There are a lot of reasons why you need to use your turn signal when driving. The main reason being people need to know where you are going! This will be an on-going series from me bitching about jerk faces who don’t use their turn signals.

Turning right when a biker is passing you in the bike lane

When you don’t use your turn signal in this case I assume your going to continue driving straight. Why would I ever assume otherwise? When you suddenly turn right and almost hit me its your fault, not mine. I saw you, I saw that your turn signal was not on and I continued riding. YOU are the one who didn’t tell me you were turning, I would have stopped if you would have said so.

Thank you jerk face.

There are a lot of reasons why you need to use your turn signal when driving. The main reason being people need to know where you are going! This will be an on-going series from me bitching about jerk faces who don’t use their turn signals.

Turning left while a pedestrian waits to cross at a cross walk

Without your turn signal on the I think your going straight. When I attempt to cross the street and you turn at the same time your not allowed to honk your horn and act like its my fault that you almost ran me over. See, I have the right away. Its a cross walk OK guy?

Use your turn signal jerk face!

After work on Friday Monica noticed that Pilar wasn’t looking so hot. The next morning she was worse, she wasn’t eating, drinking and was lethargic. Sunday morning we took her to the emergency vet and sadly she didn’t come home with us. Apparently she had a chronic kidney problem, and then she got an infection.

Pilar never missed a chance to annoy me. She would try to steal my yogurt, knock over half full glasses of liquid, jump on my lap just as I was about to get up and wait until I was asleep to come into bed, waking me up in the process. She had one last chance before she left, she stumbled over to the faucet in the Dr’s office and I turned it on so she could get a drink of water.

She was a good cat. The queen of our pets.

She was friendly to strangers, loved to go outside and loved junk food.

The house doesn’t seem the same without her.

I was shocked the other day when the news casually mentioned that Pittsburgh was #2 behind Los Angeles for most polluted city.

Could have fooled me.

I have been to LA and Phoenix and have seen the clouds of smog than linger over them. I was in Joshua Tree National Park and saw the huge cloud of smog that prevents us from seeing as far as we once were. I have been to Philadelphia, Cleveland, New York City etc, these cities are far more filthy. But this study article points out air pollution measurements, and the saddest thing to me comes from this statement.

Although much of the country may have a stereotype of Pittsburgh as a blue collar, steel mill town, Leikauf says that’s no longer the case. According to him, more than 80 percent of western Pennsylvania’s particulate matter actually drifts from Ohio power plants.

80% of our air pollution comes from another state. That pisses me off.

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I love that people with blogs call those who use Twitter attention whores. I don’t see the difference between Joe Schmo with a blog and a Jane Doe with Twitter account.

Twitter is good for a number of things, if they are attention whoring so be it.

• keeping up with friends you don’t see every day
• meeting up with friends
• posting quick thoughts that are on your mind that don’t warrant a blog post
• sharing a cool thing you saw while walking
• keeping up with news sites, products etc

Sure you can send a text message, but Twitter is for something completely different.

After some debate I ended up deciding on the Trek 7.3 FX for my commuter bike. I test rode the cheaper 7.2 FX and the more expensive 7.5 FX which has a titanium fork and better shifters. I could tell the difference, but not $200 worth! The 7.2 just didn’t feel like enough bike, it felt soft.

I am really happy with the 7.3, I have never owned a road bike and I am impressed with how it rides. It glides with little effort from me.

Once the weather truly breaks I am going to start riding in to work, I am too much of a wimp to ride on these cold mornings.

Oh! And BarkleyREI as part of their “Stay Healthy” fitness program will pay for up to 50% (over time) of almost anything that will keep us in shape and happy. Have I mentioned I love my job?

Thanks to Bike Pittsburgh I have planned my route to and from work using the Bike Pittsburgh map. Illustrated by my friend Glen Johnson it maps every known bike path and safe road you can travel on as a biker in Pittsburgh.

Now I just have to do it!

View Larger Map

I went out on Saturday content with buying a used bike to begin commuting to work with. After browsing and realizing there is no such thing I dropped by a local bike store to see what they had.

Some backstory, I own a decent mountain bike already but have learned that its not very efficient to ride it on the streets of Pittsburgh. When riding up a hill as one must do to get anywhere in Pittsburgh, most of the bike’s energy goes into the springer fork. I want my 6 mile ride to be as efficient as possible so I will actually keep up with it day to day.

So after thinking I couldn’t get anything decent under $700 I came across the Trek Soho S. It is a single speed bike, very light and built for “urban” riding. Its bigger brother for $699 has 9 speeds and disc brakes.

The next day I checked out the Trek store near Whole Foods and found the Trek 7.3 FX which is also an “urban” commuting bike and with some tougher tires could be used on light trails. I took it for a test drive and was impressed. It was nimble, fast and smooth. I loved it. It comes priced at $549 and its little brother which is just has a down graded derailleur and different tires is only $459.

I am going to go back tomorrow evening to test ride a more expensive version as well as the cheaper FX bikes to see if they feel any different. I am really looking forward to spring!

Its true and it seems to work perfectly. This makes my life a little easier until June when Exchange support is added to the iPhone. Now I can sync my work calendar to GCal, suck it down to iCal at home, then sync it on to my iPhone so I can be in the know when not in front of Outlook in the office. I like to wake up and know what is on my agenda for the day.

Thanks Google!