Campus is starting to quiet down, late on a Friday afternoon. All the normal people have left or are actively leaving. Why am I still here?
Category Archives: Uncategorized
The Curse of the Long Post
While scrolling through my unpublished content here, there seems to be quite the list of partially completed posts just waiting to be finished and shared with the world. Apparently I’m either a) long winded, b) meticulous, c) easily distracted, or d) squirrel. No, wait, d) all of the above.
Misplaced Petulance in Chinatown
In today’s Star-Advertiser, there was an article about complete streets in Chinatown. Unbelievably, some businesses want to make it more dangerous for people who walk so that people who drive can break the law.
Mindset in Everyday Life
I was just thinking about some of the books I’ve read and how they fall into different categories. Some are interesting but not particularly useful/applicable and some are useful but aren’t particularly interesting. One book that was actually a little of both was Mindset by Carol Dweck. There are interesting stories that highlight key points regarding fixed and growth mindsets that she covers early in the book, but it gets repetitive as you look at them in every possible situation (school, work, etc). Looking back, I’m thankful to have read Mindset before a media training class last year.
Reliving SpaceShipOne’s Historic Flight
White Knight and SpaceShipOne taxiing for takeoff.
I just finished reading Julian Guthrie’s book “How to Make a Spaceship“. When I picked it up, I knew it was going to be about the Ansari XPRIZE and the start of private manned spaceflight, but I didn’t expect so many different inspirational tales to be seamlessly woven throughout the larger story. The prologue jumped right into the cockpit of SpaceShipOne with Mike Melvill’s historic first flight to space on June 21st, 2004. It was particularly special to learn about that flight, because we were part of the 25,000 people on the ground in Mojave watching it live. Continue reading
Meaningful Photos of 2015
I started using Instagram in about May of 2015 after noticing that I mainly posted photos to Facebook. With time I started using it almost exclusively; even though I also share them across platforms, I tend to avoid looking at Facebook itself. As 2015 started to wind down, a number of people began posting a “Best of 2015” mosaic, showing their nine most popular photos from the year. It’s easy to do, but when, out of curiosity, I ran it for my account, I discovered a flaw. The number of “likes” you get is highly dependent on the number of hashtags you use, and the popularity of the tags. Use something popular like “lego” and you can end up with many more people looking at your image, and consequently can end up with a disproportionate number of likes.
I didn’t like the skewed rankings, and set out to create my own mosaic. At first I wanted to pick my favorite photos, but as I was looking through them my goal changed. Instead of necessarily picking out my favorites, I picked the ones that held the most meaning or represented important events. I actually surprised myself with some of my choices, since a couple pictures I thought were a given for inclusion because they were simply cool didn’t make the final cut.
Some of the images represent a deeper meaning or event beyond what it actually shown. With this in mind, I decided to include a description of what they mean to me and why I included them. Continue reading
Introduction
This is actually my second attempt at an introductory post. Looking back, I started the first one last spring when I first setup this site, but never finished it. The idea came to me after attending a workshop presented by the League of American Bicyclists and the Alliance for Biking and Walking, and hosted by the Hawaii Bicycling League. The workshop dealt with mostly governmental-type topics such as how to secure federal funding for cycling and walking projects, but for us it served as a great motivator.
Lisa and I met people who are directly involved in maintaining and improving the cycling infrastructure here, who we can talk to and provide input and insight for new project development. We also met a number of people from the local community who are almost role models–people who live in Honolulu and don’t own cars, who work in non-profits to advance access to new alternative transportation projects, or who strive make this a better, safer, and more sustainable community for everyone.
I wanted to include all of this in my first post, but never got around to finishing it. In the following months, I kept running across topics that I’d like to write about, but felt I couldn’t because I didn’t have this initial introduction out of the way. (Yes, I really can come up with any excuse to procrastinate.) For whatever reason, I woke up this morning and felt the urge to get started. Maybe It’s because a job vacancy at work closes at the end of the week and I should be working on my application instead of this. (Bart Simpson: “Ooo, Algebra! I’ll just do a few equations…”)
What’s with the name?
Even though I had the concept of a site focused on cycling experiences (both local and in general), I had some trouble coming up with a name. Early attempts involved bad puns, which, while normal for me, didn’t do much for long-term professionality (not that that’s even a word).
I remembered an episode of the TV show Life, where a prison inmate mentioned that it was earthquake weather. In the show I thought that sounded like a warning, like the other prisoners were planning a riot. (That didn’t happen, but later in the series there was an earthquake, just after the prisoner in question had been released.) That started me thinking about the tornado weather that we saw growing up. It’s something that Lisa even mentioned yesterday, when it was humid and still. In Michigan those were the conditions you might see ahead of a cold front that would bring severe weather, but in Hawaii yesterday it meant that the subtropical ridge was overhead and we lost the trade winds.
At first I envisioned “Cycling Weather” to be focused entirely on cycling, but with the name applying on different levels. From a literal standpoint, the weather is always favorable for cycling in Hawaii. However, from a figurative standpoint, the climate for cycling is not as friendly as it could be, and this may be a forum to help change it. Now, after talking with people following Hurricane Iselle earlier this summer and after considering some of the articles I’ve written for newsletters through work, I figure I’ll take the name even more literally (considering I am a meteorologist, after all). So, expect articles about both “cycling” and “weather”. Cycling Weather. Hope you find it worthwhile!