Library

I forgot to add a really cool thing that happened two days ago!

I walked in the local library and dropped off some CDs, then walked right back out to get on my bike. A lady ran out of the library and said "Heather! Wait, I know you!" Since I've only lived here in Austin a little over a week, it felt very surreal. It turns out that this lady has followed my life on the web for years, and recognized what I looked like from my pictures. Freaky! I don't think I could put 2 and 2 together like that. She (Carie) was really nice. We stood around talking for quite some time, before I headed off to ride to work. After that is when I pretzeled my bicycle.

Soooo, yesterday I went to pick up my bike from the shop. The mechanic said that what happened was a freak occurance, and my bike was so badly mangled that they couldn't fix the wheel - I needed to buy a new one. All in all, I need to come up with $170 to get my bike back to new. $40 or so for the wheel, $60 or so for a new cog set, and $30 for a new chain. It turns out that the chain the bike shop sold me in Arizona was an 8 speed instead of 9 speed chain, and it's been grinding away the metal on my cogs. It led to the chain trying to shift on its own, which led to me having the accident in the intersection. On Monday I'm going to buy a bus pass. It'll get me to work and back until I get paid in a week, and can (hopefully) afford to get my bike fixed.