Night owls haunt

I lied, We did some stuff in 2011

2012-01-20T12:39:00.000-08:00

It's been rough having to work, and stupid grownup stuff like that. Road trip life is so much better then real life...

Anyway, some fun stuff still happens, I just forget to share. Here is a quick overview of a few things we did in 2011.

In celebration of our countries independence we went canoe camping in south Jersey. Hans, Carl, Cookie, Bella, me, and a bunch of our friends. It ended up being between 14 and 18 people. LOTS OF FUN!!!

Bebs

We found a rope swing that stretched across the creek.

On July 27th Jessica and I went to my parents house to get out of the city.

A few weeks later Seth and I did the same thing. August 6 2011.

Bella, Carl and I went to New Jersey to pick apples and make apple pies. October 4 2011

Cheesin.

WOOF!

November 12 2011, Brooks and I went to New Jersey for my Mothers birthday. Caitlin, Zoe, my uncle Danny and aunt Krissy flew from California and surprised my mom for her birthday too. We did the usual New Jersey activities while we were there.

Zoe and Caitlin.

Cheesin, November 14 2011

Thanksgiving, November 24 2011.

D-Lish.

Lenny Bear.

Joe Boy.

Seth Jessica, and Cookie were the orphans this year for Christmas in New Jersey. December 25 2011.

With purpose!

The Hesselein holiday way.

Maggie.

Winston brought over a few REAL guns.

Jenny.

Aunt Louise cheesin.

Mutti. (that's my Grandma for anyone who doesn't know.)

Are you gonna spend all christmas like that cooks...

Anyway, that's EVERYTHING we did in 2011.

Sunday Gunday

2011-03-20T19:15:00.000-07:00

The weather has taken a turn for the better so several of us decided to go down to my parents house for the weekend. Brooks, Jessica, Valerie, AJ, and I. We left New York Friday night. We had dinner with my parents then we went out to the tree house and had a bonfire. The evening was a combination of whiskey, firecrackers, and double razzing. It got kinda out of control. "My father woke up the next day and found a bra in one of their gardens" out of control... Jessica and I went for a walk through the old nursery and took a couple photos.

Saturday we woke up and drove to Red White and Blue, The best thrift store in the tristate area. Then we drove over the bridge to Pennsylvania to buy some more fire crackers because we used almost all of the ones we had left Friday night. We got back to the farm and relaxed with my fathers rifle.
Cooks and I.

Jess, The hood and the heels are kinda sketch, but also oddly sexy. I don't know if I want to ask you to stop, or to keep it up.

Jess.

There's Val.

That's my cousin Johnny.

AJ back there.

Not sure whats happening in this one.

My old man came out and took a couple desk pops with us too.

This picture says it all.

Its nice to get out of the city and relax on the farm. I think this is going to be a regular thing this summer. Thanks Mom and Dad for letting us come down. Its always so much fun hanging out with you.

The Sledding Adventure

2011-01-19T19:51:00.000-08:00

Saturday night Erin, Bella, Noah and I went to my parents house in New Jersey. We wanted to get out of the city for a day, and since there was still ~4 to 6 inches of snow on the ground just enough to go sledding. Sunday morning we woke up, grabbed some good 'ol boy outfits, grabbed the toboggan and a case of beer, then drove out to a place on the nursery I used to sled at with my brothers when we were kids.
Had some white balance issues in the beginning.

Much better.

wolf...

After we sledded we walked to an empty barn near the hill and checked it out. Not much going on in it...

OK maybe a little going on.

Snow angels anyone?

Cart wheels anyone?

The face melter.

Back to the city.

It was a really fun day. Totally reminded me of my childhood, +girls +beer. Its good to get out of the city once in a while.

MOAR!!!!

Ansel, I hope this loads better for you.

Thanksgiving

2010-11-30T17:29:00.000-08:00

You may or may not know that there was a mass exodus from San Francisco to New York this year. Along with Brooks and I, Jessica, Erin, Ansel, Bella, and Noah moved here. All of these orphans weren't planning on going back to California to spend Thanksgiving with their families so I invited them all to come to my parents house this year. Jessica, Brooks, Erin, Bella, Noah, and Holly all came down. We arrived Wednesday night and stayed until Sunday morning.
Thursday morning we woke up and round up the troops.
Bella.

Noah.

Erin.

Holly on the left with blond hair, Mom in the orange sweatshirt.

We went to the grocery store to get some last minute provisions and a bottle of whiskey. On the way back it STARTED TO SNOW?!?!
This is the "Bella's first snow" dance.

Jessica and Hans.

Bad girl...

