So, as you may have gathered from my recent blog post, I canceled my trip to Wyoming in late August due to increased smoke levels throughout both Colorado and Wyoming as a result of gigantic fires. Instead of going to Wyoming, I have decided to do a ride that is a little more personal.
Philip K Dick was a science fiction writer whose influence on popular culture and science fiction is seen throughout the landscape of television and film today. From The Man in the High Castle imagining an alternate United States where the Axis won World War II, to Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? analyzing the blurring between human and machine, Dick has captured the imaginations of generations of nerds from across the world. On a personal level, my first exposure to his work was through the film adaptation of A Scanner Darkly, an examination of consciousness and mass surveillance in an America that has lost the Drug War.
So, when I found out Philip K Dick and his fraternal sister (who passed as an infant) were buried here in Colorado, I figured that I would pay tribute to the author in the best way possible: to visit his grave.
In my next blog, I will detail my route to the cemetery that they are buried in in Fort Morgan and the stops along the way. Rest assured, however, it will be an adventure getting there.
Its been about 3 weeks since I last updated y’all on my planned bikepacking trip to Wyoming. In those three weeks, a lot has happened both with me personally and in the State of Colorado. The big news over the past 3-4 days is that of the Grizzly Creek and the Pine Gulch fires on the Western Slope, which has spread to various parts of Glenwood Canyon and is roughly 6,200 acres wide. Given that the fire can be harmful to individuals who are in the midst of doing “prolonged or heavy exertion”, I am in the midst of reevaluating if it is safe to do my bikepacking trip, which, by definition, is prolonged and heavy exertion.
Since I began exploring the option of doing a bike tour to Wyoming, I have always done so through a lens of safety. While it will be profiled further in an upcoming post about my gear, I have taken action in recognition that COVID-19 is a real threat, including minimizing stops that require me to be in places with lots of people for extended periods of time, bringing masks and sanitizer along with me, and getting tested before leaving on my trip. Along with these precautions, I have also taken more traditional safety steps, including packing and practicing with a full first aid kit, alerting my specific travel plans to individuals that would help “bail me out”, and promised to post something everyday while I have signal.
As of right now, I am looking at the air quality in the Denver Metro area right now, which, at the moment is MODERATE quality according to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. While I am planning on starting my ride early Wednesday morning to be out of the metro area at least an hour before sunrise, I am going to make a call by Monday if it is safe or not to ride based on the air quality trends over the weekend. Until then, have a great day and stay safe.
That is the day that the world as I knew it effectively ended for me. I had been applying for jobs wildly in the run up to the day, getting tons of first and second round interviews. It felt like the tide was going to turn for me and I would get out of a nights job that I had generally thought of as a placeholder to the next “big break”
And then, my workplace, The Denver Art Museum, closed to the public out of precautions related to COVID-19.
While this didn’t affect me a lot at first, the signs were everywhere that the State of Colorado was heading towards a lock-down of some sort. In the coming week, a public health order came out that reduced non-essential workplaces to 1/2 of their capacity. Before that, Colorado had already done an emergency declaration order, as COVID-19 had jumped to the United States and was ravaging coastal states such as New York and California. It wasn’t until March 26th that a Stay at Home (SaH) order was put into place, and all businesses except essentials such as grocery were shut down.
The effect on me to an extent from a mental health point of view was devastating. While I initially thought that it was going to be a positive for personal reasons, the dragging on of the Stay at Home order, the paranoia that anyone I could be passing by could be a carrier, and the frustration as interview after interview got canceled was demoralizing. On my days off, I sunk into deep depression, hardly getting out of bed on some days. While I can’t point to any particular day or even week that I reached “rock bottom” of COVID induced depression, the month of May felt like the end of the world in my head.
Then, something happened in early June, and a little light switch turned that changed my whole perspective.
I started riding my bike again at the end of the month of May and have been continuously riding since then. I have slowly scaled back on ordering food out, a habit that I had been guilty of doing early in the pandemic under the guise of “helping local businesses”. I started consistently cleaning again, and building out my home a bit, even getting a futon and a side table for the basement. I felt alive again.
Even now as I struggle from possible exposure to COVID, I realize that I have been going through a different kind of recovery over the past year or so. Roughly a year ago, I was on the edge of resignation at a job that I was a bad fit for, jumping to a job that I struggled in for different reasons before settling back at the museum. Now, despite the fact that I am temporarily out of work until I get my COVID test back and am worried about COVID, I can say with confidence I am personally better off than I was a year ago.
