His Travels With Nala

You don't have to spend much time on the Internet to find cats or cyclists, or people traveling the world.

How often, though, do you find an article or anything else about a cat and a cyclist traveling the world together?

Oh, and said cyclist is cycling around the world with his cat.

Back in September, 31-year-old Dean Nicholson left his hometown of Dunbar, Scotland.  He was tired of his job as a welder, so he cycled 200 miles to Newcastle, where he took a ferry to the Netherlands.

From there, he cycled through Europe until he took another ferry from Italy to Croatia.  He continued riding to Bosnia, where, he says, he was "going up a steep hill with music blaring out of my speaker" when "I heard a desperate meow from behind me."  After he got off his bike to stroke the "wee, scrappy little thing", he said,"wouldn't leave my side."

He hadn't planned on finding a traveling companion, but "I just couldn't bring myself to leave her there alone," Nicholson explains.  He named her Nala and they have been "inseparble" ever since and are now in Santorini, Greece.  

Nicholson has set up a Go Fund Me page to pay for Nala's vet bills and get her back to the UK when he finishes his trip.  He's also paying vet bills for Balou, a puppy he found in Albania.  He gets frequent updates on the pooch, who's living with a vet in Albania but will soon have a new home with a family in London. 

I'm sure they'll love Balou.  But they won't have the adventures Nala is sharing with Dean Nicholson!

He'll Have Lots Of Time For His Imaginary Friends

In more than three decades of cycling in New York City, I have had a few encounters with police officers and have observed many more.  I have come to the conclusion that the officers can be classified as follows:

• The ones who are actually cyclists and understand how it's different from being a pedestrian or motorist.  These, I believe, are the smallest group.

• The ones who act is if they know cycling, and the law.  This is a larger group.

• The ones who charge messengers, members of minority groups and any cyclist who doesn't appear to be white and well-educated with violations of actual or imaginary laws.  In this group are the ones who stop cyclists for Riding While Black.

I thought I had the whole NYPD covered until I heard about this:  an officer who wrote a summons for a cyclist who doesn't even exist.

Yes, you read that right.  Varon Shepard, a 49-year-old 19-year veteran of the force, showed not only his disdain for cyclists, but also his bigotry, overall ignorance and sheer avariciousness in writing a ticket to one "Carlos Dejuses."

I think he meant "De Jesus."  It wouldn't have surprised me if that mis-spelling had alerted someone.  But the thing that led to Shepard being shepherded out of the Department is that the time of the ticket is 11 am on 25 February.  His supervisor, as it turns out, saw him in the 17th Precinct Station house--six blocks away from where the bogus infractions were supposed to have taken place--until 12:45 pm that day.

Oh, and for the work of his creative imagination, shall we say, Shepard billed the New York Police Department for four hours of overtime.

For his efforts, the NYPD is giving him a conditional discharge.  The condition is that he resign from the force.

I am sure "Carlos Dejuses" would be happy--and hope that Varon Shepard has no hard feelings toward him!

Finding Its Way

So you thought all of the completely pointless high-tech innovations came from Silicon Valley types with too much time on their hands?

Well, here's one from Amsterdam.



As we all know, just about everything is legal there--including some mind-altering substances.  (The beer is pretty strong, too!) So, it's not hard to imagine someone coming up with a self-driving bicycle after inhaling.

Of course, as so often happens with such inventions, its creators didn't think about its target audience.  After all, who would have any use for a bicycle that doesn't need humans?

Still, I understand that sales are brisk...