Urban Commute

I just started my new job at the Urban Outfitters head office on Monday.  One of the best things about it is that it’s only 3 miles away from my place, so I’m biking.  During orientation, I found out that Urban supports commuting by bike by giving $20 credit back on your paycheck each month (reducing taxable income), providing a rear bike light, and reimbursing up to $50 for a helmet.  They’re small perks, but it’s something, and the real benefit is just being able to get here without driving.  It’s a significant change from the 90-minute commute by train I did twice a day at my old job at Dorman.  Instead of getting up at 6am and returning home at 6pm, I’m getting up at 8am, and getting back home around 5:45pm.

Note: The $20 reduction in taxable income is actually a tax provision that was part of the Renewable Energy Tax Credit legislation in 2008.  More information.

Weird Print Ad: The Lil Brothers Want to Know

Shea, my sister, was flipping through a pamphlet in the mail.  She stared for a few minutes at a print ad.  Laughing to herself and staring.

She started reading out loud the caption on the ad trying to figure out what it meant.  “The lil brothers want to know…the lil brothers want to know…the lil brothers want to know,” she kept repeating.  Laughing and staring.

I grabbed it out of her hands and looked at it.  “The lil brothers want to know…the lil brothers want to know,” I repeated.

Weird ad.  Weird family portrait.  Eerie smiles and odd green vests.  One of the ‘lil brothers’ has a different vest on.  I bet he spilled the family’s secret recipe egg nog on it!  Oh boy.  Daddy is going to give it to him.  The youngest has some bizarre 18th century shirt on.  “Mom, I want to be the one to sit on Santa’s lap this year.  No fair!”

And it’s late January.  Why is Santa Claus in the picture?  Creepy.

I guess my problem is calling the kids Lil Brothers.  Which one is not the ‘lil brother’?  The oldest?  And if the oldest brother isn’t considered a ‘lil brother’, what does he want to know?  What does he want to know?

EDIT:  I just realized I’m an idiot.  Lill is their last name.  I don’t know why I read it as ‘lil’.  And I’ve come to the conclusion that the big boy in the bottom-right looks forward to this family portrait every year.  “Mom, can we stop by the ice cream shop on the way?  Maybe we can get Santa a brownie-chocolate-fudge shake Mom!  Mmmm!  I bet he will slurp it all up!!!!”  That’s my fantasy anyways.

Cycling in Bogota

I found out that biking in Bogota is really dangerous. It’s mostly because of the buses. These bus collectivos seem to be privately owned — like some guy can buy an old bus, stick a sign on the front window with the destination, and start driving it. They don’t have official bus stops. Instead, if someone on the side of the road puts up his hand, the bus will swing over and stop to let him on — like how you’d hail a taxi. So, these buses were swinging all over the place as I was trying to bike. I had to heighten my awareness to stay operational. The roads were full of taxis too, and they’d be weaving to get around the buses that’d be swinging across the lanes to get to the sidewalk to pick up passengers.

Early on, I made some bold moves squeezing through narrow gaps between temporarily-stopped buses on my wide, fully-loaded bike. I would be holding my breath, a sign of me knowing I was being a dumbass. Then, at one point, I was out in one of the middle lanes making a move past a bus that was on my right, when the bus started pulling out to shift into my lane. I was pinned between a taxi that was tight on my left and the bus that was moving forward into the taxi’s lane. I made an emergency stop as the shock ran through my body. And the bus saw me and stopped moving. I waddled through the gap the bus left me, embarrassed about causing this scene in a place where I don’t understand the traffic culture. “Stupid … Not worth it, not worth it,” I kept repeating in my head. From then on, I dropped my bravado and got patient, staying all the way to the right, and waiting behind the buses that cut me off.

There are a lot of bike lanes on the sidewalks in Bogota, but pedestrians were always drifting in there making it a really slow, annoying stop-and-start for me, so I used the streets for cycling. Also, on Sundays, the city would close off a lot of the main roads for the Cyclovia, a weekly event where people would come out to cycle, rollerblade, run, or walk. It’s a great idea, but that’s only on Sunday — the rest of the week, you have to deal with the horrible traffic.

