411
Friday at work was a real drag. It was very warm outside, which makes it extra difficult for me to sit inside and work. I love warm whether. Anything above 85 degrees is awesome. Also, this is a pretty slow time of year as most people involved with automotive design and engineering work around the Metro Detroit area are taking vacations. Also, since I've announced that I am leaving the company it seems that my co-workers are not really interested in speaking with me. Depressingly, the guy I normally talk to the most has taken off for vacation to visit his family in Malaysia. So, things are slow. It's just me sitting here. I thought I'd try to fall asleep, but I just can't fall asleep at work. I don't know why. I can be almost dead from fatigue and lack of sleep and still not fall asleep at work. I'd been out late on Thursday night hanging out, watching TV and drinking a nice port wine so I was a little hung over. The day just dragged on, and on, and on. Finally 5 o'clock came around and I split.
I went and got some nice take out Sushi from University Foods on Warren near the Lodge. It's the only place within the downtown area that has Sushi, as far as I know. I came home, enjoyed my sushi dinner and fell asleep.
Jeremy came over around 9:30pm distressed and wanting to go "get loaded". I agreed with him that this would be a good idea. We went over to the Majestic Complex and met up with some old friends for a mutual friend's birthday celebration. I wanted to go up stairs to the Stick and see some bands, but there was too much going on downstairs. Eventually we headed over to the Lager House to meet up with Fontzepontze, who specializes in "getting loaded". For some reason there was a school bus there that a bunch of people had traveled in from somewhere north, either Waterford or White Lake -- something like that. Anyhow they had a cooler full of beer and they invited myself and my friends to hang out on the bus. We had a grand old time. I had not been on a school bus since the 10th grade when my dad started letting me drive his 1977 Suburban to school. The experience was surreal. As the bus was leaving selected members of our "getting loaded" party mooned the bus as it was driving away. The folks on the bus could be seen laughing hysterically. I'm sure we helped them have a fantastic time and managed to take a few beers off their hands at the same time.
From there I split with the "getting loaded" party and headed home. I knew I had a tough task ahead of me. I love bike riding in the hot weather. I don't know why, but it just rocks. When it's cold out it can take me anywhere from 30-45 mins to get warmed up to where I'm comfortable at a 13-15 mile an hour pace. In hot weather I can hit the ground running -- Or cycling -- You know what I mean. Anyhow, I got going at around 1:30pm on Saturdy and found myself in an adventurous mood. I drove through some of the new development areas off of E. Jefferson just past the Roostertail up through the DTE Energy plant. This is such prime real estate. Right now there's a mix of ruined and burned out homes, a few half way descent homes and scattered industrial businesses that may or may not be operational. Why Detroit is stuck with miles and mile of cement and industrial plants along it's waterfront and Chicago has miles and mile of parks and beaches, I'll never know. I guess someone has to do the dirty work.
Anyhow, I must have hit something sharp because my back tire started going flat. This was bad news because I was a good 6 miles from home at this point. Luckily, I had bought these high tech inner tubes back a few months ago that are self sealing if they get punctured. It took about 15 mins for it to stabilize after I vigorously proceeded to pump it up, but it did stabilize and was fine after that. I wasn't sure if it would hold so I headed back to the apartment and went weight lifting for awhile. I checked the tire again and it seemed to be holding steady in pressure so I went back out again. This time I just went over to Belle Isle and cruised around there about 3 times. Then I went back out on to E. Jefferson and headed downtown. I took the loop around the city from Griswold over to Michigan Ave, out to Rosa Parks, then to MLK back east to Brush, though Brush Park to Comeria Park. The Tigers were away this weekend so there was no baseball or free stuff to be had. I moved on back down to E. Jefferson to the apartment. Final tally of mileage for the day = 38 miles.
Saturday night was bizarre. Despite the obvious uncool factor of going to the same venue two nights in a row, I went to the Magic Stick to see The Von Bondies play. Kevin called me up and said he and Ross were going, so I couldn't pass up an opportunity to hang with those guys. The opening band was pretty cool. I think the name of the band was Modey Lemon. It was two guys, one on drums, the other on guitar. Kind of like the White Stripes, if they were more into old school analog effects instead of slide guitar. The guy had a cool array of ring modulators, octave dividers and various other items. Good stuff. The second band I didn't catch the name of, but the lead singer clearly thought he was Steven Tyler and the only thing holding him back was the lack of scarves on the mic stand. That's not a good thing. The Von Bondies are pretty good. They're way better than they were back in the Gold Dollar days. Much more upbeat and rocking.
