Bigger is badder

Article in today's Times Style section on the tensions between cars and cycles, increasing now that numbers of cyclists are increasing due to the price of gas. For once, the Times is not completely focused on New York, so there's some use for us in Small City land.

There may well be jerk bike riders, but most of the hostility, as is so often the case, comes from the people with more weaponry - in this case, more metal. Case in point, a recent Missouri case when a guy killed two riders just because he didn't want to yield, and was acquitted by a jury of vehicular manslaughter.

It's comparable to the discussion about SUVs vs. smaller cars five years ago, when George Will said, why wouldn't I want to be in the bigger car? There's a sense in this country that people deserve what they get, whether that's being without work, or a home, or health insurance, and if it includes being splattered over the sidewalk, oh well...

Breaking in the bikes

We picked up the bikes from L&M (our local shop, really local, like walking distance to the house) before we left but it was so darn hot last week that we really couldn't bear to do any riding. But the weather broke while we were away and since we got back Thursday night and I had Friday off DK1 and I took the bikes to the main bike route along the Arkansas River near the museums downtown. (For those of you not from here, the river is pronounced like it's spelled.) DK wanted to go see the bodies exhibit at Exploration Place, but a quick look at the website showed it was expensive to get in ($2o for me, $18 for her) and we'd come home in part because we didn't want an additional day of admissions charges and meals out, so we had to back-burner that. I still hope to do it with her, maybe for her birthday.

Anyway, we rode the path basically from Central to Harry, it's about 6 miles round trip. We'd never done it before so we ended up on the wrong side of the river and we had to walk our bikes across a bridge at one point, but the day was beautiful, the bikes worked really well, we had sandwiches that DW had made for us that we snacked on before turning back. We had a good conversation. We stopped for a minute at the museum also (the free part, we have a membership). It was fun! (And can I also mention here that the new seats were a very worthwhile investment!)

It felt a little weird to drive the bikes to a place for a ride, but I would almost have to do that to any bike route at this point, especially if I have a kid with me. John B. linked to a place where you can commit to riding a certain number of miles instead of driving, and I plan to ride to work most days (Larry B from KMUW, who's an avid rider, helped me plan a good route for that), but I couldn't even really ride to the grocery store at this point because the only way there from here is along a 6 lane road. Yikes!

But... this Friday ride was a very good start!

Frugal family on the road - day 3

We spent the morning at the b&b, having a wonderful breakfast prepared by our host, Sabra, and walking around the property and dressing up in the old clothes (DK2) and all the rest. At about 10 we left and drove the 15 minutes to Topeka's Gage Park Zoo. There we spent a lovely couple of hours looking at all the different kinds of animals there, with our special favorites being the apes and the hippos. They have an indoor rainforest with all kids of lovely birds walking around relatively free (beautiful plumage, in't it, squire?). We also are fans of lemurs because of Zoboomafoo and I like flamingos because I associate them with my grandparents (of blessed memory) in Florida.

We spent another half hour or so playing at the playground there, then we had another picnic (cheese and bread for the little ones, leftover chinese food for us, total cost $0) and we also threw down for two rides on the historic carousel they have there in the park.

Then we got in the car and drove over to the State Capitol, which is something DK1 had wanted to do. It's under pretty heavy repair right now, but we went in and took a look at the murals on the first and second floors, which recreate incidents in Kansas history. The most remarkable on is by John Steuart Curry, it represents the Bloody Kansas period and in the foreground is a larger-than-life John Brown, Bible in one hand and rifle in the other, looking pretty darn crazy.
I asked the guide who was there, who explained the murals to us, if it is fair to say that Kansas is proud of Brown. She said as much blood as he shed, it's impossible to say "proud," exactly.

(parenthetically: We happened to see the teardown of a press conference for Congresswoman Nancy Boyda, we liked that because she's a Democrat. Turn Kansas Blue, that's what I say.)

This whole thing was pretty boring for the little kids although there was an elevator with an elevator operator which they found quite amusing. We walked around the block to look at a couple of statues on the Capitol grounds but then we got in the car and drove back to Wichita. The thing about going all day like we did all three of these days is that you really can't keep it up for long. We have downtime at home but I didn't want any on the road but it does wear one out.

Total cost of the day: a tank of gas, $65. Entry to the zoo, $17 (a popular price). $6 for the carousel. A couple of ice coffees for the ride home, $4. Total cost of the trip, let's see, it took us about a tank and a quarter altogether, so $80 in gas, $170 for accommodations, about $120 for food, about $46 for attractions. So about $425 altogether, plus or minus.

Now of course we're broke as broke can be until payday. But we had a good time!

Frugal family on the road - day 2

We (rather, I) had originally intended to spend the morning in Lawrence and the afternoon in Topeka on day 2, but we liked Lawrence so much we decided to spend the whole day there, in part because we wanted to go to the pool that was closed yesterday and in part because we were sure the food options were going to be better in Lawrence than in Topeka.