Mmm … PIE: Homemade Publications

I’m working at Dorman Products at the moment and they recently sent out this Newsletter.  One of the stories they reported on was Pie Day!  Mmmm … sounds gooooood!

Preserving the Past: Digitizing Slides

Eleanor and I inherited a lot of old slides after my grandfather died a few years ago.  I had them stored up in the closet of my old room in my mom’s house.  When I was back home for Christmas, I made a project of de-bulking them as they were taking up lots of space.

I looked through many hundreds of slides and found out something extremely interesting: most of them are extremely boring.  My grandparents had gone on a few trips to Europe in their old age and most of the slides from those trips are of buildings and landscapes.  I guess they didn’t want photo evidence of their old skin.

The slides were stored in slide trays holding just one slide per slot.  Since I’m never going to display these on a slide projector, I de-bulked by sliding three slides into each slot.  Major de-bulk!!  Now I’ve got lots of spare, empty slide trays!

Unfortunately, I’m not going to trash any of the slides, not even the extremely boring ones.  I’m a sentimental person with too much respect for my familial past.  But as I looked through the slides, I sorted them into two categories: (1) boring ones without any people in the shot that would be filed away for eternity, and (2) ones with people that I would digitize with a scanner.

Left to Right: My shirtless, hunky dad, Uncle Kim, and Grandpa Joe with great legs

I came away with three small boxes from the hundreds I looked through.  Last night, I went over to UPenn to start the process of transferring these slides to the modern age so they’d be accessible again.  Susan brought me to the photography computer lab where there was some special equipment just for the purpose.  One that we used did 5 slides in a batch, and the results were excellent, but it was painfully slow.

The slides are from my dad’s side of the family.  It’s great seeing my dad in his youth; he was a fine, young man.  The process is tedious and slow, but I love having these.

EZ Bidet: Install a Kitchen Sprayer in your Toilet

In April 2008, my sister and I visited Thailand and Cambodia for three weeks.  One of the best things we experienced there were the kitchen sink sprayers attached to every toilet.  Cleaning poo off of you with water makes a lot more sense than smearing it around with paper.  We wanted to institute it at home when we got back, but it didn’t happen … until now, almost two years later!

Last night, I remembered our dream of having a clean, refreshed anus.  I looked on Instructables.com and found out that someone had done it and had posted the step-by-step instructions.  Today, I did it.  I made our dream come true.

I went to Lowe’s and spent about 40 minutes trying to find the right pieces.  I explained it to the guy working in Plumbing and he told me he didn’t have the right parts, and that I’d have to go to a Plumbing Supply Store, which are all closed on Sundays.  I wanted to make it work so I kept looking and figured out a solution.

T-Junction: 3/8″ on top and bottom, and 1/4″ compression fitting on the side (with compression sleeve)

Elbow Joint: 1/4″ compression fitting on the side, and 1/4″ NIP thread on the top which connects to the kitchen sink sprayer

The problem was that there wasn’t an adapter piece that went from 1/4″ compression fitting to 1/4″ NIP thread, so I used a small piece of 1/4″ plastic tubing.

Here it is assembled.  I put teflon tape around the 1/4″ NIP thread that attached to the sprayer.

I turned off the water line to the toilet, and then added the T-Junction in there.  The problem was that the plastic tubing was flexible was that when you moved the sprayer around, the tubing would flex.  I figured that after a while, the plastic tubing would break from the stress, and then there’d be water all over the place.

So I turned the T-Junction to be more in line with the water pipe, and then secured the hose to the pipe with electrical tape, so that now the stress is put on the hose — not on the plastic tubing — whenever the sprayer is used.

The water pressure is divine!  Clean buttholes for all!

Specific, Special, Travel Gear

When you’re planning for a long bike tour, or even a two-week backpacking trip, it’s easy to feel the need to buy a lot of specialized gear. Stuff that packs small, dries fast, has multiple uses. This kind of stuff is expensive, and mostly unnecessary. And if you buy specific-purpose, lame-ass travel clothing like zip-away, convertible pants, you’ll look like a loser too.

