mr_bill

I can think of few pro-er bike signs.

Friend opened this cafe a few years ago at the break of the Minuteman Bikeway. There are far more bike parking spots than car parking spots. Yes, it’s a “beautiful” February holiday Monday in Boston at 45 degrees, but still. (Another ten bikes parked not in picture btw.)

Not only that, but they’ve hosted joyous events like the start of Jingle Ride, and hosted sorrowful moments like a gathering after a neighbor died on the bike path.

And practical, they have hosted manual counts for years of the coming and going of people walking, biking, pushing strollers on the bikeway. (Now there’s an automated counter.)

And they were one of the huge supporters of the new bike lanes through a difficult intersection in the center, including “donating” two of “their” parking spots to make up for “lost” parallel parking.

More people ride, walk, or take the bus to this cafe than drive here.

They literally talk the talk and walk the walk and ride the ride.

(Oh, and accessible entrance, several (not just one) accessible tables, and accessible unisex young family friendly restrooms.)


Next mission - public sculpture of fictional characters. Famous examples include the recent in Riga Town Musicians of Bremen, in Boston Make Way for Ducklings, in Copenhagen The Little Mermaid.

After a day sculptures of authors (dead or alive) of same allowed.

-mr. bill

Fredo_Adagio

Rats! Completing all the missions gave me an interesting challenge for my morning ride.

I wasn't aware of the "outside of your lot line" rule. I was about to take a photo of my unicycle next to the statue of Pan in the front bushes.

Fredo_Adagio

Well, I decided to post the photo even though it will be disqualified.

I-Like-To-Bike

Looks good to me.
The OP is fond of clarifying his "rules" and whether the various posts meet these rules no matter who assigned the mission or what it is.

mr_bill

Since TooOldandSlow self-disqualified, the mission remains on:

Next mission - public sculpture of fictional characters. Famous examples include the recent in Riga Town Musicians of Bremen, in Boston Make Way for Ducklings, in Copenhagen The Little Mermaid.

After a day sculptures of authors (dead or alive) of same allowed.

And yeah, I’ll stipulate it has to be somewhere other than home. (And left unsaid that stuffed animals are generally not public sculpture.)

-mr. bill

Fredo_Adagio

^^ I wish this mission had come along while my neighbors still had their Christmas decorations up. There was a good selection of inflatable Santas, Rudolphs, and Frostys around the neighborhood.

Bryan C. 

I'm not sure what you mean by this. The "rules" are pretty straightforward. Go on a bike ride and take a pic of whatever the mission may be. Anything other than that isn't within the spirit of the game. There is no way to win this game, so that means there shouldn't be any motive to cheat. Stretching the rules is fine as long as it is within the spirit of the game. Go for a ride and see what happens.

3S1M

I'm not sure what you mean by that. I'm taking a bit of offense. First off, I posted the game. So I felt it was my responsibility to sort of keep it on track. Secondly, I got a complaint from someone about it being a hard game to follow. And I understood where he was coming from so I tried to re state the rules in a non harsh way. Thirdly, at each point I've tried to show a non rigid demeanor when stating the rules and I don't want to discourage people from participating, even if it's not exactly following the original rules.

But lastly, if you don't really have some kind of structure and rules, it wouldn't be as fun. All games have things you try to follow, otherwise they don't work. If people just make up rules to a game as they go, it's not fair to everyone participating. And would be frustrating to those who are actually trying to play the game. I mean, you ever play football, baseball, or any game or sport with people that just start making up rules? Usually for their benefit. It's not usually a game worth playing IMHO.

I was hoping to try and always show a light hearted spirit and sense of fairness and I'm sorry if it seems like I'm being anal. I was just trying to direct the game in the best way I could. I would hope that my trying to state the rules doesn't make the game annoying for people. But the flipside is that if we don't follow some sort of structure other people are going to get frustrated and I totally get that.

Keeping everyone happy is always a challenge I guess. I'm doing my best.

Fredo_Adagio

At the risk of aggravating all involved, I'm still working on the last mission. I keep a bike in my office for when I have a meeting across the campus. There are lots of tanks here, but none hold propane as far as I know. The gas of choice here is nitrogen. The smaller tanks support fume hoods in the materials labs. The larger ones support wind tunnels.

livedarklions

Does the bottom one qualify as a statue of the very hungry caterpillar?

flangehead

[QUOTE=TooOldandSlow;21332579]
/QUOTE]
That looks like a cryogenic distillation unit, which most of the time are air separation units. An air separation unit was not on my list of future missions.

Fredo_Adagio

^^ My perhaps garbled understanding is that the big round things are vacuum chambers associated with a group of hypersonic blowdown wind tunnels. You can call it a sculpture of the Very Hungry Caterpillar if you want. Regarding the towers with all the pipes at the bottom, I have no idea, but they do use a lot of nitrogen around here, so a cryogenic distillation unit is a good guess.

mr_bill

Hah! If it were painted differently! You might get in wee bit of trouble from the authorities, but could throw yourself on the mercy of the court for being such a clever graffiti artist.

Carle Museum

-mr. bill

Fredo_Adagio

^^ Okay, I just looked up how the Very Hungry Caterpillar works. The four smooth spheres at the front provide high pressure nitrogen at the inlets of a group of hypersonic wind tunnels. The large, externally-stiffened sphere at the back provides vacuum at the wind tunnel outlets. The facility is presently listed as "Inactive".

mr_bill

I'm in no way encouraging you to get mass quantities of spray paint!

-mr. bill

Joe Bikerider

I rode around this morning (53F) looking for statues. I guess we’re more into abstract. The most famous one, on main street (not my picture) is the head with a fountain in it.




If I was in better shape I could have gone to the next town over to see Layafette. You know that French guy who helped us get independent from those dastardly red coats. But I enjoy the idea, get out and go. Regards.

livedarklions

I have it on pretty good authority that Lafayette was not fictional, so if it's any consolation, he wouldn't have fit the assignment.

Great head shot, though!

mr_bill

OK, the piece is titled “Fountain Head” by Seyed Alavi. I’ll have to say that “The Fountainhead” is a work of fiction by Ayn Rand. That gold, the hint that there is a “deeper meaning,” but mostly have fun, I’ll just say that is a newborn Howard Roark. So, inviting wrath from the gallery, I say very well done, and bonus points for creativity, both for the artist possibly getting it past controversy adverse public arts panels and you for sharing it.

If you rode past it today (why didn’t you take a long shot shot?) you get next mission? If you didn’t ride past it today, get out on your bike and take a shot, you are pre-approved.

-mr. bill

flangehead

It will be nice to see your bike.

I'd suggest bonus point if you place a bike helmet (properly scaled, of course) on the head.

mr_bill

Just to keep this from going to the everlasting gobstopper thread (the dreaded helmet thread), cycle cap would be fine.

And to keep complaints about cyclist specific clothing at bay, baseball cap or bushel-and-a-peck-hat accepted too.

-mr. bill

Fredo_Adagio

I assumed it was requirement that the bike be in the photo. Am I wrong about this?

flangehead

You are correct.

subgrade

Would Statue of Liberty count as fictional character? One could argue that freedom is fiction, we're all slaves to the machine and so on.

livedarklions

Yes, Mr. Bill is saying he'll accept it IF he gets the proper picture. Someone could still submit something else in the meantime.

livedarklions

She's a metaphorical symbol, not a character. Whether the concept she stands for is fictional is a question for another forum.