Chad Files

For the second time in less than a month I have been told a part is no longer available for my truck. Normally I would expect this however, my truck is a 2005 Nissan — it is only three years old. I have a hard time understanding why parts for a three year mainstream vehicle are no longer available.

The problem here deals directly with the parts in question — they are both unnecessary to the operation of the vehicle. The first one was a light that shines on the license plate, the other is a cover that goes over the holes in the front bumper for fog lights.

This phenomenon is not confined to just motor vehicles, it is everywhere: houses, computers, even toasters. I want to reverse this trend. Why can’t we go back to tools and products that do one thing and do it well? Why can’t we focus that excess engineering fluff at improving the core of the product?

When it comes to vehicles here is what I want: I want a car/truck that is as simple as a late 70s, early 80s model Chevrolet with the comfort and drive train engineering of today — oh and make it run on a renewable resource not gasoline. That is a simple request, a metal chassis, an engine, wheels, a comfortable seat, and a cockpit that has just enough leavers and buttons to operate the vehicle. That is it, no iPod ports, no power plugs, solid steel bumpers, no consoles, no power windows…you get the picture.

This is my plea for the world to simplify everything. Get rid of all that unnecessary stuff, I promise life will be better without them.

By they way, my truck is for sale. I am simplifying by riding a bicycle. Email me if you know somebody that may want to buy it. Oh and the parts have been found and replaced, got to love scrap yards and the Internet.

Trek Bicycles started an interesting new challenge. They are challenging people to trade their car keys for a bike. The cool thing about how they did this was showing each pledger the amount of CO2 and gas they are saving; they thrown in calories burned for good measure.

I had never sat down and crunched these numbers since I went almost all bike. What it made me realize is in a normal week I did not ride to commute very much at all; about 110 miles total. This is of course helped because of my work from home situation.

They even created this groovy little widget to show your pledge:

I am sure they will receive tons of pledges; they are giving away a brand new bicycle everyday of the challenge. I took the pledge because it is a cool thing to do, but a free bicycle would be cool too.

I stumbled on this article by Joel Stein earlier today and it provided some interesting numbers…

With public transit use nationally at a 50-year high, traffic dropped
2.1% in the first four months of this year across the country. That
mileage reduction — along with people driving smaller cars, and more
slowly, to save gas — could mean that 12,000 fewer people will die in
traffic accidents this year, according to a study by professors Michael
Morrisey at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and David C.
Grabowski at Harvard Medical School. Air pollution has been reduced
enough, according to UC Davis economics professor J. Paul Leigh, to
prevent 2,200 respiratory-related deaths over the last year. Less
eating out and more walking and biking could mean a 10% reduction in
obesity, according to Charles Courtemanche, an assistant economics
professor at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro.

This makes perfect sense, people have finally started to hit a wall. I am one of those strange people that actually want to see gas hit $10 a gallon; if it does there will be absolute change across the board.

This effect has happened to me personally. In my household we went from spending roughly $250 a month on gas between two cars to spending about $150 a month on one car; that also includes the price of gas going from $3 to $4 a gallon.

We did this by cutting back and by replacing trips in a car with bicycle rides. This has also caused me to drop 2 inches on my waist and feel better. These kinds of changes are not possible for everybody, but I can safely assume there are changes everybody could make that would benefit their pocketbooks, their health, and the environment.

I am usually not one to speak about politics in a public forum; however, given the state of things I feel the need to get my thoughts out. I believe The United States of America is in utter shambles right now, and unfortunately it is going to get vastly worse before it gets better.

Over the last eight years King George the First and his cronies have wrecked the ideas and spirit of an entire nation. Many Americans now believe in the boogie man because the government and the media have told them he exits; we even have a war going on to fight him. There are people falsely imprisoned and tortured on a daily basis because they might know bad people. The American working class is slipping into poverty because everything costs more and jobs pay less. Worst of all, citizens are no longer free to think, believe, and act without fear of being spied on and ostracized because of their beliefs.

I for one believe George W Bush, Dick Cheney and the lot of them are criminals and should be held accountable for their actions in a court of law; unfortunately that will never happen. They lied to the people of this country under oath. They are responsible for the deaths of thousands of American soldiers. At the absolute least, they are guilty of profiteering and espionage.