One of the mistakes I made was buying camping cookware. I got the MSR Blacklite Classic Cookset for about $30. Two pots. The smaller one fits inside the larger, and it features a non-stick coating, etc, whatever. It was definitely useful, but after splitting up with Ryan, I went to a thrift store to look for a smaller size pot, and they had loads of great, small, lightweight pots for about $2. Stupid-waste-of-money, camping-specific cookware. I sold the MSR cookset later on eBay.

Travel- and camping-specific clothing is the worst. Getting some microfiber t-shirt that advertises some stupid fabric technology name like CoolMax, WickSaver, or DriFast. They cost like $40 and look shitty. Lame plain solid color, slinky weird material shirt. When you travel, you want to look normal and feel normal. Use what you already have.

Eleanor’s House on Design Sponge

I’m living with my sister, Eleanor, in Philadelphia.  Her house is awesome.  She bought it in February 2009, and did a lot of renovations on it.  Now it’s featured on Design Sponge.  And I’m mentioned … as her brother!

Video: Friendly Matters

A few friends and I are making a movie every month.  We’re sort of competing against two other teams — one from Baltimore and the other from New Jersey.  There’ll be a new set of requirements each month.  Since this is the first month, it was pretty soft — just do an intro.

So Peter, Matt, and I did Friendly Matters.  It’s a sitcom based on reality.

Check out the other monthly videos at Rentcheck’s channel.

Something I’m Thinking About: NE Bike Tour

I’m thinking about doing a bike tour loop up to Montreal and over to Detroit and Chicago.  I really want to see Detroit.  See how wild it is.  Packs of dogs roaming the streets.  Post-apocalyptic landscape.  Click on the image to see the Google Map.

Video: Cycling in Bogota

Here I am cycling in Bogota on Avenida Caracas.  The traffic was crazy with buses swinging in and out from the curb to pick up passengers.

Bike Tour Laundry System

My laundry system on the bike tour was excellent.  Every evening after riding, I’d hand wash my bike shorts and polyester performance-style shirt and they’d be pretty dry by the morning.  Then, in the morning, I’d wash the underwear I slept in and strap that down to the back of my bike along with anything that was still wet.  I had a cargo net that was perfect to hold the clothes down on top of my tent bag.  The clothes would dry in the sun and the breeze and they’d be ready to wear at the end of the ride.

This was superior to the laundry system I had while I was backpacking in Eastern Europe.  All I could do was hang wet clothes off the back of my backpack.  But then I’d have to throw the backpack under a bus, or on the floor somewhere, and the wet clothes would pick up dirt, and wouldn’t be exposed to the sun as much.

Ubate to Bogota (Colombia)

Getting into Bogota took forever. It stretches out so far that I was in the “outskirts” for a few hours. There were a few sections where I was on an interstate-like highway, but once I got in closer, there were bike lanes, and then a dedicated bike lane on the sidewalk. It turned out that the sidewalk bike lanes sucked since people were always walking in them, so I went back onto the road. But it was stressful on the road since it was jam packed with cars, and the cars switched lanes frequently. My awareness had to be at its peak.

Video: Bogota’s Bike Friendly

I don’t really agree with bicycle touring for a cause.  It seems lame.  It should be for fun and adventure.  This guy did a Ride For Climate.  I guess to raise awareness, or something.

Anyway, this video is pretty cool because it highlights Bogota, Colombia as a city on the leading edge of bicycle-friendly urban planning.

Chiquinquira to Ubate (Colombia)

At this point, I was really close to Bogota, and I had time to spare before Jessica’s arrival.

It was probably my favorite ride in Colombia. The countryside was inspiring, and I could take my time.

There were a bunch of roadside stops advertising fresa y crema — strawberries and cream. I stopped for a treat a few times. Apparently, I was in the dairy capital of the country.

I stopped in Ubate for lunch and found an excellent comedor. The soup and food were fine, but what really sent it over the edge was the drink. The lady poured me fresh mango juice. Thick mango nectar! I tried to pace myself with the drink, so that I’d have some by the end of my meal, but I had bad self-control. When the lady saw I was low on my mango, she refilled my glass, and left the jug on my table. I was in heaven. Unlimited refills of pure mango juice! I finished the jug.