Cookie.

Pray to the earth mother that there are enough trees in the woods for us to cut down tomorrow.

There will be!

There's my pops.

WOOF!

It got REAL crazy when we were all cooking in my moms kitchen. Everybody made something.

Well I guess this explains where I get it from.

Ut Oh! Whats that look?

Oh my!

On the left is Pia, one of Hans' oldest friends. On the right is my mothers sister Aunt Louise. In the center is the founder of the feast, My mother's mother Mutti.

Dinner was AMAZING! I forgot to take pictures of us eating but take my word for it, it was really great.
The next morning we sat around the living room for a while and recouped for Friday's debauchery.

Marshall randomly showed up. I don't think any of us have seen him for about eight years, but he's basically one of the sons of the family.

After we finished a few gallons of coffee we dressed up in some sweet redneck gear we have laying around the shop (see Erin's attire) and went out to cut down trees and to build a burning man for Friday night's bonfire.
Can't forget to say hi to the asses.

We decided to build a burning man to start the bonfire. Somehow it turned into us building a crucifix and that the burning man was brooks.

Here's my old tree house "the dope den" as my father so eloquently named it, the wall on the left fell off, and the windows have all been broken out, but its mostly still there.

WHO LET THAT CHICK GET THE CHAINSAW?!?!

OH whew, that's not a chick, its Bella. We're safe.

I see the resemblance.

Yup Brooks.

You can tell its him because he looks REALLY PISSED OFF!

Bebs.

We kept Brooks' head.

Justin and Scott.

This is when the night started getting crazy. Bebs and I started fighting a little to hard.

Hans and Joe.

This is me Tripping Bebs.

I guess he hit the ground pretty hard and actually got really hurt. "What do I do?" I'll just cover the evidence with leaves.

And run away.

I've had some really fun Thanksgivings in the past but being back on the east coast and spending it with my family mixed with some of my closest friends really made this one the best Thanksgiving I've ever had. Thank you all so much for coming.

Thrilladelphia

2010-10-25T21:21:00.000-07:00

The second weekend of October, Friday the 8th to Sunday the 10th I went to Philadelphia with Hans and Emily. A friend of Hans' from high school, Terry, Was having his annual party called Thrilladelphia. At the party a bunch of Hans' friends, and all get together at Terry's apartment in Philadelphia and have a weekend long bash filled with beer, cheese steaks, and board games. I happened to have the weekend and I was on the right coast to attend, so I decided to. We arrived in Philly Friday night around 10pm.

Hare.

Long time no see for some old high school friends.

Molly.

Don't know who or why, but it wasn't the kind of party that people were running around with hockey sticks. This guy was the exception.

Terry, the founder of the feast.

After a few beers some catching up we went to a dance party in a really rad warehouse a few blocks away.

The warehouse had a trophy room. No big deal...

That sweater is the definition of freedom!

Rob.

Fashion in Philly is obviously decades ahead of the rest of the country.

And the locals are really friendly.

The next day we woke up and walked around town a bit.

We went to one of my favorite places on earth, The museum of natural history.

They had a butterfly exhibit. So ill!

Jazz would have loved the shell show! According to Terry the people who are in the Philadelphia shell collecting club are a little wild when they have their annual event and I guess they have been kicked out of several hotels in Philadelphia for getting out of hand. He says the only place that they can do their annual shell show now is at the Museum of Natural History, and it has to be a dry event.

This looks like its Philadelphia's version of Delores Park.

Somebody is doing it right with their bike warmer. So sick!

No Thrilladelphia would be complete without at least one nerd down. This years game of choice? POWER GRID!

Everyone was taking this game very seriously.

That's Jeremy.

Guys, thank you so much for having us and showing us such a good time. Hopefully we will all see each other soon on the field stomping New Egypt's asses at the Turkey Bowl 2010!

MOAR!!!!

Carl's Birthday

2010-10-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

The evening of Saturday September 26th Carl invited a bunch of his friends over to my parents house for a bonfire next to the tree houses.
Maggie.

There's my brosef Carl.

Hans.

Demo.

Roy Boy.

Lemansiki.

Under Hans' tree house at night.

Jeff.

Damon.

Bebs.

Carl the fire's getting a little hot, can you try and smother it with that pallet?

Tkacs.

Tractor.

The fire got a little out of control...

Bebs was standing to close to the fire. Only one way to learn him. Throw a full lighter into the fire. I got a picture of it as the lighter exploded.

Happy Birthday broham.

