Saturday, August 19, 2006

Hat's Off to AmesWire

AmesWire's Nicolai is bidding us all goodbye; closing down the blog.

I've only been blogging since June, but I've been impressed with the quality of his comments, and the good energy he's brought to the blogospher in general and me in particular.

Since I've begun blogging the number of hours I spend on the couch with my laptop has increased, so I understand his desire to get up from wherever he blogs and go for a bike ride, or at least something more physical than blogging. (My wife and I also went for a bike ride today. For my early views on biking, see Nicholas Johnson, Test Pattern for Living (New York: Bantam, 1972), click on Chapter 7, "Antidote to Automobiles.")

I, like Nicolai, have many good memories of Ragbrai, which I used to report on for NPR back in the early days of both. There's nothing like riding across the state of Iowa to get the cobwebs out, and start one to thinking about alternative lives. (Although trying to find a farmer who would let me take his phone apart and connect my tape recorder to it with alligator clips to send my story back to DC every day -- back when that was the technology for filing stories -- was not that different from trying to ride and blog at the same time would be today).

So peace and fair winds, ol' AmesWire, and thanks for what you shared with us while you did.

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