I'm a lasagna boy!

In which the whole is less than the sum of its parts

An interesting counterpoint to the "If you build it, they will come" school of mass-transit development is the BART to SFO extension. Much anticipated, this BART extension has yielded disappointing ridership

Its impact has been more than low ridership or lower-than-expected revenue for San Mateo County: commuters who relied on SamTrans, which cut bus service from the Peninsula to San Francisco International Airport, now find that they pay higher prices for less-frequent service. One cannot obtain a weekly or monthly pass for BART, either, unlike with SamTrans. Thus concession and airline employees commuting to the airport to work found themselves paying more for services not necessarily convenient for them.

Also, who is number one?

Ironically, one reason the SFO/Millbrae extension is struggling could be competition from Caltrain, which SamTrans also helps to finance. A year ago, Caltrain began running Baby Bullet trains between San Jose and San Francisco, making far fewer stops along the way. Since then, Caltrain weekday ridership is up more than 12 percent.

But that's a healthy trend for the two rail systems rather than a discouraging one, said Mark Simon, special assistant to SamTrans CEO Michael Scanlon.

"They complement one another," he said. "They give people more options to get out of their car."

He said the only reason people are disappointed with BART ridership is those old projections, which were made at the height of the economic boom. Ridership at the stations from Colma south is up 8.4 percent from the first quarter of 2004.

"Any other system, if it was sustaining annual growth of more than 8 percent, that would be hugely successful," Simon said.

Still, because of the Baby Bullets and because all Millbrae BART trains go through SFO, Caltrain riders now can get to many areas of downtown San Francisco slightly faster and for less money by staying on the train instead of switching to BART in Millbrae. Many BART projections have assumed that lots of Caltrain riders would switch in Millbrae, but it isn't happening.

BART's spokesman is named Linton Johnson.

Notes from Undergound / The Double

I began reading Fyodor Dostoevsky's novella "The Double", and, like many of the secondary characters, I find myself bewildered. The edition I have (one of the Penguin Classics series) feels a little heavy in the rendering, but frankly Dostoevsky's prose obscures his tale of a man possessed by madness (if that is, in fact, what transpires). I'm going to go back to Tolstoy's "Master and Man" for my next Russian novella, and then to Mikhail Lermontov's "A Hero For Our Time" or Nikolai Gogol's short stories.

In which number one takes a break

BART workers are threatening a strike next week, which would throw Bay Area transit into utter disarray -- trebling commute times and creating incapacitating gridlock -- according to a BART-commissioned UC Berkeley study (original in PDF format). One of the assumptions: that the 155,000 riders who take the the Transbay Tube each rush hour would instead create instant gridlock by hopping into their cars and slugging it out over surface streets at 9 mph.

Lest I forget: BART is still proud to be the "number-one transit system" in this country (between the horus of 0600 and 0000, 0800 and 1100 Sundays and holidays).

In which I am a pain in the arse, Or, piffle

Think about everything I eat, and consider its origin.

1. eat nothing from a plastic bag
2. eat nothing containing corn syrup, high [-] fructose corn syrup
3. eat nothing from GMO fruit, grain, or meat
4. eat no meat that is not organic
5. eat greens every day
6. eat no fish caught by a net

In which we creatively interpret the use of land

The houses of David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen G. Breyer, Anthony Kennedy and John Paul Stevens have been demolished to create the Institute for Creative Land Use Interpretation.

... I was working on something witty, but Aram (and probably others) have beat me to it.

In which I get no forrarder

After a few recent trips by 'plane, I have re-(re-)read much of Dorothy Sayers' oeuvre featuring the monocled 'tec Lord Peter Wimsey. Much to my chagrin, I found myself feeling much like this rabbity protagonist when I found my carefully-arranged bottles of port all upended and cleaned, just as in the scene from her stage-play Busman's Honeymoon in which the provincial charwoman Mrs Rundle does ditto damage to His Lordship's carefully-swaddled bottles. My case was perhaps less severe, but also hilarious.

