OUT OF THE BLUE

At the last post meeting, we discussed ways to do more fun stuff and communicate better- as a result, VFW Day Post 7591 now has a group on Facebook. If you’re a post member, interested in joining VFW, or just want to get in touch with a good group of fellow veterans in Madison, stop by and sign up for the group. (If you’re not already on Facebook, there’s no time like the present.)

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Okay, so I’m a Madison transplant– but I’m a little closer to being a native. Not only have I made it around Lake Monona by bike (once, the easy way, but it still counts), I’ve started biking to work a couple of days a week.

It took a while to get started, even in bike friendly Madison. Getting in the car is easy– it’s still a pain to get up and go to work, but the trip there doesn’t require any effort. You get in the car, start it up, and off you go. Riding a bike involves leaving earlier, checking the weather, bringing clothes to change into when you get there, and making sure you take (enough) water along.

The route I take to work involves two different, and each fairly short, dedicated bike paths plus bike lanes and two legs of just plain old streets. There are a few hills, but nothing I can’t deal with. It’s an easy ride. The streets I do ride on aren’t busy in the morning on the way to work, and are still easy to navigate in the afternoon. They’re city streets, but not “main artery” streets. Without the two bike paths, and a short chunk of asphalt (thank you, PDQ @ Stoughton Rd. & Anderson St.!) that connects one street to another, my bike commute wouldn’t happen. If anyone wonders if those short bike paths and connector sidewalks are worth the money property owners and the city of Madison spend on them, the answer is yes. So are the bike lanes.

And since I’m handing out thank you’s, thanks to those nice folks who give me extra room on the street even when I have a bike lane to ride in. It’s appreciated.

(Now, if I could convince The Man at work that a place to shower at work would be a good thing, I’d be willing to call my employer bike friendly, too.)

Links:

• City of Madison, WI Traffic Engineering Bike Maps
• Where to get a Dane County (paper) bike map
• Reindahl Park info (one of the paths I use
• Wisconsin DOT Bicycle Projects

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Okay, I promised I’d try to write more, so I’ll take a break between conjugating verbs in Spanish, and learning about inverses of circular functions in Trig.

I’m experimenting with ways to push, pull, or drag my VFW Post into the 21st century; VFW does have a presence on Myspace and Facebook, and I’ve started posting meeting notices as events on Facebook. It’s a scream in the wilderness– at nearly 40, I’m one of the younger active members of my post and probably one of the most socially networked. If you find a meeting notice posted online, come to a meeting and tell me where you saw the posting and I’ll buy you a beer/soda.

This past Saturday, the Black Knights Color Guard (of which I am a member) got together to practice marching. Yes, marching. I swore when I graduated Ground Rat school I’d never march in a parade again if I could help it, but here I am holding up a flag and trying to stay in step. I noticed two things on Saturday– one, you never forget how to march once you’ve learned. Two, it’s actually fun now. I’ll try to get some pictures from the first time I actually march for real, which will be in May.

Back to homework…

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