I caught my first glimpse yesterday of downtown Raleigh legend Rodney Hines, better known as the No Hand King. I looked up from my desk to see this guy deftly maneuvering his bike on one wheel between the tables outside the Raleigh Times. Using no hands, of course.
Its the first time I’ve seen him and I’ve been working downtown for almost five months. Perhaps that’s the way it should be for legends, n’est pas? It was worth the wait, though: the guy is talented!
Last week was the last day of school in the Wake County school system. As I pedaled to work I was once again astonished at how different the streets looked. Gone were all the school buses, idling at lights. Gone was the long line of cars waiting to drop kids off at school. Gone were the stream of pedestrians walking to and from the school.
It was eerily quiet, like Wednesday morning became Sunday morning. A remarkable difference.
I was wondering what kind of difference the area’s air quality sensors detected between Tuesday’s and Wednesday’s CO2 and CO levels. Then the Great Smokeout of 2008 occurred and dashed my hopes of an accurate measurement. Perhaps the county’s traffic counters registered a change?
