Scooter Batteries Stolen

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Yesterday afternoon when I was grocery shopping at the local Carrefour, I came out to discover this:

Battery well empty, cleaned out in broad daylight.

I bought the scooter in September 2011 and have replaced the batteries several times over the years, though never due to theft. The scooter totally changed my life. We've always had a car, but I hate driving it (there are now five million cars in Beijing) so it just sits in the garage collecting dust. With the scooter I'm truly free.

The scooter the day I bought it ... cost 4000 yuan (US$640) all-in ... it looks considerably worse for wear now and is carried as a fully depreciated asset in my mind.  Yes, I really do think like that.

Happy sight: new batteries.

Four 12-volt batteries (20 amp) cost 750 yuan (~US$120).  If you have your old batteries their trade-in value is 200 yuan (US$32).  My scooter repair boy said he'd fashion a lock for these new ones and I'll update the post once he does that and I get a photo of it (assuming the batteries are not stolen again in the meantime).

Update: My scooter repair boy can't weld, so he just installed a conventional motion-activated alarm.  

Is This Mitch Moxley?

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Received this odd text message last night. I am not Mitch Moxley, though I did read his book, Apologies to My Censor, which was a long whine about how hard it is to be a tall, handsome young Canadian guy whose parents bankroll his wanderings (I'm only half joking).  

I will always admire Mr. Moxley for what he once accurately wrote in a local expat magazine: "Luckily China is one of the few places on Earth where you can be employed to do virtually nothing."

Schwing Ride

Added on by C. Maoxian.

One of the pleasures of growing up in China is being able to ride rickety contraptions in the park that haven't been reviewed by a group of lawyers.

DNS Propagation Check

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Jumped the gun linking to the site ... DNS not yet fully "propagated" it appears ... should be the 198 address ... the 208 is a NetSol placeholder, I believe.  Handy tool.

Loony Bird Spotting

Added on by C. Maoxian.

Every weekday morning I scooter my son to school and then go on to the office.  There are several "regulars" we come across during the morning commute.  I sometimes meet the gentleman below as we both travel west on Chang'an Avenue.  He bikes along erratically and snaps pictures with his cellphone, seemingly at random.  I rode ahead a bit and took a picture of him... taking a picture of me.  It takes one mental health case to spot another.