bi [sic] le

Since this may pretty much be the first I’ve mentioned anything about us wanting a new car, you might think of our purchase yesterday of the above-pictured Ford Escape Hybrid was something of an impulse buy. To the contrary, this is the end result of a process that began about two years ago with me telling Susan that while my trusty 1997 Nissan truck and her trusty 1994 Honda Civic hatchback would last us pretty much forever, it would be pretty nice: A) not having to rent a vehicle whenever we wanted to go for a road trip, and B) having a vehicle capable of carrying more than the two of us… you know, for those rare instances about once a decade when we’re sociable and want to take someone out — but not need them to pick us up because while technically our vehicles can each seat four, we don’t hate anyone enough to make them have to struggle getting in and out of the backs of either ride. And I do mean struggle.

But two years ago we were in no hurry, what with hopes of refinancing and renovating the upstairs. Neither were we much more in that hurry a year ago when that monumental task was finally completed.

But then came last December when we went to Yosemite and back with my mom in a Ford Escape rental and we really liked the car. And while we remained pretty laid back over the idea of  a new addition at that point, we recently got the ball rolling on another refi that shaved a couple hundred off the monthly mortgage payment, and we were thinking that with year-end clearances coming up, now might finally be the best time for a vehicular upgrade.

So Susan put on her research cap and started comparing models and prices and options and narrowed it down to what she wanted in a 2010. About the only thing our opinions differed on was the color. I preferred the dark gray, she the silver.

As luck would have it, Vermont Ford is basically down the street from us, and it just so happened to have a 2010 that most closely matched what we wanted. Susan signaled her interested to the dealership via the internet and yesterday we went over there first with something of an unusual request. We told the first salesman to intercept us that we didn’t need to test drive it so much as test park it in our tight 1916-built, two- jalopy river rock-walled garage — not so nuch to make sure it would fit (we measured that out already), but to make physically certain it would fit comfortably.

We were a bit disheartened to learn that the one Susan wanted (and pretty much the only one in the greater Los Angeles area that had the package she wanted) had sold. So instead we took a base model they had and sure enough it fit in the garage beautifully.

As we were driving back the salesman mentioned they had a new 2009 practically identical to the 2010 we wanted that they saddled themselves with in a dealer trade and had unsuccessfully been trying to get off the lot for months. So when we got back to the lot we looked at it and not only did it have all that we wanted (and only 200 test-drive miles on the odometer), but it was in Susan’s color and at a remarkable deal not just several thousand below the sticker price, but a couple hundred more below the invoice.

But it wasn’t quite enough below invoice for hardball-playing Susan who wouldn’t budge from the price she wanted and neither would the salesman from what he begged was the lowest he could go. So we left, and literally a minute after we walked in the door the phone rang and it was him willing to move down $500 of the $700 Susan wanted.

Good enough for us. So we went right back and bought it and brought home the poor 2009 Ford Escape XLT  Hybrid that no one else wanted.

Welcome to the family, Silver — which is what we named her. As in “Hi ho, Silver. Away!” And by “away,”our first trip with her is next month to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Park.

But first, who wants to go to dinner? We’ll drive!

So I did route sign posting for today’s L.A. River Ride with my good friend Stephen yesterday and afterwards we met Susan for lunch  who was waiting for us at Blue Star and then after that we scooted over to bike around enjoying the West Adams House/Art tour. On our way home we stopped at a 7-11 local to us because I was craving a Coke Slurpee, and while we were there Susan picked up a half-gallon of milk.

Later on that evening after watching “It’s Complicated” (which would have been more appropriately titled “It’s Almost Embarrassingly Stupid”) and while washing up the dinner dishes, Susan cracked open the milk and took a quick chug and immediately rushed to the bathroom to spit it out.

How decomposed was the cow juice?

Pretty damn so: the “Best Used By” date read 05/19/2010. As in 2.5 weeks ago. How the fuck does that happen?

Susan, like me, is not in the habit of ignoring dates of foodstuffs that can go bad. But in this case she misread the 5 as a 6, which is a relatively easy thing to do.

Fortunately she suffered nothing more than psychological ill effects from the encounter and this morning I brought the carton back to the 7-11, where I set it on the counter and told the lady behind the cash register that I had purchased the milk yesterday afternoon, that it was rotten, and that I’d like to exchange it, preferably for a carton with a date that’s somewhere in the future.

“Do you have the receipt?” she asked.

I smiled because I had a feeling that question was coming.

