Parking Day LA DEMO

It was so hot today at the demo spot (Madison and Santa Monica Blvd). So, so hot. I almost melted in my sneakers. I had to wear booty shorts because the thought of being restrained in anything more almost blew my brain out my ear.

School's starting soon, should be able to get a grip of cool projects. I will start my first sewing expedition (if all is well with the machine) next week.

:D

COME TO PARKING DAY L.A. SEPT. 18! I shall be in the LOADING ZONE group passing out delicious pie coins and cupcakes!

Sustainability Challenge: Cupcakes and Pie Coins

Okay, so it's not an easy challenge but it might save me money in the long haul. Jeremy asked me to participate in Parking Day LA, a public collective project with an objective:

"... bring together a diverse constituency of community groups, neighborhood councils, design & architecture firms, professional organizations, non-profits, cyclists & pedestrian advocates as they work together to transform numerous parking spaces & parking lots located throughout LA into ephemeral parks for the day. By occupying a parking spot and feeding the meter, volunteers will enhance the street with a sustainably designed pocket-park." - Parking Day LA, About Page.

I'm in the bandwagon with all the local Greensters, a cycling group that supplies a sustainable choice in the film industry.

I'm doing a cupcake cart, offering cupcakes by the cupboodles for every boy and girl in town.

Right now different ideas are being thrown around. The moment I suggested using bags or popsicle sticks, it was a definitive "NO!" So, hmm, how am I going to give out bundles of cupcakes and pie coins if I can't put them in a bag, or offer them individually on sticks?

He suggested I use reuseable containers for storage and to hand them out with gloves. I'm not sure what planet he came from, but on Planet America a lot of people would find it gross and give them a weird flashback to the icky lunch lady from the high school cafeteria. (Remember when you caught her picking her nose with the gloves ON?)

Food service is gross. No way around it. The act of eating food reminds us that we have to poop sometime, and the thought of poop makes us want to vomit, and when we want to vomit we often burp, and when we burp it makes us feel satisfied.

Weird [reverse?] circle of life.

Another suggestion he brought up was to have my cupcake cart (which is just a heavy cargo bicycle with a cardboard rendition of a cupcake posted on the front) be almost like an ice cream serving station with this scenario: I open up my cardboard cupcake, at the top tier will be a selection of cupcake flavors for which they'll have they choice and I'll slather on a delicious frosting.

Logistic nightmare for a long, hot day (which will be hot, since it's September, and it will be long since it's all day, biking across the city). The frosting will melt, the cupcakes may not stay, and it may still involve me handing out food in plastic gloves.

There's no real way around this but this sustainability crap is a pain in the pass. There are no biodegradable plastic "treat bags" or "100% recycled from newspaper" popsicle sticks. No "keep me forever" lightweight cardboard boxes, or decorative styles that coordinate with this demand.

I get the sneaking suspicion as if I'm doomed to fail. How can an amateur baker rise up to this challenge? It seems almost too difficult.

But a commitment is a commitment. And I foresee myself donning on those hot, sweat-inducing gloves. In reality, it comes down to a thought: disposable plastic gloves that will get dirty from a bike ride across the city, or the simple cleanliness of a cellophane bag?

Sometimes sustainability sucks.

Attempting...

To do a project. I just got a sewing machine from a family member... now I remember that I don't know how to sew.

I'm so hopeless!

Support

I'm a big fan of webcomic artists quitting their dayjobs and focusing fully on their art (mainly entertaining me) but even in these dire economic times, people are focusing on their wallets and not on donations.

So support Family Man. It's a realistic period drama that keeps me on the edge of my toes because I want to know who the damn werewolf is.

Also, Family Man's creator did NOT quit her job (it's not clear what happened, layoff/termination/etc?) but for whatever reason, SUPPORT YOUR WEBCOMIC MASTERS!

....they feed us, you know.

Officially Looking For a Second Job

The Economic Crisis (recession, my ass. This is a Depression Remix) is getting us all in little bits. Several months ago I was contemplating leaving my job to find something better suited to a schedule for full-time college status.

