Yesterday we had 285 riders signed up for PALM. Yesterday's mail had 101 applications in it with 181 riders on them: a new one day record. Now we have 466 riders and, with a rider limit of 700, the ride is 2/3 full. It looks like PALM will fill before the middle of next week. If you sent in your application already, good. If there are people that you are hoping to see on PALM, call them and make sure they have sent in their application. If they haven't sent it in yet, tell them to do so immediately and then light a candle. (Click here for an application.) We've started to make our calls: the oldest rider from last year (90) has mailed his in. Gino has mailed his in. Others we reminded.
If you've mailed in your application already, you're on the ride but your check won't be cashed nor will you get a confirmation for weeks. Let me outline the PALM registration process. First Ellie picks up the mail. She dates and opens the envelopes to count the number of people. Then she sends batches of applications to Vickie in Florida. Vickie checks the applications and assigns rider numbers: all the signatures there? emergency contact? dollars add up? 20% of the applications have errors. Then she has to call people up, get them to correct the errors, and send new checks, applications. When the application is correct, she gathers the info that the accountant uses and then sends the applications to me in Michigan. I enter the corrected applications into my home PC and generate confirmation letters that I mail to you in the self addressed, stamped envelope that you have provided. (Later I'll generate bus lists, meal lists, and the mailing list for next year's applications from what I've entered.) So where are we in the process? The applications have come in so fast that Vickie has yet to get the 1st one. So Vickie and I are 466 applications behind. You won't get your confirmation letter for weeks.
FAQs:
Why can't I register for PALM online? It costs money to do that (I pay $5 to register for races) and we work for free. It will take us a few weeks, but the ride isn't until June and we save riders money. Plus we have a lot of riders who are not friends with the internet.
Why isn't my check cashed? Vickie doesn't cash the checks until she verifies that the applications are correct and 20% of the applications have errors.
If I made a mistake on my application, will I miss PALM? No. Vickie assigns you a rider number and a place on PALM while you correct your application and/or send her the proper amount.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
You have mail
Ellie picked up the PALM mail on January 27. We now have applications for 165 riders. This is what we experienced last year when the ride was filled by February 19. Ellie said that she got 8 Express mail applications so these 165 are probably the riders who were in line outside the store waiting for it to open, but still it looks like the economic times may not be affecting PALM too drastically.
In any case, our limit is 700 riders and we are 20% there. You might be saying to yourself: it's January, how do I know if I'll be ready for PALM in June? How do I know my family's schedule? Suppose you have to cancel. It will cost an individual $15 to cancel before May 15. If all of your family is on one application, it will cost your family $20 total to cancel by May 15. If you think you can do it or if you've always wanted to do something like this, sign up. It's not like an airline ticket. It won't cost you much if you change your mind.
It's been a week since the PALM applications have been mailed 1st class. If you are on the mailing list, you should have received your application by now. If you haven't then you are never going to get it. If you need an application, click here to download one. I'll be adding this link to the website tonight.
In any case, our limit is 700 riders and we are 20% there. You might be saying to yourself: it's January, how do I know if I'll be ready for PALM in June? How do I know my family's schedule? Suppose you have to cancel. It will cost an individual $15 to cancel before May 15. If all of your family is on one application, it will cost your family $20 total to cancel by May 15. If you think you can do it or if you've always wanted to do something like this, sign up. It's not like an airline ticket. It won't cost you much if you change your mind.
It's been a week since the PALM applications have been mailed 1st class. If you are on the mailing list, you should have received your application by now. If you haven't then you are never going to get it. If you need an application, click here to download one. I'll be adding this link to the website tonight.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
I Sent in My Application
I got my PALM application on Thursday, but I live 45 miles away from where they were mailed. I got an email from PALMsters in Arkansas and Nebraska. They just got their applications on Saturday. It looks like its taking a bit longer for the 1st class mail to be delivered. Give yourself a few more days before you panic. I'm mailing in my application tomorrow, but you'll be glad to know that the riders in Nebraska and Arkansas have already beaten me. It's the quick and the dead.
