Bicycles Against Poverty

A group of Bucknell University students have created a unique aid project that combines sustainable transportation (bicycles) with microfinance. Bicycles Against Poverty provides bicycles to low-income families through a loan/lease program. From their website:

"The mission of Bicycles Against Poverty(BAP) is to use bicycles to encourage community cooperation, to improve accessibility of important resources, and as a tool for economic development for low income families in and around the world."

I'm already a fan/lender with Kiva, and you know how I feel about bicycles. And yes, they are planning on expanding the program to Haiti, and had been even prior to the earthquake.

Too Cold to Ride?

Deep winter
and my partner
calls to me:
"Come out!
Come out and play."

Send Money

This will be a short post. Haiti needs help. Send money. There are many organizations sending people, supplies, food, and water. (You) send money. Here are a few (send money):

Doctors Without Borders
Oxfam
The Salvation Army
Partners in Health
Save the Children

Damn, this traffic jam!

It's been a lonely slog this winter. Especially the first two commutes of the year, when I didn't see another cyclist out on the road. Can't blame them, really. Mid-40s, dark, and raining didn't exactly make me leap for joy to be out riding. Forecast was for rain again this morning, so imagine my surprise to see stars and the moon when I went out to get the paper. Do I ride the nice bike? Better not press my luck. Rain bike it is.

I pull up to the stop sign at the bottom of the first hill to wait for cross traffic. And the cross traffic is: another cyclist! I make my left and pull in behind him. We wend our way to the bottom of the second hill and: the light is still green! Through the intersection, and cyclist #2 turns right, but up ahead I can see: cyclists #3 and #4!

Down the third hill, we pass cyclists #5, #6, and #7 coming up the hill. Stoplight at the bottom, and cyclists #8 and #9 pass through. Onto the bike path, turn right at the next street and I leave #3 and #4 to head north. I make my solitary way for the last mile, but it was nice to have the company this morning. Pulling into the parking lot, I'm greeted by this (can Spring be far behind?):

Aimless

aim·less (ām'lĭs)
adj. Devoid of direction or purpose.

I'm not going to log my miles this year. I've been tracking myself for several years now, so I can predict with reasonable confidence that I'll bicycle somewhere between 6,000 and 7,000 miles this year, and will drive somewhere between 5,000 and 6,000 miles. So I won't bore you with the daily details.

Instead, I'm going to highlight the unexpected, the unique, the serendipitous. Call it a return to randomness.

Dog

In the end, after spending the last two years of the cat's life arguing among Shiba Inus, Huskies, Terriers, and Portuguese Water dogs, we ended up getting an animal of indeterminate pedigree. The lower half and rear portion had definite Golden Retriever tendencies, but the front upper quadrant wandered into the Shepherd regions (German and Australian).

It was more useful, therefore, to think not in terms of what he looked like as much as how he behaved. Although the ears were a dead giveaway. Whereas the rest of the dog was something you might approach with hesitation, the ears flopped over and betrayed his true character. Harley might be pushing six years and sixty-five pounds, but inside he was all puppy.