Recovery is hardly ever linear. Whether it is physical, mental, or moral, some days and experiences are better or worse than others. One day, you can be at your most productive, feeling energized going task to task. The next, saying a sentence or trying to write out an email can be a struggle. Hell, sometimes both experiences happen in the same day. However, despite the fact that recovery can be lopsided and tough sometimes, I am glad that I am on the road to recovery mentally and physically to a smaller extent, and thankful to call Colorado my home for a 4th year.
Next month, after biking from city to city and county to county, I am taking the next step in my cycling journey: Going state to state. In a recent post, I talked about my journey in broader terms, discussing in broad strokes what exactly I would do. However, after being inspired by my journey to Lamar’s Donuts here in Denver, I have settled on a theme for my trip: an interstate Donut run.
Leg1: City Donuts to Fort Collins Donut Co(FoCoDoCo) [1 Day]
LEFT: The Route from City Donuts to FoCoDoCo Right: The Storefront of FoCoDoco
Starting on East Colfax in Denver at open, I will kick off my ride with some coffee and donuts from City Donuts. From there, I will begin my trek northward, using the 36 Bikeway for a significant portion of the ride before using a series of roads to make it to FoCo DoCo in Fort Collins. In Fort Collins, I will crash with one of my relatives, who owns an apartment up there.
Leg 2: FoCo DoCo to Vedauwoo Campground(2-3 Days)
While Vedauwoo does not have a ton of donuts, it is a place where camping, something I immensely enjoy doing, is abundant.
Left: FoCoDoCo to Vedauwoo Recreation Area
Starting the day off at FoCo DoCo, I will ride to Vedauwoo, avoiding 287 as much as humanly possible as I ascend into Wyoming. I will camp overnight there, and continue my final descent into Laramie.
Leg 3: Vedauwoo to Daylight Donuts (1 Day)
LEFT: Vedauwoo to Laramie RIGHT: Daylight Donuts in Laramie
Using Old US Highway 30 East, I will ride to my final donut destination, Daylight Donuts. Depending on several factors related to COVID, including whether or not the University of Wyoming is open, I may hang around and visit the University of Wyoming museum and the Plains Museum.
Leg 4: Homeward Bound(2 Days)
RIGHT Route from Laramie to Fort Collins to Denver.
Going southbound, I am going to take a slightly more direct route down 287 and stop in Fort Collins again to rest until the final descent into Denver. Taking 36 Bikeway and other trails back to Denver, I will end at a coffee/Donut shop near my place, Molecule Effect.
In the next blog, we will take a look at the gear that I am going to use!
*Featured Image is my bike (the Donutmobile) carrying donutsfrom Lamar’s by my house*
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”
From roughly elementary school to middle school, the Pledge of Allegiance was something that was ubiquitous to my life. Before every school assembly, before every class, before every cub scout meeting, the Pledge was said as some sort of mantra. It always made me feel weird saying it, but for the longest time, it felt like a requirement for me.
As I lost my faith in God, I kept saying the pledge, but dropped the “under god” part, which I would learn was added in the 1950’s as a byproduct of the Red Scare and that the daughter of the pledge’s original writer condemned the change. When I reached mid-High School, I only sometimes said the pledge, finding out as a freshman that it was not a requirement at the time.
In more recent history, I remember attending a meeting as an adult where the Pledge of Allegiance was said by audience, and that, after the “and justice for all” portion of the pledge, a member of the audience added “someday”.
Later on, I would find out that the person in question that said “someday” was a combat veteran that had been discharged from the army during the Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell era and was unable to marry his partner because a state ban on gay marriage existed.
Though both of these injustices have been corrected thankfully, there are still many issues that need to be righted. The murder of George Floyd and, more closer to home, Elijah McClain opened up a conversation on the justness of policing in America and has led many, like the man portrayed in “Freedom of Speech”, to speak out against systemic racism in policing and other institutions in American life. The Coronavirus pandemic has torn open the safety net and exposed the inequities in the US healthcare system, along with unintentionally created an underclass of people that constantly have to worry about infection under the banner of being “essential”. Is this justice? To me, it would seem hypocritical to pledge to a country and ascribe ideals to it that it doesn’t already have. To that end, I agree with my former colleague, and if I were to say the pledge, it would be like this:
“I pledge allegiance to the flag of The United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Someday”
Featured image is a war bonds ad from the 1940’s entitled “Save Freedom of Speech”
Its been a while since I have taken a proper vacation. From the difficulties I had earlier in 2020 in regards to mental health and job transitioning, to the restrictions put in in place by many states in regards to COVID, I was swamped. However, now that there appears to be a breath of relief, I am planning my first big trip since I initially started to “vacation” in Colorado 4 years ago: A bike ride from Denver to Laramie, Wyoming.
