Saving pennies, left and right (Kilala.nl (Cailin Coilleach)) by Cailin Coilleach

Q3 and Q4 of 2008 will see some hectic changes in our private and professional lives. We'll have our first child, Marli will possibly quit her job and I'll be geting a new job with a whole new set of responsibilities. While my new job brings a big fat paycheck (meaning "money++") the new baby and the possible loss of Marli's income will definitely mean "money--". I'm fairly sure that my increased income will be able to cover the loss of additional income and the drain formed by the baby. However, to be safe I'm scrounging left and right to make sure of it.

I just cancelled my subscription to GamesTM, which I've had for a few years. On a yearly basis it's not a big expense, but I haven't paid real attention to the mag for quite a while now anyway. At least not as much attention as I used to pay

I also called Ziggo, our ISP+Telco+Cable company, in order to consolidate our products. We currently use their Z1 TV, Z1 Phone and Z1 Internet packages, plus the extended DTV package. By rolling the three Z1 packages into their all-in-one package (and taking the 800 kbps hit in bandwidth) we'll save about ten bucks a month.

Other things we're looking at for savings are our weekly groceries (which we ought to be able to keep at sixty bucks a week once the baby's here) and our monthly utilities bill.

The one thing we can't save on and that forms a steady drain on our money are taxes and Marli's college loan. They're rather annoying insofar that we don't see the direct benefits of them, but we're still paying them :) Ah well...

Posted in: expensive , life , money , saving , scrounging

We finally got an HDTV [life, technology] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

We got a 50-inch plasma by Panasonic. Loving it so far. We’ve rented a few things in HD from the iTunes Music Store over our AppleTV which has been great. I’ve also converted a lot of movies to iTunes format and pushed them up to the AppleTV which also works pretty well.

The signal we get over broadcast is good too. The only thing I wish we could get is CNN and something like the Food Network. I really don’t want to sign up for cable or a satellite.

Here’s the pics:

From the couch

Dramatic weird angle shot

All the junk hooked up to it

Posted in: life , technology

Put in my notice [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Just thought I would mention here that as of this past Tuesday I put in notice that I will no longer be working for Stone Ward. I’m going to be working here for another few weeks, finishing up projects and transitioning my role, and after that I’m going to be moving on to other ventures.

I can’t say where I’ll be employed, but hopefully I can reveal that information next week.

I just want to say how much I’ve loved working with the interactive/online division of the agency and how nice, supporting, and smart all my coworkers in Little Rock and Chicago have been. I’ve especially made close connections with my Chicago peers and I know we’ll be great friends for a long time.

Some photos:

Last December’s Christmas Party:

I’ll miss you guys!

Posted in: life

News roundup (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf

In “Sport ‘bought access to Olympics’” the BBC looks into the possibility that keirin cycle racing organizers in Japan splashed a bit of money around to get the sport admitted to the Olympic lineup. Shocking, shocking to see a gambling industry involved in shady financial deals. I will have to confront my friend at the Bicycle Promotion Association of Japan with this development and see what he has to say.

In other news . . . Well, not all that much in the way of news to post here. There have been big earthquakes up north recently but I’ve managed to sleep through them all. Went to Hokkaido for the G8 summit and came back alive. Tokyo is hot hot hot now, making me want to go back to the Rusutsu hills. Sakura is tall and slender and energetic. She likes bananas, which makes this news story a troubling one to read. In September we’re going to take her back to California for her first overseas trip, first flight at all, and first time to use her two passports. Anyone in the Bay Area want to meet up around then?

This post brought to you by the letter D, the number 8, and the desire not to see this blog wither and die on the vine in the summer heat.

Posted in: general , japan , life

Nine weeks since my knee injury [biking, health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Welp, it’s nine weeks since I ripped my knee open while riding my bike on the way home from work in Chicago. I spent 3 of those weeks off my bike and recuperating. I also took two trips in the first two weeks after the crash, to Boston and San Francisco. That was by far the most difficult thing about the injury as my knee would begin to stiffen up and hurt if I spent more than 20-30 minutes standing around—lets not even talk about getting my knee to bend into an appropriate position for coach seats!

