When I start a conversation about Lake Ontario, hardly anyone notices.

Anything Trump says starts worldwide discussions. I hate to add to that process, but I'm falling for it also. I decided to share some pictures of Lake Ontario, a focal point of discussion in today's news since his plans to rename it Lake America.

Here's some of my memories which will, at least, be seen by a handful of people. Memories from my longest bicycle trip across the country in 1991. Going east by bicycle, in two months, and back home on Amtrak in 3 days.

Looking out over Lake Ontario from Fort Niagara, NY. during my 1991 bicycle tour.

By the way, this was built by the French in 1727, then became British after French Indian War. Then became American after Revolutionary War. Fought over in The War of 1812. Now a peaceful New York State Park.

Niagara Falls between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario.

Lake Ontario from CN Tower in Toronto, Ontario. I crossed part of southern Ontario, Canada on my way east. Took a transit side trip into Toronto for one day from my 2 night campsite at Confederation Park near Hamilton, Ontario.

From CN Tower's outside screened deck. Better pictures from inside deck through the glass.

The view from the CN tower is spectacular. It casts a long shadow.

Not the best picture. My bicycle and Lake Ontario in the background from around Rochester, NY.

Yes, a real politician in Upstate New York, back in 1991. I had to put this in for laughs. I can think of jokes about Trump and outhouses.

Years later, Rob Outhouse wrote me a nice letter when he found this on my trip website. My photography does make small waves.

Should Canada put a surcharge on oil it sends to US and call it a carbon tax?

I've been listening to the news from both sides of the US Canadian border about the tariffs. Trump gone rouge as usual.

We do get lots of oil, natural gas and electricity from Canada. Maybe Canada could add a surcharge to the oil they send? Call it a carbon tax? That would really make Trump mad.

Maybe I shouldn't suggest it even though I don't drive. It would be a double tax to us in the Northwest as we get some of our oil from Alberta through Trans Mountain Pipeline. Washington State already has cap and trade which is kind of like a carbon tax so it would be like a double tax for Washingtonians.

We get much of our natural gas, here in the Pacific Northwest, from Canada also. Yes, the building I live in uses natural gas in its boilers for heating. My little studio apartment, nestled in a big building, is pretty efficient.

Eastern Canada gets some of their oil and gas from the US, as there aren't pipelines from Alberta to Eastern Canada that don't at least run part way through the US.

We're shooting ourselves in the foot and China is likely laughing, or feeling sorry for us.

In search of a good little radio for bicycle touring.

I found the best radio for my bicycling. Thinking I would have to buy from Amazon as radios are a rare item, web searching also directed me to REI, a local retail outlet where I could pick it up here in Bellingham.

People often say, "why not use the smartphone for everything?" Then they run down the battery trying to do everything.

For long trips, I find just an old fashioned radio is useful. It can play for hours preserving my phone battery for other things. I just put the earphone into one ear as it's always good to use the other ear for traffic. This sometimes means cutting off one side of stereo earbuds.

REI is an outdoors and camping store so a durable simple radio fits their inventory. It's also on Amazon and other places, but most local retailing doesn't do much for obscure products like radios anymore.

Speaking of new technology, I also have an HD radio. I use that more at home. It gets special HD signals that old fashioned radios don't get. We have a few HD stations in this area. It's portable also, but I found out it's picky on what type of rechargeable batteries it takes.

The batteries it likes are digital themselves. They have electronics to stabilize their voltage output. The battery electronics creates so much static that my fancy new radio doesn't work on the AM band. It works okay on house current, however.

We live in a complex technological time, but I do find technology interesting; at least if one has some patience. Patience is in short supply in modern times.

Rechargeable batteries are better for the environment than throwaway batteries. I recently learned that rechargeable batteries put out less voltage than the throwaways. That's why my HD radio kept turning itself off with regular rechargeable batteries. I got some special batteries for it from Amazon (good luck finding them locally). Then I discovered the static problem.

I can use those rechargeable batteries in bike lights so all is not lost. My new radio just takes the regular old rechareable AA batteries, but it doesn't get the special HD signals. That's not a big loss.

First world problems, but not really. I hear that there are more smartphones than toilets in Africa. Technology can be complex, but people keep wanting it, or at least the prosperity it implies. AI helped me navigate the complexity of this situation.

Glad I at least have some patience and interest in this kind of stuff. The Prosperity, that people seek, provides these things. I still don't wish to open the Pandora's box of automobiles, however.

Will there ever be enough money?

The national debt just reached 40 trillion dollars. No wonder they are pushing AI. It's seen as a possible "cash cow." There is an overwhelming need for money.

