By Andrea Menzies
Happy Birthday to my mom Anne. It is her birthday this week and we are having parties tonight and Friday.
Updates
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Car Better
By Andrea Menzies
Many thanks to my family and friends which helped me get my car fixed this week. That is the one good part about this area is I have my mom, daughter, and a few cousins that are great at fixing cars in the area. The super cold weather has been hard on cars, and my sick car has been a challenge. I wish I did not live in a car dependent area with no buses available. I lived in France and Germany as a child when my American citizen family worked there, and public transportation was so clean, maintained, and on time transportation was never a problem. I lived in New Orleans for University and street cars and buses were easy to take, and running day and night. Car manufacturing leaders lobbied the governments in many U.S. areas to make roads non-walkable in the 1940s saying it would promote car manufacturing jobs. Now most of the jobs are gone overseas, and we are stuck with roads with few sidewalks and bike lanes. Many bike lanes are painted in this area that only run near parks, and don’t run the full street. House rental and sale websites want to list property as “near walk and bike trails” as the trails go nowhere and lead to dead-end roads constantly. The problem is people trying to go to work, school, and weekend social activities have limited transportation. Uber, other rideshare, and taxi rides are super expensive, often slow, and destroy a work-day’s profit margin for their personal profits. Cars use fossil fuel which makes pollution, are dangerous for wrecks, and cause many social problems. Forcing people in the U.S. to be dependent on cars destroys the ability to be productive many days.
The car was sick.
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Scooters and Guns
By Andrea Menzies
No matter what downtown you live near tiny electric scooters and gun violence are now normal. I thought I was living in the worst U.S.A. area, but then an old area I used to live in has suffered a bad shooting as well. Cold weather and a collapsing economy are making tempers flare in many areas. People want to blow off steam seeing music, but rent and parking downtown now seems to cost one million dollars. Uber and cabs are now extremely expensive. Music fans now park at a nearby hotel, and scooter a couple of miles into downtown areas. Unfortunately no area is safe anymore. The result is crime scene photos covered in tiny scooters that are a strange mix of the childlike and the morbid in one glance. I seriously do want to buy a tiny bike-scooter after seeing tiny scooters all over the last set of Austin music district murder photos. The scooter people were the ones that lived.
So many scooters! 
14 inch wheel E-Bike scooters are only 50 pounds, and 20 inch E-bikes are an unusable 200 pounds. -
Review Actbest Mars
By Andrea Menzies
I bought one of the Actbest Mars e-bikes, and wanted to warn other customers to buy a tiny scooter instead. The battery does make it go fast up small hills for the first two months you ride it. I bought one of these in black, and it says on the description it is 70 pounds, but when I weighed it the product was over 200 pounds without the battery. With a battery it is more heavy. This is why tiny scooters have taken over downtown as E-bikes are now too huge. You think it folds so you can take it places, but it bangs up and bruises up your arms and legs so badly getting it out of storage you won’t want to move it. Two teenaged cousins had to help me put it in the back of an SUV. It will not go on bus bike racks. The heavy weight makes it fall over and bang your legs with large bruises constantly when riding. It is so heavy it doesn’t go up big hills, and you have to drag the huge heavy weight up large hills. It was pretty easy to assemble in two hours, and can drive a couple of miles to the nearby store, concert, and park easily if the weather is perfect. Tiny amounts of rain will stall it. This is NOT a car replacement at all. The battery has a tiny key that breaks every two seconds, easily snapped in half when turning, and easily falls off and will not go on key rings. They want 39 dollars for a replacement key on the website, and the heavy bike weighs so much you will need 280 dollar replacement batteries constantly. I am certain this is why they made it heavy so the bike will not run without a battery, the weight destroys batteries, and they sell many more expensive batteries. It can barely go 15 miles an hour before it starts weaving and rattling so badly it will not go faster another fact the webpage is not truthful about. If you are a huge gladiator that wants a bike made out of frying pan cast iron go for it, but a folding portable e-bike it is not. I will give it three out of five stars in my review for working a tiny bit, but many parts were lies. Next time I need short distance transportation I am buying a tiny scooter sized bike.
#MarsActBestBike
Heavy E-bikes may seem better than scooters but they are too heavy and tiny scooters are better for short distance travel. Tiny scooters have taken over every downtown area. -
Gun No-No
By Andrea Menzies
I have not gone out in Virginia in years and drive to Maryland because downtown is a giant gun No-No. Local news just said they had ANOTHER mass shooting. I have no boyfriend, or husband, and have not even had a kiss on the cheek in years. When I tried the singles nights in Virginia not only was the music horrible, but a hail of gunfire made everyone hit the ground hiding every two nights. This did NOT happen when I went out in Texas and Louisiana. My social life was constantly better in both states. Virginia really is a bad place to live in horrible ways. Lifting gun restrictions as the American economy goes to crap was a really bad idea.
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Car Broken
By Andrea Menzies
I cannot make it to see video-game, University student, and concert friends this weekend. Just as my life was taking a better turn with friends my car broke down. I live in an area with NO bus service for many miles, so I am unable to get to work as a teacher as well as weekend friend meet-up groups. I am looking at Google maps to find bike routes to nearby stores. It is a really good thing I have taken up bike riding as a hobby at this point as it is emergency back up transportation as well as a fitness gimmick.
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Travel Thanks
By Andrea Menzies
Many thanks to my video game meet up group, student groups, and music friends I met for travel in Maryland this month. I play many MMO games with online chat including World of Warcraft, Adventure Quest, and Guild Wars. I am attending night school, and need extra homework books. In addition I go to concerts with online travel groups. I did each in Maryland, and used my many camping tents, lights, and batteries to save cash on hotels. The weather was too bad for travel for a while, but the ice melted a bit so I was still able to go at the end of the month. After every place in Virginia was horrifying and abusive to me I was very glad to find some better places to socialize with on weekends. In addition I have been going to many online night school classes, and the University campus libraries are far superior in Maryland which is how I made all A grades at Universities in 2025.
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Still Icy
By Andrea M.
I am glad I didn’t go camping this weekend after all. For two seconds it was warm, and I wanted to travel. Yet the ice came back in a big way. Even with a huge jacket on I was cold. Here are some pictures of the car hood deep ice.
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Tire Weak
By Andrea M.
I cannot make it to Maryland this weekend. My spirit was willing, but my tire was weak for travel to Maryland. I had planned to go to Maryland to see concerts this weekend. It is Valentine’s Day and Presidents Day Weekend a holiday when I get extra time off work. In addition weather apps said good weather was happening as good concerts were scheduled. Then boom a flat tire hits, battery warning on, and freezing ice rain moves in. In addition one of the few good ways to travel near Maryland is to use the RV parks. I have personally experienced the hotel areas are violently plagued by gangs, but the RV parks are cheaper and nicer. Unfortunately, my camping gear was in far worse shape than I expected after winter storage, and I had to cancel. Oh well the weather will warm up in a couple of weeks when I have had replacement and repair done. They say Friday the 13th is bad luck, but in some ways bad luck can be good.
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Valentine Bummer
By Andrea M.
When Valentine’s Day is a bummer you must post jokes. Yes I am single with no relationship at all for Valentine’s Day.
Frozen History 7 Publishing Book Review Podcast 