Biking in Detroit

Here's an awesome article about bicycling in Detroit. The photos of the excited kids watching Critical Mass are my favorite, but there are also bits about Detroit's bicycle history. Nice to read something about Detroit that doesn't mention Kwame.

Weekly Update

This is an idea I'm stealing from a nauseatingly cheery blog. It's a good way to get posting again after a long hiatus.

Outside my window … I'm at work. I can't look out the window. The glass isn't dripping with moisture, so it must be an okay day.
(Cheery blog: "I can see the forest, all sunny and warm ...")

I am thinking … evil thoughts about our office vending machine vendor because all that's left in the machine are jalapeno-flavored potato chips.
(Cheery blog: that I might have been all wrong about what I needed in order to be content.)

I am hearing … Ron conducting a phone interview. Glad one of us is working.

Some highlights from the week … We returned from vacation last weekend, started Benny at summer camp, baked a cake for Father's Day, attended a Dinosaur Preschool festival and saw the visiting Russian battleship from Vladivostok.

I am thankful that … I didn't have to go anywhere in the city on Sunday, because the Gay Pride Parade messed up all the transportation.
(Cheery blog: "A place to live.")

From the kitchen … Ron and I did four sinkloads of dishes apiece and we still have dirty pots on the counter. Grrr.
(Cheery blog: "Had to restart my sourdough starter, and have that working again. Doing water kefir still ...")

I am reading … "War in European History."

I am hoping … that the vending machine vendor comes tomorrow. That Benny will like his summer camp better this week. That I'm not catching a cold, because I feel sniffly.

One of my favorite things … Junior Mints. (Still hungry here.)
(Cheery Blog: "My sweet child.")

A few plans for the rest of the week … I have Friday off and plan to do some writing. We are also making plans for the Fourth of July weekend.

Have a good week

Still Golfing

Here's Benny golfing at the Lucky Elementary Funfest last year ...









... and again this month.



Hole in one!

Yes, We're the Creepy Family

So my husband and son are apparently determined to get us on some List of undesirable people at the local elementary school.

Benny brought home a chunk of wood and a large metal screw from the park on Monday. While I was lying down in the bedroom reading People magazine, he borrowed a rubber band and fashioned this:



He's planning to sell the prototype to the U.S. Army so they don't have to use real guns, "just scare people" instead. I told him that while I'm sure his little friends would love to see this homemade weapon, he was NOT to bring it to school for ANY reason.

He also told me "I know more about weapons than any of my friends." My coworker reassured me that little boys probably all say that. But I suspect his little friends went home that day and told their parents "Benny knows more about weapons than anyone else in school."

The following morning, Ron volunteered to drop Benny off at school and meet a Kindergarten mom in the courtyard who has my sunglasses. (I'd left my sunglasses at her house last week during a book swap/wine and cheese thing.)

Ron didn't know the woman — he just had my fuzzy description ("skinny, with glasses and hair that does this ...") So he stood around the school courtyard by himself after dropping off Benny, looking closely at the passersby.

The results were predictable. The principal came over to make sure he wasn't some sicko stalker and was relieved to hear he was Benny's dad. ("You look just like him!") Ron helplessly explained his mission and they walked over to room 101, where a flock of moms were chattering outside the classroom door. One of them handed over the sunglasses, and Ron fled the building.

"I'm not going back to the school for the next five years," Ron declared to me later at work. He's convinced that from now on, whenever he's at the school, people will point and say, "there's that guy who was hanging around the courtyard."

Creepy guy, violent kid and lazy mom — we're the All-American family.

You Don't Know Me

So I did something today for the first time I'm quite proud of: I mailed off an opt-out form from a privacy notice.

Like everybody else, I get these baffling little notices and leaflets describing a company's Privacy Policies: "Weirdo Financial Services will not sell, rent, share, or otherwise disclose personally identifiable information from customers with other companies, unless of course there is an affiliation, such as doing business in the same hemisphere ..."

Opting out is easy, the privacy notices say. All I have to do is call a number and wait on hold forever, get online and click a dozen boxes ("Are you really sure you don't trust us?") or fill out some wretched little form, make a copy, find a stamp and mail it off.

The outcome is predictable. I add the privacy notice to a little stack of similar notices on my desk and there they stay unless I spill Snapple on them or move to a new apartment, whichever comes first.

But not for Comerica. I'm a little cranky about Comerica, and Ron and I are in the arduous process of closing our bank account there. We're in a new relationship with a credit union and have adjusted our direct deposits and automatic bill pays and received our new checks. Now I'm just waiting for PG&E to get its act together and start pulling our monthly bill from the right account. I know, the way PG&E works, it might be Christmas before we can close our Comerica account.