Grandpep's barn

2010-10-19T19:09:00.001-07:00

I went back to New Jersey for my brother Carl's birthday the weekend of Friday September the 24th to Sunday the 26th. (his birthday is the 26th) Cookie stayed in the city because he would rather work then have fun... Anyway, Friday night was pretty chill, we just hung out with a few family and friends. We woke up Saturday, Hans, Emily, Demo and I went with the box truck to my grandfathers shed and grabbed a few of the last things that needed to be taken.
There's Demo.

Hans sweeping off a table we're taking.

Ouija

This is an OLD ass freezer from back in the oldin days. So big that its attached to the floor.

Emily and Hans.

This place was crazy full a few weeks ago. My uncle spent that time cleaning it so the family can sell the property. This is what it looks like clean.

My Grandparents house. Now this place is so fucking rad. My great grandfather lived in this house. My grandparents did too, and my mother and her siblings were raised in the house. They did renovations on part of the ceiling of the house a number of years ago and they saw something lodged into one of the rafters so they decided to pull it out. Well it was a cannon ball. They found two in fact, cannon balls that were shot into the house DURING THE REVOLUTIONARY WAR!!! so rad. Anyway, this is what the house looks like.

The backyard.

The side yard.

Demo.

We moved

2010-09-27T18:22:00.000-07:00

I know its been a while but I always say that so I'm not going to apologize anymore, I'll just sum up some stuff that has gone on lately. Brooks and I have been in New York for the last month looking for an apartment. We found one in Bed Stuy, a neighborhood know for a few things like Biggie Smalls and Jay Z. We live one block from the Marcy Projects. Its kinda rough round here. Anyway, Wednesday September 1st we signed our new lease and that night I went down to New Jersey to get our stuff ready. I took some pictures Thursday.
Here are a few pictures of my parents farm in New Jersey.

The backyard.

The pond behind their house.

I picked some tomatoes from my mom's vegetable garden.

Moar farm.

This is in the front yard...

Brooks showed up later that evening and we loaded a bunch of stuff into the back of the box truck. This is us taking a break on the front porch in my grandpa's chairs.

We had to load the rest of our stuff with a forklift

This was the sunset on our way back up to New York.

On another note I'll have you know that New York is turning us into refined gentlemen.

Oh, and to finish the post, I came home a couple days ago and Brooks was on the floor in his underwear TAKING APART THE TV!

MOAR!!!!

Pirate Extravaganza and Macrame Event

2010-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

So the last posting of "Creek Sawin" was to lead up to Hanses birthday party the Pirate Extravaganza and Macrame Event. Hans wrote an invitation Email that said this.

All,
You are cordially invited to attend the 7th annual "Pirate Extravaganza and Macrame Event," where we will boldly sail the perilous waters of the Crosswicks Creek followed by a macrame party where we can all share our favorite decorative knot creations. The party will begin on Friday evening, July 30 and conclude on Sunday afternoon, August 1. Everyone is welcome to join us for as little or as much of the event as they wish. For New Yorkers, trips down to Allentown, via NJ Transit trains will be scheduled for Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. The weekend schedule is as follows:

Friday night
Late registration and check in
New and innovative macrame techniques lecture
Irrigation pond skinny-dip
Casual drinks

Saturday
Pirate Canoe Event
Macrame skill share
New knotting technology lecture series
knotted textile bazaar
Fruit preserves yardsale

Saturday night
Grill sesh
Dirttrack racing
Attempt to break guiness record of world's largest macrame pot holder
Bonfire / Partay!!!

Sunday
Breakfast
Nature tour
Closing remarks

I'll coordinate trips to NJ when the date gets closer. Please let me know if you think that you'll be able to make it.

Hugs,
Hans

The party was the weekend of Friday July 30th to Sunday August 1st. A bunch of his friends came down from New York to our parents house in New Jersey Friday evening. We had dinner then we drank around a bonfire until around 5am Friday night. We woke up the next morning around 10am. Ugh... Anyway, after breakfast we all dressed up and hit the creek. There ended up being about 17 of us in eight canoes.

Dude, so much fun! Its great to be a kid again.

Creek Sawin'

2010-08-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

So my brother Hans' birthday is July 26th. For his birthday party He's planning on having a pirate party extravaganza fully loaded with canoe ride down Crosswicks Creek. Well The creek isn't very wide and lots of trees have fallen over it and they've never been removed. In order to get the canoes down the creek without having to carry them over logs every 50 yards we had to go down the creek a few days before the party and chainsaw trees out of the way. On Thursday July 29th you take two canoes, four boys, a chainsaw and 12 beers and this is what you get.

Butterflies kept landing on Matt's back.

