Jonas! *EDIT*

- David

Now with 25% more epic-ness:

These Kids Is Harder Than I'll Ever Be *EDIT*

*EDIT* All these pics are broken for some reason right now. It's dumb. You can still click them to see the pic though. Sorry!

From Shorpy.com:
Raymond Bykes, Western Union No. 23, Norfolk Va. Said he was fourteen. Works until after one a.m. every night. He is precocious and not a little "tough." Has been here at this office for only three months, but he already knows the Red Light District thoroughly and goes there constantly. He told me he often sleeps down at the Bay Line boat docks all night. Several times I saw his mother hanging around the office, but she seemed more concerned about getting his pay envelope than anything else.

It's so crazy for me to live in a place that has history. Out in the West we had only a little. I know it's only been two years but I feel thoroughly transplanted here. You can only be a native of one place, but my little portion of Virginia has permeated me so much that it feels like I'm from here.

From Shorpy.com:
Waco, Texas. September 1913. "Messenger boy working for Mackay Telegraph Company. Said fifteen years old. Exposed to Red Light dangers."

From Shorpy.com:
Dallas, October 1913. "Messenger boy in the heart of the Reservation (Red Light). Prostitutes run back and forth. Business beginning at mid-day. I saw messenger boys and delivery boys for drug stores from 15 years upward. Some still younger told me that they go there. This was in spite of a strong agitation being waged to close up the resorts."

From Shorpy.com:
November 1913. Shreveport, Louisiana. "Fourteen-year-old Messenger #2 for Western Union. Says he goes to the Red Light district all the time."

From Shorpy.com:
Nashville, November 1910. "George Christopher, Postal Telegraph messenger #7, fourteen years old. Been at it over three years. Does not work nights."

From Shorpy.com:
Houston, October 1913. Marion Davis, Messenger #21 for Bellevue Messenger Service. Fourteen years old. "Been messenger, off and on, for two years. Not supposed to go to the Reservation [Red Light] under sixteen years, but I do just the same. The boss don't care and the cops don't stop me."

Fuck yeah, kid. Fuck yeah.

From Shorpy.com:
Houston, October 1913. "Eleven-year-old Western Union messenger #51. J.T. Marshall. Been day boy here for five months. Goes to Red Light district some and knows some of the girls."

From Shorpy.com:
Houston, Texas. October 1913. "Fourteen-year-old Western Union Messenger #43. Works until 10:30 p.m. Goes to Reservation [red light district] some."

From Shorpy.com:
October 1913. Houston, Texas. "Jeff Miller. A young delivery boy for Magnolia Pharmacy. This is especially bad for him as he has recently returned from the Seabrook Reform School where he had spent a year. He would not tell me why he was sent there."

From Shorpy.com:
October 1913. Houston, Texas. Curtin Hines. Western Union messenger #36. Fourteen years old. Goes to school. Works from 4 to 8 p.m. Been with Western Union for six months, one month delivering for a drug store. "I learned a lot about the 'Reservation' [Red Light] while I was at the drug store and I go there sometimes now."

Goes to school and works a job at fourteen years old. I'm officially a pansy.

From Shorpy.com:
November 1913. Shreveport, Louisiana. "Percy Neville, 11 years old. Messenger boy #6 for Mackay Telegraph Company. He has been messenger for different companies for four years. Goes to the Reservation [red light district] every day."

From Shorpy.com:
November 1913. Shreveport, Louisiana. Howard Williams, 13-year-old delivery boy for Shreveport Drug Company. He works from 9:30 a.m. to 10:30 p.m.; has been here three months. Goes to the Red Light every day and night. Says that the company could not keep other messenger boys, they work them so hard.

From Shorpy.com:
Waco, Texas. November 1913. Isaac Boyett: "I'm de whole show." The twelve-year-old proprietor, manager and messenger of the Club Messenger Service, 402 Austin Street. The photo shows him in the heart of the Red Light district where he was delivering messages as he does several times a day. Said he knows the houses and some of the inmates. Has been doing this for one year, working until 9:30 P.M. Saturdays. Not so late on other nights. Makes from six to ten dollars a week.
(Shorpynote: Isaac was born March 20, 1901, and died in May 1966 in Waco.)

This kid is one of my favorites.

