bikes, boats, planes, cabs, buses, trolleys, and walking; or, being car free.

Last month I found myself suddenly car free. I listed my car on Craigslist, and, it being the Honda that it was, it was sold to the first person who looked at it for cash. This is what a Honda looks like when you hold it in your hands:

I no longer have that money in cash. Please don't rob me.

I was surprised that my car sold so quickly, but as it was a car that had been stolen, rear-ended, needed and gotten new brakes and tires, had insurance that was going to triple, required gas and washing and oil changes and made me worry about theft and future maintenance, it was pretty liberating.

Before I left Tacoma, being carfree offered me the challenge of biking through and too parts of the city I hadn't thought to be very bikeable. It was surprisingly easy. I had the opportunity to take a boat ride around Puget Sound, and while it was more for leisure than getting anywhere, it was cool. When I moved, I flew and allowed somebody else to do the driving as I shipped my stuff and took a cab home from the airport.

So before I got to Philadelphia, I had the sense that being car free was going to work out ok. Now that I'm here and carfree is the only way I know the city, I can't imagine living any other way. Philadelphia is quite walkable and has a very developed transportation system that includes buses, trolleys, and a subway (I haven't taken the subway yet). Some lessons that I've learned in the first week:

1. With planning, bus travel is an easy way to get around. It is not always fast, but it is cheap. So far my bus excursions have taken me to Ikea, Target, Trader Joe's, and Center City (downtown). In the next few days the bus will take me to West Philly (to pick up my bike!), the 30th Street Station (to pick up my BFF!), and to all the best tourist spots. Once I got on board with tokens, it's become even easier.

2. Trolleys are badass. I am fortunate to live in an area with restored 1940s trolleys and I'm sorry, but the design is so classic that you can't help but love riding them. They stop almost every block but are still pretty efficient and have been touted for their abilty to drive traffic to local small businesses.

3. That brings my to my third point, which is that being car free has encouraged to patronize local small businesses. Sure, it is fun to say I made it back from Ikea or Target with a ton of stuff (pillows!), but the really of those trips were that they took about 3 hours round trip and were totally exhausting. Ok for a special occasion like moving in when you need to do heavy shopping, but not ok for every day. Instead, when I needed Drano, rubber gloves, and a box fan today, I hit up the local hardware store. I walked there. I got to talk to the shopkeeper about her shop dog, and I felt very happy walking three blocks with my box fan. I paid a little more, but in an area with too many empty storefronts, it's worth saving myself the time and trouble of the trip to keep a business going.

4. Public transportation can suck, but providence takes a hand. Today I planned to take the trolley to a meeting at the University (my first trip to campus!). I made sure to leave early since I needed tokens and wanted to be on time. I missed the trolley by just a second (I was visiting with the token lady at the check cashing place, also a recent transplant to PA). I thought this was no big deal because they come quite frequently in the morning. And then it didn't. After the fourth trolley passed in the opposite direction, I called to tell the person I would be late and started walking. I walked and walked and walked. I walked down some streets my roommate would call "cracky." I got a huge blister. I was sweaty sweaty sweaty and late to my meeting. But you know what? I wasn't upset because when you walk 40 minutes, the good exercise chemicals get released in your body. And I still got to visit with the cute granny at the trolley stop for a while. My meeting person was fortunately flexible. And on the way back, I did get to take the trolley, which during the day serves a predominantly senior citizen population. When I was at Utah, one of the things that I disliked was that I never got to be around old people. That is not the case here.

5. I can get single portion desserts on demand. Popsicles, gummy worms, and ice cream are available at the locally owned mini-marts, 7-11 downtown offers delicious peach-mango slurpees, and the soul food restaurant has yummy squares of eight different kinds of cake available. I don't have to keep the crap in the house, it's cheaper to by just a little of something, and when I walk to the junk I don't feel too bad about it.

6. Although I don't have a scale, I've definitely slimmed down. It may be that I haven't had much beer since the local beer store looks sketchy, and maybe it's from the stress and activity of moving, but I like to think all this walking has me craving healthy foods and that it's doing something good for my body. You know when you walk a lot when you're travelling? I'm doing that almost every day now.

7. I think this is apparent from the six other points, but being car free has put me in touch with my community. Today an old guy asked me for a token, and since I hadn't used my budgeted token earlier, I gave it to him. Lucky me, I got a friend for the whole ride! In slightly unintelligible English, he told me about his untreated diabetes and seizures. He told me about how he hates that his friends offer him booze when he's sick and we got to chat about Christ in the wilderness. It was kind of a funny experience but it made me feel good.

Walking and using public transportation has shown me what a friendly neighborhood I live in- I mean really, I couldn't hear every guy say in an overfamiliar tone, "Hey baby, how you doin'?" if I was in my car. Since the granny bike won't be ready until Friday, look for a second installment on biking in Philly once I've gotten to do it a little.

you know, for kids.

Esteemed COTGB Readers:

I love my brother.

I love Fat Tire beer.

I love bikes.

I love hats.

I even love kids.

Big Brother has ingeniously found away to fuse all those things together in a raffle for the ages. Please get thee to the Tacoma Bike Ranch ASAP to get your name in the hat- literally- to win a handmade piece of American folkart of the highest degree of craftsmanship.

If you aren't interested in checking out the hat, but would still like to give, you can donate to the Mary Bridge Children's Foundation and Big Brother's Courage Classic bike ride to help stop the cycle of child abuse and neglect directly through this link. Thanks for your support!

picturing the recession.

The NYT has a new section called "Picturing the Recession." It's basically a community archive that people can upload photos and stories to. A lot of the stories are heartbreaking-- shuttered shops and foreclosed homes-- but I thought there were some positive messages that made me think of some of my special readers. You can click on the images to see the text better.