We're spending the day acting like men but as soon as we see a spider we freak out like a bunch of school girls. In our defense it was a big ass spider.

MAKE A FULCRUM!!!!

This is my brother Hans.

We did it!

Someone was doing the same thing we were but evidently their chainsaw couldn't handle this tree.

There's Matt.

Sooooooo much fun. Sean, I wish you were here, this is the kind of thing you'd love to do.

Yacht Club!

2010-08-21T12:30:00.000-07:00

So the cross country trip is over. We spent the rest of the week in New Jersey just relaxing at my parents farm. You'd be surprised how after a trip across the country that could probably be debated as a vacation we actually need some R&R. In our defense this is basically what happened when we got to each city. We arrive and get to a friends house. We tell the person about the wild and crazy things that we've just done in the last city and they're like, "I'm going to make sure this is the best city you go to on your trip!"
They then proceed to party with us really hard. We do tons of crazy things, anything and everything that's offered to us. Part of this trip was about not saying no to any possible experience. People would say, "hey do you want to go do this?" to which we would respond in unison, "YUP!" (I don't literally mean everything. There is an extent to the stuff we will do. Also I don't want you to think I'm talking about drugs because we also didn't experiment with any of those, just adventures.) Anyway back to the story. We then spend two to eight days adventuring and partying with our friends in that city then we leave and they get to go back to normal life speed. We however go to a new city and start the whole thing again. By the time we got to New Jersey We needed a vacation from vacation. That's where Sara Champagne came in!
Sara is a friend of our friend who lives in New York. We've never met her but we got in contact with her during our cross country adventure. She would email and text us, and we became good friends with her too. When we got to New Jersey she asked if we wanted to meet her in New York, take a bus with her to Washington DC and go boating with her.... YUP!
We went up to New York, jumped on a Chinatown bus and drove down to DC. We arrived around midnight.
This is the first thing we saw.

We went to Sara's friend Guy's house and stayed up late acquainting ourselves. Guy is the one who owns the boat, I think you can tell which one he is in this picture. That's Sara in the back too.

I didn't take a lot of pictures of DC, but I did take some.

Ahhhhh, the Yacht Club. My old stomping grounds.

This is my life story. I think I put about seven layers of sunscreen that day, and I still left my shirt on.

This ones for you Chazz.

Man overboard!

I stayed in the cabin for a lot of the day. I'm not made for this weather.

Thank you Sara and Guy for having us! The yacht club was a great way to unwind.

MOAR!!!!

Eastbound and down

2010-08-21T11:52:00.000-07:00

So we left Detroit Tuesday July 20th and drove straight through to New Jersey. Its about a ten hour drive. Ohio wasn't a very exciting state to drive through. In its defense the police made us leave with a bad taste in 0ur mouths.

The state was pretty beautiful. It wasn't the states fault that we were upset. We were driving down the freeway and we got pulled over by a SUV state trooper. We were sitting in the car and the trooper motioned for Brooks to get out and come back behind the van with him. Brooks went back there and they talked for a little while. After a few minutes a second state trooper pulled up behind the first car. I was watching through the rear view mirror when the trooper opened the back door and sat Brooks in the cop car. That's when he came back to the van and asked for the insurance and registration. I handed it to him and he asked me to step out of the van and come back there with him. The two troopers brought me back to the second SUV and asked me to sit in the back seat. It was when I walked past the car that they had sat Brooks in that I read the side of the car it said, "Ohio State Police K-9 Unit." shit...
According to Brooks the first police officer asked him if there were any drugs in the car. Brooks said no. Then the officer took the dog out of his vehicle and walked it around our van. When it got to the driver side door it sat down, evidently they don't train the dogs to bark when they smeel drugs anymore, they train them to sit. That's about when the third cop car showed up.
The officer came back to Brooks and said, "My dog is telling me that there are drugs in your vehicle. Do you have any idea why it would be?"
"Well I have a grinder which is probably under my seat. Its been used so it probably smells like weed."
"We're not looking for personal use, we're looking for more then that. We're going to search your vehicle now."
We sat in the cop cars for about a half hour as the cops searched for the drugs they thought we were trafficking from California to the east coast. Alas their search was in vein. They went through everything. Our tool boxes, our DVD box, our suitcases of clothing, EVERYTHING. When they were done they threw everything in a huge pile, let us out and let us on our way. They said to Brooks, "You might want to get rid of that grinder or clean it out. If you get pulled over again another cop can arrest you for that."
I guess the only thing good that came out of the situation was that they didn't bust us for the grinder, and they didn't even confiscate it. We both sat in the car and the first thing we said was, "I guess we have to go to a truck stop and straighten our van out." I have mixed feelings about the whole ordeal.
Next state was Pennsylvania. Man that state is pretty big, and there is a lot of nothing going on in most of it. I mean that in a good way. It was just east coast forest as far as the eye could see for most of the state. We need to go camping soooooon.