When I first started riding my bike again, the first 2 weeks were difficult. I had lost about 25% of the power in my injured leg and I really had to lean on my right leg for big pushes of acceleration, which was tough. Rides went from 10 minutes of pain, to 30 seconds of pain at the beginning.

After two weeks I would look forward to my morning ride as tool I work my knee a bit before I got to work. For a while there I would wake up in the morning with an extremely stiff knee and the bike ride was just what I needed to loosen it up.

Now that I’m nine weeks in, I’m 99.9% back to normal! I get the occasional weird tinge in my knee when I’m really cranking, but overall I’m faster than I’ve ever been. That last 0.1% is due to the fact that I no longer have any feeling on the top of my knee, but it’s not exactly at the top of my priority list ;)

Posted in: biking , health & lifestyle , life

It’s life, but not as we know it. (Stonetable) by Adam

Work continues to dominate the majority of my free time. We’re in the market to hire another solid PHP programmer. If you know of any, send them my way.

On the personal front, the legal process continues to unfold. Lots of communication back and forth with the divorce lawyer, working out details on a possible settlement. It would be nice if we reach a fair agreement and get off this roller coaster. We’ll go to trial if we must, even if it takes another six or nine months to get to a fair outcome, but I hope cooler heads and reason will prevail.

Things around the homestead of been mostly quiet of late. We celebrated my 33rd birthday last week. Some nagging allergy-related health issues have slowed me down a lot. On top of the usual sinus issues, I’m fighting inflammations in both ears. After dealing with a daily diet of Allegra D for more than a year, I think it’s time to see a specialist and get to the bottom of things.

Writing is slow but steady. I have several stories under revision and a few others in varied states of completion. I feel good about the writing I’m getting done. I just wish it were getting done faster. It’s been a year since the Jim Gunn workshop and I can see the progress I’ve made since then. Now I need to push through, editing to the best of my ability, and get these stories back out the door.
I’ve had good days and bad days, but time goes on and on and on. It’s easy to get disheartened by the weight of stress and frustration, the slow writing progress and the everyday pangs of life. One foot after the other, with an occasional glance over your shoulder to see where you’ve been. There ain’t no way out but through.

Posted in: life , uncategorized , writing

I am… (Stonetable) by Adam

…blogging. I’ve been lax on posting updates and commentary, so this is my make-up post.

…tired. Work has been absolutely crazy lately. Long days, longer nights. I’m really looking forward to the days where I can delegate much more of the work. I never thought I’d look forward to taking more of a management role but in this case it means sane hours.

…writing. My serious writing push started last spring and really gained momentum following the James Gunn Workshop last year. This year I’m on track with writing one new story a month, keeping the finished stories in circulation, and I’m gaining confidence in my abilities each and every day.

…editing. Boy, does it suck. No, really. I tend to write the first draft of a story and let it sit for a few weeks, working on another story while the previous one airs out. Inevitably, when I return to editing I find things I could have done better. It’s a clear sign that I’m improving but still frustrating.

…living. The divorce is still pending and money is tighter than Ritchie Riches money clip. It’s good to know I haven’t lost the taste for Ramen noodles.

…organized. We’ve done a smashing job of cleaning house and rearranging furniture. I keep meaning to take and post pictures.

…happy. We’re doing what’s important right now, and that’s enjoying each others company and enjoying life. No matter what frustrations life throws at us, we keep each other balanced and focused.

Posted in: life , uncategorized

weekend traveling (multifarious miscellany (kitters)) by ami

Weekends of rest and relaxation are a rare commodity around here, especially once summer arrives. We can have an entirely free weekend to look forward to one day, and the next day we’ll be trying to figure out how to get from one place to the next on time and still fit in the grocery store trip. My weekend actually starts tomorrow, and it’s fairly non-stop through Sunday evening.

