Ride In 4/5: Free bricks!

One more beautiful, brisk morning. It's almost like spending my whole commute outside makes me notice and appreciate it more.
It was cold enough, though, to to put on gloves when stopped at a red light and was then immediately passed by three other bicyclists, each of whom rode through a red light. Two women, one man. One of the women was on a CaBi. It's not that I minded too much- I was using the red light time to put on gloves, so it's not like I was in a hurry- but it's never not noticeable when another bicyclist passes you. Unless they're invisible, but you hardly see invisible bicyclists anymore.
Is it legal for an actor to don the garb of Henry Clay and walk around the Capitol and have his picture taken with tourists? I mean, it doesn't have to be Henry Clay, but could be any historical congressional figure. They do this in Hollywood, so why not do it in Hollywood for ugly people? As far as I'm concerned, there are far too few people making a living by pretending to be 19th century statesmen. This is called entrepreneurship and it should be encouraged.
I haven't seen a u-turn across Penn all week. Maybe they're illegal nowadays. I have noticed an increase in the number of people using phones while driving. There must be a new Angry Birds out. It's a bad habit and I do it too sometimes, but I think it'd be better if we all stopped using gadgets while driving. Except for blenders, because sometimes when I'm riding alongside a car, I'd really like the driver to hand me a smoothie. I'm a big fan of smoothies.
I skipped the White House today, instead opting to ride in the street up 15th and pass McPherson on the non-cycletrack side. Then it was Vermont to Thomas Circle and up 14th on the other side. My general recommendation with traffic circles is to be decisive and really telegraph (not literally) where you plan to ride. That sometimes means taking the lane, but I think it's totally worth it. I'd rather be in the middle of a traffic lane and keep a driver behind me rather than be off to the side and in the path of a turning car.
14th was great, as always. A fair amount of bike traffic heading downtown, but nothing compared to one block over.
Every time I pass P street I think of this. It's cool. I take Q and R.
Speaking of R, there is in fact a stop sign at 21st and R. It's on Google maps and even in real life too.I watch bicyclists just blow through it every single day. Not slow and roll, but just totally ignore it. I don't think that's an especially wise idea.
Idea: take out a traffic lane on Massachusetts for a two-way cycletrack. Three remaining traffic lanes can alternate for inbound and outbound traffic depending on the time of the day. Cycletrack can be named something like "Embassy Cycle Row Track" (note: I am not a marketing genius) and the respective embassies can "adopt" the bollards and decorate them in national colors or something. Initial estimates suggest this will raise roughly $0 for DC, but might increase international goodwill/make my bicycle trip nicer.
And now, what you've all been waiting for (?): the relaunch of the "Tales From The Sharrows Sell Buttons and Give the Money to WABA" campaign! (note: still not a marketing genius).

Buy me.

In December, thanks to your collective generosity, we were able to raise over $750 to support the wonderful work of the Washington Area Bicyclist Association. And, many of you were able to festoon your bicycles and bags with buttons, which is sort of neat, if you like festooning. But not all of you festooned as much as you had hoped and since WABA didn't win Megamillions, it turns out that they still might benefit from the sums that we might be able to raise. So, buy your buttons here. Please. There's also a secondary donation you can make, which will probably bring about the tertiary purchase of ear plugs, so check out the link to find out more about that. And then there's another thing you can pay money for which is just sort of weird. Much gratitude to Jon from manfredmacx.com for helping me set this up again. Thank you all in advance!