While I am still in the planning/training phases, I am hoping to divide the trip into 4 relatively digestible sections.
Denver—>Fort Collins
Fort Collins—>Laramie
Laramie—>Fort Collins
Fort Collins—>Denver
More will be written in the next part of this blog series, Loren to Laramie: The Plan.
In the meantime, have a great 4th of July weekend!
8 Years ago, I was in a bit of a bind. I had gained 20 pounds after rough stint at Irvine, was working on a political campaign that constantly had junk food available, and didn’t get a ton of of exercise. As a last resort to try and lose weight, a friend of mine suggested that I go vegetarian. At the time, I was the kind of person that would lord over people that were vegetarian. However, after thinking about it for a bit, I decided to give it a try.
In the first month, I gained another 20 pounds.
After that first month, I started to reevaluate things. Could I be vegetarian and be healthy? What would a successful diet look like? Thankfully, for the first 3 years that I have been vegetarian, my parents were an extremely helpful source when it came to helping me diet, with my mother helping me shop for groceries and my step-father continuing to teach me how to cook when he could. Once I had kept to a stricter diet, starting exercising more, and cooked a significant amount more, I started to lose weight and be healthy.
So, if I initially became vegetarian to be healthy, why am I still vegetarian?
I often jokingly tell people that I am vegetarian not because I love animals, but because I hate plants. Its a much more complicated answer than that. While I am severely sympathetic towards animal rights, opposed to factory farming and in favor of limiting your carbon footprint, the health component still is the primary drive for me. I have consistently had lower bad cholesterol and had a slightly elevated amount of energy.
That being said, a vegetarian diet can very easily be done in a very unhealthy way.
When I worked on a political campaign, Redvines and pizza were daily staples for me. Even here in Denver, being close to a grocery store pre-COVID made me spoiled and often I would buy frozen pizzas when I got off work. However, now that I go to the grocery store a lot less, I am more conscious about what I buy.
So, here’s to 8 years of being vegetarian y’all. Let’s hope I can keep it and keep healthy doing it. Stay healthy, my friends.
Yesterday, Denver put joined San Francisco and others in being one of the first cities in the United States to put in a Stay at Home (SaH) public health order to combat the spread of COVID-19. While the biggest news came in regards to the quick reversal of the policy about liquor stores and dispensaries being open, there were a couple of interesting tidbits that came up in regards to bike riding and cycling that are relevant as well.
Preface
As a general rule, even if you are the biggest fan of cycling or absolutely need a bike ride in your daily exercise routine, I would encourage you to stay at home. Even if you have no symptoms of COVID-19, you still have the potential to spread it even on a bicycle to an extent.
Cycling As A Essential Activity
Essential activities under the definition of the ordinance are things that individuals that are healthy can leave the house for. Under Article 6 Section A Clause iii of the order it states the following as essential activities:
To engage in outdoor activity, provided the individuals comply with Physical Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, walking, hiking, biking or running. For purposes of outdoor activity, Denver parks will remain open to the public to engage in walking, hiking, biking, running, and similar outdoor activities but all playgrounds, golf courses, tennis courts, basketball courts, picnic areas, and other similar areas conducive to public gathering shall be closed. Additionally, the allowable outdoor activities in this Order do not include group sports and activities that would violate the Physical Distancing Requirements as defined in this Section, such as, by way of example and without limitation, football games or volleyball games.
This element of the SaH order allows for cycling as a recreational activity, as long as proper social distancing (6 feet or more) is observed. While this is a good sign for cyclists that still want to go out on rides, this also means that most group rides are out of the question. As a personal note, I would also take heed from Jared Polis’ quote about jogging at off times and encourage biking at off times to limit exposure to other people.
Bike Repair Shops
In an earlier version of the SaH ordinance, there was not an exception for bicycle shops as an “essential business”. However, in the amended version under Article 6 section F clause xx, bicycle repair shops are listed as essential businesses along with auto repair shops and taxis. While this may seem to allow for bike shops to still be in business, I would still call ahead, ask if the shop is open, and see what social distancing practices they are putting in place to ensure that people are being kept safe. Some companies, such as Elevation Bicycles, have policies in place already.
Elevation Cycle’s Storefront
Stay home as a rule, but, if you do want to ride your bike in a way that observes social distancing or need to get an essential repair to your bike, you are allowed to for the time being.
