Cruising the Internet

by John Whiteley, President 1995-1996

October 2000

This article will have a bicycle in it. Promise. Trust me.

What do you do when you’re not cycling? Well, earning your daily bread, of course, and cleaning up your abode. Maybe chasing after children or pets. Well, one thing Yr. Obd’t. Svt. has begun enjoying is cruising around the internet, finding interesting websites to visit.

There are, of course, the sites that are of great interest to us -- sites such as www.bicyclingmagazine.com (the online version of Bicycling) and, for those of us who run (or at least pretend to do so) www.runnersworld.com. It seems as if there is a site for just about everything, from backpacking to cooking. There’s even a site where you can order those obscure lost or broken parts for your ancient, or not so ancient, kitchen appliances. Anybody know where I can get a mixing paddle for my breadmaker? Seems as if it was left inside a loaf of bread that was given away...

And then there are the funny sites. No, not the sites that individuals place on the web, sites where you can view their scanned-in images of last summer’s vacation or Muffy the Pekinese. No, there are some serious humor sites out there. Probably the most famous one is TheOnion, a satire on the daily news. And, this being an election year, there are humorous sites dedicated to both the Republican and Democratic candidates.

The site that has tickled my funnybone the most lately is the Darwin Awards (www.darwinawards.com). The Darwin Awards are named in honor of Charles Darwin, the scientist who first explained natural selection and survival of the fittest. Darwin awards are presented to those people who best improve the world’s gene pool by removing themselves from it. Usually in a spectacular fashion.

For instance, consider the young man at a party in an apartment building who received his Darwin Award when he decided to slide down the laundry chute. Only problem was, it wasn’t a laundry chute, but rather it was the garbage chute. And at the bottom of it was a trash compactor. You can imagine the end to this story.

Then there was the fisherman who decided that, instead of dangling a hook in the water, it would be easier to put a live electrical cable into the water and shock the fish into submission. And it worked! The fish floated to the top, and our intrepid hero then waded into the pond to retrieve his catch...without first removing the live power line from the pond. One more Darwin Award to be presented posthumously.

Some of the Darwin Awards are not suitable for young children, such as the young man who drowned his girlfriend in the pool while she was, umm, performing a pleasurable act that will remain unnamed here in this family newsletter. So be careful if you allow your young’uns near the computer.

Now here’s where the bicycle comes in. A young lady received her Darwin Award (posthumously, of course) after she was her state’s advocate against the wearing of motorcycle helmets. She was successful and motorcycle helmets are no longer required in her state. Of course, she was killed in a crash while not wearing a helmet. The attending physician stated that, had she been wearing a helmet, her injuries would not have been fatal.

A number of us in the Chattanooga Bicycle Club, Yr. Obd’t. St. included, have been through crashes that would have been much more serious, if not fatal, had we not been wearing our helmets. One of my helmets was cracked into four pieces after a relatively low-speed crash, but thanks to the helmet there was never a loss of consciousness. So set an example to those you may meet on the road who are not wearing their helmets and always wear yours. Remember, none of us ever leaves the house thinking, "Gee, today I think a bicycle crash would be fun...."

And HFDF (Have Fun, Don’t Fall)

John

As an aside, have you noticed the new look of The Tailwind? Thanks to Daisy Blanton and her helpers, our club newsletter gets better and better every year. A few years ago there was a discussion about raising the annual dues and it was noted that just the monthly newsletter is worth the cost of the dues. And that was when the newsletter seldom exceeded four pages! Congratulations are in order to Daisy for publishing a newsletter that is one of the best, if not the best, newsletter for both appearance and information in the southeast!

Thanks for the encouragement, John. This is a good time to point out that Chris Gilligan has been responsible for the new look and the last two issues. He will be doing more in the future. Also Lois Newton has been a lot of help to me, especially with proof reading. When there are more than the usual mistakes, you can be sure that Lois just didn’t get a chance to go over it.