Forget that. I can't even get a raise to compensate the rent increase for my studio. Who honestly raises the rent when everyone's getting laid off? They must be really stupid or really greedy (or both).

So now in leiu of finding another better paying job, I've just got to work on supplementing my income and work every living hour I've got off from work. Or work two part-time jobs. I'm actually considering the latter. I'd leave the 9-5 for the 4-10 or 7-12? I mean, it would free up SOME unconventional time for me to pay bills, do schoolwork, go to the library..attend class..

So I'll just submit my resume some places. Anyone else feel the same sort of crunch?

My mini-essay to a Nonprofit Organization hiring fieldworkers for transportation lobbying

Like many in my generation, I believe that a return to mass public transportation in the form of rail lines (light and underground) is a statement to the future. No longer can Los Angeles depend solely on roads and freeways; we need something else for those who care for the environment, who cannot afford luxuries like cars and the insurance and upkeep it requires, who want something easier than dealing with a daily dose of road rage.

I think there needs to be more pressure on these issues, probably more than one thinks. Ultimately if a large urban structure like Los Angeles operated primarily on rail - and to a lesser extent buses - and relied on cars as a secondary form of travel, several happy side effects would occur. For one, tourism would increase if there was easier ways to travel across the vast expanse of L.A. Another happy side effect: jobs, jobs, jobs. More rail, more jobs - in every sense of the word; jobs to operate and navigate mass transit, jobs to upkeep and take care of those operations, and jobs to build the machinery and infrastructure. Ultimately, I think that this route would make more sense than the senseless repairing of roads (not to mention all the potholes in L.A. that will never be filled in anyone's current lifetime) and would actually give long-term profit and make fiscal sense.

So I want to make a difference in this area and inspire others to take charge and remind them that above all, mass transportation has the most to benefit and offer Los Angeles (and the world) and its citizens.

Etsy Mania?...

[These are so cute. I wonder though where to get that nifty ipod cover?]

[Annnnnd so are these.]

And I wonder if my boyfriend views me as this:

[Hubba, hubba.]

Or this:

[Meooooow.]

Perhaps something a bit more practical...?

[The Bike Burrito]

[... Not as tasty as it sounds.]

Also:

• For those who have a sense of humor and know people who still call the saddle a "seat".
• The "The Hipster Who Ironically Lists Off Bicycle Parts on His T-shirt" shirt.
• For the fashionable lady on wheels.
• Trashion knows its time, dontcha know.
• Know your place, bike.
• Sweet mother of god, someone get me this.
• Even though the movie sucked, this leatherhead rocks.
• Probably this truest button in the world.
• I normally think bike necklaces are lame, but these are TOO CUTE!
• So my bf's vibe.
• If I remotely liked bells and horns adorning my bicycle, this would be it.
• This bag actually looks hip.
• Hot belt, bitch!

Etsy, you have impressed me, but you're oversaturated with crappy unoriginal overpriced tshirts and jewelry. Come on, now!!

Pigeons?

My bf's neighbor brought up an interesting point: what about radio frequency dependant homing signals like the ones they use on homing pigeons?

Also: link. This looks promising.

Totally Random

I know.

But, I found this interesting. Commoncraft is genius.



They've got a lot of different videos not just on the financial sector, but Blogs, Internet, and even a Green category. They can also make custom videos for your company!

Sa-weet!

It's like they're picking my brain...

Oh My God.

They know me. I feel like they do.

Sometimes BikeForums can be redundant, but other times they're a true melting pot of ideas, especially for the project I want to persue.

