Big problem with top of the mitten, so no photo until I hear back from the designer. I think it's me. I think I forgot how to read directions.

Thing the second, I want to say something about bicycles and cars. I like my car. In fact, I love my car. It's reliable and (somewhat) new and I get decent gas mileage. I like bikes. I think riding a bike to work is a genius idea. I think bike lanes are a good thing. But, I have begun to believe that I don't like bike riders.

Before the flaming begins, bear with me, and hear me out, okay? I drive through some very "hot" biking neighborhoods on my way to work. I pass about 50-70 people on bikes each day, to and from work. That's a large sample number to work with considering I have working on this street for 3 years. I have seen some pretty strange behavior on bikes such as : riding on a highway, stopping for no reason in the middle of the road, not stopping for stop lights, etc.

Okay, so why don't I like bike riders? When I was small, I learned to ride a bike in a very bike-friendly town. There were rules. You ride with traffic, not against. You obey traffic laws. Like stopping at red lights, moving through green ones, signalling right and left, etc. You pay attention to what's around you. I wait patiently behind lines of bikes if I can't get around them.

I also know that I am a good driver (ask anyone, I do tailgate, but I do obey traffic and speed laws with scary attention) and there are bad drivers out there. So, I imagine that good cyclists and bad cyclists are out there. Here's a bad one:

This morning, a cyclist,wearing an iPod, wove through traffic to a stop light. He was between the drivers' side of my car and the passenger side of another car. I was in the right lane. With my blinker on. Indicating my intent to turn right. The light changed (no turn on red sign present) and I proceeded to turn right. So did the bike. Without warning. Darted right in front of my car as I was accelerating. I almost hit him. I slammed on my brakes and yanked the wheel to the right, hitting my horn to alert him I was close. I was terrified of hitting this man. He pulled over. He indicated that I should too. I did, thinking "oh. my. god. I hit a person" and was then treated to a 5 minute "you-stupid-f*&^%#-C&^# SUV driving gas whore! YOU need to watch out for US on the road... that's YOUR job. NOT MINE. SHARE the road you B#$%^!!" tirade. Fortunately for me, there was an officer nearby working a detail. He came over and calmed the cyclist down.

And gave him a $500 ticket for failing to signal, taking a right turn from a left lane and wearing an iPod while operating a bicycle. When I left he was arguing with the cop that "he couldn't get a ticket, he wasn't in a car." I heard the officer say "the rules of the road are the rules of the road."

Ah. Karma.