Tomorrow I get to drive an hour to meet my parents at a Thai restaurant so that I can have lunch with some monks who are visiting from Thailand, one of which is the head abbott of my parents’ temple. This means I need to find something proper to wear. Meh.

Saturday is the day we get to play race the clock in order to be in New Jersey by 3:30. Why New Jersey? Because Barbie’s going to be adopted! The adopters live in Connecticut, so arranging a meeting place was a little tricky. From what I’ve heard of the family, they’ll be a perfect forever home for Barbie. I’m so not looking forward to having to hand her over, but I knew this day was coming. It’s just hard to not get attached over 2+ months, y’know? We’ll be bringing home a new foster, too, which means my Sunday will be spent introducing Dakota to the new pup.

Church on Sunday won’t be very long in and of itself since neither the husband nor I are involved in the service (for once). However, immediately after second service, there’s this wall that needs to be built. I have no idea how big of a wall, but that is the big task for Sunday.

So much for the lazy days of summer…

Posted in: life , nycsr

More SWET posting &c. (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf

In the “web” category:

A few quick links to things I wrote on that other site:

One, two, three . . . (on Ryan Ginstrom’s online and downloadable word-and-character-counting utilities)

Facebook gets translated, saves a ton of money (on, well, Facebook and the translation of its interface)

Guerrilla editing on the road (on the wild adventures of the members of the Typo Eradication Advancement League)

In the “life” category:

Sakura is an active, active girl. She gets us up anywhere from 4:00 to 6:00 in the morning, and when she is up it’s definitely time for us all to be awake, feeding her and playing with her and reading her books. She loves to spend time outside, which will be a challenge to deal with once the summer heat hits in earnest. Putting shoes on is the sign that it’s time to visit the great outdoors, and shoes are therefore among her favorite things these days.

In the “work” category:

Japan Echo lost in the bidding for a Cabinet Office publication that would have meant an extra 50 pages or so of translation and layout each month. Mixed feelings here: the job would have helped the company’s bottom line, but it would have been a brutal pace at which to write and edit, and bureaucrats in the central government aren’t known for their appreciation of finely crafted phrases. We would have had to take on more help for the project and we wouldn’t have enjoyed much of it. So . . . whew?

In place of that it looks like we’ll be busy in July, at least, doing on-site work at the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit. Eight years ago I went to Miyazaki and Okinawa for the G8 foreign ministers’ and leaders’ meetings. Sat in tiny, insufficiently air-conditioned rooms and translated or proofed little blurbs of text to go out on the media info system. The work should be the same this time around, more or less, but a full eight-year cycle in the G8 process brings with it a whole lot of technological advances in the meantime, so I don’t think my dim memories of how to key the press releases in that old system will help much with whatever Hakuhodo sets up this time around. Prep meetings begin next week. We’ll see.

Posted in: life , web , work

Summary of my saturday [biking, food, health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

• Woke up at 5:45am
• Chilled, ate ramen
• 7:30am hopped on the bike with Jacqui and rode down to Lincoln Park and the just-opened-for-the-season Green City Market

• Bought a bunch of delicious food for dinner, watched people and dogs, laid in the grass. Watched Mayor Daley congratulate the operators of the market (it’s the 10 year anniversary—just like Ars!)
• Stopped at Trader Joe’s to pick up some items for the mashed potatoes (and wine)
• Chilled out at home for a while.
• Around 12:30pm, rode our bikes down to Division/Damen, got some sandwiches from Jimmy Johns and ate lunch in Wicker Park (the actual park). Lounged in the sun on the grass, chilled, watched people.

View Larger Map

• Around 3pm, took a 3 hour nap
• Around 7pm, cooked up a feast of a dinner from our purchases from the market. Over roasted, pastured chicken breast. Mashed french fingerling potatoes, and grilled, giant purple asparagus!