So bright and early (well, 9-ish) we checked out of the hotel. And get this - because the treadmill didn't work, and because the front desk clerk didn't know thing 1 about the town, and because ... well, I don't know what else, I'll have to ask DW, but she complained to the manager about a bunch of things and they ended up comping us the room! So we thought about staying another night there, but that was quickly vetoed because she hated the place. (Baymont Suites, but any other place of that ilk probably wouldn't have been any better.) So she said, you know how you always spend a little extra money to find an interesting place? Keep doing that. Yes, ma'am.

We went to Clinton Lake - a man-made lake outside of Lawrence with a lot of trails and bikepaths and marinas and picnic areas and such. We found a little trail and off we went, for about an hour hike. I took the little ones back and DW and DK1 came back separately. The weather was about 10 degrees cooler than the previous day and the day was clear so it was really beautiful. Then the DKs played for a while on a playground right there, and we had another picnic, but it wasn't so cheap this time because we hadn't brought it from home this time but bought it at a health food store that morning - cheese, bread, a couple of salads, almost $30! Maybe we should go back to PB&J.

After that we drove back downtown and swam at the pool for a couple of hours. (It cost $17 to get in, 4 each for us, 3 each for the kids.) I was throwing DK3 into this waterfall thing they had an he kept coming up and saying, Again! And the girls went down the slides, it was all a lot of fun, a great way to spend the afternoon.

For dinner we went for Chinese food - we can get tofu and rice for DKs 2 and 3 and the rest of us had veggie entrees which were far more numerous and interesting than anything you can get in Wichita. (Veggie General Tso's chicken, etc.) About $45.

So get this - because we hadn't paid for the hotel room the night before, I called a bed and breakfast I had seen listed in a couple of the tour books. It's called the Old Stone House, it's a 1850s era stone house just on the Lawrence side of Topeka and the books all said, "We cater to vegetarians." I called the guy and said, listen, we're here now, he was fine with it. $85 per night per room, we booked 2.

The place has a lot of antiques and antique-looking decorations and DW was a little worried that the kids were going to break something but they were great. They did find a little trunk filled with old-timey clothing that fit them perfectly - they were so cute! It kept them quite busy. In the meantime I talked to the innkeeper, Alan, about politics and Kansas history - I think I need to find a book about Bloody Kansas, which I don't know much about. The rooms were comfortable, the landscape was beautiful, it was convenient, breakfast was much better than anything you would get in the White Flour Motel and the price was competitive compared with the Motel as well. So a good choice there.

So we passed a pleasant evening. Cost for the day - lunch $30, dinner $45, swimming $17, B&B $170.

Frugal family on the road - day 1

Well, we're back from our sojourn to northeast Kansas. To recap, we talked about various vacation plans, but decided that the better part of financial valor would be a short trip to a nearby destination. And since we're new in Kansas, we figured we'd take a look around here some.

I took a week off of work. On Monday we stayed in Wichita, going to Botanica, the local botanical gardens, with some senior friends from the community. We've always belonged to arboretums (arboreti?) wherever we've lived, but this was the first time we'd here. It was a lovely place, but the weather was darn hot, so we started early and didn't stay as long as we might have otherwise.

Tuesday we drove to Lawrence. This is a town I've always heard a lot about, partially because of it's proximity to KC, and partially because many of the Jewish kids from here go to KU (there is no appreciable Jewish population at any of the other Kansas universities, including WSU). We drove straight to the campus, which was quiet for the last week before the students start coming back (and before football practice gets underway).

We started off with a picnic near the Kansas Union building; we brought food from home, and I have a wonderful picnic basket that my mom bought for my birthday a couple of years ago, so we don't have to use plastic silverware and paper plates, and it all fits into a backpack. Then we went to the KU Natural History Museum, a four floor museum with a good, young-kid-friendly exhibit on bugs, and one DK1 (the almost 10 year old) liked about evolution which was quite interesting and comprehensible. (We could learn that humans didn't evolve from apes, but rather that humans and apes evolved from a common ancestor.) There was also a long hallway of fossils, particularly those found in Kansas. There were some live snakes and live fish, although the rest of the museum was rather heavy on the taxidermy, for my taste, including a ton of birds and a horse that was the sole survivor of Custer's Last Stand. The place had a suggested donation, but we're members of a science museum here so it's a cross-membership, so we gave a little money but not as much as suggested.

By this time it was after 3 in the afternoon, so we went to check into the hotel. I usually try to find interesting or unique places to stay, as evidenced by our sojourn in Westport a couple of weeks ago, but this time I was determined to spend the least amount possible, so I booked us a room in a hotel on the highway, a place where you would expect football fans would stay when they come in for games. It had a pool and a gym, and that's usually enough for DW.

In the travel literature we found a municipal pool that seemed interesting and fun, and as it was still in the high 90s we decided to spend some time there, only to get there to find that it was closed for the day for routine maintenance. So we played at the playground for a little while and then DW took the kids back to the hotel for a little while in the pool, and I walked around Massachusetts Street (the main drag) for an hour or so. (My wife is nice to me that way.)