From Shorpy.com:
Preston DeCosta, 15 years old. Messenger #3 for Bellevue Messenger Service in San Antonio, Texas. October 1913. I ran across him while he was carrying notes back and forth between a prostitute in jail and a pimp in the Red Light. He had read all the notes and knew all about them. He was a fine grained adolescent boy. Has been delivering messages and drugs in the Red Light for 6 months and knows the ropes thoroughly. "A lot of these girls are my regular customers. I carry 'em messages and get 'em drinks, drugs, etc. Also go to the bank with money for 'em. If a fellow treats 'em right, they'll call him by number and give him all their work. I got a box full of photos I took of these girls - some of 'em I took in their room." Works until 11 P.M.

That's why this kid is smiling so big. Another one of my faves.

Tough kids man. And what is with all the red light disctrict mentions?! Is that something the photographer was obsessed with or just how it was back then?

I should be one of these kids for Halloween. Get sepia makeup and everything. Then I'd get, like, possessed by one and it'd turn into some Buffy episode that ends with a guy in glasses and tweed kicking the crap out this other flamboyant guy and returning everything to normal.

- David

Don't walk away from me you bitch!

P.S. This kid looks so much like my brother Thadius it's creeping me out. He made that same face and everything. Different pants though.

*Shwing!*

Same bike, two different pics taken a few seconds apart. One with flash, one without. Very luckily my friend Kurtz forwarded me what turned out to be my first Craig's List purchase. For my first foray into online classifieds it's was very smooth and pleasant. A nice guy named Neil had the wheels all ready and even provided a long bungie chord to help me cart the wheels home. If I ever run into him whilst wheeling aroung town I'll be sure to say hey and try to return it to him.

Been riding these for a couple of weeks now and I'm very happy. I did change out the tires though, as two flats in two days (one for whatever reason, the second because of some sharp straw) was too much. I put my trusty tires with their liners on and haven't had any issues since. The one drawback is the lack of a machined surface on the front wheel, so I've been pretending to be brakeless. On a couple of emergency occasions I have used the brake for a few seconds and it squeels like crazy, plus isn't good for the reflective material. If it becomes too much of a problem I may have to run/rock a different front rim. I do have some in mind already, you betcha.

Now I just need to find a friend with a car who can let me dork out and have them take pictures from a driver's perspective as I go by in front of their headlights.

- David

Commutes Are Fun

Which I think a lot of people forget when they have cycling to work in mind. Sure there are days when people are trying to kill you, or the wind is trying to kill you, or stop lights are trying to kill you, but all that stuff is still fun when viewed from the right angle.

Saving the environment/money/getting exercise/political statements/etc are all well and good, but having fun is even better. People will go to great lengths if the goal is enjoyment (look at drug users!) but if they're doing something out of obligation or some complex long-term benefit it's a lot harder to stick with. Fun is fun and it's here now, and that's a great motivator. I don't think enough bicycle commuting evangelists make this the focus of their arguments. It's like going up to someone and saying, "If you give me $5 I'll donate it for you and later on you'll get a tax refund." versus "If you give me $5 I'll give you this box of insert-favorite-tasty-treat-here." The second guy is gonna get a lot more Lincolns, or whoever is on a five-dollar bill. Do people still use cash?

Anywho, today was a particularly fun commute. I gots a new chainring from Down Undah (yer mom) last night and even though my gal was pouting on the couch pretty hard I still plopped down and installed that biotch poste-haste. After taking some pictures first, of course. So I was excited right off the bat to see how another tooth felt. I won't get into it here, but it was nice.

The fun part today was traffic. After Colley Ave tried to wear me out with the clever use of every red light possible, I hit a good grove on Hampton Blvd and the bridge (which I was definitely wondering about with a bigger chainring) went by well. Then, being a good boy and stopping at a red light, I out-sprinted a semi and some kind of dump truck when it turned green. Which made me happy. Out-sprinting anything makes me happy, even if it is the vehicular equivalent of an old walrus on the beach.

As I neared the next intersection I smiled big and cuddled up behind a backhoe. If you're not familiar with construction equipment you may think I'm being rude to some woman, but I'm not. A big ol' wind blockin' slow movin' vehicle is an awesome thing on a bicycle. You don't even have to touch it, but it will pull you along for as long as you want. I sat pretty going only slightly slower than normal but putting forth almost zero effort. But sadly the jerk wasn't going to my exact location, so I was out on my own again.

Then came the semi with the flashing hazard lights. He was already through the intersection when I came up on him, so I snuggled up to his big ass too (while always keeping an extra sharp eye out for shit in the road and brake lights). But sadly he was going too slow for even a lecherous scumbag like myself, and soon I had to to pass him. Checking, checking, checking for traffic and then I was up in the pedals, passing a semi truck on a busy road. I even put one hand out and ran it along it's white belly for a moment as I passed. Looking back after half a block I had left it far behind, which I admit isn't saying much (remember, walrus) but to a slow kid who's used to being the slowest thing on the road it was very satisfying.

