Thanks to Olyblog, I am about to begin a three-year post on the Olympia City Council's Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee. I read about openings on the Committee in this post and decided to apply.

The entire process was pleasant: the application was simple, the interviews were brief and pleasant, and the communications from city staff were pleasant, welcoming, and useful. My interview with three of the city council (Kingsbury, Strub, and Ottavelli) was on March 17. Upon walking in, Jeff Kingsbury noted that I was the "most pedestrian" of the applicants (I walk to work most days, and have for years) and, such was the tenor of the interview, that I took that as a good thing (though I'm sure that there are people who would judge me fairly pedestrian). Two weeks later, it was official, and next week, I attend my first meeting.

I don't know how this all works, yet, and I expect that the advisory committees' agendas are pretty closely managed, but if you have any ideas that you think the BPAC should consider, let me know.

Earlier today, I took my dog to Olympia's Watershed Park for a walk. I parked at the new lot for the Woodland Trail on Eastside and entered the park by the Eastside trailhead. About ten yards down the trail, there was a barrier of yellow caution tape across the trail. Another twenty yards ahead was another yellow tape barrier. This one had been broken through and it included a sign that declared the trail closed due to storm damage.

We walked down into the ravine, around the entire loop and even checked the trail up to the McCormick and Henderson Blvd south trailhead and saw no storm damage, nor did we see another barrier of any kind. We did see another dozen people on the trail, too.

So, why was the Eastside entrance marked that way?

This weekend my wife and I and our energetic lab, Daisy, tried out the new segment of the Olympia Woodland Trail. This is a conversion of an old railroad grade that parallels I-5 between Eastside Street and Dayton St. (Phase II, now in design and permitting, will extend from Dayton, across Fones Rd., to the Chehalis Western Trail in Lacey.) There's a paved, 10' wide path the whole way and, for most of the way, a 4' gravel path. It's very green and cool, passing through woods and following Indian Creek for part of the way. Just the thing for a hot summer morning (or a drizzly summer day).

Park at the trailhead on Eastside, just south of its bridge over I-5, across the street from the Eastside St. trailhead to Watershed Park. There are covered picnic tables, benches, a drinking fountain, and restrooms.

Mr. Jenner's banking career led to a four-year posting in Hong Kong for the National Bank of Commerce in 1967, and Jo worked as a volunteer for several years with the Family Planning Council there. Her creation of a promotional poster featuring a pregnant man earned international media attention.

So said Dwight Pelz, Washington State Democrats Chair, in a short speech this afternoon at the Heritage Park fountain, which followed a pretty successful (as far as success can be measured for these symbolic events) rally against the war along 4th Avenue today. Of course, his use of the word insane was based on the folk definition of insanity, which is doing the same thing repeatedly while expecting different results. Not a real diagnosis, nor even much of a rhetorical step above cliché, but it does make a good lead.

I went to the rally not because I it might bring about a change in policy (I’m not insane, by any definition), but because I thought it was time, once again, to stand out in public with others who think the same as I do as witnesses to our belief that the war is wrong, has always been wrong, and should be ended. Now. 

There were more people out than a year ago and the responses from those driving over the bridge, going about their daily business, were more weighted to the positive side. Whether this was because of a change in thinking, which subsequently led to the recent election results, or because of those results themselves, I’m not sure. It’s probably both. I wouldn’t be surprised to start to hear whining about how hard it has become to support the war.

Cross-posted at Peregrinate.

1. To blog more, here and there.
   
2. To get out and exercise at least 320 times next year.
3. To hike in the Alps.
4. To scan and organize all of my grandfather's slides (over 3500) and 16mm movies (over eight hours-worth).