Several people pointed out stuff I thought I came up with:

• "I bet it would work pretty well inside a carbon frame. Inside the seat tube would be my suggestion as well, or simply fabbed into the frames on high end carbon bikes. The device itself wouldn't have to be that expensive - it's basically just a cell phone.The biggest problem I see with this is that it would require a battery that would have to be recharged periodically, meaning it would have to be accessible somehow." RazorWind
• "...I know this may sound completely off the wall on first glance - but what if riding the bike actually charges the battery? Either through the motion of the cranks or... something... Again, it may be a little off the wall of an idea." Prendrefeu
• "Seems like you'd have to design the whole bike around it in order to make that happen, and I think the battery would need to be replaceable, as even the best rechargeables wear out after just a couple of years...The people I could see thinking this is useful would be the folks who use bikes as transportation - urban dwelling freds and fixie-riding hipster doofuses. The fixie scenesters might be willing to pay for it, but I'm not so sure about the urban freds. I have a feeling it would be hard to sell them on a subscription service that costs more than a few bucks a month." RazorWind
• "At a reasonable price it would be mostly oriented towards the commuters - but also anyone, really. I would pay a low fee per year for coverage. I mean, low fee to recover a bicycle saves time and stress if the bicycle is stolen - a lot of work, time, and energy goes into getting that bicycle just right for each rider/owner. Customization, fitting, parts... in a sense, it does become as 'valuable' to someone as a car. How low can the monthly fee be? Pretty damn low if the service business is set up on an intelligent and efficient platform." Prendrefeu
• "stash it in a water bottle, or they should make one that looks like something else, like a bikepump, or u can hide it under something like that. they could also make it so it is a feature in a bike computer, or bike gps. u could also hide it under your handlebar tape too. and for the identification chip, i think i heard u an register your bike at most police stations, so if they find it they can know whos it is by the frame number or something or other." The_Spaniard
• "put it in the steerer tube, sitting on the brake caliper mounting bolt and run the antenna through the fork.you can power it through some dyno type device." AEO
• "Depending on the size of the technology, you could drop it into the down tube with the seat post removed. The antenna would have to feed through the seat post and somehow be adhered to the under-side of the saddle. ...at least that's one option. Great until someone rips off your seat/post.Yeah, but it could be really deep in the seat-tube. There's usually a lot of distance to cover/place a transmitter between the BB shell and the space where a seatpost would typically occupy." Prendrefeu
• "Has this been attempted before? Does this service exist?Is there someone on BF who has the capital to start a company offering this service?I'd pay for it." Prendrefeu

Yeah, I hear ya Prendrefeu. But I know how people are. If you want something done, you gotta do it yourself.

And once you get the ball rolling and people want that ball - competition starts, more efficient models come out, we get progress...

And THAT is how America is supposed to work people. :D Free enterprise, dreams coming true, "the ball is rolling".

I'm gonna come back to this post and the BikeForum dialogue periodically. For now, I'll continue my research.

This would be a lot easier if I knew anything about Electronics.

A power solution?

Bicycle Generator by Instructables user dbc1218.

I was hypothesizing last night to the bf (who rolled his eyes at my frantic efforts) that what if the best power source was not a clumsy large battery (or a small unrenewable one which would have to be replaced frequently) but.. THE BIKE ITSELF.

(dun dun dun)

I scare myself with my geniousity.

Truthfully, this is a fantastic option for those who are familiar with how a Prius works. Now, I'm not in favor of the vehicle because it still needs to be improved to run either on pure fuel cell or pure electricity (forget solar, unless you live in an arid area like Arizona that can take solar power and store it for cloudy days), but I digress, running away from my point.

A Prius (and any other vehicle modeled after it) works like this (link).

"The car is capable of driving just with the electric engine (the red one in
the diagram). When you get in and turn it on, the gas engine doesn't even
start up. That's part of what makes it so great in city driving: when
you're not moving, the engine isn't idling. It's completely off.

When the batteries run low, the gas engine (the blue one in the diagram) turns itself on. It doesn't drive the wheels, though. Instead, it just turns the alternator to power up the batteries.

The electric engine is fine at low speeds, and accelerates great, but it
isn't enough to drive the car at highway speeds. Around 40 MPH, the gas
engine turns on and helps to drive the wheels.