It was still early when I left the comedor. I planned to make it a little further towards Bogota before I stopped for the day. As I walked my bike out to the road, some guys in the neighboring bar flagged me down and waved beer bottles at me. They urged me to sit with them, and they bought me beer. They spoke really fast, and their accent was difficult to understand, but I made out a few things. What they were most concerned about was what I thought about Chavez and Venezuela. Easy question to answer: Chavez esta loco hombres.

After three beers, I told them I didn’t want any more, as I was trying to be polite. One of them said something about a person who drinks beers but doesn’t pay for it. I didn’t really understand, but I felt that they might have been talking about me. When I left, I gave my muchas gracias’s and left some money on the table. However, they didn’t want it and insisted I take it back.

I decided to stay in Ubate for the night. Bogota was just a day away. I found a hotel with a TV for $5. When I turned on the TV as I was spread out on the bed in my cycling gear, Indiana Jones and The Last Crusade came on. I watched the whole thing and didn’t move. After washing up and hanging my shorts out to dry, The First Knight started. I lay there, zoned out. What a treat!

Restaurant Schedule in Colombia

My method for picking a restaurant was to look for the smallest, simplest-looking place that didn’t advertise pollo – Colombia has a lot of fried chicken places. The food would be fresh, the portions would be big, and the price was always cheap as shit. They’d give me a soup for starters, a natural fruit drink, and then the main meal with meat – I’d usually ask for carne asada, grilled beef – and sides like rice, yucca, beans, and salad. It would typically cost about 5000 pesos – $2.50.

If it was possible, I would have gone for this type of meal three times a day. However, what I found out was that it was only available at lunch time. These little restaurants would close at around 5pm, and the only options at night would be street food, like grilled weird cuts of meat, perros calientes, hamburgesas, pizza, and fried chicken.

So I adjusted my schedule. I didn’t eat much for breakfast, maybe a few pieces of bread from the panaderia. Then I’d eat lunch at around 11am, so that I could have an early second lunch before the comedors would close.

Dad Story: A Mission of Mercy

My dad has a history of trying to save animals that have been hit by a car.  Years ago, I remember my family was on a road trip in Florida, and we saw a turtle on the side of the road.  My dad stopped the car, and we found that the turtle’s shell was cracked wide open, and that it was pregnant — we could see all the eggs inside.  My dad was really cut up about it, and he put the turtle in a box in the back of our car, and we rushed to the ER (for humans!).  It was a good attempt, but it died soon after.

He emailed me last night about a recent rescue attempt.

I was driving along Village Drive when I saw a flapping in the middle of the road. I passed it before I realized what it might be. I drove back and approached it again. It was an owl, disabled on the double yellow line, flapping its wings but not able to fly.

Two students were on the sidewalk on one side of the road and one on the other, all looking at the owl but not making any move toward it. I assume they were anxious about getting bitten or clawed by a dying and diseased animal. Since it was in the middle of the road, it seemed more likely that a car had struck it or run over it but that it was otherwise healthy. I stopped my car and blocked my lane of traffic as I took it by its outermost wing-feathers and lifted it onto the grass at the roadside. I figured that, if I put a bit of tension on its wings that way, it wouldn’t be able to reach me with any of its sharp edges, such as beak or talons. It struggled to break free. Once on the ground, it was trying to crawl but it was dragging its legs, which seemed disabled, possibly fractured. I drove on to clear the traffic and came back a few minutes later. None of the students were there any more, probably because no solution occurred to them. I lifted the owl further away from the road near some overgrowth in the hope of giving it a temporary safe haven. When I lifted it that time, it didn’t struggle as much as before. I couldn’t tell whether it had begun to trust me or whether it was sinking into shock from blood-loss. It turned its neck and looked me fully in the face and didn’t attempt any retaliation or defense. It seemed quite alert. I called the UF veterinary hospital to enquire whether it would take such a patient. It has a wildlife department and it would take it. I got directions, put it in a large box and went to the vicinity. I never learned where it is exactly. I phoned again after I’d asked directions from emergency department people at Shands Hospital (for humans). They said the veterinary hospital was right behind me, turn right at the next light. I couldn’t find it. No sign identified it. Finally, I described where I was by phone and a veterinary resident drove to find me. Then, my car wouldn’t start again, so I asked her to get the owl to the hospital first, then to come back to give me a jump. In the meantime, I flagged down another driver and got a jump.