"Never you mind that, Mr. Bunter. I'll soon 'ave them bottles clean." "Bottles?" said Bunter. "What bottles?" A frightful suspicion shot through his brain. "What have you got there?" "Why," said Mrs. Ruddle, "one o' them dirty old bottles you brought along with you." She displayed her booty in triumph. "Sech a state they're in. All over whitewash." Bunter's world reeled about him and he clutched at the corner of the settle. "My God!" "You couldn't put a thing like that on the table, could you now?" "Woman!" cried Bunter, and snatched the bottle from her, "that's the Cockburn '96!" "Ow, is it?" said Mrs. Ruddle, mystified. "There now! I thought it was summink to drink." ... "You have not, I trust, handled any of the other bottles?" "Only to unpack 'em and set 'em right side up," Mrs. Ruddle assured him cheerfully. "Them cases'll come in 'andy for kindling."

Dorothy Sayers novels make excellent, and riveting, reading. Interspersed with quotations from the classics, endless piffle, and quaint, feudal Old England ('though they take place Between The Wars), the mysteries rise far beyond the stereotypes of the genre while maintaining the classic whodunit form. Almost all are murder mysteries, excepting perhaps "The Nine Tailors", which is a stupendously beautiful book. And people do die, perhaps outside the scope of the narrative, but the novel is more of a study in character than a murder-mystery.

In which Mr Bolsinga throws a 'wild party'

I love police-blotter writing, especially in very local 'papers:

Bay to Breakers Melee, 1900 block Fell Sunday, May 15, 12:29 p.m. A Bay to Breakers party got out of hand when some uninvited partygoers joined the party and started to spray the real guests with beer. A verbal argument quickly escalated into a violent melee with the host getting hit with a beer bottle on top of his head causing a severe laceration, which required sutures and hospitalization. The good quests chased away the villains who attempted to out run our very busy day watch Officers. The Officers caught the assault suspects in the panhandle and several eyewitnesses made the old positive eyeball identification. The suspects went to jail for felony assault, conspiracy, malicious mischief, and violation of their felony probation. Now that's what you call a wild party.

This refers, of course, to the misadventure of Greg after Bay to Breakers '05. The miscreants pleaded guilty, and the primary assailant received six months in pokey, while the abettor is on probation. Greg was happy, and we were all duly impressed with the workings of the great wheels of justice.

In which we preserve the environment for innovation

This afternoon I attended a talk by Wendy Seltzer of Electronic Frontier Foundation and Chilling Effects Clearinghouse fame. She spoke about endangered gizmos and other abjecta of intellectual-property law; about cease-and-desists notices, which are archived and available for analysis through Chilling Effects; about the anti-technology tendency of US law (well, she did not phrase it like that, but that is what I heard); and about brand dilution, or why I cannot, for example, sell Intel-branded chewing gum, or Levi-Strauss-branded microprocessors ... unless I move to Italy.
She did not explicitly discuss today's SCOTUS decision against Grokster.

In which I do not take our resources for granted

Thanks to a hookup from the CTA (akahttp://keepchicagolandmoving.com/), I received a neatly-rolled package of posters bearing images of an apple, a plastsic water bottle, a gas-pump, and a CTA train, with the legend "Let's not take our resources for granted." Very nice. I am sending a copy to my Supervisor, Mr Ross Mirkarimi, with the intention that he use it to better understand how to push San Francisco's transit-first agenda.

In which I pick a fight with a five-year-old

At a café this afternoon (free wireless, my arse. That's the last time I get a crappy 32-oz Turbo Coffee) I was sitting quietly minding my own bizness when a warm, wet something thwacked most unpleasantly against the back of my neck. I turned to see two five-year-olds laughing hysterically at the moist banana peel that formed a collar at my nape. Worse, I saw their parents-or-guardians holding their collective sides and laughing. I maturely resisted the impulse to upturn the remnants of the massive iced coffee onto the stupidly laughing father, and instead turned th' other cheek. Mis-guided, for I imagine that some day these children will be seated before the big red button that leads to disaster, and will moronically push it.
I cannot believe I walked away, but, really, what's the point of having an argument or a fight? Stupid parents beget stupider children, unto the seventh generation.

