306181: Volunteer Update

It has been quite some time since I have blogged, so let’s start 2016 off right with a post!

As of the end of 2015, I have talked to 306181 visitors between the national park service, capital pride, Smithsonian National Zoo, Smithsonian Air and Space Museum, etc. This is on track with 35 years to meet my goal of 1,000,000 visitors!

227272: Air and Space Visitor Services
6923: Air and Space Education
55445: National Zoo Interpretation
198: National Zoo Tour Visitors
- Tour Donations: $263.00
5469: Washington Area Bicyclist Association (WABA)
10874: Other Events

306181 Visitor Contacts

2419.5 Total Hours

2013-01-072021-02-05

224934 Visitors and Counting

Okay, so as of late I have not been blogging nearly as much as I would have liked. In fact, it seems that it takes a lot of effort to come up with grammatically correct posts. No wonder people “tweet” so much. LOL. In fact, my last blog post was so long ago, I am sure some NY Times Best Sellers have published a book or two in the interim. 🙂

224934

The number of people I have interacted with during my various volunteer activities.

Breakdown

167664 Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
45132 Smithsonian National Zoological Park
4918 Washington Area Bicyclist Association
7150 National Park Service, etc.

88

The number of tours I have given at the Smithsonian National Zoological Park

1747.5

The number of hours spent volunteering. There are times when my volunteering does not involve interacting with visitors. For example, this past December, I got to be Panda Claws at the Smithsonian National Zoo.

24 March 2013

Will mark the 6th year of my volunteering in DC with the Smithsonian. I had originally thought it would take 35 years to make 1oooooo and it looks like it should take me 18 more years. Nothing like having a long term goal 🙂

Photos

Being Panda Claws was really fun and I thought I would include some photos. My friend Keith came to take photos of me and bought a panda hat to get into the spirit 🙂

2012-03-192021-01-26

Volunteer Update

5 Years

I have been keeping track of my volunteer contacts since 24 March 2007. This was also the time I started to volunteer at the National Zoo and the National Air and Space Museum. It is amazing that I have been volunteering for such a long time. I have been in DC for about 5.5 years now, since Sept 2006.

186318

The number of people I have interacted with during my volunteer activities. I thought a a goal of 1 million was not going to be such a big feat since 1 million dollars seems like nothing to some individuals, but it has taken a long time.

Breakdown

140611 Air and Space Greeting
1150 Air and Space Education
37383 Zoo Interpreting
49 Tours at Zoo
4315 Washington Area Bike Association
2859 Other (National Park Service, Zoo Special Events)
1412.5 Hours
$135 in tour donations

My initial goal was 35 years, and I was able to lower that to 25 years based on a larger subset of data. Based on a rate of 102 per day, it is going to take me 21.8 more years.

~21.8 years to go

While it does seem like a long way to do, I do enjoy volunteering and look forward to “clicking” 1 million times 🙂

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4 Years of Bike Commuting

April 2012 will mark the 4th year I have been commuting to work. Here are just a few facts about by bike riding.

~ 8000 Miles

6331 Miles on my Road Bike
1518 Miles on my Cyclocross Bike
???? Miles using CaBi (Capital Bikeshare)

1 Crash

Well, I would not really call it a crash. I was side swiped by a car changing lanes from a stopped position. Being observant of your surroundings at making sure you have an escape route along with learning basic avoidance maneuvers can really help keep you safe.

2 Falls

One was because I decided to drive over a bridge joint in a parallel direction, and the other was because of black ice. The first could have been avoided, but the second, was totally unforeseen and unavoidable.

363 Days a Year

That is an estimate, but I ride my bike practically every day to work and to the National Zoo on Saturday and Air and Space Museum on Sunday. The only days I don’t ride my bike are when it is either raining very hard when I head out in the morning, or if it is very cold with a chance of freezing rain.

Fun Rides

While my main use of a bike have been transportation, I have had a chance to go on some fun / fundraising rides recently.

2011 Air Force Classic Crystal Ride ~63 Miles
2012 WABA VASA Ride ~69 Miles

I am looking at doing the Air Force Classic again this year and have been anticipating open registration for months. While I don’t plan to travel for a Gran Fondo, I am hoping the one that was scheduled for DC in 2011, will actually happen in 2012. I would like to get out in the scenic countryside and enjoy the ride as opposed to staring at a cue sheet dodging cars which tends to happen on rides based in the DC Metro Area like the VASA Ride. The Air Force Classic was on a closed course, but was an 8 lap route which became a little mundane.

Bike Education

Since Dec 2010, I have been teaching adults and children how to ride bikes safely in conjunction with WABA and Georgetown University as a hobby. I need to thank the cranky residents of Georgetown for routing the GU Dupont Circle shuttle buses off local streets onto major roads. The extra time it took to get to work sparked my switch to the bike for commuting and I have never gone back 🙂