Little Package Blog

Mountain Biking
2012.05.28
Bikes
The first few times I was invited mountain biking I laughed it off. Mountain biking wasn’t something I wanted to do or ever thought I would do. But then I did it. And now I am a mountain biker. This weekend Boone & I drove out to McKenzie River east of Eugene and camped for a couple days on the trail. The McKenzie River Trail was the very first trail I ever mountain biked (in 2005), and it’s still one of my favorites. I’d only ever ridden the bottom half, though. This weekend I finally got the chance to ride the top section of the trail. It is notoriously technical (“technical, technical, technical bla bla bla” is most of what you’ll hear about it in trail reviews) […]

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I’m a Softie for them Soft Bills
2012.05.22
Cycling Caps, Sewing
Somewhere along the line, I decided to fill my cycling cap bills with something other than plastic. I don’t know why. Maybe I ran out of plastic in the studio. Maybe someone special requested a soft bill. I honestly can’t say when it happened, but when it did it was magic. I stumbled right onto the perfect solution: just the right filling, and just the right amount of it, and lots of top-stitching; and right off the bat I had the very best soft bill there was. And yet people are still not sure they want a soft bill. Why not? Because they’re floppy? I’ve got news for you: they’re not. Not mine. Mine don’t crack or warp either, and you can fold and stuff them into […]

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Sauvie
2012.04.22
Bikes
It’s quite rare that you end up on a completely shoulder-less road with so much traffic anywhere near Portland, but the second the weather turns warm you can bet the roads of Sauvie Island are going to be swimming with young people desperate for the beach. And most of them will be in cars. In cars full of coolers. Full of beer. This afternoon, I swung by on my bike to pick up my man. It’s Earth Day and it’s our one year anniversary. Since I hadn’t been riding much I told him to “take it easy on me,” and he assumed it’d be a short ride. When I got there I found he’d even put platform pedals on his bike. Oh, no, boy! Not that short. […]

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Driving to Toulouse
2012.04.08
Bikes
Today we woke up in Cap d’Agde on the Méditérranean and drove all day to Toulouse. It’s Easter Sunday. The roads were pretty quiet and it was rainy. Only in one town did we see anything that looked like an Easter celebration. Mostly just quiet, narrow roads. And grape vine after vine after vine growing on roadside plantations. I now really understand how everyone in the world is able to enjoy wine with practically every dinner. Until you have driven through the south of France, it might not be conceivable, but once you have driven through the south of France, it all makes sense. The entire countryside is planted with grapevine, maybe like the midwest is planted with corn. It’s mind-boggling. In fact, I got a little […]

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Col d’Aubisque
2012.04.02
Bikes
Our drive today, from Pau to Bagnères-du-Luchon, France: View Larger Map Long day in the car. Probably the most incredible mountain car trip I’ve ever taken, and that’s saying a lot, given I’ve driven in northern Norway and through Alaska. Average 7.2% grade, 1190 meters up. Except for our huge detour back up around Lourdes, it will be a hors-catégorie climb stage in the Tour de France on the 18ème Juillet 2012. Wild. We missed driving the Tourmalet, but feel satisfied anyway. A bottle of wine later, a cute hotel, things are parfait!

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My Guest Post on the Sewaholic Blog!
2011.11.07
Pacific Crest Trail, Sewing
This week was I featured as a guest writer on someone else’s blog! It was pretty cool of Tasia of Sewaholic to invite me to write about my experience sewing a waterproof jacket. I was anxious to share more details and photographs about DIY waterproof outerwear because when I went hunting on the web I found only breadcrumbs of information. But what made it even better is that rather than sharing it here (a virtual Internet dead zone, ha), I got to share it with lots of interested readers on one of my very favorite sewing blogs. I love Tasia’s enthusiastic and inquisitive writing style — it is so friendly and engaging. Not only that but she sure can sew and draft a pattern, and is percolating […]

