(no subject)

[nibot]

Where'd we leave off? Oh yes, the bike story. Yes, my bike was impounded for being illegally parked, and then I was lectured for having expired tags. On a bicycle! The short of the story is that you shouldn't mess with the UCSD librarians, that the bicycle officer at UCSD is an awesome fellow, my bike is now licensed and registered in the State of California (having previously been registered in 1981!), and when the UCSD parking folks found out that I bike to campus "at least three days a week," they gave me a parking permit for the remainder of my time here. Thus guaranteeing that I don't have to bike if I don't want to. (In an effort to encourage bike commuting!) This campus works in mysterious ways.

I got my bike back just in time to do CRITICAL MASS! kennyjensen should be proud.

Comments

[nibot.livejournal.com]

It's actually quite a good deal -- you just pay $6 and fill out your name and address. In return

- they register your bike and its serial number in a national database that pawn shops, etc are required to check if someone wants to sell the bike

- at UCSD they give you some benefits for biking to campus.. if you register a bike and promise to ride it to campus 3/5ths of the time you come to campus, they give you a parking permit for 10 days per quarter for free, which is a pretty good deal. They also give you 10% off anything at the UCSD bike shop for as long as you have a currently registered bike

- it's proof-of-ownership if your bike is ever impounded and you need to get it back. this is sort of a solution to a problem where the problem itself is created by the solution, though, since it wouldn't be a problem if they didn't impound bikes in the first place. the bike guy was saying that people were forever asking him to cut the locks on bikes because "I lost the key" or "forgot the combo," but in such cases there was no way to prove ownership in absense of registration, so there was much attempted scammage.

- the registration ($6) is good for four years

[shamster.livejournal.com]

This is 105% silly.