I love my bicycle (see right). Last summer, I began to bike considerably more than I ever had growing up, and I loved it. I biked almost every day, and even ventured out to bike the entire Mt. Vernon Trail one weekend (quite an adventure for me, anyway–I’m still a beginner!). Bicycling in DC is surprisingly easy, actually, and it’s a shame more people don’t use it as their primary form of transportation. Sure, the city has its hills… like Capitol Hill, and the hill I live on (the largest in the city, actually), but they’re manageable. And the city’s done a surprisingly good job of making it easy for you to take your bike on the metrorail (any time except rush hour) and on metrobuses (anytime you want, there are racks on the front of every bus).

Studying abroad last fall in Copenhagen, I continued my bicycling habit, purchasing a used bike there and using it almost exclusively for my transit around the city–along with the other 60% of Copenhageners who ride bicycles regularly, and 30%+ who commute by bike every single day. In Denmark, bicycle is actually spelled bycykel, which literally translates to “city bike.” It was there I learned about one of my favorite blogs, Copenhagenize (and they’re on Twitter: @copenhagenize).

This past semester I continued biking back here in DC, despite the snowpocalypse, snom attack, and snowverkill. In the past two days, my bicycling has picked up significantly now that I’m working out in Arlington. The choice is pretty simple–I can spend over an hour and $6-8 per day (especially with today’s fare hike announcement)… or I can spend 30 relaxing, healthy, active minutes on my bicycle to get to work.

So why aren’t there more of us out there biking on all these beautiful summer days? I’ll admit I’ve noticed more people on bikes this spring and summer than I remember seeing last year, but we’ve got a long way to go to catch up with Copenhagen. Let’s Copenhagenize DC! Let’s turn this into a bike city. We’re already the fittest city in the nation, so why not really earn that title?

Do you bike? How often? Where to? If not, why not? Do you have any questions about biking in DC? Ask me!

And now trust me, I’m not a hardcore bicyclist. I don’t have a fancy bike uniform, a super-expensive bike, and I’m not one of those people who wakes up at 4am so I can bike 60 miles before work every day. I’m your pretty average kid, who just happens to enjoy riding his bike to work.

Anyway, I’ll leave you with some of my favorite sites for bicycling and public transit in DC–check them out, bookmark them, add them to your RSS feed. You won’t regret it!

• Greater Greater Washington – one of the best transit and bicycling sites in DC, hands down. There is no better source for news on public transit, WMATA failings, and ways to make DC a greater city. They’re also on twitter @ggwash.
• Washington Area Bicyclist Association – pretty much the official source for all things bicycling in DC (but also more geared towards the fancy bicycling pros).
• Bike Washington – the absolute best resource for trails, routes, and almost everything else you could need to bike Washington, DC; definitely visit this site to get an idea for what all is out there!
• Hudson Trail Outfitters – probably my favorite Washington-area sporting goods store, they seem to have some of the most reasonable prices on bikes and bicycle accessories in the city (not that they’re cheap!). They also do full-service tune-ups, repairs, and have a pretty friendly staff.

#SNOMMED Panda
Originally uploaded by alex.priest

Hoping I can start giving you more regular photos, since I’m failing pretty bad at giving you guys regular, substantiative updates. I’ll try to give you an interesting pic as often as I possibly can.

This one I snapped today on campus. These pandas are all over campus, bought by the university a few years back as part of a charity auction. This one, somehow, got placed just by the giant metal and glass awning that collapsed, and then buried by about three feet of snow. Also, note the caution tape.

Warrior panda survived the #snom of 2010. Good job, Panda.

In other news, this week is insane already and not looking to slow down any time soon. Lots and lots-o-work on the desk, not to mention I’m reformatting my iPhone (damn thing’s been running like molasses lately), I’ve got my first intermediate statistics exam on Thursday, and plenty of research to catch up on for my capstone project. Ah well, I do it to myself.

On the more fun side of things, tomorrow night I’ll be headed to my first DC PR Flacks meetup and I’m so excited! It’s looking like it’s going to be a ton of fun and I’m thrilled to finally meet some of the people I’ve been talking to on Twitter for so long.

So, yes, today is my birthday! I can hardly contain myself. One person had congratulated me on passing the last birthday with a real advancement in privileges–I suppose he’s pretty well right. It’s pretty exciting.

Because it’s my birthday, they canceled class today. Ha, ok, ok, well they canceled class because of the snow. But I’m allowed to think they canceled just for me because, well, it is my birthday.

But in all seriousness, just wanted to offer a quick thanks to everyone for the great birthday wishes, both on Twitter and on Facebook. They really do mean a lot, and I’m lucky to have such good friends out there, both in real life and those of you I only know through Twitter!

I do my best to respond to each and every one because, well, what better time than a birthday to make a digital friendship a little more personal? Plus, it’s a snow day and I’ve got plenty of time to do it. So if I don’t give you a shout out, a thanks, or write back in some form or fashion, give me a holler and make sure I do!

Thanks again all, and I hope you have a wonderful day! For those of you here in the northeast, be safe in the snow and enjoy snopocalypse number three!

American University

So as you may have heard, D.C. has been absolutely trounced by snow this past week. And it doesn’t look like it’s over yet.

Now the National Weather Service is predicting 10-20″ tomorrow and Wednesday, to add to the two feet plus that we already have on the ground. Insanity.

The federal government was shut down today and likely will be tomorrow. D.C. public schools were closed yesterday (despite our Mayor at first declaring a two hour delays) and now are closed tomorrow, too. Almost every other school system around the Washington metropolitan area, in both Maryland and Virginia, is closed until at least Wednesday–although with this newest storm they’ll likely remain closed all week.

American University, my school, was closed today. Still wondering if we’ll have class tomorrow, but if the storm tomorrow night is as bad as expected, no class Wednesday (and possibly Thursday) is almost guaranteed. We shall see.

For now, I’m doing my best to stay productive. So far doing alright for staying on top of schoolwork (and got lucky, one exam was pushed back to next week) but there’s always more to do. Also, I’m trying to keep up with blog posts–be sure to check out my post from earlier recapping the Gibraltar Associates social media event from Thursday and discussing how to create a new “need-to-share” culture within governmental agencies.

Now on to more work. Got one more part of a paper to write, a few blog posts to draft, and then lots-o-reading to do. More updates soon and, as always, on my Twitter.

Yes, that’s #snom. As in, a snow monster just nom nom nommed all over our nation’s capital, leaving over two feet of snow in its wake.

Sure, it’s inconvenient. It’s expensive for the local government. And really, it’s detrimental to the productivity of our local businesses, schools, and government. But it’s just FUN.

Between last night and today I spent a fair bit of time in the snow, playing, exploring and just overall enjoying the largest snowstorm I’ve ever been in. This afternoon we even had a giant Alpha Kappa Psi (my co-ed professional business fraternity) snowball fight in the quad on AU’s campus. It was a blast. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, here’s some pictures of the #SNOM–the great D.C. Blizzard of 2010.