I'm reading this right now (in my 30's) and LOVING it! It's a hefty read, but the story--though I've heard the story before, seen movies, etc.--is so great it's fantastic.
I'm 31, so I'm about the same age .. I've heard of the book before, but didn't know much about it, and haven't read it until this year. It truly blew me away, almost from first page. It will be one of the very few books that I re-read.
I spent a bit over a year working from home in my past. At first, I loved it. Then I found myself "at work" for longer every day. I reduced the amount I was getting out and socializing, until it got to the point I was plain miserable. Finally I made a change and got a job at an office, where I was MUCH happier (until the office was reduced to 2 people, myself included, and I found I missed the social interaction once again).
Now I work at a company of about 80, with some 30-35 working from the office, and I love it. The commute is very short (<10 minutes most days), and I bike in summer. The little conversations every day keep me sane and enjoying work far more than when I'm on my own.
I finally pushed myself to bike to work this year, and up until this week managed to make my way to work 4-5 times a week using the bike. Living a 10-15 minute bike ride away from work really encouraged me to try this year, and I'm glad I did. I found it considerably more relaxing, even when riding in traffic, when compared to driving.
Unfortunately, living in the Great White North, it has gotten too cold in the morning to bike (or at least it has for me). Temperatures are dipping below 0C, and I'm sure we will see snow soon enough. Bike is on standby mode now until next April or May when the snow is finally gone.
Its still doable even at those temperatures - here is what I do (though I don't use the bike when its snowing, yet):
1. Dress well. Its especially important to fully cover your face (except eyes), ears and hands. Winter hat, scarf, gloves are always mandatory.
Legs may also need good (multi-layered) coverage but its not that critical. The number of layers for the rest of the body varies with the temperature
2. Don't overexert yourself. Avoid getting to a point where you're breathing too quickly or too deeply - this can be painful and can trigger breathing problems. If your breathing starts getting deeper and faster, slow down.
Basically, its much better to overdress and go slower than to under-dress and try to go fast to compensate with body-heat. Most cyclists will claim the contrary, but the contrary only applies after having some experience (or for people who just can't bear to go slow).
3. Carry extra layers of clothes with you. You never know if the layers you need in the morning will be the same as the layers you need in the afternoon.
We have people here that bike year round, even though our temperatures dip well below 0C (we get -25 to -30C on a regular basis, with windchill being -35C to -40C). That is far more effort than I'm willing to put in.
Once it snows, I consider it far too dangerous (though again, there are a few people here that bike in snow w/ studded tires). I only have a bike lane for a short part of my ride, the rest being on 50, 60, and 80kmh roads with no paved shoulder. I don't want to find out what happens if I hit a deep patch of snow, ice, or some cross-winds while a semi is passing me doing 80kmh.
As for your 2nd point, I made that mistake the first time it got close to freezing. By the time I made it to work, I had a tough time breathing.
I'm in Edmonton, which sounds pretty similar to your climate. Except for those few -40 days I've found winter biking to be fairly comfortable once you get moving.
In my experience you don't want to be using a bike lane after heavy snow anyhow; they often don't get plowed. If you can take residential roads you're pretty safe (and studded tires really do make a HUGE difference).
But yeah, you don't want to be on the road with cars going 80km/h - I wouldn't be comfortable doing that every day in the summer, either.
I think OGR (gdal.org) has an OSM driver that you can install optionally to go from OSM -> SHP. Problem is that SHP and OSM are not 100% compatible formats, so data massaging may be necessary in many cases.
Also, Geofabrik.de will export it for you for a fee.
I tried QGis 2 with built-in OSM support but I was unable to properly download data through it. Perhaps I was doing something wrong, I'd love to read a good tutorial on this. If you happen to find one, let me know!
It's been a while since I played with OSM data. OGR 1.10.0 supports OSM, and you can grab it from various sources (gdal.org or gisinternals.com/sdk/ if you want latest windows binaries).
Converting OSM -> SHP should be relatively similar to other formats, and there are a good number of tutorials out there for using OGR. Here's their page on OSM: http://www.gdal.org/ogr/drv_osm.html
What kind of data are you looking for? Many governments provide data for their own country, with differing licenses (the Canadian ones I've used are commercial-friendly). There are a good number of open GIS data initiatives around the world, that you should be able to find exactly what you're looking for.
You can also check the data that ESRI provides, as some is free, and other is paid.
The Wood Whisperer was one of the major reasons I got into wood working, and his end-grain boards were the first project I ever made. Makes me miss spending time on those projects :(
It was not a smart ass remark. There are a lot of people that enjoy using hand tools. Its not just a nostalgia thing. The reduction in dust and danger is a giant draw for many people. The one power tool I really want is a band saw.
I was actually referring to the first part of my comment as a smart-ass remark.
There is definitely something to be said about the process of using hand tools. I own a #4 and a #5, along with a rabbeting plane, but I never managed to put in enough effort to learn how to properly use either one. I could get a half-decent result, but never a result that would rival my planer.
Using a drum sander to plane was easy - no different than a planer, though far slower (and safer if you ever decide to feed end-grain through it .. tip: do not attempt to feed end grain through a planer, as it may lead to disastrous results).
A band saw would be a nice addition depending on the type of work you're interested in. It's probably one of the harder power tools to replace with a hand-tool equivalent, though I've seen some very nice results with hand saws. None by myself of course :p
Just over $0.07 in Manitoba .. which has gone up considerably (likely close to 50%) over the last 5-6 years! We use to have it great until they decided they need to build more dams :(
