A blog of benign neglect

Weird coincidence...

A woman came into my store and mentally my rollerdex started to whirl... where do I know her from? BTA? Glencoe? Tball?
We talked a little and suddenly a light went on - San Francisco, worst job of my life - she was an editor, I was a developer. Hach! We congratulated each other to having found our way out of the jobs we had and having made it to Portland (Yupp, she lives here, too!)
...and while I am some times jealous to hear about former colleagues who have now initials behind their names, it felt really good today to be a bike shop lady in Portland!

Breitenbush

Very recommendable... for 2 days we stayed in this hippy hot spring resort and had a great time: We soaked in the beautiful hot springs with a great view of the Breitenbusch river, slept in a rustic cabin, had a great hike in beautiful autumn weather with the coolest bridges, fallen trees and highest cliffs and wolved down excellent vegetarian fare.
C. was very bumped to go come and so was I.

Those weird days, when you are happy

Today we started to have beer in our shop around 4:00... by 5:30 we listened to Talking Heads, with R. hooping in the front of the shop and C. dancing around, by 6:00 we were all dancing and by 7:00 I felt so happy that I fear the bitter end!

Fun!

The first rainy Sunday...

C. and I celebrated the first raining Sunday by lounging in our pyjamas, a free ice cream thanks to the Chinook Book and a visit to an old fashion arcade, the Avalon Wonderland. C. loved it, we spend some of our collected nickels and we picked some of the weird prices... I also -finally- learned how to spin an old fashion top.

What fun!

My first bike fair -- Booyah!

So I went to Eurobike and it was so great - literally: 870 exhibitors in 13 halls!

It was loud, noisy and flashy: some of the booths looked like futuristic film sets including the bikes.
Now, I am not a technical wizz and I admit I went to see the Italian bikes not so much for the bikes, but even I was really impressed by the all the different bikes styles and after one day I had definate favorites:

I adored the Pedersen bikes - I could have cried when I took a test ride on a 24cm frame. I know it has been around for years, but it deserves way more acknowledgment as the "Bentley of Bikes".
Furthermore I fell in love with Retrovelo, a small firm from Leizig that makes absolutely lovely bikes. Evidentally Frank, one of the owner, is the name sake of Schwalbe's "Fat Frank" tires... whoa! So it's not "Fat Frank", it's "Fat Frahnk"...
Velo Traum with their amazing kid bikes are also among my top 3... they are just made as well as the adult bikes!

Everything else went totally over my head! - Henry describes it way better!

The absolute fun thing was the swingtrike. Hector, the very charming owner & inventor let me ride it outside in a closed test area and it was a real kick: It was a speedy ride that you steer less with the front wheel but more with your body weight. Good for your core and your balance...

Absolute eye roll were all the phat (I refer to them as pimp) bikes... what a waste of tubes and wheels!

On the bakfiets front:
Gazelle came out with a work bike with a collapsable box made out of fabric. Unfortunately, they didn't let me ride it.
Johnny Loco was there with a trike. It rode fine, but there were some things that you needed to get used to: Shifter was under the seat and the handle bar was basically the back of the box. The kid's seats were slings hold up by a metal bar... probably not very comfy for longer rides! ...perhaps you have to be an underfed model to squish your derriere in there!
I also test rode the Fiets fabric bike, but I found the quality of the wooden box lacking.

Other fun things:
I found a foldable helmet (great for closet bike commuters), a great alternative to gel saddles, a saddle for perineum-hurters and a few other things...

Strange things:
There were booth bunnies on the Euro bike... oh, wait... they were blond, curvaceous bike mechanics and engineers whose luggage got lost and all bike apparel generously donated samples from their kid's collection, so they had something to wear during the fair! Hmmmm, perhaps I should have asked them for tips how to keep 1-inch nails free of bike grease...

All in all - I can really recommend the fair and hope that we perhaps get a Portland booth together next year!

One of those great evenings...

