MFM Day 10: Missing out on fun.

September 8th, 2009: Motor Free Month day 10

"Hey, I only beat you by like two minutes!" Cool!

Felix and I both left the track for the Ethiopian restaurant at the same time, he in his auto, and me on my cruiser. And he only beat me by a couple of minutes. Nice. Motor Free works in town really well, at least in this town. I'm getting other reports too; my coworker Michael claims it actually takes him less time to ride than drive to work. And Katrinka thinks it takes the same amount of time to ride to old town from her house as it does to drive there. All of these trips are 3 or fewer miles, that seems to be the limit at which it starts to become slower to ride than drive in Fort Collins.

Motor Free Month Day 10 was fairly uneventful as predicted: home-work-home-work-track-dinner-home to sum up. Since my plan is for 35 Motor Free days, I'm now 2/7 of the way through, which pleases me, since 2/7 happens to be my favorite fraction (nerd alert). It's somewhere between 1/3 and 1/4, but no one really has a handle on how much 2/7 is, except for certain prog rock drummers perhaps.

Song of the Day:
fun., At Least I'm Not As Sad (As I Used To Be)

"fun." is playing in Boulder this Wednesday night, September 9th, at Club 156 in Boulder, CO. I actually have no idea where Club 156 is? Not that it matters; I can't go anyway. Oh yes, "fun." is the name of the band, and the song of the day. "fun.", by the way, is the new band from the lead singer of the Format, for those of you who obsess over that band like C_ and I do. If I were Motor Full, oh boy, I'd be down in Boulder Wednesday night to see these guys play. But on a bike it would be nearly impossible --unless I took Thursday off, rode down Wednesday after work, and stayed somewhere in Boulder after the show. Almost seems worth it... But alas no, such are the drawbacks of being Motor Free; sacrifices must be made! Having said that I encourage any of you in the area looking for something to do to go see these guys play. The irony of course being that if I could drive, I'd probably pass on the concert, begging out due to the late night it would entail! I want the one I don't have, and it's driving me mad...

Got me thinking though, about the other things I'm missing while being Motor Free. Probably the biggest was just last weekend; a dear friend of ours from out of town was in Boulder for the weekend, but we were not able to go see her, in part because I was on my motorless adventure weekend. Otherwise we probably could have worked something out. So that kind of sucked. And now this concert I'm to miss, and probably some others as well, I don't want to know what else at this point!

Someone warned me about this, I think it was Kerry or Lindsey who told me that they knew someone who was basically Motor Free all the time. By choice, mind you. And that this person, we'll call him "Eco Emo", was difficult to deal with at times, between his whining about not wanting to go anywhere out of town, and his self-righteousness about saving the environment and what not. And 10 days into my adventure I'm starting to see how you could get to that point. You do miss out on a lot of potential activities/adventures, and it is difficult to be totally spontaneous. And good luck dealing with emergencies. How would you come to the aid of your spouse if they were in trouble? Or take your pet to the animal hospital? Or bail your cousin out of jail? It's harder to be there for the people you care about. Everything has to be planned out a little bit more, or a lot more if the trip is going to be long. Eventually I think this would make you bitter about missing out on so much, and the natural reaction would be to try to justify your decision by pointing out the benefits of your lifestyle choice to make you feel better/superior in comparison. Not a healthy way to live, at least mentally.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still enjoying my Motor Free Month. This is no pity party for yours truly. I'm still having a wonderful time, enjoying this adventure, and committed to sticking it out to the end. Heck I ate Ethiopian food for the first time tonight, and only 2/7 of us drove cars to the restaurant! But I'd be remiss if I didn't point out the drawbacks of my folly in addition to the advantages. Ultimately I think I can safely say that when this experiment is over on October 3rd that I'll be happy to get back into a car again. But I imagine I'll do so with a greater appreciation as to how cars make our lives richer, and how they afford us opportunities that we just can not get on foot or on bike.