three years with the Old Dutch [Treat] and review: schwalbe marathon plus tires.

The Old Dutch and I are celebrating our three year anniversary around this time of the year. As a bike owner, I've gone from a terrified first year grad student to a seasoned fourth year with a dissertation topic and comps committee.  I've gone from a casual campus rider to an aggressive daily city commuter.  I have even started to tackle the art of bicycle maintenance.

I have mixed feelings about the Old Dutch at this point. Don't get me wrong- I love it and have no intent to ever get rid of it. The rigor of my longer commute-- now around ten miles a day-- leaves me longing for a lighter bike. With a lock and loads of books, hauling 50+ pounds of bike up and down the hill leaves me pretty exhausted. As someone with anxiety issues who otherwise has difficulty falling asleep at night, this is not necessarily a bad thing. But it is a thing.  Additionally, that some of my components have not held up very nicely (skirt hards, chain guard, headlight, I am looking at you) leaves me a little sad. Bike shops hate working on this bike. Hauling it up narrow stairs for a year took its toll, on me and the bike. 

Still, I love my rolling bike church.  Putting new tires on it has renewed this love. Philly's streets demand a substantial tire-- there is too much broken glass and pothole-ery for anything less.  The Schwalbe Marathon Plus tires have increased the smoothness of my ride-- I now merrily bounce over bumps. The tires have great traction. The Schwalbe Marathon Plus are the urban assault tires that my bike has needed.  I am happy to say that I even installed them myself (though my roommate checked my work).  I feel confident that these tires will serve me well during the miserly winter bike commute. 

I love the clear caps on the Schwalbe tubes.

Last year's bike-a-versary here.

planet bike blaze 2 watt led headlight review.

A while back I wanted to take my folding bike out.  It was a short trip- just a mile- and one that I knew would probably include a car-involved change of venue.  It was perfect for the folding bike- but unfortunately, I was headed out at night.  I try to practice what I preach, so I decided to take the Old Dutch.  But not before I got online and ordered a headlight for the Dahon, because this aggression would not stand, man. 

Big Brother and I had been talking about this purchase for a while, so I knew instantly that I should check out "that headlight reviewed on Kent's Bike Blog."  Between Kent's review and the reviews he linked to on Amazon, I was sold.  

My only comparison as far as headlight experiences go is with the bottle dynamo-generator light on the ODT.  It is not incredibly bright and it adds some resistance, but you know, it's a headlight, and aesthetically, it's really nice looking.  The parts of Philadelphia that I ride through are generally well lit, so my headlight concerns are more oriented towards making myself visible to cars.  So that said- that my needs and expectations were pretty low- you can understand that I was totally blown away when my new headlight arrived.  

I ordered it through Niagara Cycle Works on Amazon and it arrived a week before it was scheduled to. Installation was quick and easy.  The light slides off and on an interchangeable bracket so that you can use the light on a number of bikes and take the light off when you go inside places.  It has three settings- High, Low, and Superflash.  Since my goal has been visibility and not necessarily lighting the way, I have used the Superflash setting the most.  

This may be a better statement about the merits of effective headlights in general rather than this specific product, but the results were instantaneous.  While on a main street that I frequent often, I noticed that cars at stop signs stopped and stayed stopped because they saw me- no false starts or lurching forward.  Parked cars coming into traffic tend to stay stopped for longer as well.  People getting in and out of their cars have waited for longer, which I think decreases my chances of getting doored.  I feel more confident in situations were the bike lane leads to overlap with the right turn lane and making left turns.  I like being able to see the light bouncing off the back of cars and stop signs two blocks away as I ride.  

My night riding experience feels exponentially safer, and as a result- at least until I get another bracket to attach the light to the ODT*- the Dahon has become my go-to night bike.  Testing the light during the day time, just for the sake of this blog post, produced similar results and got me thinking that riding with a headlight during the day might not be such a bad idea.  With the addition of this light, I can't seem to stay off the Dahon, The ODT is resentful but understanding.

All in all, this is probably a lot more light that I need- but I like the overkill quality.  I like going from being questionably visible to absolutely visible (this is especially true now). If you're on the market for a headlight, I really recommend this one.  But more than that- and rhetorically (not actually), this is my "I challenge you to pray about the Book of Mormon" moment- if you haven't reevaluated your lighting setup lately, I'd like you to join me in exploring the joys of greater visibility.

*Ordered! I wrote this post like 10 days ago. Oops. As it turns out, the bottle dynamo is on the fritz- wires maybe? That poor bike has been totally battered on my stairs.  Somehow lost one of my rack-to-skirt guard clips grocery getting last week. 

the best show you aren't watching.