I talked to Ellie who picks up the PALM mail. Only 5 applications came in on Friday, about 20 on Saturday. Last year the applications started coming in with a bang. The real test will be at the start of the week. If we get a lot of applications then we could be in for a repeat of last year when we reached our 700 rider limit on February 19. We've had a lot of people asking to be added to the mailing list, but I've also had people telling me that they are going to be registering now, but paying for their meals later. We won't know anything more until Tuesday or Wednesday because Ellie is off cross country skiing in northern Michigan. At least she stayed in Michigan and didn't go to Florida.
Currently I'm working in downtown Detroit. I was by the downtown library at lunch and what did I see? A robin. It's 22 degrees and there is a foot of icy snow on the ground which has been there for weeks and I see a fat robin. A robin and a PALM application in the same week. This can't be a coincidence.
I talked to Ellie who picks up the PALM mail. Only 5 applications came in on Friday, about 20 on Saturday. Last year the applications started coming in with a bang. The real test will be at the start of the week. If we get a lot of applications then we could be in for a repeat of last year when we reached our 700 rider limit on February 19. We've had a lot of people asking to be added to the mailing list, but I've also had people telling me that they are going to be registering now, but paying for their meals later. We won't know anything more until Tuesday or Wednesday because Ellie is off cross country skiing in northern Michigan. At least she stayed in Michigan and didn't go to Florida.
Currently I'm working in downtown Detroit. I was by the downtown library at lunch and what did I see? A robin. It's 22 degrees and there is a foot of icy snow on the ground which has been there for weeks and I see a fat robin. A robin and a PALM application in the same week. This can't be a coincidence.
Saturday, January 24, 2009
Inaugural Day
I live in Detroit. The last presidential election had a special resonance for people in Detroit. Election day was magical. I run before work and decided to run by the school where I vote. The lines were already outside the school and across the lawn almost to the street. This never happens. I decided to take a late lunch and vote in the middle of the afternoon. When I voted there was still a line. I'm generally voter 200. I was voter 577. I drove by the polls just before they closed. They were deserted: everybody had already voted. No one wanted to be left out.
Inauguration Day was another special day. My brother's wife is retired. She has a brother in DC, realized that it meant she had a place to stay, so she went to the inauguration. My neighbor across the street took her daughter out of school and got on a bus so that they could be at the inauguration. Our Community House had an almost impromptu pot luck to watch the inauguration on a big screen. It was a bitterly cold, festive day in Detroit.
It seems fitting that the first Garden Resource pot luck was held on inauguration day: new beginnings. Even though it was bitterly code and it was the night of the inauguration, the pot luck was packed. Last year the number of people in the Garden Resource Program increased by 45%. This year family gardens are going to get 32 packets of seeds and 138 plants for $10. These people are very serious about encouraging locally grown food. They have free classes on composting, gardening, canning, etc and have setup a program to help you sell any extra produce that you have at local farmer's markets. This is literally a grassroots organization.
And the next day I got my Johnny's Seed Catalog. Even though there is 18 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature is in the single digits, I'm excited.
Inauguration Day was another special day. My brother's wife is retired. She has a brother in DC, realized that it meant she had a place to stay, so she went to the inauguration. My neighbor across the street took her daughter out of school and got on a bus so that they could be at the inauguration. Our Community House had an almost impromptu pot luck to watch the inauguration on a big screen. It was a bitterly cold, festive day in Detroit.
It seems fitting that the first Garden Resource pot luck was held on inauguration day: new beginnings. Even though it was bitterly code and it was the night of the inauguration, the pot luck was packed. Last year the number of people in the Garden Resource Program increased by 45%. This year family gardens are going to get 32 packets of seeds and 138 plants for $10. These people are very serious about encouraging locally grown food. They have free classes on composting, gardening, canning, etc and have setup a program to help you sell any extra produce that you have at local farmer's markets. This is literally a grassroots organization.