A Man in Full

I read Tom Wolfe's gripping and lengthy American panorama, A Man in Full, without learning any new vocabulary. (Although, through Kunstler's review of Wolfe's latest, I did learn the appropriately vivid egestive. Now why ca'n't Kunstler afford a proof-reader, or at least some software that has a spell-check function?) A Man in Full's crafty sub-plot with Epictetus itself elevates the novel to approximately the level of John Grisham, which is to say, not very high. And Grisham does courtoom and big-ego drama much more effectively than does Wolfe. In comparison with Wolfe, Grisham wins, hands-down. Whom would you rather take on a plane trip? Oh, Grisham, I reckon. Both writers have a horrible way with plot, but Grisham at least has his characters utter believable conversations. And Grisham writes about place and character in a way that feel real. But surely you are aware of Mr Wolfe's long contributions to American culture, and his witty skewering of everything from architecture to corporate America? Yes, and I figure that Grisham does ditto without actually setting out to write his novels with such a pretentious checklist.

Wolfe is very proud of the quality of "reporting" that he brings to his work, subverting the assumption that the novelist should write what he (sic) knows. In this, Truman Capote out-does him. Wolfe just ca'n't win, except, perhaps, on the sartorial front.

In which Critical Mass reaches critical mass

I just heard Critical Mass ride past, and I was thrilled.

The legal adage "possession is nine-tenths of the law" illustrates part of my new-found enthusiasm for Critical Mass. As private cars become increasingly favoured,, even in this so-called transit-first city of San Francisco, I become irritated that the de facto ownership of the public right-of-way goes not to pedestrians nor to cyclists, nor even to public transit or cartage, but to private automobiles. San Francisco makes plodding efforts to build transit corridors, but continues to expand freeways, rebuild roads designed for cars, and shunt cyclists and pedestrians off to less-convenient and half-baked schemes for getting around. Probably the only advantage that a pedestrian or cyclist has in this city are its stairways, beautiful, and inaccessible to cars.

I first rode in a Critical Mass when I moved to Pittsburgh in 1995. The entire experience was forced and without vibrance. I tried again in the Bay Area, and was intimdated by the sheer volume of cyclists (and Venice-Beach-style freaks) who turn out at Justin Herman Plaza every Friday, and especially the last Friday of each month; I also rode a stilted Peninsula Critical Mass ride down El Camino, from San Francisco to San Mateo. That ride seemed more intent on flagrantly and illogically flouting traffic laws. For years afterwards, I shrugged and told myself that I ride in Critical Mass every day, when I am on the streets and using (asserting?) my rights as a cyclist. Lately I have realised that cyclists must forcefully assert the right to be on the streets, to take the lane, to refuse intimidation either by private motorists or by poor civic planning.

Civic planning: SPUR has been calling for system-wide reform for thirty years. At this point, I doubt that their message gets across to the hopelessly foundering Board of Supervisors.
The San Francisco Charter includes such lush and promising language as:

2. Public transit, including taxis and vanpools, is an economically and environmentally sound alternative to transportation by individual automobiles. Within San Francisco, travel by public transit, by bicycle and on foot must be an attractive alternative to travel by private automobile.

3. Decisions regarding the use of limited public street and sidewalk space shall encourage the use of public rights of way by pedestrians, bicyclists, and public transit, and shall strive to reduce traffic and improve public health and safety.

4. Transit priority improvements, such as designated transit lanes and streets and improved signalization, shall be made to expedite the movement of public transit vehicles (including taxis and vanpools) and to improve pedestrian safety.

Now I am again excited about Critical Mass: it is joyful and over-the-top, and reminds cyclists and non-cyclists alike that we need to share the roads. For autos, every day is their Critical Mass.

