A "new" X

Last time I posted here (about a month and a half ago -- wow, what a long time) I also featured a pic of this little porch. But some things have changed! The bins that I was then "making soil" in (in part by ripping up cereal boxes into bits) now feature actual tomato plants (with baby tomatoes on them!). And, somehow, the bicycle that was also in that first pic has "grown" in this one. Unlike the plants that needed weeks (not to mention sun and water) to grow, the bicycle did all its growing, today -- I got my Xtracycle kit out of my storage unit, where it had been languishing for over a year now, and used it to stretch my bike another foot and a half and make it so I could carry the 65 lbs. or so of books that are on the back there (with my rabbinic ordination certificate in the cardboard on top of it all!).

Here are all the books, etc., unloaded at their destination and sitting by the elevator to get to my office upstairs. I've never really had a good place to hang my ordination certificate before, but my new office seems like a perfect place!

Here's another view of the bike loaded before departure:

It's so exciting for me to have an Xtracyle, again. True, I've still been able to bicycle commute and grocery shop without it. But shopping with a _regular_ bicycle seems so limiting after you've owned an Xtracycle -- you're always wondering if all the groceries, etc. will really fit, or if you can _really_ carry that large size of bleach home without busting your panniers (I'll never forget the time back in LA when I busted one of my brand new REI "Around Town" panniers the first time I used them by buying lots of large size liquid items at Smart and Final . . . bummer!).

It's not that the Xtracyle has _infinite_ cargo carrying capacity, but it's just so much more than you can hope to get on a standard bike. At K-Mart, today, I didn't even think twice about buying a lamp; it would have been really hard to figure out how to carry it on a standard bike. You can see the box with the lamp in it in the rear of the Xtracycle below, on the right side, along with a the rest of a total of some $110 worth of stuff I picked up at K-Mart and the supermarket.

The bike I _stretched_ is an old Giant Sedona I bought in LA around 2001 or so. I rode it all over LA, including up into the Sepulveda Pass (where my rabbinical school was) and along Mulholland Drive, which could be pretty exhilarating, especially after a rain when usually hazy LA became clear and beautiful. I call it "the junker" because it's in kind of rough shape. But now that I've X-ed it, I'm going to upgrade it some and have ordered about $300 worth of new parts, including two new wheels and a rear disc brake. The disc brake will come in pretty handy when the bike is loaded with a lot of stuff and when it rains. For now, I am getting by with _no_ rear brake. This is not as dangerous as it sounds (contrary to popular wisdom, front brakes are much more effective than rear brakes, especially when you are descending), but it's far from perfect. I have no rear gears hooked up either (turning the bike, effectively, into a 3-speed). This is not by design, so much, as just by practicality -- I'm just not enough of a bike mechanic to do the full conversion in one day. I hope to hook up the rear gears at least in the next few days. . . . . But, who knows if will really find time. . . . It's been a great summer, but one where I've been so consumed by my work (supervising/teaching six student chaplains we have with us for the summer) that not much else has gotten done (witness how I haven't blogged here at all!) . . . . Though, I can't really blame the lack of blogging just on being busy. I think I am a little overwhelmed by all the (good!) things going on in my life right now to be able to step back enough to reflect on them and write about them. Besides all the good times with Minna there is the fall -- when I start a doctoral program at NYU!!! . . . . I am so excited about that program. I've wanted to be doing doctoral work for a long time. And I think this is the next logical step for someone who has the kind of ambitions I do -- I don't just want to be involved in chaplain education (as a Clinical Pastoral Education, CPE, supervisor). I want to be involved in educating other _supervisors_. I want to be a voice in shaping the future of both rabbinic and pastoral education. I want to be able to say something about how people can be nurtured to be more compassionate and to be more effective leaders. I'm interested in that both for clergy and for doctors and other medical staff. . . . So, the doctorate is the place to go. . . So, I'm excited . . . And scared, too!!! :)

At times like this in my life, it's important to find ways to stay grounded. Cycling helps me do that. A cycling that is not just for exercise, but is part of a lifestyle -- a lifestyle that has an intent to be kinder to the earth by burning less petroleum than I would if I was driving just to do errands around town. A lifestyle that helps remind me that food is not something that just magically appears in the supermarket, but starts in soil that comes from the Earth that God gave us. A lifestyle where I do not just toss everything I don't consume into a landfill but where I try and recycle some of it (you can't really see it well, but the leftmost bin in the first pic above is a covered compost bin where we've been putting our food scraps).

