord? I was getting my ass kicked by a guy towing a griddle, pretty embaressing...

Along with many mechanical malfunctions, a few riders managed to get detained and cited for their "interpretations" of traffic signals. I wonder if it's routine procedure for police to handcuff and search every vehicle operator they stop for a traffic violation....

The first stop was in Chinatown for some music, dancing and antics in a parking lot. Our presence didn't go un-noticed by the ghettobird overhead. Over his loudspeaker could be heard something to the effect of "We don't have the resources to monitor you guys."


These rides go kinda late and I wanted to be asleep by 2am, so I skipped out on the 2 warehouse parties that were next on the route and instead headed to Union Station to catch the last Red Line back to Hollywood. I've done many Critical Mass rides which are always entertaining, but the energy and excitement brought this ride to a whole other level. A true party on wheels.

C.R.A.N.K.MAS II - The Last C.R.A.N.K. MOB 9/19/09