Bloomington's Suicide Bikers

I love most things about Bloomington...except driving. Most motorists here seem to be some combination of a) stupid, b) insane, c) lost, and d) drunk. But they have nothing on the bikers.

I walk to work most days. It takes about 30 minutes but is very calming. Today, however, I drove since I will need to leave for the airport after work. At one of of the 3rd Street stoplights, I changed lanes so that I could come to the front of the stop light. 3rd Street is more or less the southern boundary of IU's campus and is the main east-to-west corridor through town.

A gray-bearded guy on a bike was next to the curb in the same lane at the stop light. I suppose he deserves credit for actually obeying the traffic laws, unlike most bikers in town. When I pulled into this lane beside him, he immediately pulls forward, moves his bike directly in front of my car, and then backs up until he is nearly touching my front bumper. I suppose he was daring me to bump him, yell at him, or engage in some similar road rage. I didn't bite, of course. When the light changed to green, I waited for the car to my left to pass by, changed to that lane, went around the biker and changed back to my original lane. I used my turn signals, of course.

Now, did I violate the rules of sharing the road with bikers? To be honest, maybe. Did I violate the spirit of sharing the road? No. I didn't crowd this guy, he had plenty of room on the side of the road, and my car is a compact. He didn't insist on the center of the road while peddling, letting cars pass him on the left in the same line. Why insist on this at the stop light? We could have coexisting peacefully. Instead, I guess he wanted to make a point. He certainly taught me a lesson: he is a jerk.

I'm in favor of less cars in general, but the major roads in Bloomington are not bike friendly. Trying to bike these anytime but especially during morning and evening rush hours is just not a good plan. There are many alternative routes through neighborhoods where bikers don't need to risk life and limb and don't interrupt traffic flow.

To the zealot bikers of Bloomington: don't confuse "what is" with "what ought to be". Even if we are all courteous, most of the major roads are not really safe for bikers. If you have an accident, you risk major injury or death. The car or truck involved will maybe get a scratch. And if you are towing your child behind you on a busy street in a kiddie trailer...I don't know what to tell you.

Also, buy some reflectors and wear helmets, you knuckleheads.

Replacing the Bowl Coalition

Here is my dream replacement for the current BCS system in US college football. I don't understand why this is so hard.

I think they ought to have a tournament of all the conference champions (sorry, Notre Dame!). All conferences should have a championship game to minimize dubious tie-breaking scenarios. Seeding in the tournament of champions can be based on other criteria (strength of schedule, prettiness of cheerleaders, quality of local bbq), but the key criterion is winning on the field. The tournament games are played around the country, ultimately coming down to a New Year's Day championship game in the Rose Bowl, Sugar Bowl, or Orange Bowl on a rotating basis.

I'm too lazy to count the conferences, so if they don't add up to a power of 2, you can have at large bids (i.e. Georgia, Missouri, and Kansas this year), or you can have byes for the conference champions with really good BBQ. All conference champions are guaranteed higher seeding and more geographically reasonable first round games than at-large teams, so for example Hawaii would get Kansas someplace on the West Coast or in Hawaii.

All the teams that don't make the tournament can still go to a bowl, which will still be shown on ESPN, etc. The Motor City Bowl can still go on.

It's not perfect of course but who would care? The primary criterion for getting in the tournament is unambiguous, so teams know what they have to do. There are at-large bids to give a few teams second chances, but the seeding and locations will favor the conference champions. Fans get grist for the "who's the best conference" mill and more high quality games that actually mean something (unlike all BCS bowls - 1 these days). And it ends in a great venue in a great vacation spot on New Year's Day like it should, so you can enjoy the game while full of fried chicken and black-eyed peas like the Founding Fathers intended.

Prof. Richards adds the following:
"Generally speaking, I'd agree. I don't think I would allow a non-conference winner in, though -- tough luck, Georgia! I might have a play-in round for minor conferences, like the NCAA basketball has.

Round 1: Fiesta, Cotton, Peach, Citrus. Sorry, the Fiesta Bowl is a newcomer.
Round 2: Sugar and Orange.
Round 3 (Final): Rose. Just like the old days, when the "national championship game" WAS the Rose bowl.

You could even have tie ins, like having the Pac-10 champ always play the Big 10 champ in the Fiesta Bowl, the SEC Champ Play the ACC champ in the Peach Bowl, etc.

And I would restore the full name to the Poulan-Weedeater Independence Bowl. "

America has spoken.

Non-Bloomington Restaurant Guide

I have no idea why anyone would ever want to leave Bloomington, but if you ever find yourself outside the friendly confines of Monroe County and need a place to eat, consult Ravenous Rob's Restaurant Reviews for recommendations. That is, do so unless you have a particular fondness for root vegetables, with which the Ravenous One has issues.

Citizen's Toolkit for Bloomington, IN

The Citizen's Toolkit is an excellent resource for voter information. For example, from the 2004 elections, the "Meet the Candidates" movies helped me pick my candidate for surveyor: always vote for the guy who brings a map to his video profile session.

