Tuesday, 5. August 2008.

Lisa's mom is leaving today. She's travelling back to Portland, OR in her "small" (note the quotation marks) SUV. She was cool to be around. Lisa and I help her get some boxes into the car and wave goodbye.

Lisa finds another bike on Craig's List. We arrange with the guy to see the bike around 4 pm. But before that, we drop by an Office Depot store to get a Tom Tom gps navigator that we have seen for cheap. They ae usually 199 dollars, but here they were 129. The chance is that they only have the very last display copy for sale so we get additional 10% discount on that. Sweet. Less sweet is when the awkward shop assistant drops it on the floor. Ouch! I was hoping he'll ad another 10% discount after that, but he didn't. Oh well.

The bike guy shows us a nice Cannondale hybrid bike. It looks brand new and has some extra stuff, like bike rack, bell, bike computer, pump,... plus he's adding a helmet, some tools and an extra tube.

Seems like a good deal at $ 150, but Lisa and I miscommunicate (I guess neither of us is good at sign language) so I ask for $ 130. And $ 130 it is.

Finally I have a bike to ride to Los Angeles with.

We get the bike in her car, get Debra on the way to the city and manage to get new tires, a front wheel fender and a few spare tubes for the bike.
Then it's time for some Japanese food. We get to the restaurant during the busiest hour and we pretty much leave last. The food is plentiful and tasty. We think we need a doggy bag, but we end up staying long enough to finish it all. Yummy!


The Japanese restaurant. I'm not holding drumsticks.

When we get back home, I lock myself in the basement and get the bike ready to get going. By the time I'm back up in the apartment, everybody's asleep. Including Schmoopy.