Weeds. I know you aren't watching it because everyone I know is too cheap for Showtime or lives somewhere where they can't get it and well, I just don't think you are watching it because nobody ever talks about its greatness. The only other I person I know who watches it is the professor who recommended it to me, and now that I have watched two seasons of it over the course of something shy of a week, I am completely sucked in.*

Anyways, you should be watching it because who doesn't want to watch a strong widowed suburban mother deal with the day to day dramas of being a drug dealer? Especially as the shit hits the fan with a little more force with each successive episode? Sure beats all those frigging uninventive hospital shows out there. The third season comes out on dvd on June 3rd and I am in complete suspense... what on earth will I do until then? Oh... that's right. Research. And reading about doubting polygamists. I love summer!



*Ah, the glories of instant streaming through my Netflix account.

for the end of the month, a theme.

So it occurred to me just now as I was eating some chicken curry leftovers as fast as humanly possible (I love curry for so many reasons that it deserves its own post) that without really intending to, this blog has had kind of a theme this month-- Restaurants of April! I have been out quite a bit this month (and am loving it... and my grocery spending is down so it's not like I'm spending more on food, I'm just way tastier food). So as the month wraps up, I present to you three more reviews of quality restaurants in the fair city of Salt Lake. In order of consumption:

Rico: This was actually my second run-in with this venerable catering institution here in town. Both meals have been pretty good-- the enchiladas were tasty the first time, and last Thursday-- whew! I have been dreaming about the avocado salad dressing ever since. And they have this really nice, personable lady working for them who cares really deeply about what she does, and that alone makes the food taste even better. I think the food is called "fresh mex."

Red Butte Cafe': I'll be honest, any restaurant experience is better when you know people that work there. They are owned by the same people as Desert Edge, I hear, so they serve the same tasty beers but without the shitty food. I had a turkey/avocado sandwich (they put a whole avocado on there people! yes, I almost fainted in delight) with the house pasta salad. Yummy times... though their food does need heavy salt supplementation (duh! easy fix!). Their desserts are out of this world-- *adored* the Chocolate Turtle Mousse cake and will undoubtedly be craving it sometime soon... like now.

East-West Connection: My adviser took our whole class here for dinner. Since the food is served family style, everybody just shared everything (is there anything more kum-bay-ya than supping in that fashion? after all of the yelling that went on in that class, certainly not). I ordered the chicken curry and as may be inferred, I was very careful to snag the leftovers. The chicken was (and even after reheating, still is) so perfectly moist. They also have really beautiful paintings on the wall, which I think is nice.

So there you have it. I don't think I'll be going out in the next few days, and since my restaurant-going companion is taking off for the summer, it may be a while until my next decent meal... oh who am I kidding, I'll find somebody to go with. I finally know where all the good places are!

all aboard on the good times party cruise.

I could start this post by saying, man, I haven't posted in so long because I've been soooo busy, but that's a lie. I am having kind of a relaxing week (calm before the storm) with you know, the periodic jolts back to consciousness. But things here have been mostly nice (barring the freakish bipolar weather and my awareness of the impending suffering of the coming weeks). I seem to be caught in one of those magical and very, very temporary states of bliss that makes me wistfully proclaim my love for Utah, both school and state, as I bask in the fleeting pleasures of lifeasInowknowit. Some contributors to the goodness of times:

Trio. Officially my favorite restaurant in Salt Lake City. The food is so up to my inflated Caper's standards of quality and taste that I continue to revel in the memory of that meal a week later. Affordable prices (for what you get) and the Riesling was, omg, so light and perfect. Tacomans: think Europa but way, way better in a much classier setting. Bonus: Seeing former SLC mayor Rocky Anderson and knowing that the magic of America is that lowly grad students can sup with (ok, near) people of power and influence. If we had seen Ralph Becker I might have fainted.

Alta. Ok, so my camera didn't make it up there with me, but I have to say that skiing was some of the most fun I've ever had. There was tons of falling initially, but once I got the hang of it, it was unreal. Loved the glory of the pristine glare-y Alpine setting. And I saw an ermine (so cute!!!)! And tons of children! I never get to see kids at grad school. Bonus: Learned (post skiing) that in a taste test between snow-chilled Natural Ice and Natural Light, Natty Light clearly wins. Not that I usually drink that shit, but useful nonetheless. Oooo! And I got these awesome comfy thermals just in time for summer.