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Circulus
2011.07.24
Bikes
Ugh. So hung over. Last night was a bit crazy. I finally got to ride the Circulus. Not just ride it, but race it. Yeah, I went straight from test-riding it (crash!) to organizing a spontaneous women’s race (thanks to Stevil and Murph), to winning said race (crash!). Racers were not allowed to drink, but since I wasn’t a racer until I set up the impromptu race (6 women volunteered, I think), there was by then a lot of beer in my system. So of course I ate shit. And it was captured on video. That’s me handily catching up to my opponent and crashing as soon as the win bell is rung. Good fun. More about all that here: http://bikeportland.org/2011/07/25/circulus-provides-thrills-for-racers-spectators-alike-56750 And this great video about the […]

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Mr. Smith’s Deathbed Joke
2011.05.10
Nursing
I was telling this story last night and it’s just too good not to write up. I think it’s one of the very best penis-related stories I took away from my nursing career. You’re warned, so keep reading. One fairly quiet evening on a orthopedic ward I entered another nurse’s patient’s room to request her help with my patient. Seeing that she was in the middle of bathing her patient, I stepped in to help her in the hopes she would then return the favor. She made it very clear she was very busy, probably too busy to help me afterward, so I just stayed to help her instead. Her patient was a very frail and dying elderly man, laying for the most part exposed for a […]

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How to Visit a Sick Person in the Hospital
2011.03.05
Nursing
I’ve been meaning to write something like this for a long time. Even though I haven’t been working as a nurse for the past two years, I am still an RN, and have plenty experience in hospitals to write something didactic. Between 2001 and 2009 I had experience working in eleven different hospitals and over thirty different hospital units. My field was medical surgical nursing and my specialities were medicine, GI, Women’s Health, L&D, Mother/Baby, Ortho/Neuro, total joint, rehabilitation, cardiac/telemetry, renal/transplant, bariatrics, burns, trauma, and transplant. I did a little bit of everything… except OR, ICU, PACU, and ER. If you are visiting a sick person in the ICU or ER, parts of this primer won’t apply. How to visit a sick person. I feel like this […]

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Juki HZL F-Series Sewing Machine User Manual
2011.02.02
Sewing
This is a machine I own and use daily. I believe what the local dealer says about this machine needing several hours on it when new to “break it in,” as I had tension issues for the first week or two. Since then it’s been dreamy. I do have a problem though, and maybe someone else will chime in with a similar issue (though I’ll probably have it professionally fixed by then). When rolling along I get a loud buzzing sound issuing from the bobbin shuttle, which vibrates intensely at anything above a medium speed (when machine is set at full speed). I may have damaged the

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Down the Blue Ridge Parkway
2009.08.08
Bikes
Today we mostly rode downhill for about 40 miles, and camped on a stone ledge at Chestoa View. I suggested open air camping because the ledge was pretty and I was lazy about pitching a tent but this back-fired when something bit my lip while I slept. I woke up with Angelina Jolie lips — on ONE side of my face. But for the record, I slept like a baby. It was a super yoga spot, though, aside from the faint piss smell and all the flies in the morning. Also, we had to hang out quite a while in the evening doing nothing and pretending like we were just there to enjoy the view, not camp. We ruined the spot for a lot of couples who […]

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All Aboard Amtrak Express!
2009.07.14
Bikes
The other day at City Bikes I mentioned I was shipping bikes and the really affable long hair redhead guy with black goggles alerted me of Amtrak Express. I’m so glad he mentioned it! Just having gotten back from the gorgeous Portland train station (aren’t all American train stations fairly well-kept quaint relics of rail travel?) I can say: so far so good. I’m a bit nervous, but I did take out $5500 of insurance (ha). At $180 for two bikes and a 45lb. Bob Ibex manufacturer’s box packed with touring gear, with all that insurance, it’s an affordable alternative to FedEx and UPS for shipping bicycles, and having said it will take 5-7 days (days, not business days), it’s quicker, too. The boxes are huge. One […]

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