In which I wonder about the loquaciousness of cabbies

Each of the various cabbies has been tethered to a mobile 'phone, and, with the brief exception of nodding when we announced our destination (and, in one case, asking "Which way do you want to take?" in our quest to get from late-night SoHo to Midtown East), prattled endlessly in a tongue I could not identify. Occasionally I caught words of English, or French, but always wrapped into another tongue which was at one point subject to the expanding empire of one European country or another.
My amazement continued: only one trip featured a native English-speaking, traditional-looking cabby (who would no doubt prefer to be called a hackie), and he did not sport a mobile 'phone. One driver rattled endlessly into a 'phone which had a most elaborate ring-tone (a Bengali pop song?), and switched off occasionally with another 'phone. Another driver took twists and turns through Ell-icey to avoid the bridge approaches, and navigated this all while enjoying a heated debate (argument? how could I tell?) in a tongue I could not place. In San Francisco this happens only occasionally, and somehow I feel more comfortable asking the drivers what language they are using, but here in Manhattan I simply sat quiet, in awe. And the airwaves crackle with three thousand different languages.

In which this isn't some kind of metaphor.

Goddamn, this is real.
Once again, props to Greg for having his ear to the ground: Shellac are hitting the road in August.

Lest you forget, shellac is both a noun and a verb (third denotation for both).

In which a bicycle is locked up

This sequence of still photographs assembled into a Flash movie and set to Vivaldi's Four Seasons (witty, that) illustrates a phenomenon similar to the one John Glassie documents in his recently-published photo-study, Bicycles Locked to Poles.

In which I need a camera

UPDATE: Anna snapped the sculpture on Steiner.

This morning outside the café, an unsurprising Lower Haight tableau of faeces, -- canine, but I wouldn't make any assumptions -- was dressed-up with pictures of a smiling W, neatly pinned to the poop with toothpicks. I tried to photograph with my point-and-shoot, but it reported "Memory Card Error", and then I pulled out the cameraphone, but it crashed and restarted when I pushed the "Capture" button.
On the subject of outsider art, the neighbours are marshalling to stem the tide of awful, amateurish graffiti tags. Despite semi-polite pleas (such as the posters placed on several Haight St. business windows asking to "Please stop tagging our windows") and the grotesquely-defaced murals (a few years ago, we lost the colourful mural on the retaining wall where Divisadero crosses Duboce to taggers: now ditto for the less-appealing, but still a carefully-considered piece of public art, on the side of the New Santa Clara Market at Scott and Haight), the taggers do not stop. There seems little rhyme or reason for the tagging: it recurs on some buildings, but almost never on others. Typically, buildings with large expanses of a single, light color suffer the most (with the exception of the Horse Love): Jack's Records, the large Victorian apartment building that houses Maire Rua, and the forlorn '50s cinderblock atrocity at Pierce and Haight.
Someone tucked a flyer into the grate of my building last night, encouraging residents to appeal to our Supervisor, Ross Mirkarimi.

In which we are as different as chalk and cheese

The list of apps I added to my powerbook after a clean install of Tiger:

• Acquisition
• Adium
• Camino
• Conversation IRC client
• Delicious Library to catalogue my books and DVDs (the music is already managed through iTunes, natch). This cost money.
• DivX 5.2.1
• DVDBackup, fair right usage and all that. I prefer having my movies on one disk, not four hundred, thankyouverymuch.
• flickrExporter plugin for iPhoto
• flickrUploader
• Growl Notifier
• iLife '05: this cost money.
• iPassConnect
• KisMac, a port of the excellent BSD wireless-security tool kismet.
• MacStumbler, a very handy tool for finding wireless access points, especially when iPass is not an option.
• NeoOfficeJ
• NetNewsWireLite, despite the RSS integration in Safari
• osx2x, the awesome little widget that forwards X connections between boxen
• Quicksilver ß42. If this cost money, I'd pay for it.
• SSHKeychain, painless key management
• TomatoTorrent, even though the official BitTorrent client supports retries and resumption of partial downloads, this has a better logo ;-)
• VideoLan Client (the beta: the head does not run on 10.4)

In which I go to Spain and wear a helmet

Spain adopted a mandatory helmet law for cycling outside of cities in 2004. Helmets are not compulsory in towns and may be removed while climbing steep hills.

France has a lively discussion on helmets going on. The best summary is probably this page on the Mieux se Déplacer à Bicyclette site. They analyze deaths in Paris and in France as a whole and conclude that helmet usage is a personal question but can save lives.