Best day ever… yet :)

Posted in: biking , food , health & lifestyle , life

The day there was no news [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Posted in: life

You can do it [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

If I can:

April 2005:

Dec 2006:

May 2007:

May 2008:

It’s been a long trip, but I’ve probably gained 15 years of life and my life has become exponentially better. I was so close to resigning myself, telling myself that there was nothing I could do to change who I am, and with the help of Jacqui and a lot of exercise, better eating habits (frequency and portions), cutting all the non-diet soda out of my life.

Nothing will happen overnight. This has been almost a 4 year journey for me and you make little gains every day. You don’t have to jump right into going crazy with stuff either, layer in your optimizations slowly, make conclusions, and either drop or reinforce if things don’t or do work out. Proceed to step 2. Before you know it, you’ll feel like a million bucks!

At this point the more gains I make, the more opportunities open up to me. I keep finding new ways to better myself to become more active. This is something that will never stop and has become a part of who I am.

To sum up my impromptu sermon here, don’t let anyone tell you you can’t splurge or cheat. Hell, I eat at Arby’s most lunches of the week and some weekends I drink a more than a few beers, but that’s my big thing I cheat on. I keep most everything tight and I exercise in proportion to the bad things I do, I keep making gains. Not necessarily as fast as I could possibly do, but it works for me, and so that’s what I need to do.

Posted in: life

This American Life live [fun, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Last night Jacqui and I rode our bikes over to the Kerasotes theater on Western and Maplewood to see a live broadcast version of This American Life.

This was unique because the filming was done in New York City and then live broadcast to theaters all over the country. It was really fun and if you haven’t seen much of the video version of This American Life, it was a real treat.

The place was packed and we got some of the last seats in the upper area. We also ate popcorn and drank giant tubs of diet soda, which is also a treat because we never really go to movie theaters any more.

It was a lot of fun and if you haven’t had a chance to check out the first season of This American Life, I think it’s out on DVD right now (and on iTunes) and the second season begins this Sunday on Showtime, if you have cable TV, and it should also be running in iTunes as well.

Posted in: fun , life

Brightkite, easy to use, location based "Twitter" and photos [internet, life, social networking, technology] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Long title, huh? I was going to write out a thoughtful post about Brightkite and why I’m kind of warming up to it, but Herschell’s vertigo-addled brain did all the work for me:

My first text to the brightkite servers was relatively painless and took the same amount of time as it would to tweet it (on Twitter). All I did was send “? LOCATION” to BrightKite’s SMS # and in seconds, BKite (see what I did there? heheh) asked me to verify WHICH LOCATION, in which I replied “1? and PRESTO CHANGE-O! Internets! YAY. Bonus points for the seamless integration with my Twitter acct! HOORAH.

Let me put my use case Friday evening here. Me and Jacqui are hanging out at one our favorite places for drinks downtown, a champagne bar. I have already made a “contact” in my iPhone for the Brightkite service called “bk”.

I send an SMS to ‘bk’ with the following:

@?Pop's for champagne

to which the servers reply with a listing of the possible matches and their addresses—the correct location was the first. So I reply with:

1

And like magic, Brightkite has updated my current location, what business I’m at, broadcasts that to Twitter (which I have previously approved), and even updates my location in FireEagle which could, in turn update many other geo-spatial services that support FireEagle!

The real tipping point for this sort of thing will be in June of this year when Apple releases iPhone OS 2.0 and we can start running 3rd party applications.

Source: Steve Jobs’ slides from March 6 SDK event

Why then? You may ask. Sure, there are cell phones out there now that have GPS built in that allow you to do some of this cool stuff. But there were also a lot of cell phones in the past 10 years with “web browsers” and mobile browsing didn’t catch on in a BIG way until Apple made it easy and powerful by porting Safari to a mobile platform.

So with 3rd party applications, and even without real GPS, developers will be able to get a “good enough” location on your iPhone and transmit it wherever you want. I might be sending mine to Brightkite, or FireEagle. Or using it to geo-tag the photos I snap on my iPhone and send to Flickr.

And speaking of photos, you can email photos to BrightKite from your phone and they get tagged with your current location. It’s only short leap of deduction that BrightKite could relay those photos onto Flickr with geo-encoding intact.