Money is just a number. Not a real product or resource. We can just create more money with entries into a computer, but that leads to inflation. Yes, we've been creating money for many decades. It's called "quantitative easing." It's created inflation, but it seems like most of the inflation settles into asset values, for instance home values. Home values have skyrocketed, in most locations, since my college days.

Other things have gone up also, stocks, healthcare costs and so forth, but things go up at different rates. Some things go up faster than other things. I remember Xerox copies costing around 5 cents a copy back in my college days. They are about the same cost today.

Technology has given us many bargains not even dreamed of in my college days. Lots of wealth is not necessarily measured in money. What can a smartphone do versus it's modest cost?

We have lots of products and services that we didn't have years ago, but do we feel that we are wealthier? It seems like there is a growing split between the those who own assets and the rest of the economy of goods and services. Owning lots of assets, like the billionaires have, makes one very wealthy. It's hard for the rest of us to keep up even with all the new things we have that didn't exsist during my college days.

The first rungs on the ladder are hard to reach and the path forward to higher rungs is spotty. Many fall off into homelessness and then need more government spending to stay afloat yet they often do have smartphones that NASA engineers never dreamed of having years ago.

A smartphone does not necessarily create the sense of home. It's still not "enough." It seems like there is never enough. It's not counted that much in dollars. A smartphone can be sold for less money than one month's rent.

I think people take money too seriously. It's a tool, but it isn't a god. Everything can't be fixed with just tax cuts and / or revving up the economy to super prosperity. The massive data center buildout isn't likely to create a pot of gold either. AI can be a useful tool, like any technology from the automobile to the electric lightbulb.

Maybe they can just print up enough money to subsidize the masses so we can all keep up with the billionaires. So we can pay the rent. We all move forward on a never ending treadmill, but I still think the main focus should be quality of life. That isn't as easy to assign a number to, but there are some indexes that come close. Indexes like health and happiness indexes.

Some European countries seem to do that better.

Europe means well, but still suffers from climate change, as in the good guy finishes last.

I often hear that third world countries suffer more from climate change that is caused by first world countries. Still, all that shaming of first world countries doesn't seem to move the needle toward transformational change.

Meanwhile many, in third world countries, are struggling to build first world economies, including the mistakes that the first world has made. Conservative religious values that push procreation versus alternative lifestyles were prevalent in the first world of the 1950s. They are still being promoted in much of the third world.

Automobile based transportation systems are still being built in much of the world. Even where people, in the third world, do better than USA for use of public transit, many still say they would rather drive if only they could afford a car.

Military spending, as a large percent of national budgets, is huge in many poor countries. Yes, the US tops the list in total military budget, but as a percent of GDP it's down in the list. There are wars all over the world, including a civil war within Sudan that is often under the radar of US media.

Europe has done a good job with public transit, alternative energy and social freedoms, yet due to climate change being a worldwide problem, it may be suffering more than just about any other part of the world. I think of the phrase, "the good guy finishes last."

Still, it seems like just about everyone, in the world, wants to progress toward prosperous, technological societies. European countries offer some good examples of greener societies that are still considered livable and prosperous.

China seems to be doing well in making a green transition, though it's not such a shining example of human rights.

The US still has great innovations happening in many corners, but the right wing mentality, controlling our government, is pushing the other way. I think the right wing mindset is rebelling against criticism of our consumptive economy.

Vacant lot in Fountain District on Meridian.

Bellingham is still quite spread out with quite a bit of vacant land. Still, the land is very expensive these days.

I remember, when I was in college, I did a project where I ranked cities and towns in Washington State by size of land area versus population. Bellingham had a lot of land compared to its number of people while Pullman, where I grew up, was a lot more compact. That was in the 1970s.

Bellingham is infilling more now. Pullman is compact due to it being a university town with lots of dorms and apartments.

My experiment with an AI assisted cartoon.

I have some ideas for cartoon punchlines, but not much skill in drawing. So, I tried out AI to draw a cartoon based on one of my ideas.

Here is what I got. Not bad, but I added a few things and altered the layout a bit using my old graphics program called Neopaint. AI generated what's in black while I added what's in red.

Then I ask, "how much power does it take to generate this image?" It takes about as much a it takes to charge a smartphone. More than just asking a simple question as image generation takes more power. Video generation takes much more power.

Really, not that much except that so many people are using AI, that's a lot of smartphones charging. Still not a lot compared to heating and cooling a home or driving a car; my favorite nemesis.

Bicycle touring in my retirement years, but not as much as during my great vacations while at work.

For a few years, I've had some arthritis in just one ancle. It bothers me some while walking, but not while bicycling. Bicycling is still my means of transportation and it still feels good. These days, there are more wildfires effecting areas I used to do long tours in.