This is not all the executive branch’s fault; Congress is somewhat responsible too. The people of this country elect our Senators and Representatives to be our voices and stand up against tyranny. Congress has failed us. When the 2006 election results came back I was optimistic that the newly elected officials would rectify the situation; my how I was disappointed. They have done very little to stop or change anything. It seems the only person in there that is set on really changing things is Dennis Kucinich.

Now here we are in a presidential election year. On the GOP side we have John McCain who is out of touch with most of today’s issues. I also believe that if elected he will continue on to have George Bush’s third term. For the Democrats we have Barack Obama who is quickly getting saddle sores from riding the fence. His recent decisions on the FISA issue assured me that he is just like most other politicians: more willing to do what it is easy instead of what is right.

I want somebody who is going to make a stand and return the country to the people. Unfortunately, I am not going to get that in this election. All things considered, I have made my 2008 presidential decision: I am a registered independent voting for “None of the Above”. In the past two elections I was on the loosing end, but the two men that I voted for earned my vote. This year there is not a candidate in the race that has earned my vote, and being so close to the election it is unlikely that one of the candidates will change or a new one emerge.

I do think the country will eventually recover. I think either of the candidates will do a marginally better job than Bush, but the ball he started rolling is not going to stop soon. We are going to see hard times over the next few years, much harder than what we are seeing now. However, I believe in the people and the principals on which the nation was founded, and that is why we will get through this.

The man who would choose security over freedom deserves neither.

– Thomas Jefferson

In my never ending quest to try new things and do them without much help from the outside world I decided to make some jam. The results were amazing, the work was hard, and I am glad I did it.

To figure out what in the world I was doing I consulted the indispensable Alton Brown. During season two of Good Eats Alton did an episode named Urban Preservation I: Jam Session; the entire episode was devoted to making Blueberry Jam. He covered what you needed, how to do it, and provided several life saving tips, literally.

The only thing I did different than Alton was use Blackberries. They are in season right now and can be purchased cheaply; I got mine at the local farmers market. So armed with a little more than a quart of Blackberries and some brand new canning supplies, purchased from my local Ace Hardware (like Alton), I started the process.

Everything went smoothly at first; wash everything, sterilize everything, cook and mash the berries. Then things got interesting; I had to add 7 cups of sugar, yes 7 CUPS. Not realizing how much boiling liquid this process was going to produce I used a pot that was too small. Needless to say, the jam boiled over the sides of the pot and made a huge mess on the stove. No worries though, I was almost finished, all I had to do was fill and seal the jars…yeah…almost finished.

While I was filling the jars the spring in my tongs sprung and caused me to knock a boiling hot jar of blackberry jam all over the kitchen floor, and I was barefooted. Fortunately my cat like reflexes kicked in and I bound out of the way as the jar crashed. The mess was one of the best I have ever created. There was jam on the oven, refrigerator, cabinets, floor and me. After 30 minutes of frantic cleaning I finally got back to the matter at hand and finished the jam.

All of my jars sealed properly and the jam tastes amazing. Now that I have it down I am anxious to make more.

I am on my bike almost everyday now; which means that something is bound to break sooner or later. That time came sooner rather than later.

Yesterday I was rounding up the kids on my bike and my entire left peddle assembly fell off while I was riding. Fortunately I was near a residential area that provided me a safe place to look at my bike.

At first I thought that something had broken and I was really up a creek. I could just imagine being 5 miles away from the house with a broken bike pulling a trailer with a child in it; not a happy thought. Upon inspection I was relieved to see that the outer busing had unscrewed itself causing the teeth on the peddle to slip off of the chainwheel.

Thankfully I was packing my Serfas ST-LV Multi-Tool and was able to repair my peddle right there on the spot. The actual repair only took about 10 minutes; which is good I guess, considering I had no clue what I was doing.

While I was making the repair I was passed by 5 cars and 2 fellow cyclers; only one car stopped. At that point I was wrapping up the repair and thanked the lady for stopping but ensured her that I had it under control.

The whole experience worked wonders on my confidence when it comes to cycling. It by no means makes me an expert but it tells me that I am capable.