However, I am optimistic. I can't wait to get out of Comerica, which has annoyed me mightily with its minimum balance requirements, piddly ATM network, giant fees, credit card rate hikes and refusal to issue money orders. There are other reasons, but that's enough to go on. "It's not me, it's you," I look forward to telling them.

So I'm happy to inconvenience them in any way, and this morning I checked the boxes that said "NO, don't share my credit info within the Comerica familly or market to me based on my transactions" and "NO, don't share my credit info with any fool company you decide to contract with." AND — this is the important part — I actually dug up a stamp and mailed the thing.

And maybe next time I get a Privacy Policy notice, that one won't get buried on my desk either.

Ron in Chicago

Ron made this cool video while attending the annual BIO national biotech conference in Chicago, showing many shots of the city. Check it out!

Too Busy to Fail?

You find me on the field of defeat, not victory, and yet I feel all right about that. It’s Tuesday, the second day of my week off. Yes, you read that right, I have a week off, a little five-day gift card of time that I still can’t figure out how to spend.

Yesterday was very successful, except for a squabble between Benny and myself as he rejected jacket after jacket in the morning and we were late as hell and I finally snapped, tossing his spurned hoodie into the waste basket and announcing it would NEVER be worn again. Benny looked shocked and I fished it back out again, feeling not guilty (I don’t seem to have the quick-to-flick guilt switch that most mothers have), but pretty damn stupid.

So we finally left, and I sat Benny down on a little stone step and we talked it over a bit so that we’d feel good again and Benny wouldn’t smack some kid with a paintbrush or do something else at school to release his emotions. And while we were late, we weren’t Tardy, so I didn’t have to go to the office and get a Slip.

Not an auspicious start, I know, but things perked up after a round of shocking self-indulgence: a manicure, pedicure and half a bag of Ruffles. Then I talked to my sister for a mind-bending amount of time. Then I slathered on a layer of Hawaiian Tropic and headed out into the sunshine to eat a donut, buy some used books and drop off dry cleaning.

Muni buses being what they are, this took all afternoon and I barely made it to Benny’s aftercare on time and had to feed him hot dogs and tater tots because I’d forgotten to take the stew out of the freezer. Then we played videogames and I put him to bed.

So I felt I was on a roll here today. I woke up to a fairly clean apartment and Benny and I had a serene morning. I just missed a 37 bus heading back home, so I went to Cole’s Hardware with the grand ambition of buying drapery sash rods to install over our bedroom window. Our blinds do a poor job of blocking out the enormous streetlight outside our apartment building. (Longtime readers of this blog might remember our neighbor Big Foot back in Ann Arbor and his 1,000-megawatt light shining right into our bedroom. The Fates just don’t like me sleeping in a dark bedroom.)

I found find some drapery rods and mountings that were fastened with nails, per the rules on our lease. Just to make a party of it, I went next door and picked up a newspaper and pound of ground beef for tonight since I’d forgotten to take the stew out again. As I was paying, I watched the 37 go by again.

The next one wasn’t coming for 25 minutes (according to NextBus), and the day was turning warm, so I asked the meat guy to hold the beef in his fridge for 15 minutes or so. He agreed enthusiastically, sounding very relieved that I was going to be responsible with the ground beef he’d sold me. I think he was happy it was going to a good home.

Then I tried to make the best of it by going to the café across the street and spending Benny’s inheritance on a cup of lemonade. My drapery rods and I took a sunny table outside. I checked NextBus … 17 minutes … read how our Mayor wants to rename Third Street after Willie Brown … 15 minutes … read the funny pages … 10 minutes … pondered if going to see “The Ghost Writer” would mean tacit approval of Roman Polanski’s criminal activities … about time to go and get the beef … and watched the 37 go by again, 7 minutes early.

Well. I didn’t have the heart to tell the meat guy the truth, just picked up the beef and glowered at a the bus stop for a solid 18 minutes before the next one came.

Once home, I installed the drapery rods. It was an irritating process, and my God, they looked awful. Obviously I had not treated the thin rods with the delicacy required as I carried them from hardware store to grocery store to café to meat guy to bus top and then on the bus. Both were bent. I tried to straighten one, and made it look worse. Disgusted, I pulled out the mountings and now had little holes around my window, lined up in little pairs, like vampire teeth marks. I didn’t have any spackle, so I busted out my acrylic paints and mixed up a little beige paint to dab on the holes. So now there are spots around my window that look oddly, subtly discolored, like tiny water pipes in the wall had leaked.