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Although I think the latest X configuration should do me for a while, but I think my future -- especially if there is a longer bike commute (with more hills) waiting for me -- may hold some serious upgrades. I love the idea of a Big Dummy like this guy has (the Big Dummy is frame purpose-built for an Xtracycle -- no _stretching_ needed, which eliminates the "flex" Xtracycle users know so well). I also find the Stoke Monkey electric assist system for the Xtracycle to be a fascinating concept. . . . . Yeah, I know, electric _assist_ sounds like cheating. . . . But I find pretty compelling this way that the Stoke Monkey folks answer that criticism:

Most electric bike products are designed for people who don’t, won’t, or can’t ride regular bicycles, even without passengers or cargo. Stokemonkey is different, designed for avid bikers who will continue to ride on their own power most of the time, but want a more capable car alternative some of the time. We don’t believe in replacing human power with electricity; we believe in replacing cars for work that even the strongest cyclists seldom if ever choose to handle without a car. Developed in a car-free household, Stokemonkey is for fellow riders who want to become more completely independent of cars in their daily lives.

Now if Stoke Monkey didn't cost nearly $2,000 maybe I would already have one! :)

[x-posted to smamitayim]

Making soil

One of the most beautiful ways to get in touch with the never-ending miracle that is God's act of creation of our world is to engage in the acts of creation that God has gifted us with the opportunity to participate in. Years ago, I used to garden some, mostly vegetable gardening -- tomatoes and green peppers and such. I haven't had access to land to do that for a very long time. I still don't, but now I have access to the little back porch above and I spent some hours today preparing containers for tomatoes and herbs. I realized that I hadn't bought enough potting soil for the containers, so I went in search of other organic matter to give the soil some bulk and maybe some nourishment and water-holding capacity for the plants, too. First, I threw in some vegetable scraps we had been saving with the idea of starting a compost bucket. Then I went in search of cardboard and paper and tore up every bit of unnecessary food packaging we had hanging around (why does breakfast cereal come in boxes, anyway?). Above you see me tearing them into bits and pieces.

It felt good to be taking things that would go into a polluting, land-consuming landfill and to try and put them to a productive purpose. It reminded me of how much I love the earth. . . . And the God who gave it to us.

Have a great week!

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Here is a closer-up view of the cardboard on its way to "becoming" soil (along with a pic of me "in the act").:





And here is how things looked when we were a bit closer to done planting:



In case the last pic made you think Minna _can't_ smile, here she is smiling!




[X-posted to smamitayim]

21st Century Consumer Man

I don't know if the first decade of the 21st century will be the time that Americans finally wake up to embrace the principle that small is better (a pursuit that really consumed me when I was a college student in the 1980s). But I'm really feeling like a part of that movement right now: Today my reusable ACME shopping bags finally arrived and I had a chance to head to the shopping center with them and my Xtracycle. That's about $40 worth of groceries, etc., below in two of the bags on the left side of the bike. The bags aren't full and I haven't even begun to use the other side of the bike! And, it's also possible to strap stuff to the snap deck above the rear wheel, meaning I should easily be able to carry two and three times as much stuff. Pretty exciting. And the bike handled like a dream on the way home, even with the weight being all on one side.

The pic, by the way, was taken with another consumer good that also came in the post, today. This purchase was a good bit more expensive than the shopping bags -- a camcorder (a Panasonic SDR-H18) that I bought for work purposes (I need to record some of my work with my chaplain students). The camcorder can take small stills in addition to recording video.

So, I am indeed willing to admit that some of the thrill I feel tonight may be the joy of good old-fashioned consumerism (it's fun to play with new toys!). But there is some genuine being kind to the earth in there as well. And, in the small is better department, the camcorder is wonderfully compact (especially in comparison to the over-sized, outdated alternative without the editing features I need which I would have had to use otherwise).

Shabbat Shalom!

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More pics of the (loaded) bike:

I got brake

Well, it's been about a month now since I stretched my bicycle, but only last night did I finally reinstall the rear brakes, which pretty much completes the transformation of my plain old bicycle into a SUB (see pic below for an example of what an stretched bicycle looks like, and, more significantly, how much stuff it might be able to carry).

Tonight I not only did the radical be-kind-to-the-earth-while-being-kind-to-yourself thing of going grocery shopping via bicycle (which I've actually been doing for some years now, even during my years in the internal combustion kingdom of Los Angeles), but I actually used a paper grocery bag at the self-checkout line (something I had never witnessed before in these parts -- a locale where the checkout people most definitely do _not_ say "paper or plastic?" before plunging your groceries into some solidified petrochemicals).

