Thoughts on commuting
May. 30th, 2007 01:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
spacealien_vampNow that I work on the opposite side of town, I have to commute by bicycle. Things I have discovered...
1. The traffic signals between my apartment and the school are timed such that a person on a bicycle hits every red light. (To be fair, it's possible to squeak through the last one if you pedal like you mean it.)
2. There is a middle school along my route and I wind up behind those students more often than not. This doesn't cause problems on long straight stretches (they ride FAST), but there are often near-misses at intersections as the people waiting for the red light (me) have no choice but to block the path of the people crossing the opposite direction.
3. Bicycle + rainy season = major suckage. I wind up drenched from the elbows/knees outward where my rain poncho doesn't cover. I need to get one of those full-body rainsuits the boys wear. (Girls all wear skirts, so they just have to deal with wet legs.)
Also, be careful when biking with slip-on shoes. Having a shoe fall off while crossing an intersection is quite the adventure.
Nothing else interesting to report other than that, since things are going pretty much as usual. Starting tomorrow, though, students have two short-schedule days. My English club students are taking advantage of the chance to go to Kyoto on Friday and interview foreigners as they did two years ago. I'm going along with them as a photographer. The plan is to hit the area around Kiyomizu.
Warcraft had a major patch last week. This patch included a number of changes, including the introduction of a quest line that leads to getting a mount called a Netherdrake. In pursuing this quest line, the character is given an illusion that makes it appear to be riding a Netherdrake. This illusion is only supposed to work in a limited area, but sometimes it bugs and lets you fly around other places with the illusion still active. I've had this bug on my character a couple times, so I took a number of screenshots.
On a mountaintop in Nagrand
Hovering in Netherstorm
1. The traffic signals between my apartment and the school are timed such that a person on a bicycle hits every red light. (To be fair, it's possible to squeak through the last one if you pedal like you mean it.)
2. There is a middle school along my route and I wind up behind those students more often than not. This doesn't cause problems on long straight stretches (they ride FAST), but there are often near-misses at intersections as the people waiting for the red light (me) have no choice but to block the path of the people crossing the opposite direction.
3. Bicycle + rainy season = major suckage. I wind up drenched from the elbows/knees outward where my rain poncho doesn't cover. I need to get one of those full-body rainsuits the boys wear. (Girls all wear skirts, so they just have to deal with wet legs.)
Also, be careful when biking with slip-on shoes. Having a shoe fall off while crossing an intersection is quite the adventure.
Nothing else interesting to report other than that, since things are going pretty much as usual. Starting tomorrow, though, students have two short-schedule days. My English club students are taking advantage of the chance to go to Kyoto on Friday and interview foreigners as they did two years ago. I'm going along with them as a photographer. The plan is to hit the area around Kiyomizu.
Warcraft had a major patch last week. This patch included a number of changes, including the introduction of a quest line that leads to getting a mount called a Netherdrake. In pursuing this quest line, the character is given an illusion that makes it appear to be riding a Netherdrake. This illusion is only supposed to work in a limited area, but sometimes it bugs and lets you fly around other places with the illusion still active. I've had this bug on my character a couple times, so I took a number of screenshots.
On a mountaintop in Nagrand
Hovering in Netherstorm
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no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 10:46 am (UTC)I wonder if pedaling slower would help you arrive at the light as it is about to turn green. You wouldn't actually lose any time, and you wouldn't have to hurry up to wait.
The pictures are beautiful!
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 01:04 pm (UTC)Yes. It's $6 per trip minimum, which would be $12 per day. No way am I spending that much. It would be a lot cheaper to buy raingear.
I wonder if pedaling slower would help you arrive at the light as it is about to turn green.
Since I generally get there just as it turns red, not likely. I'd have to go extremely slowly. The timing just isn't convenient for bicycles.
no subject
Date: 2007-05-30 02:22 pm (UTC)Oh, man, I remember this so well from my two years in Oxford. It rains pretty much all the time in England, and I was on my bike virtually every day, so I got to the point where I just didn't care anymore. And I hate being wet more than you can imagine; I must be at least two-thirds cat.
Gambatte!!