failure

it has been almost eight months since my last...or was it my first...post on this blog. to be honest, i pretty much gave up on this whole experiment or lifestyle or whatever it was. the stone cold fact is that i'm lazy. in my defense though, the city i live in could not care less about cyclists. there is one road i know of with a bike lane though it's located about four miles from my house. sidewalks are available in most places though. it was also blazing hot.

i'm done with excuses. i've been re-inspired. at the moment it's freezing cold though i live in texas so tomorrow it should be....80? anywho, i'm using the weather as an opportunity to scrape together and build up an old, old raleigh single-speed road bike. pics will be forthcoming.

so i would like to rekindle this concept, however i'm realizing my true motivation, and it most definitely concerns the church. perhaps this blog will also become central to my recent entries on orange peel about the church. then again, maybe i'll keep them separate and this blog will simply be about bicycles and riding them.

welcome to my new lo-fi blog, i hope it's interesting and enlightening. as with any blog this is more for me than for you. no offense, i love you and all but this is not primarily for you. i need to do this to organize my thoughts and experiences.

so if no one visits this site i'll be ok.

i'm hoping to encourage thought about the way we live. let's not just accept how we do things as given. we need to continually reevaluate the meaning and impact of our lives. if the way you are shown to do something is ineffective or misguided, even if everyone else does it that way, then you can and should change it. you may be the only person that changes, but one can affect many. so if i'm the only person that takes this change of lifestyle seriously it's ok. though i do think that if more people made an effort in this direction we would be better off as individuals and as a society.

so what am i talking about? living off the community, man! we typically don't give a second thought to driving ten miles to target to pick up items we could purchase locally at the market. i believe there are serious implications simply in this example. i don't feel like typing it all out now so hopefully they will play out as i develop this blog. furthermore, it's not simply living off the community, it's fostering the community. that is a cheesy term isn't it? "fostering community"

added benefits of arranging your life locally are the saved resources. by not driving miles and miles away for noodles, you'll save gas. if you don't take your car to buy noodles but your bike, you'll save more gas. these are obvious points. not so obvious is the consideration of these things as you set up your life. if you're moving you could find an area where this may be possible! i don't think many people prioritize the distance factor, though they may have to in the near future...bum bum bum.

i merely hope to encourage this mentality a bit more in my friend's lives.