New recycling program.

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With all the bullshit we keep hearing about rats, garbage everywhere, trashcans with lids and idiots complaining about any kind of change that will make them take an extra step to do anything, we’re forgetting about our yet-again-improved recycling program. In case you’re not lucky enough to live here, One PLUS One started this week. That is, city residents get their trash picked up on one day of the week and their recycling picked up on another. Everyone’s mad at DPW. God forbid anyone try to improve something, wait, I mean, CHANGE something and force people out of lazy habits.

This is the kind of thing that can get Baltimore some good national press. How much better can a recycling program be than to take everything recyclable from your home every single week? Do cities like Portland and Chicago have recycling programs like this? But this is Baltimore, right? And our local news is run by a bunch of complete DOWNERS.

Two years ago, we got cans, glass, #1 and #2 plastic picked up once a month and paper picked up once a month.  It was, at best, a basic recycling program for a large, modern city.  Then Sheila Dixon started us on twice a month single-stream recycling.  Not only that, but if you paid attention, the plastics they would take increased from #1-2 to #1-7.  A lot of household plastic is #4-5, so this was an awesome, if quiet, improvement.  More recently, it was announced that these plastics even included things that had oil like butter containers, etc.  Up until last week, city residents could put all their paper, metal, plastic and glass out twice a month and have it recycled for them.  Up until last week, we had a very nice recycling system.

Starting this week, we get the same single-stream recycling pick-ups, but we get them every week.  EVERY WEEK!  How many cities are there where you put out basically everything in your home that is recyclable, and the city takes it all away every single week, without even requiring you to have a special container?

We don’t hear about this in our local news.  All we hear about is that “trash” pick-up has been reduced to once a week.  “And I been having dat pick-up day fer ferty years!” Oh, shit! There are gonna be more rats! More trash in the streets! People are gonna ferrgit! “Now I gotta git me a ke-an wiff a lid!”

Well, folks, you were never supposed to leave your fucking trash out without a can in the first place. This has always been a law, but it has seldom been enforced. Do you leave your trash out behind your home in bags? Well, blame yourself for the plague of rats in this fucking city. You did your part to bring them here, so why don’t you take a few in as pets or at least name a few of the fuckers and keep feeding them your trash that you leave all over your alley? You think trash is gonna be all over the alleys? Simple. Put it in your can. Did you know that trash in cans with tight lids usually stays there? (I know; HOLY SHIT! What a concept!)

You don’t think that three 32-gallon cans is enough for you? You create more than 96 fucking gallons of trash a week?! What are you putting in your trash? Do you use it for a toilet also?

Guess what? Sheila figured out a way to FORCE you lazy fucking 35% of Baltimoreans who don’t recycle at all. Ha! Ha! You think recycling is some liberal bullshit? Fine. Be stupid. But now you’re gonna be stupid and recycle, fuckers.

There, I’ve cussed enough on the innernetz today.

Hot Jamis.

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Got to take a short ride with my two bike pals yesterday. It was hot, and we were on a tight time budget, but it was a blast. We only rode about 12 miles, but it kicked my ass around a little. In my defense, I haven’t been riding regularly for three months. I had just re-spoked Zack’s rear wheel, trued both and patched a tire. Wouldn’t you know that at the end of the ride, when we were standing around talking, the HIIIIIIIIIISSSSSSSSSSSSSS of a blown tire interrupted us? We had ice water and enjoyed some AC in my apartment. Then we fixed it up over beers.  Had it not blown, I would probably have gone home alone and taken a shower and read for a while.  Having some beer and working on bikes was much better.  Not a bad way to spend the afternoon!

First commute treat!

