NOS88

Recently I completed a new commuter/shopping bike. It's a Trek Lane CX with full fenders, racks, lights, etc. I already have a commuter bike, but wanted this one, because....well, you know...the N+1 drive is a hard one to ignore. When starting the project, my wife asked why I was doing it. I told her that my current bike wasn't really setup to handle loads (I generally carry what I need to work with my Chrome messenger bag). She asked what loads I needed to carry. I informed her that I wanted to stop taking the car to the grocery store 2 miles away from our home. That I thought it would be better for me and the environment if I made several trips during the week instead of one big trip every two weeks. She liked that plan.

Yesterday we found out that the store is closing at the end of next week. The entire chain to which this one belongs was bought by another chain, and they're shutting this one down. I know of several people in our neighborhood without cars who walk to this store. I'm not sure what they're going to do. And, the only way to get to the nearest grocery store to us now is by using highways that average over 25,000 cars per day. I know change is inevitable and often useful. But sometimes it's just a pain in the butt.

Retro Grouch 

Is it just me or does the RATE of change seem to be increasing. We still have a (not-too-big) CRT TV and the current ads are for 3-D. Cell phones advertise some number of G's and I don't even know what a G is. It seems to me that new ideas become outdated before I can get a grasp of them.

My daughter orders most of her groceries over the internet and has them delivered to her home. My wife and I are going in the opposite direction. We're planning to join an organic co-op this year. Isn't going to reduce our carbon footprint much because we have to go 10 miles each way over a not-bike-friendly route to pick up our produce.

bruce19

In my experience the most noxious changes are the ones that involve someone making a financial profit at the expense of the community's residents. I saw it too many time in my 14 yrs. on my towns' Town Council. So much that after I resigned from the Council to take care of my dying father I ended up moving to a less developed town.

lhbernhardt

When I started my first job in IT back in the late 70's, you had to have a large room filled with devices about the size of washing machines (and sounding like dryers) to have enough online storage currently packed in a smart phone. I can now go to the electronics store and buy a terabyte of disk space (1,000 Gigabytes) for about $100 and plug it into my netbook thru its USB port and have instant access without configuring anything. I don't know how many rooms of late 70's DASD that would take! And if you know what DASD stands for, you're obviously over 60 and have worked in IT from its early days. And probably know how to code JCL to run a batch job...

As for the supermarket, if you're lucky, some other supermarket chain will buy the discontinued store and reflag it, just like they do with motels. Or it will get converted to a parking lot or another disparate use, like they do with gas stations...

L.

teachme

Probably this^ Some other chain will probably pick up the location and reopen...

DnvrFox

After several years of the VCR recorder sitting there hooked up to the TV, and not once being used, my son and daughter-in-law bought us a DVR.

I tried to hook it up - as they guaranteed it would be "easy." Well, it wasn't easy. Turns out we had to have a whole new antenna with two leads, requiring a $$ service call and drilling through our wall.

BUT, I will have to say, that after everything is now working (it required another call to DirectTV to get everything working correctly) it really is nice, as we can time shift 2 programs at a time very easily and can watch them when we want - i.e., early in the evening for last night shows that we did not want to stay up for.

As far as the "G" spot thing - well . . . !!!!

BTW - anyone want to buy a not-so-used VCR?? (or free, for that matter)

And, I started my knowledge of digital computers working in 1957 where they went around on skates replacing tubes in a huge building. They also had an analog computer.

donheff

Look on the bright side, you got to build your bike while you still had the excuse available to you.

overthehillmedi

One of the lacal malls had a Big chain grocery store move out on them also,but the moving store had a clause in their lease that prevented the mall putting another grocery store in thier old space. No problem said the mall and renovated the space, then proceded to move all the tennants from a free standing building on the site into the old store's space. The mall then tore down the vacant building and built a new one which they then leased it out to an small independent food chain for a new grocery store. The Big chain took the mall to court and when the mall showed the judge the old lease and told them what they had done, the judge "laughed" and awarded costs to the mall. People come from all over the city to shop at the new store drivng past the old store's new store.

veloronfla

...and people say there's no justice anymore.

Doohickie

My lawn, get off it.

GFish

We've had many stores and businesses close locally, most buildings remain vacant. Things are looking up though....a 24 hour Walmart opened Wednesday, it's only 3 miles away, yippee...

rdmjr

I know what DASD stands for, and I'm not over 60 - probably close enough, though, I suppose (56 next month). And I'm sure I could, with a little bit of study, get back to coding JCL to run a batch job - my last experience with that, though, would have been in the early 80's. It's been all DOS/Windows/Unix/Linux since then, with a minor detour through Banyan Vines networking. And if you find a terabyte drive for $100, grab it - the cheapest I've seen lately is $130 (the last one I bought, about a year ago, was $89), and they're probably going to keep going up until late this year/early next year due to the flooding in Thailand last year.
-Bob
-Bob

Retro Grouch 

There's going to be more store closings.

Dudelsack 

All the books I read now are eBooks on my iPad. My entire business is on the verge of complete computerization. Our way of life now would have been incompressible to me when I was in college. I try to imagine what the next frontiers will be: nanobots destroying cancer cells, brain-wave operated computers, AI. It's exhilarating and terrifying all at once.

DiabloScott

I suggest moving to someplace with better bicycle access to your favorite grocery store.
If your new house has more room for bikes in the garage... bonus!

NOS88

Tempting, but I currently live less than half a mile from 65+ miles of great bike paths, and three miles from my office.

bhchdh 

This, or perhaps someone will open a nice pie shop.

Beverly

We must have started in the IT world at about the same time. I started in '70 and remember everything you've mentioned. My first personal PC had larger storage capacity than the first mainframe computer I programmed.

BluesDawg

Time to find a new grocery store.

PaulH

Do you have a delivery service like PeaPod in your area?

unterhausen

please, no more politics in here

DnvrFox

Thanks to the mod who cleaned up this thread and got it back on topic - well, at least as close to topic as we get in the 50+ subforum!

Pobble.808

Yes, nice job!