Today Tracy was playing with a viewmaster when I got home. She was flipping the disks in and out and one of the disks had a huge picture of Dora on it. Loren saw Dora and got all excited and said “DDDEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE” as she pointed to the disk. I borrowed the viewmaster from Tracy and popped in the Dora disk. Then I chose the frame that showed Dora the clearest in the viewmaster. Then I held the viewmaster up to her eyes. She got excited when she saw Dora and kind of jumped. Then she moved her hands up and pushed the viewmaster to the side and looked around for Dora. She did this several times. It was very cute.
I subscribe to MAKE magazine and I love it. In Vol 5 they had an article about how to make your own electric car by using an old econo-box from a junkyard and replacing the engine with a forklift electric motor, batteries, and a controller/charger. Building my own electric car sounded like fun, but I don’t really have the time or the money ($5000 for a good set of batteries and the charger/controller). But I did enjoy looking around a bit on line at the electric vehicle enthusiasts.
While poking around I ran across electric bikes, electric scooters and electric mopeds. I didn’t really think I wanted one but I thought it might be fun to look at a few. I found a local dealer for electric bikes/scooter/mopeds and decided to take a lunch break and check it out.
I rode about 5 different types bikes and when I rode the eGo Cycle 2 LX I really enjoyed myself. It will go around 20 miles at 24 mph with each charge. Then I started thinking about my commute and most of the trips I currently take by car. I only work around 5.5 miles from home, my brother lives around 2.5 miles away, many of my friends live within 5-6 miles, and I had a total blast riding the scooter. So I bought one. I have been riding it to work since I got it. I have also gone to my brother’s place a few times, shopping at Wal-mart, to visit a friend a few times, shopping at the local bike shop, and out to the corner store. I have put around 100 miles on it already and I have only had it for around 7 days (that I have been in town).
I have only driven my convertible to the airport since I got the scooter. I am thinking about selling the convertible. Charging the bike cost around 8 cents if it is fully drained. If I do sell the convertible, then I figure I will save around $40-50 bucks a month in gas, insurance, registration, and service for the car.
The Harley riders that pull up behind me at lights laugh at me. Some of the people at work laugh, and some think it is cool. I don’t really care what they think. I know I am a nerd and I am okay with that. I enjoy riding to work and being outside. The scooter is very quiet so the only noise I hear is the wind at I cut through it at a staggering 24mph. 
Loren has broken both arms at separate times. The right arm first above the elbow and then the left across both the ulna and radius. We will not be getting the parents of the year award. Actually, I am a bit surprised CPS has not been by to ask a few questions. Both of the breaks happened because she fell from someplace that she climbed onto. Our current theory is that she sees the older kids doing things and wants to keep up. I really don’t care about the reason… I just want her to stop falling and hurting herself. I felt like I was going to throw up both times that I found out she had broken her arm. I think her broken arm is bothering mom and dad more than her. She seems totally fine most of the day. At night she is a bit more restless, but that could be the cast, or teeth, or gas or God knows what else. The real bummer is that she broke them about a month apart and she is still in the cast for the second arm. I suppose it could have been worse and they both could have been in casts at the same time.
We did buy a cast water bag vacuum thingie. It allows Loren to swim and play in the bath and keep her cast dry. It is a bit of a pain because you have to keep a close eye on her bag to make sure the vacuum is holding, but it beats trying to hold her back from a bath or swimming.
Well, the comment spam has really picked up and I thought that maybe I should actually post something here so that my only actions were not marking all 100 comments in the mod queue as spam. Comment spammers should die by belt sander.
It has been forever since my last post. I have wanted to post about quite a few things, but never get around to it. I think I have been suffering a bit of burnout and have not really felt the urge blog. In the time since my last post quite a bit has happened and I think I will break them all up into a few posts clustered together instead of one superginormous post.