This is what most of the state looked like, beautiful.

MOAR!!!!

We arrived at my parents house around 11pm. The drive is finally over... The trip across the country was by far the most amazing 2 months of my life. I can't easily describe what we've been through, but I hope the blog has given you a rough idea of what we've been through. I want to thank everyone we left on the west coast, everyone we visited across the country and everyone we met on the trip. Meeting you all has been amazing. East coast we're excited to be here, this isn't the end of our trip, its just the beginning of the next part. I'm going to try to keep updating the blog with fun and exciting things that we do as we're here in New York. It probably wont get updated as often as it was on the road but please keep an eye on it every once in a while. Fun things will continue happen!

Save the Depot?

2010-08-10T12:56:00.000-07:00

This is the third blog post about Detroit. I recommend you read the first then the second posting before you read this one.
The Michigan central depot is the topic of much debate in Detroit. It was built in 1913 and at the time of its completion was the largest train station in the world. It was designed by the Warren & Wetmore and Reed and Stem firms who also designed New York City's Grand Central Terminal. It must have been a truly awe inspiring building in its prime. It still is, the view from the outside is amazing, but does no justice to the structure when you are actually in it. In 1975 the depot was added to the national register of historic buildings. But in 1988 the depot was closed. Detroit City Council voted in 2009 to demolish the building. There has since been an outcry against the demolition of the building and even lawsuits against the city because the depot is on the national register of historic buildings. What will happen to the abandoned depot? I can't say, but you'll be able to tell from the photos that the building is so dilapidated that it is probably beyond repair. On Monday July 19th we snuck into the building and took a look around.
This is the outside front of the Train Depot.

This is the rear of the building. The tracks go over that overpass above the street. We had to sneak into the Depot through a broken wall under those tracks.

Under the tracks.

In the basement of the Depot.

This is where we started to get into the main lobby/waiting room.

There's kevin in the bottom right hand corner to give you an idea of the scale.

I don't know how or why but literally every single window in the whole building has been broken. Great job...

18 stories to the roof.

These pictures were taken in the tower on the way up.

There are the train tracks in the back that we snuck under. In the distance is the bridge to Canada, and Windsor Canada on the other side of the Detroit river.

I love this picture for some reason.

The roof.

Downtown from the roof.

I think that's for the elevator.

See how green Detroit is becoming.

I don't remember where Kevin said this was, but those buildings in the distance are in a neighborhood that according to him has the worst air quality in any city in the country.

Elevator.

View of the lobby from above.

This is between the lobby and the tower.

This is the back of the building.

Amazing... Its a shame that it has gotten to the point its at now. But there are probably more important things for the city to spend its money one then saving the Train Depot that is barely still standing.

The first warehouse

2010-08-10T11:28:00.001-07:00

This is the second posting for Detroit. I'm not sure if I should have done them in opposite order so you come to the general post first then this one then the Train Depot, but I'm going to do it this way to go with the flow of the rest of the blog. If you haven't read the first post please do so first. This is the second post, then the Train Depot should be the third.
Anyway, Sunday July 18th we found a HUGE abandoned building right on the water. There was a hole in the fence right in front of it so we snuck around in it for a while. Listen I'm not a pussy usually, but everything about this was terrifying. Most of the building was really dark. It was obvious that people were living in parts of the building, and just the general atmosphere of Detroit didn't help.
This is the abandoned building.

This is inside, first floor.

Notice Brooks is walking around with a weapon? Yeah, that scary.

I don't think those cranes aren't being used anymore. That's the bridge to Canada.

We found some pictures and files in a box, there's Kevin.

There were offices in the front of the building on the second floor and up. The back of the building was more warehouse style space.

That's us.

The building next to that one didn't have any doors so we walked in and found that it was full of perfectly good lumber. Is it abandoned? Is it just being sheltered in that building? I don't know but there was a ton of really good wood in there.

That's it.