The other great thing about city driving in the Prius is "regenerative
braking". Instead of just applying brake pads, the Prius is capable of
running its engine in reverse, letting the wheels power the engine to turn the alternator to produce more electricity, which is stored in the batteries. That both slows the car and powers the batteries to start up again. A regular car just turns the motion of the wheels into heat, which is wasted. "

I think this project has the potential for establishing a good renewable source of energy. A battery that can be powered by a bicycle - which in turns powers the tracking device so even when you aren't biking, you can keep track of it. And when the thief nabs it, he unwittingly powers up his own demise: you finding the signal and catching him!

Yeah, sure, I gotta fine tune the schematics, but the concept IS genius, right?

Right.

Breakthrough?

I haven't given up on my "tracking device for bikes" dream.

Every few days I devote myself to mindless wandering and then something will spark. An idea, a thought, a plan - a keyword: make.

Makezine is probably the best resource out there for DIYers. Sometimes I feel frustrated with the website because I remember way before when, when the zine didn't focus so much on the robo-microchip-fetishistic worship it does now. You know. When it used to throw a bone to the mainstream.

I guess now it's too concentrated and weird sometimes, but it's nevertheless an excellent resource. And I'm thankful now that they did get a wee bit techie, because it led me here: sparkfun.

See, I don't want to just buy a tracking device and pay a fee to have it monitored. I want something affordable. I want something small. I want something HACKABLE.

So this shows promise.

Also, a coworker informs me that there's lojack for laptops (how about a free version, yo? 40 bucks is too much).

If it weren't for the stunning logic that bicycles have no power sources, I'd declare this an outrage (aside from the lack of demand and price that prevents an average cyclist from getting the available yet undesirable tracking devices on the market).

I'll continue to update you. I feel I am close.

Also: bike alarm. I'm on the waiting list to hack this for my own devious means.

L.A. Times

Sometimes I feel like the Opinion/Editorial section is the only place that matters.

Only now do they cover the election when it's actually, uh, over.

Sheesh. Let me hurrah the end of newspapers, because the end of the Times can't come soon enough.

Re-election

I think elections should mean something. I think they're the perfect opportunity to express your voice.

If you don't like something, run for office.

And it feels like lately, there's nothing I like in Californian politics.

So I think next election cycle, I'm going to serious run against whoever is "unopposed". I want to ask questions and stir up drama.

But mostly, I guess I shouldn't be disappointed in the people of L.A. for not showing up in droves. A lot of them probably weren't aware that yesterday they had to vote (for Mayor, for City Controller, for a bunch of measures that shouldn't have passed yet did). I blame the media for not 'hyping' it up like they should've - afterall, if they can on a regular basis make mountains out of molehills, why not at least do some coverage? Do candidates need to do publicity stunts to get attention for their elections? Sometimes I'm disappointed in the city of L.A. So much potential, yet so little delivery.

So now they'll have to suffer the consequences. It only fuels my anger that we have to go through this (again, and again, and again).

But it all goes back to education: those that are educated about the tools they have available to use will most likely use them. And a good majority of Los Angelinos are not educated, let alone the percentage that are legal citizens.

So I guess the lesson here is guys: when your opponent is big and rich, 'underdog' it. Use the resources that you DO have available: the internet (twitter, blog, myspace, facebook, chat, IM, youtube), word of mouth (friends, relatives, random people), viral advertising (posters on poles, buses, freeways), and best of all - your diligence. Your strength and determination and pride are all on the line which is all it takes to gamble it all.

Go big or go home.

Seriously.

Wrap Me Up

I'm a bubble gum enthusiast. The foil wrappers, the tangy artificial taste, and the numbing occupation of chewing for hours and hours on end.

Since I was a kid, I haven't kept up with my bubble gum chewing habits in a while. Recently though, Elixir gum made me rethink this.

It's not the flavor, kids. It's the wrapper.




Beautiful, brocade-ish, pink wrapper. I feel like I'm on cloud nine everytime I look at it.

