GALFROMDOWNUNDER UPOVER

Pictured: Ann Kobsa preparing to 'plant' some seeds on my sliver of Hawaii (which I merely borrowed from mother earth for a fee of $20K) using the Fukuoka method of natural farming - basically tossing it to the winds ... read more It's been hot as Hawaii in high summer here in NYC. Yesterday I partook of a 60 mile round trip bike rider to Garden City led by 5bbc member and NY history wiki-on-wheels Danny Liebermann. Many of us were wiped out by the time we'd done 45 miles of basically flat urban riding. There we were, slumped against the walls of an 'Amish (hardly) Market', sipping fancy cold drinks and talking of taking the subway back. Of course, any bike rider will tell you that extended flat bike rides are in may ways more fatiguing than hilly ones - it's one long steady grind, rather than some butt-relieveing downhills. My last post, an extended tirade about global warming (ah, thank god for blogging, better than paying a $120 an hour therapis...

I would have included an original shot of a polar bear or endangered tree frog, but I decided to save the fossil fuel. This old shot is from the seat of my bicycle . +++ Last Monday night I made a pilgrimage back to the NY Explorer's Club , the 103 year-old "international multidisciplinary professional society dedicated to the advancement of field research and the ideal that it is vital to preserve the instinct to explore." It's not a place to see lightweight travelogues (like biking across Italy , Peru or Cuba ) unless you're making a scholarly, scientific contribution, or you've an angle the club deems worthy of sharing. Of course, if you're a Sir Edmund or Buzz Aldrin in your chosen field, you'll be eagerly summoned to the lectern in the club's riotously gothic, time-capsule of an edifice, addressing an appreciative audience of both real and armchair explorers – perhaps even honorary chair Sir Edmund himself. And what more real and worthy a to...

Accidental Advertising: This arty shot, resulting from almost dropping my camera as I chased down a customer on her bike, resulted in a very nice little plug for clothing manufacturer Peal Izumi. I've just spent a week riding my bike 80-100 miles a day with 2000 customers and other folks on Cycle Oregon . I was looking forward to impressively blogging from the saddle, except my supposed all-singing-all-dancing iPhone turned out to be a bit of club-footed wallflower, as I ranted on Fastcompany.com . So I'm glad to have my clunky, predicatable but lightening fast old Blackberry back. it does what I want and fast. A friend is reading Terry Pratchett. I'd never heard of this English author at all, but he's prolific, having written a ton of books. The friend keeps sharing snippets aloud. Last one offered: if you steal a sock from a vampire, it will throw him off completely, because vampires are such neat freaks. Now just pause for a moment and savor the absurdity: a vampire ...

This.

The Selfish Shellfish tell Angela like it is. Writer Karl Greenburg at the bedhead. The adventure unfurled when Angela pushed that big button with the 'X' on it. I was lucky to get this shot - a minder came up and told me not to take pictures. Even the Guggenheim now realizes that to get butts back on seats you gotta let people bottle memories with their Nikon Coolpixes! AUGUST is Fringe Festival (or off-off Broadway) month in NYC, when low (budget) life like me get to feel like one of those folks who live in Tribeca, Soho, or the upper East Side, the Upper West Side, or dammit, any which side of NYC. One of these shows I attended was Angela's Flying Bed , a 1-hour family musical staged in Bleecker Street. Now what was I, a die hard single income no kidder, doing at a PG-rated show? Well, the co-writer is none other than a Bike Friday customer, Karl Greenberg . Oh how I love to dip my toe into the diverse and quirky lives of our customers. Besides, so many of the...

Another 'luxury condo' development in NYC. Note the Frank Gehry 'Bundt Cake/Jello Mold' building to the right. I got the quintessential 'you're taking up airspace, young man' treatment recently. My Chelsea architect friend is always dragging me around to hear the latest Renzo Piano concerto (you can tell I'm not an architect) but we did attempt a sneak peak at a new condo development - correction - at the sales office of the development. We hadn't gotten our Tevas much past the threshold when a 20-something toothy sales rep wafted in our direction to declare, painted nails drawn, "This is NOT a gallery." Shuffling around in our shorts on a muggy summer's day, I guess we DID look like a pair of underfunded galleristas. "I know, this is a sales office. Can we take a look around?" said my friend. She retreated momentarily. We did get to run our fingers across the seamless terazzo countertops and thumb through the thick binder ...

A downward dog with a building up your butt? That's Yoga at Bryant's Park. When I travel I try to pretend I've been in the place I'm visiting for years. That is, rather than rush about seeing sights, I try to do normal things that I or anyone else would do at home. Like eat, sleep, work, buy groceries. I might take in a museum or show or two, but I don't run around with this great long list and a Fodor's duct-taped to my chest. In fact, I don't run around at all. I've been known to spend days indoors in the heart of a NYC summer, the MOMA, Met, Cooper Hewitt, and Century 21 clothing store beckoning, glued to my laptop. What's the fun in that, I hear you ask? In this way, I don't get so much of that 'gotta tear myself away' angst and 'get back to real life' letdown when my stay comes to an end. This *is* real life. Or as a friend put it, 'This is not a holiday, this is my life.' So my attending a free yoga class in the mid...