Meet My New Folding Bike!
Written on 08/31 at 06:29 PM by Andy Posner
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Cycling
I am now the proud owner of a Bike Friday folding bicycle. The name of the particular model is the Pocket Rocket, and it is a beautiful, fire-engine red bicycle that rides like a regular road bike but folds down small enough to fit into a suit case that can be checked in at the airport. I got this bike because in order to meet my goal of riding my bike at least an hour a day for 10 years, I will have to have a bike that I can take with me when I travel by bus, train and airplane. Of course, I recently upgraded both my race bike and my mountain bike, but the fact of the matter is that when it comes to cycling, few are more obsessed and in love with the sport than I! It is rare in life to find an activity that guarantees health, fitness and happiness, and for me cycling is just such an activity! So far I have ridden 10 days in a row, and I feel absolutely fantastic. Read more about the bike (and see more photos!) after the fold.
A Personal Challenge: Cycling At Least An Hour A Day For 10 Years
Written on 08/24 at 11:14 AM by Andy Posner 0 comments
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Cycling
Al Gore’s Challenge Inspires My Thesis, and My Own Challenge
Al Gore recently challenged the U.S. to get 100% of its electricity from renewable energy within a decade. I was so excited and inspired by the challenge that I decided to switch my thesis topic in order to look at some of the issues raised by that challenge; specifically, I want to understand how to address the intermittence of renewable energy sources through geographic distribution, energy storage, smart grid technology and innovative demand side management.
Around the time that I read Al Gore’s challenge, I came across a completely unrelated article about a guy--Jim Langley, the former technical editor at Bicycling Magazine--who, in 1990, set a goal to ride his bicycle at least an hour a day for ten years. Not only did he meet his goal, but the streak is alive to this day. After I read that I thought to myself, hmm, wouldn’t it be interesting to spend the next 10 years devoting myself to meeting Al Gore’s challenge and eradicating poverty through my micro-credit initiative, while at the same time riding my bike at least an hour a day? And so it was that I decided to challenge myself to achieve the goal of riding an hour a day for 10 years. Hopefully by the time I have accomplished it the planet and human society will be as healthy thanks to clean, renewable energy that doesn’t impact global geopolitics as I will be from the riding. Read on to find out why I’m doing this and for details of the challenge.
Photos of Some Upgrades to My Bikes!
Written on 08/11 at 05:00 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments
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Cycling
Okay, so I’m pretty obsessed with bicycles. For one thing, I have three (a touring bike/car, a mountain bike/winter bike and a racing bike). Secondly, when I’m not riding my bike, well, I generally find myself thinking or writing about cycling. Given that paradigm, it isn’t surprising that I’m extremely excited about some new upgrades to my racing and mountain bikes. I recently had my entire gear set on the race bike switched from Shimano Ultegra to Campagnolo Record. For those of you that aren’t familiar with bicycle gears, Shimano is made in Japan and is extremely functional, but Campagnolo is made in Italy and, apart from being functional, is drop-dead gorgeous. I am literally physically attracted to the gears on my bike. Campagnolo Record is the top of the line gear set, and my new bike looks absolutely fantastic with it (photos after the fold). For my steel mountain bike--a 2006 Surly Karate Monkey--I just installed a new, massive front tire, as well as a neat clip-on rear fender.
I Believe
Written on 08/02 at 03:12 PM by Andy Posner 0 comments
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Musings
Prose
Sometimes I grow weary and despondent, hearing of the uphill battle I face as I work to better myself and the world. At those times, I wonder why, when the Earth bears marvelous fruits in the valleys and plains as well as the peaks, humans relegate the best of what they can do to the impenetrable heights--impenetrable because it takes so much battling just to get there. I listen to music, watch documentaries, read books, ride my bicycle along the roads that prostrate themselves over the soil, and feel a magical tie to the entire tapestry of history. What is most powerful about this feeling is that history is so rich with trials, tribulations, successes and fails, that it nearly unfathomable that anything new can ever happen.
Of course, the entire cosmos is forever remaking itself, but in many ways change is always a variation on a theme. The leitmotif of history, then, appears to be that though events appear different, they are really manifestations of the same thing. Human foibles and human genius wage war, not armies of individuals driven on by maniacal rulers or misguided beliefs. We live in a world that is ruled not by gods but by themes, archetypes and myths; the mistake we make is thinking those broader trends are deities who set down laws and instruct us on how to lead our lives. The truth is that, as Tom Robbins writes in his great book Jitterbug Perfume, “the universe does not have laws, it has habits. And habits can be broken.”
Tonight, the Oneness of Things
Written on 08/02 at 02:33 AM by Andy Posner 0 comments
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featured
Musings
Prose
It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come. I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all thoughts of pollen and nectar disappear; the world for which I long has crumbled into a fine mist of cool air and gentle breezes. Everywhere around me I see an endless expanse of elemental forces populated by all that is imagined and imaginable. The gap between what is and what could be is more immense than any bridge, and spans a gauntlet of sorrow, deprivation, ugliness and injustice. Looking into the dead of night I strain until light emerges from darkness, and my body burns with a tectonic passion, shifting the plates that divide just from unjust until all is made whole again.
I feel a ferocious desire to be a poet and a monk, to explore and to contemplate, to salute beauty and solve sorrow. The very nature of existence stings me like a sandstorm that then abates, revealing a perfectly sculpted dune in the middle of an ocean of pulverized rock. A force that pervades all living things like some sort of never ending lightning bolt passes through the veins in my body and the synapses in my brain; it is a passion that murders me repeatedly, as though bliss were a wave washing up dead on the shore, only to be dragged back to sea to die again.
Welcome. On this blog things get a little more personal. This is where I chronicle my struggles and triumphs, my attempts to better myself and my world, my poetry, my prose, my bike rides, my travels, my day-to-day activities. If you want to know more about Andy Posner--that amalgamation of poet and monk--you’ve come to the right place. So have a look around, and enjoy the opportunity to learn what goes on inside my mind--only beware, my mind is quite a place!
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- Meet My New Folding Bike! (Poetry & Musings)
- Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States (Ideas)
- Executive Summary of the Capital Good Fund Business Plan (Ideas)
- A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States? (Ideas)
- Photos of Some Upgrades to My Bikes! (Poetry & Musings)
Green Microfinance: Advancing Social Equality and Environmental Sustainability in the United States
Click here to download a PDF of my complete thesis. Questions and comments are much appreciated!
My masters thesis in Environmental Studies at Brown University looks at how microfinance--the provision of small…
A Solution to the Limited Success of Micro-Credit in the United States?
Micro-credit has undoubtedly been a runaway success in developing countries as a tool of both poverty alleviation and economic development. To date, some 100 million people have been reached by micro-loans, and Muhammad Yunus, the founder of the Grameen Bank…
Tonight, the Oneness of Things
It is late and my mind should be drifting through the colorful abyss of deep sleep, yet instead i find that tonight sleep will not come. I am like a hungry flower who dreams of bees so ardently that all…