Archive for
greening my ride
cheap-o window-boxes make great traveling plant carriers
Made one of several-to-be runs to nursery for bedding plants and a few garden seeds. Anticipating the need to carry fragile little four-packs of some tomatoes, herbs and a few flowers, I had taken two collapsed cardboard boxes along, figuring I’d contrive a way to use as plant carriers. However, got to Ace Hardware and spied these window-boxes on sale, and it immediately struck me how perfect their size was for the FreeLoaders. Long, narrow, sturdy, durable. Much better fit than trying to mangle the cardboard into shape on the fly.
I figure I will either (a) make use of the planters for the front or back porch, or somewhere around here, or (b) keep them for the occasional need to haul things that might be a bit more fragile and in need of some support/protection while in the FreeLoaders.
Had fun with the nursery folks. Lots of kidding about simply setting entire bike out in front of house as bicycle-planter, etc. They all loved it. Didn’t have quite enough room for flats of impatience and one or two other things I need … but its just another excuse for the next “green” garden ride!
Go, Speed Racer, go!
My family thinks I am nuts (and they are probably correct), but here’s a funny story…
Frequently, a radar-toting County Sheriff’s car sits in the ball-field entrance right up the road from our house. I’ve gotten used to passing by him and waving, and he usually waves back. A few times, upon spotting him – especially on the downhill with a good tailwind – I decided to really pedal like hell, hoping he’ll radar me. OK, I’m crazy. For the record, I can rarely break 25 mph according to my trip odometer, even on my lightweight road bike (sigh) and considerably less when I am riding with groceries or otherwise “loaded”. The posted limit is 45 mph.
Anyway, I think he gets enough of a laugh out of seeing me behaving like such an idiot (much like my family), and recently decided to flash his lights and blast his siren at me as I lamely tried to race by … at around 22 mph. LOL! And who says cops don’t have a sense of humor?!
new day, new blog
Day one of trying new blog through WordPress. Apparently going to have to migrate from .Mac, as Apple has informed me that they will be discontinuing the service, and I wasn’t to thrilled with what I saw via the new MobileMe. Wasn’t always too thrilled with .Mac and iWeb either, although the iWeb page templates were pretty. Oh well. Hoping that having ownership of domain name will be an improvement … now to just figure out what I’m doing with the WordPress dashboard. Be prepared for significant learning curve-age while I figure things out.
I have done a lot of bike hauling this week – bikes by bike, bike parts by bike, recycling by bike … The genius that is Xtracycle never ceases to amaze, and never disappoints. The picture above was from trip to bike shop — dropping off the Big Dummy (the green bike), and taking the Specialized (white/yellow bike) along so that I’d have a ride home. Schlepping of bike by bike made possible by the Xtracycle TrayBien. The Big Dummy has almost finished the final phase of customization, with only the glorious fenders and new deck by Woody’s Fenders to be added. That is the agenda for the weekend.
Need to figure out how to link to those websites (Xtracycle, Woody’s) … oh well. Need ‘WordPress for Dummies’, apparently.
ten seconds
It’s my cyber real-estate, so I can plug for whomever I choose … This is the video made by my amazing 16-year old son, Dillon, for an EPA short video contest on YouTube. The objective was to produce an original piece illustrating simple things people can do to protect our watersheds. I think he did an amazing job – from video to music to editing and all else. Simple, to-the-point. He’s my hero!
leaving .Mac behind
My initial venture into blogging – mostly for limited audience of family and a few kindly devoted friends – was via Apple’s .Mac web venue. There were a few interesting posts over the course of the year+ I was writing there, along with a decent collection of photos. I won’t be bringing that cyber luggage over here, and it will be shut down in the next few months (July ’09?) but if you should care to take a look at things past …
http://web.mac.com/iamshe2/iWeb/By%20Bicycle/Welcome.html
shebicycles 