The ride home was just as fun, with the many incarnations of Jenny Lewis singing to me as she peaked out from the corner of my bag. Night riding is always semi-magical, and the only good thing about this weird daylight savings crap that goes on here. I didn't puss out on any of the bridges or the underpass and nobody really tried to run me over. Five-point-five inches of extra distance per pedal rotation seems to agree with me just enough so that I don't feel out of place, but enough that I still feel the burn.

Well, I gots tomorrow off and hopefully I get some fun shit in before I have to sit for twelve hours straight and fix e-mail, printers, and people's professional lives from within the curve of my headset. Peace.

- David

FOG

Naval Hostpital?, originally uploaded by BodhiDave.

Last night I took some time and cleaned up all the crap on my computer and ran across these pictures I took on a foggy day.

For reference, Crawford Bay normally looks like this.

Click the pic fer more.

- David

Free Day at the Musuem!

creeeepy.jpg, originally uploaded by BodhiDave.

I met Kurtz and some nice strangers of his at the Chrysler Museum last night and took some pics, had some fun. I definitely shouldn't have waited as long as I did to go.

Click the pic for more.

- David

Big (5", 5 oz) News!

Soooo, apparently I'm not shootin' blanks like I thought all these years:



I've been holding out on this post for awhile just because I hadn't broken the news to my family, but my dad knows now and my aunt will be here soon so (hopefully, cuz she does read this blog) I may be able to tell one of my family members face to face.

To the rest of my loved ones, this may seem like a shitty way for me to bust out baby pics but I'm still weird with this kinda thing. I mean, I'm excited fer sure. We have names picked out (Jonas Charles for a boy, Dylan Waits for a girl) and I'm already plotting schemes to raise a vegetarian child (tiny pet piggies and perhaps a miniature cow that I'll have to invent) but being like, "Hey, um, I got a kid coming!" is still really hard. I'm not ashamed, it's just so foreign.

Kasey is fifteen weeks along, and the kid is about 5" and 5 ounces big at this point. The ultrasound was surreal. Based off television, I thought ultrasounds were kind of boring, 2-dimensional sorta deals. But no, oh no. We could see it moving around! It's little arms were all over the place! The ultrasoundologist had to jiggle Kasey's tummy to get The Gaffer's legs to uncross so the sex could be determined cuz apparently David/Kasey Jr. is a modest soul (unlike it's pappy) and needed some prompting to show the goods (very unlike it's pappy). But she was able to determine if it's gonna wear a poodle skirt or a leather jacket eventually.

And this an important paragraph right here. Ready? I don't want to know what it is. I'm an old fashioned kinda guy and with the help of the understanding peeps at the doctor's office they were able to impart the chromosome situation to Kasey but keep me in the dark. Everyone we've encountered since the visit knows, but I don't. And I'd like to keep it that way until the doctor spanks it's booty and busts out the cigars. So please, no blabbin'.

Other than being at a loss at how to break the news (with my friend Kurtz, I let him know by telling him Kasey couldn't accept his offer of booze while rubbing her tummy with a comical look on my face) I'm looking forward to the whole deal. I'm sure the sleep deprivation and unimaginable messes won't be a blast, but man, this is going to be interesting.

- David

Semi-random Pict0rs

I got new glasses, and in an effort to not appear totally self-centered I'm including cute, distracting pictures of my pets too.

Ms. Maudie!

War Tilly: The Best Cat Evar

New glasses.
It's coooold out there peoples. I gots a few hours left of this here weekend and then it's back to the grindstone, but I got a lot of crap done. At least if feels that way.

I think I'm the only living thing in my apartment not napping right now. I think I may join my lovely assistant and get in on the action, too. Gotta warm up for bed time, right?

- David

Want to See Something Really Scary?

I can't stop laughing at this. Thanks How To Avoid the Bummer Life!

- David

DC Pics

Virgins, originally uploaded by BodhiDave.

Click the pic to see more. There's a couple good ones in there, if Y.T. can say so himself. That Hello Kitty camera o' mine does some cool things sometimes.

It's late, I need to sleep.

Nighty.

- David

Fuckin' Hell

If you imagine what's beneath the black bar you see to your left, you'll know exactly what I feel like. The horizontal bar, not the vertical one.

So I made it to Conte's in good time and bought two brand new tubes to try and get Jamie back on the road. I had resolved to be extra careful, having decided that I was pinching the tubes between the tire and the rim and that was the cause of my problems.

