Groupon had a 50% off sale six weeks ago, and at that price it was a no-brainer.

I thought it would be convenient, and nice-t0-have, but instead I became completely enamored and looking for excuses to use it. I loved how little hassle it was. I could wear long pants and the chain-cover protects them. No maintenance fuss.

I have had a few minor glitches though. A few bikes, early on especially, seemed to have poorly tuned shifters. It was hard to keep the bike in the top gear. Actually, the first time I rode one I thought it was broken because the top gear was so effortless. Turns out they’re just not designed to go very fast. Fair enough.

Only once have I encountered a completely full stand while going out; luckily I was aware of an emptier one nearby. I got the very last spot outside the Greyhound station a couple of nights ago:

Bixis at night.

What I didn’t anticipate however was that I would end up commuting with these every single day. I mentioned the stations only reaching Bloor and my office being at Dupont. Turns out I like biking to Bloor and walking the rest of the way. It’s not that far, only 15 minutes for an average walker. Instead of leaving home at the very last possible moment and arriving at work as a sweaty mess, I take a bit more time in the morning and have a relaxed slow Bixi ride to Bloor, and then a stroll to my office while listening to the podcast de jour.

I also feel that, insofar as my daily commute is concerned, the Bixi is just better exercise since it’s a slower, heavier bike over a similar distance.

Lit

Another great thing is that currently it’s already pitch black when I leave work at 5:00. My hybrid commuter has lights, but my fancy CX bike which I normally use, does not. No trouble with Bixi: they’re ultra-reflective, and have a dynamo in them to power bright flashy LED lights in the front and back whenever the wheel turns.

Overall, I think at the very least, this will make for an awesome winter commuter. They’ll be open every day it’s not “dangerous” according to their authority, and it saves me from wrecking my own bikes with road salt.

For me, it has really come down to self-censorship. I would love to write about my job, but choose not to overlap work with my personal life. I have previously written about things I feel I can contribute to, like the art of classic shaving, but I reached a point there where I could no longer speak authoritatively.

The next logical post would have covered consumables: shaving creams, soaps, and aftershaves, however I have been using the same tub of shaving cream for over two years. (The product description says it should last close to a year; however much of this time I have only been shaving 2-4 times a week.) It’s great and insanely efficient, but I simply have not had a chance to try a large enough breadth of products to write about their strengths and weaknesses.

I’d like to write about politics, but don’t have the time nor patience for the inevitable arguments or discussions.

I do not like to post unless I feel I have wholly explored something, but often my drafts get too unwieldy. I put them aside, but usually take so long to edit them that the article would no longer be relevant by the time it could be posted.

I actually have that problem with photography too. I got into it in such a big way this year, I was attempting a 365 project where I would take at least a picture a day. After that, several concerts, and a few weddings however, I was so inundated with photos to edit I just had to take a vacation from it.

At once point I gave up on taking a picture a day in favour of concentrating taking what I have, and posting a well processed image a day. Even though I have taken something like two months off now, I probably still have plenty to make up for the lost time. I will post more about photography and what I have learned.

Some other stuff that has come up in this break that I would like to and will write about includes:

• health – illness, training, biking, standing desk
• fountain pens – highly recommended to anyone, but especially lefties
• web programming
• civil service

The pork came out decently, but the sauce made from the drippings was just incredible.

I got the recipe from here: http://www.goonswithspoons.com/Pulled_pork

Now I need to find more things to do with liquid smoke…

I knew that the shifting needed to be tuned, but more significantly the rear wheel was bent. My chain had already broken twice at the end of last season, so that was on the replacement list. Examining the teeth on my cogs though, they seemed. (Not a surprise, I was terrible with maintenance on this bike so the chain aged considerably faster.) Once I got started, I discovered that the rear-derailleur hanger and the derailleur itself were bent.

Determined to make up for past transgressions in maintenance, I started with a $140 stand from MEC. I’m glad I chose it over the $180 version, it’s plenty tall enough, sturdy, looks nice (in person) and quite easy to store (it becomes compact, though still fairly tall). I can’t believe I’ve gone so long without a stand, it makes all other maintenance tasks so much easier: no more cussing and frustration when the upside down bike topples over. As well, much easier access to the derailleur limit screws.

I then spent $40 at Canadian Tire on car wash detergent, sponges, brushes, rags, steel-wool, grease and touch-up paint and followed these guides and washed three years of crap out of it … in my living room. My building doesn’t really have any kind of facilities or place for doing this kind of thing. I did the wheels in Heather’s bathtub. To my credit, she was only suspicious because the tub was scrubbed cleaner than it was. I expect to be doing this in friends’ driveways once it’s nicer out.

