Recent Whereproject Posts

This past week I took the week off to work on my dissertation--more like a "staycation" than a real vacation. Or perhaps I should call it a "dissercation," to coin a really ugly word. It like the way it has hints of "diss" words (dissatisfied, diservice, dissipate, dissonance) on one end and of "altercation" on the other. In any case, it was cage match with me and the dissertation, and I put it to the mat until it begged for mercy. I talked a lot of smack and made sure it knew that things are different now. It's had the run of my life for too many years, but now it knows its days are numbered.

By the end of the week, I came away with drafts of four out of five chapters, and I feel good about the progress. I still have a ways to go to pull together a full draft by the end of the summer, but I now feel more confident it will happen. 

It was easier to focus for the week because I got a good weekend of hiking in with Cathy beforehand. We hiked Mt. Washington and stayed over night at the Lakes of the Clouds AMC hut  about an hour hike from the summit.

As alway happens when we hike, it rained. We hiked in the rain almost the entire way up Tuckerman's Ravine and the last scramble to the summit was a cold mix of rain and wind. On the top, we couldn't see more than 50 feet in any direction, so we just enjoyed the the chance to warm up and eat some chili before heading down to the hut. 

But it was still great to get a taste of Mt. Washington (my first time) and I look forward to the views next time around. 

More photos here

Yesterday afternoon Ben and I biked up to Gloucester where we joined other friends to take in the annual Greasy Pole Competition (read more for Wikipedia). Despite the forecast of thunderstorms, we enjoyed a very pleasant weather for our ride and even after missing our turn in Manchester by the Sea, we still managed to get there in time to watch a good part of the competition. 

Here's a one-minute recap of yesterday's event: 

This evening I stopped by the first potluck of the year at the Minton Stable Garden two blocks away from my place. I sauteed up the collard greens from my CSA and they actually got eaten (even by some kids). Thanks to Laurel for sharing some of her fish--I came away with to nice pieces of sea bass. 

The Minton Stable Garden was built on an old stable that fell into disrepair but was reclaimed by a group of dedicated gardeners from the neighborhood. Due to their hard work, the space is now a permanent community garden part of the Boston Natural Areas Network. 

The evening a memorial was dedicated to John Carroll, the first person to begin gardening here and one of the chief stewards of the space. He died in November and this potluck was a chance for friends, family, and community members to pay tribute to him and spread his ashes in the garden that he worked so hard to create. 

This video gives a brief portrait of what he was like: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IHnOZNQ_A-o

This evening after work I stopped by Community Servings here in JP to pick up my first CSA delivery of fruits and veggies straight from Heaven's Harvest Farm in New Braintree, MA. It's the first time I've tried community supported agriculture, so after reading Michael Polland and Bill McKibben recently, I'm excited to try out a new relationship to my food. 

Here's what I got in this delivery (as closely as I can identify):

redcor kale
green kale
collard greens
strawberrys
romane lettuce
a lemony mint plant
zuccini
cilantro

If anyone has relevant recipes, please don't hesitate to send them my way. 

Thanks to everyone who donate to my Bikes Not Bombs ride. We raised much more than last year--over $100,000 dollars after pledges come in. It was a hot day--97 degrees--by the time I rolled back into the city via Blue Hills Ave in Dorchester, but it was a fun ride nonetheless.

At the beginning of each leg, we formed a fairly cohesive group, and I was reminded how important communication is when riding like this. Being primarily a commuter cyclist, I don’t often bike with others on longer rides and I had forgotten the many hand signals and rules of etiquette that groups of riders use in order to function as a safe and efficient units.

While biking in the city, I’m usually just looking out for myself and I don’t communicate as much as I probably should with those with whom I share the road. Occasionally I manage a half-hearted hand signal to indicate a turn or to acknowledge someone who has stopped let me pass; more often I just dole out dirty looks to drivers who cut me off or edge too close.

But riding in a group of 20 or more cyclists required more deliberate communication, and I enjoyed picking up the finer points of the language as we went along. Often hand signals were passed back to make others aware of potholes to avoid or upcoming stop lights. At other times, we created a verbal form of vision, a collaborative seeing that kept us aware what was happening behind use without having to look.  Those at end of pack (which was usually me) would tell the rest of the group a car was coming from behind by yelling “Car back,” which then would be repeated by those ahead until it was passed up to the front of the group.