“No, I was not given a receipt.”

And the lady shook her head while trying to find the least idiotic way to use that as a ridiculous reason why they couldn’t accord me my entirely reasonable request.

“Are you seriously about to tell me no?”

“I’m sorry,” she started, and I stopped her.

“Because if you do that, I’m going to pour this crap all over your store, then I’m going to file complaints with the police, the  city attorney’s office, Knudsen, the Better Business Bureau, 7-11 headquarters, and the California Milk Advisory Board!”

That last one just kinda snuck out… I’m not at all sure I would’ve contacted them or if they would’ve given a damn.

The lady quickly grabs the carton off the counter and looks at the date. She doesn’t say anything but her eyes go wide.

“May 19!?” I say.

Then she asks the next stupid question: “Do you remember who was at the register?”

That amazes me, because it implies she thinks I’m trying to rip them off.  That I’ve either bought this milk elsewhere — or worse, that I’ve actually held on to this carton of milk for 18 days.

“What does that have to do with anything?” I ask. Pointedly.

She just stares at me, waiting an answer.

“Male. Had a beard. Mumbled his speech.” That last part is true, it took three tries for me to get him to say the total clearly enough for me to give him the proper amount of cash.

So now she calls out to someone in whatever her native tongue is and in response a young man who was not the fellow I had described steps out from one of the aisles, crosses to her and the two engage in a conversation until the young man finally asks me in English  if all I want to do is exchange.

The look I give him is the equivalent of DUH!? “Yes, that’s all I want.”

And so he takes the carton from the lady, his eyes going wide also when he looks at the date. Then he sets it down and escorts me to the dairy section, pulling out a carton whose “Best Used By” date is 06/11/2010.

“Perfect!” I say.

And by “funny” I mean not at all. Unless contriving a conflict is funny.

As teflon-coated as I like to pretend I am, I do get and remain peeved by trivial affrontations for far longer than necessary or required, and my rule of thumb is if I’m still stewing more than a day later, then it’s time to vent. Well, here it is a day and a half later and in my head I’m still telling the jackasses to fuck off, so of course it’s time to loosen up the pressure valve.

I had just started my pre-ride spiel to the awesome group of cyclists who had gathered in the parking lot of SilverSun Plaza for the Watts Happening ride when this semi-haggard, possibly hungover guy who looked foul-mooded enough to have been able to find easy fault in butterflies or a beautiful day, interrupted me with a demand for my attention as he passed by.

I obliged Sir Surly who then wasted little time in condescendingly chiding me for what he perceived as my obvious lack of consideration in allowing my fellow cyclists to loiter directly in front of SilverSun Liquor the overpriced booze farm that anchors the east end of the garish stripmall. He instructed me that our presence there in the lot along the front of the repository of drowned sorrows  at such an apparently high alcohol-demand hour of 10 a.m. was bullshit because it was preventing patrons from accessing the store’s two nearest parking places and thus in the span of the 30 or so minutes spent gathering there we had dramatically impeded its sales and thus were in the midst of inflicting great negative impact both upon the proprietor’s livelihood and the phantom patrons’ convenience.

His advice, in so many words, was for us silly cycling second-class ingrate lot hogs to stop being dicks and understand that the world doesn’t revolve around us, because it more appropriately revolves around his and the booze dealer’s sour grapes.

Let’s go to the neverminds, shall we?

Nevermind:

1. That there were plenty of empty parking spaces in the lot.
2. That we obviously would have moved had a driver chosen to park in one of the two in front of the store where we were — but none did.
3. That several of the assembled cyclists had actually patronized the liquor store.
4. That by delaying my opening remarks the idiot was actually keeping us there longer.
5. That the grumblebum made an argument that didn’t at all pertain to him when he showed himself to be a  pedestrian when he walked from me to the corner in order to cross Sunset Boulevard — perhaps to see if there might be an impromptu Alcoholics Anonymous session taking place on the other side of the street at Cafe Tropical.

I wasn’t sure what this jerk’s vested interest was or what motivated the blindside, but  in the interest of not really caring and also not wanting to provoke the assbag into provoking me into getting all foul-mouthed and demonstrative, I basically shooed him on his way with “You are absolutely right, sir. Cars rool. Cyclists drool. Have a great day!”

Then I turned back to my riders, trying to remember what I’d been saying before being so rudely interrupted, and dang if the liquor store’s Sikh proprietor in all his mustachioed, bearded and turbaned glory was standing in the doorway skewering me with a glowering glare as if I had insulted something dear to him.