Roughly 10 years ago, I was on the cusp of graduating from High School. In that time of transition came a lot of movies that, at the time, I thought were either horrible, so so, or great. As time has passed, however, my opinions on movies have changed.
Films to me, after a certain amount of times, fall into 3 distinct categories. First, you have the ones that hold up, where you roughly have the same feelings for the film that you did when you first saw it, whether it is an intense negative feeling, a fairly neutral outlook, or a love of it. Second, there are the films that age well, possibly because of timeless themes, breaking new barriers in film making, or having a story that transcends audience Third, there are the films that age poorly, whether they contain outdated tropes and cultural attitudes, bad CGI or practical effects that may seem outdated, or plot elements that may have not been good to begin with. Last night I watched a movie that I would consider to be in the first category, Disney’s 2010 Tron Legacy.
Synopsis
Sam (Garrett Hedlund), the son of famous video-game developer Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges), has been haunted for a long time by his father’s mysterious disappearance. A strange signal draws Sam to Flynn’s Arcade, and he is pulled into the same cyberworld in which his father, its creator, has been trapped for 20 years. With fearless warrior Quorra (Olivia Wilde), Kevin and Sam seek to escape from a universe that, while magnificent, is far more advanced and dangerous than Kevin had ever imagined.
Background/First Viewing
When Disney announced that they were doing a sequel to the Tron, I thought very little of it. To me, it seemed like it was a capitalization on what was then the recent trend towards adding sophisticated 3D elements to movies that the James Cameron film Avatar had kicked off about a year ago, along with a continuation of Disney’s trend of making sequels to movies that had cult followings such as 2009’s Race to Witch Mountain and doing soft reboots such as 2010’s Alice in Wonderland. The one thing that mildly excited me about the film was that it had a score completely composed by Daft Punk. After I saw it, I thought it was a mildly entertaining, had a stellar soundtrack, and a story that gets lost in all of it.
10 Years Later
After giving it a re-watch last night, I have roughly the same opinion that I had in 2010. Style wise, it still holds up because of the strong visuals and lack of any CGI that has particularly aged. In regards to its plot, it still comes across as muddled, lacking in a ton of character development or a ton of character overall. While my music tastes have changed, the Daft Punk soundtrack still is an element that complements the visual effects in a solid way.
Conclusion
If I were to grade the movie on a 1-5 scale, I would give it a solid 3 in both decades. It doesn’t break new ground, looks and sounds amazing, and has a plot that doesn’t lend much to it overall.
What movies do you watch after 10 years that you think have “held up”? Sound off in the comments.
*Featured Image is a promotional poster from the film*
Just wanted to send out a quick update about tonight’s inaugural meeting that I just had with the Mayor’s Bicycle Advisory Committee, focusing specifically on issues that are important to members of the general public such as yourselves.
Announcements
Prior to the meat of the agenda, we discussed upcoming meetings when it came to bicycle infrastructure in regards to the 125 miles of bike lanes being built out over the next 3-4 years. In particular, we focused on the upcoming meetings for the West Jewell Bike Lane and the East Dartmouth lane to Colorado Ave. Meetings for these proposed lanes will be held on Tuesday, February 18th from 6:15 to 7:30 PM at 1755 S Zuni St, and on Wednesday, February 12th from 6-7PM at 3000 S Clayton St. Additionally, Winter Bike to Work Day will be held on February 14th, with pit stops at various locations for those that bike to work.
Denver Parks and Recreation PresentationRegarding E-Devices
After the pilot study that Denver did in regards to E-Scooters, Denver Parks and Recreation is proposing a rule change that will affect how bicycles can operate in parks. The rule change states the following:
Bicycles and all wheel devices are allowed on hard surface trails, with some exceptions.
Bicycles and all wheel devices are not allowed on soft surface trails, with some exceptions.
Exceptions, as stated by the city, would include bike parks such as Ruby Hill, parts of the High Line Canal in Denver, and parts of the Sand Creek trail in Stapleton.
Committee Meetings
While most of the West Committee* meeting was spent brainstorming major themes to focus on, we discussed bicycle safety, security when it comes to having a place to lock up a bike, and the advocacy for an east/west connection when it comes to getting past Santa Fe. We also discussed any possible way to make Federal a safer street to cross as well.
That’s it! Stayed tuned next month for further updates on my work with the bicycle committee.
*The Westside Subcommittee is comprised of people that generally live West of Broadway and Santa Fe Drive.
Featured Photo is from a ride I did last year to Cherry Creek State Park
Mile High Guy 