At 6:00 we finally made it home after a long day in the shop with C. and his pal G. in tow. The kids played with play mobil and provided an amazing sound track to their ongoing pirate-jungle-knight battles, while I started the bbq...
T. tried out some smoked baby back ribs and they come out great. At 8:00 our friend J with her kids A and S came by and we had a great dinner. After dinner I fixed 2 of S's necklaces, the boys planned their sleep over, C. stripped down and gave a performance that will come on handy for all kind of black mail purposes. Meanwhile A disappeared in the garden to prevent our plants from getting a sunburn and feed the fish some sun lotion -- note to self: 2-year olds some mistake sun lotion spray bottle with water pistols...
What an evening...

How to organize a conference?

As mentioned, I am on a committee that is organizing the World Carfree Network conference 2008. We had our kick off with our advisory board yesterday and I feel really inspired... So you are going to hear about it and you are going to hear much more about how to live with less car... a low-car diet, so to say (I stole that from a new project in Portland!)

The biggest take away from the meeting was that car-free doesn't mean automatically bike-owning... an eye opener since I am seriously bike-centric (No, really!). There are clubs for pedestrian safety, walking organization and serious hikers... there is also the inherent problem that American cities are not designed for walking... the neighborhoods in Portland with their side walks and green strips are an exception, not a rule!

And then there are all the different ways of getting around that make you smile, because they look and are fun: Remember the people who swooped around you with their roller blades? Those 5-year-olds in a grown up body who scooter'ed to their offices? The guy in an oxford shirt that talks on his cell phone while cycling along on his unicycle?

Commuting is what we make it: It can be a solitary experience cased into tons of steal or it can be an interactive part of our life.

Gas is getting more expensive, our climate is changing, what do we have to loose?

With my 41st birthday looming...

it was a pretty good year...
-- I quit my job
-- We are going to open our shop in a few weeks
-- We got our adoption dossier done
-- My garden starts to look really awesome
-- I reconciled myself with my body
-- I feel happy

I guess 41 can come!

Towards Carfreee Cities

I am so excited... My friend J. dragged me into helping to organize the 2008 World Carfree Network conference in Portland. Those are the guys that organize the yearly carfree days, that happen in many European and American cities. The network is loosely connected to "Carfree Cities" by J.H. Crawford, that I yet have to read.
I love the idea to help organizing a conference. The academic in me is thrilled and the project manager smiles at thought of all the spreadsheets. I also want to make sure that conference doesn't become a crunchy geek fest, but a forum to share tips, things that worked and didn't work for moving towards a carefree life.
The longer I think about it, the more I realized that car-free living in America is only possible when you make it part of key decisions in your life such as where to live or where to work. If you are not married to a bike nut or come from a one-car, mom-doesn't-drive household, it must be hard to keep that in mind.
The conference will hopefully also help to create deeper understanding between Americans and Europeans -- I don't think that Europeans have a real understanding of American distances or the urge for mobility, while Americans sometimes disregard the most basic rules for comfortable living ("...gotta have groceries in walking distance!"). So, it's going to be exciting!

Oh, and there will be no car-hating... well perhaps a little Hummer sarcasm!

Good mommy karma for PIX

This is a glowing endorsement for Portland's own Konditorei Pix. I mean I already loved their cake, but since yesterday they have good mommy karma.
I purchased in a moment of confusion 2 tickets for the Dimsum yum yum event, totally ignoring that my honey does love Belgium Beer, but not desert before dinner. And I brought C. On top of all of that, I misplaced the tickets, which lead to a panicky phone call from my side.
When we arrived, I waved my credit card print out in lieu of tickets and we were placed at a small table with bar stools... not good for a four-year old! So they gave us a small table behind the bar, which was just perfect for us. By that time, my honey was thoroughly disenchanted and gracefully left us to score some thai food nearby. Carl and I ate ourself through about 5 dim sum-size deserts, during which it became clear to me that this is really not an event for kids!
The manager sensed my distress and offered to pack up the rest of the deserts we had left on our tickets. She was extremely understanding -- and that earns her BIG mommy carma points in my book.

The evening ended with a reverse dinner... while C. and I munched on our thai chicken, my honey had a few of the lovely little desert bids!

So, if you are in the mood for exceptional cake and goodies in Portland, go to Pix or Bar Pastiche on Hawthorne!