And so the inspiration begins: this would make a beautiful fabric. Unfortunately, not many people believe in the ability of "thinking out of the box" as far as sewing together foil bubble gum wrappers. I believe in my heart of hearts I can pull this off (if only I knew how to sew.)

So I'd like to kick off my project outline: Candy Wrappers - The Unknown Frontier of Crafting.

Sure, everyone knows how to make Starburst Wrapper Bracelets.


Or you can shoe it.

Even a dress, hat, and really, that's it.

My ambition is to take it one step further. To actually make a dress out of bubble gum foil wrappers. Oh yeah, it's hard, but is it do-able?

Theoretically, sure - why not? Bond the individual wrappers, cut out a pattern, maybe even line the wrappers with a softer malleable fabric/material.

Maybe a mini dress like Pinto's.. or something like Belle's (which is a flippin hot pattern).

So I'm going to start to collect my wrappers! Squee!

In other news, I'm still eyeing this old chair I still have from my salvaging expedition four months ago from a Hollywood residential street.

I was inspired by this. Of course, I don't think I can pull off a duplicate without the whole thing screaming: KNOCKOFF!! But with this sort of chair "shape", patterns wouldn't work because of the 'curve'. So probably a solid color.

I just have difficulty picking a color, buying the fabric, and deboning the damn thing like I said I was going to four months ago. It's now unofficially the cats' hangout, happy to have something they can climb all over and scratch and ruin because it's already ruined anyway. And now I'm thinking about getting this chair (even though it's in CHATSWORTH of all places, and I have no real mode of transportation to get it to me). But it's sooooo coooooool looking and it's got potential up the ying yang to be OFF THE HOOK.

I mean, come on - I can tell it can be a REALLY cool lounge chair. And it's FREE (unless you remember the fact that upholstery can run up to 200 bucks even if you are doing it yourself.)

But I almost don't want to get it just because, well, I HAVEN'T EVEN REUPHOLSTERED THE OTHER ONE. I don't want my place to be FULL of chairs I'm not USING for sitting down (instead of a dump ground for papers, broken locks, and cats).

BUT IT'S SOOOOO COOOL LOOKING and I know how hard it is to find a chair like this FREE!

So I'm gonna stew on it til the end of the day and then beg whomever can pick this chair up for me (at a minimal cost, gadzooks!)

Every weekend, I tell myself: okay, I'm gonna do something, gonna do something, gonna get something finished.

And I almost never do. Not in the sense of physically putting together what's inside my head.

Like for instance, this past weekend was going to be focused on planning/building my kitchen table. The closest I got was doodling the dimensions on my sketchpad and handing it to the BF.

That's it. That's all I did.

And it's like, well look man... All I need is a table with four stools. A nice high bar-inspired table, rectangularish.. maybe a square. Small enough to be quaint in my kitchen - but enough space to put a few dishes on there, a game board, something like that. And I don't want to break the budget of $100 total.

Inspiration: Apartment Therapy's Katzies!

Cayenne Pepper Mistake

Ooooh.

Never again.

Never never never again.

I don't even know why I even picked UP the cayenne pepper canister and decided "well, gee, this would make a nice spice rub for some shrimp.. and oh, why don't I just POUR MORE OVER THE TOMATO SAUCE? BECAUSE I'VE NEVER HAD CAYENNE PEPPER BEFORE!"

Foolish me, I forgot how it tastes. I normally have an aversion to spicy stuff. I'm more of a "light to heavy MILD, thank you." It's the white in me.

So when I decided to invent a tomato-spaghetti-shrimp sauce of my own (with udon noodles of course) I'm not sure what I was thinking when I added paprika (spicy), cayenne pepper (ouch), regular pepper (okay), and spied what was also JALEPENOS in the canned sauce as well. What was I thinking?

I'll post up the ingredients to the sauce anyway. No pictures, sorry!

