Green Living?

It may seem crazy but would it be possible to harness the energy from ourselves? Every movement we make creates energy, typing is just one example imagine if you were able to power your computer based on the pressure you applied to your keyboard. I was reading last week that a company is looking to harvest the energy created by rain droplets falling on rooftops through peizoelectricity or something like that. Wouldn't it therefore be possible to capture the energy of my fingers as I am sure they apply far more pressure than a raindrop would.

So I started this blog to talk about being sustainable but now all I can think about is all the wasted energy that is produced by people being alive. When you think about it thats all we are is energy. I once read somewhere that there is only a set amount of energy on Earth and that is just constantly changing form and never actually disappears. So where does all this energy go? It seems that this is what the focus of this blog is becoming, a random thought process attempting to understand the world around me. I have always been a questioner is that the right word...? Curious really. Curious about how things work and what happens to them. I think its crazy if we don't question what happens around us.

Energy right that was the topic. So lets create a hypothetical situation and really try to understand how much energy is contained within the earth. Is this a crazy thing to do? Maybe it is but then again maybe not. I have a rock and its filled with minerals. I take the rock and using heat from trees that I have cut down and then I need something to heat the rock in that also won't burn so how do I get this. What is the extraction process for obtaining precious and useful metals? Hmmm time to stop this blog and start another.

"F*cking Idiot!"

Ok greetings all, this is my first legitimate blog. Woo and Hurrah!!! Consequently I am establishing my blogging career with a little story about what happened on my morning cycle commute.

Due to another punctured tire on my bike (which did not get fixed over the weekend), I was not riding my bike this morning. This is not unusual for me as I have experienced multiple flat tires recently and consequently ridden four different bikes to work over the last couple of weeks. So this morning I was riding Rachel's (my girlfriend/life partner/soul mate) bicycle.

After a brief sojurn to the petrol station to inflate the tires I was merrily riding along until caught at the traffic lights at the intersection of George and Cleveland streets in Redfern. As they usually do the lights changed and the accumulated pedestrians and cyclists all dutifully crossed Cleveland Street through to Prince Alfred Park. Now I was not the first cyclist off the blocks there was a woman who propelled herself very quickly across the road, however I was not far behind.

As I arrived on the footpath there was a large bearded man walking with headphones on who was not looking where he was going. I saw the man and assumed I would have enough time to ride in front of him and that he would notice me as I was unable to stop due to another cyclist being right behind me as well as several pedestrians.

At this point I fgured I only had 2 options: either predict his movements by assuming that he would be aware of my wheeled presence and possibly slow his gait so I could pass in front of him or stop suddenly and potentially have the cyclist and pedestrians behind me crash.

So I took the usual cyclist option and plowed on ahead and alas my assumptions were wrong and the bearded man was totally unaware of my presence. I was able to dash in front of him without hitting him, however I seemingly interrupted his zombie like trudge to wherever he was going and caused him to menacingly yell "F*cking Idiot!" at me.

Now my initial response to this was to turn around a laugh at him which I am sure antagonised him further, however then I began to ponder several things at once. Firstly about the man and his grumpy demenour, wondering whether he was had a: bad morning; bad weekend; bad year etc; or whether he was generally a mean spirited grumpy ass mutha f*cka!

Then I pondered whether it was me being a cyclist that pissed pedestrians off in general. Is it jealousy because we have wheels and can get to places faster? Or because sometimes we are forced to cut pedestrians off and seemingly jump out in front of them. I try to be a good cyclist and not piss pedestrians off when I am forced to ride on the footpath due to an overall lack of cycling infrastructure.

My finally thoughts until I started writing this blog was whether it was Rachel's bike that was cursed. Do people respond differently to cyclists depending on the type of bike they are riding, much the same as people do with different cars? I know on my bike I only occasionally get yelled at by cars &/or pedestrians. Yet Rachel tells me she gets abused quite regularly, so I guess the logical step is to start collecting data on cyclists and the types of bikes they ride and the level of abuse received. So whoever reads this I would appreciate your comments as I begin my journey to find out whether various styles of bikes receive more abuse than others.