The Red Iguana. Everybody says it's the best Mexican restaurant in town, and I believe it. Cool style and tasty mole'. Yum yum yum. Bonus: Leftovers.

An exceptionally rousing discussion of "what is feminism" in my women and gender class. Completely unlinkable, but oh so enriching. Seriously gave me the warm fuzzies inside-- so affirming in ways that are hard to describe (fighting for our rights! equality in relationships! girl powah!). Bonus: We were discussing this book, which I loved.

Yay for life in Utah! Weeeeee! Soon it will be summer and everybody will go away, leaving me with thermals I can't wear and plenty of restaurants to go to alone!*


*I'm being sarcastic, duh. Summer will rock because I will make new friends, travel and do research...ooo, and enjoy the hothothot sunshine! Fun for different reasons, but fun nonetheless.

food, glorious food.

It occurred to me this afternoon that I am slowly but surely gaining exposure to Salt Lake City's restaurant scene. The past 24 hours have been especially fruitful-- I hit up the Himalayan Kitchen on 4th South for the lunch buffett (fabulous! The Tandoori chicken was so glorious and they had cloth napkins!) and had a late breakfast today from Mrs. Backer's Pastry Shop on South Temple (donuts were meh, but the eclair was stunning-- filled with lots of fluffy cream-- ohdon'tyawantonerightnow?) (they also have very lovely looking cookies and cakes that beg further investigation). Anyways, here are some places I've checked out around town in the past while:

Squatter's-- food yuk, service terrible, beer good, nice atmosphere.

So Cupcake-- cupcakes were only so-so, low frosting to cake ratio. Skimpy frosting amazing but cake uninspiring. Very cute store design and the owners seemed nice.

Sawadee-- yummy Thai curries that could be just a bit hotter, great interior decor filled with Thai artwork.

Little World Chinese Restaurant-- when the yearning for fried rice strikes, they deliver-- with the biggest, moistest chunks of chicken you will ever find in fried rice. Inside dirty but hey, that's why you get take away.

The Pie-- nom nom nom. Thick saucy pizza goodness close to campus. It gets no better.

it's not you, it's your books.

I have to say, I really loved this essay in the New York Times Book Review entitled "It's Not You, It's Your Books." Ok, yah, so I'm enjoying a quiet evening at home with a pint of Ben & Jerry's S'mores ice cream in one hand (graham cracker chunks in ice cream = amazingness) and a cannister of almonds in the other (edgy!!). So you could definitely accurately say, "Yah, you would like that article." The article is about the concept of dumping someone because of their taste in books. What a bourgeois dilemma!!!

For the record, I have never rejected someone solely because of their taste in books. I have definitely connected with people over books-- I'm not going to lie that I love it when somebody says they loved The Fountainhead. I doubt this would ever be the basis of a relationship though-- although I would probably marry a guy who adores The Handmaid's Tale as much as I do. Admittedly, I feel reasonably safe from the problem all together. Graduate School is such a magical cocoon where seemingly everyone is well read. But I digress.

The article did get me thinking about the books I list as favorites and why-- as well as a notable silence on my list that I should probably confront. As it stands right now, I have five books listed as my favorite books on Facebook. I think they are reasonably expressive of my tastes and influences. They are as follows, with accompanying justifications:

The Handmaid's Tale-- recommended to me for summer reading by the brilliant Mrs. Clark, my 11th grade English teacher. It was my first exposure to anything even remotely dealing with the intersections of feminism and religion-- skillfully done by Margaret Atwood in the form of a dystopian novel. I reread this book annually. Incidentally some of the events and people who inspired the book will comprise a significant component of my Master's thesis.

Behind the Scenes of the Museum-- recommended to me by my seminar advisor at PLU. A brilliant, funny novel about families, secrets told in kind of a material culture perspective.

Women of the Republic-- Token history book. I adore Linda Kerber's work. This book is about women in colonial America and the early United States and how they found political influence through a concept Kerber calls "Republican motherhood." I listed this book before I found my thesis topic, but interestingly it connects to it in a conceptual way that I hadn't really considered.

Home Away From Home-- I read this moving novel last fall during Fall Break as I negotiated some significant life changes. It's about a 30's-ish woman whose husband dies and her life in the year after he dies. Usually, I don't like grief novels, but if anything it's about accepting changes and letting yourself experiment and make mistakes as you figure out a new identity. A beautiful and appropriate story.

Lamb-- recommended by my brother over Christmas. A very funny novel about the adventures of Jesus and his best friend Biff. Reminds you of how little we know about Christ. Very funny.