And the next day I got my Johnny's Seed Catalog. Even though there is 18 inches of snow on the ground and the temperature is in the single digits, I'm excited.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
And They're Off
The PALM applications were mailed off on Wednesday Jan 21. We got our application in the mail today, but we are only 45 miles from where they were mailed. We mail applications 1st class, so, if you are on our mailing list, you should your application tomorrow. If you haven't gotten an application by Monday, the chances are you are not going to get an application by mail. The application is not on the web site yet. I'll put it there Tuesday so you'll be able to download it. This is important because last year we filled up by Febuary19, 3 weeks after we mailed them out. If this year is like last year (and we've been getting a lot of inquiries about our ride), time is of the essence.
The latest PALM meeting was last Sunday. Last Saturday the weather was horrible, even for winter. It was below zero in the morining, then it snowed 6-8 inches during the day with wind. I was on the expressway on Saturday night (fool) and you couldn't see the lanes. You could drive 30 mph, but at 35 you would start losing contol. So I was really looking forward to driving to Lansing. But once I got past Novi on I-96, it wasn't a problem. When I got to the meeting in Lansing, there were staff from all over the state there: Muskegon, Columbiaville, Three Rivers, Coldwater, etc. Hardy people. We were able to distribute applications to everyone to take back to their bike shops, bike clubs, and friends. (That's another way to get an application.) So I was able to mail off applications to all the Canadians on the mailing list on Monday. They may get all the low rider numbers.
We all know times are tough. You may have enough for the registration, but not have enough money to pay for meals and bus rides just yet. You may want to wait until you have all the money before you submit your application. You don't have to. You can send in the registration fee now ($110 for riders 18 and over, $65 for riders 11 thru 17, and $55 for riders 10 and under) and reserve your spot on PALM and send in money for meals and buses later (before May 15 though). Even though every bit of green is under 18 inches of snow and the roads are not fit for cars, never mind bikes, watch for that PALM application. Summer starts when you mail it in.
The latest PALM meeting was last Sunday. Last Saturday the weather was horrible, even for winter. It was below zero in the morining, then it snowed 6-8 inches during the day with wind. I was on the expressway on Saturday night (fool) and you couldn't see the lanes. You could drive 30 mph, but at 35 you would start losing contol. So I was really looking forward to driving to Lansing. But once I got past Novi on I-96, it wasn't a problem. When I got to the meeting in Lansing, there were staff from all over the state there: Muskegon, Columbiaville, Three Rivers, Coldwater, etc. Hardy people. We were able to distribute applications to everyone to take back to their bike shops, bike clubs, and friends. (That's another way to get an application.) So I was able to mail off applications to all the Canadians on the mailing list on Monday. They may get all the low rider numbers.
We all know times are tough. You may have enough for the registration, but not have enough money to pay for meals and bus rides just yet. You may want to wait until you have all the money before you submit your application. You don't have to. You can send in the registration fee now ($110 for riders 18 and over, $65 for riders 11 thru 17, and $55 for riders 10 and under) and reserve your spot on PALM and send in money for meals and buses later (before May 15 though). Even though every bit of green is under 18 inches of snow and the roads are not fit for cars, never mind bikes, watch for that PALM application. Summer starts when you mail it in.
Friday, January 16, 2009
Deep Freeze
This is not the week to consider going biking. It was 6 degrees below zero this morning in Detroit, the coldest that it's been in years. Tomorrow its supposed have a wind chill of 20 below and on top of that snow 3 to 5 inches. I'm still trying to figure out how that's going to happen. (It was actually closer to 6 to 8 inches of snow.) I've had to run inside that last couple of days, something I never do. I'm back working downtown and I can tell you that when its below zero, there are no ice skaters at Campus Martius. We have so much snow now I wonder what they are going to do for the Winter Blast. I think all the cars at the Auto Show are going to have chains on their tires. I went to a meeting on Wednesday night at 7:00 PM to start organizing a community garden in my neighborhood. There must have been 25-30 people there, all of them desparate to see even a single blade of grass. And its only the beginning of January!
