Had Friday off work, and that presented a wonderful window of "bonus time" to install the Death Dealer's brand new engine. Poor Glen, he spent his whole afternoon helping me wrangle the thing; dismantling, swapping stators and flywheels, doing impromptu wiring and soldering, and wrestling it into the bike. Unfortunately, after the whole dirty, humid day of work, the sonofabitch wouldn't start, due to some electrical issues that eluded us. Fortunately our fellow Scooterworks buddy, mechanic extraordinaire and electrical expert Rob Hodge came over on Saturday afternoon and had the thing running in 30 minutes. And run it does, like a goddamn bat out of Hell. The thing just wants to go and go, it can't wait to get there, and it would also like to do a wheelie with every gear shift, just because it can. There's a world of difference between a top speed of 50 (before) and a comfortable cruising speed around 60 (what I should get now). We're very excited about this newfound power and snappy acceleration, and look forward to many thousands of miles of good travels with this new ticker. Trips to Michigan...hell, anywhere in the upper midwest, are now much more easily within our grasp.
Friday night Glen and I attended a party at Hodge's house in Logan Square, complete with warzone-like surroundings and plenty of mayhem as fireworks blew up inside cans, bottles, and refrigerators, were aimed down the street, sidewalk, at houses and at friends, and joined the chorus of frighteningly-loud, disturbingly-close explosives and barely-disguised gunfire in the neighborhood. A fun time, but I was glad to get out of there with my fingers, eyes, and hearing intact.
Saturday I went to the Vegan Meetup in the morning at Heartland Cafe. A nice time as always, but the food wasn't great (so no photo). After that I went skateboarding in the Loyola Park area with Dave (of Vegan Represent fame).
Naz spent a goodly amount of time compiling another wonderful little skate video (if you've got a modem, it might not be a good idea unless you want to let it load overnight...it's 9mb) and you can watch it here. This one's got titles and theme music and everything. Beautiful stuff. Naz and I hung out on Saturday evening...a much-anticipated dinner at the Handlebar, then tea at Filter, and finally an italian soda and maybe the best peanut butter cookie I've ever had at Pick Me Up.
Today I went to the morning service at the Buddhist Temple of Chicago (a nice relaxing hour, though I have no real interest in Buddhism) and then to lunch with Jennifer at Mysore Woodlands for Indian food, since she'd never had it before. I was thrilled to introduce a recent vegan convert to the wonderful world of Indian food, and she loved it (as most do). Stupid me forgot the camera, so I can't show you the ridiculous amount of to-die-for food we were brought. :( I did some more reading this afternoon and have been here at the office for the last few hours e-mailing, web surfing, and doing this silly update.
Posted by pj at July 6, 2003 11:46 PMthanks fer skoolin me. you are most patient and righteous. i had great fun.
Posted by: dandy lion at July 7, 2003 12:52 AMgood morning, pj! off to work now, pj! have a good day, pj! (thats right i have a job for the week, finally i will have some money.)
Posted by: Grand Master Sarah at July 7, 2003 08:43 AMMy anger is a gift.
Posted by: KHF at July 7, 2003 10:35 AMNow I have "Freedom" by Rage in my head. I can now only imagine PJ post- that new featured image going crazy in his apartment to the horror of Tatsu and Yu while Rage plays in the background. I'll edit it and shoot that too.
Posted by: Naz at July 7, 2003 10:42 AMDave: I had a blast too. Did you go buy a "modern" board?
Sarah: that's so awesome! Just like you. Now you can afford to come to Chicago to make out with me?
Kurt: it sure is. Use it to make some intense new paintings.
Naz: Rage Agin the Machine? I'm not so much into them. Something more along the lines of Devilock would work fairly well though.
Posted by: PJ at July 7, 2003 03:15 PMpj. you are the one with the working scooter that can ride for thousands of miles. but surely, once i make some money that i can actually spend on a ticket, i will come make out with you. promise.
Posted by: Mrs. Thunder at July 7, 2003 09:46 PMalas i did not upgrade my stick, yet. i went rather to the army surplus for shoes but left frustrated. i plan on going to windward soon and hopefully they'll have some shoes too. now where's my piggy bank?
Posted by: new wave dave at July 7, 2003 10:11 PMPJ, did you know that the "archive" section to your past entries only links back to June 10th or so... so we, the many fine readers of your web publication, can only look back so far...
Sorry if I am telling you sssomething you already know or don't want to hear. (I picture you hitting your computer right now...)
Posted by: KJ Hmielf at July 8, 2003 10:15 AMI feel the need to comment:
G.R. Singing Telegram - nice touch. The memories......
Buh buh buhcuz yoo can s-say it better...
Kurt: Click on the time stamp of an entry, then you can navigate back through older ones. I need to fix that archive shit, but in the meantime, you can see the recent MT entries that way.
Posted by: PJ at July 8, 2003 12:50 PMGrand Rapids, Minnesota or Michigan?
Seriously curious!
Posted by: Andrew R. Jenkins at July 8, 2003 02:08 PMMichigan, REPRESENT!!!!!
Posted by: The Band of the Hand at July 8, 2003 03:26 PMThat's good. I'd hate to think there were more people out there from Grand Rapids, Minnesota. There really should only be one or two. That place is crazy. -a.
Posted by: Andrew R. Jenkins at July 8, 2003 05:19 PM