I tried to ignore the burn of his stare while getting back on track, but I could only withstanding the searing heat for a few moments until I diplomatically offered to the elder not to get his headwrap all in a bunch because we would be on our way in a matter of minutes. The contemptuous codger kept his laser gaze leveled at me for several deathless and silent seconds before finally nodding almost imperceptibly, as if it took every fiber of his arrogant being.

True to my word, I finished up my speechifying shortly thereafter and we were soon on the road away from the assholes of the morning and on to what turned out to be a most awesome 32-mile excursion to South Los Angeles and back. In leaving I did none of the below, but had toyed with letting the owner know that:

1. As an area resident and past patron he’d never have to worry about me buying anything from his store again ever.
2. That I’d be back next Saturday morning to gather riders together in exactly the same place for the Frank Lloyd Wride. And the Saturday after that for the Two Rivers Ride. And the Saturday after that for the Black Dahlia/West Adams Ride. So get the hell used to it.
3. I’d be strongly encouraging that all of my fellow riders set neither a foot or spend nary a nickel there.

Last Sunday (April 11) I went to the local Apple store in need of a laptop only to find them sold out of both the 13″ MacBook ($999) and MacBook Pro ($1199) models. I had initially wanted just the MacBook but the MackBook Pro had its advantages despite the $200 higher price tag.

Looking around the greater L.A. area, the closest place that carried them and — purportedly — had them in stock was the Pasadena Best Buy, so Susan and I trekked out there only to find the MacBook available. So I bought it knowing it would fulfill my needs, although a MacBook Pro and its firewire port (absent on the MacBook) would’ve been better.

Sure enough Apple comes out with a new-and-improved 13″ MacBook Pro basically the very next damn day, with its more powerful processor, longer battery life, larger hard drive, better graphics card, all at the same $1199 price point and so I decided to repack up my week-old MacBook and take it back, with fingers crossed that I could get them to waive the dreaded and hated 15% restocking fee.

The first trouble came when I called their toll free number juuuuust to make sure I could return the thing to the Atwater Village store instead of the Pasadena store where I bought it. I ask this to the person who gets on the line wanting to know how they can help me.

“Can I get your phone number?” the customer service rep asked.

“Why do you need my phone number?” I asked back.

“Well, we need to set up a case.”

“You need to set up a case in order to tell me whether or not I can take an item purchased at one Best Buy and return it to a different one?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes.”

“Well what personal information would I have to provide if I called you up and asked what time it was?”

“Sir?”

“It seems kind of silly to have to go to so much invasive trouble just to answer a simple policy question.

“I’m sorry sir, but that’s the process.”

“Fine, I’ll give you a phone number but I guarantee you it won’t be mine.”

There was a few moments silence, wherein I’m sure the rep considered telling me any number of my orifices that would accommodate the return, but instead she just said:

“Well  sir, you can make the return at any Best Buy, but there will be a 50 percent restocking fee.

“Did you say five-oh percent?!”

“No sir. One-Five. 15 percent.”

“Whew. Very good. Thank you!” And I hung up. It was very good I didn’t have to drive all the way out to Pasadena, but the restocking fee wasn’t very good in the least, amounting to about $150.

So I decided on my plan to avoid paying that rip-off. Now all I had to do was hope it would succeed without me having  to climb up too many rungs of the ladder at the Atwater Village store’s returns and exchanges section.

Turned out only to be the third rung.

(more…)

The downtown Brooks Brothers store is closing, reportedly due to unrealized plans to relocate to a new space in the long-delayed Grand Avenue project. Most will mourn the end of that branch of the upscale clothier’s 71-year-old Los Angeles tradition, and normally I would too. But this time it’s a bit personal. So instead I will mourn for those who’ve lost their jobs, but say good riddance to the establishment in my most begrudging, bitter voice.

One of my first revolving lines credit was with Brooks Brothers. I got it in 1986 or ’87. It wasn’t much, a few hundred bucks, but I was proud of it. Fast forward to when my first marriage broke apart there were a lot of reasons, but one of the prevailing ones was we were just plain young and stupid with our finances. We bought a pair of top-of-the-line VW Jettas, we splurged on laptops and desktop computers. My first cellphone was in 1988, an in-car Mitsubishi job that cost $1,200, and back then there were no free minutes — in fact you were lucky if the per-minute charge was 20 cents.It didn’t take long to run up a bill close to $1000.

