I rode the bike today...

(Shots from several commutes over the last few weeks)

It was a beautiful morning! Very little traffic. A cool (but light) breeze. The bike was working well. My knees were working well. I rode a few miles on Sunday. I rode to work on Monday. I hope to ride tomorrow.

My wife and I saw an OmniMax movie last night - part of the BBC Blue Planet series. And it had astounding footage of all kinds of creatures. And it offered up some optimism for the future; however, like all modern nature documentaries, the ever-present villain was man-made environmental destruction.

They're too small to see here, but there's a cow bird,

a snowy egret, and a green heron in this one.

And that makes the bike rides even better. Every time a person chooses to travel by bike (in place of a single-occupant car) we all breathe a little better. I know it's very simplistic, but my greatest hope in all of this is to have thousands of people making incrementally better choices about petroleum and plastics and pollution. I know that would have a massively greater impact than just this one dork joyfully riding a bike as often as possible.

The view over the handlebars this morning

 

May you joyfully make a positive impact!

Finding Douglas Adams in Mesquite Huggery TV

For those of you who love dolphins, want to save the world, and know exactly where your towel is. 

 

Don't panic, anyone.

 

About 25 years ago I found myself perusing the shelf of a junior high library and I ran across what would become one of my favorite non-fiction books, and it definitely planted an early mesquite seed in my view of the world. The book was called Last Chance to See. It made me laugh. It made me very sad. It made me very angry. I have read it several times since then and I react the same way every time.

 

Wikipedia: Last Chance to See

 

The book is the result of putting a quirky and brilliant sci-fi writer (Douglas Adams) with an accomplished zoologist and conservationist (Mark Carwardine) together to go out and visit a handful of species on the verge of extinction. It was published in 1990. It is a heartbreaker. You should read it.

 

So, imagine my surprise when I was thumbing through Netflix this week and learned that there exists a follow-up TV series of the same name. The series was filmed after Adams' death, so his good friend Stephen Fry stepped in and traveled the world with Carwardine to see how those almost extinct creatures were faring twenty years later. There are six episodes. I got to watch Episode 1 last night, and it is great. And it made me miss Adams all the more. (If you have no Netflix, I ran across some very inexpensive DVDs of the series on Amazon.)

 

The next Douglas Adams spotting happened on Hulu - and it is much smaller but filled me with a lot of mirth.

 

Learn more here

 

Yes, I can readily admit it - I saw a film titled Bicycle and knew that I had to watch it. And it's not bad for bike dorks like me. Okay, it's actually pretty cool and it's worth watching just to see Gary Fisher's facial hair.

 

About 2/3 of the way through the film, a guy makes a Douglas Adams reference while talking about biking infrastructure in the UK. Good, good stuff! (No spoiler here!)

 

May we find inspiration to save what we have and may we find many more reasons to scratch our heads and laugh.

 

So long, and thank you for reading!

Last Chances - Don't Panic!

Such dreaded words: "This is your last chance to..."

On a self-serving, pandering to you, dear reader note, this is your last chance to join a very exclusive group (Thanks Brian and Toni!) by somewhat anonymously filling out the first annual Mesquite Hugger survey. Please! It closes at midnight on the 31st.

Don't think about it - just click here!

And, in other last chance news, we have a book/video/audio recommendation: Last Chance to See by Douglas Adams and Mark Carwardine. In a former life, I stumbled across a non-fiction Douglas Adams book in a junior high library. I was not a fan of non-fiction back then, but I knew where my towel was back then and had to read anything Adams had written. Essentially, the two authors took on the task of going to see and report on a number of profoundly endangered species. It's a travel book, a slightly humorous book, and a powerful picture of the impact that human beings have had on the other denizens of our big blue marble.

Good Reads - Last Chance to See

I am feeling rather slackerish to learn that the whole thing was actually a BBC production and that there was a follow-up series done in 2009. I now have some reading and watching to do.

So long, and thanks to all the readers!

May you always know where YOUR towel is.