My 5 minutes of fame

My xtracycle got featured as #95 at the Xtracycle Gallery: whee! I haven't posted in over a month even though I have 3 posts in draft... DOH! Hope y'all can forgive me...

New Houbliette Fodder

Thanks to Russ Roca (the Eco Friendly Bicycling Photographer) for the newest resident in the Houbliette. Some of you may have never scrolled to the bottom of my webpage, but at the bottom is the Houbliette (or The Hopper Oubliette). The Houbliette is a place for corporate assholes who abuse all that is good and right in the world and deserve to be shoved down a deep dark hole and forgotten about forever.

So, without further ado, I submit to you THIS video. If you don't "get it", try reading back a little in my blog and see if you can figure out why I put AutoZone on permanent time out.

Waste or wasted?

This was eerily appropriate considering I'm having to use pain killers right now for my leg & shoulder damage. If I have left over painkillers I will be taking them back to the pharmacy for them to be properly disposed of!

V.ENVIRO The most tightly controlled drugs like painkilling narcotics are the ones that often elude environmental regulation when they become waste. (AP)

--Sent from my cell phone--

Just call me "Crash"

I'm thinking of changing my name to "Crash".

On August 29th (yes, I know that's 15 days ago) I talked to my brother in Sweden via Skype (god I love those free video calls!) for well over an hour. We talked about family stuff and skating. Mostly skating. He's been riding skateboards since he was about 6, and he's 46 now: you do the math. He's also been racing in slalom and Giant Slalom for many years and he's quite good. When he was here in July of 2007 with his family, he brought me a deck of his own design AND manufacture and I was so touched. It's a beautiful lightweight slalom race board, and I built it up with his coaching and advice. It's a blast to ride and very lightweight. It is also rather fragile, as it's made from foam and carbon fiber!

I started riding it around on my little cul-de-sac and enjoying it more and more. I started thinking about the giant steep hill I lived on and riding down it, but the concept was way too daunting at that point.

In January of 2008 I went to London with my mom to visit family there and attend a christening. I figured since I was already half way across the world, I might as well take the opportunity to go visit my brother in Stockholm. It was a short trip, but a total blast and we went skating with some of Sweden's premier skaters. It was just a routine practice day for them, but it was the first time I'd skated with anyone good and I was blown away by the talent there. I managed to pull a calf muscle, but not too badly and I was able to continue skating, using my other leg to push (I'm goofy footed and push mongo, and I had to learn to push regular that day: good practice!). We went to a skate shop the next day because I had started getting a speed bug, and my little slalom board was not really appropriate for bigger hills and the kind of cruising I was thinking about. Let me start by saying that the guys at the Kahalani skate shop are the most professional, knowledgeable and sincere skaters I've ever met. They make some of the worlds most sought-after trucks, seen HERE. They are ridden by many of the worlds top downhill riders, and some mere mortals as well (my brother Selle just joined the ranks of the elite with some Kahalani's on his new board). Back to the story: Dan (or maybe it was Mike) helped me pick out a beautiful board by Fibretech along with some Holey trucks and Retrotech Big Zigg wheels (the Lime 78a, 75mm ones), Khiro angled risers and and a couple different Khiro bushings for different conditions. I couldn't wait to ride it, but I didn't want to dirty everything up and then have to pack it into my bag with my clothes, AND I wasn't going to have time to ride it when I got back to London, so I left the board unbuilt.

Getting the board home was a bit of fiasco with the airlines, but we got it sorted out eventually. (Airlines do not seem to like anything that's unusual in the luggage dept. so I had to do a fair amount of jedi mind tricking).

When I put the board together and rode it, I realized I finally had a board that would go as fast as I wanted to and was durable enough to survive my totally greenhorn downhill status *cue ominous music*.

I've been riding the shorter, lower-pitch grade at the top of the big hill and getting comfortable with the speed and feeling a lot more confident on my longboard. On the 29th, I talked to my brother (yeah, I mentioned that in the 2nd paragraph.) I got all amped up on riding and going fast hearing about what he's been up to lately (he and I are inspiring each other to try some new things). He's been practicing his downhill and he's getting better as well, though he's crashed a bit too. What i keep forgetting is his 40 years of experience. Yeah, that's 40 years of experience, which is about 38 more years than I have. You can see where this is going right?