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Yesterday, I took a [hybrid!] bus to work, with my floor pump in my backpack, my helmet in a box on my lap and my rear-mount kickstand. I put the stand on at lunch and was shaking with excitement and nervousness all day at the idea of getting to ride again. I mean, my last ride didn’t go so well. My wife had to work late, so we had dinner at the delicious Cafe’ Mocha near Penn Station after work, and then I set off to North Baltimore! I stopped by my parents’ house in Hampden to show off the new ride to my folks, my brother and my aunt and uncle — and to have a cream soda.
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Then I rode home, up Roland Avenue. At one intersection, I was behind another cyclist at the red light, and there was another gent coming from the opposite way — and it wasn’t even close to rush hour anymore. Being out of commission all spring and early summer, I missed the increase in ridership. The gentleman in front of me ran a red light I didn’t want to run after a block or two, so we parted ways. I rode around Evergreen, through Stony Run Park and back home, not really wanting to stop. I came home, took off my sweaty shirt and had some water with lemon in the lazer-etched bike pint glass I got for Valentine’s Day this year and watched “The Simpsons.”

Sweet first ride. Chromoly steel rides like a freakin dream, but I kept hearing something bell-like when I hit bumps. I think the rear brake cable was banging the toptube because the little rubber things weren’t on right (my fault). That steel literally rings. But it also could have been the dangerous thing I found when I got home. When I was installing my front fenders last week, I forgot to check that the stays were tightened at the dropout eyelets. Holy shit, that could have been disastrous!  Also completely my fault.

Rode to work this morning with the Mrs. — our first joint commute. I was completely drenched with sweat when I got here, and I wasn’t cycling hard this morning at all. I have to go back to a shoulder bag and away from my backpack. Thank God for the baby wipes and extra shirt I keep in my desk. I was a mess.

But I’m sitting here with my helmet on the AC vent, my new tires dirty and my bike begging me for 5:00.  I am very happy.

Independence Day 2009.

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This year, it’s independence from NOT cycling.  This is a teaser of my new bike, with rack, fenders, lights, computer, sitting in my office.  Until I go get it tomorrow/Sunday, now that my new helmet is here!

Old Independence Day posts:
2008
2007

Baltimore is Smaltimore: Spotted bike.

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Holy smokes.  There was a cool used/vintage bike I saw online, as recently as last night.  I swore I saw the same one locked outside The Rotunda tonight.  I did.  Came and checked, and it’s sold.  SMALTIMORE!

(That tile’s from a public art/community art piece I saw in The Village last week.)

Lots of new windows.

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My new apartment has a lot of big windows.  Nine.  Most I’ve ever had in an apartment.  Even with the ACs in, there are lots of windows left for catching a breeze.  One in the kitchen and two in the living room face my street, with a nice view of cyclists and traffic.  The other two in the living room, the one in the spare bedroom, the one in the bathroom and the two in the bedroom all face the pretty roof of the building next-door and lots of enormous trees.  When you look over the roof, you can see the lights of the big apartment buildings further down University Parkway, near JHU.  It’s like a quiet little spot in the city.
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Yes, they all stick like crazy because the building is old and because they are wooden.  But I’m at peace with it.  It’s worth it.  The rents here are pretty reasonable, and it’s close to everything without needing a car.  Indeed, to talk to my neighbors, parking here is, to be sure, a real bitch.  I don’t care at all.

Grey June days.

….always remind me of summer 2002, when I lived  in Massachusetts.  June is lovely there, especially early on.  I remember frequently wearing a sweater there in June.  It’s a nice, relaxing atmosphere today, before Baltimore’s heat and humidity set in.  I’ve been enjoying our window fans at night.  I’m helping with a mural today, so I get to be outside, too.

I live somewhere else now.

First take-out tonight at new apartment.  First shower.  Soon, first sleep.  We moved nextdoor.  But, you know.  Moving is tiring, and my limbs are still not fully functional.  We’ve only hung curtains in the potty so far.  Only put together one thing from Ikea.  Got a new couch that is the color of poo.  Poo.  It’s very heavy, too, and our elevator was out all weekend.

You can move the apartment number literally up one integer in your address book if you have it.

Foot/toe update.

So. Saw Mr. Foot doctor today. Rather, first another doctor (not PA or RN, a Doctor) came in and mistook me for someone else who had just had leg surgery. Then he told me about my toe after he looked at my “film”. Fragmented bone. Too small to screw in like they would normally do. Should heal Okay. But if not, they’d cut out the bone fragment. That if that didn’t work, they’d “fuse” my joint. Forever. Best they could do. What?