Soon after I placed the paper bag (which I should add was provided by the supermarket itself right there next to my self-checkout station), the young woman in charge of the area came plodding by. She silently looked me over with palpable suspicion and peered into the bag to make sure I hadn't sneaked anything in there before having the temerity to break the normal plastic routine. . . . Apparently, using a paper bag must be on the official shoplifter profile they train these self-checkout overseers with. I'm happy to say that me and my groceries were allowed to leave the store without incident!

Before going to the supermarket, I took my SUB (well, actually, I'd rather just call it an Xtracycle) on the longest ride I've gone on with it, yet, about 30 kilometers (about 18 miles), including a climb up one of the steeper hills around here (with about a 600 foot climb) -- a pretty good Sunday afternoon workout for the likes of me. :) . . . The bike did fine, and soon I may build up the confidence to take it on longer trips.

The paper bag thing, by the way, was not just about upsetting the supermarket personnel. I realized the other night that the Xtracycle is pretty much incompatible with the common plastic grocery bag: Note, in the picture above, that the sides of the bags on the Xtracycle really don't come up very high. So, if you really want to get your money's worth out of this thing (cargo carrying wise), then you have to put your stuff into something (like a box or a paper grocery bag) that has a little structural integrity of its own and can hold some stuff higher than the side of the Xtracycle bags.

But, in fact, I have no intention of converting to paper bags. Maybe I would if they were the nice, strong ones that the likes of Trader Joe's has with the handles, but the ones in the supermarkets here (if you can find them!) are not such premium-quality grocery holders. So, I ordered four ACME bags (see, image on the left) from http://www.reusablebags.com. They're supposed to be exactly the same size as paper grocery bags and they're supposed to stand up on their own like paper bags. I think the Xtracycle should be able to easily accommodate four of these completely loaded plus additional stuff on top of the snap deck that sits above the rear wheel, between the bags.

Below, by the way, is a pic of an Xtracycle with two Trader Joe's style grocery bags on each side. Note, by the way, that this bike looks very different from the one in the pic above. That's because the Xtracycle is a conversion kit that can be added to just about any bicycle. In essence, it lengthens the bike frame to accommodate super big bags to carry lots of cargo. For me, it's part of my pursuit of a long-time dream: a lifestyle -- one that will be kinder to both me and the earth -- that does not have the internal combustion engine at its center. It's also part of my love of things that are simple and versatile. People who know my cooking, for example, know that I eschew gadgets (no garlic presses or yogurt machines please!) in favor of a nice sharp chef's knife, a big cutting board and a big cast iron pan (almost anything worth doing can be done with little more than those few things). The bicycle is one such wonderfully simple and versatile machine. But we Americans too often tend to impose our need for complexity and specialization upon it -- routinely marketing bikes that are meant only to be a toy, for recreation or exercise (have you noticed how many bicycles have no braze-on's for a rack to be easily attached? . . . scandalous!). The Xtracycle is a machine that is indeed a wonderful toy. But this toy is also a workhorse. Simplicity and versatility. . . . Now with (rear) brakes, too. :)

P.S. For a wonderful explication of just how much cooking can be done with just a little equipment, see this article from the New York Times' "The Minimalist."

Honey, I stretched my bicycle!

Last night I took my new Xtracycle out on the road (and to the supermarket!) for the first time. It was a blast!

The Xtracycle (see photo, below) is a kit that stretches your bicycle frame about 15 inches, making room for super-big bags on the side that allow you to carry much more cargo (eg, groceries) than you could otherwise. Buying one is part of my long-term dream to be kinder to the earth by becoming as car-free as possible.

After I loaded more groceries on it than I've ever put on a bike before, I was amazed last night by how stable the bike felt. It was just like the promotional materials had promised -- the Xtracyle bags allow you to carry your cargo unusually close to the ground. This means a lower center of gravity. The Xtracyle bags also center the weight laterally by keeping the cargo close to the wheels, and this adds further stability.

Something else stretched

But, it hasn't been all peaches and cream. The project of properly installing the kit has really stretched the limits of my bicycle-mechanic expertise (and my set of bicycle tools!). I still haven't managed to connect any of the rear cables, so I have no rear brakes (not as dangerous as most people seem to think; front brakes are more effective than rear brakes if you use proper technique) and only three working gears (on a bike designed for 27!). The lack of proper gearing has contributed to not one, but two chain breaks so far. The completion of this project will have to wait until I am back from Oraita.

I really hope that having this kind of bike available will help me to keep riding reliably throughout the fall and winter. I'm very excited about it! (#*#)

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