So that night (the 29th) after we'd put the munchkin to bed, I strapped on my pads (knee, elbow), my helmet and my new Loaded Slide Gloves. I told the wife I was going to go out for a little skate seshion. She didn't think much of it and wished me well.

Out in the street, I thought I'd try working on the lower section of my hill, as my goal is to eventually ride the whole thing top to bottom. After a short run at the top (just to test turning and my own comfort) I realized I was in over my head and I needed to start WAY lower on the hill. So I walked down to the park and started from the top. What I SHOULD have done was to start at the bottom and work my way SLOWLY upward, but sometimes my brain writes checks my body can't cash (to misquote James Tolkan "Stinger" from Top Gun). I got to the bottom of the park and realized I need to blow off some speed. My MISTAKE was not using the slide gloves at this point to assist me in performing a powerslide. Instead, I tried to take a toe side turn onto a side street that goes back uphill. My line was all wrong and I cut in towards the turn way too early. Near the northeast corner of Pacific and Highland I got a speed wobble, which I managed to correct, but I panicked and target fixated... and those of you who known what target fixation means can probably guess what happened next. CRASH. I hit the curb/drain near the southeast corner of Pacific & Highland and flew on to the lawn across the sidewalk. As I lay there with my left arm lying agonizingly underneath me and my ankles/feet screaming out in pain, I thought to myself "Fuck, that was NOT supposed to happen, what have I done?". I managed to sit up with no help from my left arm (something was VERY wrong with it) and I nearly passed out when I jarred my left shoulder and left foot. It was no easy feat getting my slide gloves off (the palm pucks had diverted the abrasion damage, and the wrist support saved my wrists) with one hand, but using my teeth, I managed it. After that the helmet, and then I managed to get my backpack off. I retrieved my cell phone (glad I put it in an armored case!) and called my wife.

Now, getting a call that your husband has just chowdered himself on a downhill run can't be fun, especially at 12:35am. Yes, this was the middle of the night. She jumped in her car and came and found me, but it was one of the longest 8 minutes of my life.. I was in a bit of shock. She was visibly and vocally displeased with me and I felt bad for making her resuce me, but I was in no shape to rescue myself. My head was WAY out of it, though I never hit my head (pain can do funny things to your mind). Just after I'd got in her car, I thought maybe I would try sleeping it off with some ibuprofen. Then I mentally slapped myself and made the decision to go the hospital.

Just an aside (because so many have asked), I was riding this late because there are no cars on my street at that time of night, which makes for safer riding for novice downhillers like me. As well, it had been nearly 100˚F all day: too hot to ride!

So.. we get back up to our house and we discussed how to deal with getting me to the hospital. It was decided a taxi was the cheapest easiest way because she'd had a few drinks, I was in NO shape to drive and an ambulance is EXPENSIVE.

I sat in the driveway waiting for the cab. It was another VERY long 10 minutes.

I managed to get in the cab (somehow) and off we went, the driver taking corners waaaaay too fast and slamming me all over the vehicle. I finally had to ask him to take it easy on the corners, as the G forces felt like hot ice picks in my shoulder and ankle. He went a little over the top and started driving like my grandma, which of course lengthened the trip. We got to the emergency room and I had to ask the driver to go in and have them bring me out a wheelchair. One of the guys in admitting came out with a wheelchair while I threw money down for the cabbie. I was rolled inside to the ever-unpleasant glare of overhead fluorescents. I honestly believe the fluorescents are half the reason that A) everyone looks bad in a hospital and B) most people abhor hospitals. The guy admitting me asked what happened and relayed his own motorcross shoulder dislocation stories (3 on each side: OUCH!) while assuring me that they'd get it all fixed. His positive energy did wonders for me and I worked on being as jokey and positive as I could.

After being checked in with no delay, I gratefully realized that it was friday MORNING, not Friday night. I've been to emergency rooms on Friday nights/saturday mornings, and you better be bleeding bad or they're not going to see you that fast because EVERYONE seems to get hurt on Friday or Saturday night.