Then I went to X-ray and had time to think about what he said. I have to admit that I was freaking out a little over the prospect of a permanent procedure on my foot, when I get around the world almost entirely with my feet — and double angry that it’s all because of one single person.

Then my real foot doctor came in, looked at the new X-rays. Turns out that I don’t have one broken bone, but two. And there are, apparently, several fragments of bone from them. He examined my foot, too, and he said I could get off the crutches now. Don’t really have to go back unless I have problems. That it’s too small to do anything, and we just have to let it heal the best it can. Okay.

That would feel like good news, I guess, after the scary shit the other guy was talking about. I was told I should expect my foot to be swollen for a year. Could be worse, right? But still. I’m probably going to get arthritis in this toe. And I already have a trick toe. My baby toe on my other foot has a split bone in it (funny story), and it hurts fairly often. On a rainy night like tonight or in the cold, I can literally feel that shit in my bones. The best I can hope for with my big toe now is chronic pain and/or surgery because some lady couldn’t watch where she was driving her fucking car? And she paid so little attention that she was on my foot for a while?

On top of it, her insurance company won’t return our calls. So we’re hiring a lawyer, something I really hoped to avoid. This is turning into a very unpleasant situation.

But tonight we got to see our new apartment, and it’s lovely. And baby-trying time is coming fast. My heart is light after spending my entire day being furious, frustrated and forlorn over my inability to deal with things I can’t control (like that, despite the shitty way it happened, my toe’s already smashed). It has a cute little bathroom that you enter from either bedroom, and a little kitchen window like downstairs used to have.

How I wound up in crutches.

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A neighbor of the university where I work needed a favor, which I was happy to do. They even invited me to a little “refreshment” before hand, but I had to decline and get some work done. I did said favor and left, walking South on Charles Street. I made it ten feet before having to stop because a driver had pulled her car out of the parking garage and across the sidewalk. She was engrossed in watching the traffic coming from her left and did not notice the pedestrian on her right. When the traffic was too dense to merge into, she turned sharply to the right to, I suppose, get into the lane freed up the parked cars which were gone by that time of day. She did this, hit my leg with her car and kept moving. I tapper her fender and yelled and tried to back away. But my foot was stuck.

Okay, I totally screamed like a child — both because it freakin hurt and because I was trying to get her attention to get the hell off of my foot. It didn’t work, so I resorted to banging on her hood. This all happened in like five or ten seconds. She looked at me, said, “Oh!” and took long enough to put her car in reverse and back up for me to think (perhaps outloud), “What the fuck is taking you so fucking long to get your fucking car the fuck off of my fucking foot?!”
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She got out, said, “I didn’t see you!” I yelled something like, “You should be looking where the fuck you’re going!”

After the last time I got hurt by someone else’s fault and couldn’t do anything to get them ticketed or at least forced by police to move that pipe, I told her I was calling the cops. She got UPSET. I hung up on 911 and explained to her that I didn’t do it right that time and was going to do it right this time. 911 called me back. I refused an ambulance because downtown Baltimore at 4pm on a Friday is a place where you let the ambulances that can make it through traffic carry people with actually life-threatening injuries.  They sent the police.  The Fire Department came, too.  They were very nice, offered me a lift to the hospital and checked out my foot.  When I told them what happened, they had a, “How stupid can a person be?” look which made me smile.

She had a police sticker on her car, was the only one that talked to the police and told her insurance company (to whom she still hadn’t given a statement Monday afternoon) that she would get the police report.  The paranoid person in me smells something fishy, but I happen to know the boss of that district through work, and I know people who know him better than I do.  With her repeating, “I didn’t see you!” over and over, I suspect she thought I was going to say she hit me on purpose.  That sounds strange, but I can see why she might think that.  But, like I told her insurance company, I don’t dispute that she didn’t see me.  She wasn’t looking at all, and that’s how it happened!

