In news that shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone, Dayton will not be the new home of the USBHOF. According to this post at Biking Bis:
The US Bicycling Hall of Fame will relocate from its current home in New Jersey to either Davis, California, or Greensboro, North Carolina.
My money’s on Davis, California.
Saw on the local news that the Dayton Flyers, led by a brother named (Chris) Wright, knocked off the West Virginia Mountaineers.
Dayton Flyers? A brother named Wright? Is this anything? Anybody know a good bookie?
It seems as though this is the slowest I’m capable of driving on the interstate:
G-nats:0, Greg and the Shamrock:1
I’ve won the first battle with the evil fungus gnats. Letting the soil dry out and placing the mini bug zapper right next to the shamrock definitely did the trick. He still looks a little pitiful at the moment, not surprising considering what he’s been through.
Sadly, I won’t get to enjoy shamrock blossoms on my birthday, but I’m hoping that a nice dose of fertilizer next week will go a long way towards restoring his vigor.
The water-withholding has put a serious dent in the fungus gnat population and the mini bug zapper arrived yesterday. I set it up next to the shamrock when I got home from work today and it promptly zapped a g-nat with a satisfying “crack!”
Hopefully I can eliminate them pretty quickly, because I’m not sure how much patience I have for the ungodly racket it makes when one of the ever-present (in my kitchen) ladybugs hits the 2200 volt grid o’ death.
Sometime after I posted the pic of my happy little shamrock, I started noticing these tiny little gnats (or G-nats, as I like to say) flitting around on and near the soil. They seemed to be more numerous when the soil was dry, so I decided that more frequent watering was the answer.
The more frequent watering didn’t seem to help, so I turned to Google. Turns out, they’re fungus gnats and they thrive on too-wet soil, where they lay their eggs which then hatch into fungus (and root) eating larvae before emerging as adult G-nats to lay more eggs.
An ill-advised spraying with Safer Insecticidal Soap (they should add shamrocks to the list of plants it shouldn’t be used on) burned the leaves, so I won’t be posting more pics any time real soon.
So now I’m trying to let the soil dry enough between waterings to kill the larvae without killing the plant. The good folks at Woot.com, apparently caught wind of my plight, as the item for sale the other day was a mini indoor bug-zapper. Mine is on the way, but given the mule-train like slowness of their “SmartPost” shipping method, I may have won the G-nat war (or killed the shamrock) before it arrives.
I just got the following message from the Ohio Bike mailing list:
Amanda Wright Lane, great grand niece of Orville Wright, called me in November seeking the support of the Ohio cycling community to save the building at 1005 West Third Street in Dayton. The young Orville and Wilbur Wright in 1892 rented the first story of this building as their first bicycle shop.
Of the Wright brothers’ five bicycle shops, only this one and the restored fourth shop, now open to the public by the National Park Service as part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Park, remains in Ohio. Henry Ford moved their fifth bicycle shop to Greenfield Village, Michigan, and the buildings housing their second and third shops have been torn down.
Partnering with Wright Dunbar, Inc. and other organizations, we have submitted a proposal to attract the U.S. Bicycling Hall of Fame to this building. Ten other communities have submitted proposals.
If the Hall does not accept our proposal, we may create a bicycle co-op in the building, renting bicycles to those who participate in the historical Ride with the Ranger rides starting at the Wright Dunbar Interpretive Center. We could also offer League cycling training, and open a restaurant in the building. The building may be a future home of offices for the Dayton Cycling Club and Ohio Bicycle Federation. Jim Sheehan has been successful with the Ohio City Bicycle Co-op in Cleveland.
Donations to save the building may be sent to Wright Dunbar, Inc., 1105 W. Third St., Dayton OH 45402 by May 1, 2009. Wright Dunbar is a non-profit created to save the buildings of the Wright-Dunbar Historic Area where Orville and Wilbur Wright and Dayton poet Paul Lawrence
Dunbar lived.Chuck Smith
Chair, Ohio Bicycle Fed
I hope they can find a way to preserve this amazing piece of history. I’ll be making a donation.