CMS and Biking

Gazette columnis Todd Dorman wrote recently about his frustration finding a route to work now that First Avenue is under construction. See his blog here. I have similar issues--Council Street has been under reconstruction since the second (or first?) Bush administration, and C Avenue seems like the lone route into my area of town--no doubt some project will start there soon.

Anyway, Dorman expresses in passing, with some sarcasm, the idea of biking from his home. Well, I live in Northeast CR (what the rest of the world would call "north," but apparently some magnetic impact of the Quaker Oats plant causes the compass to be tilted in Cedar Rapids.)

I commute to Mount Mercy via bicycle all the time. Dorman's ride downtown would be longer than mine, but not by much. Bob Najouks, who retired from Mount Mercy two years ago, used to be a fellow bike commuter, and Bob rode daily from Marion.

Dorman refers to useing the Cedar Valley trail to work, but that would be a bad move. For one thing, with Council Street ripped up, there is almost no route from his house to the trail that doesn't involve suicidal behavior, such as riding Boyson Road. For another, he'd have to head way west for no particular reason.

The logical route involved Lindale Mall, a hold in the fence and E Avenue, but Todd doesn't know that yet. I've volunteered to show him, don't know if he'll take me up. We'll see.

Anyay, what does this have to do with CMS? Was in CMS testing at Mount Mercy today. CMS is "content managment system," ways to update web sites.

Riding the Cedar Valley trail to Marion is a complex CMS solution. Riding E Avenue is an easy CMS way to go. It's like the difference between BlogSpot and Wordpress. So far, I've found Wordpress much more user friendly, like E Avenue.

OK, the analogy is a bit strained. Oh well, it's only a blog. But some nice day soon, Todd, if you're serious, pump up the tires and saddle up. I've gone to meetings at Kirkwood from my home in Bowman Woods--I can get you all the way across CR. Will take more time, but you may enjoy the journey more, too.