Enlightenment Update

Okay. So, I used the email link on a very admirable BT breeder website, and did not get a response. So, today I called. No answer, and No Voicemail, let alone an Old School Answering Machine. At this point, I am not even sure these people exist - I hope they do, because I still want a puppy, but honestly, I think I have a business plan: Help Dog People Do Business.

Because this is not unusual. I've concluded that it's the norm for Dog People. (That, and putting sappy music on their websites. This breeder thankfully shuns the incredibly lame instrumental accompaniment to a photo montage of the baybees.) I will keep trying to make contact, but, really people, get thee to WalMart and buy a cheap answering machine. Even if you just leave an outgoing message: "If you're calling about the Boston puppies, they're all spoken for, sorry!" That would be awesome. Thanks. Because now I will have to keep dialing, at least a few more times, to try to catch a live human who may very well tell me the same thing.

In other major moments of enlightenment, I found a basket for the rear rack of my bike! When I bought the bike at the Trek-oriented store, the Nice Young Bicycle Men asked me if I wanted to add panniers and such. I did not, because this is a neighborhood bike, not a long road trip bike, but I did have them install a rear rack for future use, which was a good call on my part because the installation was tricky enough to give the NYBM pause. They didn't have a rear basket option, and I didn't want to pay $100 for one anyway, so I figured I'd find a use for the rear rack later. I found the right basket today. Plain black metal, less than $25, and sturdy and looks quite nice.

It came with a bottom bracket (to go beneath the rear rack) and screws and washers to hold it together. And the rack on my bike is apparently more substantial than anticipated by the basket-making company, and the screws provided to attach said basket to the rack with the brackets were too short to secure much, and obviously would shake loose in no time. (And, may I say a third arm would be a really good invention, evolution-wise, because identifying the failure of the screws required one.)

Yet, in my very own garage, on the shelf, lives a big tub of zip ties, a/k/a cable ties. And some of them are even black, like the basket and the rack on which it sits. And four of them attached the basket to the rack, every bit as sturdily as the screws ever could. It's solid and unmoving, and it's not going to carry much more than a towel and sunscreen and such, or a couple of library books, so it's well up to the task, and it fits just right. Ahhh. My bike has taken a great leap toward functionality.