That was just one example of the ridiculous crap that we couldn’t afford and wouldn’t have had except for the the scary level of credit we’d been able to build up as little more than 20-somethings with no assets.

When bills came due and past due and past-past due and then the credit cards got canceled and creditors started calling, the one company that never bothered me was Brooks Brothers in large part because at that time I owed them nothing… but that didn’t stop other companies with which I maintained zero balances from sniffing the wind and closing accounts.

When all was said and done and I’d fully scorched my credit card landscape in the early 1990s, I’d gone from having a Dayrunner organizer stuffed with plastic, to a simple wallet that held my driver license and my Brooks Brother credit card.

(more…)

Couple weeks ago I posted on LA Metblogs about the irony of that “Need Repairs?” sign pictured at right (that I saw on my way to work), screwed there by some brainiac handyman so damagingly — not to mention unlawfully — high up the trunk of a palm tree in Hancock Park. But this wasn’t just any palm tree. It was one of all of those trees on the median of Highland Avenue between Wilshire and Melrose, which collectively make up Los Angeles Historic-Cultural Landmark No. 94.

I wrote about calling the phone number on the sign, getting the person’s (his name is Jake) voicemail and leaving a message suggesting Mr. Fixit get back over from the 818 at his earliest opportunity and repair what he hath wrought.

He ignored me, as I figured he would. So at the same time I contacted him I also filed a request with the Bureau of Street Services that the sign be removed. They fulfilled my request about a week later.

Oh and I almost forgot! I also googled the gentleman’s phone number and wouldn’t ya know it matched up with a Hollywood-based construction outfit’s website, which in the wake of his noted unwillingness to rectify, made it all the easier to post up a review of his company’s negligent promotional strategy on Yelp:

The proprietor at Hopwood Construction may very well be one of the finest craftsmen around. But unfortunately all that’s known is that he saw fit to promote his business by screwing a sign advertising his services into a Hancock Park palm tree, which is not only unlawful but also damaging to public property.

In addition, he ignored a request to remove the sign, leaving it instead to our taxpayer dollars via the city’s Bureau of Street Services to do so more than a week later.

As said, the level of quality of this person’s work is not something that can be spoken of here, but this sign and his unwillingness to remove it, is something that speaks volumes and such willful negligence should be taken into account if hiring this person becomes a consideration.

Lastly while the sign was removed successfully by Bureau of Street Services personnel, they neglected to extract the seven ( seriously, seven!?) screws that held the sign to the tree, as you can see in the picture at left (click to enlargify). Though I pointed this out in the follow-up call I received advising the sign had been removed, I wasn’t given much hope that personnel would be in a rush to return any time soon and finish the job.

Nothing against the worker who got rid of the sign, but it was enough to bring to mind one of my favorite lines from  the movie Poltergeist: “You moved the cemetery, but you left the bodies, didn’t you? You son of a bitch, you left the bodies and you only moved the head stones. You only moved the head stones!”

So I expect that, while it might take a couple weeks, I’ll load my truck up with a ladder one of these Saturday or Sunday mornings and extract those bodies myself.

Unless of course, Jake beats me to it.

UPDATE (03.25): It crossed my mind that removing those and any other older screws embedded in the trunk might be detrimental to the tree’s health, leaving wounds that could potentially make it susceptible to infestation and disease. So I called the city’s Urban Forestry Division and spoke with a supervisor who advised that the only removals that could pose a threat would be those older foreign objects that the palm’s trunk has actually grown over. He said to leave those alone and just go after the screws and nails that are easily pried or screwed out without doing further damage to the trunk.

Urban Velo and Wired’s Gadget Lab blog are reporting that Specialized is not only hopping on the readymade fixed-gear blandwagon, but the bikemaker has apparently opted to deliver the “cheap” Globe Roll 2 ($800) and Roll 1 ($600) already color-schemed as a “Ghost Bike” either because Specialized has no clue what they’ve done — or perhaps the better to minimize delays in installing the bike as a memorial wherever the hipster noob-rider gets killed at on it.

Stupidity or genius. Either way amazing.

UPDATE (5:24 p.m.): Thanks to Brad from Urban Velo for pointing out in the comments that my computer screen sucks — and for opting not to slag on my eyesight. “The bike is baby blue, as pictured. Look at the detail shots,” he wrote after curtly demanding I adjust my monitor.

