Tuesday night Mountain ride, not

plans for a tuesday night mountain bike ride at the local sherman branch trail were postponed because a strong rain and wind storm had started just as i was about to head out. instead of riding i worked out in the mini barn and did some maintenance on both my road and mountain bikes. the white bike needed to be cleaned from being caught out in the nasty over the weekend and as well i tightened the rear brake cable. the rear brake on my mountain bike has been acting up for a few weeks still even after a recent bleed of the line. while messing with it's adjustment last night i became frustrated and decided to start form the beginning and do yet another bleed. this time after using the business card method of setting the caliper the problem seemed to disappear and the brake was working fine.

The Haze is in the Hizzle(gangsta for house)

after the 3 hour nc to sc to nc road ride transfer on friday the 4th of july in celebration of the anniversary of the signing of the declaration of independence which gives us all of our infinite freedoms here in the great ole USA i came home to an empty house. the windows were wide open in the mid afternoon heat and ozone code level orange condition which i was already feeling just by breathing in on the tarmac for the previous 3 hours. when i unlocked the door and walked in from the porch i saw it right there in the kitchen, quietly present like an apparition with an undulating body in it's see through form, like a cloud or fog i have seen high on big mountains, it was tangible with the eyes and brain. molecular O3 had entered my home through all the open windows and was waiting to great me with all of it's boldness. the body was moving a bit, the tail wrapped around through the doorway and down the hall into the rooms. holy shit i thought, the carbon is in my house. the dogs looked sad as they greeted me, the compression of the carbon nasty working on their spirits as well. i rubbed my eyes to make sure that they were not coated with that white snotty film that sometimes comes up after a hot ride. it was not my eyes playing tricks, it was real. i have been used to seeing it in all of it's obviousness. sometimes the buildings from less than 2 blocks will be distorted by the grey silver. the perception is more clear from up high in the big buildings looking out towards the horizon and you will see it's science apparent. you don't have to look but if you do you best not unlearn what you are seeing because if you do you may as well admit the lie like the rest who practice unlearning as a recreation. from one of my client's windows at the top of the hearst tower at around 500ft off the deck the horizon has been so distorted over the past few weeks that sometimes it can not even be visualized for the ozone filter is so thick that it is blocked out completely. grey, silver, brown, the colors of the carbon rainbow from hell is now the ghost like friend welcoming me home after a long ride. charlotte is great, there is so much to see and do.

3 day weekend/2 rides-120 road miles

mixed emotions on the 4th of july holiday transition transfer into a 53mile road ride to south carolina below the toon and back in a round about road style fashion. i was traveling on the white lemond with front bag and bob trailer which helped transport the explosive cargo in return to dooleyville. it was hot and the ground level ozone which actually exists was rated orange which meant not only could i see it but i could feel it enter my system with a taste and a tangible sensory connection to my brain.

yesterday sunday i took off for the booty loop, that's right for some reason i felt as if the 4 hours i had to spend on the bike would be best served cutting familiar 3 mile circles around the not so closed road loop here in the queen city. when i left my house and started the stay alive i did something that i rarely do which is take the road on albermarle. seeing i am in it for the long haul i normally swallow my pride and surf the side walk for the traverse of albermarle to the centrolian split where i can pick up a bike lane after the eastland single track. traffic was light and i was on the geared bike so i just opened it up and kept a 30-32mph spin all the way across. i think that is the fastest time i have ever made it to the split. i turned on to providence road at laurel and then went straight in to the booty course. there were a few folks out, the temp was not so bad and it was a cloudy sky. even though i had ridden the course on several occasions in the past lives of mine i rechecked the distance on the puter. 3mi. the laps seemed to just go by as fast as i had remembered. at around 30 miles or so at the right hand turn off of selwyn on to w queens i saw a rider come across and on to the course that looked familiar. i came up along side none other than ben(the one on the left-pic stolen from arsbars)who i knew from the original 24hrs of booty and the same fellow that i chatted with recently at the cowbell challenge. we shared a laugh that we were both wearing the same belgian empirical colors on our head and then we rode together for a bit. the sky darkened quickly and we were in the rain within minutes. then came the pea sized hail, wind, thunder and lightening. i thought for a minute we should be taking cover but ben yelled with a crazy laugh that we must endure and keep it rolling. okay, i thought but watch those big trees from top to bottom, they were swirling and i remember a few years ago a rider was killed when a tree limb came crashing down on him. the hail was cold, my wet human form started to shiver a bit and then ben peeled off to continue with his plan leaving me alone again. alone on the loop for another 2 hours without seeing one other riding person. the back side of queens was like a debris field and in some spots the brown run off was mid wheel deep until time passed and it could drain off. i peeled off myself at around 1600hrs and made it home feeling like i could ride some more after completing the 70(69.56)mile effort.

the booty is a strange place to ride and i am not sure what the point is other than time does go by when you go around it. there is no thinking that needs to be done about navigation, water, food any of that for it is all close by. the only thing to concentrate on is the pedaling and the mental game of going around in such repetitive fashion.....

Header Image + Honorable Mention

from left to right: dicky, eric vandriver, clint & me notice both eric vandriver's and dicky's fingers are on the levers prepared to use them when the photographer goes down for he had not any hands on the cockpit....

these are the 2 group shots that i made sunday after the cowbell on a half day pass to uwharrie out east of town. other than the lavomittous feeling that plagued me during the first 3/4ths of the ride i had a good time. good time even though on top of the lavomittous feeling i was dealing with a failed rear brake as well. lever was not pulling enough(my tiny little 2 or 2.5mm allen was home in the barn) and something like air in the line or cooked hydraulic fluid near the caliper was making for no rear control. either way i was able to bleed out the problem and make the appropriate lever adjustment after the ride.