For Big Brother:


For Michaele:

trial by blog, update.

First I wanted to thank everyone for their fantastic, well thought out feedback. It's given me a lot to chew on and it has been nice to know that people care so much about my journey. Feel free to leave thoughts if anything else comes to you. The jury is still out and will be, perhaps, for a few more weeks. I talked to the graduate director at School B today and here is the information I now have:

-I have until the "official" April 15th deadline to respond, although they have asked people to respond by April 1. So, hypothetically, they could make me an offer during that 2 week span if they have TAships to give out. After that, in spite of it being an ethical quandry, she said I could accept both schools and pull out from one during the summer. Not preferable, she noted, but she suggested that I do what I need to do on that front. Basically, she made it sound like she's letting me make my acceptance of admissions contingent upon funding if that's how I want to do it. Not sure I feel good about accepting multiple schools, but I like having until the 15th.

-She said that last year they were able to fund everybody that wanted to come; most years, they are able to offer 80%. People that come unfunded are almost always funded by the second year. It's hard to know what the circumstances will be this year, but historically they have a good track record for funding.

--Their waitlist is chronological with PhDs getting priority-- she didn't say where I'm at on the list but I am definitely in the top group.

--Touchy feely stuff that gave me a good impression: she recalled my writing sample and commented on how interesting it was. She also said they don't admit people that they don't want to come (no courtesy admissions). Her advice to me was that if only thing holding me back is money then I should think pretty seriously about coming, something my Mom told me about an hour before.

What did I get out of this? Well, even though she couldn't make any guarantees as to what kind of offer they will be able to make, she represented her program well and tried to give me confidence in the program. And really? I appreciated that she was in her office calling people back at 6:30pm.

So I'm undecided, still, and I'm going to let it be that way for a while(I will probably continue to shrink from the stress... that's another post for another time...).

Tough tittie in Tacoma City, as my grandmother would say.

trial by blog.

I have a conundrum that I would like to put forth to my readers, mostly because I don't really feel like calling everyone to get their perspective. I have two options.


School A: Offered me a funding package including full tuition benefit and a stipend.

I go to School A already. I have good relationships with the faculty, find the location to be very livable, beautiful and comfortable and I have many wonderful friends here. I've gotten good public history experience here and would continue to have such opportunities. Granted it's a really tough year for the job market-- nobody that I know who's applied for jobs with a PhD from my school has gotten hired. For the uninitiated, everyone in our field is operating on the assumption that the job market will continue to be rough.


School B: Waitlisted me for a similar funding package and won't notify waitlisted people until after they accept the admissions offer. Basically, they are asking me to make a blind decision.

School B is located in a huge metropolis on the other side of the country-- living there would definitely be an adventure and would offer more of a singles "scene" (not to mention great cultural and sporting events, the resources of several other universities in town and it is only a few hours away from some of the best libraries in the country)-- and I could take my car there. It has a very strong group of 20th century US historians and offers excellent public history training. School B is more prestigious than School A, and they have a very good rate of job placement (everyone who's worked with the person I would like to work with now has a university teaching job).

So which one would you choose? Short term stability with a risk of not getting a job at the end, or short term risk with a reasonable guarantee for employment at the end? What questions would you ask and what factors would you take into account? Flights between both places and home cost basically the same, for example. Both schools have the same school color, though School B has a cooler mascot. I'm tossing up a poll in the sidebar, but do leave a comment with your rationale.

pitifully true to life.

bicycle commuting reimbursement.

This news by way of Velo Orange is too good to not post:
Bike commuters get tax breaks via the bailout!

I'm not entirely sure how it works, but for 20 bucks a month I am definitely on board. Though lucky for me, the ODT doesn't require much maintenance.

yay.

Today I learned that there is, in the budget for my work project, enough money for my project to pay for a graduate assistantship!!!

I can't tell you how relieved I am. My confidence had been in the toilet for the last week or two, but between a cool summer seminar opportunity I heard about yesterday (if I get accepted, my paper gets published in a book!) and this, I am feeling a lot better about the path I'm on. A lot less "wo to me, I might have to sell my ovaries to pay my student loans" and a lot more of the usual "behold the many innumerable opportunities before me!" (especially with significantly smaller student loans!) Yay!

I also found out that one of my work colleagues got funded at her top choice of the thirteen schools she applied to! It's possible! Dreams can be achieved! Yay!

So many good feelings today. Now I just have to get some work done (I need to milk this enthusiasm for all it's worth!) so I can go skiing tomorrow at Alta on a free pass! Yay for learning new things! For cheap! On the best snow in the world! Yay!

(excuse the absolutely off-the-hook exclamation points. I'm sure the misery laden somber ...'s will be back tomorrow :P )

how to spend that rebate check.

There's been a lot of talk amongst my fellow taxpayers about what to do with the forthcoming rebate checks. One classmate is planning a trip to Canada... and I'll probably just do the ill-advised and pay off some debt, since ultimately all we're getting is borrowed money anyways. The following suggestion came by way of my grandpa. I think I could abide by this:

How to use Your IRS Rebate check;

As you may have heard, the Bush Administration said each of us would get a rebate check to stimulate the economy.

If we spend that money at Wal-Mart, all the money will go to China. If we spend it on gasoline it will go to the Arabs, if we purchase a computer it will go to India, if we purchase fruit and vegetables it will go to Mexico, Honduras, and Guatemala, if we purchase a good car it will go to Japan, if we purchase useless junk it will go to Taiwan and none of it will help the American economy.

We need to keep that money here in America. The only way to keep that money here at home is to spend it at yard sales, since those are the only businesses still in the US.

At six hundred bucks a person, I bet you could get a damn lot of stuff shopping at yard sales.