I am really looking forward to June!

Posted in: internet , life , social networking , technology

Just for the record [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

I felt no earthquake and no aftershocks :)

Posted in: life

We are Wicker Park Bucktown photo suggestion box [health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

We are Wicker Park Bucktown is an special service area¹ with the following mission:

to sustain and promote the prosperity and unique qualities of life of the Wicker Park/Bucktown neighborhood and commercial district, whilst preserving its diverse character for the benefit of its residents, visitors, and businesses through the wise and discerning investment of resources to enhance our public ways.

They recently held a master planning open house and invited locals to give their suggestions for the area in a really fun photo format. They’ve uploaded the photos to Flick for anyone to browse through:

1. WBP Open House #1 Suggestion Box
2. WBP Open House #2 Suggestion Box
3. WBP Open House #3 Suggestion Box

And some sample photos:

Awesome idea, I spent some time looking through all the photos.

¹ A special service area (or SSA) is a taxing district, usually centered on commercial districts, where the tax money collected is administered locally. For more information on WPB (including its mission, boundaries, and Commissioners) visit our home page. If you browse the “News” page, you’ll get an idea of the types of projects WPB has been working on.

Posted in: health & lifestyle , life

April 15th (Stonetable) by Adam

Writing:

We mailed our submissions to the PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy
Short Story Contest last night. The theme for this years contest was "metallic feathers." It's the first contest either of us has submitted to. We should hear back by mid-June or so.

Two more submissions out the door last weekend and one rejection in. I don't feel too bad about the rejections, though. The last few have been personal ones, including an invitation to submit again. Progress.

Sword and Sorceress 23 opens to submissions this Saturday and will accept submissions until May 16th. A little known fact about me is that, as a teenager, I wrote to MZB to ask for guidelines to her magazine. I'm sure I botched the request but she still sent me them along with some little flyers and a bookmark (which still sits on my desk). Andrea has been reading the Sword and Sorceress for as long as she can remember. We're both working on stories to submit for this issue.

Last, there are two other upcoming contests I have my sights set on: the Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest and Return to Luna, due June 1st and 15th respectively.

Taxes:

Taxes are almost done. I just need to fax the signatures over to the account for eFiling and it's done. Finally a year that I don't owe money! Of course, almost all of my refund is going to a second retainer to the divorce lawyer. Easy come, easy go.

Penguicon 6.0:

We're heading to Detroit this weekend for my 6th Penguicon (and Andrea's first). This will be my second year following the writing track rather than the tech stuff. I won't be doing the writing workshop this time, so hopefully I'll have a chance to meet some new people with writerly interests. I'm still working out how to do that, being the geeky wallflower I am, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow.

Posted in: life , penguicon , writing

April 15th (Stonetable) by Adam

Writing: We mailed our submissions to the PARSEC Science Fiction and Fantasy Short Story Contest last night. The theme for this years contest was "metallic feathers." It's the first contest either of us has submitted to. We should hear back by mid-June or so. Two more submissions out the door last weekend and one rejection in. I don't feel too bad about the rejections, though. The last few have been personal ones, including an invitation to submit again. Progress. Sword and Sorceress 23 opens to submissions this Saturday and will accept submissions until May 16th. A little known fact about me is that, as a teenager, I wrote to MZB to ask for guidelines to her magazine. I'm sure I botched the request but she still sent me them along with some little flyers and a bookmark (which still sits on my desk). Andrea has been reading the Sword and Sorceress for as long as she can remember. We're both working on stories to submit for this issue. Last, there are two other upcoming contests I have my sights set on: the Heinlein Centennial Short Story Contest and Return to Luna, due June 1st and 15th respectively. Taxes: Taxes are almost done. I just need to fax the signatures over to the account for eFiling and it's done. Finally a year that I don't owe money! Of course, almost all of my refund is going to a second retainer to the divorce lawyer. Easy come, easy go. Penguicon 6.0: We're heading to Detroit this weekend for my 6th Penguicon (and Andrea's first). This will be my second year following the writing track rather than the tech stuff. I won't be doing the writing workshop this time, so hopefully I'll have a chance to meet some new people with writerly interests. I'm still working out how to do that, being the geeky wallflower I am, but I'm sure I'll manage somehow. Posted in: life , penguicon , writing