Right in the middle of this, what do I get? A link from Amanda August to her pictures of PALM. Just in time. The sun is out. People are smiling and wearing t shirts. There are about 100 pictures of the PALM parade at the end of the ride. (Her mom was trying to get pictures of as many different people as possible.) Thank you, Amanda.
Right in the middle of this, what do I get? A link from Amanda August to her pictures of PALM. Just in time. The sun is out. People are smiling and wearing t shirts. There are about 100 pictures of the PALM parade at the end of the ride. (Her mom was trying to get pictures of as many different people as possible.) Thank you, Amanda.
Monday, January 12, 2009
Snow Day
I was able to get home Friday evening but it started snowing overnight and didn't stop until 5:00 PM on Saturday. We got about 8 inches which is a lot for us. This gave me time to work on PALM. I had my annual battle with Mail Merge and completed the confirmation letter that I will be sending out after I process the applications (and which I will mail to you in the self addressed, stamped envelope that you will remember to send to me). Is there any decent tutorial on Word's Mail Merge anywhere that covers things like optional text and how to make Mail Merge fields appear in the Word document? Forget Word Help. It tells you how to create labels, but nothing deeper. The best I've been able to find by searching with Google is company/university instructions to their employees/students on how to use Mail Merge . There's got to be something more organized than that. (The label part works well. It was very easy to create the mailing labels I needed for the Canadians on our mailing list from scratch. And I found out that Scar, ON is really Scarborough, Ontario if you're Canadian.)
Once again Andy Vast Binder plotted the PALM proposed daily routes in MapMyRide. You can find them by using the Key Words PALM 28 in Advanced Search on the MapMyRide site. I added links to the maps to the PALM website. You'll notice that the Miles on the PALM 2009 Route table are hyperlinks. Click these links to get to Andy's MapMyRide routes.
What else to do on a snow day? The Free Press had an article about seed catalogs on Saturday, so as the snow was coming down, I was ordering my free Johnny's Seed Catalog on the web. I found out that you can lease a lot for a garden from the Michigan Land Bank for $50 a year. I went to their website and found a vacant lot that I can lease two blocks from my house.
Do you see a problem with what I've been writing about? It's winter and it will be winter for 3 months and everything that I've been writing about and doing is about spring and summer. Obviously this is a guy who hasn't embraced winter. It's not that I don't go outside. For instance, I had to take a picture of the vacant lot for my garden to send in with my application. (All you see is snow in the picture. I could send a blank sheet of paper with the application and it be the same thing.) And I do get the paper from off the front porch. But the best I can come up with for a winter activity is going to Florida, which is pretty bad for someone who's lived all his life in Michigan.
What else to do on a snow day? The Free Press had an article about seed catalogs on Saturday, so as the snow was coming down, I was ordering my free Johnny's Seed Catalog on the web. I found out that you can lease a lot for a garden from the Michigan Land Bank for $50 a year. I went to their website and found a vacant lot that I can lease two blocks from my house.
Do you see a problem with what I've been writing about? It's winter and it will be winter for 3 months and everything that I've been writing about and doing is about spring and summer. Obviously this is a guy who hasn't embraced winter. It's not that I don't go outside. For instance, I had to take a picture of the vacant lot for my garden to send in with my application. (All you see is snow in the picture. I could send a blank sheet of paper with the application and it be the same thing.) And I do get the paper from off the front porch. But the best I can come up with for a winter activity is going to Florida, which is pretty bad for someone who's lived all his life in Michigan.
Tuesday, January 6, 2009
Applications
I called the printer and the applications are scheduled to be printed at the end of this week. That doesn't mean that they will be mailed right away. The applications have to be printed, then folded (another machine), then tabbed (another machine), then stamped (yet another machine), and then mailed. The different machines could be backed up. Look at it as a plane flight with multiple connections and you get the idea. But it does look like the applications could be mailed before the 18th rather than after. Once again, I'll post the exact date they are mailed when it happens so you'll know. I have to submit my mailing list to them by the end of the week. I hope you are on it already. We'll mail out apps to any stragglers, but they will be behind.
