I once rented a Metro Bike Share bike in downtown Los Angeles and rode it across the city to Venice Beach. Awesome, right? “This is awesome!”, I thought. When I got to Venice, I found out it was NOT awesome. It was expensive and a major hassle. The downtown LA bikes are not allowed to […]
Breaking news! The Flying Pigeon LA instagram account (@flyingpigeonla) has been hacked! On January 2, 2021 at 4:45 a.m. local time some nefarious hacker on a XioaMi Redmi Note 8 from Al Mashahira, Palestine logged in to the account. I am not sure if any of those details are accurate or even matter – for […]
Two days ago, I tried to update some of the applications installed with MacPorts and got an error that looked like this: Error: Failed to locate ‘openssl’ in path: ‘/opt/local/bin:/opt/local/sbin:/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin’ or at its MacPorts configuration time location, did you move it? Please run `port -v selfupdate’ for details. I spent a lot of time checking […]
Pearl River Deli (in the shopping plaza at 727 N. Broadway, Los Angeles, CA 90012) serves incredibly delicious Cantonese food; it is worth a visit (or, in this time of the COVID-19 quarantine, a take-out or delivery order 626-400-8126). I was first made aware of this new restaurant by the Fung Brothers. They posted a […]
What follows is a story that really doesn’t deserve to be written down. It is a story of searching for a couple of small plastic parts made abroad, and finding or making their replacements with what is available here at home – using labor and tools that far, far, exceed the value of the parts. […]
Years ago, I happened upon the craft of repairing Bowden control cables. A couple of old motorcycle mechanics told me not only was it possible, but they themselves used to do it all the time “back in the day”. I read up on the topic (i.e. old forum posts online) and found Flanders Cables – […]
Did you know: if you are white, own a business, but weren’t born in a given Los Angeles neighborhood, people will organize to keep you from opening your doors? Sounds kind of un-American to me. There are valid reasons to oppose a brewery. The ethnicity and place of birth of the owners are not valid […]
My toaster oven broke. First, a buzzing noise. Next, some smoke. Out to the curb it went in the arms of my wife. I saw it sitting there and thought, “It is already broken, if I take it apart – where is the harm in that?” I take it down to my workshop. Zip, zip […]
Bicycling advocacy in Los Angeles is getting smaller and weaker. The Great Social Justice Awakening Part of the weakening of bike advocacy in Los Angeles is a function of the take-over of nearly every civic issue or cause by a professional (and sometimes volunteer) class of social justice warriors. This class of people, like those […]
It is time to face the facts: Los Angeles’ 3rd rate, crap-tier, bike projects have been a net negative for public safety. Two of my personal heroes in the political war to make Los Angeles more bike- and pedestrian-friendly, councilmembers Mike Bonin and Jose Huizar have made substantial positive impacts on my personal life. The […]