web app for making truetype fonts via kottke.

Platypus...

1. are venomous.
2. nurse their young through their abdominal skin(?)

I'm looking for a good bicycle repair book: one that talks about tools, has a ton of diagrams (preferably hand drawn), and plenty of description and best practices. Today I came across a book called "Fix Your Bicycle", by Eric Jorgensen and Joe Bergman, put out by Clymer Publications between 1972 and 1979. It is full of diagrams and photos, from photos describing how to patch tires to technical illustrations of exploded bottom brackets. It also describes bicycle tools and how to use them. In short: I want it. I'm trolling Amazon's used sellers for it this very moment (there are several misspellings, for example).

Also looking good: Anybody's Bike Book, by Tom Cuthbertson (kb has a 1979 edition).

uh, backpack shopping alert. sorry.

MEC is a Canadian outdoor gear company that is a little bit like a slimmer, hipper LLBean with all the flannel-fireside-lifestyle crap trimmed away. They have a very good backpack selection, too. As a simple, minimalist overnight pack or travel bag, I liked the 30 liter Brio Crag daypack. Also the tiny Pika daypack is almost exactly like the tiny simple bag I inherited (translation: appropriated) from my mother, exactly right for casual hikes.

kb pointed me to this fantastic Atlantic article about an apple collector and curator. Linked in the article is the Fedco Seeds tree catalog, which has tons of info about cultivating trees as well as descriptions of varieties for sale.

In December I started working as a web developer at the Chicago Technology Cooperative. We do a lot of work with Drupal, and most of our clients are nonprofits. I recently attended Drupalcon Boston and with two of my coworkers presented a session on Drupal as a GIS/Mapping Platform.