SUPER NONROMANTIC SPICY SHRIMP TOMATO SAUCE

1 lb. raw deveined shrimp
Garlic salt
Sea salt
Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Paprika
Fish seasoning
Basil
(1) Canned Stewed Tomatoes
(1) Tomato Sauce
Garlic
Canola Oil

Directions

For the rub:
3 tbs. cayenne pepper (note: I would recommend you cut this back to 1 tsp., lol)
1 tsp. paprika
2 tbs. fish seasoning
1 tsp. garlic salt

First I lightly fried the minced garlic in canola oil before adding one by one the spiced-rubbed shrimp to the pan.

Then after all the shrimp is cooked, add the stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce. Stir.

Add spices to taste, as well as salt. Enjoy!

I could NOT eat this at all. I normally eat a plate and a half before I get full and this time I ate barely half a plate. It was way too spicy for me to handle. The BF gulped it down without much comment - because as he puts it, "spicy doesn't bother me like it does you."

*pout*

Right. Okay. Well, for now the cayenne pepper is on temporary ban because I am a little scarred.

Also, the ride was a perpetual disaster. Totally disorganized. Usually the criticism is that Critical Mass stops TOO OFTEN. This time they didn't stop ENOUGH. Two hours before a stop happened! We ditched before that happened.

Also noticed a good majority of literal drug addicts in the streets of L.A. Saw a homeless man's penis (please, don't ask). Saw at least three crackheads get in conflicts on the sidewalk/in businesses.

It's getting to the point where I'm really afraid to go out at night even with someone else. I really wish L.A. advertised women's defense classes more - that the government pretended to care about how women feel at night, alone - how we want to stand up and be independent, yet we need boyfriends to escort us home. It's ridiculous: how come we have ten billion dance classes, the majority on how to be a part time stripper---



BUT NO FLIPPIN' WOMEN'S DEFENSE CLASSES IN THE CENTRAL L.A. AREA? If I'm wrong, please, go right ahead, correct me.

It's really frustrating.

It's not enough just to carry a bottle of bear mace. There's a thousand scenarios I can think of where a woman is in a situation that mace could not fix.

I think the L.A. City Council needs to think long and hard about who pays their salaries. After all, women are graduating more on average from high school, we're slowly turning the tables on men as far as education, getting jobs (in most areas), and as powerful consumers/breadwinners.

I demand protection and education. Is that so much? (Yes.)

Search for Tracking Devices

To fit inside a bike.

Last December, my prized bicycle was stolen from a Silverlake residential neighborhood. Granted, it was partially my fault for believing that area could be safe for overnight parking when you know, cars are frequently broken into. But I thought, hell, the rent is so high here, there's no way "riff-raffs" can afford to live in this neighborhood.

Ank! - wrong answer.

Truth is, even with a steel cable lock, your bicycle is not safe anywhere in Los Angeles, even in your own home. That's the sad fact: nothing you can do can prevent your bike from being taken away from you.

Last night coming from City College, a very somber upset 50 year old man was standing in the subway station, telling people around him that his bike (along with three others, including one locked with a kryptonite lock). It shook me up because it was just so sad and I felt his pain from firsthand experience. These people naively trusted their locks, the campus security, and the world that their bikes would stay there until they came out to get them.

It hit really, really close to home. I still can't stop thinking about.

Since that fateful December, I haven't ridden my new bike at all which I'm sad to say I don't "love" like I did my first bike. Maybe it's the style of the frame, or the ugly color to dissuade thefts, but I just don't feel that spark. Actually, the boyfriend had to convince me to buy it. It was a good deal, still is, but I just don't fawn and favor it. Where is my new bike now?

Sitting as a coat rack against a wall, dusty and ignored.

Everytime I look at it, I feel guilty. I can't even ride it around the block because I'm just so scarred by what happened before. The sensation of paranoia takes over me and my boyfriend's words come back to haunt me: No matter what you do, you cannot prevent your bike from being stolen.

So I sit here and I think, "God, why can't there just be this taboo on stealing someone's transportation?" I mean, it's heartbreaking, like someone's only car that they depended on to get to their work.