The unnamed book-- I admit I have previously been too embarrassed to list it--it's by no means high literature in any form-- Danielle Steele's Jewels. Typical Danielle Steele-- independent woman made strong by circumstance falls in love with wealthy man, finds success and fulfillment in life. It's such a guilty pleasure! Someday some young historian will write her dissertation on the role of of Steele's books on our culture. Someday, someday-- you people will understand the importance of this book!

You know, I just realized that there is probably room for The Little House books on this list, but that's a post in and of itself. At any rate, there you go, take me or leave me, those are my faves.

the namesake.

After a long day of alternately sleeping and working and reading yesterday (it's a vicious cycle) I settled down with my Netflix guilty pleasure The Namesake. I got Netflix primarily because I have to watch five movies for a particular class (and it is of course, so amazingly convenient). Unfortunately, my last selection-- JFK-- took me three weeks to get through, so I felt like I had earned watching something that I could actually watch in one sitting and didn't make me think that every situation I encountered in print or real life was some type of conspiracy. I mean, crap, I'm like that enough, as anyone who I've ever accused of being "patriarchal" well understands.

I have to say, I really enjoy movies about India. Water was one of the most painfully beautiful films ever-- so stunningly heartbreaking-- and I of course adored The Darjeeling Limited. The Namesake isn't as much about India as it is about love and accepting the identities that make us who we are. The movie is about a set of Indian immigrants and their American-born son's challenges in defining himself as Indian and as American, as played out in his changing relationship to his family, women and his name. I cried for about half of the film-- and not just because I am a big time wuss, as indicated by the way I cried over Waitress for like, three days-- family dramas just tug at my heart, and I think this film does an especially good job at capturing the complexities of those relationships.

Anyways, what I'm saying without any real analysis is that you should watch this movie so you too can appreciate how beautiful it is and can spend one of two hours crying because you too have felt the intense grief that comes with love and figuring out who you are.

p.s. I love daylight savings! It's six o'clock and still light out! Yaaaay!

distractions.

So I went to buy milk tonight and of course got incredibly sidetracked. I don't buy cosmetics that often, and when I do it's something that I really can't live without (like this). But I could not resist Maybelline's VolumeXLSeduction Lip Plumper-- it is the most amazing lip gloss ever. Why?

-The tube is gadget-y-- you click the bottom of the tube and it magically pushes out little droplets out the top. As a historian I seldom get to use gadgets (oooo staplers!), so this is a very important feature.

-The color ("born with it"... gotta love branding) is a lovely mix of natural and shiny. Perfect for plumping your lips, for you know, everyday seductions, without looking hooker-y.

-The texture is totally smooths out and covers any imperfections in the lips, ideal for those of us living in arid mountain climates who's lips are completely trashed from the long dry winter, despite all of the efforts of Burt's Bees.

- The gloss goes on tingly! They say it's because it is making your lips bigger, and while it's possible that my lips could be morphing into Angelina Jolie's as I type, I like the vintage Carmex sensation without the nastiness.
As you can see, I think my lips are now artificially plumped enough for me to legitimately start adopting children from third world countries and starring in bad action films (Tomb Raider was probs the worst movie I ever slept through at a drive-in, ever)

*p.s. the lips picture totally weirds me out, but it's catchy, eh?

basil bern basket review.

So here it is, the long awaited basket review. As you can see, it looks pretty nice on the bike:


Overall, I'd say it's a great basket. The install was easy and I love that if I'm just going out to cruise around, I can take it off and ride a little lighter. The problem of it not being fixed to the bike by hardware is that it has a tendency to swing around a bit when one is headed downhill with a load. As you can see (kind of) from the picture, that can mean that the bike can swing into the cords and one of them has come loose a couple times, which is scary shit. So you definitely have to be careful in how you balance your load. I've found that putting my fat bastard lock on the rear rack generally cuts down on the interference with the cables and allows me to have more control over the bike.
This is what a typical load looks like-- bag filled with books, water bottle, snacks, standard purse paraphernalia and the newest addition to my security system. The bag is definitely ideal because it scrunches down so you don't loose headlight visibility. Ultimately I love just being able to drop my stuff in and ride, instead of all the hassle with bungee cords and whatnot on the rear rack. And the styling is nice enough that it doesn't take too much away from the design of the bike-- though I admit I wish the basket came in chrome because that would be awesome. What the pictures don't show is how nicely reinforced it is on the bottom-- the underside of the basket has three bars similar to what you'd see on a cargo bike, but not as huge.Here you can see how it hooks on at the top and then there's a curved piece of metal to grip onto the stem at the bottom.