Thursday, June 11, 2009

I don't want to say I'm outraged, so I'll just say I'm "IRKED". Tucson seems to be fairly bike friendly, with lots of bike lanes going in every direction, some fairly decent bike shops, bike racks on all the buses - that sort of thing, but yesterday just seemed to be a bad day to be on a bike.

IRK #1 - Major businesses that give me a bad time for taking my bike in their store. Right now, I don't have a bike lock with me, so if I'm in a place where I fear that someone might take my $20 bike if I leave it parked by the front door, I just take it the store with me. Maybe I'm wrong here, and if I am, please set me straight, but aren't these businesses screaming for us to give them our hard earned cash! I was shopping at Target yesterday for a card and few other items, and I had my bike with me in the store. As I was leaving, the security guard came up to me and was harassing me publicly about the fact that I'm NOT ALLOWED to bring my bike in the store. Then I tried to stop at the Super Wal-Mart ... this time, the greeter at the door, the one that is supposed to make you feel good, wouldn't let me enter the store because I had my bike with me. I was polite (I hope) and simply told the greeter that I would leave in search of a business that wanted my money and that was more than happy to let me bring my bike with me into the store, like CVS Pharmacy, Safeway and Walgreens Pharmacy. I'm not calling for a boycott of TARGET and WAL-MART, but if you feel the same way as I do, please let me know, or better yet, find a different place to spend your money.

IRK #2 - Stupid drivers! Tucson seems to be full of them, and yet, I'm sure they don't have a corner on the market. Yesterday just seemed to be the one day of the week that they were all out in full force. I was in a bike lane approaching an intersection. Tucson has a good record of providing a bike lane that is positioned between the right turn lane and thru lane, with dashed lines and a sign that says RIGHT TURN YIELD TO BIKES. Nonetheless, a large charter bus that came up from behind me practically ran me over as she was trying to merge into the right turn lane and I was trying to go straight.

Then at another busy intersection, I was going straight with the green light, ringing my bell and keeping a steady pace, and was almost t-boned by an on-coming car that was stopped but waiting to make a left turn. Had I not panic stopped, he would have taken me out completely. I'm fairly confident that he saw me, but he was in a hurry and just didn't care.

At yet another section of the same road (Ina Avenue), where the posted speed is 45 mph, and the road narrows from 4 lanes to 2 lanes and the bike lane disappears, I tried to stay as far to the right as I could, yet cars were whizzing past me at 45 or more within inches of my bike. One car in particular flipped me off as he passed, as if to say that I didn't belong on his road. Come on, drivers ... slow down, pass when its safe for both of us, and give a little space between your car and my bike! You'll get where you're going soon enough.

Bike riders, we must unite against stupid drivers, many whom are talking on their cell phones or worse yet, TEXTING, rather than keeping a sharp eye out for bikes. That's why I won't talk on my cell phone while I'm riding my bike! So if you call me and I don't answer, you can assume I'm on my bike right now. Leave me a message or send me a text, and I'll respond as soon as I can.

BE SAFE OUT THERE, and keep on pedaling!

Wednesday, June 3, 2009

Hello everyone. I hope you are enjoying the adventures of my new job with Port-A-Pit Catering. My first assignment has been to help serve food to the 2,100 bicycle riders and an additional 800 or so volunteers as they ride their bikes and drive their trucks from San Francisco to Los Angeles, about 560 miles total over 7 days.

I'm working in the Salad Kitchen, and each meal (dinner and breakfast), we serve clost to 3,000 meals. There's a second team doing the same thing, so we alternate between stops. Today was a travel day for us. We'll get all set up here in Lompoc tomorow morning, and will serve our first meal here tomorrow night. The days are long and the work is not easy, but I'm having a lot of fun, meeting a lot of people, and I'm really enjoying hanging out, when I can, with some of the bike riders.

I hope you are following along on Twitter! You can view my short up-dates at www.twitter.com/stephen_fosdick, but since I'm not posting photos there, you'll need to come here to see the photos!


This is the field of flowers next to the park at Lomboc.


Standing on the roof of the kitchen truck, you can see the tent city in the background.

Saturday, May 30, 2009

Today is my first day at Port-A-Pit Catering. We left Sisters very early this morning, and drove to Santa Cruz, California to support about 2,200 bicycle riders that will be riding 545 miles from San Francisco to Los Angeles, starting tomorrow. Santa Cruz is the first camp, and there will be a very large "tent city" set up to accomidate all the bike riders and the 800 volunteers. We will be serving about 3,000 for dinner Sunday evening and about the same number of breakfasts on Monday, then we tear down the kitchen and move it south to the next stop. A second unit is doing the same thing, and we leap-frog locations. That way, we have enough time to get all set up before the bikers arrive.

Tonight, the crew got Prime Rib for dinner. This shot shows Aaron grilling the Prime Rib over a charcol pit.


After dinner, we drove to a motel near the downtown area. I had a nice walk downtown. There were a lot of people there, and people on the street corner playing music. About 100 people were watching the Black Bird Raum play some funky music.

Thursday, May 28, 2009

The sky put on quite a show tonight ... what an incredible sunset!

Saturday, May 23, 2009

I took a nice canoe trip last week, floating about 100 miles on the Willamette river! The weather was great, the water was high, swift and cool!


You can see the rest of my canoe trip photos here.

I'm also on Twitter now! Check it out at http://www.twitter.com/stephen_fosdick. This is an easy way to keep tabs of me during my travels!

Friday, April 17, 2009

This is my entry in the My Own Two Hands Parade this afternoon:



The entry was called "GOT WORMS?", and I did this to show that you REALLY don't need a car to survive in Sisters, Oregon! I can even go fishing in my canoe only using my bike! I had a great time in the parade, along with several other bikers and kids from all of the Sisters Schools that made masks and great costumes for the event! My entry won the "BEST OF THE SHOW" award from Eurosports! Wow! Was I ever surprised!

Then, later that same day over at Bronco Billy's, there was a great Chili feed and students that participated in the Americana Project performed several of their original works, sang, played instruments, and had a great time at "SOMETHING WILD"! It was very good! Sisters has some awesome talent amongst its young adults!

Sorry that I don't know their names, but here are two of the performers playing an original song:

Saturday, April 11, 2009

Spring is in the air today!

On my way to the grocery store, I stopped and watched a baseball game between the Sisters High School Outlaws and the Sweet Home Huskeys. It was a great day for a game, although it was just a bit windy.


I took this shot two blocks from my house. And just down the street another block or so is where I took this photo: