It took about 2 months once I had decided to get a tattoo.

First I did internet research to see if getting a tattoo was safe.  While there were plenty of warnings, the basic answer was, yes it is safe.  The artists sterilize everything, wear gloves, and the needles are all single use.  In Oregon, tattoo artists must have a license from the health dept so that increases safety as well.  Oregon is one of the few states that has this requirement.

Next you have to pick a tattoo artist.  We have a tattoo studio very near my house and that was my first inclination.  But the internet was a big help because the on line reviews of the studio near our house were pretty bad.  I kept searching and found a place in inner SE Portland that got rave reviews– Lady Luck Tattoos.  I went to the studio not knowing what to expect… tattoo right then & there or …  Turns out that first you need to select an artist and then the artist does a design.  I chose Brynn as my artist and we set up a design appointment the following week.  I had a basic concept for my tattoo, but not a detailed design.  Once we talked about the design it took her about 3 weeks to do the design… she said spring always is peak season & so she had quite a bit of work stacked up in front of mind.

Once the design was done, I came down to the studio to check it out & approve it.  Then we set an appointment to get the tattoo… about a week later.  I didn’t get nervous until I was biking down to the studio on the day of the tattoo.  In the shop I was more nervous… how much pain?  would it look good?  etc…

My tattoo is relatively small and a single color.  It took about an hour to do the tattoo and cost me $150.  The tattoo is guaranteed for life.  There was some pain involved in getting the tattoo.  I would say it felt like having a bee sting you over and over and over.  Not terrible, but I was not laying there relaxed either.   The process starts by the artist taking her drawing and transferring it to your skin, sort of like a temporary tattoo.  You agree with placement, etc… and then she uses those marks (outline) to guide her needles in actually doing the tattoo.  She had a variety of tips to use; different ones for the outline, from doing shading, etc.  There is no blood.  They shave the area to get a nice smooth surface & continuously apply vaseline to keep your skin soft and smooth while doing the tattoo.

My tattoo took about one hour of pretty continuous work.  Once Bynn was done, she put a gauze pad over the tattoo and wrapped my leg in hospital tape.  Within a couple hours the pain was gone… still feel some pain, sort of like having fallen and gotten an abrasion… nothing bad at all.  Takes about 2 weeks for the tattoo to heal.  First week you really have to baby the skin, no dirt, etc.  Second week you are still careful; then you are suppose to be good to go.

Here is what my tattoo looks like, still quite red just one day after the event:

My first tattoo

I thought we would end up with the Honda CRV… it seemed to be the hot seller & Honda makes good products.  We have been a Toyota family but the RAV4  just doesn’t have the right package.  We want room for 4 adults with a quiet & comfortable ride.  We don’t really go off road, but some of the forest service roads to trail heads can get dicy.  Then you have snow up on Hood as well as just getting up the hill to get out of our cul-de-sac on a bad day in town.

We test drove the CRV and it wasn’t bad, but also wasn’t great.  We went to test drive a Subaru Forrester, but ended up in the new Outback.  It was very nice… they’ve made it more of a crossover vehicle.  The car didn’t get bigger but they lengthened the wheelbase so they could push the rear seat back & presto now there is plenty of room for adults in the back seat.  Subaru beefed up the insulation & went for tighter seals around the doors, so it is nice and quiet inside.  It is the car we want.  Turns out it is also the Motor Trend SUV of the year as well.

Edmunds.com makes it easy to shop over the internet.  They have all the data for you & even can give you the actual sales prices of similar purchases… so its easy to know if you are being given a fair price.  Originally we wanted navigation, but it only came with a zillion other options or an after market installation by the dealer… neither of which appealed to us.  So we did a second round of inquiries for a more basic model.  The good news here was that I added Dick Hannah Subaru in Vancouver to the list… Edmunds had just included Oregon dealers in my earlier search.

Sean at Dick Hannah was great… within an hour he had found exactly the car we wanted on a central Washington lot, with no pressure to buy up, and he gave us a fair price.  We will take delivery in a few more days.  By the way, we gave the salesman at Carr Subaru where we did our original test drive the first shot at our business… the result was terrible; couldn’t find us the car we wanted, tried to sell us up, and didn’t give us a good price.

I highly recommend Edmunds.com and Dick Hannah Subaru… the combination gave us an easy and satisfying car shopping experience.

I am comfortable that having tracked my usage for half a year, including some serious winter months, that I can get by on less than 2 gallons of gas a week.  This is better than my goal & probably puts me in a pretty good position for dealing with $10 per gallon gasoline that is likely coming in the years ahead.

So I’ll need to move on to other topics for this blog… I’m open to suggestions.

Goal: 0.43 gallons of gas/day.  (3 gallons/week)

Average actual usage:  0.17 gallons of gas/day

Number of days tracked: 72 days

Number of trips made:  127  (covering 1,257 miles)

MPG: 126

Well, I’m still using less than half the gas that I set as a target… however my gas usage has jumped up quite a bit.  I had a meeting that required a suit & tie; some meetings that happened on short notice & then evening outings with my wife.  I’m doing pretty well staying with my bike even when it is raining, but car trips are coming more often than I would like.  Of course back a week or so, I did a ski trip to Mt. Hood (with 2 friends), but of course that hurt my mileage as well.

Oh well, I haven’t left my car behind, but it sure stays in the garage most of the time… and I’m still ahead of my goal and using just over a gallon of gas a week.  Not bad!

Regarding bike gear… winter in Portland means lots of darkness… the sun isn’t up until after 8am and it is down again by 4:30pm, then there is the constant overcast… so dark, dark, dark on almost any ride.  This makes your lights a very important part of your equipment.

For my headlight I use a Night Rider MiNewt… producing a daylight visible light.  Normally I use it in flashing mode (which turns heads because the light is powerful enough to make a clear flashing pattern on any street sign with any reflective material).  On very dark, low traffic streets I’ll switch the light to a constant beam both to provide good illumination for riding, but also because the flashing mode turns into a strobe light that drives me crazy if it is the only light source around.  Comes with rechargeable batteries and charger.  This light is expensive, but definitely worth every penny… however, it does mean that I don’t leave it on my bike when I have it parked.

For my taillight I use a pair of Planet Bike Superflash LED lights.  This is the most noticeable tail light I have found.  I use it in flash mode, where every fourth flash is super bright.  The light is small & cheap; plus batteries seem to last a long time.

Updated  Carbon Footprint Meter:

Goal: 0.43 gallons of gas/day.  (3 gallons/week)

Average actual usage:  0.12 gallons of gas/day

Number of days tracked: 59 days

Number of trips made:  104  (covering 1,175 miles)

MPG: 173

For the ladies, cold weather seems to mean all black… black is everywhere.  Boots are also a clear favorite, some look like old style rubber boots (dressed up of course), others have 5″ heels.  I was surprised to see that an REI staple… North Face, has clearly gone fashion conscious… North Face is everywhere on the streets of NYC and in some very non-trail friendly designs… the ladies appear to love the full length down coats with a hood.

Another fact of this dense urban environment is frequent trains.  Who needs a schedule… the next train will arrive in 2 minutes.  It is almost like having a high speed moving side walk.  Makes for a quick and comfortable way to cover the city.  The change in mindset when trains are so frequent is incredible.  Not sure how long until MAX reaches the 5 minute frequency in Portland… but it will be a breakthrough.

We topped off our outings today by spontaneously buying tickets for the Met Opera this afternoon.  Karen loves to watch these when they are shown live in the movie theatre… here was a chance to experience the real thing.  We were just in jeans and tennis shoes, but did not feel out of place.  The tickets we bought from a well dressed old lady were at the front of the 4th balcony… far enough away that it was tough to tell who was singing.  All in all, Karen said she enjoys the movie theatre experience more.

Then we hoped the Q train to head further into Brooklyn for lunch.  We got off at Ave J & walked a block to Di Fara Pizza… a tiny hole in the wall place, reputed to have the best pizza in NYC.  Well the critics were right, the pizza was excellent… the whole place is a one may show… an old guy in his 70s at least, who does everything (except take your money).  He is also the only guy I’ve seen so far in NYC that isn’t in a hurry.  The place is a dump… dirty, unkempt, small, falling apart… but packed with pizza lovers.  Everything is fresh, the herbs are even growing in the store window fronts, and lovingly handled.  If you are in the area, it is worth the trip (& the wait) for a Di Fara pie.

We closed out the day at the Brooklyn Museum… rock & roll photos/videos and the Egyptian exhibits were very good.  They also had done a great job of putting a modern lobby onto the old existing building… we had to check the leftover pizza box & everyone joked about eating it… luckily all the slices were still there when we left.  Looks like pizza for dinner tonight as well.

Thanks to Aaron’s suggestion, we brought long underwear along on the trip, so we stayed toasty despite walking for long stretches in the windy 20 degree weather.

Updated  Carbon Footprint Meter:

Goal: 0.43 gallons of gas/day.  (3 gallons/week)

Average actual usage:  0.09 gallons of gas/day

Number of days tracked: 47 days

Number of trips made:  78

MPG: 223

If I was driving a 22 MPG vehicle for all of these trips my gas usage would be at nearly a gallon a day (0.9 gallons/day).

I’m still doing well, my MPG has dropped a bunch as I’m using the car more, but still 78% of my trips are done on a bike.

For the last 2+ months I’ve been making a Godzilla sized carbon footprint.  We flew half way around the world & then drove roughly the length of the US west coast before flying back home.  Since coming home, we’ve flown to Colorado for a ski trip, which included renting a van to cart all our skis around the mountains for 5 days.

But all of that I knew & bought into… the surprise has been how hard it is to return to my frugal carbon footprint… once I reached a state of being fat, dumb, and happy (driving a car, staying dry inside, quickly getting to my destination 15 miles away, etc), it was quite tough to actually return to using my bike for transportation.  Of course the fact that it is now cold and rainy most days in Portland does not help my motivation… but that is a cheap excuse.  So my fat carbon footprint continued through December simply because I was lazy and slothful.

I have restarted by carbon footprint log as of January 1st and I’ll post an update soon.  Today was a break through as I did some significant rides in light rain today.  I think I’m getting back my mental toughness… while I don’t expect to match my summer stats, I should still be able to keep my bike as my primary form of transportation.

More updates will be coming soon.

What is with the cold & rain?

Why am I fixing leaking faucets, putting snow tires on the car, cleaning up the kitchen, etc?

Why am I so far behind on all of my projects?

Why do the windshield wipers come on when I try to signal a turn in the car?

Why didn’t we do a fun outing to a new adventurous place today?

Ouch… we are no longer on vacation.  Darn!!!

It has been more than a decade since we have been gone for 6 weeks from our home.  While it is great to have a long vacation, re-entry into the real world can be a bit of a shock.  Since we flew from 45 degrees South to 45 degrees North on Dec 12… we went from nearly the longest day to about the shortest day after one airplane ride… and all the weather implications that implies.  Also there is no hotel maid to clean the room or restaurant staff to take care of feeding us.  Now it is back to our normal life where we take care of ourselves and try to complete projects that will help our community.

Its great to be home, but hopefully I’ll stop feeling dizzy pretty soon!