August 2006 Archives
(sketch by Justin)
The Oregonian reported this weekend that property owners at the SoWhat project are resisting the commitment to spend 30% of development dollars in the area on affordable housing, since they'd rather spend that money on parks and whatnot. Who can blame them -- parks and even streets are soooo much nicer to have around than poor people (although I'm not sure how they're defining "affordable" -- I put in a call to find out, but it may just be the tacky middle class that they're worried about). The Portland Development Commission is researching the issue. Given the PDC's recent fight to avoid paying prevailing wages on its projects, as well, I'm thinking maybe we can sell them on this idea from Justin.
The PDC vision is "to be a catalyst for positive change in the creation of a world-class 21st Century city; a city in which economic prosperity, quality housing and employment opportunities are available to all."
The Jin-rickshaw for the homeless offers all three in one at a price PDC should be comfortable with! Plus, showers!
At night, the homeless could park their rickshaws in the beautiful parks that will be made possible with the increased funds. Sleeping under the stars after a hard day's work -- it just doesn't get any better than that.
And this way, when the tram breaks down, people would still have a way to get around!
It's a win-win all around!!
We will have to investigate if rickshaws come in a family size. Or maybe we could have child-sized rickshaws? Maybe homeless childeren could pull even smaller children around! OMG -- how cute would that be??!!
Key BM: The Urban Key Holder
I'm constantly locking myself out, so having a key hidden somewhere outside is a necessity. They make a variety of key hiders, but all of them suffer from two defects: First, they are inappropriate for urban settings (when was the last time you saw a ceramic ladybug or a sprinkler on Mission street?). Second, they aren't disgusting enough to discourage people from picking them up -- especially on a city street.
To solve the latter problem, some people have suggested dog poo shaped key holders, but on a city street, some doo gooder (heh) might actually pick it up using their biodegradable dog waste bag.
(BTW: I got some of those bags at New Seasons the other day. I felt like kind of a sucker for actually buying bags when I get one every day with the paper, but I'm kind of fascinated and disturbed by the whole dog waste problem, to the extent that I was strongly tempted by the dog waste septic tank offered for sale at the Cathedral Park yard sale. Anyway, I like the bags but there's no way I'd try to pick up human shit with them.)
The last time I visited Rachel in San Francisco I was impressed with the amount of human waste (especially the three Ps: puke, pee and poop), on the streets outside her apartment, and this presented the answer to the problem: the KEY BM -- realistic human poo shaped plastic blogs with a space for a hidden key inside. Someone suggested you might add to the story by having a hypodermic needle sticking out of it. You might try a soiled napkin or something, too, because most people crapping on the street don't have TP, do they?
Thanks to Daniel for suggesting the product name.
Anyway, that's my disgusting idea for the day.
Fresh bread is great and, I think, a great basis for a simple diet -- just add some cheese and fruit and you're all set (the fruit is optional as far as I'm concerned). I really don't agree with what some Farrakhan followers say about avoiding fresh bread. Unfortunately, baguettes are really only good for one day -- maybe two, if you like stale baguette as untoasted toast for breakfast -- and other good breads also have a short shelf life. But alas, I, like many others, don't live within walking or practical every-day biking distance of a good bread, never mind a baguette. The Peninsula isn't exactly Paris, you know. They do have good bread at good old New Seasons, but because of the distance, it is for me, at most, a once a week thing, more often less since I'm really trying to cut out extra, unnecessary driving these days.
So, my idea is for bread delivery by bike. It's more practical than milk delivery because: 1) a half gallon of milk lasts me a week or so; 2) bread weighs a lot less than milk, and doesn't need to be refrigerated. You could fit a fair number of loaves in a bike cart, as those bike moves demonstrate. 3) A lot of people don't even drink milk anymore and although it's true that some people are still following the low carb diets, many more, I think (maybe I'm wrong?) eat bread than drink milk.
And I would gladly pay a dollar or two -- well, maybe a dollar -- extra per loaf to avoid the lines and transportation and general hassle of buying bread at the grocery store.
But even with economies of scale, we're not talking about a huge income. How many houses do you think someone could deliver to by bike? Maybe 50? So, maybe $50 a day? that's okay, but not exactly a living wage.
So who would provide this invaluable service for relatively low pay? My first thought was bike hippies, but then, my impression is that a lot of those folks are actually gainfully employed. (I'll bet they'd buy bread by bike, though, on those days when they didn't have time to go to the store themselves.)