Motor City

2010-08-10T08:50:00.000-07:00

Detroit was an amazing climax to the trip across the country. We enjoyed everywhere we went and had fun in every city we went to. But there was something about Detroit that made it a really amazing, and surreal part of the trip. Detroit is going to be a three part post because we took so many pictures of the abandoned buildings that we snuck into and we don't want to leave anything out. The City is going to be the first part, the first building we snuck into the second, and the Train Depot will be the third.
We want to start this post by saying that not all of Detroit is the way we're describing it in this post. I think our interpretation and experience in Detroit may be a little misleading. I don't mean that we are making anything up. But the most interesting part of Detroit to us was the deterioration of the city. That's what we spent most of our time checking out. The focus of this posting is mostly on that and it isn't the only aspect of the city, its just the most prominent aspect of Detroit. There is a lot of art and a new culture rising in Detroit as young people move into the city to explore space and mediums that can't be utilized the way they can in Detroit. You take a major city and bring it to its knees, remove most business, most money, most of the jobs, and most of the people and you have the shell of a city with barely anything left. The possibilities in Detroit feel endless. If you have the means to support yourself, the city has really interesting things to offer that are almost impossible to find in any other city.
According to what we've been told Detroit had a population of around 1.5 million people in its prime. Now there are about 800 thousand people, roughly half of what it was. On paper the unemployment rate is around 20%, but the mayor of Detroit has publicly stated that he thinks its closer to 40%-50%. One in Three homes in Detroit are abandoned. Detroit is separated from Canada by the Detroit river. The city on the other side of the river is Windsor Canada. Someone told us that there are three homes for sale in Windsor for $5,000 and all three of them are trailer homes. In Detroit there are over 12,000 homes for sale for $5,000. That is why there is so much potential in Detroit. There is a surplus of space and its all pennies on the dollar. The only problem is making a living once you're there.
The first night we got there we met up with a gentleman named Kevin. He's the brother of my brothers friend. Kevin moved to Detroit eight days before we got there so like us he was really interested in exploring the city. That first night we went to a party downtown. It was being held in the only synagogue in Detroit. We got there and there were a ton of people on the sidewalk and on the street eating and drinking. It was weird because police kept driving by and telling people to get out of the street, but they didn't seem to care that there was a big ass party and that people were drinking in public.

THE PARTY.
Then a marching band started playing in the middle of the party. They weren't very good, but it was wild to say the least.

Then we went upstairs and explored the synagogue. The top two floors were empty.

But there were some pews and an alter (or whatever it is in a synagogue). Perfect place for a photo shoot.

There was a keg at the party but the line to get to it was really long, and it was in the hottest room in the building, so Brooks and I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to go find some beer at a liquor store. Even in a city like Detroit you'd think that liquor stores wouldn't be difficult to find right? WRONG! We walked down to one intersection on a busy street nothing, we walked down to another on a busy street, nope. That's where we saw the homeless dude. "Look there's a homeless guy, if anyone knows where to get booze its him." as he staggered over to us I asked him if he knew where a liquor store was. He said, *gurgle* *gurgle* *rumble* *blaaaah*. "Wait what?" That's when he lifted his head up and stuck his finger over the Tracheotomy in his neck. Then we could understand what he was saying. He whispered, "Yeah there's one a block down there just on the left, you can't miss it, can you give me a few dollars?"
"Listen dude, I don't really want to get lost so we'll give you $5 if you'll take us to the liquor store."
"OK, this way."
So we followed him for a while. We were walking around downtown Detroit following a homeless guy who was staggering back and forth on the sidewalk, sometimes he'd wander into the street so we followed like, "Oh, we're crossing here?" Then he'd stagger back onto the same side of the street. "Oh, you just can't walk in a straight line..." A lot of the streets he took us down were completely black until cars drove down because most of the street lights weren't on and so many buildings were empty so there wasn't any city glow. Walking around downtown Detroit was one of the most terrifying things I've ever done. We finally got back to a busy street that we followed the homeless dude across. There were a few people standing across there talking in a few groups. He walked up to them and asked, "Do you know where there's a liquor store around here?"
"YOU SON OF A BITCH! thanks a lot man..." we said to him. Then we turned to a girl who was sitting in front of the diner on the corner and we asked her if she knew where the liquor store was around there. She said,"Yeah right down there on the right" I asked her to elaborate because I didn't want to get poor directions and get lost in that city. She stood up and walked over to the street pointed and said, "do you see that sign with the blinking lights on it about 4 blocks down there? That's the liquor store. You're driving right?"
"No we're walking."
"Don't go down there."
"Seriously? I can see it from here."
"That's Kedzie, you don't want to walk down there. Well, do you have a knife?"
"No"
"Then you have no business going down there. Trust me!"
Needless to say that was all of the advise we needed, we walked back to the party. On the way people driving by would yell at us out the windows of their cars. We walked past a dude started shadow boxing to words us as we walked by. It was really crazy! The next day we wandered around to find a diner for breakfast. We found one and I had to take a picture of the menu. Not because the things on the menu were that special, but because the prices were right!