Everyone left, and my family took me to the emergency room.  Had to ride in a wheelchair, and my foot was ballooning.  Turns out that my foot was “trauma-ed” and my big toe broken (fragged, I believe).  I have to see a foot specialist and make sure nothing is forever wrong.  With how I depend on my feet, I would go nuts if this person’s negligence hurt me permanently.  I think she also thought I might be more interested in getting her arrested than making her insurance company pay my medical bills instead of making my health insurance do it.  When I called her insurance company over an hour later, she hadn’t reported a thing.

In Maryland, for what she did, she could go to jail, be fined and get points taken off of her license.  I’m going to suggest that Maryland suspend your license if you injure a pedestrian.
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For now, I’m in a boot and on crutches and can’t put any weight on my foot at all.  As you can imagine, crutches are a lot of fun when your wrist is broken.  On the other hand, they gave me very strong pain killers, so I can get to sleep.  I always wake up with sore hips from being knocked out by drugs hard enough to not move, though.  I’m working from home and haven’t left my apartment since Saturday.  This blows and hard.

So my new bike is getting returned.  I bought it quickly because it was a good sale.  I thought I’d be riding, at least a little, by the end of next week, if not sooner.  But now, when I can ride again is undetermined.  I’m flirting with being depressed, and I can’t look at that thing knowing that the carelessness of one person might keep me off of it for more weeks or months.  I can always buy it again later.  There’s something fun about getting to actually ride your new bike that I keep missing and would like to get to do.  So I get a do-over here.  Screw the sale.

The other fun thing is dealing with an insurance company who is acting that this could in any way by MY fault!  They even asked about my shoes (Tevas) and commented that it was the only protection I had — like we should all walk around in warm weather in armored boots so the negligent drivers of the world can run us over with impunity.

I think I might have to get a lawyer.

Slider the killer turtle.

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My mom has a little pond her in yard, right off of the deck.  It’s like her little peace place.  There are cute statues, including a little gnome I gave her.  A few years ago, my brothers and I joined forces to put in a larger and deeper pond.  There was mud everywhere, and it was a fun effort.  We work well together, we three brothers.

Lurking in the darkness of this deeper pond is Slider, the hungry turtle.

He’s snapped at dogs, and he’s got a thing for those baby shrimp you buy in a can.  There used to be large goldfish in there.  But he ate them all.  The whole reason that the pond had to be re-dug was because eating fish that rivaled him in mass made him get huge.

Now he occupies an amount of space half the size of a college dorm room, including a large portion of garden and the entire pond.  Attempts to introduce more fish to the pond result in a bigger and fatter turtle.  If my mother approaches, he comes to her, expecting food.  I’ve fed him enough that he comes over to me like a puppy for treats.  Goldfish crackers, pieces of cheese, Ritz crackers — he’ll eat anything I give him.  He looks at me with eagerness, circles his big sunning rock and thrusts his head out for morsels.
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He’s growing all the time, it seems to me.  I imagine that the neighborhood children near my parents’ house are going to start circulating rumors about that crazy turtle, which resembles some sort of scary croc sometimes.

“Did you know that the Elm Avenue Killer Turtle ate Timmy’s little brother?  He went in after his Wiffle ball, and no one ever saw him again.”

“That scary Polish lady was out riding that turtle one day, and it had little Bobby’s half-eaten shoe coming out of its mouth!”

I can see it now.

“That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”

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I can’t tell all of the ignorant things some people have said to me since the bike accident, to complement all the very nice and very sweet words and well-wishes and gifts of candy and company from very good people I am lucky enough to know. In addition to people who have been very very nice to me, there is a whole platoon of people have taken it upon themselves to help me reform and understand my face-plant better with completely unsolicited advice. Indeed, even in defeat, there are insistent cycling-nay-sayers. A few:

1) One person, when my face was still leaking liquids and looked twice as nasty as this picture, said, “You gotta be careful out dere on dem bikes.”
No shit? Wow. Guess when I heal, I’ll have to stop riding stoned and with my eyes closed. I mean, seriously, nice way to fucking blame me for what happened without having ever seen me ride or even know what the hell caused the crash. And P.S. — “you” don’t ride anyway, so what do you know?

2) “I worry about you on that bike.”
Thanks, but, looking at the statistics and remembering driving a car, I worry about you in your car. (I don’t actually mind that one so much.)

