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By Brian, May 29, 2008 8:00 pm

Gas prices are rising fairly steadily, as anyone with a vehicle knows only too well. The largest consumers of petroleum are largely dependent on it to maintain their lifestyles, and the other two-thirds of the world rapidly gaining Industrialization are wanting to join the party. This is of course the perfect time for the gas exporters to raise their prices. The West has become dependent on oil, removing their railway lines in favor of transport trailers, sprawling car-centric suburbs, and driving wasteful hulking SUVs.

A paradigm shift isn’t happening overnight, either – but it’s slowly entering Western conciousness. SUVs are being dumped for a fraction of their purchase price by status climbers who realized they can’t afford to fill up the tank daily on these monstrosities any more. Some people are still driving them around, so these prices haven’t hit the pocket books of those with abundant finances yet.

A few more bicycles are on the road now. I’ve not taken the public transportation recently, but I’ll bet the busses are starting to gain new riders as well. This happened last price jump, and it wasn’t this high. It was the test run I think. Push the market value up, get people used to the idea, lower it a bit to regain consumer confidence, then slowly raise it again. It’s like sitting in a pot of water and slowly raising the temperature – eventually the water’s boiling fatally but it was done gradually enough that nobody noticed.

The solution however, is right in front of our noses – and people are starting to consider it. Walk, or ride a bicycle! It works in Europe. Too many people will hop in their cars to drive < 5km to the store for a loaf of bread. That’s easily walkable in 15 minutes, or five on a bicycle – and you’d get some exercise at the same time. I’ve done it in the rain, I’ve done it in a blizzard – I don’t own a car and never have.

However, most of us car-free bicycle riders are still being looked at as the crazy ones. That’s OK. We know you’ll come around eventually if the pricing trends continue. Think of it this way – prices for produce and consumer items will rise due to increased transportation costs – so high gas prices affect drivers twice as much as cyclists. Just some food for thought.

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By Brian, March 8, 2008 9:42 am

For there was never yet philosopher
That could endure the toothache patiently,
However they have writ the style of gods
And made a pish at chance and sufferance.

– William Shakespeare
Much Ado About Nothing
Scene 5, Act 1

I have a cracked tooth up front that’s been that way for quite a while now. I have some benefits from work, so I sucked it up and went to the dentist. After a few regular checkups they finally decided that something really needed to be done about it.

This led to me having the first stages of a root canal last Friday, after which they stuck on a temporary filling. Naturally an infection ensued, so an anti-biotic and much ibuprofen have been prescribed. It turns out that in the digging and scrapping the dentist went a bit beyond the root – into the upper jaw.

Then, yesterday morning the dentist removed all of that, disinfected the area and stuffed it with a filling material. They then inserted a post and built up a cosmetic tooth on top of that. Not very useful, I’m assured, but it looks just like a tooth so I guess I cannot complain. Except about this massive, constant pain that I am assured will start to abate in a few more days.

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By Brian, February 11, 2008 9:22 pm

I will start off by saying I am not proud of myself. I am certain there will be some people who, on moral grounds, are offended by what I am attempting – deep down I might be one of them.

Perhaps I should explain – a while ago it was discovered that I had a rodent and it was crawling around in my kitchen. I heard it scratching one night and then noticed a loaf of bread tunneled into. I don’t normally leave it out, so this was a crime of opportunity. It also confirmed the strange noises that keep me awake at 3am sometimes are not just in my head. A few days later it was bolder and showed itself, thankfully this time my cat saw it too and held a vigil in that room for a few days.

I tried a live trap rigged with bait at the end of a tube that would drop when crawled into. The tube would fall into a tall bucket that the mouse (hopefully) could not jump out of. This did nothing for several weeks and I gave up on it.

After a month or so with no sign of the rodent running about, I assumed it was hibernating – since my live-trap did not work whatsoever, and no other food had been spoiled. Then it woke me again at 3am. Next day, I searched for signs of mouse activity and found a brand new bag of quick oats now had nibble marks all over the bag and a hole tunneled right into it.

Well, now I am losing sleep, food and patience. I can’t have a disease carrying creature where I store and prepare my food, and the live trapping was not working. Besides that, I live in the suburbs – the mouse is likely to come back either to my home or another, and if I drop it in the country more than likely it will be eaten by it’s field mouse cousins if not a larger predator. Did I mention that it’s also -30C at night here lately?

Maybe that is all just rationalization of a course of action after the fact. After a few weeks of Zyban and fighting a nicotine addiction I just do not care. This little creature, however cute, has to go for sanitary and sanity reasons.

I bought some run of the mill snap traps. Four for a dollar. I baited them with peanut butter and some of the spoiled oats. I have been checking them twice a day for mice. Nothing. On the weekend I looked closer at two of the traps that where more out of the way – not only was there no mice, there was no bait!
It seems the creature or creatures where able to lick the peanut butter off the trigger without releasing the spring.
Part of me figures “no problem – now they will trust the traps.”
Dutifully I am more careful with the peanut butter this time and tried to set the traps a little more sensitive. There was no peanut butter on either trap again this morning. Someone commented to me that now I have pets, since I seem to be just feeding them.

Tonight I did some tests and confirmed that these traps take a fair bit of weight to release, and I know for a fact that mice are very light. I took some time to mix some honey into the peanut butter and I set the traps as close to being ready to snap as I could. My hope is the honey will make the bait stickier, thus causing the mouse to get more aggressive with removing it. I also spread it along the whole trigger with the idea that the longer it’s there licking – the more chance it has to set it off.
Furthermore, I moved one of the out of the way traps that was untouched along the wall with the original two.

I think part of my problem with this whole ordeal is that the traps are emptied every night – I was blissfully thinking that they had not been around when there where no droppings and nothing eaten. If this fails, I might try impaling a piece of bread onto the peanut butter coated trigger, or rigging something up to make the trigger larger, thus giving more leverage.