N8 and Kylea going nose to nose

Nate says: "When you are older, you will ignore the boys."

K thinks: "I'm going to eat your nose!"

B3 says it's just an Eskimo kiss.

Hey, something bike related!

You would think that with a blog "Julie Bike" there might be something bike related at least once in a while.

Your wait has ended!

[Warning: when I told my co-worker, Melissa, about this, I thought she was going to pee her pants.]

Last Thursday I biked to work. There's a whole routine I have to go through the night before so I can just roll out of bed, brush my teeth, pull on the bike clothes, maybe load a couple of last minute items, and hit the road. That evening routine includes:
-Check the tire presssure
-Layout the bike clothes
-Figure out what I'm wearing the next day (unless I've previously dropped stuff off at work)
-Figure out what I'm eating the next day (pack what I can in the bike bags; put fridge stuff in one place to grab in the morning)

I've always worried that I'll end up at work without proper undergarments, then have to wear a sweaty sports bra all day. Yuck. So undergarments always go in the bike bag the night before, too.

Check, check, check, check. All good Wednesday night. And a good ride Thursday morning, a bit of a tail wind, so I am at the office 6:00 am, ready to shower. In my office, pulling the supplies out of my drawer (towel, shampoo, etc.). From the bike bag, undergarments and,

and,

Uh-oh. No work clothes. I picture my pinstripe blazer and skirt, with the red top, hanging outwards on a hanger in the closet. Still hanging there. So I have to call my hero, Mike to bring in my clothes. Of course it will be a few minutes, because he has to get dressed. Fine, fine, half an hour is good because I can go ahead and jump in the shower; I have a fresh bike top I can put on until he calls that he is at the back door.

Epilogue: when we went to the Farmer's Market today, I took THREE sets of clothes into the office!

Parkinson's Disease

Here is a link to an NPR story on Parkinson's, from a son's perspective.

www.npr.org/2011/06/18/137235480/dad-refuses-to-pass-down-inheritance-of-illness

I thought it did a good job of explaining how Parkinson's Disease (PD) is about so much more than tremors.

Politics again

So maybe this is lazy blogging, but here's another taste of our local politics, copies from our local paper www.columbian.com/weblogs/local-politics/2011/may/06/the-gift-of-gab/:

During Wednesday's work session on increasing the 911 tax, the men in the room far outnumbered the women. In addition to the all-male roster of county commissioners, county administrator and director of the Clark Regional Emergency Services Agency, there were male representatives from fire districts and other emergency response agencies.
And it was the men who had the biggest reaction to a comment by Commissioner Tom Mielke.
CRESA Director Tom Griffith was telling commissioners why 911 dispatchers can't take on additional work, which would be necessary if commissioners didn't increase the monthly excise tax from 50 cents to 70 cents. Ten dispatchers would be laid off, Griffith said.
Griffith was describing how he marvels at how fluidly dispatchers switch between conversations, as a dispatcher is often carrying on two conversations at once. A dispatcher might be relaying information to a police officer while also taking a call from a citizen who is reporting a crime or calling for medical help, for example.
It's difficult to keep all the facts straight, Griffith said.
"Isn't that the reason we have women to do that work?" Mielke asked.
Well, that stopped the discussion.
Commissioner Marc Boldt looked at me writing in my notebook and said, "That wasn't me who said that."
The rumblings in the room prompted Mielke to add, "That's a compliment, by the way."

County politics

Sorry, more politics. Our county intranet has a new spot on the county "reconfiguration," and it mentioned a new county mission statement (which we had never heard of, tho' supposedly adopted last year). Here it is. Ready? There's more, but this is just the intro:

• Mission and Values In 2010, the Board of Clark County Commissioners adopted the following mission statement:‘To better serve the will of citizens,’ or ‘…the will of the people’


• Explanation of Mission Statement The mission statement stems from the first words of US constitution’s mission statement, “We the people…” This is very different than the “We the elite…” wording implicit in so many other founding documents of the past.

Weather

Ooh, ooh, I haven't posted in over two months (except in my new blog: http://reportergaffes.blogspot.com). So quick make something up. We've only been back from vacation 10 days, so how have ya'll put up with this gray drizzle for most of the last 8 weeks? Nasty.

More politics

I probably shouldn't post this. I never intended my blog to become a political post, but c'est la vie. This morning's local paper had a story from our county business that I somehow didn't hear about this week. And it seems these comments should have run through the building like a fire storm. Does that mean we're becoming numb to idiocracy? After I read this story to hubby even he (a Republican) said "some Republicans have gone off a cliff."

The link is below; here's a taste:

[County Commissioner] Mielke said his parents took care of him, and he takes care of his family. He said homeless teenagers are "children who don’t want to abide by the rules of the house so they run away."

www.columbian.com/weblogs/local-politics/2011/jan/19/mielke-were-not-china-not-yet/