No Logo

Nike makes some great athletic clothing that fits me well. The company has come along way from the 80's when they were known for taking advantage of poor workers in SE Asia to make their garments & shoes. They are now one of the leaders in establishing and monitoring good working conditions for their overseas employees. MEC has some pretty tough rules about ethical sourcing of goods and they inspect their suppliers to ensure compliance. Nike has been sold at MEC for quite a few years now, having met these standards.

As I said Nike gear generally fits me very well, unlike Patagonia (wrong body shape) for example. And I like black so I have ended up with a fair bit of black Nike gear over the years. The only trouble is they put an annoying white "swoosh" logo on their gear. I don't mind subtle logos, but Nike's is a bit too glaring. So I found a great solution. Take a black Sharpie marker and colour in the Nike swoosh. As you can see from the pic above it transforms a garish logo into a subtle one. Kinda like the difference between a small silver Mazda badge on the front of my truck and bright red 1' letters across my tailgate spelling "MAZDA ROCKS!". You do have to reapply the Sharpie every once in a while, but it lasts a surprisingly long time. You can get Sharpies in red, blue, green and black.

LOTR Marathon

On the 21st of October we held the first ever Studio 1104 Lord Of the Rings Marathon. I want to thank all the participants (Dwayne, Laura, Kurt, Nick & Anna) for your courage and perseverance in attempting this challenge. We started with dinner at 6pm and wrapped up the last film at 6am the next day. Wow! With only minimal breaks between movies it was still a 12hr experience.

I was surprised that I saw quite a few long scenes that were new to me. I had thought I had seen the extended versions of all these movies, but perhaps I had not. The other possibility is that they have released even more footage as part of the Platinum Boxed Set???

What is next? Maybe a Matrix or Star Wars Mega-Marathon????

My secret is out!

Since I spilled the beans on my Jyoti discovery I guess I might as well just come clean on my whole Indian home cooking repetoire. I have tried to make various Indian flat breads at home with poor results. I pretty much gave up on this whole culinary endeavour. I figured I would just have to enjoy my Indian breads at restaurants and be satisfied with rice at home.

Then one day Anna found Shana's Original Frozen Paratha. Just heat them up in a frying pan and you have delicious Indian bread at home. I would even give them a 7/10 for tastiness. Not Taj Mahal quality, but close!

JYOTI spells tasty!

I have tried my fair share of curries in a can. Most are okay, but nothing special. However, I have just discovered a primo A number one special curry in a can - The Jyoti Classic Masala
Sauce. Run don't walk to your nearest Jyoti dealer and get a case. You won't regret it.

If you can't bi-cycle re-cycle!

The new snow and my sore tendon motivated me to take care of some non-bike related stuff that has been piling up. Like calculating my 3rd quarter GST installment payment and taking the recycling in.

My local recycling depot is co-located with a grocery store. That is such a good idea. When you head to the store to buy stuff you can take in your recycling at the same time. I use the same MEC grocery bags to carry my recycling and to then carry my purchases home. Doing things this way has an additional benefit. Since I have just finished recycling when I am buying more stuff I am really aware of how much I am buying and what kinds of packaging each item uses. It helps me remember to factor in recycle-ability into my purchasing choices.

Walking or biking to do your shopping also helps keep you aware of how much you are buying and puts a natural limit to how much you can buy at one time. It is also highly motivating to be able to get in a 40km bike ride while taking care of something as mundane as picking up toilet paper. Best of all you can buy a bag of chips guilt free if you rode your bike 45mins to get to the store!

First Snow

First freezing ride of the winter

Just because it was -3 deg C and downtown was shrouded in an ice fog didn't mean that we would be pig-dogs. We geared up and headed out to run errands around town.

The pathways were pretty much empty and we made great time zooming around.

Anna was a bullet today. I had trouble keeping up with her. Good thing she wore red and was easy to spot in the far distance.

It got a little windy at one point. I tried to brace the trees on the side of the pathway, but Mother Nature was too powerful!

Trick or Treat

You know you are a bike geek when...

...you stay at work an extra 2hrs so you can ride home on the highway at night and use all your cool blinkies. When you realise you don't actually have a "real" light to see the road with you don't get upset you think - cool, now I can really work on improving my night vision by going downhill at 50kph in the pitch dark. Then when one of your two rear blinkies falls off and breaks on the road you don't think damn I lost a $15 light. Instead you pat yourself on the back for always running multiple rear lights!

Sad, but true.

Downtown this AM

K&D's New Liberty

Their new pimped out 2007 Jeep Liberty!

Life's simple pleasures...

I had a nice tailwind on my bike commute to work AND on the way home - sweet!

BikeE Commuting

See I actually need 6 bicycles! Okay maybe not, but since I have them I might as well ride them. My normal commuter bike is on a fluid trainer at work and my BikeE was sitting unused in storage so I brought it out and placed it in my bike locker at the end of the C-train line. This way if the weather is reasonable I can ride to work and I don't have to leave a bike I would ride a lot in the bike locker. Since the weather is going to get worse the the BikeE will probably spend a lot of time chiling in the bike locker, but hey getting ridden a bit is better than never right?

Even though this bike doesn't really fill any vital niche in my bikahollic lifestyle it is a lot of fun to ride. Performance wise I managed to clock an average speed of 24kph on my way to work - not bad at all. I even got a "thumbs up" sign from a dump truck driver. I guess with all the chopper style bikes that are popular now the BikeE is cooler than when it was originally made.

Live to Ride...Ride to Eat!

Haworth