open window, close window, open window, close window

Today? Hot. Seriously. But I biked with spazzkat to Woodinville, where McLendon's had the right kind of window cranks at less than half the price that Home Despot wanted, and they were even in the right colour, so take THAT, box store! Now we can open all our windows! Yay!

(Half the casement windows couldn't really be opened, and haven't really been openable since we moved in, by anyone but me. Of the ones that could, only I could trick a couple of them into opening. So that's an annoyance I'm well glad to have fixed. The hardware people couldn't figure out how they'd managed to wreck that many window cranks in that short a time. I suspect that the previous owner's boyfriend couldn't be trained to check the lock settings before giving the crank a good wunge first. I have no real reason to think this other than the fact that he used to try to hide the fact that he would smoke indoors when there was a clear outdoor smoking area setup, something we could tell from various clues about the house.)

So anyway, that's why I spent money today, even though normally I wouldn't have.

I really wish I'd taken spazzkat's camera with me on the ride - I saw a couple of flowers I'd really liked to have taken pictures of, and the feral chickens in Bothell were out with their chicks taking dust baths and wandering around in the undergrowth looking for food, and it was all just too twee to stand, even with the oppressive heat.

In other biking news, my 2,4 and 2,5 gears are really getting worse, so since I'm spending almost all my time in 2,6 and 2,7 lately anyway (the last Murkworks South to Murkworks North trip was spent more than half time in 2,7) I've decided just to go ahead and move into the 3, set, which is the 'Racing' range. OooooOOOOOoooooo.

Tonight I have to finish off the new, longer, hopefully better-paying form of this POP3 article. The only problem with is that I'm at that point where my eyes just slide right off the page, since it's kind of the third time I've written it. annathepiper gave it a read for me, which helped.

Meanwhile, have a couple of articles to read, if you're bored:

Why not to get into credit cards - no, it's worse than you think.

Women's rights groups to support in Iraq - unverified 'cause I don't really know how to beyond Google searches. Clues, anyone? Please?

And a flower picture, taken along the north path again:


Formalism

Sunday's miles: 12.5. Traction tyres got a good workout today - very hilly, and an unexpected amount of gravel. Odd!
Miles out of Hobbiton: 373.9
Miles to Rivendell: 84.4

PS: I seem to have a lot of icons all centred around anger. I wonder if that means anything?