thanks for the input. i guess i'll look at both the mini and the ny 3000 u-lock and see if the weight difference really bothers me.

i never thought about leaving a lock a place that i'll be locking it to. that just seems weird. guess i would be scared that the city or university think that nobody is using it and it was just left there somehow, so they would have it cut or removed somehow. but now that i think about it, i guess they can't have it removed even if they wanted to unless they had the tools.