correction

I won't be flying American to India after all. I'll be rocking a flight on Continental. I have fond memories from 7 years ago or so when Continental had all these new planes. Those planes are not new anymore. That said, they are a hell of a lot newer than the MD-80s that American continues to fly. Those shiny planes are only a few years younger than I am!

So as it stands, as I am flying back from Delhi to Newark, I'll attain elite status on Continental's OnePass. As I fly back to Seattle from Cleveland after Christmas, I'll attain elite status on AAdvantage. No elite status on Delta though.

43696

You know, up till this year I've never flown in American Airlines. I don't particularly like them, but it seems like this year I'll be spending 43696 miles with them, and about 30000 miles with them in the span of three weeks.

what i want for the holidays

Yes, it's a bit early, but here's what's on my mind:

Bike stuff:
Another Ortlieb Messenger Bag (for work and dirty stuff, so I can keep that separate from groceries)
A decent, fast road bike with a super wide range of gear rations both high and low (for the summer and longer rides, especially the Burke Gilman)
Some panniers? (maybe... I haven't used these before)

Computer stuff:
A 2TB WD Green HD (I've already almost filled up 1TB with photos and movies)
A decent 24" 1080p display (might do more work from home?)

General stuff:
Sunglasses (last pair finally broke down and disappeared into an alpine lake up in the Grand Tetons)
Bike glasses (getting bugs in your eyes at 20mph is not fun)
Amazon gift certs (Kindle purchases?)
REI gift certs (I'll inevitably need something bike, ski, or hike related)

yummy!

mount rainier, adams, st helens, and hood

bike safety and cougars

With various people showing excessive concern about bike safety, I want to make it clear that I don't plan on dying in a bike accident and that I also do many of the things that prevent such things from happening. Here's my excessively detailed TMI response.

Top level, per mile biking is 3-11 times as dangerous. That sucks. I should be at least 3-11 times safer than the average "statistic" of a injured/dead cyclist. Joy.

Three good sources for cyclist accident/injury/death data:
http://www.bicyclinglife.com/Library/Moritz2.htm
http://www.kenkifer.com/bikepages/health/risks.htm
http://bicycleuniverse.info/transpo/almanac-safety.html

From the Moritz study, we can see that the most dangerous paths (by crashes per distance ridden) are other/sidewalk and off road. I don't bike off road (except the short distance on the field when I bike to play ultimate). I don't bike on sidewalks except for short distances where the alternative is going on a major non-bike friendly road, such as the occasional few blocks by Montlake. Based on where I bike, I'm roughly 2x better than the average stat. Yay me.

For biking fatalities (second link), I'm not susceptible to 20% of the causes since I check for cars, I check for cars, I check for cars, and I use lights anytime there is low contrast or backlighting. 56% of fatalities happen at night with no lights. I use lights at night. I'll also be biking less when it gets completely dark, so no more bike commute. )-:

So to summarize, the studies show that sidewalks are bad, off road is bad, bike lanes are good, paying attention to traffic is good, and no lights at night bad. I'm looking pretty good. Bad part is that that gives me a 2x advantage, which means it's still 1.5-5.5x as dangerous as driving. Ouch. I'll rely on the "soft" stuff for the remainder, like how the health benefits of cycling outweigh the risk and the other stats on those linked pages that use the most optimistic lenses when looking at all the data.

If you're curious what my typical routes look like, here you are:
5x/week - 2.5mi - Morning ride to Montlake
5x/week - 1.4mi - Morning ride from OTC to the office
2x/week - 1.4mi - Afternoon ride to OTC from the office
2x/week - 0.5mi - Afternoon ride from bus stop home
1x/week - 18.6mi - Bike home on I-90
1x/week - 26.4mi - Bike home on the Burke Gilman

You can cross reference those routes with the local bike maps to see the facilities I'm on (or zoom in on the satellite view). Also note that on Boston/15th coming up the hill they are putting in more sharrows, which aren't reflected on the map. It's good to see that since I've moved here they've put these in along all the major corridors by where I live.
Seattle Bike Map
Bellevue/Redmond Bike Map
King County Bike Map

Lastly, I'd like to point out another danger of my west coast life that I haven't gotten many concerned messages about: Cougars. They are out there.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2009818853_cougar07m.html

Not the location of where the second cougar was - 520 and 51st - that is precisely where I work. I'm only on a bike a few hours each day and I'm usually looking out for things that could happen to me. I'm at work 9 hours a day and I'm usually not looking out for wild predatory animals sneaking around campus. Perhaps that is what y'all should be more concerned about!

goodbye passport

The passport that I have been using for the past 10 years has been retired. )-:

6 continents
15 countries (EU counts as one)
6 full page visas
68 stamps

It's been a good run, but now it's time for my new passport for the next 10 years. We'll see how many pages need to be added to this one. This year alone I may need 7 pages, thanks to full page visas. That leaves 10 pages for the remaining 9.5 years. Hrm...

ophelia's place

I watched Trading Places again (great movie) and I noticed the address of the place where Ophelia (Jamie Lee Curtiss' character) lived. Looks like the building is still around, but the rest of the neighborhood has been rebuilt.