Got into a bed, and they gave me 5mg of Dilaudid, which did wonders for bringing my pain levels down, but started to make me nauseous, so they gave me some Zofram to get rid of that. On to X-ray and then back to the trauma room. Xrays revealed a dislocated shoulder, but no breaks in the ankle. The doctor used a mild technique called the Hennepin Technique to put my shoulder back in place. It didn't hurt much more than the pain I was already in, and I appreciated that. The nurses were amazed at both the doctor skilal and my ability to breathe through the reset process.

My ankle on the other hand was another issue. They tried to put me in a moon boot and have me use a cane, but the pain was intense (probably an 9 on the 1-10 scale). I went back for more xrays, this time on the foot and to check that the dislocation was reseated properly. They conferred with some podiatrists while I was sleeping and when they woke me up I found out that I'd supremely crushed my left foot. They decided to do surgery that evening, so around 9:00am I was admitted to the hospital. Spent the day wacked out... several friends and family came by to see me, but I don't remember too much of our visits. I was told the operation would be at 4:30 but it didn't happen until 6:30. Man, operation rooms are weird places, especially when you're the patient. I woke up in my room around midnight, disoriented and ornery as a wounded grizzly bear. They had put a catheter in me (my first, and hopefully my last) and I was sweating buckets under all the blankets they'd put on top of me. While cursing and ripping blankets off (or attempting to) I discovered the catheter and almost ripped it out (good thing I didn't because it was stil balooned... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!)

Finally made it to sleep... woke up in the morning and insisted they remove the catheter so I could pee normally. Part of me just wanted to affirm that I wasn't dead and that I still had some locomotive power under my control. I have to tell you, I hate catheters with a passion now. HATE them. I don't HATE a lot of things, but I fucking HATE catheters.

The doctors came back in the morning to tell me that I had pulverized the navicular bone in my foot and they were only able to salvage a couple of small pieces which were screwed back together. 2 pins and a bunch of bonegraft and they stitched me back together. He said the navicular bone looked a bunch of sand in my foot... wow. I hit the curb hard enough to turn a bone in my foot to sand. They asked me again how fast I thought I'd been going. I refrained from pointing out that my skateboard doesn't have a speedo on it and told him between 18-25 mph, but honestly, I have no idea. I'm used to much higher speeds on my bicyles when coming down my hill, and it's much harder to tell speed in the dark.

The nursing staff at Kaiser varies greatly in their abilities. My favorite (and very best) nurse was Susie. Thank god for susie: she made me laugh a lot, and she's not just a nurse, she's a healer. Susie, if you ever read this, thank you thank you thank you so VERY VERY much for all that you do!

They kicked me out on Sunday around midday. Jessi came to bring me home but lo and behold, the wheelchair didn't fit in her car. My mom was nice enough to use her SUV to bring it to my house for me, so I'm now a wheeled menace again. It's been 15 days since I crashed, and yesterday was the first time I let the house in 12 days. Went to a doctors appointment with the orthopedist yesterday at which time the informed that me that I need to be careful with my shoulder, as if I screw it up, recurrent dislocations due to instability in the shoulder can develop. Lovely.

I'm off to see the foot surgeon shortly... they are going to pull the staples an sutures, put on a lighter fiberglass cast and xray my RIGHT foot and leg. Why? Because while we know I sprained my right ankle, I woke up this morning with my right foot in AGONY. Ran the ice machine on it and took some ibuprofen and that helped, but all of a sudden, it's getting worse.

Wish me luck folks... hopefully I'll have gross pictures to follow later on tonight.

Beth sez it better...

... than I could. She's a plastic reduction pro. Please stop reading me and go read THIS

Green Reesus

I was just watching TV (not something I normally do, but I've got a broken foot and a dislocated shoulder & things that keep my mind off the pain are appreciated right now: mindless TV is just the ticket.) So I was watching Spike TV, the king of "guy's TV". They were running an ad for Reesus Peanut Butter Cups, The ad copy went: "Stop Global warming now... Or all the reesus will melt." Now, I try to keep my refined sugar consumption to a minimum, but I love Reesus Peanut Butter Cups. L O V E them. It's got to be the best use of"green" marketing I've ever seen. Thanks a lot Reesus, now I'm jonesing for a Peanut Butter Cup. Good thing I can't drive quite yet...

