sometimes i wish the world were set up differently, not too much different but just another way of doing things, i think a lot about thoreau, having read walden a number of times throughout my adult years i wish that kind of simplicity was available to us now the way you could have had that 100 years ago. simplicity is the underlying focus here, lifestyle in general or singlespeeds or fixed gears they mindset is the same. sophmore poli sci taught us about andrew smith and john locke and the wealth of nations and those who read machiavelli's prince remember the tenets of early capitalism. the one thing about early political philosophy is that it seems to prevent people from being a part of an economy on a part time basis. it is difficult to participate sometimes, not all the time. i would love to be able to use it for certain items but not others. enough utopian dreams... i was thinking today about a bike i had when i was about 10 or so, we were on summer vacation and my dad had fixed it up and painted it a cool matte black, when i got home from holiday i had the badass looking singlespeed coaster brake clunker bike to ride around all throughout the summer and fall before it got too nasty for my folks to allow me to ride any of the trails or roads around our house. hands down the best gift i ever got! it started my cycling habit. it was maybe a schwinn or huffy, this bike carried me through until i took my older sisters roadbike on extended tours. it never mattered what i had to ride as long as i got out. then on the days i forgot my spelling homework and i had to ride back to school to get my stuff to study. those days were good b/c my mom was so pissed off that i forgot my homework she made me ride back to school to get the stuff no matter what the weather! forgetting stuff at. school became a habit. minus 6 today on the way across the tundra to work. i normally ignore the temperature but today as well as yesterday were two of those days. i needed every bit of clothing i had to keep the white spots off my face, it would suck to get frostbite. rolling on the snow it had that too cold screech to it. skiing can't be very good right now, the snow is just super granular, would have been cool to see the crystals under a microscope, good traction though and no doughnut stops for a while, rot-gut and fat are not two things i want. they just taste so good, it not that i worry about fat it's that i don't want to be sick and smell bad. enough random thoughts.