My family and I live in Eugene, Oregon and I think it is an intelligent city. Would millions and millions of dollars help our community? I think so. We could use better schools, a safer community for our friends and neighbors, less theft and vandalism, more people with good jobs and thriving businesses. If more people in Eugene realized the value to the community of keeping our money local, I think it would make a dramatic, positive impact. There is research to back this up ( Time magazine’s article). But in an article from GRIST (click on grahic) the thinking goes into how much money ends up going into ‘our cars’, thus taking that portion of our dollars away from our neighbors, our town, our state and even our country. When we use our bodies to get around we meet more people. We build relationships and grow to care more for our public assets like our streets and paths. Our food becomes our fuel with improved air quality and increased safety.
This notion helped me and my family to follow through on selling our motor vehicle in 2007. We choose to buy local when we can. We shop closer to home than further away. And we use the internet to research the larger companies so that when or if we spend our money with them, we know that our money will be used with better intention.

We were talking the other evening about the fact that our kids have moved into a new phase. With Dare and Sanguine now 5 years old and this fall they will be going into Kindergarten, Monica and I feel like we are starting to feel like we can say goodbye to a lot of small kid things. Getting out of the house is getting easier. Going to the library is beginning to be something we can consider. And they are finally learning how to clean a bit in their room or around the yard.
Monica is doing yoga and plans to get into working out as the weather gets better. I’m committed to do some local mountain biking this year. I bike everyday, for commuting to work, going to the grocery store and other errands, but getting out and riding off-road in Eugene is hard without a car. I’ll have to buddy up with folks that don’t mind doing the driving to get out to Whypass or down to Oakridge.
We’ll be working on not buying much this year. We see that most consumer goods do not have much lasting value. We’ll be focusing on growing lots of food in our yard and at the end of our street at the Community Garden. I’m sure we’ll be posting on the specifics of what and how much we’ll be trying to grow, so for now lets leave it at that. We will be picking more blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, blueberries and cherries for sure. The kids love picking berries and there isn’t much that is better for them. We will take pictures and post them here.
We hope to get Sanguine riding a two-wheeler on her own this summer. I’m pretty sure she will be able to do it. Not too sure she will be able to get real good at it but we are hoping that she feels what it is like to pedal and balance. This will be a big step for our family and Sanguine.
We have no plans to travel much, or to…
The post above was drafted in January of 2011. And it fell by the wayside as we found ourselves hustling around. Now I’ve made it serve as a reminder of where were were at at that time.

The triples came out yesterday and we aired up the tires. We had to raise everyone’s seats — pretty cool to see how much the kids have grown just since last summer.

On our shake down trip we rode over to Gateway Movie 12 for a cheap night out. One the ride there we were cruising along when I heard a chain popping sound just after a little blip in the pedal feedback. Interesting, but Dare’s Van’s shoes got caught up in the triple chain and that caused it to get too tight… and it just broke apart. We sat there for a minute wondering if we had a chain tool with us. We did not. I have everything else, but no chain tool.

The back chain from Torrent’s spot to the rear wheels was still working. So he alone pedaled the whole rig. Me, Dare and Sanguine were all just sitting in as Torrent stood up and pounded us up and over the I-5 Bridge to Gateway. Once we were there we went on in and starting looking for a tool at Cabela’s and Target, but no luck. We ended up having a meal out then watching the movie. As the movie ended, we loaded up – with a bit of re-distribution – and headed back home with Torrent again powering us as I just sat back and steered.

On the way home, We asked everyone we saw if they had a chain tool. Finally on Coburg Rd. just under the I-105 overpass, we found some kids that had a chain tool. Within minutes I removed the a link from the rear chain and had the timing chain tied back together. We were on our way. Torrent was proud of himself for using hiss trength to help the whole family.

We made it home without another incident. We will not leave the chain tool home again on any triple rides from here on out.