Ride In 2/17

Pop quiz hot shot. It's the most beautiful day since the fall. The weather is as nice for biking as it gets in Washington. Do you a) bask (Basque?) in all of nature's glories as you enjoy your ride in or b) sing "Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree" (wtf, right?) loud enough so that the crossing guard by Key School gives you a dirty look? Guess which one I did.
It's another Tool School tonight. I never wrote up week 2 and I'll try to do it today, but I'm not entirely sure that I'll have time. In case I don't do a fuller write-up, one of the highlights was discussing whether your finger would definitely or only probably get chopped off if it got caught in the rotor for disc brakes. I think the conclusion was definitely and the kid in the class who looks 17 said "cool beans." I had to bring my tools with me today and that meant jamming my toolbox in my pannier. I thought about taking the tools out and putting them in a plastic bag from Safeway because they would be slightly easier to transport that way (the toolbox barely fits in the pannier), but then I realized that doing that would make me look like a crazy bike hobo. I might as well eat cold beans right out of a can during class while I play a banjo and sing songs about riding the rails.
I was going to take my normal route, but I decided that I should mix it up at least a little in honor of the nice day. Rather than the more pastoral (?) Tunlaw, I cut over at 34th to Wisconsin and took that up to Massacusetts and then down to school. The intersection of Mass and Wisconsin is a cluster, but I think I've figured out how to get through it in the least potentially detrimental way- if there's a red on Wisconsin, just go up the right side all the way to the crosswalk. Cross the street. Cross again. That's some great (and totally obvious) advice. You can't turn left onto Massachusetts at that time of day, so there's no sense getting over to the left because it will probably result in you jumping the line in front of a bunch of cars and that's not polite or something. Turns out going this way takes about the same amount of time and it almost the same distance as going my normal way, but it might be less hilly. So, that's good.