3) The one I’ve heard the most and the one that makes me maddest: “That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”
Oh. Now. Where to begin?
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What do you mean by “that“? Do you mean my injured limbs? The cuts I had? Not being able to ride for weeks and missing some awesome bike-related events? Or do you mean my wrecked bike by “that”? Maybe “that” means what it feels like when what stops your body from a speed of 25-27 miles per hour is the friction of your body hitting the ground and skidding to a halt, leaving half on your lip and pieces of your face on the cement? Do you mean that? Or maybe the sound it makes, i.e., a helmet hitting and scraping the visor off and grating metal?

Nah. I know you, and I know what “that” means when you say to me, “That’s why I don’t ride a bike.”

It could mean your own fear of riding in traffic. Well, guess what? I was not hit by a car. To my knowledge, there were no moving cars around me. Nor was I riding in the street. I was on the bike trail, and I hit an unmarked pipe, just small enough to not see in time big but enough for a poopy crash. In Baltimore, no one could get away with having that shit out in the street at 8:30 in a Wednesday morning. Certainly, getting hit by a car is a risk we all take. But in this case, when you look at me and say, “That’s why I don’t ride a bike,” that is irrelevant.

It could your own being in bad shape. But if you know me, you know I’m not exactly in shape, and I have a big ass to prove it — not to mention the belly I carry for someone my age. Being in less than great shape is a strange reason not to cycle.  I am in terrible shape and look like, even in (HA!) peak riding condition.

It might mean your lack of interest. That’s cool. You don’t have to be into cycling. I’m not into driving my ass around in a car. But do you need to state your interests when I wreck? I mean, I never told someone hurt in a car accident, “Damn, that’s why I don’t have a car. Those fuckin things are deadly.”

I don’t know why I’m so pissed off at this phrase being repeated to me. It feels like a judgment on one hand – like that I’m engaging in what amounts to dangerous behavior just by riding my bike for transportation. That’s annoying enough. But it also feels like people are working out or venting some of their own issues on me (paranoia, bad fitness habits, being left out of the cycling craze, etc.). These people are making my own traumatic experience (not to throw that term around) about them.

For the record, no one I know who has gotten on a bike to go somewhere in the last few years has said anything like that. Instead, there are well-wishes — like from my nicest non-cycling friends. I am lucky to have nice people all around me. To be sure, it’s not a matter of cycling or not cycling. It’s something else.  And I know it’s not me.

Spring means less need for sleeping?

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I am finding that I can’t sleep lately. Friday and Saturday, I had to wake up earlier than usual and get going, and I was out late Friday night, too. I tried to sleep late Sunday morning, but my body resisted. I didn’t feel very tired, though, and had even more trouble getting to sleep on Sunday night. Felt ready to wake up and battle traffic and work yesterday (Monday) on very little sleep. I had more trouble getting to sleep last night, but that could have been the family emergency (more later) that had me cycling like mad against a headwind yesterday afternoon. Maybe, because today I’m pooped. I hope it passes. The idea that I need less sleep/rest with the warming weather is very appealing to someone who likes to stay up reading at night and cycling early in the morning.

Stab winter for St. Patty.

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I am very ready for winter to be over.  I generally like it.  There are past instances on this blog where I was angry at a lack of winter.  I like wearing sweaters and flannel and cuddling up with the Mrs at night to watch movies, read and sleep.  Cycling when water freezes to your face is exhilarating, if for no other reason, for the looks of amazement you get from other people.  Longjohns are their own unique experience when you have them on under your work pants with nothing under them.
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Maybe it’s barreling downhill for four miles every morning and getting watery eyes from the wind or my being tired of not being able to wear sandals sans socks.  Or of coming home from community meetings at seven or eight in the dark.  Maybe I’m tired of the bleak landscape on my way to work through the Jones Falls Valley and out of my window on University Parkway.  But I’m really ready for spring now.

