Ah, That Autumn Morning Light

Steve A of DFW Point-to-Point posted something recently about how the time change brought some welcome sunlight to his morning ride. It made me think about how much I have been enjoying my morning commute rides lately. They have been nicer partly because I've been leaving home a little earlier which leaves me enough time to take lots of path instead of street. It's tough to enjoy the light when riding on the street, but does Autumn morning light combined with a coating of frost, some mist and a river ever make for a sweet, soul-feeding ride. It's like... heaven!

Woah, did you see that? I went into the light for a bit there! I think the graffiti on that cement thing was some sort of ancient spiritual gateway stuff! I sure am glad that I am blessed with so many good reasons to want to stay here with my family and all you fine people, because I think that is what pulled me back to this plane of existence. Be careful this time of year... that Autumn Morning Light might just suck you in, leaving you completely blissed out forever, but your loved ones sorrowful and mystified.

Seriously though, who gets to commute like this other than cyclists? Nobody, that's who. I wish I could convey properly to others what they are missing. At least many of you cycling freaks get where I'm coming from. I think.

Keep Your Wheels on the Ground,

R A N T W I C K

Reading the Signs at Nihilism Bridge

This one bridge near my house seems to be a natural focal point for cool happenings and spray painted messages. I have always liked it, even before the random bridge music. Next, I was sent on a philosophical journey that resulted in me calling it "nihilism bridge" these days. Way back then in early summer, the bridge was being re-built. It has been closed all Summer and may be closed still; I haven't been by lately. At the time I took these photos, it was quite literally shrouded in mystery...

In the near environs of the bridge, spray paint was again at work. First, another message asking me to do stuff:

Unlike "try nihilism", I didn't know how to follow this particular instruction. Since it seemed to involve leaving leaving your shirt behind, I chose not to try too hard to figure it out. I turned my attention to the bridge. That shroud was driving me crazy. What were they doing under there? I wanted to take a closer look, but I found two messages discouraging me from doing so.

Studying these two messages taught me something important. Vertical, hand spray-painted warnings are way more scary than horizontal, prefabricated ones. That's because each type of sign suggests a certain kind of author. The store-bought sign stinks of somebody from Head Office who is mostly concerned about liability and such. If they caught you on the work site, it would probably go down something like this:

If that's the worst that would happen, I just might trespass and take a little look around.

The hand done, vertical sign brings forth images of an entirely different sort. I mean, if I had hopped the fence with the author of "keep out" around, I imagine something like this would have been more likely:

With that image in my head, I decided to just carry on home and stop being so nosey. As I left that neighbourhood, I saw the symbol below painted on the sidewalk. The arrow was pointing into the street. If somebody could tell me what it means, I would appreciate it.




Anyway, that's it for today I guess. Remember, if you want to scare people off with a sign sometime, make the effort to spray-paint it yourself. It works better.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K

Ads On Rantwick

Most of the bloggers I like best don't display any ads; they just post their stuff because they want to and I love them for it. Really successful ones like Fat Cyclist and bikesnobnyc have ads, but I don't know if they make any money worth mentioning from them.

Some of you may have noticed the return of ads to my blog. I don't feel any need to explain why they are there, but I think it is best if my readers know how they work. The type of ads I am displaying now have been chosen by me, thinking that they may hold some interest for my readers. That's why there are non-cycling ones like Footie Pyjamas or Fortune Cookie Soaps or Donkey Tees (I think I need the WWF one).

The ads I'm displaying have nothing to do with a "pay-per-click" kind of thing. Click once or twenty times, I won't know the difference. If you click one of my ads and end up buying something from the site, I will get a commission on the sale. I feel kind of cheap somehow, when most of my best blogging pals don't do it. My reality, however, is one in which something I spend this much time on should, ideally, make a little money.

Nobody really likes ads. I know this. Thanks for sticking with me in spite of them.

Yer Pal,

R A N T W I C K