driving in new jersey, is nothing to fear, once you know these well known facts:

1.  everyone is f#!$ing crazy.

2.  if the traffic light turns green and you don’t start moving forward within 250 milliseconds….you will get honked at.

3.  if you are an ambi-turner, don’t even think about turning left. that’s something for people in the west.  learn what a “jug handle” is.

4.  if you see an emergency vehicle coming, don’t pull over or anything, just keep doing what you were doing, or else you’ll get passed by the people behind you.

5.  don’t worry about cars in the shoulder, or any accident for that matter.  they see you, just focus on getting to where you are going, and getting there in record time.

6.   the new jersey turn pike [njtp] has exits every ten miles.  not funny, just good to know.

7.  the  njtp has two sections. one for cars, and the other for cars and trucks.  don’t ever be a moron and take the one for both cars and trucks.  you’ll find yourself mega boxed between three giant trucks going less than the speed limit. ..while all of your car-comrades in the other section are going way over the speed limit.

8.  it’s ok to drive 20 miles over the speed limit. ..i still have not seen a cop, except for the accidents.

9.  no two streets are parallel or perpendicular… or straight.  if you’re new to the area get a gps…. else sit back and enjoy the ride…because you’ll be doing a lot of extra driving.

10. if you find your self in the right lane, be prepared to merge left.  the lane can end at any moment, without warning.  they don’t believe in lane ending  signs here.

11. anyone, will flip you off….anyone :(

i hope these tips will help your next new jersey driving experience.

actually i wasn’t really speaking of it… i was just thinking it.  i was thinking how with my shaved head i have to worry about stupid tan lines and such on my head.  i already have this weird one across my forehead from the helmet.  just in case any of my thousands of readers find this useful i have included a link to some useful bald cycling info.

http://www.helmets.org/baldhead.htm

enjoy

war driving

i’ve been so frustrated lately because it’s been pretty difficult to find wifi. we went on a “family” vacation last week or so and i tried to stay connected, but it was very difficult.  turns out mc donald’s wifi is not free, motel 6 is not free, but theh air port shuttle in seattle was.  i had to tailgate him in order to get it but at least we could get online. so anyway, i’ll post more about my vacation later. right now i am at denver international airport waiting for my flight….. and what do you know? theay have free wireless!!!!! this must be a temporary thing because of the dem national conv.  i hope it stays free, but i’m enjoying it now.

off to new jersey

the old me

i found this picture of me….

longhair.JPG

so lately i’ve been feeling insecure about my blog, and i checked the stats of my blog.  i wanted to know the demographics of my “audience.” so as far as i can tell i only have a few readers per day.  kind of depressing actually, when you consider all the people in the world who have internet.  i do get some random hits per day from people who google for things that happen to hit some words on my website.   my blog has a feature where i can see the search key that the googler used to find my site.  lots of people looking for bike parts, trails  etc…

once, some jokster [i think he was related to me] used the search term, “stupid websites like ex-cyclist.com” :(

the search word that got my attention the other day was “gram of weed”!  why does my blog show up on pot related queries? i guess since i am writing about it now, it will show up on future queries.  i was kind of curious about this so i googled the same thing.  i went as far as 15 pages and still my blog didn’t show up.   how persistent was this person, to go beyond 15 pages.  i hardly ever go past 4.   so now i guess i have to add another category…”pot smoking”

oh, another search term that comes up regularly is  “naked cycling” [w/o quotes] wtf?  i don’t know why my blog is so high on the list.