Ephemerica » General

Epilogue

Matthew — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 01:04:27 +0000

After being separated from our trusty touring bikes for a couple of months, we decided to bring them down to Portland for some surgery. We decided that we wanted to convert our bikes into Xtracycles. Yeah, I know what you’re thinking—you already have bikes capable of hauling a bunch of stuff, why do you need Xtracycles? Well, first of all, one of the things that we still regularly use a car for in our normal lives is going to the grocery store. Personally, I find hauling panniers into the store to do shopping a big pain in the rear. With the Xtracycles, I can just bring in my (much easier to carry) cloth bags, load them in the store, and then set them directly into the carrier. Not to mention I’m pretty sure that my capacity with the Xtracycle is much more than I could get into front and rear panniers. Heck, I could buy a couple of kidsat the grocery store and take them home too!

While I had the bikes apart, I took the opportunity to clean and replace a bunch of stuff that should have been replaced long ago, like the rear cassettes and Cindy’s bent rear derailleur. Now they feel like brand new bikes! I’ve ridden mine around a little bit, and once you get used to the long wheelbase (and the larger turning radius), it’s actually a nice ride. I think mine actually rides better when it’s loaded down with stuff. I do have to say though, after going so many months with a crap kickstand that was practically bent in half and barely worked, that I LOVE the heavy-duty Xtracycle kickstand, and also the fact that it doesn’t get in the way of the pedals!

With any luck, these bikes will continue to be our workhorses for many years to come…

Same as it ever was

Matthew — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:41:58 +0000

OK, Seattle isn’t exactly the same as when we left. But a lot of things are, including the Summer Solstice Parade at the annual Fremont Fair—as evidenced by the picture above. In any case, we made it home safe, albeit late due to delays on both of our flights. It has been great getting to see our long lost friends, and we’ll get to see my long lost family when we go to Portland this evening.

Chilean salmon virus running amok

Matthew — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:57:41 +0000

Since we recently camped outside one of these salmon farming facilities in Chile, I thought I’d pass on this NY Times article about a virus that is devastating the salmon stocks down here. I know this seems impossible, but they think that the fact that the salmon pens are too crowded and too close together may have something to do with the epidemic! The article also brings up all the major problems with salmon farming: the salmon require more food than wild fish, lots of antibiotics and hormones are used on them (released into open water, of course), and apparently the ones that escape are starting to become invasive (I don’t think they are indigenous to those waters).

Although there is no evidence that the virus is potentially harmful to humans, be aware that this salmon is sold at retailers like Costco and Safeway, among others. But I’m sure that all the readers of this blog already know that they should only buy wild-caught salmon (courtesy of Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch)….

A solution to the plastic problem?

Matthew — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 01:26:26 +0000

One thing that you can’t help but notice about Latin America is the overabundance of plastic shopping bags. Not only at the supermarket—where the checkers refuse to put more than three items in a single bag—but covering the entire landscape as well. Even this writer from the NY Times describing Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina (which we will be visiting soon) felt compelled to mention the trash in the first sentence of her article. We have been guilty of using too many plastic bags as well. We bought a shopping bag in Mexico, but we sometimes forget to take it with us, or we just buy too many groceries to fit in the bag. Did you know that there is a giant trash vortex in the North Pacific Ocean?

Well, in Ireland, they decided to try to do something about the problem. In 2002, they instituted a tax on plastic shopping bags. And it actually worked, to the tune of reducing plastic bag usage by a whopping 94%. What if a giant country like the U.S. reduced it’s plastic bag waste by that much? Would the trash vortex be only the size of Washington instead of Texas?

Speaking of WA, there is a bill in the state legislature to ban non-recyclable plastic bags. Personally, I think I prefer the taxation solution to a ban-&-fine system, but it may work just as well.

Monday Nephew Blogging

Matthew — Mon, 31 Dec 2007 07:00:00 +0000

I suppose I should also note that on November 10, 2007, Cindy and I became aunt and uncle to this little guy:

Braden Christopher Fisher is his name, and he’s surely the only kid on his block wearing booties from Guatemala (guess who sent him those!). We’re looking forward to making his acquaintance when we return.

Miscellany from Uyuni

Matthew — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 20:48:53 +0000

We got back from our Salar de Uyuni trip a couple of days ago (it was great—more on that later), and we’re hanging out in Uyuni for a few days while Cindy recovers from a small illness. So with nothing else to do but hang out, I decided to write up a review of our new bike computer, the VDO MC1.0. The short version: I like it.

I also wanted to talk about my search for the next Harry Potter book (#5, Order of the Phoenix). I finished #4 in La Paz, thinking I would have no trouble finding the next installment in the Bolivian capital. However, much like Quito, I went to several bookstores and couldn’t find it. Bookstores aren’t too plentiful in Bolivia, so I think I will have to wait until we cross over into Argentina to get the next book. I was very excited to find out (via harrylatino.com) though that the Spanish version of the last book, Harry Potter y Las Reliquias del Muerte, will be coming out on my birthday (Feb 21) in 2008! I think I know what I’ll be buying myself for my birthday next year…

How America lost the War on Drugs

Matthew — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 20:02:45 +0000

Since the War on Drugs in the US very clearly involves a lot of the countries we’ve traveled through, I thought I’d post this Rolling Stone piece, which details the history of the War on Drugs, calling itself “an anatomy of a failure”. Seems about right to me…

Bike City, USA

Matthew — Tue, 06 Nov 2007 20:40:54 +0000

Just ran across this NY Times article talking about the bike culture and industry springing up in Portland. Maybe there will be a place in it for us when we return? Or maybe we can steal some ideas and bring them to Seattle…

New spam filter and (lack of) wedding photos

Matthew — Thu, 27 Sep 2007 23:01:39 +0000

Just wanted to let people know that I changed our filter that keeps spam out of the comments. I doubt anyone has noticed, but one of our posts in particular (the last installment of cat blogging) was attracting spam comments, which I was then deleting (unless anybody needs more information about Cialis?). The little pictures where you have to type the word to make the comment were apparently not sophisticated enough…so I switched to reCAPTCHA. It’s a cool concept…they use your effort to read their smeary words to augment efforts to digitize books. A distributed computing project kind of like the SETI@Home screen saver, except that YOU are the computer! Anyway, I didn’t want anyone to be scared by the new filter, hence the news report. Let’s hope it works better than the old one.

No wedding photos yet…it’s been over a month since they were supposedly sent from Costa Rica. I’m starting to get a little nervous/upset…

More on Cuban health care

Matthew — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 23:28:58 +0000

Why Cuba is exporting health care to the US

An Alternet article with more details about the Cuban medical schools we mentioned earlier. There are no sources to back up the alleged high quality of Cuban health care, but the part about them training doctors from all parts of the world is certainly true.