Prosthetically Hip

Gas Money Records

May 21, 2009

If you follow me on Twitter ( @dubtea ), you would have seen that yesterday that Bea had completed her first bike commute from our house in the Marigny to her office in Harahan. As you may or may not remember, she had quite a bit of trouble the last time she made the attempt last August. Considering the wreck and the confidence it seemed to destroy, I’m super proud of this big step.

The trip by car rolls in at about 21 miles, and is slightly longer by bike ( about 24 miles ) and bicycles are not allowed on the interstate. She basically rides through the Marigny/Quarter/CBD down Royal St./St. Charles Avenue, and cuts to Magazine at Lee Circle, taking that all the way down to Audubon Park and the Mississippi River levee path, which is free of cars.

She’s still using a Scattante Zonal road bike on load from a co-worker, but has her eyes on, nay, lusts for a 2008 Bianchi Dama Bianca Elena. Behold:

It’s not super-girly, it’s purple (heellllooooooo, she loves that purp), is a pretty decent bike, and perhaps most important of all, would be hers.

The problem is the budgets here at La Iglesia are a little tighter, and shelling out ~$1,500 for a new bike isn’t super fiscally responsible. Now I’ve been told by my friends at Bicycle Michael’s that if I were to provide them with the bike size, they’d hold one for her, which is great.

I’ve decided that as an incentive, I’d make some sort of log to help visualize her goal, and her status on earning the $1500 in blood (hopefully not), sweat (summer is upon us), and tears (again, hopefully not). I built a little system I’ve named “Gas Money Records“.

Sometimes I’m too clever for my own good.

Anyways, every day she rides to / from work, she enters the data and it calculates how much she’s saved. The part that I found most interesting was the breakdown of gas vs. maintenance. You end up sending about 10¢/mile on gas, and over 30¢/mile on oil, tires, maintenance, etc. I used commute solutions as a reference, and left out much of the expenses associated with driving: insurance, tax, parking, tolls, travel time, accidents, finance charges, etc. We don’t have tolls (except for the lousy West Bank), and if your car was parked at home you’d still have to pay taxes, insurance, etc.

Surprisingly, it costs her about $9 per day commute! This adds up to over $2,300 per work year! At that $9/day rate, Bea could pay for the bike in about 8 months (if she commuted by bike every day).

If you check it out, you can do your own calculations – leaving out the savings goal will show you what you’d spend in a work year commuting, or you can set a savings goal and see how long it would take you. It’s truly surprising how much can save by even commuting by bike once or twice a week. I don’t think I even need to touch on the health benefits of bicycle commuting.

Hasher’s Knee

May 13, 2009

Well, I think the trail I laid was pretty good, and got a lot of good feedback from it. If you want to read my write-up, you can at VooDooHash.com. The first hash I hared was a while ago with a friend of mine, and was a sheer and utter disaster for various reasons and as punishment, we each had our own bag of ice to sit on, bare-assed.

I think I’ve learned my lesson.

I have learned recently that I “suffer” from Runner’s Knee. Since I’ve started hashing, I’ve noticed that sometimes part-way through the run, often the day after, my right knee and hip have given me grief. It usually amounts to stiffness/soreness and a sharp pinching-like sensation in my knee and hip. It’s hard to describe, but it only happens on the right side.

I decided to ask Herr Google™ about these symptoms, and based on its description and recommended therapy/stretching, I have come to believe that it is indeed Runner’s Knee.

Before last week’s hash, I did the recommended stretch once or twice during the day, and also right before I took off to lay trail. I’m glad to say that neither during the run, or the day after, did I have any problems in either my hip or my knee.

And there was much rejoicing. Yaaaaaaay.

Well, I plan on attending this Thursday’s hash in Metry Brah, and the day after is the 2009 Tchoupitoulas Bar-A-Thon. 6 bars, 6 beers, 6 miles.

I guess I better start stretching.

Ruuunn for your liiiiiiife!

May 7, 2009

Ok chickens, I’m haring tonight’s VooDoo Hash. It’s in the Marigny – at Elysian Fields and Decatur.

What? Hashers? What’s the deal? I hear you say. Familiar with the Red Dress Run? That’s us on a weekly basis (sans red dresses). We’re a drinking club with a running problem, and if you ‘re interested in working up a thirst by hunting down a guy in a kilt running around leaving a trail of flower, and quenching said thirst with beer, then this is for you.

What to bring: (required)

• Sense of humor
• $1
• 6-pack of your beer of choice

What to bring: (recommended)

• whistle
• flashlight

We meet at 6:30, and I take off at 7:00. Come catch me!

I almost shit myself.

May 4, 2009

If you were to take the polar opposite of how I feel about, say, The Silence of the Lambs, and apply it to the animal kingdom, you’d still wouldn’t have enough ill-will towards spiders.

Oh, how do they revile me? Let the count the ways…

Anyways, when it comes to these nasty little hellions, I on par don’t do so well. I have improved much since that fateful night in ’96 when I watched Arachnophobia and then didn’t sleep for three days. It’s something I’ve been actively working on, as much as one can.

Well, just a bit ago, I was in this little room behind the entertainment center. The entrance is so narrow that one has to squeeze through it sideways, as the water heater blocks most of the entrance.

Well, I was in there, in that dark, hot, confined space, screwing a small bit of hardie board to more or less seal off a sizable hole in the wall. I take a step back and rotate to the left. At this point, I had wall directly on my right, a water heater right behind me, and had brushed up against some sort of spiderweb with me left arm. Up until that point with that contact with the web, I had totally sucked it up and manned it out.

Everything changed the moment I saw the beast. Needless to say, I got the hell out of there, and somehow without created a Will-shaped hole in the water heater and/or wall.

I tried and have partial success in soothing my nerves with whiskey, but let’s face it – I’m as jangled as a little girl. I’m still at the point where even the slight changes in air movement by the ceiling fan against my leg hairs are freaking me out. I wonder, can one get oneself hermetically sealed? Assuming there aren’t any in there?

Okay, I just freaked myself out more. I’ve dutifully applied whiskey to the mental injuries to help clean them.

I’ve sent an email in to Whats That Bug for a positive ID, and hope to have a name and information (and therefore power over) for this hellion.

Until then, here’s some photos I managed to snap, after the requisite swig or few of whiskey. For my own sake, I’m just going to link them instead of embed them, as I don’t even like looking at pictures of spiders.

I posted these up at a pretty high res, so enjoy/punish yourself:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503102998/
http://www.flickr.com/phtos/willcore/3503101272/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/willcore/3503099684/