I began reading Randy Cohen's The Ethicist column in The New York Times Magazine when a friend pointed me to his discussion of (motorcycle) helmet laws. Although he tends to the snappy and glib, he was spot-on in saying that the financial and social cost borne by people other than the helmet-wearer offsets the personal liberties infringed-upon by requiring helmets.
I still shudder when riding with someone who isn't wearing a helmet. I think I value my noggin and what's inside, and will take all reasonable precautions to protect it. On the other hand, I rarely wear gloves when cycling, and I learned a hard lesson a few years back when I tumbled down a briar-covered hillside in Joaquin Miller Park.
Some of this may have its root in my cracking open a Kiwi helmet when I was 11 or 12, and walking my 10-speed bicycle across a busy intersection when an elderly Unitarian barrelled around the corner of Beechwood and Wilkins and sent me flying. Of course, not everyone who wears a helmet is doing so sensibly: I cringe when I see people flying down Haight St. with their helmets perched ever-so-saintly on their heads, but fail to stop at the intersection (controlled by a STOP sign), or wearing headphones, or both. Fer crying out loud: I've seen people eat a chrome meal at that intersection, and it ain't pretty.
Somewhere I have a picture of me in Barceloneta, 2001, on a bicycle but without a helmet.

In which I ride across a bridge, again

After last week's exhilarating and brief ride north'ards, jimg and I headed up an' over Camino Alto and then up an' over White's to have a snack (alas, too cold outside for that really appetizing bottle of Lagunitas IPA! -- next time!) at the Woodacre Deli. I found myself not at all tired, but each climb or long flat stretch had me working the ol' cardiovooscular system on all cylinders. We wound up at Box Dog Bicycles ogling the odd assortment of tandems. Especially the dark-green track tandem.

This was also the second weekend running that I was smoked by someone riding a fixie. Last weekend Jimg handily schooled me from start-to-finish, and especially while heading back up Conzelman Road. This week, while I was huffing and puffing up the south side of Camino Alto, I heard a cheery "How ya doin'" over my left shoulder, and I turned to see a fellow clad in a flannel shirt, with a canvas bag over his bag, riding a beat-up old frame and pushing a single gear at full steam. I did not see him again: he pulled away from me so quickly that though I strained to reach him at the next curve, he was lost from sight.

In which Greg wins.

Greg wins. (But, until he provides per-entry links to his not-a-blog, I cannot share with you the excitement that led up to this photograph.)

Greg also sez:

I'm a computer programmer. But I haven't bought gasoline for my car since sometime in April. I've driven it twice since mid-May.

S{t,c}oop

Dennis Flood has a picture that reminded me of the various meanings of 'stoop':
http://www.dennisflood.com/photos/pow/2004-11/l-stoop-and-scoop-10088.jpg. Wise words to the crowd around Duboce Park, who have but deaf ears.

prove{n,d}

During a conversation I found myself vacillating between proven and proved. A cursory look through the dictionary proved them equivalent:

(v) prove, turn out, turn up (be shown or be found to be) (v) prove, demonstrate, establish, show, shew (establish the validity of something, as by an example, explanation or experiment) (v) testify, bear witness, prove, evidence, show (provide evidence for) (v) prove (prove formally; demonstrate by a mathematical, formal proof) (v) test, prove, try, try out, examine, essay (put to the test, as for its quality, or give experimental use to)

Ditto proven; so why did the particples cause me such confusion? I think I expect the weak version (proven) to accompany a verb of being (e.g., I was proven wrong), and the regular particple form (proved) to be the simple past tense, or the second verb in a compound with a helper such as had: I had proved the theorem.

In praise of the chainguard

I wonder why chainguards disappeared from most bicycles. A nice, sturdy chainguard on my commuter bicycle would make a huge difference to keeping my cuffs clean, and also maintain a sand- and muck-free chainline. Many older and "leisure"-style bicycles have chainguards; why doesn't my Bianchi?
And to balance a rare, positive thought, I read all over the internet today that Karim Cycles got busted for running a fencing ring. Bicycle theft on the Berkeley campus should go down appropriately.