The rest of the trip was spent mostly driving around different neighborhoods in Kevin's truck, or on mopeds looking at houses and spaces in the city.
Almost all of these buildings are abandoned.

Kevin told us a story about a friend of his that bought two houses next door to each other for $1. This is the picture of the two 50cent houses. He's going to salvage anything he can from the house on the left then bulldoze it and try to rebuild the house on the right.

Burned out abandoned school.

There were signs that said "no standing" all over the city. I'm not really sure why.

Tires just abandoned on the side of the street.

Taking it easy.

Abandoned church.

This building goes on all the way down as far as you can see, about 5 blocks. The whole thing is abandoned.

Another abandoned school.

Garbage just chilling on the side of the street. There is a home opposite of this, it was probably just dumped there and no one has come to clean it up.

I feel like this is a symbol of Detroit life.

Like I said, it was really surreal to come from a town like San Francisco that not a single inch is being unused, to go to a town like Detroit where so much of it is just falling apart, unused, and being turned from man made structure back to trees and grass, Its a testament to the reliance of nature. That's something that is really nice about Detroit is that so much of the town is being turned back into green space. Evidently there is a real problem with arson in Detroit. People will just go torch a house for shits. So to combat the problem the city will just bulldoze houses that are too far gone to repair. Then the property will just become open field. These videos were taken not far from downtown where ten or so years ago (maybe longer) every piece of property had a house on it, now there might be a house every third or fourth.

Kevin, Thank you so much for having us, we had a great time. Be safe, and come visit us in New York when you have some free time!

Chi' Town

2010-08-02T14:23:00.001-07:00

We got into Chicago Monday night. The only person we could get a hold of that evening was Brooks' friends Zack and Celia. We went to their house, dropped our stuff off, and hung out for a few hours. Later in the evening Zack, Brooks, and I went to go have some drinks at a bar in his neighborhood. Zack asked if we wanted to go to the college bro bar. There would be more people there but the drinks were going to be significantly more expensive. The other option was to go to a shittier gnarly bar that would more then likely be dead but they had like $6 pitchers. Needless to say we opted for the cheap pitchers. We hung out until the bar closed at 2am. When we walked outside it started to rain HARD. We ran under awnings dodging the rain until we got to Dunkin Donuts. Evidently with every purchase they will also give you free rain ponchos.

The next day Brooks and I pulled our mopeds out of the van and rode around to do the tourist thing. Zack and Celia live about three blocks from Barak Obama's old house. There were several black SUVs in the driveway. We stopped to take this picture and we weren't there for more then 20 seconds when a voice came over a loudspeaker from one of the black SUVs that said "KEEP MOVING". We did...

Chicago was unbelievable. It was the only town that we went to that had as huge a downtown as it did. It completely reminded me of downtown New York. Just sky scrapers for blocks and blocks and blocks.

I don't know what he's so excited about, be he's stoked about something.

Here's something special. The tallest building in the United States, the Willis Tower. Before you even say it "But the tallest building in the United States is the Sears Tower!" That was true. The same building is still the tallest building in the United States, but its name was changed in March 2009 because the largest property holder in the building bought the naming rights as part of the deal when they bought a majority of the space in the tower. Anyway, if you want to know more look here.

This is the view South.

East.

Downtown.

North.

West.

You see that body of water that disappears into the horizon? Yea, that's not an ocean, its a lake...

Later that night we met up with a friend Sara in a park to watch Ferris Bueller's Day Off. After the movie Brooks saw an opportunity for a photo shoot.

A few months before we left San Francisco we met a gentleman named Greg. He was in SF from Chicago scouting a location to open a new bar. We hit it off and hung out with him a bunch while we were still in town. When we told Greg we were moving to New York and driving through Chicago he told us we had to stop in his bar. After the movie in the park we went to his bar The Burlington. We met Greg's brother Nixon. We told Nixon we were friends with Greg in San Francisco so he gave us a free shot. About a half hour later the bartender working that night came up to our table and said "Are you Jim and Brooks? Because I just got a phone call from my boss who told me to give you guys a shot and a beer. So come collect them from the bar whenever you want." Thank you Greg and Nixon for your hospitality, We really appreciate it.
The Burlington.

We went back to the house and rolled around in the flowerbed.

The next day we had breakfast at the restaurant Sara and Intern work at.
There's Sara.

Intern.

Kate.

Sex sells.

After breakfast we went and laid in the park for a few hours.

I don't know whats going on with everyone's faces in this picture, I couldn't leave it out.