Bloomington Restaurants

Here's my list of Bloomington, Indiana area restaurant recommendations. You can google these or check out Bloomingpedia for directions.

Expensive
1. Restaurant Tallent: Probably the best restaurant in town. I give them bonus points for making unique meals using lots of local produce, meat, fish, and poultry. This distinguishes them from Scholars and Truffles, which are excellent but don't really serve dishes that you couldn't get elsewhere. The current location (an old house on Kirkwood) is a bit funky for Tallent's pretensions (formerly it was Flora's, which served hippie Italian), but the new location downtown should provide a more appropriate "urban" decor.
2. Scholar's Inn: New American-style cuisine. The restaurant is located in a Victorian mansion, so they win the decor award.
3. Truffles: Not as creative as the others, but better portions. Very nice interior but located in a strip mall.
4. Janko's Little Zagreb: best steaks on the planet. Ribs and spicy meatballs are good, too. Salads and decor are humorously bad.

Medium Priced
1. Michael's Uptown: classic American and Cajun dishes. Dinner specials Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday put them in my "moderately priced" category; otherwise, they skew towards the expensive. They have an excellent selection of wines by the glass.
2. Le Petit Cafe: lunch buffet on Thursdays and prix fixe brunch on Sundays. The French owners (Patrick and Marina) have lived in Bloomington for nearly 30 years, and the menu is more "Indiana home cooking by French natives" than classic Parisian cuisine.
3. Casablanca: forget their standard menu and order the fish or lamb special of the day. Lunch specials are usually the same as the dinner specials, but cheaper.
4. Esan Thai: Fresh Thai dishes, not as oily as most US Thai restaurants that I've tried. Has many vegetarian options.
5. Lenny's: this is a combination brew house and restaurant. They have very good gourmet pizzas.
6. Upland: another brew house and restaurant. They usually have interesting weekly dinner specials and better variety than Lenny's.
7. Samira: this is an Afghan restaurant with a menu that has a combination of Indian, Southwest Asian, and Mediterranean dishes. They have a very nice lunch buffet.

Cheap
1. Mother Bear's: This is an old school Midwest pizza place and a Bloomington landmark that regularly gets national recognition. I did get food poisoning here once (the Divine Swine was the culprit).
2. Runcible Spoon: cheap meals for college students in an appropriately shabby old house. They also are an OK place for breakfast.
3. Aver's Pizza: Take out or delivery only. Great pizza if you like chewy, thick crusts. They have several interesting gourmet-style pizzas.
4. Nick's English Hut: this is one of Bloomington's landmark bars, with 75+ years worth of atmosphere that you couldn't remove with a chisel and their own drinking game ("Sink the Bismark" with hall-0f-fame buckets above the bar. But I drop by for the food. The chef/kitchen manager ("Rags") serves exemplary bar food: burgers, onion rings, pizza, Italian beef, and strombolis. If you want something healthy, they have fine fresh fish available over a salad of nice greens or as a dinner. Elk and buffalo burgers are also available. They use local meat and produce extensively.

Scripps and La Jolla

These are photos from a recent meeting at the IGPP/SIO building at the Scripps Oceanography Institute. This google map
link is reasonably close to the building. Actually, if you click on the satellite view and zoom in a bit, you can see the bridge, which is just north and east of the pier.

Below is a shot of the IGPP building and the suspension walkway at sunset.


Here's another shot that shows the building a little more clearly.


A shot of La Jolla, the beach, and Mount Soledad in the distance.


Taken from the same spot as above (roughly) but looking down on the courtyard.


Also taken from the same spot as the previous two shots, but looking directly down. I liked the contrast of the trees with the repetition of the railings, but not sure the photo captured it.

Domestic Bliss: House Painted at Last

My house was built in 1970 (if you believe the county records) and has redwood siding that was originally stained. One of the previous owners decided it was time for a change and painted the whole thing baby blue by himself. It was not a good idea. Baby blue? What was that guy thinking?

Here's a photo with date shown. The brown door was removed and the shrubbery redone when I bought in 2005, but the exterior was basically the same.


Here's a nice photo showing some mildew to give you an up-close view of the deterioration of the exterior.



Enter Matt Murphy of FourSquare Painting (a.k.a "The House Whisperer") and his fine crew. Next is a shot of house as they scrubbed off the old paint. Many sections weren't primed, so the paint stripped right off.




Here's another "in-progress" photo with ladders and monolith. I gave the druids the week off.



The final results at last. The weather this week (late July 2006) has been a little overcast, so I'll replace with sunny day photos later. I don’t think photos can really capture the evenness and precision of the job.



Notice it matches my car. This was not my intention. The main color is Benjamin Moore's Arroyo Red, the trim is in a custom mixed color (will match new gutters), and the door color is a dark teal (“Mallard Green”).

Here's a photo of the patio and monolith, taken from the back yard. The gutters were taken down (see roofline of right side) and should be replaced this week, weather permitting.



Here’s another view of the back of the house.