Anyway, though I had to be careful with dripping, I was surprised at how easy it was, and how shiny and new even the cogs looked after I was done. While I had several gouges in my frame, no rust had formed thankfully. I sealed them up again with touch-up paint. I just discarded the chain.

I used this $80 stand to true the rear wheel. This was surprisingly quick and straight-forward. I’m pretty sure the reason everything was bent in the first place was because of my building’s terrible storage situation where I’m required to keep my bike in a bike-rack in a packed communal room. I’m pretty sure the derailleur and wheel got bent from my lovely neighbours shoving my bike out of the way. I figure I’ll have to fix the wheel somewhat often. I need to write the building management and try to figure out some better solution.

Other expenses at this point were $15 on a chain and $5 on a degreaser from MEC.

As I started tuning the bike following these guides, I discovered that the entire rear-derailleur system was bent. The hanger and the derailleur itself. Shifting to the lowest gear would actually insert the derailleur into my wheel. As well, the lower jockey wheel (the little gears that pick up chain slack) was seized unless I unscrewed it’s bolt a bit. After consulting some sources, I decided that I was best taking this to the shop, that I wasn’t going to buy the $50 tool for repairing the hanger myself.

It turned out to be a $4 part and $9 of labour at Curbside Cycles. I asked about the mangled looking derailleur and seized-if-I-tighten-it jockey wheel, but was told it was supposed to be like that. Righto. My bike was otherwise functioning great until my second ride to work, where the rear derailleur completely fell apart and launched the jockey wheel somewhere into traffic. Shit.

$70 (inc. tax) later for a new derailleur at Sweet Pete’s, shockingly easy to install myself. I did struggle to finally get it perfectly in tune, but it just came down to yanking the cabling through it with enough strength.

The bike now works possibly even better than when it was new.

Last weekend I also added $30 fenders from MEC. BUT THAT’S IT.

So that works out to about $430 tax-in. I’m looking at 5 months of biking almost every single day to work to break even at the end of August. Obviously I save more for any extra trips. The tools I acquired should also last forever so I’ll be ahead of the game in all future years. Even the consumables will last a long time.

2011/03/30 edit: I had a stupid accident with my helmet (not while wearing it), though really it was due for replacement anyway. Another $70. Lost a winter glove at a party and the mornings are still too cold to ride with bare hands. $50 for cool-weather biking gloves. $136 together with tax for a new grand total of $566 to recoup.

I bought it because I liked the excerpts I read on Gizmodo. I’m extremely pleased with it and endorse it wholeheartedly, though there is some weird stuff that is probably safe to ignore. Word of warning though: it’s a massive tome. You only need to read small sections at a time (concentrate on one goal at a time), but it’s a little impractical to carry around because of how unwieldy it is in hardcover. I wish I’d bought an e-book version, but originally thought this might be something I’d want to share with people. I frankly want to keep it all to myself, hah.

Back in December, I’d barely started with the recommended diet, but switching to only eating legumes for carbs had made an immediate difference in my wakefulness and alertness. The difference was night and day. I was often still sleeping like crap, but I was vastly more productive during the days. I also lost a significant amount of weight pretty quickly.

Since though, I started falling into bad habits again. While most of my meals are still of the protein+legumes+vegetables variety, I’d started eating junk food again as well.

So it’s time to get back on the wagon. Since willpower didn’t work, I’m trying one of the weirder ideas in the book: take a picture of food before you eat it, and better yet, post it somewhere to keep yourself honest. We all carry cameras around with us on our phones nowadays so it’s simple. The idea works in embarrassment and potential shame ha. Do you really want to take a picture of a hamburger? And it helps to have people keep you honest.

So that said, my food log can be found at:

http://www.markosaar.net/category/food-log/

I’ve set up WordPress to not post those to the main page. For some reason the photos don’t show up until you actually open each entry. I’ll figure that out.

Real posts coming soon I swear!

But I want to point out, it’s such a bullshit rhetorical technique.  Everybody knows that nobody needs anything but food, shelter, and clothes if he or she is modest.

It’s perfectly okay to want/lust after something, and it’s nobody else’s business … except maybe creditors.  I guess being an Apple fan is just a slightly more abstract hobby.

I chose a BlackBerry mostly because I really didn’t like tapping out long messages on an iPhone’s keyboard.  For plain internet browsing, I think the iPhone’s browser wins no-contest, but that wasn’t my main concern.  As it turns out though, I’m just ecstatic with this purchase, and I’m discovering more and more to do with it every day.

I was on Fido, but still had 11 months left in my contract.  I discovered that Rogers can be negotiated with to allow you to break your contract once in your lifetime, to switch from Fido to Rogers or vice versa, as long as you’ve been on your respective network for at least a year.

