Breathing normally
Phew, done with deadline and I'm back. Naturally, as soon as we upload the magazine, all hell (literally) breaks loose in the Crescent City and we have no acknowledgement of it in our pages. While planning some ways of capturing the situation in the next issue (including a feature on fine New Orleans singer/songerwriter Mo Leverett, who has done ministry work in the inner city for a decade now) my personal challenge is to stop talking a big game about what we're going to do and actually get out and do it. First of all, I need to clean out our guest room so we can house some folks. Gotta do it. Pressure washing the deck all weekend was personally satisfying but didn't do jack in terms of making the house more hospitable. Hold me to that.
Had sort of an interesting experiment last week when it looked like the Atlanta area's gas pipelines (from the Gulf Coast) were shutting down and there was a massive run on the pumps. After filling up both cars, we parked 'em. Then the next morning, the moppet and I actually hopped on a bus and took public transit to her daycare (which is thankfully walking distance from a train stop), then I walked across downtown Decatur to work where I picked up a few things. Then I got on my bike (which I'd left at my office), rode four miles Lowe's to pick up a few supplies, then parked at another train station and went to the airport to manage some ticket refunds.
From there, I took another train, then a bus, to my credit union to deposit my paycheck. Then, bus, train, train back to the bike, where I rode two miles home. Gasoline usage = zero. Of course, the nice thing is that I live in a relatively urbanized, older area, where it's actually possible (though more time-consuming) to get around a bit on transit, bike and good old-fashioned shoe leather. In newer areas, where cul-de-sac'd subdivisions all dump out on sidewalk-less 4/6-lane collector roads, biking or walking entails risking ones life, local transit is nonexistent, and everything is at least two miles away by design. Gas crunches reveal the folly of this sort of car-mandatory development more than anything.
With my only real problem being $3/gal+ gasoline I am quite lucky. Now the onus is on us to make sure we do something for the folks who aren't.
Had sort of an interesting experiment last week when it looked like the Atlanta area's gas pipelines (from the Gulf Coast) were shutting down and there was a massive run on the pumps. After filling up both cars, we parked 'em. Then the next morning, the moppet and I actually hopped on a bus and took public transit to her daycare (which is thankfully walking distance from a train stop), then I walked across downtown Decatur to work where I picked up a few things. Then I got on my bike (which I'd left at my office), rode four miles Lowe's to pick up a few supplies, then parked at another train station and went to the airport to manage some ticket refunds.
From there, I took another train, then a bus, to my credit union to deposit my paycheck. Then, bus, train, train back to the bike, where I rode two miles home. Gasoline usage = zero. Of course, the nice thing is that I live in a relatively urbanized, older area, where it's actually possible (though more time-consuming) to get around a bit on transit, bike and good old-fashioned shoe leather. In newer areas, where cul-de-sac'd subdivisions all dump out on sidewalk-less 4/6-lane collector roads, biking or walking entails risking ones life, local transit is nonexistent, and everything is at least two miles away by design. Gas crunches reveal the folly of this sort of car-mandatory development more than anything.
With my only real problem being $3/gal+ gasoline I am quite lucky. Now the onus is on us to make sure we do something for the folks who aren't.
posted by Godric of Finchale | 9:06 AM
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