seed funding

and now i will tell you about the wonderful things that happened today.

i took out the bike my mom got me- her old schwin suburban. The tires were flat, the gears changed spontaneously (and I'm still a little unclear on how to shift them...), and the speedometer/odometer was broken. It went... but slowly and with much effort. so- to the bike shop!

There are two bike shops near me, and one of them was completely useless on the phone. So I went to the other one where the people are VERY nice and helpful. and i love them (probably on the same level I love my dentist... and no that's not a joke I am actually fond of my dentist b/c he's awesome). The guy was really smart and looked at it, saw the gear problem and explained it all to me, looked at the tires, looked at the speed/odometer. And here's how it went own: $50 for labor/tune-up, $20 for tires, $20 for basket. This is about the same price if I got a new (well, probably used, but new to me) bike and put a $20 basket on it. Considering everyone and their grandmother was impressed by my old school bike, and captain planet taught me to reuse, I'm fixing up this old one.

but there was nothing to be done about the speed/odometer. This made me sad. one of the helpy clerk guys told me, "you can check at yard sales, they usually have one you can take off a statonary bike". I said, "OK" but I mean... there aren't yard sales Atherton (or if there are we call them 'estate sales' but I think that's only when someone dies... I really don't know, don't take any of this as fact)- I am unaccustomed to the yard saling industry, which is technically part of the black market since it's not reported. this made me want to go to yard sales more!

I left the bike- i'm thinking of naming him 'Chauncey'- with the nice men at the shop and drove to the grocery store. And what did I see on the way but a YARD SALE and when I drove up what did they have but a CRAPPY STATIONARY BIKE!! Truly, incredible. So I made sure it worked, asked for a philips screw driver, took it off, paid the nice lady $5 and returned triumphant to the bike shop. they were all very impressed. I left it with my in-repair bike and floated/skipped back to the car to go to the grocery store for reals.

I also found out today that my faculty mentor for my research has an EYE PATCH. that is AWESOME and AMAZING. and I want to call him cap'n. I will have to resist.


And tomorrow- I am going strawberry picking! They may not use reusable grocery bags, but Indiana is still cool so far.