I've resolved to continue a search for a tracking device for a bike. I've come up with the following searches:

Memoryc.com
Pegtech.com - This is only available to Law Enforcement for bike theft sting operations.
Chinavasion.com - This looks a bit shady.
SurprisingGift.com
SpyHawk
Zoombak - I've heard hit and miss stuff about this. Inexpensive (relatively compared to others) tracking services, but it is not real-time and can actually promise more than it delivers.

Makezine also posted on a DIY tracking device, though I'm not sure how a Boost mobile phone can be incorporated on a bicycle, but it's probably cheaper than anything else out there right now.

The problem with this search boils down to several detterants:

Price
Availability
Usefulness
Effectiveness

It SEEMS like a genius idea: a tracking device to a bike would mean even if it got stolen, there's that chance you can find your bike and nab the guy who took it. But when you look closer at it, it's riddled with faults.

First of all, a GPS tracking system is expensive. Like at least 400+ USD. Second, the subscription to live tracking which is what you want (versus taking a GPS and logging it where it's already been - utterly useless if the bike is stolen with the GPS on it) could come out to 400-600 a year. So we're talking at least a $900 investment for say, a $600 bike.

For a practical, everyday, hardworking but not necessarily rich person, this price is ridiculous, especially now when layoffs are common and minimum wage is the median payroll.

So let's say we shove that factor aside and price is not an option, especially for someone who invested in a quality bike, doesn't have other financial commitments to tend to, and has a fairly well paid job: the availability for a bicycle tracking device is not there. It took me several hours of hunting on the web to find fairly good choices, but it's not like you can go into a bike shop and casually mention, "oh can you wrap up a GPS tracking system to go? I'm on my lunch break."

It's just not sound economics since the demand isn't there because the price is so high.

If we shove that factor aside as well, then it comes down to usefulness. You shell out the cash, you install the programs, you attach it discreetly to your bicycle - but guess what? It doesn't work!

Who's to say you'll even get your money back? If you will get your money back? Will it really prevent a bike theft or lead to bike recovery?

And of these tracking devices, very few I think could be retrofitted to a bike for minimal discovery, just because they're -well- huge.

Why can't it be simple? Why can't there be some sort of electronic microchip inside the bike?

The most you can do right now is this:

• Get a quality lock. Probably two.
• Do not leave it outside, overnight, anywhere, no matter what sense of security you have about the place.
• Learn how to lock your bike correctly.
• Get a bike license from your local fire or police station. Fee should be relatively low.
• Know your serial number, write it down, keep it safe. Trust me, I wish I did this for my first bike.
• Know the make, model, color of your bicycle, down to the wheels.
• Do not let anyone "test ride" your bicycle you don't know well.
• Write your name and serial number on a rolled up piece of aluminum from a soda can and stuff it inside one of the handlebars. Nifty cheap trick.
• Take pictures of your bike and inventory the parts, their receipts and prices, just in case it is stolen.
• Get renter's insurance. It can probably cover the theft of your bicycle and help pay for a replacement.

This advice only enhances the safety of your bike. It doesn't necessarily prevent the theft. Given enough time, any bike can be stolen, but if you put enough deterrants on there, the thief might go, "Aw, hell, forget this fixie, I'm gonna steal that Mountain Bike instead."

Recap:

• Cable locks are only good if you live in a town of 100 people or if your bike is super crappy that no one would steal it, even if you advertised: "Steal this bike. Please. I have cancer."
• By themselves, u-locks aren't perfect. And not all of them are created equal. But they're harder to break than just cable locks.
• My boyfriend recommended that American Lock be used instead of a kryptonite u-lock to lock the New York Noose Chain. Sturdier, much harder to break, and well, American.

I'll keep my eye out eternally because despite its cons, I think tracking devices for bicycles should be available to the public at an honest price, that work well, that can be concealed and not removed easily, because if we want bicycle commuting to work and for automobile traffic to go down (as well as pollution, weaning gas dependency, establish a better relationship between drivers and riders), we have to give the same assurances to a cyclist that we do to a motorist that their bike has the same chance of recovery as a car, as well as the same protection.

