Monday, June 23, 2008

Biking and Gardening

Recently I've been biking to work. I borrowed a vintage Fuji 18 speed from Michelle's Dad, and it's taken me a week or so to get used to the friction shifting, located on the frame. I took it in to Kulshan Cycle today after work because it's been slipping teeth, especially when I'm putting a lot of torque on the pedals. I thought it needed a new chain, but it turns out it just needed to be lubricated and worked in a bit. One of the bike mechanics loosened it up for me and put some penetrating oil on it. It was like night and day - now it's really smooth. I bike about 2.1 miles one way to work every day, and it's really a relaxing ride. Not much traffic, except for one intersection, and it's relatively flat. I'm getting exercise, saving money on gas, and not polluting. It's been really eye-opening actually. Biking to work is really convenient.

This spring Michelle and I planted a garden in one corner of our friend Bea's garden. Bea has chickens, a dog, and some cats, and she recently acquired some ducks. It's a blast to go over to her place. The chickens sometimes segregate themselves into a corner of the yard, and when you come in they all come marching out, like they're on patrol, to investigate the situation. We planted carrots, radish, bell peppers (which didn't come up), cucumbers, broccoli and some flowers. All from seed! I'm pretty impressed with the broccoli - it's big and we just harvested the first three heads. We've got all the radish we know what to do with. Let me know if you have any good recipes that feature radish, or if you want any fresh radish. I like gardening because it reconnects me to the basic functions of life. It's very real. I feel like a lot of peoples lives, mine included, are a little pie-in-the-sky. I counted the other day, and I think my real job, while very necessary, is about 4 degrees of separation from providing for people's basic needs.

Speaking of my real job, click here for a link to some work I did recently. Click on the "Salary Matrix" link. That's all me!

No comments: