Thursday, November 29, 2007

5-0 Jacked Me

I got a ticket for running a red light (7th and Folsom) 30 days ago. Today was my last day to "appear" in court. I showed up, waited in line and found out that the officer who busted me hadn't yet filed the ticket or something like that, so there's no record of my infraction in the system.

Yes, some assholes will give people on bicycles tickets for running red lights when there are no cars around.

I'm still not sure how much this will cost me. I hope I don't have to go to traffic school. That would be heinous. Hopefully the ticket will not appear in the system ever and I will not have to appear at 850 Bryant again.

Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Celebrity Status


I'm stoked. The San Francisco Bike Coalition has added my blog to their "links we like" page on the sfbc website. Check it out.

Tuesday, November 27, 2007

Bottled Water

Another Getty (2880 Broadway) delivery. The guards are nice. They spoil me with Evian in the glass bottle. Once I asked to use the bathroom, mainly to see more of the mansion, and I was not let down. To get there, I walked by an indoor pool and the door was inlaid with ivory or mother of pearl or something.

The manse has a nice front door. When you have Getty money, if you tell them you want the doorknob in the middle of the door, that's where they put the knob, by gum.

Normally I'll ride up Pacific and avoid the steep-ass 2700 block of B'way. But on Monday I also had a return (pronounced RE-turn: a package going from point A -> B -> A) on the 2500 block, so I just figured fuck it. I hadn't ridden since last Wednesday so my legs were good.

Right around the corner at Broadway and Divis[adero]. Now this is a truly nasty hill, avoided at almost all costs. I had a delivery in the middle of the block later on that day though. On a slow day, it's all good.

Monday, November 26, 2007

Dog

I asked his owner if I could take a picture but she said she was in a hurry because she was going to......a conference? What? That's the absolute worst excuse ever to not have somebody take a picture of your dog. I was insulted, the dog was insulted, and something else was insulted.

If anybody needs to be going to a conference, it's him. Look at that dog. He is a bass player in a death metal band. He probably cooks his own meals, and hers.

Tools of the Trade, part 1

I finally bought new bike shoes a few weeks ago. Peter "Fast Boots" Taylor, a bad-ass messenger at Godspeed with a part time job at Bike Nut hooked me up. My previous pair were in tatters after about a year of use.

When I first started doing this, I wore regular shoes and used pedals with toeclips. A few months into it, I bought my first pair of bike shoes with cleats and noticed a BIG difference.


Cleats lock your feet to the pedals. Superimpose a clock over the circle your foot travels when pedaling. When that foot's past six o'clock and your shoe isn't clipped into a pedal, it's not contributing anything, is it?

This is one of my new shoes. They fit pretty well and I'm really happy with them. I had huge holes in my last pair and shit was coming apart all over the place.

This is my new pedal. Yes, I know it's pink. I took pink over baby blue. This is the first time I've used Look style pedals for work and so far I have no complaints, nor have I noticed any major differences. I'm still getting used to only being able to clip into one side.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

Uber-inal

I found the great-grandfather of all urinals. He is large and in charge, and surrounded by marble. I stuck out my foot for reference, then remembered I have big-ass feet, but it's still un pisser gigante.

Located at 582 Market I think.

If you like old buildings, you should also check out the Flood Bldg. at 870 Mkt. If we lived in a black and white movie, it's where your private detective's office would be.

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Fast Socks


Becky "Fast Socks" Balon. She used to work for my company, now she's at No BS, which is many cuts above.

I ran into her a few weeks ago in outer Van and took this picture.

She's one of the best messengers I know.

She needs to fix her brakes though.

self portrait, stockton tunnel

I took this a few weeks ago riding through the Stockton street tunnel. Going west, I almost always ride on the pedestrian path because I want to live. It's also a smoother surface.

On the way down, I usually take the street because it's faster.

big buttons

This big ass elevator button cracked me up the other day. I think on Sansome street somewhere. The security guard yelled at me for taking this picture, but it had to be done.

soap arm


This happens too much. There's a run from 1 E[mbarcadero ]C[enter] to the Getty residence at 2880 Broadway that I do most days.

All too often when I wash my hands in the bathroom on the 10th floor, I get soaped on by the auto dispenser just as I finish rinsing. Making matters worse, it's a really lame faucet with no kind of pressure so it takes even more time to rinse off the soap arm. And sometimes when rinsing off that soap, I get soaped on again!

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

CHICK -N- COOP


At 21st and Taraval. It has the look of a place on its way out. I wonder what it was like in its prime.

Today I was doing some super longboard stuff. I picked up eight out of SF City college on Phelan and Ocean and went as far out as Byxbee Street.

Then a couple stops later I headed over to 1050 Northpoint.
View Larger Map

505 Parnassus

While I was heading to the ninth floor to pick up the spleen (see previous post), it stopped on the third and I was kicked out of the elevator by a team of doctors and nurses wheeling some really fucked up, anesthetized guy on an operating bed. I was all, "going up?" and they asked me to step out. Then they used some kind of special key card to clear all of the pressed floors.

The elevators at this hospital are among the slowest in the city. This mirror kept me entertained for a while.

I want to get one of those key cards.

0 Kidneys, Spleen

Today was my first spleen delivery. It was an exclusive from UCSF at 505 Parnassus to to 45 Castro. There's a vial of blood in the biohazard ziplock, which is nothing new.

The spleen wasn't that heavy, but it was in a big box. I think in the 15 minutes it took to ride it to Castro it must have leaked on an envelope going to 121 Spear. I told them it was juice.

My favorite part about the whole affair was the writing on the box:

0 Kidneys
Spleen.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

November 20, 2007

Riding the shuttle, I looked up from playing chess on my blackberry and noticed how clear it was this morning. No barking from the dog, no smog...


I picked up ten downtown tags in the office this morning - paychecks. They were all really close together and I knocked them out in half an hour or so. I saw this truck with a furnace while dropping the 90 New Mo[ntgomery].

Crossed the street to get a closer look. Maybe its for melting tar or something. Anyway, was weird to see an open flame in public.

A few minutes later next to 333 Market, I saw another flaming device in the middle of a construction site. For tar, maybe?


Good thing it's next to some oxygen tanks.


After I cleaned up downtown, things were unusually slow and I hung out at the statue for half an hour. I forget the guy with the cup's name, but he's fast. I first met him at QCR and and a few times since. These two were talking about their bands and music.

The guy on the bike works for Expresso I think, but I don't know him.


Don't know who's bike this is.

It was a chilly day. Sitting around for so long in the shade was chilling. After awhile I headed down to the courtyard of 50 Fremont and busted out my lunch. I've been packing a lunch for the past two weeks in an effort to save money.



Rice with spam, kimchee and some pickled radish. I'm starting to get sick of this. Need to switch it up soon. Maybe I'll make beans next.


Had a rush pickup at 545 Sansome. These Trigon intercoms are the worst. Such a shitty operating system if you can call it that. It takes way to many complicated steps to find and call a company on these bitches.


After another rush pickup at Wells Fargo on Mont[gomery], I picked up a third rush, (all three going to city hall) from Gladstone Properties at 177 Post and checked out the rooftop garden for the first time.Nine stories isn't the highest rooftop garden (Mechanics Bank on Sansome is my current favorite) but it's a nice respite from the rush on the ground.

City Hall. Willie Brown really did a good job cleaning it up. Sure, SF had bigger problems to throw money at, but in hindsight, I'm kind of glad he dropped a bunch of money on sprucing up City Hall.

One of my drops was in the Mayor's office, the door in the middle.




Had a drop at 1111 Gogh, St. Mary's Cathedral. It looks like a washing machine agitator.


It's cool.

Headed back downtown to drop the return from City Hall back to 177 Post. The lady I gave it to said she was glad they (the accessor or something) accepted it without a notary.

I used to work for this hot dog slanging company. When I started messengering last year, the vendors would hook up the free dogs all the time. Those times are over. Now they're tight asses.


During my morning downtown run, I picked up a 505 Parnassus. After I dropped that, I ate the rest of my lunch at the UCSF Cafeteria on the second floor, rode down to my old hood (9th and Judah) and got a donut at the donut shop on the corner. The guy remembered that I'd moved to Berkeley and asked how it was. He wondered if there were "a lot of protests all the time". I told him not in my area.

Anyway, the above shot is around the 1700 Block of Vicente. Had a pickup at Edgewood Children's center at 1801. I took the bus up 19th - free ride - to the top and rode done. Lazy. Plus I had to take a dump and didn't feel like mashing up the hill.


Unloaded at Edgewood then was told to head over to Caritas Manegement at 1358 Valencia for an exclusive pickup (tags from cheapest (least time sensitive) to most expensive (most urgent): Sameday, Express, Now, Exclusive). My dispatcher recommended cutting over the Twin Peaks area by way of Portola and heading down Clipper.

At Twin Peaks. I heard that's a good TV show. Heidi Blais, the girl I was in love with in Jr. High, recommended it way back then. She was advanced.




At the top of Clipper, about to head down.

It was an awesome ride down. Clipper ends at Dolores.
s

That's the street I went down and why my job is fucking sweet.


I made it over to Caritas and picked up an envelope. Is that latin for something?


Then I had a pickup at 55 Filmo'. Here's my grip for skitching up Market, up the little hill around Oak. I have mixed feelings about skitching and will go into them more in another post. The main two are fear and exhilaration though.
.

The union at 55 Fillmo'.
\Then I had an interesting pickup at Guitar Center on 1645 Van [Ness]. A pair of drum sticks. The third exclusive in a row. The girls at the counter thought it was funny that someone at Levi's would send a messenger out to pick these up. They ended up not charging for them. But we charged $41.51.

Above are the drumsticks in my bag, and the copy of "Royalty" magazine I picked up that morning at UBOC (where I got the 1111 Gogh tag). That magazine is a trip. Some royal women are really smoking hot. If that's the result of inbreeding, do more of it I say.



The view from the 36th floor of One Market's Spear Tower. Such a clear day.


This is how and where I lock my bike up when I deliver to Levi's on 1155 Battery. Fucking annoying.

Monday, November 19, 2007

my bike

This is the bike I've worked on since I bought it new last year. A joy to ride.

Not too many original parts left on it. Probably around two thousand miles. Shit, maybe 5,000.

The Statue


Simply called "the statue", one of the three main hang out spots for bike messengers downtown during the day. Hard to see, but somebody put neckties on the dudes over the weekend.

Seated are Ducky from Spirit and Wendy from No BS.

Today was overcast and chilly till about two. Usually I don't have too much time to sit around for long stretches but today was slow. I think people have already left town for Thanksgiving.

Even though I think I did less than 15 tags, I still made three separate trips from downtown all the way out to Pac Heights. One to 2880 Broadway, one to 3080 Pacific and a third to 39 Mesa in the Presidio.

Stairs at the end of Broadway overlooking Marina

The Marina is a ghetto for rich people.