Winter 2015 January 14 Wednesday

28 degrees this morning,45:07 minutes walking  Eleven earthquakes

I read yesterday where this state has more earthquakes than California and the past few years have been much higher than the average in the past.  I have to think SOMETHING is causing it!   

I was disgusted to read today that the city I live in is adopting an Ordinance requiring a cyclist to stay 3 feet away from a car when passing!  

In Tennessee the CAR had to stay 3’ away, here everything is put on the bicycle, in addition to a remarkable lack of sidewalks, bike paths, bike lanes, turn lanes etc., they have to rub it in that a bicycle isn’t desirable. How often does a bicycle pass a car?  I really haven’t followed the city much here, but I”m getting ready too.  

The lack of recycling was bad, but now this….Makes me wonder about this area.

This city has “districts” and the “district” I live in has an opening.  I’m going to find out who is running and talk with them.  

Maybe we can get someone forward thinking, they obviously don’t have too many right now that are thinking about the needs of residents or making a truly livable city.  

For example, even in Lakeland, I could ride of miles on my bicycle with relative safety, although much of it was state right of way, at least the City (in the past, not now, but that is another story) made major strides towards improved bicycle and pedestrian safety. 

No wonder the city next to us has tripled in size in the last few years, they believe in  a city for th residents.  

Went to see the movie “Unbroken”.  It was good.  We say “Birdman” a short time ago, which makes the most movies we have seen in a short time for years!  We always talked about going to  the movies, but just didn’t go much, even after I won a bunch of free passes to the movies.  

As noted previously, I think it is sick that we live a mile from one of the major malls in this area (actually less, as a crow flies) and we have to drive to the mall because there are no sidewalks or even decent streets with any kind of provision for pedestrians or bicycles.  

Aliene has taken down the Holiday decorations and put up the “winter” decorations.  It is nice to have the seasons reflected in the house (although Winter is certainly not my favorite season!)

The more I think about the way this city spends money on attracting business, recruiting business, throwing money at business, building infrastructure etc. (which is fine) without doing anything to make the city more livable for residents, which is not, I have to wonder about the elected officials and their priorities.  Sure business is very important (especially in this state), but business won’t do much good without residents!

I heard the term “capitalist cronyism” which probably describes.  I strongly believe in setting up the infrastructure for business, but ….

This city actually has a relatively strong bicycle group, but I could be wrong on how strong it is.  If the elected officials and staff don’t respect the needs of residents for a livable city, it probably doesn’t really matter until they get strong enough to impact elections.

Of course, this city still believes in stop signs for speed control, which has been disproven for years.

That’s it for now, Wednesday, January 14, 2015.