T-Newsletter #9, May 2013
TailSoks are live! Buy all of the TailSoks! Seriously, these TailSoks want to fly. They want to feel the breeze of a spring ride. They crave to flash back rays of light off their shiny, Lycra exteriors. Nary a tail shall go uncovered and unaerodynamic again! Cover yourselves! Cover your bikes! Cover the streets! Cover the world! Get into a TailSok today!!
Gift Certificates are live! Some of our more astute customers (read: customers with lots of time to kill) have correctly and diligently pointed out the fact that our webshop boasts entire lists of Frequently Asked Questions for Gift Certificates, yet offers no way to purchase them. Well, folks, there is an entirely logical explanation for this. You see, in a tree beside the Jiangshuiquan Reservoir (in the western part of the PRC's Shandong province), there lived a small bird whose morning was going spectacularly unwell. A boy from another neighborhood had been shouting at the bird in his native Cantonese. The bird made nests out of the local Jinan Evening Newspaper, and therefore knew only the Mandarin tongue. In its flustered state, the bird flapped wildly, causing, after several sequential iterations, winds that were inaccurately described as gale-force to blow off the coast of Oregon, here in the United States. Over the course of a few days, the uncompromisingly inclement weather traveled inland and befell the neighborhoods of southeast Portland, including the homes of the TerraCycle Team. Ill-equipped for the severity of the conditions (and unprepared to restrain ourselves from hyperbole), the Team did all we could to keep ourselves from collapsing in the throes of the great weather systems in the sky. Being now drenched and frigid—a cold and a wet that permeated our very beings—we found ourselves without either the foresight or forefinger-dexterity required to properly setup, test and execute the Gift Certificate module on our brand new website. Luckily, however, the sun is out, the rain all dried up, and the itsy bitsy spider is up the spout again. Oh, and you can buy and send Gift Certificates now. :]
We cleaned the Mori! Holy moly, friends, you don't even know how revolutionary this is. You might be thinking: "Yeah, yeah, we get it, every year you have a totally awesome party for the OHPV HPC and you tidy up the gigantic and super awesome CNC milling machine, whoop-de-doo..." BUT HOW WRONG YOU ARE! Not only had our gigantic and super awesome CNC milling machine gone without cleaning for last year's Memorial Day Weekend Open House, but our gigantic and super awesome CNC milling machine had gone without cleaning for EVERY Memorial Day Weekend Open House. For those of you keeping track at home that is: ALL OF THE YEARS! The Mori came to us with a fine layer of dust and that fine layer of dust grew into a healthy exoskeleton of oil-infused micrometropolises, a veritable bizarro Grand Canyon of dirt held in place with years of precipitated coolant and lubricant. Whilst scrubbing away at a clump of grime that looked eerily similar to Rodin's Thinker, I recalled an article that informed its readers that humans shed more than 8lbs (3.6kg) of dead skin cells in a year. Whether this is true or not, the plausibly intelligent structural formations protruding from the Mori made me wonder just how much crap came off this thing. At any rate, it's clean now, so we can sit back and wait another couple decades before we rinse and repeat.
For those of you who joined us for the Open House Party over Memorial Day Weekend, thank you for coming! It was a total blast! It was fun to see the range of people, from friends and family, to Buddhists and self-described Velomobilists, to people who were riding down the street and said: "What the heck kind of bike is that?" Even those of you who poked your head in the shop to say: "I heard tell of free booze?" Everyone was welcome and we loved having you all! Sorry to those of you who were hoping to see bikes from Stites Design and to those of you who had a hard time finding us, the people over at the OHPV have a lot on their plates, so we'll do what we can to ensure that next year's schedule and directions are created clearly and accurately. Thanks for coming!!
And thanks to our fans!