As the ride went on, the group would attenuate and break into smaller units, but good communication remained important even when riding with just one other person.

Now that I've brushed up on this biking lingo, I'm trying to be better about communicating as I ride, whether I'm riding in a group or just trying to make my way to work. I figure the more I can stay on the same page with others around me on the rode, the safer we'll all be. 

I'm excited to be participating in the 21st Annual Bikes Not Bombs (BNB) Bike-A-Thon on June 8th, riding 62 miles to raise money for this fine organization that promotes biking for transportation and community development.

ABOUT BIKES NOT BOMBS
BNB is doing many things right: recycling donated bikes, training city kids to repair bikes, sending bikes to developing countries and fighting to make the city more bike-friendly. What's more, BNB has become the local bike shop that go to when I need repairs.

Biking may not be the answer to all the worlds problems, but it is an increasingly important lifestyle choice that allows many of us to get where we need to go and to contribute to the health of our communities and the environment.

HOW YOU CAN HELP
I'm looking for people to contributing to BNB's work by supporting my ride. If you're able to contribute something, I would really appreciate it.

You can donate securely online at: http://www.firstgiving.com/tim-lindgren

Or, if you are local and want to drop it off at my house, or don't mind mailing it, your gift will go farther as a check or cash (BNB pays a 7.35% processing fee for each online donation). Please make the check out to "Bikes Not Bombs", put "Tim Lindgren BAT08" in the memo line, and mail it to me at the address below (or put in my mailbox). Please send me an email to let me know if you are making a donation this way so I can record it properly.

Please make your donations before June 1st.

If you are interested in joining me on the ride (the more the merrier!), there are several distances to choose from: 15, 25, and 62 miles. You can also come by and enjoy the Green Roots Festival! See the Bikes Not Bombs website for more info about the organization and the events on June 8th:

http://www.bikesnotbombs.org

Please forward this email to others whom you think would be interested in supporting Bikes Not Bombs.

Thanks for your support!

Tim

The life of a squirrel can be a precarious one, as I witnessed earlier this evening when I walked out of my office and was met by a red-tailed hawk standing on the sidewalk, talons firmly around a squirrel it had just killed. After a few moments, it flew away, leaving a small pool of blood on the concrete where it has been standing.

I didn't realize until reading Kevin's blog this week that bikes can also present a fatal hazard to squirrels, as this photo demonstrates:

These incidents reminded me of the rather conflicted relationship I've had with squirrels over the years. I got to know them quite intimately when I llved in Allston, or more precisely, when we lived together in Allson, since they occupied the walls and attic space around my room most of the time I was there. It wasn't an amicable relationship, I'm afraid; they kept me up at night, gnawned on wires, and chewed through my belongings stored in the attic, so finally I had to begin trapping them so that pest control could pick them up. Ultimately, it was the landlord's fault since he wouldn't fix all the holes in the house, and I resented being forced into this antagonistic relationship with animals that under normal circumstances I'm confident I could get along with quite well.

But these are the lessons we learn, living together in the city, and I hope to have more pleasant encounters with my neighbor squirrels in the future.

Yesterday I attend a JP community summit at English High (the oldest public high school in the US) sponsored by the Jamaica Plain Neighborhood development corporation, an event which helped give me a better sense of what's going in the larger JP community. I've been getting to know my immediate Stonybrook neighborhood during the last year by attending neighborhood association meetings and getting to know my next-door neighbors. But I was amazed to learn of the opportunities to get involved in JP at almost any scale, from street to neighborhood to city and beyond.

There is a long history of grass-roots activism here that has helped revitalize the JP into a healthy urban neighborhood, but this success has also brought some of the problems typical of gentrification--many of the people who worked hard to improve JP now can't afford to live here and the diversity that many people value is changing as new people move in. This summit was meant to help community members share ideas about how to make JP an equitable place even as it continues to develop and change.

As one of these newcomers, it's easy for me to feel like I'm part of the problem--just another bearded white guy buying a condo in a newly converted building--but the summit helped me see that I can also be part of the solution if I'm willing to understand how JP got to be the way it is and then get involved to do my part in keeping it healthy. I still have a lot to learn, but I feel lucky to be in a place that seems to be a good teacher.

Finally after a long winter, it's begun to look and feel like spring, and we enjoyed it with a picnic near the pond in the Boston Public Garden.