--Sent from my cell phone--

What's the breaking point?

While reading through the comments on today's edition of Yehuda Moon, I followed links first to the CNN video about an assault on 2 cyclists (a fear inducing article, a technique I'm never fond of) and then on to another one of my occasional reading spots, Copenhagenize.

Here's the video:


There is no excuse for assaulting cyclists in a car. Doctor Thompson deserves whatever punishment he gets: these cyclists could be DEAD instead of just badly injured. If he HAD killed them he might have gotten off easier because he would have claimed it was an "accident" and no one would have been there to refute the claim and testimony from Patrick Watson would likely have been deemed not admissible in court. Hard to say with "What If's?". Either way, watch out for those road ragers!

When I made it over to read the "More Expensive Gas Please" article at copenhagenize.com I realized that someone (once again), beat me to the punch. I've been wondering for some time: how high does the price of a gallon of gas have to get before people REALLY curtail their driving? I've already been doing it, and I know others have too, but when is it going to happen en masse? I predict 10 dollars/gallon. That sounds insane to most americans, but they're paying that right now in England. So tell me: what's YOUR breaking point? What's it gonna take to get YOU out of your car?

The Itch

I read THIS ARTICLE this morning, and it's fascinating. I'm generally an itchy person... lots of things make me itch. I often have phantom itching, mostly due to the perception that I'm bitten by mosquitoes or fleas. I have pets who spend time outside, and mosquitoes are common in my area so occasionally, I HAVE been bitten by biting insects. If I'm actually bitten once it can set off a chain reaction of swatting and scratching that can last up to an hour. Now I think I begin to understand why... and while some folks may say I'm "crazy", the "swatting at insects that aren't there" may not be.

All the fools men

Looks like Goebbels is at it again...

V.USGOV Karl Rove on Monday defended his defiance of a congressional subpoena over allegations of political pressure at the Justice Department.(AP)

--Sent from my cell phone--

200th Entry: Cruising

Well, today is my 200th blog entry: Happy Anniversary to me! :)

Much of what I'm doing here is way of taking mental notes for myself... a way of remembering things that I find that I don't want to forget. It's also been a way to make note of the evolution of my thinking. The things I read, the things I see and the things I learn all shape who I become, how I behave and how I think. With that in mind I give you the subject of today's blog entry: Cruising.

I posted back in May about my phone call to Best Foods. I've been making a point to speak out against the things that bother me, and those few who've ever heard me rant about cruise ships know that I'm not a fan. Yes, I have been on a cruise ship. No, I wasn't paying to be there, I was being PAID to be there. Overall the experience wasn't terrible because of the lovely staff I met while I was there, but after seeing the crew quarters, I was rather appalled. "Jail Cell" comes to mind when I think about the room that I saw. Actually, "lurchingly nauseating, poorly ventilated, windowless, and badly lit" also come to mind. Two of our crew were being paid to work on the ship for a couple of shows (I was working for a rock band) so I got to see their quarters for the 5 days they were on the ship. They were being paid better than any of the regular crew so for them it was "tolerable", but ugh... the idea of PAYING to spend time in a jail cell is insane.

I don't see the appeal of the cruise ship: you're on this giant ship with not much to do other than eat and sit around in the sun. To some folks that might sound great, but the whole scene had me creeped out. You've got a bunch of underpaid folks, mostly under 25 from every country under the sun working for shit wages serving overprivileged, overfed, overweight, overly loud tourists with bad hair, bad skin, bad manners and bad attitudes (and their similarly shaped and mannered offspring). Sound fun yet? It gets better. They feed you about 6 giant all-you-can-eat meals a day, so you're constantly so full you just waddle around. I kept looking for the vomit buckets (like in that one Monty Python skit), but I couldn't spot them.

The crowd we played for was rather non-plussed (this was a corporate gig, and the crowds aren't usually "fans" per se, but this crowd was particularly unenthusiastic, no doubt due to the sickeningly large meal they had recently ingested). I wanted to scream at them "Get off your asses and dance/rock you fat f*cks!" but I wisely restrained myself. The band was more used to this kind of response during their corporate shows, but it continued to bother me the entire time I worked for them.

