recycle

The ReCYCLEry started back in 2000 with the help of Rich Giorgi, Andrea Richards, and Seth Elliott. The idea was to encourage donations of old/used/broken bicycles and get knowledgable volunteers to fix them up and teach others, especially kids, to do the same. In exchange for putting in some hours at the ReCYCLEry, even if it was fixing up another person's bike, you could earn a bike of your own. The ReCYCLEry has since moved twice from its original location on North Greensboro Street and changed leaders several times, but it's still basically the same idea. A gang of sleepy-eyed but enthusiastic bike mechanics of varying skills, some of quite a lot of expertise, show up on weekend mornings, greet others with coffee, work on the donated bikes, and help anyone that wheels in for repairs. I have volunteered there off and on myself. I love the low-key, amorphous group and I especially like the opportunity to show off my ratchet and wrench set from Sears.

The ReCYCLEry still works the same way but now they are starting a new lending program. You pay $10 to become a member and then they set you up with a key that accesses any one of their blue bicycles at various hubs around town. I think the town of Carrboro is helping them out as well as a way to encourage green transport. Anyway, here is some video of some public sprucing up that was going on this morning as a way of publicizing the new program.

drive

On the way to and from Montreal, I took some little movies of the road. I'm one of those people that is impressed by bridges and monstrous highways. They dwarf the cars and it ends up being sort of beautiful.

There is a place near Atlanta where the roads snake together like some of these roads do. Do they have names for these like they do for bridges? They must.

Both of the movies posted today have sound and they take a tad longer to load than the others. The soundtrack for this one is a song by Antonio Carlos Jobim entitled, "Insentiez". It's a little over the top for this but oh well. I think the pacing works anyway.

fiddle

As I wrote above, I drove to Montreal last weekend. We got there on Friday evening, hit the conference, and then went to dinner in Chinatown. Montreal is a very big place and almost everything is in French. People knew English but I don't know French so I was a bit lost when ordering or trying to find a parking space. That's fine and it made things more exciting.

The next day, I had breakfast with Jamy of Grateful Dating (see link to the right) and afterwards we trolled around the old part of town. It was touristy but only in the sense that it was expensive and a little crowded. As we walked around, I didn't quite feel like a foreigner even though technically, I was. I felt like I was peeking in on a different type of diversity. Canada's concept of diversity has been described as a mosaic rather than a melting pot which implies assimilation. For example, it's very rare to find a place in the United States where everyone speaks something else other than English, and when we do, we put borders around it and consider it different, the "other". Chinatown, little Mexico, K-town. "That's for them. Not us." In Montreal, being bilingual was the norm. My lack of understanding for French wasn't penalized - it was merely an inconvenience. I was missing out on all of the different interpretations, and of course, the ability to readily read street signs, and I honestly felt encouraged to do better rather than feel excluded.

Anyway, here is a guy that was playing in the old part of town. (I should note that he was not actually playing the Revolting Cocks. That is my addition.) I tipped him.



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descend

This is my friend peeking.


Can you see this movie? I changed hosting sites so let me know if you used to be able to watch these (when I was on YouTube) but now you can't. For example, Jerry, can you still not see this?

twirl

Things got a little kooky at another Durham yard sale on Saturday. This is E. who won state champion in baton twirling back in the day. Thanks so much for letting me post this footage, E. You know who you are. We here at Small Pictures are truly honored.









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incubate

We went to a pet store briefly yesterday because, well, that's what you do when you're in mall, wandering aimlessly due to the euphoric nature of the air conditioning. They had a bird room which included, among other things, a cage of two parrots that were incubating eggs. After watching this video a few times, and staying up late thinking about it, I've come to the conclusion that these birds desperately, desperately need a nest. I would go mad with all of those wobbly eggs underneath me. A little dried grass and sticks or whatever and they'd at least STAY PUT so that I could sit upon them quite calmly.

However, I don't want to speak for the parrots.









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