I’m home from going to Apple Valley for Thanksgiving. I’ve been sort of sick since Tuesday or Wednesday, but not to sick to get out of helping my family around the house on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
Yesterday I wrapped fiberglass insulation around the pipes connected to my parent’s well. This sounds much more handy than it actually was. But here’s a tip for you: buy the thicker fiberglass with the shiny metallic lining on one side. It is much, much easier to work with.
Today I got up super early to catch an 8:30am flight only to discover that my flight was actually at 8:30pm. I ended up flying standby on the 8:30am flight that I thought I should have been on. Bah.
My day got much better when I got back to Berkeley. There’s a cafe on San Pablo that I’ve been meaning to check out and I stopped there and had an excellent cappuccino and a horrible croissant and read a little bit on my way home from Bart. The doorbell rang shortly after I got home. It was the mailman with two boxes of my things from Europe. I’d sent out all my belongings via Dutch economy shipping the first week of October and they’re just starting to arrive now. I think it’s been about six weeks or so since the last time I saw my scanner. I’m so excited!
Hate crime incidents rose nearly 8 percent last year, the FBI reported Monday, as civil rights advocates increasingly take to the streets to protest what they call official indifference to intimidation and attacks against blacks and other minorities.
Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.
Goddamn. That’s not even all the hate crimes reported last year. Some police agencies don’t report their hate crimes to the FBI.
And Tony Snow says racism is a thing of the past….
I donated my old Schwinn to the Waterside Workshop’s bike program today. I remember that bike not being very much fun to ride, but today as I took it the five or so blocks to drop it off it was remarkably smooth and fun to take out. I hope it finds a good home with someone who’ll ride it more than I did. It’s funny how much smaller every other bike on the planet seems once I’ve gotten used to taking my dutch number out everywhere.
The guy I gave my bike to remembered me from having taken my other bike in to get fixed a few weeks ago. He said he thinks he’s seen me around on my big Dutch number. heh. I’m bike-shop-guy famous. ;)