And how did I feel, after wasting $15 and two hours of my precious vacation time to end up with weird spots on my bedroom wall? Strangely OK with it, at least after drinking a restorative Snapple and eating the rest of the Ruffles. I’ve realized that in the frenzied activity of most modern families, we don’t have time to fail. Not that we don’t fail – oh boy, do we fail. Late pickups, forgotten lunches, missed deadlines, temper tantrums, really bad hair days, things we shouldn’t have said, emails we shouldn’t have sent … the list goes on.

But we rarely have time to consciously embark on a risky project, knowing it might not turn out, feeling confused, embarrassed or incompetent (or all three). Trying new things takes time and energy. It’s easier not to make the attempt. I realize I’ve been spending my minutes like a little miser, looking for maximum ROI. Looking at things that way, wasting time and failing spectacularly can be very liberating.

Now I’m looking at the kitchen doorway. What if I found a little teeny tension rod to put on it and hung some thin drapes to cordon off the kitchen …

Dancing with the Doofuses

I try not to do this often, because if I were to post all the clueless emails I get from PR folks, I'd have no time for anything else. But it's deadline day and I have no time for anything, so of course I'm posting one today.

My current work project (let's call it The Sustainable Oscars) involves badgering green companies and their PR flacks for nominations. Here's an email I received this morning:

____________________________________

Hi Christina,

Quick ?- can you tell me when winners in the solar category will be
notified? I submitted my client Doofus Solar and I'd like to tell them when we
can expect to hear.

P.s. We no longer represent Weirdo Biofuels for PR. Sorry I could not enter
them!

Thanks!

Ima Nitwit

______

Well, dear readers, you can see three problems here right off the bat. First, my name's not Christina. Secondly, telling me to do something Quick actually slows my response time. And thirdly, I wish Ima had told me earlier that she no longer represented Weirdo Biofuels, like before the deadline for nominations had passed.

In other news, Ron left for Washington, D.C., yesterday to beef up our sister paper's reporting staff. I vowed to go to bed early every night while he was gone to keep my energy level up. So of course I stayed up until 11 last night watching the History Channel's "How the States Got Their Shapes." I knew about the War of Toledo that gave Michigan its Upper Peninsula and how West Virginia split from Virginia. But did you know that Missouri has that weird little notch on the bottom because some big landowner didn't want to be part of Arkansas? Or that there was this little phantom state called Franklin that now only lives on in State of Franklin Insurance signs? Or that the border between Colorado and Kansas was set because Kansas didn't want any gold so they wouldn't have to deal with sex-crazed prospectors? It was a great program.

Happy Birthday to Me ...

Here's Benny singing "Happy Birthday" at his own party. What a ham.

Killer Robots Never Work

... And don't turn into a snake. It never helps.

The first piece of wise advice above is the name of my as-yet-unpublished science fiction novel. I just submitted a synopsis and the first four chapters of "Killer Robots Never Work" to a contest, and the effort inspired me to start a writing blog. There are a lot of writing blogs out there, all of them so earnest, with writing goals and Muses and much fretting about the moral Core of their writing. My writing, of course, doesn't have much of a moral Core. I subscribe to the "This guy's boring, let's give him purple eyebrows and a shovel collection" style of character development.

So now I have a third blog, called "Killer Robots Never Work." There I maintain that every story needs a killer robot. Life is hard enough without taking your writing seriously.

Benny's 6th Birthday Party

Well, we threw a 6th birthday party for Benny at a neighborhood park on Saturday and lived to tell the tale.

The planning was pretty intense, involving multiple trips to Target, repeated phone calls to a nearby Asian bakery emphasizing "DARK green frosting", and online ordering and delivery angst.

In keeping with the football theme, I decorated the cake to look like a football field. Cakes are a lot easier to decorate than cupcakes. Ron's idea to line the edges with colored sprinkles to represent the spectators was pure genius.

The timing of the event was a little tricky — I reserved the park clubhouse from 1-4 PM and set the party time for 1:30. So I packed all the party supplies in labeled plastic bins except for the cake, ice cream, tables and chairs. (One of our friends brought the bunches of balloons, thank heavens.) I fit almost everything in the car, although Benny had to ride to the park with a card table on his head. Then Ron and I carried the first load to the door of the clubhouse and he and Benny stood guard while I went back for the second load. I struck gold with a nearby parking space and arrived with the cake at 1:05. Yay!