The highlight of the whole shipboard experience was in talking to the catering crew sent to service the backstage area. They were all from Turkey (a country I've never visited nor even met anyone from) and were convincing enough to make me pine for Turkish beach side towns I'd probably never see. They were friendly and funny and genuinely sincere guys: I don't know how they managed to keep from going insane in that job. They were all earning money and seeing the world (they little that they were able while working) and invited me to come visit them back in Turkey. No, not casual "Come to Turkey!" kind of comments, I mean names, phone numbers, names of relatives... real info. Somehow over the years I managed to lose that info and I regret that because I really would have liked to Turkey with a bro-deal.

So I suppose my own cruise line story has been a long winded intro to the ARTICLE that dredged all these memories up. Please read it and have anyone you know who's thinking about going on a cruise read it. The article brings up some safety issues that didn't even occur to me while I was on the ship. I'm not a single woman, but I would be a little concerned about going on cruise after reading the article. As well, the social and environmental impact that cruise ships have on the places they visit is largely unfelt by the tourists, but the denizens of the destinations must deal with the consequences.

The impact our vacation plans can have can be huge even though we might not see it. Perhaps consider a vacation closer to home? I know *I'm* not going on any cruises... at least not on a cruise ship.

...and the flames climbed higher

Cheney is definitely going straight back to hell. Can you believe this sadistic shit?

V.ENVIRO Vice President Cheney's office pushed for major deletions in congressional testimony on the public health consequences of climate change. (AP)

--Sent from my cell phone--

Effluent of the Affluent

My friend Jessica Mordo, an american living in Paris, posted THIS little news item to the posted items section of Facebook... I got a good laugh out of it, and if you're not a George W. Bush supporter, you probably will too. Hey, I'd sign the petition if I resided in San Francisco. I live just north in Marin County, and I think there are too many republicans in Marin to get the sewage treatment plant renamed "The Novato George W. Bush sewage treatment plant".

I warned y'all

Back in July of 2006 I mentioned that congress had again weakened our safety and consumer rights with the National Uniformity for Food Act (see the blog entry HERE). It looks like it's getting worse because the following snippet was sent to my phone this morning:
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V.USGOV Tainted tomatoes highlight how Congress forfeited some food-safety opportunities in the new farm bill.(KRWB)
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The full text of the article can be seen HERE.

--Sent from my cell phone--

The future's so bright, you gotta wear shades

Today's post is for those of you with a bit of science geek in ya.

NASA is going to the sun. HUH? Yeah, they're going to send a probe into the corona. It's considerably hotter there than than on the surface, and they're hopefully gonna figure out why (assuming the probe doesn't burn up in the process)

Of course, we have to wait another 6.5 years before they're ready to launch, but this looks like one of the cooler (uh... should I have said "hotter?") missions that's NASA's got up it's sleeve.

Hopefully they'll publish more about the materials and science they'll be using.. then my inner geek will be satisfied, because this is really just a teaser.

Phone Call to Best Foods

In an ongoing effort to reduce the amount of plastic in my life, I've started contacting the manufacturers of the products I like and asking them to go back to glass/ceramic/paper, reduce packaging, go organic (yeah right!) and otherwise "go green". I'm all for small companies putting out great green products in green packaging, but the way to affect REAL change is to change the behavior of the people who are controlling the majority of the market share (Kraft, ConAgra, Cargill, Safeway, Albertsons... take your pick). Today we're going to use mayonnaise for our example.

I grew up eating mayo on just about every sandwich. I love sandwiches, and I've yet to find a replacement that tastes as good to me as Best Foods Mayonnaise. I know it's not particularly good for me, so I try to put as little on as I can get away with, but I love the stuff. For the sake of argument, we'll call it one of my guilty pleasures (because I'm bothered by the fact that I'm contributing to a multinational corporation with a rather spotty record.