Sure enough upon closer unadjusted inspection the frame is a lighter shade of paaaaale baby blue (I’d almost call it preterm baby blue because the color looks like it could use a week or two more to mature). Plus there’s also the chromed bits (that I saw on my uncalibrated unadjusted monitor all by myself without them needing to be pointed out) so I take it aaaaall back.

Wait, no I don’t: white tires, white rims, white saddle and white bar grips… all still moan “Ghooooooost Biiiiike” and in fact the frame’s fey hue might make the ride look even more haunting at night.

So the backstory is I dropped $1.40 on a Diet Pepsi from the vending machine, but the contraption is really basic and lame because it literally drops the bottles free-fall style down the front of the case. And this time the soda got wedged in near the bottom row. I went to get my camera to get a picture of it and coworker Chris came into the breakroom while I was snapping it. He saw my dilemma and suggested what I had been reluctantly thinking of attempting: drop another $1.40 on another Diet Pepsi in the hope that it’ll drop and dislodge the first one. It was a risk, but I figured what the hell, and I decided to capture footage of the event.

Let’s let the video tell the rest of the success:

Ah the joys of online commerce. I know mistakes happen, but maaaan! Like last night I got home to find my order from nashbar.com had arrived — the one I wrote about a couple days ago that was a compromise to me spending a load of green on a new bike I don’t need.

So I’m looking at the box and right away I realize it’s just entirely too small to be holding a Rock Shox fork… unless for some odd reason the fork comes unassembled, which it damn well better not. So I open it up thinking well maybe it’s a backorder issue, but inside I find that’s not at all the case.

Inside along with the headset and the tools I ordered to install the fork I find… this set of Panaracer Dart Classic folding front mountain bike tires:

Getting past my initial WTF, I quickly come to understand there are two main elements that contributed to this major failure of Warehouse 101. The first one is that if you look at the white label on the packaging you’ll see that it indeed reads “Rock Shox Dart 2 MTB Fork.” The second is whoever the idiot was who filled my order, identified only as “Packer No. 81″ on my invoice. You know you’re a candidate for Unemployee Of The Month when you work in a major bicycle retailer’s warehouse and cannot recognize the fundamental difference between a tire and a fork.

If there’s a defense for this meatbag, it’s two-fold: the fork and tires share the same model name: Dart, and the tires were mislabeled as forks. But it’s a weak argument at best, especially when you go to No. 81′s mental transcripts that I’ve obtained via subpoena:

“Lessee. Last item on the list on this ordur here sez ‘Rock Shox Dart 2 Mountain Bike Fork,’ but this thang I’m holding shur don’t look like no fork. Don’t smell like no fork neither. Fact is it smells like a tire. Just to be shur lemme check the ordur against the label. Hmmm. Ordur sez Item numbur is RS-Dart 2. Labul on the item says RS-Dart 2. We have a match! Descripshun on the ordur sez Rock Shox Dart 2 MTB Fork. Descripshun on the labul says Rock Shox Dart 2 MTB Fork. Anuthur match! Well dang. It still don’t look like no fork. But who am I to argyoo!? Let’s pack the tires up with the othur items strangely involved in the installashun of a fork and get on to the next ordur!”

So in the end I call up Nashbar’s 24-7 customer service and a rep matter of factly advises me that a return pre-paid label will be sent out for me to ship back the tires, but that the best they could do in getting the forks that I wanted to be able to install and test out this weekend (and would have had if anyone with some semblance of an IQ had fulfilled my order!) would be next Tuesday.

“There’s no way to get them to me Saturday?”

“No sir.”

Gah!

So I’m thinking the best I can do in returning the tires would be March. Maybe never.

UPDATE (08:05 a.m.): You know I wrote them a letter (after the jump).

(more…)

Last week I was drooling over all manner of new mountain machines. This week I still am — and further stoked by the announced enthusiasms of my friend Michael and his lady Crystal to hit the trails and an invitation to join them — but I’m glad I demonstrated some fiscal restraintitude. Simply put, I can’t authorize a spending bill earmarking such beaucoup buckz for a bike that in all likelihood I’ll ride but once a week — more like once a month after the buyer’s remorse and the shiny new wear off. If that.

Especially since the mountain bike I have right now is fine and not suffering from anything permanently disabling. All it needs is for me to quit half-assing around working the problem instead of the solution.

So instead of an outlay of $600, I’m dropping less than a third of that for a new  fork, a new headset and some required tools/accessories, and that should arrive in time to allow me a visit to the Bicycle Kitchen on Saturday followed by a ride in the Verdugos either afterward or Sunday morning.