In which I suffer pangs for Pittsburgh

Okay, Pittsburgh holding a BikeFest!, replete with an umbrella circus, trumps Bikesummer in Los Angeles. I've never ridden the Bicycle Oval in Highland Park, and am somewhat jealous that Da Burgh has a nice track within riding distance of where I'd want to live (were I to live there). And here I am in San Francisco, an impossible distance from an 8.30 Saturday start at Hellyer Velodrome.

In which I do not have an aptronym

From the always-engaging A-Word-A-Day email newsletter, I learned the word aptronymically, which indicates a name that describes the occupation or other significant attribute of the named. I suspect that my name, although descriptive ("safe", "salubrious") does not qualify, because I am typically full of vitriol, bile, and irritation (in fact, this evening I snapped at a human-rights worker who stopped at the stoop to solicit funds). Most online baby-name sites merely describe the origin of Salim as 'African' and with meaning 'peace', although the name has Semitic (Phoenician?) origins (cf. Heb. shalom, Ar. salaam) and appears in the Book of John and in place names ancient and modern (or at least less ancient).

In which I ride across a bridge

In which I exit with an octopus.

Down at the Ferry Building, we saw Matthew making up all sorts of creatures (and hats, and flowers, and mediaeval weaponry) from ballons and a hand-pump. He bit off the ends of balloons, twisted lengths of the brightly-coloured plastic into odd shapes, and charmed the young 'uns, all while keeping the crowd of onlookers entertained with his patter. Asked by one of the crowd, "Where'd you learn to do this, kid?" he answered, without missing a twist, "Prison." He kept up his spiel while passers-by interrupted, and would occasionally ask somone waiting for a particularly elaborate hat, "Do you mind if I make a flower for the pretty girl?".
And then we saw naked cyclists, once, twice, three times. Part of World Naked Bike Day in protest of oil-something-or-'nother, not quite as appealing as the good sports at The Fixed-Gear Enthusiass, a nicely-done site that may not be safe for work.

The count

Today I went through one patch kit, two tyre irons, and four tubes, all within the first sixty miles. Riding with Birdsong, Rob, and Loops, I barely made the first two miles before I ran through some glass and punctured the front tyre. I replaced the tube -- which had not come off the rim in so long, it adhered to the tyre and had to be peeled out! -- and that promptly blew out from dry-rot around the valve. Birdsong a.k.a. "Bat out of hell" tossed me his spare, and we were on our way. Just as we saw the sun peeking through the heavy fog at San Bruno Mountain, I pulled over at the head of the Sawyer Camp Trail with a flat on the rear, a nice snakebite puncture. I used two self-adhesive patches, and we were off again. At the other end of the Sawyer Camp Trail, I got a second snakebite when we turned towards Cañada Road and road over some steel plates. I stopped at the head of Cañada Road and a generous roadie not only gave me a tube and loaned me a floor pump, but then gave me a second tube, saying, "You may need it." He pointed out that the second snakebite no doubt came from an under-inflated tyre: "You can't get up to 110 PSI with that thing," indicating my Zefal HPx. I tootled along merrily and caught up the gang cooling their heels outside Robert's, and we sped down Whiskey Hill Road (a misnomer if ever there was one: no hill, and definitely no whiskey!) to the Stanford Campus. On the other side of Palo Alto, just before crossing the freeway, I got another puncture in the rear tyre, and pulled over to change it. And a mile later, a thumb-tack or push-pin or something went neatly through into that tube. I walked the remaining mile in to the office, showered and changed, and collected my thoughts.
As I have intended to put new tyres on the Reparto Corse, I caught a lift with Vikram over to the Freewheel and got me some new 700x23 serfas, all-black, as dictated by the new chic. And I made it home under my own steam, hurrah. I still ca'n't believe I broke two tyre irons, but, then again, they were nylon.

Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle, Part Two

San Francisco's Recycling program has broadened the variety of plastic containers it can process. The general recycling guidelines are part of the San Francisco Environment web site. I recently started using corn-based self-composting garbage bags, and part of their appeal is the exorbitant retail cost. It provokes me to reflect back down the supply chain: I think before throwing out anything, before composting items, and before recycling. Where did the item come from? How might I avoid throwing out similar items in the future? Might I reasonably reuse what I am about to discard? Might someone else? Where did this item come from, and how much packaging, fuel, and byproducts are associated with it?