Used to be that mayo always came in glass jars. They were useful for lots of things when you were done storing mayo in them... drinks and fluids of all sorts come to mind (my favorite was lightly used degreaser that I reused). So why the switch to plastic jars? Sure, they break less and weight less so they cost less to ship... but plastic almost NEVER gets recycled, and you can't take one mayonnaise jar and reuse it as another mayo jar or melt it down and make another one (a stupid idea anyway, but at least you can do it). Plastic mayo jars... well, it's hard to every get them really clean. I certainly wouldn't store other edible fluids in them (the washing process tends to scratch the inside of the jar and everyone knows (don't they?) about how plastics degrade when you scrub them... yuck.) The plastic (even after scrubbing) always seems to retain the smell of the mayo... the glass ones never did that.

So I called them to let them know what I think of their plastic packaging... the first thing they said was that they hadn't used glass in 2 years (and I don't think she meant it to sound as flippant as she sounded). I told her that I had only recently become aware of the "eastern garbage patch" and that I didn't want to contribute to that anymore with their mayo jars. She became a lot more polite after that, wrote down my comment and said that she would forward it to the marketing dept. We shall see. If you feel like I do, start calling the people who make the products you like and tell them what you want: the won't know any other way (focus groups are stupid and they know that when people actually volunteer their comments without any pay, that they're getting real data). They need to hear from a LOT of people in order to make changes. I implore you, dear reader, to ask for reduced packaging and packaging that allows for true re-use: if I haven't HAMMERED this point enough, read the article about plastic in the ocean, ok?

Tempted more than once...

... to do THIS. Rick Smith of Yehuda Moon has got one of the best cycling based comics I've ever seen. It's funny, witty and spot on accurate. I've known and know people who are each and every character in the comic.. I feel right at home.

Those of you who aren't bikey people may not get all the humor, but those of you have seen my bicycles, will get a laugh out of THIS episode.

My sentiments exactly

There's a special place in hell for bicycle thieves, but when you catch one in the act... hell hath no fury like a cyclist catching a bike thief, and we come equipped to maim. NOW SEE HERE!

Greatest Underwear... Ever.

Ok ok ok.. I'm usually not one to rant and rave about things... wait, no, that's no right, I rant all the time. What I don't usually do is give my endorsement to clothing companies, THAT'S what I meant to say. But I have to gush about one particular piece of clothing I recently acquired that has become my favorite, so much so that several days ago I ordered 5 more so I could have one for almost every day of the week (I have 6 of them now). They arrived today and it occurred to me that I should share my discovery with others, so here we go!

Devold Multi Sport Boxer shorts. Hands down, they rule supreme over the nether regions. Women have their favorite panties, mostly favored for their sex appeal, or for how sexy they make the wearer feel. There's nothing particularly sexy about these underwear but they outperform and outshine every other boxer I've ever worn, hands down.

I originally read about them in the Rivendell Bicycle Works catalog, though I can't remember if it was the online version or the print catalog. Doesn't matter really. I pondered them several times, wondering what Grant Peterson was so excited about: underwear are underwear right? I'd tried "coolmax" underwear from REI and wasn't impressed: too hot, the "wicking" was a joke and they didn't fit right (too long in the crotch, seams in bad places), not to mention the fact that they chaffe on a bicycle seat, at least for me. Sorry if that's TMI, but we're talking about underwear here, so stop if you're squeamish.. whatever. I finally decided to pull the trigger, and I ordered some socks too. It turned out to be one of the better purchases I've ever made over the internet.

Now understand this: I am normally a cheap BASTARD when it comes to underwear. Shelling out $31 for a pair of underwear seemed an ASTRONOMICAL amount of money to pay for such a small piece of clothing, even if it IS made of Merino wool. I was skeptical, especially since you can never return underwear because it's against state law, or something like that. I figured if I got the wrong size I'd have to use them for a rag: thankfully I got the size right. It's not something you can generally find in your local store: Devold garments come from Norway, and very few people carry these. I'm not sure why this is, but it's a crying shame as far as I'm concerned.

