Denyse and I were in a car accident on Sunday afternoon — no one was seriously hurt, but check out D’s car:

(click for larger)

Apparently it is going to be totaled, which is really sad. Things could have been way worse, of course, but the car did its job of crumpling itself instead of crumpling us.

You know that whole cliché about getting lemons from life and turning them into lemonade? Poppycock. Instead, if life gives you a wheelchair and you need to ride the rails, turn yourself into an Ambassador from Mars: “I am not normal. I am a VIP. I should act like one.” from feyandstrange —

I drove down the platform in solitary state, feeling awfully conspicuous. This is where I began to be reminded of what happens when a VIP is boarding a train or plane, and a bunch of fuss happens and they go on first, and all that. I told myself to be very polite and act like a VIP, and maybe I’d feel more like I was getting special treatment instead of being a Very Special Problem….

(via they must need bears)

The purpose of Ken Kifer’s Bike Pages is to share what I know about cycling and to encourage others to bicycle as well. All articles are written by me and reflect my knowledge and personal experience, not something someone else said. Although having a strong philosophical streak, these bike pages include practical cycling information, statistical analysis, personal accounts of long trips and local experiences, photos, and humor. I don’t deny having a bias: I think that we should all waste less and consume less, learn to appreciate Nature more, take better care of our bodies, and adopt a less-stressful pace of life. I promote using a bicycle instead of a motor vehicle because doing so is kind to the environment, good for the body, and good for the psyche.

The Observer has a great article on Andrew Ritchie, a self-confessed “obsessive” former programmer and engineer, who parlayed his obsession with creating the perfect folding bicycle into a manufacturing success story:

…a machine that is fun and efficient to ride but can be quickly folded into a package smaller than an average suitcase, carried up and down stairs, tucked behind a train seat or secreted under a desk.

And yes, he bicycles to work every day. Given the direction fuel prices are going lately, it might be a good time to start looking into bicycle commuting. Besides, it’s just plain cool tech. (via lifehacker)

Why Shakespeare Is For All Time by Theodore Dalrymple, from City Journal, Winter 2003:

…Yet the prescription of (Prozac) (and others like it) to millions of people has not noticeably reduced the sum total of human misery or the perplexity of life. A golden age of felicity has not arrived: and the promise of a pill for every ill remains, as it always will, unfulfilled….Anyone who had read his Shakespeare would not have been surprised by this disappointment. When Macbeth asks a physician:

Canst thou not minister to a
mind diseased,
Pluck from the memory a
rooted sorrow,
Raze out the written troubles
of the brain,
And with some sweet
oblivious antidote
Cleanse the stuffed bosom
of that perilous stuff
Which weighs upon the heart?

The physician replies laconically: Therein the patient / Must minister to himself.