... we are pleased to add plastic tubs and lids to the ever-increasing list of products we accept. Check beneath the tub or lid: if you see the numbers 2, 4 or 5 in what looks like a "recycle" symbol, then you can put it in your blue cart along with your other recyclables. These tubs and lids are the ones customarily used for yogurt, margarine, cottage cheese, sour cream, and other food products-just make sure you've eaten or composted any leftover food from the container.

The plastic tubs and lids go to a local manufacturer that makes a durable garden edging product called Bend-A-Board. Plastic items collected in San Francisco also get made into auto parts, carpeting, clothing, and of course into new plastic bottles. It's good to buy products made from recycled content because it allows us maintain a market for the recyclables we collect; it's not so good to use products that are not recyclable or compostable.

San Francisco: a clean city.

In which the grass is greener

Pittsburgh shows its progressive attitude: "We need to make transit equal with highways." quoth Mayor Tom Murphy.

The project will extend the light rail system from Steel Plaza to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center and, through twin tunnels under the Allegheny River to the North Shore.

As part of the full-funding agreement, the agency must demonstrate its ability to operate and maintain the light-rail system for the next 30 years to get capital improvement funds -- not an easy task when the governor has been forced to transfer millions of dollars in highway money to forestall record fare increases and service cuts.

And meanwhile, The Chronicle's John King props up London (again):

Livingstone's speech here Friday concerned his 2003 imposition of a charge any time a car enters an eight-mile-square chunk of central London. As a result, 50,000 fewer cars now enter the city on a typical weekday. Many commuters instead ride the 3,000 new buses that make mass transit more enticing.

But this unabashed socialist also has used his office to help clusters of towers sprout in central London -- including a slender glass pyramid that will rise 1,000 feet smack next to London Bridge. That way you keep the financial service firms close by (the better to tax them with). You put a dent in London's estimated demand for 30,000 new housing units a year. You even cut down on traffic -- people can walk to work.

I have Sind.

Puns get in my sind:

peccavi (pe-KAH-vee) noun

An admission of guilt or sin.

[From Latin peccavi (I have sinned), from peccare (to err).]

The story goes that in 1843, after annexing the Indian province of Sind,
British General Sir Charles Napier sent home a one word telegram, "Peccavi"
implying "I have Sind." Although apocryphal, it's still a great story.

Marine trebuchet?

Given my new-found interest in anti-perspirant-based guided-starch-missile systems, one cannot be surprised that I found this news story about fishermen assailing Greenpeace activists with potatoes very, very interesting.

DIA baggage-handling automation

United Airlines will finally abandon the automated baggage-handling system that has plagued them for the past decade at Colorado's second-largest art collection Denver International Airport.

SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER

Tuesday, June 7, 2005 · Last updated 6:24 p.m. PT
United abandoning automated baggage

By KIM NGUYEN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

DENVER -- United Airlines is abandoning the automated baggage-handling system at Denver International Airport that became notorious for losing or tearing apart luggage.

After more than a decade of trouble with the equipment, the airline said Tuesday it will switch to a cheaper, more conventional manual system by the end of the year.

United will still have to pay $60 million a year under its lease contract for the automated system with the city, United spokesman Jeff Green said. The contract will last for approximately 25 years.

"It has never worked exactly how it was intended to do," Green said. "We are looking at all areas where we can cut back on costs in our operations in every airport where we operate."

The airline, which is trying to emerge from bankruptcy protection, expects to save about $1 million a month in operating costs.

The $250 million automated system was intended to be a cutting-edge model but turned into a major problem for DIA. The city, which owns the airport, spent an additional $100 million for construction and $341 million in interest to try to get it to work.

The automated system was an underground, computer-driven railroad network for moving baggage. But bags were misdelivered, luggage was chewed up and cars derailed and jammed tracks. The system was responsible for repeated delays in the opening of DIA, which began operating in 1995.

"They're finally admitting to reality," said airline analyst Raymond Neidl. "They wanted to make it work, but they just couldn't get it to work."