After all that, the party itself was a breeze. My ritual goat sacrifices to the weather god at dawn obviously paid off, because after spitting rain on and off all morning, the skies cleared on cue at 1:00 and the sun shone down. Benny and his friends played on the playground, ate cake and ice cream, threw footballs and batted balloons.

We broke with San Francisco tradition and had Benny open his presents at the party. People don't do that here, probably because kids' birthday parties in this town average 20-70 children. But we had a small group, so I told Benny to go for it.

Happy Birthday Benny!

I Can't Wait to be Part of the Problem

I'm thinking of a magic number — can you guess what it is?

The number is 220. It's a very nice number, and not just because it's in my address. 220 is a common voltage in many countries. It's also divisible by the sum of its digits. The Goths invaded Asia Minor and the Balkans in the year 220. It also saw the beginning of the Three Kingdoms period in China.

But my affinity for the number 220 is not so historic. My magic number is actually 220 dollars, as in $220 a month. $220 is the most I'm willing to pay for a monthly bus pass for my family.

Right now, we pay $120 a month for our Muni fast passes, which allow us to ride any Muni bus or light rail in San Francisco as much as we want. We should be buying a youth pass for Benny as well ($15), but so far we've been able to sneak him on the bus for free. (Yes, apparently I am willing to compromise my morals for $15 a month. That's a whole other magic number.)

So the current cost of Muni transportation for a family of three (if they're not thieving cheats) is $135. Which would be completely reasonable, if San Francisco's public transportation system was a well-oiled machine, with consistently reliable, safe and pleasant service.

Ha ha.

Muni is well, pretty bad. The buses are dirty, the schedules are a joke and the drivers hate everybody. (These same drivers are guaranteed the second-best salaries in the country. Seriously, guaranteed. It's in the city charter.)

Still, we have made our peace with Muni, rarely venturing from the No. 6/N Judah cow path we take to work. I take other buses as little as possible, preferring to use City Car Share. Last night I took the 43, and a fellow rider pounded a rear window until it gave way, then leaned out and shouted at pedestrians.

This year, we plan to buy a car. Then we'll use Muni even less, probably only to commute to our jobs downtown.

Unless ... Muni hits the magic number.

The SF Municipal Transportation Agency is proposing cuts to every Muni bus line to close a $16.9 million budget gap. Just a month ago, the SFMTA made a ton of service cuts and raised the price of monthly passes from $55 to $60. The cuts will reduce frequencies on every Muni line and increase fares for historic streetcars, express buses and cable cars. They also want to increase the Youth monthly passes.

When Ron and I arrived in San Francisco in 2007, the cost of a monthly pass was $45. Now it's $60. Obviously Muni is gunning for the passengers and the cost of the passes will keep rising. Quickly.

Hence the magic number. I figure that if adult monthly passes hit $90 each, and the youth pass is $30, the total cost is ... wait for it ... $220. The SFMTA is already talking about raising youth passes to $30.

So what will Ron and I do if monthly passes total $220? The answer is simple: Climb back into a car.

For $250-$300 a month, we can get a nice parking spot downtown near our jobs. Then we can ride into work every day in our car, dropping Benny off at school on the way. A nice, relaxing ride with the family twice a day. If Muni keeps raising its fares, while providing substandard service, why not drive?

Then we will be part of the problem, spewing carbon exhaust every day while adding to traffic congestion in this "Transit First" city.

My essay lives on

An essay I wrote for the SF K Files about Benny's Lucky Elementary has appeared on a San Francisco Chronicle blog. Click here to check it out.

The comments following the last parent essay on this blog are um ... vivid. Check out "crotch fruit," the newest hip phrase for "children." I know I should feel demeaned and offended, but I can't quite stop giggling. I can imagine introducing myself: "Hi, I'm a breeder and this is my crotch fruit." I guess I'm immature.

(giggle)

Benny at the Park

Here's Benny on the swings at the park near our apartment, courtesy of Ron's iPhone.

Christine Takes It to the Streets

The blog "Muni Diaries" posted my experience on a Muni bus this week. Check it out here.

I am outraged that a transit operator would treat customers in this matter. Think of that woman passenger who initially complained. How is she going to feel riding Muni every day, knowing that a whole bus heard her called an awful name? How is she going to feel knowing that if she speaks up about anything or stands up to herself, she's asking for abuse or name calling? Is this what SFMTA wants for their passengers? Is this what San Franciscans want for their city? And worst of all, no other passengers stood up in her defense — in fact, another passenger called her an obscenity. Is this the city we all want?

