Drove today. Ain't that ironic? Didn't take the bus, because the two-zone fare costs more than driving my pick-up truck. Weather cold front blew in overnight and Vancouver woke to high winds warning. Westerlies, 50 kph...gusting to 70. Sunny.
Powerlines down, here, there.
Westerlies, as in headwinds for usually-cyclist me, going to work...well, just didn't feel like it today, frankly. Westerlies hit as a crosswind when I'm climbing the Arthur Laing Bridge. Tries to blow me over into the technicolored tailgating steel careering past my elbow. Going home, a westerly would only blow me into the railing, against my other elbow. Perhaps two and a half feet wide, the implied bike lane on that bridge. It does double-duty as the emergency lane. Triple-duty, as the oopsie lane: for those motorists who wander all over the road. But most cyclists don't much like the rollercoastering up and down the rain catchment basins in that two and a half feet between railing and traffic, so useful bike lane width actually is about one foot. And average bike and rider spans two feet across...so I drove today.
Singlehandedly did poor old Earth irreparable harm today. Of course, I'm only being facetious. Also, I might strike yoga positions...or poses, some might darkly call them...during those moments traffic's stopped for pedestrians. When traffic stops for pedestrians. A local buncha yoga enthusiasts did that at chosen crosswalks in town today. Take care of Mother Earth, Take Care of Yourself, their lesson for the day.
I decided to take care of myself: I drove.
Yesterday, I had a Green experiment going. Got home too late, couldn't satisfyingly write it up, feeling groggy-headed as I was. I hadn't anything ready for Protag either. Staying in the Green spirit, tho, figured it didn't make sense idling my pc all night. Guess I'm not so evil after all.
Photovoltaic solar cells were a sci-fi dream when I was growing up. And I'd have had to be an engineer to build my own solar farm. Now, I can practically buy a kit from Canadian Tire...if it's in stock. Curious about realworld useful results and power yields, however facing budget restraints, and feeling a hankering for doing something I could find useful, yesterday I carried out a small scale experiment using one solar-powered floating pool light.
Lay it out like a flower drinking up all that sunshine. At dusk, it switched itself on. Certainly brighter than one candle. But only for a couple hours. Then for almost another hour only just glowing, feebly, like the life going out of it. Went away, to jot down an idea that feeble dimming glow sparked. Dying spaceship sketch. Plus the tea I needed: maybe fifteen minutes away. Only a dark flower on my windowsill, when I returned.
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