Shopping by bike

Yep, we have a bike theme happening here.

Yesterday DH decided he needed a keyboard and he needed one NOW! He had checked out some keyboards and played around with some and read reviews online, and figured out which one he wanted.

So I hitched up the bike trailer (with some fumbling - DH had had a go but he did it *wrong* and then it wouldn't go *right*) and took off to Guitar Showcase, our local instrument dealer.

Quite a few bucks later and some occy straps (bungee cords) later, I had brought him home a Privia "digital piano" (as it proudly claims to be).

Note the division of labour. I got to pull this:


DH had to lug these terribly heavy cables home. Poor darling!

He looks very happy about not having to haul 25 kilos of stuff (plus trailer weight) home. Gleeful even!

Moving by bike

I thought I would share some pics from our recent move with you.

I moved lots of stuff by bike trailer.

Fleece and yarn


Boxes (not rubbermaid, sterilite) of all sorts of crud (not that I have any pics of them being moved).

It was a bit easier with the Penske truck - at least I didn't have to do more than press my right foot on the correct pedal rather than pedalling*. Penske actually provided us with service. Goodness me!

(You can see my bookcase-wot-I-made on the right in the truck, and DH had already unloaded about half of it by this stage)

But I had to move a lot of bits over the last few days of our old lease. Like three loads a day.

On the last day for the last load, I brought back the vacuum cleaner and a lamp along with a heap of cleaning stuff and a carpet runner. I was totally over moving stuff then!


There's lots of stuff that can be moved by bike trailer. And some stuff that can't, at least not on mine.

I am currently eyeballing one of these shopping trailers. They look very funky, especially when the front wheel and handle/pushbar are installed. I also wonder about xtracycles. They look very functional but could I fit one on our little patio?

(*anyone else notice how many people now "peddle" their bikes? Are they trying to sell them or what? Or possibly they mean propelling them with the use of pedals...)

Tuesday sky

Goodness me! Long time no blog here....

Yesterday and today there were some weird phenomena in the sky.

I give you






Campbell Avenue


Looking up outside our front door


Los Gatos Creek without the creek


Albizia with sky wrongness.

!!!! White fluffy things in the sky! Not the usual morning fog, but white fluffy things. How unusual! I can hardly remember their names.


They became solid things yesterday and what a sunset followed! (Must download the pics to bore you with.)

All pics bar the one with the albizia are from within 10 minutes walk from my place.

Heh. I'll leave you with a pic that I ran through the "auto-enhance" filter on the Gimp.


Looks a little scary, eh?

One Year

A lot has happened in the last year.

But not really that much if I just say "We moved to the USA."

Doesn't seem like much at all, really.

But it is a big deal and we've had a lot to deal with in this last year.

Moving countries. Setting up a new home - not as easy as you might think! Trying to find/make new friends. Going carless (a biggie for me - I *love* driving!). Finding ways to fill days of not-much-to-do with cheap hobbies. Losing one job. Being homeless for a month (whilst still paying a mortgage) and travelling across Canada in winter. Getting another job. Moving from one state to another.

It is a year since we landed in the US. Do we ever stop missing

friends

family

house

garden


?

We've seen so much















And experienced the highs



and lows (or at least sea levels)



of life.

It has been an interesting year....

On cars in the USA

Where I come from in Australia, about one in four cars is a Ricer.

What's a ricer?

A little Japanese four cylinder car (eg Honda Civic, Mitsubishi Lancer) or occasionally a 4 cylinder Korean car that has been hotted up - y'know noisy exhaust, lowered, spoiler, body skirts and wing on the boot (trunk), sometimes even engine mods. It doesn't make them fast necessarily - I dragged quite a lot of ricers off at the lights in my little bog stock standard 1.3L Starlet, even with 110kg deadweight (DH) in it - but they *look* fast, and that is their aim - style over substance. I don't include Subaru WRXs in this as they come out of the factory looking OTT - to me a ricer is an aftermarket job and individual labour of love (Aussies can now howl me down).

In the USA, after my nephew pointed it out, I realised that I have seen very few ricers. I've been counting how many I've seen in the last what two or three weeks?

Three.

That is if you include small cars with noisy exhausts. Two if you require the full on body work.

Americans like to show off in honking great big trucks. They don't show off in little cars - no, you show your status in a Ford 150 or a Chev Tahoe/whatever with double wheels on the back ("dualies") and a roaring engine that would wake the dead. Big is beautiful in the US. Small means you are po.

Wonder how long it will take for that to change? Last I looked, petrol was costing $4.17 a gallon. Diesel costs more. Small might start meaning you can still drive whilst those big expensive-to-feed things get to sit in the driveways of America (not in the garage - the enormous triple garage is full of crud).

On another matter, what is with all these American cars with flip-flop fuel filler flaps? They have a little finger flip open thing. It is not locked. Anyone could come along and help themselves to that precious petrol. The number of times I've looked for the little lifter button in a hire car and then found I have to GET OUT OF THE CAR! to open the fuel filler door on whatever side of the car it is (yes yes, of course I have to get out to fill the car up but I want service!).... plus it means I inevitably pull up on the wrong side of the bowser...

More Maker Faire

Just cos the Maker Faire was over a week ago doesn't mean I am not going to post more pics!

People ask me what the Maker Faire was like and well imagine a whole heap of crafting and electronics and making geeks all getting together. There was all sorts of stuff - Tesla generators (gods they were noisy but now I have a better idea of the Tesla trees in Dan Simmon's book "Hyperion"), Wikipedia, softees, yarn/fibre, paintings, textiles, prints, steam punk...

Here are some more pics from the day:


A flowersaw for the powertools races.


Mobile cupcakes. I love the hats the people were wearing.


What the? This thing was scary - it was on treads and had forklift propane tanks.


A steampunk mobile home.

I have a heap of weird bikes to show off too, and more pics once I manage to get the other computer running - it is being naughty and I only have them on it.

Maker Faire - Offally Good

I wonder if they really are?



This mob must be good -

look how many people were willing to queue in the hot sun! Reminds me of getting in when they were dropping people off from the free shuttles at the gate where only two windows were open! 20 minutes just to pay cash and I reckon about 2 hours of waiting for the credit/debit queue. They didn't say that there were other gates....