i was hanging out in Boulder Coffee on Alexander St in Rochester NY before a meeting, and some guy did the intrusive-i-want-to-talk-to-strangers thing they do. I remember doing this in college, or the first few soccer practices. You find something small you can make a comment on to get their attention and then you’re in. He did that about computers (i’m on my mac) but I didn’t mind. We started chatting and this man, Neal, has a lot of ideas about how to change Rochester. To work with what it has and focus it so we can inspire ourselves. He wasn’t too crazy and not one of those people that will bulldoze you over to keep talking to someone, anyone.

It was actually pretty cool, and obviously interesting, I love hearing about Rochester and we were on the same side of the fence. He was talking about stuff, that i want to make an analogy for. You know when you see a person, and they’re obviously oblivious to a lot stuff that’s amazing about them, and they’re all down and trying as best they can with their oblivion to fix themselves. They’re brushing their hair, and washing their face and stuff. But you look at them and you see that they were the foundation for so many things outside of themselves, this would give them a confidence, a better posture and a self inspiration to put the sparkle in their eye. and this would help them to brush their hair, AND get a flattering hair cut, and would have them wash their face, and make sure they comfortable with their internal which makes their external shine…. I hope that makes sense.

Rochester NY, we’ve got Kodak (the sadly shrinking yellow box) but it’s still alive! And they fueled the personal camera phenomena that we don’t even blink at anymore. They helped fuel Hollywood (with film) and they helped make Rochester HUGE!! I recently read an article about how there are lots of businesses around Kodak Park, and i can just see it when i drive by Kodak Office downtown, these businesses are suffering. When Kodak was thriving, these businesses thrived because employees had money and hope and would go out and spend the money. one car dealership would sell cars to these employees. and these employees would buy new cars just because they could. (that in itself is pretty messy, but we won’t get into that)

Rochester, NY has Susan B. Anthony. sadly in one of the shady neighborhoods of Rochester now, that neighborhood and larger area used to thrive. **disclaimer** this is nostalgia path. i know that neighborhoods fluctuate and they get better and they get worse, but we also have a certain amount of influence on that… it’s called preservation**** Susan B. Anthony was a major major influence.

Rochester, NY has Xerox. hello?? another major competitor and great influence currently and past on technology. Let’s tap into this. with Kodak shrinking, Xerox is a major employer of Rochester.

Rochester, NY has Fredrick Douglas. another major player in history. We’ve got many famous historical people. I think this could inspire a lot. it could also be really hokey and just a name if used incorrectly.

Rochester NY has amazing progressive institutions. RIT, UofR… and a handful of other colleges.  U of R is always getting lots and lots of press, and they’re doing some really amazing stuff…. or so i’m told :-D  tee hee.

But there’s a lot of history and culture in this town that we need to tap into.  There used to be a subway.  It’s the coolest “black market” place to visit.  and by black market i mean underground.  i take this term and it’s definition from the way we use it in my church.  There are sanctioned small groups, and then there are the organic, outside of the organized structure.  The latter is the “black market” groups.

We’ve got subways, we’ve got a river going through the center of our city, and we’ve got a canal running along the lower portion of the city.

Let’s start using what we have and thinking outside the box.  forget looking into the box and seeing if we can get anything new that is outside of Rochester to inspire us.

Hello world.  Apparently, the last friday of every month rochester ‘celebrates’ this thing called Critical mass.  Some of you may be familiar.  I was not.  It’s basically a thing that celebrates cycling and asserts cyclists’ rights to the road.  (http://www.rocwiki.org/Critical_Mass)  I went last friday for the first time.  It was really neat seeing our city through the petals of my bike.  Well that sounds wrong.  But it was great.

my little adventure started down in the PLEX neighborhood area and then we(the ant hill crew) went up to meet up with the bunch at the liberty pole (6pm)  And then it was cool, we took east out to alexander, went down to monroe, which we took back into the city, crossed a bridge… i think near blue cross, headed north to high falls, crossed that pedestrian bridge, came east on st. paul to some north south street which we then took back to the east side intersection of the bridge that is near the blue cross.  From there i seperated and went back to the Plex.  This all took maybe an hour, i think.  yea.  Less than that.

It was amazing to me how small our city felt on a bicycle.  But small in an accessible way.  I  felt like i was able to get to places easily.  I mean it’s an easy enough city to navigate, and i know it well from tooling around it all the way back to when i sat behind the bus driver for years.  But there’s places to bike to.  Yay for critical mass.  it actually was a small triumph for me.  It was my first experience as a motorist-acting-cyclist on the road, with a helmet, in the lane, at stop lights.  *sigh*  how cool is that.  My dream is to live in the city, and bike to work.