On Group Rides, rain and STS-124

At 17:02 EDT (that's 21:02 GMT or UTC) STS-124 launched from KSC pad 39A. Or in plain English one of the last space shuttle launches just took place about an hour ago from the Kennedy Space Centre. - I really should send my C.V. off to NASA, except lets face it, I'm Canadian and the US government will only hire Americans. Too bad! Still it is nice to dream, I could live in Houston... maybe not so much... but I'll bet the Langley Field facility is pretty nice and winters in Virgina sound a lot better than winters around here. Or I'll bet Lesley would have no complaints if I told her we were moving to Pasadena, but I cannot stomach LA.

Anyway on more Earthly matters, this morning it rained, a lot, and I went for a group ride, about 70km, which for me is not a huge distance, but it was still tough, we basically stayed in the biggest chain ring the entire time (except for the few traffic lights where I had the good sense to downshift at the last second).

Thanks to the rain, which did subside I had to clean my bike, this is a roughly hour long affair involving chain cleaning, parts cleaning and of course lots of nasty smelling cleaning agents... memories of skate bearing cleaning... crap I still have to clean my skate bearings ahhh &)*#$%! Then I had to go back to the office to fix a problem in the computer room (data centre, whatever!) And of course on the way back it rained... again! So I have to clean everything... again! Sigh.

I have to rant for a second now, not on rain or bike cleaning, its on really shitty car drivers. As I have previously posted, the Ontario Highway Traffic Act (the law of the land as it were) defines a vehicle as: a motor vehicle, trailer, traction engine, farm tractor, road-building machine, bicycle and any vehicle drawn, propelled or driven by any kind of power, including muscular power, but does not include a motorized snow vehicle or a street car; Now I want someone to explain to the moronic driver who was making rude gestures at me when I made a legal left turn from the turning lane of Coxwell (North Bound) going onto Queen (West Bound) that what I was doing was the law, it was kosher, and if he's got a problem with it, he has two options, write a letter to Queens Park or move out of Ontario. Making rude gestures, particularly during bike month, but really any time of year, is just... well rude, frankly. Anyway the way I see things, car drivers, for the most part, don't deserve to drive. Besides, all car drivers are doing is enriching the coffers of Osama Bin Can't Find Him and his cronies in the Federated Russian states of Alberta and Venezuela (three governments that are beyond reproach.) In the last month I have driven to the grocery store twice (maybe three times come to think of it), total distance, less than I have biked in the last 6 hours!