After the show we were milling about outside of the stick. Ya know, making small talk, leering and women and making crude comments. All was cool until this guy with a bald head and a bunch of random tattoos busted out of the place with his girlfriend yapping really loud. Fontzepontze came out a few moments later and said that guy was in a fight with someone inside. He didn't get the details of the fight but he said someone was swinging a chair around. Suddenly a white car traveling of south on Woodward screeched to a halt, turned left very fast right towards the row of cars parked on the north bound side of Woodward. The tattooed bald guy ran up to the car and then the car ran him over! I'd never seen anything quite like it in my life. The guy just ran him over and pinned his left leg underneath the left front tire of the car. Then the guy wouldn't back off his leg. He's laying there on the ground screaming his head off. People ran up to the car and started pounding on it, kicking the doors and slamming on the windows. I swear the guys leg was pinned underneath there for a good 30-45 seconds. Which, if you can imagine your leg pinned under a full size luxury sedan is an eternity. I was standing next to two street folks who were about to ask me for some spare change when this happened. Here's the dialog I can recall:
Guy #1 "Say man, can ya help a broth..HOLY SHIT! GOOD JUMPIN' JESUS LORD THAT GUY JUST GOT RAN OVER! YOU SEE THAT? SHIT!"
Me: "Damn!"
Guy #2 "Man he won't back up, what the fuck?"
Me: "Damn!"
Normally, I don't hand out money to any street folks for ANY reason, but since we'd just shared in a traumatic Faces Of Death type situation, I gave up a few bucks.
I started to hurry myself across the street. The guy in the white car finally backed up off the guys leg. People continued to pound on the car and kick at it before the driver straitened himself out and sped off north on Woodward. I was crossing Woodward right across from the CPOP gallery. The guy just missed me by a few car lengths. I'm not afraid to admit that I ran like a little school girl. It was a bit freaky. I got in my truck and took off south on Woodward. A truly bizarre moment.
After that, I drove around trying to find some place open to get something to eat. After 2:00am in Detroit there aren't many dining options unless you want to go to Greektown, and the parking situation around there was pretty bad so I just took off and went home.
Sunday wasn't nearly as exciting. I got up early at around 11:00am (early for a sunday) and went bike riding again. This time I went up to the St. Clair Shores border again along E. Jefferson and back. It was too hot outside even for me. I ran out of water on the way back and had use someone's garden hose along Lake Shore Drive. Luckily they didn't notice and I was quite refreshed. Later that night I went over to Loomi's place and watched the WWF PPV. Pretty decent show. Could have been better, of course.
Consumer focused and quality driven,
-Hch
I went and got some nice take out Sushi from University Foods on Warren near the Lodge. It's the only place within the downtown area that has Sushi, as far as I know. I came home, enjoyed my sushi dinner and fell asleep.
Jeremy came over around 9:30pm distressed and wanting to go "get loaded". I agreed with him that this would be a good idea. We went over to the Majestic Complex and met up with some old friends for a mutual friend's birthday celebration. I wanted to go up stairs to the Stick and see some bands, but there was too much going on downstairs. Eventually we headed over to the Lager House to meet up with Fontzepontze, who specializes in "getting loaded". For some reason there was a school bus there that a bunch of people had traveled in from somewhere north, either Waterford or White Lake -- something like that. Anyhow they had a cooler full of beer and they invited myself and my friends to hang out on the bus. We had a grand old time. I had not been on a school bus since the 10th grade when my dad started letting me drive his 1977 Suburban to school. The experience was surreal. As the bus was leaving selected members of our "getting loaded" party mooned the bus as it was driving away. The folks on the bus could be seen laughing hysterically. I'm sure we helped them have a fantastic time and managed to take a few beers off their hands at the same time.
From there I split with the "getting loaded" party and headed home. I knew I had a tough task ahead of me. I love bike riding in the hot weather. I don't know why, but it just rocks. When it's cold out it can take me anywhere from 30-45 mins to get warmed up to where I'm comfortable at a 13-15 mile an hour pace. In hot weather I can hit the ground running -- Or cycling -- You know what I mean. Anyhow, I got going at around 1:30pm on Saturdy and found myself in an adventurous mood. I drove through some of the new development areas off of E. Jefferson just past the Roostertail up through the DTE Energy plant. This is such prime real estate. Right now there's a mix of ruined and burned out homes, a few half way descent homes and scattered industrial businesses that may or may not be operational. Why Detroit is stuck with miles and mile of cement and industrial plants along it's waterfront and Chicago has miles and mile of parks and beaches, I'll never know. I guess someone has to do the dirty work.
