The Giro d’Italia will announce tomorrow its plans to start the 2012 edition in the USA, becoming the first Grand Tour to start outside of Europe, according to Italy’s Il Sole 24 Ore.

I’m not sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, anything that increases American interest in cycling is a good thing. On the other hand, it’s just stupid. Seriously, the logistics are nightmarish: An 8 hour flight from DC to Milan, a 6 hour time difference… and don’t even get me started on the insane amount of jet fuel and other resources wasted by transporting the equivalent of small city across the Atlantic Ocean, twice, for no good reason.

Granted, the sport of cycling can use the exposure (particularly here in the US), but there has to be a more sensible means to that end.

From now on, whenever a street is scheduled to be built, rebuilt, resurfaced or repaired in the city of Dayton, traffic engineers and planners must consider pedestrians, bicyclists and bus riders as well as cars in their designs.

Adoption of the policy, the first in the region, got top billing in this month’s National Complete Streets Coalition newsletter, released Wednesday, Feb. 17. It will also fulfill a critical requirement in the city’s first application — submitted today — for Bicycle Friendly Community status with the League of American Bicyclists.

Now if they could just get a handle on the almost-daily shootings.

Read the full article here.

I have a funny feeling that I’m still going to be looking at that pile of snow in April.

I don’t care for the way it uses a winky emoticon when it asks me to insert a boot disk.

Thank goodness the delivery notice telling me “we delivered your package” was affixed directly to my package, or I never would have known.

If they’re going to play these sort of mind-games, they should go all out, check ‘other’, and pencil in “right fucking here.”

For Christmas, my mother gave her a “Wooly Buddy Bed”, a very cozy-looking bed constructed from a woolly sweater. 5% of the proceeds from which are donated to The Home For Friendless Animals in Waynetown, IN., she tells me. This sounds wonderful and the bed looks like just the sort of thing a cat should want to lay on, but, given my past experience, I had my doubts.

I got the bed home and Caldonia loves it. She now spends the majority of her sleeping time in her new bed. My mother and my Aunt each have 2 cats all of whom are just as enamored of their ‘Wooly Buddy Beds’ as my cat is. 5 cats, all with very different personalities, but they agree on one thing, they love their “Wooly Buddy Beds”.

So, if you, or someone you know, has a hard to please feline (or dog, she makes them for our canine friends as well) I strongly urge you to get in touch with Susie at Wooly Buddy Beds. (No affiliation, just the “roommate” of a very satisfied user.)

I’d refilled the cat’s water when I got home, then gone to bed. A short while later I awoke and went to the kitchen for a drink. I noticed that I hadn’t put her water in its usual spot, next to the microwave cart, so I moved it. At no time during this process did I notice the toaster (which hasn’t been moved since I got a new toaster last Christmas) resting precariously.

Here’s the really crazy part. This isn’t the first time it’s happened!! A couple of years ago the toaster dove into, and smashed, Caldonia’s food dish while I slept.

This is obviously the work of a ghost. A ghost with a taste for toast. Or a ghost that doesn’t like my cat. Or an evil mouse. Whatever the fuck it is, I wish it would stop. One thing’s for certain: I’m getting rid of that damned toaster. Then, if need be, I’ll call an exorcist and/or exterminator.

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