For me, festivus starts with visiting all the places I usually shop for groceries. At each one I get a bike load of holiday cheer to put on the table at the event.

        

This was my bike getting home from Safeway. That string bag has a ham in it. Yumm! On the other side is a totally stuffed panier. Turns out I can carry something like $50 to $70ish in 2018 dollars per load. I remember when I couldn't figure out how to carry even $20 in food. Partly that's because I'm better at carrying stuff. It's also because dollars just don't go as far as they used to. Sad about that.

My garden contributed this huge haul of collards. It was time to hack them back anyhow. This was by far my largest single harvest in 2018. My arms were tired after carrying it all the way back from the garden, despite the fact I gave some away along the way. Virginia helped me process it all down to some naked stalks and a lot of good food.

Yeah, I know, Christmas trees are not the festivus thing. The problem was that the clubhouse came with a Christmas tree, and taking it down was not an option for me. Since the evening was mostly about talking to people in a warm and comfortable place, I put away my camera until the airing of the grievances.

        

I started things off by talking about my new grievance for the year. The only band at San Jose High School football games was the Bulldog Alumni Band. This was because sometime between when Virginia graduated and when we started paying attention they had declared Lincoln (another high school in the more affluent part of town) to be the "music magnet school" for the valley. The net impact of this was no band for the Bulldogs football games. Hello!? Football is all about learning how to work together as a community to support the guys on the field. How are those guys going to feel supported when the other team has a 100 piece marching band and they have nothing? It felt like the bulldogs were being discriminated against. I'm grateful for the half dozen alumni band members that were there to add a little pomp when the Bulldogs make touchdowns.

Phil is irked by all those people that call his home town "Que-pertino". Hello!? Look at the name. Cupertino. There is no "Q" in the name! It's pronounced "Coo-pertino". He muttered about that guy that ran for City Council last fall as a case in point.

Peter is bothered by the fact they took down all the apple trees in Cupertino and replaced them with a company named Apple Inc.

Gerry is bothered by the fact that there are no politicians who are willing to step up to the plate and do what's required about climate change.

        

Eric agreed with Gerry.

Stephanie watches all the private jets flying into San Jose airport over the homeless encampments and wishes the economic disparities in our system weren't so huge.

Diane is also bothered by the "Manhattenization" of the bay area. She is hoping all the creativity assembled here can do something about that.

Boone thinks we need to ban cars. He's worried they will cause too much climate change which will result in the end of the world as we know it.

           

Dana used to ride her bike everywhere and she enjoyed it a lot. Since her health problems have made her somewhat disabled she's had to switch to an electric car powered by solar panels on her roof, which is still pretty good. She thinks riding together to promote biking is a great idea.

Ann thinks we need a new political party. The two party system has created a situation where there isn't enough difference between the two parties for it to matter.

Mary Kay thinks packaging is way out of hand. When she grew up on a farm in Mountain View nothing had packaging and everybody was happy. What happened? It would be great if we could go back to no packaging.

Barry had two grievances. The first was property managers that keep raising the rent. The other is Apple, which is putting Lithium polymer batteries that have some likelihood of exploding in peoples hands.

She is upset because there are too many situations where people with solutions aren't being listened to by people who are supposed to do something about a problem.

       

Al is upset because the tax credit for getting an electric car is expiring in three days. He thinks we need a new President that will give us tax credits for electric powered bikes, scooters, skateboards, and cars. He's also an inventor with a great way to power up your personal transportation device. Unfortunately I can't talk about that because he asked me not to say anything about it.

Rob wishes Uber and Lyft drivers would pull over in parking spots before letting off their riders. He hates it when they get in his way.

Lloyd thinks there is too much negativity in the world.

Nat wishes people would realize that nuclear power is safe.

       

Green hat complained about a years worth of construction to put a new lane on the freeway, and then all it helped is the fast trak people. Why?

Miles wants everybody to know that the Peninsula isn't that big. San Francisco is 30 miles away. San Jose is 20 miles away. Both are easy enough to get to. Ride your bikes people!

Eddie is mad that the Raiders are leaving for Las Vegas. He also wishes that Pluto was still a planet.

Julio is worried about all the different battery systems that electric cars are built around. He sees huge amounts of waste in our futures from different incompatible systems. He thinks we would be so much better off if they were all part of one compatible system.

        

David was frosted because we hadn't smoked that great joint he brought to share yet.

Betsy had two things to say: "Money out of politics." and "Trash out of the bike lane."

That lady wanted us to go back to being tolerant of newcomers.

           

Jacob considers Trump half a grievance. His real grievance is that "public" used to mean "for the people". What happened to that?

Lizzie wishes people would tip better. She explained that people who think it's up to restaurants to pay servers don't understand that's not how it works. As the server you work for the customer who is eating. People who can't afford to tip shouldn't be eating out. Servers make their money in tips, so pay your share!

Amanda wishes people would stop treating the world like a trash can. If she could clone herself all over the world would be spotless. She enjoys going around her neighborhood picking up trash every now and then.

Renee is mad at her grandmother's gall bladder for causing her so much pain. She is mad at that parked car that messed up her knee and put her out of commission for two weeks. She is mad at the government for making her ashamed to wear her America pants. Her summary was "2018 sucked."

Even after so many people had spoken there was still plenty of attention for whatever grievance the next speaker had. So proud of my friends for honoring the speakers so well. Dora is bothered by the fact that INS had let two small children die in their custody.

We posed for a group shot.

     

Then it was this and that and having a good time.

Thank you everybody that rode their bike to the event! There were more bikes parked out there earlier, but I forgot to take that picture until later.

     

To my way of thinking the feats of strength most honorable were done by those that rode their bikes to the event. Some feel that the formula for feats of strength requires arm wrestling. Virginia won round one, Boone won round two, and Thea won round three. The consensus was that Thea was the strongest, when all was said and done.