Bicycle Lifts & CFL Misdirection

Bicycle Lift. It's a 9 MB file: for those of you on dialup, here's the smaller 1 MB version.

This is too damn cool... if America's so "innovative", why the hell did Europe come up with this first? Where the fü©k's all that American ingenuity? Hey, you could even run it off solar power in certain places (what a concept!)

If Marin county REALLY wanted to get more people out of their cars, they could install a few of these (since the Alto Tunnel and Cal Park Hill Tunnels may never get rebuilt). My vote? Going from Corte Madera to Mill Valley on Casa Buena Drive (the steepest parts) and headed up the steep sections of Merrydale road to where it meets Los Ranchitos Rd. These two hills are the sweatiest ones for me, but I think they're a big deterrent for a lot of people. I have a feeling that installing these isn't that cheap, but it's likely cheaper (and easier) than rebuilding the tunnels... just an idea.

BTW, I realized that Compact Fluorescent's aka CFL's are full of Hg aka Mercury.. which is super toxic and bad for the environment (and YOU!) in this form. Hmmm... LED's are a better option: they last longer, are solid state and don't have lead in them. I don't know about their manufacturing, so if someone knows if the manufacturing of LED's requires mercury, speak UP!

CCrane is a good source for Household LED Bulbs. Read the data at the bottom of the page: the numbers are a bit staggering. Savings of over $300 over the lifetime of the bulb... pretty impressive. Even more impressive is the power plant reduction stat. Wow. No more CFL's for us... Solar on the roof and now the upgrade to LED's... like they said in "What About Bob?"; "Baby steps bob, baby steps". Take some baby steps with me, will ya?