April 2008

All entries and daily links from April 2008.

Don't Panic

Saturday, April 26, 2008 at 8:04pm 0 comments

Just starting to cross the Golden Gate Bridge this morning, two cyclists ahead of me going opposite directions collided. One was a fellow AIDS/LifeCycle rider taking part in today's Day on the Ride, which as the name implies has rest stops and a support crew to give new riders a feel for what seven days of this will be like.

This wasn't the first time I've been at the scene of an accident on the bridge and maybe the bright side to this was that I was there with my friends Dave and Gary to help. We've been training partners for years and became volunteer training ride leaders our second year on AIDS/LifeCycle.

When the riders went down, we jumped to help like it was instinct. As others made sure the injured girl wasn't moved, Gary assigned me to call AIDS/LifeCycle dispatch, Dave began calling Bridge dispatch, while he dialed 911. Medics were there within minutes, but the ambulance took a while longer and I ended up at the scene for 45 minutes until a vehicle arrived to pick up her friends and the bikes.

Since I'd become the contact person for dispatch (it felt strange to be calling an emergency line so often I was starting out with "It's Jamison again,...") and there was no reason for all of us to stay, I told Dave and Gary to ride on ahead.

I ended up the absolute last rider for the next ten miles and about another 45 minutes until I caught up with the tail end of the ride. Soon after I caught up with Dave and Gary who were taking it slow so I could catch up.

I lost any sense of pacing riding hard to catch up, and I'm a lot more exhausted and worn out than I should be for an 85 mile ride just a month away from the ride itself. I feel so un-prepared now, but I hope with a good night of sleep I'll feel fine tomorrow.

And the AIDS/LifeCycle being a seven day fundraiser, I need your donations of support to make this a success. My goal is to raise at least $6,000.

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Earth Day

Tuesday, April 22, 2008 at 9:04am 0 comments

Today is Earth Day, but looking around the local news sites you wouldn’t be able to tell. SF Gate has a small link, though Macy’s is using their ad space to promote CFL light bulbs, and just one story on the Examiner home page about how far behind San Francisco is on it’s green vehicle fleet. The City web site doesn’t have a single thing about Earth Day.

I expected better of San Francisco. A $3 million tax incentive program for residents who install solar panels is stalled while the City is considered construction of a new fossil-fuel power plant, at a cost of a quarter million dollars and located in a neighborhood already suffering the negative health effects of the current power plants.

Can’t we do better than this?

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Name That Toaster - The Battlestar Galactica Game

Friday, April 11, 2008 at 12:04am 1 comments

Ok, first off, spoiler alert for the first episode of season 4, action stations! So this week it looks like we're going to learn who the last Cylon is, well the commercial promises "all will be revealed" at least. I'm going to take that too mean we learn who the twelfth and final human Cylon is and have some theories...

Who I don't think is a Cylon:

Gaius because he represents what man will to his fellow man in his own self-interest. We don't know if he feels any guilt for causing the near extinction of his own species, not once, but twice. Caprica Six would also be free of the guilt It would also ruin the whole thing with Six being inside his head while Caprica has a version of Baltar in hers as equal and opposite.

Bill Adama or Laura Roslyn because they are the mother and father figures and stand in opposition to Gaius because they've put the survival of the human ahead of their own lives. They both believe in the rule of law, they've also subverted the law when they believed they had to and the justified the means with the ends. It wasn't that long ago Bill had thrown the president in the brig and she tried to rig an election. Bill challenges us to be better, "it's not enough to survive, we never proved we deserved to" and while the president struggles with internal and external religious conflicts. All very human stuff.

Helo shows us that love can conquer. He found out she was a Cylon and pregnant at the same time shortly after her people launched a nuclear holocaust on his people. And now they're married with a baby girl.

D or Gaeta, cause really?

Cally for a couple reasons. Would ruin the drama if it turned out both she and the Chief are Cylons. He's now got a secret he can't tell her and makes him different from her.

Kara for much the same reasons but with Anders, minus a kid. I think they're setting this up so she will be accused of being a Cylon for a complete mind-frak on everyone: Anders is already freaked out, and now that Lee is not in the military they have to make him useful with a reason for being on Galactica and being either her defense attorney or the prosecutor, either of which will be awkward. Adama will probably feel he's been betrayed by a woman he considers his daughter, and/or his son, and/or President Roslyn depending on her roll in all of it.

So that leaves:

Lee. Who could possibly be more shocking to Adama, Roslyn or Kara? He's been a moral compass for the president and his father. Everyone has repeatedly placed their lives in his hands and he's come through. Last week Lee asked his father a question, if his brother Zak still alive, but turned out to be a Cylon would it change anything? Well, what if Adama was faced with his son being a Cylon? Anders asked Kara the same question of himself and she said she'd put a bullet through his brain. Would she feel that way if she found out Lee was a Cylon?

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An Enduring Legacy for the Bush Presidency

Wednesday, April 2, 2008 at 3:04pm 0 comments

The recently formed Presidential Memorial Commission of San Francisco is looking to honor the America's 43rd with monument that suitably fits his accomplishments.

The commission aims to place on the following question on this November's ballot:

"Should the City and County of San Francisco rename the Oceanside Wastewater Treatment Facility the George W. Bush Sewage Plant?"

Byrne didn't think this idea was appropriate as the facility does not dump raw sewage directly into the Pacific Ocean and in a way very contrary to the Bush Administration it first treats the sewage to make it safe.

Visit presidentialmemorial.org to find out how you can help make this honor Presisdent Bush's legacy this November.

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