Santana to Chiquinquira (Colombia)

All climbing. Slow go.

As I got higher, the air got really crisp and cold. It was a huge difference from the high 90s heat I had to deal with a few days back when I was in the lowlands.

I stopped to eat in a small town. It was Sunday and there were tents set up outside the church. Old women were cooking strange cuts of meat on the grill. I surveyed the options, and settled on a black sausage. It was a surprise when I cut it open – meat and rice mix inside the sausage wrapping.

A family there took an interest in me. The dad sat his young son on top of my bike saddle. They offered me some chichi, which is a fermented corn drink – odd texture. Now I’m Facebook friends with a few of them.

I was only a few miles outside Chiquinquira when it started to pour. I hurried in under an overhang with another guy. He was an older man wearing a tweed-style suit and cycling on a single-speed. He admired my bike, and I complimented his, although a single-speed seems like a terrible idea in that area.

The rain eased a little, so we left. We went about 500 meters when it started raining again, so we took shelter at a gas station. I yelled at a passing cyclist to get out of the rain. Mucha agua! Venga! After some waiting around, we got some tinto (black coffee) and shared good feeling. Another Facebook friend.

I made it to Chinquinquira and I found a shitty room that cost 8000 pesos ($4). Lumpy mattress and cold.

Hanging Meat!

San Gil to Santana (Colombia)

Stats: 57.65 miles, 11.7 avg, 38.3 max, 5 hours

Henri and I left at 6 am on his motorcycle. Henri had put my bike in his friend’s delivery truck the night before to be dropped in San Gil. On the ride, Henri kept talking and pointing things out along the way, but I couldn’t really hear him with the wind, or understand him when I did hear him — Spanish.

We rode up steep, winding roads through the Chicamocha valley. I saw some cyclists descending, but I didn’t see anybody climbing it.

We got to San Gil and picked up my bike and bags. Delivered as promised! Great convenience.

I followed Henri on my bike, as he brought me through San Gil. We stopped at the intersection where we’d be splitting up, so we could say goodbye. Henri had tears in his eyes. I told him how good he’d been to me, and that we were amigos. We gave each other a big big hug, and I told him to send Henri Junior to me in Philadelphia – that he’d be welcome anytime. He really appreciated that, and we gave each other a few more strong pats.

As I rode off on my bike, I got really pumped up. I guess it was the new freedom I felt on my bike after staying with Henri and his family for a few days. And I was pumped about the mountains. I was jamming on my iPod, and dancing on my bike, singing along. I got goose bumps listening to “Undone (The Sweater Song).” It brought back memories of earlier days and I loved how American it was (“Are you going to the party after the show” … “Take it easy bro”).

There wasn’t any traffic on the road. It had all been cleared off because of a cycling race. Luckily the guards at the checkpoints didn’t stop me. I got out of the way as the peloton of cyclists came down the mountain. I think they enjoyed seeing me crawling up the mountain on my pack mule as they were going about 40 mph passed me.

I made it to Santana just before it started to rain. I found a $5 room, and took a shower. I wandered around the town and got some pastries and beer at a panaderia. An old drunk guy wanted to talk to me. His name was Jose Maria. He spoke really quickly, and I kept pardoning myself for not understanding. He kept talking to me anyway.

Then a stumbling drunk named Miguel came in and sat down with Jose Maria and I. Miguel shook my hand and held onto it as he asked me about what I thought of Venezuela. All I told him was that I thought Chavez was loco, as I didn’t know much about what was going on between Colombia and Venezuela. They enjoyed that.

Miguel was really weird though — holding onto my hand, keeping me captive, and trying to pull me forward. After a bunch of questions that I didn’t understand, I excused myself, paid, and said goodbye.