REMEMBERING EZRA CALDWELL

I had an interview with Ezra Caldwell published in Urban Velo back in September 2007. You can read it here.

I was living in NYC then and (of course) was getting into fixed gear and single-speed bicycles. Ezra invited me to his place in January of 2006, and gave me a spare wheel he had lying around, and even installed it for me.

“On the upper west side of Manhattan lives Ezra Caldwell. A wiry little guy with a stable of bikes, an inviting smile and a wrench. He’ll adjust your brakes over coffee, then tweak your chain line and take you around the block. This is what Ezra does.”

We went out for a test ride, and I remember doing a “track stand” and Ezra saying something like, “Wow, you figured that out quick.”

To which I simply replied, “Well, I’ve been riding bikes for a while!”

God, all these years later, I remember how arrogant that sounded. I was in my early 30s, so that makes sense.

We weren’t close; we were just two people who met because of the internet.

“The internet in general has made wild things possible,” says Ezra. “I’d say most of my friends at this point are people I’ve met on Flickr.”

I woke up on May 18, 2024, and for whatever reason, thought of this seemingly insignificant interview I did 17 years ago.

Ezra passed away on May 24, 2014 after a battle with cancer. I can’t believe ten years have passed, and then this weekend I thought of Ezra for the first time in forever.

We’re in each other’s lives to varying degrees, and then we’re not. I only had a fleeting few moments with Ezra all those years ago, but reading some posts here and there, he touched a lot of people.

Hug your friends. Do cool shit. Life is short.

RAINY SUNSET LAKE

For some reason I’ve left my phone on the roof of my car lately. One time I drove 15 miles on the highway and when I got out of my car, my phone was there on the roof.

The other night, though, I realized I didn’t have my phone, a few miles from the location above in the video. I drove back, and thankfully a kind gentleman had found it intact, in complete working order. It did call 911, however, to report an accident. He was able to talk to the 911 operator, and assured them there was no car wreck at this location. Technology, huh?

Making the video above was a fun one. I didn’t know that the sun would peek out like that, but thankfully it did.

TREE

Rainy, quiet morning here in town. The school year is done, so all the college kids have left. Now my morning walks are peaceful and still, like this tree.

SPEND TIME ON GOOD THINGS AND GOOD PEOPLE

Today I wrote how 33 minutes a day on social media equals 200 hours, and that’s the amount of time it took me to run 1,105 miles in 2020.

I then suggest we do a bunch of things that “only” require 33 minutes a day, such as devoting 33 minutes a day to connecting and talking and reaching out to the good people in your life.

“Consider that we don’t think twice about uploading our original photos and text to a platform that sells advertising around our unpaid labor while limiting the number of our friends (or potential clients) who will ever see it, thus incentivizing us to either spend more of our time (a finite resource) on the platform “engaging,” or spending actual money to “boost” our posts so more people might see it.”

While 33 minutes sounds like a lot, we toss that time out the window every single day scrolling through dumb videos and memes.

Read it here: Spend time on good things and good people

CPM HELL

Thanks Itay Dreyfus for bringing this to my attention:

“The internet makes me blind to the scale of things. If I write a blog post that is read by 2000 people that feels like crickets (these days). But last night we had 200 people come to the opening of a new exhibition at the gallery. It was overwhelming.”

Henrik Karlsson

Let’s not forget why 2,000 people on the internet don’t feel like a lot: cost per thousand ad impressions (Cost per mile [CPM]—mille is Latin for thousand).

As that CPM rate went down, more ads went on the page. Two display ads. Three. A pop-under.

It wasn’t that 2,000 people reading your work was bad. The CPM rate was “bad,” so something that got read by 20,000 people was considered “good.” After all, we have to keep the lights on!

The problem was, as more corporate interests crept in, we didn’t just need to keep the lights on. We had to pay the salaries of lots of dude bros in sports jackets and the electric bill for keeping 27 LED TVs running day and night in the office.

CAPTURE THE LAKES

Bringing my camera equipment on my running adventures is fun because when I have a “meh” kind of run (like I did tonight), I can still take a stroll along the lake and try and capture the sounds of nature.

This is my set up; a Nikon Z30 and a Zoom H6. Both are just pretty much at their default settings, as I’m still figuring out how best to do any of his.

I’m sure at some point I’ll get into the finer points of manual controls with video. Maybe a shotgun mic at some point? At least a wind cover. I’m okay with the audio edits I’m able to make in Davinci Resolve, at least.

For now this is another thing that keeps me in the woods longer, and I’m quite okay with that.

TAKE OUR PICTURE!

On a recent morning walk about town I took a photo outside of this barbershop, and Keith (on the right) shouted “hey, come take our picture!”

Mind you, I’ve been walking around town the last few months still trying to figure out this camera. It’s a Nikon ZFC with full manual controls, so I’m always dialing in the shutter speed, aperture, and all that fun stuff.

All that noodling around paid off I guess, as I was able to get this photo in two takes, with some minor editing in Adobe Lightroom.

Here’s some more recent shots:

VIDEOS FROM THE WOODS

I love being in the woods. Usually I just take a bunch of photos with my iPhone and send them to a friends afterwards, but now I’m enjoying making some chill-vibes videos like this.

I’m hauling a real camera (Nikon Z30), a tripod, and a Zoom H6 audio recorder with me to capture these moments. I mean, to be able to capture the sounds of the birds? The movement of the creek? Oh my, I love it so much.

I’ve made a few so far and got more to learn, of course, but I’m enjoying the process.

RETURN TO THE WEB

The only thing holding us back from having the internet experience is ourselves.

“Nothing about the web has changed that prevents us from going back. If anything, it’s become a lot easier. We can return.“

This from Molly White, in a piece called ‘We can have a different web.’

We can set up websites for cheap, using a multitude of tools. We can create directories, or field guides, or fan pages for anything we want.

We can link to each others things from our websites, our newsletters, our DMs, our Discords or forums.

It might feel slower, since techbros at social media giants have been feeding you the Kool-Aid that without them you’ll turn to dust, but that just ain’t true.