I wasn't planning on buying anything (famous last words) but one of the men's shops - the only men's shop, in fact, which carried clothing suitable for anyone over 22 - had an amazing sale (30% off their final markdowns) and I ended up buying a couple of summer shirts and a couple of fall/winter blazers for $70 each. I had worn my late blazers to the nub, to the point where DW was embarrassed to see me out in public in them, and believe me, it's a good price. (By comparison, Dillards has a sale this weekend, and the cheapest men's blazer is $150). So that was good, except I used the credit card.

Then we went for dinner, to a local place called in fact Local Burger that serves sustainable, grass fed, locally produced hamburgers (beef, bison and elk) mostly. Local, sustainable and grassfed is usually kosher enough for me, but I was determined to go out for ice cream after so I didn't want to eat meat, and of course DW is a vegetarian, and the DKs mostly are, so she and I had veggie burgers and the kids had grilled cheese, except for DK1 who had a tuna salad that didn't fill her up so she ordered a grilled cheese too. Looking back, we probably should have gone here on a night when we didn't want ice cream, because the burgers looked good and DK3 will eat a hot dog now and again. So a bit of a missed opportunity there. About $35 for dinner, so it's not cheap, but sustainable food rarely is, as I never tire of pointing out.

Then we went out for Ben & Jerry's, and back to the hotel, where the evening passed about as well as you would expect with 5 people (including three children under the age of 10) in a single hotel room.

Cost for the day: a tank of gas, the makings for the picnic lunch (maybe $10), the dinner - and the clothes, but that's a different category.

Food principles

Mary and I are responding to each other quite a bit this week. A comment I made to a post she had written about scratch cooking vs. couponing caused her to post a deep-thinking post about Food and Values. It's worth taking a look at.

In my comment I said, in effect, that the reason we don't use too many coupons in my house is because they are usually for overly processed and packaged foods that we try to stay away from. I also said that most of the things coupons are offered on are "corporate foodstuffs," which I actually underplayed in my comment because I know from previous exchanges that Mary is not too sympathetic to this line of argument. And in fact she didn't like it and it seems to triggered much of her later post. She pointed out that a lot of people, including her husband, are employed by corporations. To which I would say, that may be true, but that doesn't mean you have to eat their food.

In fact the two elements - health and corporate influence - are intertwined. Michael Pollan points out that corporations are in the business of making profits, and the more a food is processed, the more profit there is to be made. A carrot doesn't turn anyone much of a profit. It's similar with the health insurance field - the product of the health insurance field isn't health, it's profit for the company. But that's another story.

Due to concentration in the food industry, it's acutally quite difficult to find food that is not corporate-related in one way or another. Most of the larger organic- and health-food providers are part of larger corporations, which is one reason I place such a high priority on buying from the farmers' market.


http://www.thegoodhuman.com/2008/04/01/who-owns-your-favorite-organic-food-company/

I buy a lot of stuff from companies that are on this list - that's my version of Mary's "semi" philosophy. The principles I work under are

• less processed is better than more processed,
• fewer ingredients are better than more ingredients,
• ingredients found in nature are better than those developed in a laboratory,
• not advertised on television is better than advertised on television,
• less packaging is better than more,

and (after all that)

• non-corporate is better than corporate.

By the way, this is not the same thing as being "anti-business." I'm very sympathetic to people who are trying to provide products or services that they think people need or that they are good at. The people who sell at the farmers' market are in business. Yoga teachers are in business.

I just buy from the smallest business I can possibly buy from. I believe that once a business gets to a certain size (or maybe its a certain level of impersonality) then the imperatives they follow no longer are what's good, but what's good for them. And then you get to the whole level of bribing-congress-to-make-sure-their-interests-are-protected, much to the detriment of everyone else and the environment, which is unfortunately how the country works, as we see from every farm bill that comes down the pike.

I also don't think it's all a matter of "free choice," as the free-market fundamentalists like to say. Corporations spend millions of dollars to develop the most effective marketing and advertising mechanisms to make you want to buy what they have to sell, they employ psychologists to help them do this, and they propagandize incessantly in every medium available. It's not a level playing field.

So as much as I can, I say, not me, thanks. And if that's not liberatarian - or maybe it's liberation - then I don't know what is.

Buying to save?

Mary over at Pokeberry Garden posted about some "green bags" she had bought that are supposed to keep your fruits and veg fresher longer. Surprise, surprise, they didn't work.

I think you'll be seeing a lot more of these "spend money to save money" type products as advertisers begin to recognize what Parade magazine has already recognized, that frugality is a growing market segment and people are interested in saving money in the current economy. It's kind of like buying environmental products - if you call something frugal (or green), that gives us permission to spend money on it, which is what we all want to do anyway.

Here's a rule of thumb: investing in something that you've heard of before, like a canning system, is potentially a way to save money in the long run even if you have to spend a little now. Buying something you've never heard of or didn't know you needed until just now is just spending money. Believe me, I'm not picking on Mary, this is something I could stand to learn as well.