I haven’t actually gotten tired of winter since 2003, when I lived in Boston and didn’t blog yet.  It was a particularly bad winter, full of blizzards and April snow.  St. Patty’s day that year was 70 degree weather, with students at Boston College sitting around talking in tanktops next to mountains of snow still piled up.  I remember wearing flip-flops and crunching on snow that April and wearing a jacket in May and June a few times.
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There was snow on the ground two years ago for St. Patty’s Day, too, after a January that was so warm that plants were budding the week after New Year’s Day.  I guess it could be worse.  I get to work from home this morning for afternoon meetings and can probably get away with sandals later, if I’m willing to have cold feet, which I am.

I have a fridge full of Irish stout, cabbage, homemade soda bread from the Mrs and Irish music.  What, you haven’t heard the new U2 album yet?  It’s excellent.

Walking tours out the wahzoo.

My  VISTA position largely involves Central Baltimore and hooking up higher ed folks with the area, to be better neighbors and to help one and all, etc.  The problem is, no one knows what the hell Central Baltimore is, and even more people are plain afraid of it.  When I mentioned that we’re ending tomorrow’s walking tour at the delicious Station North Arts Cafe’, someone told me, “[pause].  That’s not a real good neighborhood.”  Indeed, I wouldn’t walk around there at two in the morning, but I wouldn’t walk around anywhere in Baltimore or any city at two in the morning.  You really can’t blame someone who being like, “What’s Central Baltimore?” when they don’t know about the area.  No one’s a jerk for not knowing something.  But when people who don’t know anything start passing off judgments like they were just there last night, well, that’s a problem.

My co-worker and I led a walking tour in December and will lead another tomorrow and another Sunday in Central Baltimore.  If you see a dude with a megaphone (I shit you not), that’s me.

This week has been very insane, and both blogs suffer.  Apologies.  Next week will be much more sane and will allow for more posting.

Pocketful of dimes.

Due to the suspicion that my sinus infection is coming back, being tired and sore and generally feeling like crap, I took the bus to work this morning. It was definitely not the incoming rain. I like riding to work in the rain. I feel as if I should feel like a sell-out for wussing out. But I don’t exactly answer to anyone else about how I get to work. And wussing out of cycling for the first time in over a month for me means taking the bus, not driving some gas-guzzling land yacht or lounging on the backs of servants or something. I have to admit that I have been dying to take some kind of transit since the transit summit the other night. But now my pocketful of dimes is half empty.

Transit Summit at UB.

For those in Baltimore who are interested in transit oriented development like this here guy is:

The second Baltimore Regional Transportation Oriented Development Summit will take place at the University of Baltimore on Tuesday, Feb. 24 from 7 to 9 p.m. Free and open to the public, this gathering will feature public and private sector representatives discussing new initiatives, advances in local transportation oriented development planning and the emerging national agenda to promote smart investment in infrastructure and innovation. The event will take place in the M. Scot Kaufman Auditorium in the William H. Thumel Sr. Business Center (home of the Merrick School of Business), 11 W. Mt. Royal Ave.

More info.  I’ll  be there.

Universal weather balancing.

While I refuse to wear special cycling clothes, I do have to watch the weather when I have a four-mile-outside trip to work.  Yesterday, I busted my ass to get to work before the snow and rain started because I didn’t feel like bringing extra clothes with me.  I just made it.  I literally got into my office, turned on my computer, turned around to look out the window and saw snow.  Today, I got in just before the sun came out and starting drying shit off.  Same thing, but sun when I looked out the window after a wet ride to work.  What a balanced Universe!

Why do you leave your GPS out?

If you ever go to “public safety” type meetings, you know that the rash of car break-ins in Baltimore is nothing new but something the media suddenly feels like talking about now instead of far more depressing things they could report.  My wife asked why people are stupid enough to leave their gadgets out tonight.

For the same reason they probably bought them!  To show them off!  I mean, what good is a GPS if you can’t brag, right?  I am aware some people actually use them.  Some people.  (I’d put one on my bike if someone bought me one, hint hint.)  I would assume that any reasonably intelligent person who uses and values a device like that wouldn’t leave it on the damned car seat, especially after dozens of warnings not to do so.

I refuse to feel sorry for a lot of these people.  If your finances are such that a new car window is going to send you broke, maybe you shouldn’t have bought that fucking Tom Tom bling.