Capitol loop

Today I finally made the ride down to the Capitol that I have been trying to do for quite a bit of time recently.  I continued on up past the Cathedral, down Summit and back to Roseville across the Raymond Avenue Dead Man's Curve.  I call this the Capitol loop, so named because I ride past the State Capitol building and, unlike probably most of my rides, this one isn't a mostly out and back, this one is at least triangular.  I call it the Capitol loop.

One of my main reasons (the southeast wind being the other) for riding down there was that I saw a news report of the Capitol Mall being bulldozed for a temporary parking lot.  Apparently some of the renovation planned for the big building requires loss of use of some parking spaces generally used by our elected officials.  Not even the big elected officials though, more on the order of the extremely self aggrandizing state senators and state representatives.

These are people holding jobs paying $31K per year but each and every one of them thinks he/she should and probably will be POTUS some day.

Clearly people that important aren't going to be inconvenienced enough to have to park a block away.  These people ARE going to park nearby even if it means bulldozing the Capitol mall for a temporary parking lot.

Here we see the bulldozer in action just behind the occasionally previously featured statue of Floyd B. Olson (all together now, a true hero to Minnesota labor).

And sure enough the mall is being bulldozed.

Turning back towards the Capitol itself from the same spot as the previous photograph, here are some of the parking spaces that will have to be sacrificed to, you know, tradesmen and construction materials, and that sort of thing while the building is renovated.

Once you have convinced yourself that you are important enough to park that close I suppose it is just too bitter a pill to swallow to expect them to do what, for example, is being done at Como Park.  Remote parking and a shuttle bus.

Nope, better to plow up the green space.

It was a terrible day for September bicycling.  It was only barely warm enough, the wind was fierce and the partly cloudy forecast failed to ever break through the heavy and quite persistent overcast.  The upside is that I have never been at the Humphrey statue before when I had decent sun position to be able to get a photo.  Today was better of Humphrey (Veteran's Service Memorial Building in the background) but not very complimentary of the sky.

Here's a NewLOOK at the other side of the memorial, State Office Building (yes, we really call it that, and yes, we use the acronym SOB) in the background for scale and completely zero perspective.

That's where those people without perspective whose parking spaces are being usurped have office space.  So generally, they park in front of the Capitol, but then WALK AWAY from the building to get to the place where they sit.  And then have to WALK THROUGH A TUNNEL to get to the legislative chambers.

Probably I am making more of this than is necessary.

I haven't ridden down into the big city much this year.  These are streets familiar to me but only occasionally ridden this year.  The route down Summit towards the river often (but not always) leads me past my favorite this would be a good place to practice for a trip to France intersection.

Home in time to catch the very end of the ManU Champions League on the new FS1 deal and then over to the new NBCSN for coverage of the completely postponed they spent a couple of hours showing replays of this sailboat racing thing.

Well, there have been some big changes there.

Suddenly the Americans, after being abjectly awful on the upwind leg for the first 6 or 8 races are, instead, absolutely dominant.

New Zealand probably has too big a lead by now though, I still suspect the Cup goes back to Auckland.

Here's a thought though.  The series is advertised as the best of 17.  OK.  But Team Oracle has been penalized two race victories for an apparently really egregious example of cheating.  So what happens if after 17 races NZ has won 8 and the USA has won 9.  With the penalty having been imposed the score would be NZ 8, USA 7.

Does someone need to win 9?  Which seems to me to be the correct interpretation of best of 17, you need to win 9.  So would they race on, race 18 and perhaps even 19, to get to a position of the first team to reach an unpenalized 9 points?  And what if there should be more penalties?  What if NZ should suddenly be docked, oh, I don't know, 4 points for having more sheep than people in their country?  And what if USA were to receive an additional penalty for, oh, I don't know, having the most expensive health care system in the industrialized world with the absolute worst results?  Could they be at this sailboat racing thing for, oh, I don't know, months?

Just askin'.

Because that's what I do.