Bike ride on beautiful spring Chicago day [biking, fun, health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

It was 60°F yesterday and it was the perfect opportunity to take Jacqui out and hit the pavement on her new bike. We rode from our place out to Lincoln Park zoo, saw all the animals and then rode down to North Avenue Beach, up and down the lakefront trail, and then took a break and snapped some photos:

It was a great day. Jacqui’s a little sore, but well worth it. Here’s the whole Flick Set (18 photos) and a map of our photos and where they were taken.

Posted in: biking , fun , health & lifestyle , life

Koganei babies (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf

A very quick post to link to the website of Hamada Nursing Baby (??????????). This Koganei clinic is run by an 80-year-old woman with strong massaging hands and plenty of advice for new mothers wondering what to do with their infants. Megumi has been going there for some months, and has made a number of friends in the neighborhood with babies about the same age as Sakura. (Here’s hoping this entry helps bump the place up a bit in search engine results.)

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Posted in: family , japan , life , web

Panaracer Tserv Tires [biking, health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Anyone have any idea where I can buy non-black colored Panaracer Tserv 700Cx32 tires? They come in some cool colors (pink!) but it only seems possible to get them in black stateside.

Another option are these Tufo Prestige tires:

However, they seem kind of expensive for something I may not end up liking too much.

The state of 700Cx32 tires is pretty drab. Black, black, black. Oooh wait this model has a reflective strip! Meh.

Maybe I should just bite the bullet and get some 23mm wheels and never look back. The variety of tires for that width are pretty dazzling! :)

Posted in: biking , health & lifestyle , life

We're a biking team [food, health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

This past Saturday, Jacqui got herself a new bike. She wrote about our trip to the Village Cycle Shop in Old Town and her new bike, a Gary Fisher Wingra.

While there, I picked up a wireless bike computer, because, well, I’ve wanted one for a while and VCS was having a Spring super sale.

When I got it home, it was missing a piece. I got the piece replaced today after work and got it all hooked up.

Only problem? The damn thing doesn’t work! I’ve tried aligning the magnet in a billion different ways, moving the sensor up and down the fork, everything. The stupid thing is busted. Now I’m going to have to stop by again and get a new one.

The coolest thing about the both of us having bike now, is that we can run errands together and get a workout at the same time. After I failed to install this computer, we took a ride to Bed, Bath, and Beyond to grab sheets for our new king bed mattress that’s arriving tomorrow.

We also went to Trader Joe’s and picked up a pound of amazing bacon for dinner. What did we make? Bacon wrapped shrip and eggplant salad:

The shimp is pretty straight forward, but the eggplant was sliced, covered in olive oil, grilled, and mixed with balsamic vinegar, pine nuts, goat cheese and mixed together into a pseudo-mush. It was delicious!

Posted in: food , health & lifestyle , life

My spring post (Durf.org (Durf)) by Durf

Seems like a quarterly thing, to post here. I’ve been busy. Translating and editing and enjoying visits from family (sister pictured) and watching the little girl grow larger and larger.

Jessica has been in town for 10 days or so. She came to Tokyo to watch her Oakland As play Yomiuri, Hanshin, and the Red Sox twice. They won three of four, so that wasn’t a bad start. The best seats we had were the “Excite Seats” for the season opener against Boston. Matsuzaka started, and Okajima got his pitches in, so there was no way the As would be treated like the home team even if that’s what they were on the card. We were in the second row, down the third-base line, in seats actually on the field. They came with helmets and gloves to protect us from fouls, of which there of course were none this game. And then the As lost! Walking Ortiz to pitch to Ramirez in the tenth. Bah. They won the second game the next night, at least.

