ooh.

Having new and more space makes one desirous of stuff

Like these, for example:

Moved in, two weeks

We moved in two weeks ago with the help of all the climbing crew. I promptly disappeared to West Virginny and Cecilia ran off to visit cousins in Regular Virginny. Now everything is pretty much in place, except the dining room, and the place is kick ass. Slowly we are accumulating craigslist furniture to fill up the empty spaces and replace worn out things, like chairs and coffee tables. I'll post some pictures later when it's more nice.

Bikes are doing well - the Nishiki is up and running with a super-stealth new chain and rear gear cluster. The indexing works, if you count working as not shifting down to the lowest gear (I got a 7 speed to replace a 6 speed, but I'm still only able to use 6 speeds). I rode to work for the first time in a long time today and it was great, especially the part where I nearly rear-ended a car turning left who stopped for a pedestrian. I like to think the cop on the corner was impressed with my lightning fast brake reflexes.

I finished Season 4 of The Wire which I highly recommend to everyone but my parents. Baltimore is really like this, people. They are filming season 5 but somehow the first episodes are already available for download through the bitorrent things. Last weekend in Portland I introduced Cam and Linh to the magical wonderness that is Azureus. They had been just getting dvds from the library! Imagine! Now they are watching Season 1 of the Wire and downloading all the Rick James singles they can handle. It's just like Venture Communism!

Oh yeah, the bikes. Well the blue Peugeot is getting a custom-made seatpost shim courtesy of Sean, and then when its proper tires arrive it will be all ready to put up on the old Ebay. The white Peugeot has its stem and I think I just have to file down a notch on the brake cable hanger in order to set up the front brake and be on my merry way. Having a bike stand and plenty of room in the basement has just been fantastic.

Linh is a graphic designer and has her own website now. She makes the COOLEST STUFF. Somehow we have similar sensibilities (Marimekko, Orla Kiely) despite not having seen eachother for 7 years! Cam is also doing well and starting work for the Governor of Oregon next week. And Caitilin bought a house with another college friend of ours, and is planting it all up since she is a landscape architect. She also has chickens! And a Nishiki of her own. We had a totally fun time on Saturday going to the Farmer's Market and buying picnic food, then heading out to the Gorge and hiking and wading and traversing up a slot canyon. My shoes got pretty wet but boy was it fun. Then yummy pizza at Ken's Artisan, where 9 million fixies whizzed by, along with a stiff breeze. We also visited Stumptown Coffee twice, which has the best coffee in the world. No fooling, NPR says so. They are super serious and super hip. Fortunately, they make a little zine on how to get the most out of your french press/cafetiere/etc (no drip coffemakers for them!) so I can try to recreate the awesomeness at home, if not the post-punk hipster atmosphere. I came home with a bag of beans and promptly ordered an appropriate grinder from the Internet. Bientot le vrai café. If you would like to order beans from them, you can do so here: http://buystumptowncoffee.com/

Congo Choo Choo for Malaria

"We're dropping the nets in the main departments on the way to Brazzaville because the tricky part of setting up a campaign of national distribution is that bed nets are a bulky item," he said.

New Laptop

I ordered a new laptop yesterday. Am sure this will solve ALL my problems.

Clouds lifting

Yesterday turned out to be a good day, though I didn't quite figure it out until we got seated downstairs at Dizzy's, and my burger arrived still very very pink! It has been quite a few weeks since 'medium rare' has not turned into 'well done' and I was getting a little despondant about the quality control. But maybe the old chef, who loves me and my uncooked ground beef, is back from maternity leave or something, or maybe Elaine put a little word in 'cuz our table is so 'easy'.

I also got promoted, and made progress on a couple key projects, which involved only picking up the phone, but it has been hard to do lately.

So, for all that, I can now share this Onion headline with glee and not cause for alarm:
Everyone Should Own A Gun For Protection And Possibly For Suicide

Thanks, Dad, for the super-depressing link.

Why I should have known that economists are assholes.

Perhaps the skills that make a good economist are, for some reason, negatively correlated with the attributes associated with being an agreeable human being. That is, economics may attract people with a particular set of personality attributes, and perhaps these attributes are not the same set of attributes you might choose for your next dinner party.

This is not entirely conjecture on my part. For example, this study

"explores the relationship between student's personality types, as measured by the Myers-Briggs Personality Type Indicator, and their performance in introductory economics. We find that students with the personality types ENTP, ESTP, and ENFP do significantly worse in Principles of Macroeconomics than identical students with the personality type ISTJ."
What is this personality type ISTJ that excels in economics class? Check out this description, which say in part:


The ISTJ is not naturally in tune with their own feelings and the feelings of others.

Sounds like any economist you know?

Except for my dad. Who does a pretty good job, except on Mom's birthday, of being a super niceguy.

Whoa II

As usual, nevermind.

WHOA

New crush.





Wow.

I don't know, I just like it

London Track Stands

New Bike Logo

The dudes over at Fixie Inc (cycles-for-heroes.com) have my new favorite web address and new favorite logo. They are Turkish! In Germany! And, most interesting, their Cyclocross bike is called the 'PureBlood'. Since their site is only in German and Turkish for now, I cannot understand any hidden irony in that. The bikes are expensive but the shirts are pretty cool. Also - they sell "Carscratchers", for the ends of your flat bars:


Ben Hur, anyone?