I plopped myself on the couch and watched some Courage while I did my handy work.

I checked the inside and the outside of both tires extensively for shrapnel. Nothing. I checked the rims. Nothing. I chalked this up as further proof that I was a tube-pincher. I carefully re-installed the new tubes, taking my time and extra care. Everything seemed shiny.

Both tires had been fixed up and pumped up with a minimum of air. I put the wheels back on and proceeded to pump up the front tire to 110psi; which is right near the middle of the minimum/maximum recommended pressure. As the red needle on my floor pump twitched above 100, I heard a pop and all the air rushed out. My head fell towards my chest and I felt like crying and/or swearing.

I took it all apart again to inspect the crime scene, and like a brick falling falling from Macaulay Culkin's little hands it hit me: The tubes were poking through the flimsy-ass rubber strip covering the spoke holes and puncturing themselves when they got above 100psi. Which is below the recommended tire pressure.

And it only took four trial-and-errors (emphasis on the error part) to figure it out. I, am an ass.

Now I just need some proper rim tape and a couple patch kits and I'll be right as rain.

In other news, I am a cheap date. After biking my tush off against the wind, up hill and over dale, two beers of unknown kind and brand is all it takes to get me on the fence separating Tipsy and Drunk. I met Kurtz and his co-workers at Hell's Kitchen and he treated Y.T. to the brew and some interesting conversations about cyclists and weapons, cheap shirts, and cops on bikes, among other things.

At one point through my second beer I kinda sorta started to snoop in one of the lady's purses as she hunted for her wallet. All I wanted to see was what the pharmacy bottle sticking out the side had in it. As someone who doesn't even take headache medicine I'm curious about that kind of thing. I regained control after Kurtz called me out on it and apologized multiple times. The gal in question didn't seem to mind.

Then it was off home, and I was extra careful to check for large moving objects since I'd reached that stage of inebriation where everything is in 3-D Plus.

I made it to the ferry and apparently the exercise rushed more alcohol to my brain as my intoxication peaked and I sat on a bench, marveling at the beauty of the passing clouds that had seemed to sneak up on me.

You know you've found a good place to live when, even a year later, you find yourself looking around and asking yourself how you could live anywhere else after this. How could I give up the ferry, the busy river, the humongous ships that go by my window?

I'd like to move deeper into Olde Towne or perhaps Ghent, but they're pretty close to where I am now and both have their benefits. Like probably being easier on my money clip.

Whelp, I better get down to brass tacks. This week is moving quickly, it's Hump Day already! And ever since grade school, I've known what that means...

Get on it, see ya later.

- David

Cell Phone Explosion

Just cleaning out my cellular phone.

Keep it together.

- David

Who's got the crack?

This Is My Morning

Be envious.

Herald! Frankenstein

Yeller and Green, originally uploaded by BodhiDave.

Oooooh yeah suckah. Behold, my first bike build.

True, I only picked things out and St. Gordon & Crew at Cycle Classics did the rest. But, I did hacksaw off part of the seat tube in an effort to get it as low as it'd go. But damn, am I proud.

The frame is late sixties/early seventies, as is the bottom bracket. The handlebars are early seventies. The rest is new stuff. I think I'm going to leave those fantastic handlebars unwrapped.

It rides so. damn. smooth. It's smoother and more silent than Jenny even. And it's comfortable as hell.

It's alive, and it's gorgeous.

- David

Just Real Quick

Here are some of the people, real or fictional, close or far away, that I think are pretty nifty.

FyxAndy

Jenny Lewis

Fastboy

Dethklock

Anton Chigurh

R. Stevens

All the peeps over at A Year of Bike Commuting

White Ninja Comics

The Midwest Teen Sex Show

Sinfest

A random sampling of the environmental variables that make up Y.T.

- David

Global Gutz - 04/20/08 *Edit*

Click the title for more info. I'm still working out the route (and the flier), but it will be done.

As a hero of mine says, "Tell you friends, tell your enemies."

- David

Spreadin' the word, guerrilla style. The other two I put up required duct tape and timing.

Good to Be Home

My pets are in a band, and Tilly is the front-woman. I think they're called Fuzzy Logic or something. I believe they sing ska/hardcore.

Got back in one piece, and in decent time. Despite all of the toll roads and fourty-five mph speed limits along the way. That shit was angering.

Unpacked the suitcase, pet the animals, parked the car, cleaned the bike, did a load of laundry, cooked tofu and rice, ate tofu and rice, started a beer.

It's bed time now.

- David