The next PALM meeting will be Jan 18th. Staff come from all parts of the state. They'll get some applications to distribute to bike shops, bike clubs, friends, and acquaintances in their area. This is another way to get an application, but it is more hit and miss. I'll learn more about this year's sites that I can share. One thing though: with the populations of the sites under 3000, there may not be any microbreweries. We are supposed to go thru Frankemuth though.
As you know, every day I feed the birds. I am trying to feed the cardinals, the only spot of color in the winter, but to do this I end up feeding pidgeons and squirrels (2 or 3 of them) too. I scatter the seed so that cardinals, juncos, chickidees, and sparrows have a chance. I came out one morning this week and there were two black cats out there too. When I looked around, I noticed that there lots of nice places for cats to hide, waiting. Just who am I feeding anyway?
The next PALM meeting will be Jan 18th. Staff come from all parts of the state. They'll get some applications to distribute to bike shops, bike clubs, friends, and acquaintances in their area. This is another way to get an application, but it is more hit and miss. I'll learn more about this year's sites that I can share. One thing though: with the populations of the sites under 3000, there may not be any microbreweries. We are supposed to go thru Frankemuth though.
As you know, every day I feed the birds. I am trying to feed the cardinals, the only spot of color in the winter, but to do this I end up feeding pidgeons and squirrels (2 or 3 of them) too. I scatter the seed so that cardinals, juncos, chickidees, and sparrows have a chance. I came out one morning this week and there were two black cats out there too. When I looked around, I noticed that there lots of nice places for cats to hide, waiting. Just who am I feeding anyway?
Thursday, January 1, 2009
The New Year
It's hard to realize at winter solstice that we won't be on PALM until summer solstice. But at least the days are getting longer and we are in the same calendar year as the next PALM. And, given the weather that we've had the last 2 weeks, we have nothing more to fear about winter: we can get more, but we can't get worse. The two things that wear on me in winter is the lack of daylight and the lack of color. Winter is a black and white movie. That's why I value cardinals and put out bird seed for them every day (even though the squirrels get most of it). Their red color seems like an act of rebellion.
I rode the First Dozen in Dearborn today. I was supposed to be the Ride Captain for the Ann Arbor bike club. There were about 125 bundled riders (but none from the Ann Arbor bike club: go figure). It's hard to believe how cold 26 degrees can be. I put on two sets of gloves and two pairs of wool socks but my hands and feet were still cold. My wife stayed home and she had a point. But it was good to see people biking: I know the pedestrians we passed appreciated us. They'll have stories to tell.
I was putting together some information on this year's sites for the website and I noticed that every place we stay this year has less than 3,000 people in it as of the 2000 census. Grant had 880 people in it in 2000. This might be a good year to consider buying the meals on PALM. Can you imagine 700 people looking for breakfast and dinner in a town of 880? Talk about locusts. Remember: to get on PALM you just have to pay the registration ($110 for riders 18 and older, $65 for riders 11 thru 17, and $55 for riders 10 and under). You have up to May 15 to add/change meals and bus rides.
I rode the First Dozen in Dearborn today. I was supposed to be the Ride Captain for the Ann Arbor bike club. There were about 125 bundled riders (but none from the Ann Arbor bike club: go figure). It's hard to believe how cold 26 degrees can be. I put on two sets of gloves and two pairs of wool socks but my hands and feet were still cold. My wife stayed home and she had a point. But it was good to see people biking: I know the pedestrians we passed appreciated us. They'll have stories to tell.
I was putting together some information on this year's sites for the website and I noticed that every place we stay this year has less than 3,000 people in it as of the 2000 census. Grant had 880 people in it in 2000. This might be a good year to consider buying the meals on PALM. Can you imagine 700 people looking for breakfast and dinner in a town of 880? Talk about locusts. Remember: to get on PALM you just have to pay the registration ($110 for riders 18 and older, $65 for riders 11 thru 17, and $55 for riders 10 and under). You have up to May 15 to add/change meals and bus rides.
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