10 year couriership in charlotte effective today 7/3/08, missing geloof

late photo credit: arsbars

7/03/98 to 7/03/08

today was the day 10 years ago when tony fusco who i had only met the day before called me early on the phone. it was the friday before the weekend holiday and oom bop(the one on the left middle or right, i can't remember) his teenage heart throb rookie had taken an Odell package home with him the night before and he was late, hence fired. tony and his semi wife, the curvaceous dark skinned and lovely peruvian pilar owned the priority one or P1 and said that i would be super man if i made it in for the morning dispatch. i told them over the tele that they could count on me, then i got dressed loaded up the black jeep and drove in from the shitty transfer apartment that st. lissa and i were living in at the time. after some short reintroductions it was one, renegade style. my first paying job, my new source of livity since cutting away all the financial success of the corporate ties that had bound me for most of the previous decade. now i will make nothing, a small fraction of the previous however i will gain a life time of knowledge and meet some of the most amazing humans on the planet because of it. it was my destiny to be there in that spot to get the call up from the pen, it had been written already that i sit here and recount the history.

that day out on the mean streets of the jar were only a select few, around 6 other bicycle couriers. holt, dicky, marcus, thomas cook, kevin p and the infamous euro nate is all i can really remember from that day. the job was relatively simple and easy to understand. P1 had 14 clients, the clients would call in to pilar at the office with the job, pilar then called the job in to me, i would pick up, deliver the job then call in to pilar that it was complete. my training was self initiated and within 2 hours i had figured out the mechanics of what was going on. i went in to that weekend changed by the fact that without plan i had stumbled across one of the most amazing forward thinking jobs on the planet.

time flies: since that day until and through the now so many great things have happened. i was able to leave P1 after less than a year to start a partnership business with ilan p in an effort to establish the friendliest courier business in town. that was a fun 3 year roll before it was transferred to holt in a business style agreement that keeps some rookies paid even today. had i been more assertive in my quest for the mighty dollar that entity might still be here today paying my way through life while others worked as is the path of most business owners. the problem is as nice as it sounds business ownership turns in to a different type of chase for the elusive non african continent related 4 million. long hours on the phone, federal and state taxes are due for like the 4th time each, clients get picky with special requests straight down to the way they are invoiced, liabilities all of this comes in the name of the ego that says business ownership means you are a success. well i never was a success and i never plan to be one so i sold out to holt and thought i left forever in the summer of 01.

enter nova the birth of a star where i have been gainfully employed for the past almost 7 years. the owner is jason ryan who had been using my services for his grass roots service based company for the previous 3 years. Jason belled me up shortly after i left the uptown to see how retirement was treating me. he explained that my personal traits and work ethics were missed by the client and that if i ever wanted to come back he could help me figure out the way. like most things that were meant to be this was so we spent the following few months of my retirement working out the details on the new. i don't think i really wanted to come back at that point but i knew it was already written and that i had to.

there is the history...which is exactly what it is, the past that can never be brought to the now for the now is the magical instant happening before us. i want some of that old vodoo back, those minutes of refreshing discovery of the new way to geloof. of touching it's face, realizing that the livity resources we as humans have is great and infinite. do you have scissors i can borrow?- a simple question that has changed the direction of my life and the way i see the world, the goodness in it as well as the bad. bus on the left, parked truck on the right, pedestrian stepping off jay walking between the 2, black man yells that he is my brother in law, it is not a crime to flick some water out of your bottle on to a person who is smiling about it, jesus i have been hit, im bleeding, that one was close my heart rate is out of control based on that closeness and the mass involved, why were they not seeing me, what was their rush, they are trapped by the light ahead, look, visualize stop, pray, cry, run, face it you have power, love and emotions, truth cannot be denied or suppressed, see the other plane right in front of your face, do not be scared of or miss it, stop wearing the material transfer of product and ego on your sleeve, love, think, do not deny, sweat, tear and run some more with the bike attached to your feet and hands for it is real.

happy anniversary to me....i can never forget all of those out there that i have come to know because of this decade long ex corp transfer that has given me the instant before me.

thank you.

Esoteric Agenda

Swayze was right, the Porsche Parade being hosted at the Westin in the Downtown Jar is really kewl and has a positive affect on the lives of most world wide but especially here in America, the land of the free to have their souls filled with material instead of their own awareness. Sticking true to unrealistic form Charlotte NC once again has out done itself on welcoming those more or less more fortunate than most others in the nation and the world. This club pay to be cool is allowing those with enough credentials to test drive one of the several dozen that I saw sporty auto vipers during daylight hours out of the Westin Hotel where they are paying an average bike couriers weekly salary before taxes per night to stay in their little luxury room box with no open windows. I watched the valets sweat from running but stay cool with the extra care they maintained their job with for Hendrick was watching. I watched little kids stare at these mundane vehicles with looks of joy on their faces as if they had just received a message of spirituality from the Rinpoche's enlightenment. I saw grown men and women act as if their car was the only thing they really had while they were on vacation. I heard the gas get pegged at 4.06 and 9/10ths as they drove away free to be human down College Street, big smiles, good times. I was once again witnessing the now and somehow the over use relieved me for a spell because it allows me to share it with you.

thought of the week

the c-5 Galaxy flies .07miles that's under 1/10th of a mile on every gallon of gas
it consumes.....seems as if something that costs 170million in god we
trust units would have a better efficiency......