Sakura was happy to meet her aunt. They played a lot and enjoyed some books together. (Sakura’s favorites these days all have buttons and little electronic songs, and Jes usually goes to bed with an iPod on to try to drive the ditties from her skull. Not that this works.) We fed Jes big piles of food and gave her no chance to exercise, beyond walking around Kichijoji looking for trinkets to purchase, so she’ll have to hit the gym hard when she gets back to California and her own waiting baby.

Bed time now. See you again in the summer! Well, sooner than that if I go ahead and get my posting act together. I owe a lot of people email as well. Sorry about that. Plugging back in . . .

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Posted in: family , life

Lee's back wheel was stolen! [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

(not Lee’s actual bike, but a reasonable approximation of what the scene looked like)

As Jacqui, Lee, and I left work on Friday, we were talking about biking-related subjects. We opened the front door to our building and walked towards our customary bike rack thing. Lee’s bike was U-locked to it, but I noticed something odd. His back wheel was missing!

I asked Lee if he had taken his rear wheel up with him earlier (which would’ve been strange). He told me no and then noticed what I had seen. His rear wheel had been stolen!

And not only had it been stolen, it was stolen off a bike locked on a sidewalk in broad daylight, on a busy street, in a fairly nice section of downtown!

Poor lee had to take his bike up to the office, minus a wheel and ride the bus home in shame. I feel really bad for Lee, but it makes me feel a bit better about securely locking up both my wheels/frame in the morning. I think I might start doing the procedure of removing my front wheel and locking everything up in the rear.

At least Lee didn’t end up like one of these people:

I’m constantly amazed at the number of people who don’t realize they have to lock up through their wheels and the frame.

Posted in: life

Beautiful video submission from 20x2 @ SXSW [health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

20 couples. 20 couches. 2 minutes. The theme is “Is There a Difference?”

20 x 2 : What’s The Difference? from photojunkie on Vimeo.

Posted in: health & lifestyle , life

Herschell at Club 720 [life, music, partying] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Jacqui and I went to Club 720 last night to see Herschell and listen to him play his trumpet while some DJ’s laid down some music. Pics from Herschell:

We had a really fun time! I hear Herschell is hanging out at our apartment right now, I need to get done with work crap and get outta here!

Posted in: life , music , partying

Portland installs their first bike box [health & lifestyle, life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Portland has always been an extremely bike-friendly city. It looks to me like they’re taking new steps to implement a project called bike boxes. These “boxes” look like color-coded areas within car lanes that add a good bit of padding to the area directly before intersections. Check out this photo for a good illustration (more photos):

Flickr photo by BikePortland.org

PortlandOnline describes them thusly:

The bike box is an intersection safety design to prevent bicycle/car collisions, especially those between drivers turning right and bicyclists going straight. It is a green box on the road with a white bicycle symbol inside. It includes green bicycle lanes approaching and leading from the box.

This is fixing a big problem we currently have in Chicago. A law was recently passed that imposes a hefty fine ($500) on any cars that turns left or right in front of a biker, but it really does nothing to stop the problem (I was almost hit in this manner this evening). Most drivers simply do not care.

Most bikers, if possible, filter their way to the front of a stopped column of cars using the lane or space nearest the curb and get in front of all of the cars, trying to squeeze into the area between the first car and the crosswalk (or immediately in front of it, depending on the specifications of the intersection).

I would really hope that the City of Chicago—which is typically fairly bike forward—is looking into these bike boxes here. What other cool biking constructs are out there that I don’t know about?

The Oregonian: Portland thinks outside ‘bike box’

Posted in: health & lifestyle , life

Stupid video of the day: our book case [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Weak grab for an idea for a video, but I was struck last night with how much I love our book case and I wanted to show it off, so here it is:

Our cool book shelf from Clint Ecker on Vimeo.

Posted in: life

Peeking, sleepy cats [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

Posted in: life

Lazy cats [life] (Clint Ecker (clintology)) by Clint Ecker

This is from a few weeks ago but I never pulled it off the Flip:

Brutus and Rameses from Clint Ecker on Vimeo.

Posted in: life