As the gadget comes up in conversation, I’ve noticed some inaccuracies, and as well, have found solutions to some common complaints:

1. Consumer BlackBerries do have push email (at least on the Rogers network).  It does not require a corporate server.  I have it set up with my Gmail account, but you can create an @rogers.blackberry email address instead if you prefer.  Without the slightest exaggeration, emails show up on my BlackBerry before my Gmail inbox.  The address to set this up is http://www.rogers.com/bis/ You can set this up from your desktop PC.  You will need the IMEI and PIN codes.
2. It took me a couple days to figure out, but with the default theme, you change the home screen icons by moving the applications you want to the top row of your apps menu. (Probably obvious, but two friends who’d had theirs for months never figured it out.)
3. The included browser is nothing spectacular, however you can install Opera Mini instead.  The 5.0 beta includes tabbed browsing even.
4. The included Maps application is quite rudimentary.  Google Maps is a spectacular replacement.  More information here.
5. I love the cohesive Messages programme, how it consolidates all incoming messages from your various IM applications, Facebook, emails, etc.  All except for SMS messages for some reason.  You can in fact combine the Messages and SMS apps by going to the Options in Messages, choosing General Options, and changing the SMS and Email Inboxes setting to Combined.
6. BlackBerry apps do not close when you push the red disconnect button.  They stay running in the background, eating at your battery.  This is actually a great feature, and a huge advantage over the iPhone, but if you’re not aware of it, you’re killing battery life and memory for running other apps needlessly.  Generally you can close apps by pushing the menu button and selecting Close.  Unfortunately this isn’t 100% consistent, and some apps require you use Exit instead.  (They often still have a ‘Close’ command, but in that case it won’t necessarily stop the programme from running.)
7. Related to the previous point, you can access applications running in the background by holding the menu button (the one with the BlackBerry logo on it).  Depending on your model, there will be programmes that you cannot actually close permanently.  (On my Bold, the Browser, Phone, Home Screen, Messages, and BlackBerry Messenger apps are always running.)

Some personal favourite apps include:

• ÜberTwitter is my favourite Twitter client.  It’s far faster than the seemingly popular Twitterberry/OpenBeak.
• Macleans is a nicely formatted version of the magazine, though it occasionally cuts articles slightly short and tells you to find the rest on newsstands.

The one minor gripe I have is that I can’t access Gmail-specific features from within the Messages app.  The BlackBerry suggested I download a special “Gmail plug-in” when I first set up my email account, which would allow me to do things like flag and categorise messages.  This works great, however I have to run it as a separate programme.  When I look at my email from within the default Messages app though,  I can’t do any of that Gmail-specific stuff.  It sort of defeats the purpose of having a consolidated inbox, and calling the programme a “plug-in.”  Hopefully I’m just missing something, or it will be corrected soon.

She tried to drive off, but he weakly said, “don’t leave.  This is your fault.”  Her window was down and she denied being at fault.

She continued to drive, maybe planning on stopping at the curb, but several other witnesses moved to stop her anyway, one telling her, “I wouldn’t leave if I were you…”

The guy on the street tried to get up, but wasn’t able to.  I called 911, as nobody else seemed to have a cellphone out.  While I was on hold though (maybe 10-15 seconds), a paramedic had already run over from somewhere, and 30 seconds later a police cruiser arrived on the scene.  After giving the 911 operator my name & number, I left.  There were plenty more people on the scene, who presumably actually saw the event occur.

Frick people are stupid.  The driver seemingly assumed she wasn’t at fault because technically she didn’t hit him.  And really, it could have been his fault for all I know.  But don’t leave the scene you stupid, stupid, person.

Thinking about it on hindsight, judging from where they were, and the fact that I was slowing down to approach the intersection, I think she must have rushed a light and he was already in the intersection.  She was northbound on Victoria, he was westbound on Dundas.  I’m hardly a reliable witness in this account though.

I hope he’s okay, and I hope this doesn’t ruin the woman’s life, just teaches her a lesson.

—

Early evening edit:

Bad day for commuting. Almost went splat myself courtesy of a Beck taxi that unabashedly ran right through a red light.

—

Later evening edit:

Searching Twitter, this came up for the appropriate time:

@KatieSimpson24: Cp24: Cyclist struck at Dundas & Victoria. No closures yet. Possible leg fracture. Cp24 for updates.

So if Katie Simpson at CP24 is to be trusted, it’s just a “possible leg fracture.”  Except that she also called him a “cyclist” and said he was “struck.” Either she’s a lazy journalist (I have no reason to believe so), or “eyewitness” testimony really is that unreliable.  I couldn’t find any other mention of this in the media, CP24, or anywhere else.

So to sum up with two pictures per day:

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Saturday

Sunday