the dot connection in new mexico

so i'm completely hooked on flickr these days. i've known about flickr for a few years now but in the past month i've started trying to take a picture a day. and now i'm hooked on making collages...yikes. oh well. i could have worse addictions.

I finally bit the bullet and headed out on my bike into dreaded NE Heights territory. I had several errands out that way and have wanted to get past the sense that I "must" drive when I simply must go into the Heights. I've seen some of those streets marked "Bike Route," and it doesn't much look like some of those cars want to share the road.

I chose Griegos/Comanche as my best route out, and it wasn't half bad. It goes back and forth between bike lane and bike route (a bike route is where there is no separate lane but cars are reminded by signs to share the road.) Most of it felt fairly comfortable.

The city of Albuquerque has a tough job when it comes to providing public transportation due to the low-density, sprawling suburban subdivision nature of most of its neighborhoods.

For this reason, Albuquerque's transit department mission statement encourages intermodal transportation as a way to increase use of public transportation and decrease single-occupancy-vehicle use. The Bike and Ride program offers bicycle racks on the front of all city buses to make it easier for transit users to ride their bikes to and from sometimes distant bus stops.

I'm starting to get pissed about how difficult it is to really switch from car-driving to more environmentally-friendly modes of transportation here in this lovely but highly unsustainably planned city of Albuquerque.

Today I'd intended to take the bus to TJs camera to bring in my print order. Looking at the bus schedule, had to concede that a four hour bus ride to perform a two minute errand 8 miles away is a way too inefficient use of my time. If I could combine errands it would be different, but even to do the two errands I need to do out in the NE Heights would probably turn it into an 8 hour, 8 bus ride prospect.

So I went in to my local Walgreen's yesterday to find out who to talk to about the possibility of getting a bike rack installed. I didn't have to ask the clerk, as there were three supervisory-looking types standing conspicuously together talking.

They looked pretty open to approach, so I approached them directly. Turned out two of them were this store's managers. The other was apparently a higher-up over all the local Walgreen's.

I asked about the possibility of bike racks, expressing not only that I bike there and that there is no good place to lock up my bike, but that I know this shopping center is slated for redevelopment, with plans to make it more pedestrian friendly, and that this would be a good start.

I came across this article about the Mayo Clinic developing and promoting workstations where people walk on a treadmill or stand rather than sit--a pretty cool idea and one that makes a lot of sense.

Since I work in the public schools, this got me to thinking about the obesity problem in children in the US. How come, in spite of the link of obesity to sedentary lifestyles, schools are still promoting a paradigm of sitting to work?

I mean, kids are being asked to sit still a lot younger and a lot longer than they used to. At the preschool level, some classes now spend the majority of their time sitting to do "pre-academic" work.

I've been doing pretty good with getting around my neighborhood by bike. It's been harder, when I'm neeing to trek out a little further, to make the time to ride the Albuquerque bus. It's so hard to choose what might be an 1 1/2 trip all told when you know it's only 20 minutes by car!

Today I wanted to go to the Patriot Act Town Meeting (www.reformthepatriotact.com) at the Peace and Justice Center (A two bus ride for me), and had plenty of time before and after, so I decided it was a good day to go for it.

It took just under an hour to get to the University area, which gave me time for a pleasant pit stop at El Patio before the meeting. I enjoy riding the bus. It's nice to not be driving and not be hurrying--to have the time and space to just space out. Good people-watching also. It reminded me of what I like so much about riding the subway when I visit my sibs in NYC.

When I started my "summer project" I still held the assumption that if I really wanted to live a more pedestrian lifestyle, I would have to move to a more pedestrian and bike-friendly neighborhood like Nob Hill or the University area.

I live in the Los Ranchos in the far North Valley of Albuquerque, not a pedestrian kind of a berg (tou don't see folks strolling down North Fourth), nor a hopping retail center. Nonetheless, I thought I'd give it a try--see just how much I would be able to meet my consumer "needs" in my own neighborhood.

Suprisingly, since I started this a week ago, I've so far been able to make all my purchasing treks by bike or on foot. It just required a little shift in my thinking: Why automatically assume I need to go to a big box like Home Depot with its overwhelming choices when the much more modest Hacienda Home Center just a mile from me. Not to mention Chase Hardware, a little hardware store that somehow manages to have just about any obscure thing one might be looking for, wirh a person just waiting at the front to help you find it.

I like to go on little trips by myself--Normally in my car. Last week I made a little trek to the Grand Canyon and left my car at home. I travelled by foot, city bus, Amtrak and shuttle.

The hardest part of the journey was the 1/4 mile on foot schlepping all my luggage. Though the public transportation where I live (Albuquerque) is not the greatest, I timed it well, and arrived at the bus stop just as it was coming down 4th street.

The bus took me straight to the downtown Alvarado Transportation Center, right next to the Amtrak station. I was a half hour early, but the train was already loading--everything went without a hitch.

This was the first project of the summer. I started by putting a dishpan and a scoop in my bathtub. I plugged the drain while showering and left the water in the tub all day. Then, whenever I used the toilet, I filled the dishpan with bathwater using the scoop and dumped it into the toilet. Instant graywater flushing system!

I reported my success to a friend at dinner, and she told me about how she did something similar to water her plants. She used not only the bathwater, but also collected the water from dishes from two pans, one for the dishwater and the other for the rinsewater. (Using "Ecover," a plant-based, biodegradable dishsoap--otherwise this wouldn't be adviseable.) She would collect the water from the dishpans and tub into a pail to water the plants.