So far I've done every sport I do in these underwear, and they wick better, dry faster, are cooler and more comfortable... and they don't smell. I've ridden for hours in these underwear, wore them the rest of the day, took them off at night and hung them up... and they didn't smell the next day. IMPOSSIBLE in any other pair of underwear (I've checked). I decided to torture test the underwear and wear them until they started to smell. 5 days folks. For me that's a miracle, akin to turning water into wine. If I was touring the country by bicycle, I'm fairly certain I could get by with just 2 pairs of these, at least until I wore one pair out.

Riding a bicycle in regular clothes is something the folks at Rivendell endorse heavily and about 8 months ago, I decided to try it. Kent Peterson pointed out at one point that for those who ride a lot, you soon weed out what works for riding and what doesn't and Grant pointed out the same thing but added that you soon realize that your "riding" wardrobe is about 3-4 times the size it was before you started riding in "regular" clothes. The interesting thing I've figure out lately is that even padded cycling shorts can cause chafing, but my Devolds NEVER chafe. They don't offer the padding that cycle specific shorts do, but unless you're going to ride over 20 miles (and you have a comfortable saddle: I prefer Brooks saddles), you don't really NEED cycling shorts. People who don't ride very often think that a big squishy gel seat is the way to go to keep you tender posterior from hurting. For rides under a couple of miles, you could probably get away with this. Anything more (especially in warm to hot weather) and you're gonna hate that seat. I do have an avenir saddle that I bought back in 2000 for my Burning Man bike that is sprung AND has a little gel in it: it's a VERY comfortable seat, but it's not "squishy"... just very supple. I've ridden all day around Burning Man for years and my butt is never sore. It's downside is that it doesn't breathe well at all (unlike my Brooks seats) so it does get sweaty, but as far as comfort, it's a champ. Saddle selection is one of the most crucial parts of riding a bike as it's one of the 3 spots where you body interacts directly with the bicycle. If it's uncomfortable, you're not gonna be happy. What you wear next to your skin is almost as important as the saddle, though this varies person to person. Anything with seams in the crotch is a no-no for me on anything further than about 11 miles. The Devold undies for me are good for all the distances I've biked since I've bought them (the longest being a little over 40 miles.)

Well, I'd better wrap this up: try out the Devold undies. They are great for cycling and everything else too. They are ACTUALLY worth the $31 dollars: I can think of several other things I've spent more money on that aren't anywhere near this comfortable!

Open letter to 3M

I was doing dishes tonight and I needed a sponge. So I dug around in the kitchen and found a pack of 3M sponges I'd bought a few months back. Sponges are one of those things that's ubiquitous in every modern kitchen. Most people don't spend more than a few minutes a year thinking about sponges. Normally, I don't either, but I hadn't opened a new sponge since before my February 6 entry (and for those of you who are wondering, YES we've replaced our sponges since February, but my wife has done it the last few times) about reducing plastic. I was dismayed to see that each sponge was individually wrapped inside the larger package. For one, I was annoyed to have to open yet another layer with wet hands, and second: what the hell is the point? The outer packaging contains all the pertinent info but it's certainly not full and could take the additional info that the individual wrappers have.

I thought about where the wrapper would go once I threw it in the trash. In an ideal world, I could compost it and use it to feed my garden, but we are living in a far-from-ideal world. More than likely, it will go to the Marin Sanitary (who thought THAT would be a good word to add to a DUMP?) Landfill, but if I'm very unlucky, it'll end up in the "Eastern Garbage Patch" out in the north pacific gyre. At that point, it'll likely be ingested by a fish or other animal and cause death and mayhem for that creature. Lovely. Either way, plastic wrap that can't be reused / recycled is just plain stupid. SO.. I decided to start taking a stand, one product at a time. Many folks might argue against buying this kind of packaging in the first place, and that's ok too, but it's far more pro-active to ask for changes from companies that are going to continue on with the status quo unless the market demands that they change. I started by writing to 3M: here's the text of my email.