The automated system was built by BAE Automated Systems of Dallas. In 1996, United sued BAE, claiming the automated system "performed miserably." Earlier, BAE had sued United for withholding $17.5 million in final payments. Both sides reached a confidential settlement in 1997. BAE was sold to G&T Conveyor Co. in 2002.

Under the manual system, bags will be hauled to a sorting area, where handlers will load them onto carts and haul them to other planes or to baggage carousels.

United filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in 2002. The next year, United negotiated the $60 million annual lease agreement with the airport in bankruptcy court, Green said.

Asked if the airline would try to change the lease terms, he said: "That would be between DIA and United and it's not appropriate for me to comment publicly. We obviously have a desire to cut our costs."

In support of your Local Bike Shop

Against my better judgement, this evening I headed willy-nilly for the new branch of a Big Chain Bicycle Store (no pun intended). I should have known better! After talking to three completely disinterested clerks (one had me rifling through their parts bin looking for the chainring I needed), and spending half an hour doing nothing but cooling my heels while they ignored me, told me I needed to speak to a manager, that they needed to speak to their manager, that they had to help someone else, et cetera, I grabbed my bike, my wallet, and decided to wait and head to American or The Freewheel later this week. I had really wanted to change out the drivetrain on the Kogswell, from a 45x14 (88" effective) to a classy 42x16 (71"), but I learned me a lesson but good.
I rolled out of their parking lot and headed to Zeitgeist ("Warm beer, cold women") for a quart. On the way I viciously cut off a suit riding a Segway down 4th Street. I pulled up to Zeitgeist ("Leave drunk, or don't leave at all") and the bouncer waved me in. I settled down with a nice jug o' Racer 5 and caught up with Clint, whom I have not seen in years and years. Everything turned up roses.

Biciverano

Bike Summer hits Los Angeles this year. In 1999, San Francisco hosted Bikesummer loveliness.

Dry as a wishbone

Had mighty hopes to put down a pint or two of the best at the Wishbone with Aram and Liz bright an' early this morning, but to our dismay the waiter told us that they do not serve Bloody Marys until 10:30. And there we sat, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, at eight o'clock. I disconsolately tucked into the corn-flake-crusted french toast and thoughtfully reflected on the Eighteenth.
Not to worry: Aram and I made inroads into addressing the Bloody Mary situation after a brief walk back downtown.
And I should add that all of this happened around an early-morning visit to Millennium Park, which has the most stunning and creepy fountain. Like unto the Kabaa, were it come to Times Square. The drains at the edge of the fountain are gorgeous.

The Great Train Story

Overheard at the Great Train Story:
"That combine is set up for corn, but you've got hay and wheat planted in that field."
I bet that the next time I visit the exhibit, the combine will be changed.

"I am so totally entertained"

by the potato gun.
As it turns out, this item, more a cannon than a gun, has a certain cachet. Several acquaintances claimed to have made one, and appropriately described the effect of a potato shot a few yards into a concrete wall as "liquefaction".
This has very little to do with this potato clock.

An admonition to eat, rather than throw, the veg

A Caltrain anecdote from some months ago -- probably mid-winter, when daylight was sparse --

Caltrain 246
depart SF 8.37

at Hayward Park, a disheveled young man arrived on the platform at the same time as the train. He hurried to buy a ticket, stabbing at the buttons, but heard the train doors closed and turned to the conductor with a plea. The conductor shook his head and the train pulled away. The young man spat at the departing train; he wheeled and threw his lunch bag against the ground with such force that vegetables went flying everywhere.

Monkey got your back?

jimg pointed out this awesome photo:

Alas, the monkey is now gone, purloined, shanghaïed, removed.

In which my head is full of skriking kids

The word whinge evokes solid middle-Britain travails, and, that leads squarely to The Fall. Not only are they the quintessential loser (not in the Oasis sense, in the echt British sense) band, but they sing about whingeing (q.v., "Joker Hysterical Face", "It's a Curse!", and undoubtedly scads more), and the irascible singer, a certain Mark E. Smith of whom I am speaking, has a nasal voice that lends itself very well to complaining.