So, that leaves hobos. I'm not sure if "hobo" is a polite term or not. It certainly seems to have gained recent currency. Well, it's better than bum (although that does give you more illiteration), we'll go with hobo for now. I'm thinking of the folks who regularly patrol the neighborhood by bike already, often pulling a shopping cart behind them, looking for bottles. What if, at the same time as they picked up bottles, they dropped off loaves of bread? Maybe they'd have two carts, for reasons of sanitation -- one for bottles, and one for bread. They're ready doing all that work riding around, this way, they could make more money.
New Seasons is a grocery store that positions itself as having a social and environmental conscience (and I have no reason to think they don't), and being locally based, they could work with local bikers by letting them have loaves at cost, or near cost. They could give them the bread in sealed bags, so you wouldn't have to worry about someone's dog having slobbered on it or whatever. New Seasons could insist that all its bread bike delivery people wore helmets and reflective tape, so that the overall safety of was increased. Maybe they'd give away New Season's bike helmets?
At first, before economies of scale kicked in, New Seasons might have to subsidize the delivery, like the Oregonian subsidizes delivery of the paper. (I'm assuming that the cost of paper delivery is underwritten by the advertising in the paper.) So, maybe you'd get some New Season's advertising with your bread. Or maybe they'd just use it to show how they are working to offset the amount of carbon emissions they help foster by selling delicious things that encourage us to drive to get there. We'd still have to go there for our icecream and stuff. Until the bike delivery service really took off, and then maybe we could get anything that way.
Some people would subscribe to bread and get a little discount. You could get bread every day, every other day, twice a week, or whatever. Maybe you'd get a baguette every time, or maybe you'd alternate with some other kinds of bread. And the bread delivery people would also carry some extra loaves that you could buy off them for a little more. Maybe they'd ride through the neighborhood singing, "bread for sale! fresh bread for sale!"
You'd tip your bread delivery person.
It might be like day labor, where you showed up with your bike and got assigned a route, or some people could have regular routes. It might be like the berry bus, where kids and immigrant workers do it sometimes, too. I only did the berry bus a couple of times when I was a teenager and, man, it really sucked. Bread delivery would be a lot more fun, I think. (But the traffic danger might mean that kids really couldn't do it.)
So, that's my idea. Justin had a related idea which I'll blog shortly.
Jim taught me this handy trick: Flies are attracted to light. If you've got a fly buzzing around at night you can lead it from one room to the next by turning the lights on and off -- so, turn on the light in the kitchen, and when the fly comes in from the dining room, turn off the dining room light, then turn on the pantry light and turn off the kitchen light, and so on, until you get to the back porch light. It really works!
The only problem is sometimes (like right now, in my house) a fly will roost somewhere and refuse to fly around until you relax, and then they start buzzing around again. I really hate flies, but I also hate swatting them and getting little bits of their smooshed bodies on the wall. This is a much better method, I think. Also, it's Buddhist-friendly.
Sister Sandra wrote in with this terrific idea:
"For x-mas we can have a recycled light bulb making party where everyone brings their incandescent light bulbs to the party where we turn them into xmass tree ornaments and give everyone a CFL in exchange! I bet we could get a reasonable price on CFL's if we buy them at costco. We would also have to educate people on how to dispose of their CFLs when they are done (after 10 years)."
Even if my logo will be made obsolete by this trend (btw: how did people represent people getting ideas in cartoons before there was electricity??), I think it's a small price to pay, and that this idea is pure, glowing brilliance! It reminds me of the Birds for Bulbs site that Justin recently pointed me to.
Let's actually do this one, eh? Maybe I can give out special "Mary's Great Ideas" light bulb head dolls, too.
Shocking but true!! Other people have ideas -- they even have idea blogs!
I haven't often looked for or at other general idea blogs recently. Shame on me! The recent discovery of the local example, Millions of Hundred Dollar Ideas clued me in to this, and then pointed me to Steal My Ideas, Please, and from there, several other nice idea blogs (do some clicking yourself). I've got some reading to do. Plus, I've done the right thing and added a linky area for my colleagues in the idea game in that endless right hand column (maybe I need to get rid of the "archives" section? Do you think?? Or cut down on some of those unused categories?? Where do those even come from?).
The patricarch of idea blogs, in my case, is Half Bakery. It was my slightly intimidating experience there that encouraged me to resort to my own blog (I was teased for my mispellings and impracticality, and you know what a thin skin I have).
It turns out, contrary to my recent boasts, my standing in the "idea blog" wordspace is nowhere near the top, and I don't even appear in the relatively scant "great idea blog" findings. I guess I need to work on my tags. Or maybe get busy having more actual great ideas, rather than stuffing my face with corn dogs.