By the way, the comments are fun, too. One reader is having trouble making the intuitive leap required to connect this example of Muni's unsafe, unreliable and uncivil service and Muni's plan to cut service and increase fares. Why would one driver's behavior lead me to oppose drastic service cuts? Because if Muni can't provide safe, reliable and civil service now, what will the system be like after new layoffs and service cuts?

Annoying Travelers Attempt to Catch Flights

Detroit Metro Airport is reproaching travelers for showing up for flights too early. The nerve!

Poor Verizon, So Misunderstood

A Verizon Wireless patsy (er, vice president) had to write a letter last week to the FCC defending its $350 early termination fee and its little “arrow button” cash cow.

She begins by saying those big early termination fees (ETFs) “promote consumer choice” because that way Verizon can offer smart phones at cheaper prices. Customers can pay through the nose for a month-to-month plan, but most (surprise!) choose to sign up for long-term contracts.

And after all, the executive writes, those smart phones are expensive to provide, so they get higher ETFs. It’s a risky business, the mobile industry, and Verizon needs to protect itself. All that technology and all those customers just spooks them out.

The FCC wanted to know how Verizon told people about the $350-and-up ETF. Well, the morons could look on the web site, answers the Verizon exec. It’s right there in teeny-tiny type. In fact, we put the ETF on ads, telemarketing scripts, sales receipts and letters. We do everything but stick it on billboards on Interestate 80! What is wrong with you people?

The FCC then presses Verizon about the rationale for the high ETF, and the Verizon exec gets upset. Do you have any idea, she asks, what a canceled contract does to Verizon? It messes up all our plans! It turns off a guaranteed revenue stream! We have to provide all that mobile broadband service and that costs money! If a customer cancels a contract, it destroys our entire business model. We can’t eat! We can’t sleep! The entire world economy could collapse! Do you want that, FCC?

The FCC also wants to know the cost difference between what Verizon pays for mobile devices and what it charges customers, but Verizon is too cagey to answer that. They just repeat that the difference is twice as much for smart phones. And remember, the executive says, we have to buy ads and pay salespeople. Who’s gonna pay for that? The company? We got shareholders!

At this point, Verizon feels that the whole ETF issue has been pretty much hashed out and turns to the second problem.

Customers are mad because if someone accidentally presses an arrow key on their device (which has been preprogrammed by Verizon for internet access), the customer is charged $2 even if he cancels the connection immediately. And those buttons are kinda small, guys.

The Verizon exec utterly denies that the button takes users anywhere but the Verizon homepage. Those hordes of doofus customers must be recklessly navigating elsewhere on the web, the executive writes. And we’re happy to credit their account if they feel they’ve been unfairly charged.

All in all, I think Verizon is a little bitter about how complicated and expensive providing mobile broadband is. It’s so annoying having to buy the equipment and build a network and hire sales reps and pay for office coffemakers and all. I think Verizon is feeling a little unloved for all their hard work. Verizon is probably wondering why it didn’t go into something easier, like banking.

Poor Verizon.

Very Cold Paws

I'm a little link-happy today. Here's a picture of a cute kitty in the snow that was posted Consumerist.com, one of my favorite sites. Cat pictures and crabby consumers. These are my people.

San Francisco Photo Story

Here is a remarkable collection of pictures of San Francisco from photographers that love the city. Most of them were familiar to me: the redwood grove in Golden Gate Park, the hills of Twin Peaks, the beaches, the bridges, the buildings.

Beautiful pictures like these remind me why we're here and the how much I take for granted every day. This is especially good on days where the sky is gloomy, the car horns are blaring and the price of monthly bus passes are raised (again!).

See San Francisco

I Don't WANT to be Special!

I just wrote this note to BIC USA:

"I just bought a pack of Comfort 3 Pivot razors. They were pink, they had three blades, good enough for me. I didn't realize they would smell like berries. Is this really necessary? Has Bic lost its mind? What makes your company think that American women LIKE their razors to smell like berries? It's nausea-inducing, really. I couldn't wait to wash the smell off my hands. I'm a working mother and now on top of everything else I have to think about, now I have to make sure my razors don't smell?"

Now these razors will join the no-sodium chicken soup, the celery-and-green-pepper diced tomatos and the garlic crescent rolls as yet another stupid special version I've bought this week. I have to check any product's packaging three times before buying it, lest I end up with diet tomato sauce or lime-flavored tortilla chips. Gross!