Several months ago I purchased a 15 pack of Scotch-Brite Multi Purpose NO SCRATCH Scrub Sponges (Item 15550). I believe I purchased them from Costco in Novato, CA. I am writing to implore the marketing and management branches of 3M to reconsider their packaging for this item, and other items like it. The amount of packaging in this product is excessive, as each sponge is individually wrapped INSIDE the larger wrapper. That extra plastic goes immediately into the trash and is a waste of precious global resources and landfill space. It is also NOT biodegradeable (there are NO petroleum based plastics that are) and it increases the cost of the product AND it's impact on the planet. Please consider reducing your packaging to minimalist levels and ALSO using a corn/soy based biodegradable plastic or better yet, recycled paper for your packaging needs. The global biosphere and your customers will thank you for being caring about their pocketbooks AND the future of the planet. Please let me know how and if 3M has any plans to implement greener packaging policies: it greatly affects the probability of me buying your products in the future. It's imperative for me to use sustainable products ,and companies that can't "get with the program" will lose my business to companies that can.

I look forward to your reply.

A copy of this email will be posted to my blog (http://nollij.blogspot.com) as well as any reply you choose to send.

I think it's a good thing to ask for a reply and some sort of accountability when you write a letter like this. I hope they follow through in replying and I REALLY hope they make some changes.

A couple of excerpts from the article I linked to in my Feb 6th entry:

This news is depressing enough to make a person reach for the bottle. Glass, at least, is easily recyclable. You can take one tequila bottle, melt it down, and make another tequila bottle. With plastic, recycling is more complicated. Unfortunately, that promising-looking triangle of arrows that appears on products doesn’t always signify endless reuse; it merely identifies which type of plastic the item is made from. And of the seven different plastics in common use, only two of them—PET (labeled with #1 inside the triangle and used in soda bottles) and HDPE (labeled with #2 inside the triangle and used in milk jugs)—have much of an aftermarket. So no matter how virtuously you toss your chip bags and shampoo bottles into your blue bin, few of them will escape the landfill—only 3 to 5 percent of plastics are recycled in any way.

“There’s no legal way to recycle a milk container into another milk container without adding a new virgin layer of plastic,” Moore says, pointing out that, because plastic melts at low temperatures, it retains pollutants and the tainted residue of its former contents. Turn up the heat to sear these off, and some plastics release deadly vapors. So the reclaimed stuff is mostly used to make entirely different products, things that don’t go anywhere near our mouths, such as fleece jackets and carpeting. Therefore, unlike recycling glass, metal, or paper, recycling plastic doesn’t always result in less use of virgin material. It also doesn’t help that fresh-made plastic is far cheaper.

and

Except for the small amount that’s been incinerated—and it’s a very small amount—every bit of plastic ever made still exists,” Moore says, describing how the material’s molecular structure resists biodegradation. Instead, plastic crumbles into ever-tinier fragments as it’s exposed to sunlight and the elements. And none of these untold gazillions of fragments is disappearing anytime soon: Even when plastic is broken down to a single molecule, it remains too tough for biodegradation.
Truth is, no one knows how long it will take for plastic to biodegrade, or return to its carbon and hydrogen elements. We only invented the stuff 144 years ago, and science’s best guess is that its natural disappearance will take several more centuries. Meanwhile, every year, we churn out about 60 billion tons of it, much of which becomes disposable products meant only for a single use. Set aside the question of why we’re creating ketchup bottles and six-pack rings that last for half a millennium, and consider the implications of it: Plastic never really goes away.

"Our Oceans are turning into plastic... are we?" by Susan Casey

----------UPDATE: 5.19.2008----------

So I got an email back from 3M. I was not surprised to see that is says NOTHING of significance and generally implies that it wasn't read by a human. I will continue to post any feedback I receive from 3M, but I'm not getting my hopes up. Here's the text of the email:

Dear Ian,

Thank you for taking the time to share your comments/concerns with 3M. Feedback from our customers is an integral part of our business and we encourage it. Please know that we have forwarded your message to our marketing and lab departments.

We appreciate your input!

Cordially,

3M Home Care Division
800-846-8887
www.ocelo.com
www.scotchbrite.com
www.scotchlint.com

Surly's Swervy is my hero

If you've ever been honked at by a motorist (on your bicycle man, not while you were DRIVING stupid!) and wished you could have the last laugh, read THIS blog entry by Swervy. It made me laugh out loud and pump my fist in the air. I've got 2 words for obnoxious honking rude cagers... but I think you already know what I'm going to say. ;)