This post is from guest blogger Al McWilliams.

Other than having just figured out that I was supposed to keep writing in this blog even after the commuter challenge started (sorry, I thought I was just the opening act), today I had a great idea!

I’m watching them put in the new fancy solar-powered parking meter stations around downtown and I thought, “Wow! This is so great, and renewable! However, it does seem a little complicated and expensive, not to mention having big, bored-teen-tempting solar panels… there might be a better way…”

Then, like in a dream, it came to me! What if there was a way to have parking meters that functioned mechanically!? You’d just pull up to them, drop in some sort of weighted currency, and turn a crank!! Get on in engineers! The future is now!