Enough ranting for a day!

See you at the Critical Mass tonight.

Vegan Ghormeh Sabzi - Is It Possible?

Probable. The thing about my favorite Persian dish of all time is that it's normally cooked with lamb meat (under other circumstances: chicken, beef, or even fish). Researching under the tags "vegan" "ghormeh sabzi" "recipe" proved to be an excruciating journey across the interwebs.

Why vegan? Other than the health benefits and the weight loss associated with the diet, I think I like the challenge of taking a "normal" recipe and substituting all the ingredients for vegetables/non-animal origin, trying to get as close or even better taste than the original. It's not that I'm a diehard vegan, but I like eating vegetarian/vegan stuff (especially since it can come out to be pretty cheap too compared to buying expensive meat).

So in my second attempt to get vegetarian/vegan ghormeh sabzi, let me chronicle my efforts. I don't have picture (sorry!) Next time I make this dish, I will. I took kat's recipe and made a few mods.

ROMANTIC FRESH HERB PERSIAN STEW

Materials
1 Stew pot
1 wooden spoon for stirring
1 knife
1 cutting board
1 ladle

Ingredients
1 white onion
sea salt
garlic powder (I had to use garlic salt, bleh)
2 cans of kidney beans, drained and rinsed
frozen spinach
1 bag of sabzi
water
olive oil
1 brown potato

Ideally, sure, I would love a meat substitute (like Quorn or TVP) but that stuff is out of my budget right now. BTW, Quorn is farkin delicious.

1. So first I chopped up the onion relatively fine, stirfried it in the olive oil in the stew pot.
2. I added hydrated sabzi (all of it, which may have been a mistake...) to it, as well as two whole cups of more water.
3. Then I added the potato and the kidney beans.
4. I cooked it on medium for a while (like 30 min.)
5. Served with basmati rice (the tahdig recipe, which I totally effed up. -_-;..)

So in conclusion, compared to my fenugreek-less ghormeh sabzi made from scratch, my first attempt of entirely fresh vegetables was more delicious than the 90% dried mix I used last night. The boyfriend was less than pleased and didn't even finish his plate. Luckily I actually like any form of ghormeh sabzi that won't give me food poisoning.

I think next time I make this, I'll add dried limes, reduce the dried herbs to 20%, bring back the fresh vegetables. But in the meanwhile, I'm left eating portions made for a LARGE AMISH FAMILY by myself. Boo!

I'm also thinking of exploring the option of cooking ghormeh sabzi (along with other Persian dishes) in a slow cooker because of my hectic schedule with school and work. I mean, who really wants to cook while they're already HUNGRY?

In other news: Trains are sexy back.

Blog direction

I've been thinking about this more recently about what this blog should be about.

Originally I wanted this blog to chronicle a novel I wanted complete sometime in the next few years called, 'Ask a Hopeless Romantic.' I wanted to set it up so that anyone who felt inclined to could send me a romance question and I could answer it. I wasn't exactly sure on how to set it up so the unquestionables couldn't ask me anything 'weird' so I ended up abandoning the idea even though the story is still in works.

Every so often when I peruse a blog entry, I go, "Gee, I should post something like that up." But I couldn't decide if I wanted a certain theme because the threat of choosing one subcategory would make it neat but ultimately confine to one category. If I went all or nothing, it'd be ecletic, yes, but also possibly confusing for someone trying to guide their way through my blog.

Maybe I should do a all-tutorial thing where every day or every week I post a tutorial on how to do something/how it works/so on and so forth. That'd be useful and create a theme, yet not restrain my curious soul.

I think what this blog's message is not to chronicle my life but give it a sort of record of the physical manifestation of my thoughts. I'd love it if it became popular, but even if it doesn't, I can look and be proud of what I created.

So yeah. I think it's a work in progress.

Please stay tuned for any last minute decisions or flighty plans.