just about the most insanely perfect weather to bike to work that you could have. 11 centigrade. high light pale grey luminous sky, perfectly uniform colour like what you sometimes get when it's snowed. wet roads with the light on them. trees all around with still just enough autumn colour on them to set off all the shades of grey. gusty winds from all different directions, but nothing too strong - just a lot of fresh air. it was beautiful.

spent half of saturday mooching around on outdoorsman's-strip down on broadway, theoretically looking for waterproofing for feet. but really just kind of hanging out and looking at stuff. i looked at a lot of options and dithered a bit in the direction of waterproof hiking boots, but in the end settled for the things i'd wanted to go get in the first place: the serious 3-ply goretex booties from taiga. always kind of yearned after those booties. to me they're the badge of the serious bike commuter. wasn't actively raining by our standards when i set out today but i wore them anyway, and a good thing i did. the Puddles That Ate Manhattan are still lurking all over the mup. it was FUN to go through those things and not even get a tiny bit wet; completely worth it.

the resident building handyman-type guy is a bit of a bike dude. he's got an old rocky mountain thing he uses for around the site that i've always kind of liked, so when i found out whose it was we had a few conversations about the whole bike-lifestyle schmear. he was fetching something from the storage zone while i unlocked the cage; he did that double-take thing and said 'you didn't ride in today, did you?'

yup. yup, i sure did