Anyhow, I must have hit something sharp because my back tire started going flat. This was bad news because I was a good 6 miles from home at this point. Luckily, I had bought these high tech inner tubes back a few months ago that are self sealing if they get punctured. It took about 15 mins for it to stabilize after I vigorously proceeded to pump it up, but it did stabilize and was fine after that. I wasn't sure if it would hold so I headed back to the apartment and went weight lifting for awhile. I checked the tire again and it seemed to be holding steady in pressure so I went back out again. This time I just went over to Belle Isle and cruised around there about 3 times. Then I went back out on to E. Jefferson and headed downtown. I took the loop around the city from Griswold over to Michigan Ave, out to Rosa Parks, then to MLK back east to Brush, though Brush Park to Comeria Park. The Tigers were away this weekend so there was no baseball or free stuff to be had. I moved on back down to E. Jefferson to the apartment. Final tally of mileage for the day = 38 miles.
Saturday night was bizarre. Despite the obvious uncool factor of going to the same venue two nights in a row, I went to the Magic Stick to see The Von Bondies play. Kevin called me up and said he and Ross were going, so I couldn't pass up an opportunity to hang with those guys. The opening band was pretty cool. I think the name of the band was Modey Lemon. It was two guys, one on drums, the other on guitar. Kind of like the White Stripes, if they were more into old school analog effects instead of slide guitar. The guy had a cool array of ring modulators, octave dividers and various other items. Good stuff. The second band I didn't catch the name of, but the lead singer clearly thought he was Steven Tyler and the only thing holding him back was the lack of scarves on the mic stand. That's not a good thing. The Von Bondies are pretty good. They're way better than they were back in the Gold Dollar days. Much more upbeat and rocking.
After the show we were milling about outside of the stick. Ya know, making small talk, leering and women and making crude comments. All was cool until this guy with a bald head and a bunch of random tattoos busted out of the place with his girlfriend yapping really loud. Fontzepontze came out a few moments later and said that guy was in a fight with someone inside. He didn't get the details of the fight but he said someone was swinging a chair around. Suddenly a white car traveling of south on Woodward screeched to a halt, turned left very fast right towards the row of cars parked on the north bound side of Woodward. The tattooed bald guy ran up to the car and then the car ran him over! I'd never seen anything quite like it in my life. The guy just ran him over and pinned his left leg underneath the left front tire of the car. Then the guy wouldn't back off his leg. He's laying there on the ground screaming his head off. People ran up to the car and started pounding on it, kicking the doors and slamming on the windows. I swear the guys leg was pinned underneath there for a good 30-45 seconds. Which, if you can imagine your leg pinned under a full size luxury sedan is an eternity. I was standing next to two street folks who were about to ask me for some spare change when this happened. Here's the dialog I can recall:
Guy #1 "Say man, can ya help a broth..HOLY SHIT! GOOD JUMPIN' JESUS LORD THAT GUY JUST GOT RAN OVER! YOU SEE THAT? SHIT!"
Me: "Damn!"
Guy #2 "Man he won't back up, what the fuck?"
Me: "Damn!"
Normally, I don't hand out money to any street folks for ANY reason, but since we'd just shared in a traumatic Faces Of Death type situation, I gave up a few bucks.
I started to hurry myself across the street. The guy in the white car finally backed up off the guys leg. People continued to pound on the car and kick at it before the driver straitened himself out and sped off north on Woodward. I was crossing Woodward right across from the CPOP gallery. The guy just missed me by a few car lengths. I'm not afraid to admit that I ran like a little school girl. It was a bit freaky. I got in my truck and took off south on Woodward. A truly bizarre moment.
After that, I drove around trying to find some place open to get something to eat. After 2:00am in Detroit there aren't many dining options unless you want to go to Greektown, and the parking situation around there was pretty bad so I just took off and went home.
Sunday wasn't nearly as exciting. I got up early at around 11:00am (early for a sunday) and went bike riding again. This time I went up to the St. Clair Shores border again along E. Jefferson and back. It was too hot outside even for me. I ran out of water on the way back and had use someone's garden hose along Lake Shore Drive. Luckily they didn't notice and I was quite refreshed. Later that night I went over to Loomi's place and watched the WWF PPV. Pretty decent show. Could have been better, of course.
Consumer focused and quality driven,
-Hch