Another situation, in my retirement years, is prostate cancer. I have a mild case of that which is treatable. It's serious enough so treatment is recommended, but still only in one area. I'm getting radiation treatment. A 28 weekday schedule of treatments from late July to the end of August.

There was a time when mid to late summer was prime bike touring season for me. Not anymore. Smokey late summer is when my treatments are happening this year.

Typical smoke pattern with Western Washington sometimes under morning clouds while much of the rest of the country seems to be burning.

This map was before the big Spokane fires. Today, because of that and other fires in places like Okanogan plus British Columbia, the smoke and fires are even worse. I'm okay riding through some smoke, but crossing Eastern Washington is another story.

Mid to late summer travel isn't that appealing. Climate change and the increasing amount of traffic on highways creates a new normal. Yes, bike paths are improving, but many rural areas don't have them. Cities, like Bellingham and Seattle area become more appealing by comparison.

Back when I was working, I cherished my long vacations and leaves absence for bike tours. My custodial job, at YMCA, was low stress and nice people to work with. Still, it was a bit monotonous. I'm glad I did a lot of that bike travel during my working years. I still plan to do some, depending on circumstances and the weather.

So far, the treatments are going well and the cancer is curable.

There are so many fun and social things to do in Bellingham that being on the road is less appealing. I'd miss something for sure. We can't clone ourselves.

I live within one and a half miles of Peace Health Saint Joe's Hospital campus where I get the treatments. I usually ride through Cornwall Park.

Biking to the clinic. Each day's treatment just takes a few minutes.

Part of a nice stainglass art piece at the clinic.

See some of my photo memories from bike touring as well as local rides

If I lived in Michigan, after the Senate primary election.

Whether far to the left, or moderate, I would still vote Democrat as Democrats just about all vote, in Congress, to curb Trump nearly running everything by dictatorial means, such as executive order.

Too bad the far left does win in primaries due to the danger of Republican's far right more likely winning in the general under those circumstances. There are lots of disagreements over things like support for Israel that can fracture a party, but one Senator is only one voice. All the Democratic voices should stand together to put limits on Trump's executive power at least.

Would a state income tax make it harder for the Seahawk's to recruit top players?

I'm for higher taxes on the rich, but I realize that there are consequences to everything which effect the masses of voters. We can't "have it all." For instance, high taxes on high incomes might make it harder for the Seahawks football team to recruit top players. An income tax might make our state less competitive in that arena, but what do we really value?

I value things like good parks and schools more. I value safe bike paths more than just having a winning team that people just watch on TV.

What are your priorities, winning teams owned by billionaires or good local parks?

Harder to deny the drought effects of climate change than just the few degree temperature rise.

Wildfires are getting a lot worse in recent years. The summer dry season is getting longer in many regions. More droughts and in other areas more floods.

I think this effect from climate change is more noticeable than just the few degrees of temperature rise.

Bicycling on sidewalk is sometimes safer. There are often more pedestrians on the street than on the sidewalk in our car dominated culture.

In some places it seems safer to bike carefully on the sidewalk. I prefer the street, if there is a space for bikes, but sometimes the sidewalk is safer.

I prefer the street, or road if it has a shoulder.

There's often more pedestrians in the street by parked cars than on the sidewalk. It can be easier to see a pedestrian on the sidewalk than when they are darting out between parked cars on the street, not to mention sudden door openings. I tend to go slow in this type of area.

It seems like almost one out of every 4 cars is backing out when there is nose in parking. Bikes can be squished between backing cars and moving traffic.

Often one has to go to the sidewalk to push the walk button for activating the stoplight. It can be hard for the system to detect a bike on the street.

When making a 90 degree turn, I prefer not using turn lanes, but crossing, one street at a time, to each corner. I'm not in a hurry.

A new bike idea for crossing the bulge in a sidewalk. On F street in Bellingham. I sometimes ride across the sidewalk bulges instead of going around the bulge which pushes me into traffic. This new sidewalk bulge accommodates that.

Should there be a curb cut here?

At this place in the west part of Longview, Washington the sign recommended riding on the sidewalk. Image taken 2011.

Lots of people walk on trails that are for mixed use. Not that much different than sidewalks. A speedlimit is the best way to keep things safe (if it's followed). This is also the best way to regulate electric bicycles. It's easier to have a speedlimit than to try and figure out what type of motor qualifies for trail use. Motorized wheelchair? How about handicap access? Skateboard? What type of motor does the bike have? How much of it is pedal assist.

I'm in favor of motorized bikes, though I don't yet feel I need one myself. They increase use of bicycling due to their extreme popularity. Almost half the bikes I see, these days, are the motor assisted pedal bikes. Much of US culture is too fast. I prefer life in the slow lane; the name of my blog.

Sign I saw a few years back in downtown Moscow, Idaho.