It’s always cool to see bikes that are not traditional two wheel jobbies. I would love to have some different styles of bikes, but living in a 4th floor walk up throws a damper on multiple bike ambitions. For those of you blessed with garages there are lots more examples of four wheel rides here.
Recently I have been talking about some bright ideas I have had. Well, I am happy to report that the world can now see one of those ideas in action. It all happened in Troutdale, Oregon. I was killing some time on vacation with my friend Andrew, the lead designer for 686 Snowboard Wear, and he was asking for ideas. Okay, maybe he was not asking, maybe I was just giving.
Anyway, I am always a fan of what is practical. One thing that has always annoyed me while snowboarding is keeping track of my gloves. I often find myself getting on the lift for example and sticking them under my leg because I don’t want to jam them into my pockets. Thus I thought up the idea of the “glove tab.” This would be a small strap that would allow you to secure your gloves when getting on the lift, hiking for a hit, or whatever.
Andrew actually liked the idea and incorporated it into some of his designs and low and behold, they were approved! The tab has been on the market for a while now and it was incorporated both on jackets and pants.
The icing on the cake is that it actually is on the front cover of the Transworld buyers guide this year! Look at the end of the red arrow.
Congrats to Andrew. Not only for making the cover, but for patiently listening to my blathering.
Here’s an idea the federal government should definitely set aside money for. It pains me to say this, but it would even work with cars. It is a trailer designed to be pulled behind your bike. It is equipped with a solar panel and the wheel actually turns into a wind turbine to generate additional power.
I have always thought that wind power is one of the most simple applications that could be combined with a moving vehicle. You could put small wind turbines on bikes or on, cough, cars, and as the vehicle moves the turbine would spin and store energy in a battery that could be used to power devices in your home. It would reduce consumption from traditional power plants and thus cut down on your bill and your reliance on the grid. Maybe I’m dense, but it seems like a simple idea whose time has come.
There’s a more detailed picture here.
And while I’m on my own hot air rant, why not put small wind turbines on the top of buildings in large cities to generate extra power? I have been to the top of the Empire State building and it’s a wind tunnel up there. Some people might worry about birds getting chopped up by the spinning blades but I’m sure it would not take an engineer long to design a cage system that would cover the blades to prevent such a gruesome outcome.
I do not claim to be particularly creative, but I have creative ideas all the time. You know that high you get when you think of something or daydream and say to yourself, “Dang I am smart. I’m sure no one else has thought of that.” I am sure many of you have the same experience as me though – you think the idea is creative and original and a few days later you see that someone not only already thought of it, but has already done it.
The Internet is a particular downer when it comes to finding out that you are not the only one with the particular bright idea. With a search engine like Google, you can type out a few words and see if anyone out there has already brought your great idea to fruition. Being the bike honk that I am, I find myself constantly thinking of all the possible ways a bike can be used to make life better for people and the planet. Each time I am at the laundry mat, I find myself thinking about all the power that is used and one day I daydreamed of an alternate way. 60 seconds with Google and I found out my dream had already come true, multiple times. Behold . . .
Found this one here.
My idea was to use a side load machine and some others got very creative and ditched using an old machine all together.
For a full PDF on this one go here.
When it comes to dreams, I am reminded of a Bill Murray quote from the movie Stripes. He is introducing himself and says, “Chicks dig me, because I rarely wear underwear and when I do it’s usually something unusual.” No, I am not going to talk about my underwear, but in terms of my dreams, I rarely remember them and when I do it’s usually something unusual.
A dream I recently had was impossible to forget because of the pain that it caused. My wife already tells me I am an active sleeper. She is convinced I am so thin because I spend all my sleep time doing aerobics. I also remember an instance from my childhood when I kicked my cat halfway across the room while I was sleeping. I had one of those falling dreams and I awoke with a start and kicked my leg out in a panic and the cat, who was sleeping at my feet, went flying across the room.
I do not remember the exact particulars of this recent dream, but someone was teasing me and I kicked them in the butt when they turned to walk away. I acted out the dream because I ended up kicking the wall next to my bed. Pain went shooting through my toes and I am pretty sure I broke one of my toes. Talk about a weird way to hurt yourself.
Every once in a while there is a media story that warms the cockles of my heart. News of infrastructure decay, global warming, and civil war can throw a wet blanket on any good mood. But then there are those special stories of triumph, redemption, love, forgiveness . . . and the guitar solo that makes you want to bang your head and scream.
Yes, news that Van Halen is reuniting is one of those spine tingling, heart warming stories. Makes you want to hug a bunny. You just know the reunion is all about love for the music and the fans. Either that or the band members need to raise money for divorce settlements and drug rehab. I prefer to think it’s for the love. Too bad I’ll be over 4,000 miles away on the NYC date.
Rock on!
Had some of the family visit recently. Ariel’s brother and his wife, plus their two kids. Walking the streets with visitors always gives me a different perspective on the city, even more so with kids. It’s not often that I will walk around with kids, this was only the third time I can remember. I am pretty much dull to the many ugly faces of the city. Sites like rotting bags of trash on the sidewalk, a 50 foot picture of porn star, and stepping over a puddle of vomit on the sidewalk seem normal to me now. However when you are with visitors, you realize what a crazy place this really is.
We hit many of the normal sites, played Frisbee in Central Park, and celebrated a birthday. All in all a good time. They took a ferry tour ride and we posed for a picture at the terminal.
They wanted a tour of Columbia and I had never taken one so we went along.
Ice cream cake from Baskin-Robbins.
The subway.
Brother and Sister-in-law.
Chillin at home.
We have been tapped to bunny sit for a few weeks. It’s actually a Netherland Dwarf Rabbit. I have never been in the presence of a rabbit for more than a few seconds. I have seen wild rabbits in nature but they tend to scatter quite quickly when observed. If anyone has any rabbit advice, feel free to share.
My new favorite way to listen to music at work: http://www.pandora.com/
You pick a band you like, it plays music from that band and similar bands and you can fine tune it to search for what you like. More robust than iTunes and no commercials . . . yet.
Percentage of color television owners who pay for television programming:
Africa: 1%
U.S.: 93%
Question: Which group is to be envied?