We went out that night and had some drinks for Maggie's going away party. She was a cook in the restaurant Sara and Intern work at, but now shes going on tour. After the party we went back to Sara's house and had a "coming down" photo shoot.

There's Maggie.

The next night Sara's sister was throwing away a big box. We took it from her and made a robot costume.

The Cookie Cat theory.

Just a few more things we saw while we were in Chicago.
Miz U.

Is that a Delorean in the window of a coffee shop?

I don't even know.

We had some of the best tacos we've ever had in Chicago. Why yes that is pork and pineapple.

Words can not describe.

Thank you Sara for putting us up, thanks Maggie and Sylvia for spending so much time with us. Thank you everyone else we got to meet and spend time with for showing us so much fun in Chicago. We had a really great time in your town. Miz U.
MOAR!!!!

Cincinnati to Chicago

2010-08-02T14:03:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry its been so long since we've posted. I'm trying to make up a good excuse, but I can't so I'm going to pretend this never happened.

We left Cincinnati Monday July 12th. We drove from Cincinnati through Indiana into Illinois up to Chicago. Cincinnati is pretty close to the border of Indiana so we weren't on the road in Ohio for long.

And into Indiana. There wasn't much going on in Indiana. Mostly farms as far as the eye could see.

Indianapolis of coarse.

This was a familiar sight, windmills as far as the eye could see in every direction. There weren't as many as we saw in Texas, but there were still a ton!

It started getting dark just as we got to Illinois.

MOAR!!!!

Sin-cinnati

2010-07-15T15:12:00.000-07:00

We left Louisville Friday morning and drove towards Cincinnati.

Ya, we drove into that storm...

We called Jenny Jam because shes from Cinci and asked her if she had any friends that would like to hang out with us, show us around and possibly let us crash with them. The first person she got us in contact with was her friend Derek. Jenny, I just want to let you know that hooking us up with Derek was perfect! He has the same ridiculous and stupid sense of humor that we have. We all got along like peas and carrots!

Brooks and Maggie.

There's Derek. Miz U!

Cincinnati is an absolutely amazing town. According to what we were told, it was a pretty big city a hundred or so years ago. Then a bunch of the industry failed, or moved elsewhere and now there are a ton of old beautiful brick buildings that have been abandoned and are just sort of decaying over time. Rent is double cheap. You can get huge spaces for a few hundred dollars a month in really rad old industrial buildings.

We rode our mopeds with Derek a lot in Cinci. He showed us a bunch of rad rides and rad parts of town. We went to see a show he threw on Friday at Northside Tavern. After the show we went to Skyline Chili which was recommended to us by a lot of people who had been in Cincinnati.

We got breakfast the next day and watched Germany beat Uruguay for third place in the 2010 world cup. We went back to Derek's house and kicked around a soccer ball to get into the spirit of the game.

Derek and I were tuckered out by all the excitement.

We rode more Saturday. When the evening came around we went to some of Derek's friends shop called The Brush Factory.

Kristen from the Cincinnati moped gang TBS was working that evening at Grammer's. We stopped in and had a few drinks.

I'm telling you, beautiful buildings.

Sunday we woke up and spent most of the day lounging around the house and watching Spain beat the Netherlands in the 2010 world cup. When Derek got out of work he drove us around, showed us a few touristy things, and we did a few photo shoots.

This is The Cincinnati Museum Center. I guess it was a train station, then when the city stopped having so much traffic run through it they made parts of the building into museums.

This is the view of downtown from the Museum Center.

Derek Miz U!

This might explain why we've gotten along so well after spending every hour of the last two months together.

Cincinnati, so gay....

Does that horse carriage have ground effects???

Dude, this fountain was so sick!

I guess there's some reality dating show about Ochocinco, he's a professional football player. And there was a girl from the show in a bar watching the show with a bunch of her friends. We had to go see the celebrity while we were in the area. PS, the show sucks, and so did the people in the bar watching the show.

When we were at the Brush Factory one of the two people who rents it Hayes showed us his motorcycle shop in the back. He had a moped back there that he said he was trying to get rid of. Well one thing led to another and we went Sunday night to buy it from him. That makes number six in the van... I think we have a problem.
Here is his shop.

There's Hayes and Brooks on his new moped.

Hayes rebuilt this from the ground up. I think its a 1972 R50/5. I guess this is what he does in his free time. PS its for sale somewhere around $4,000. If anyone is interested I bet we can get a hold of him, just ask.

Don't tell TBS but we snuck into the Ice Cream Factory and took these pictures. Now we know all of their secrets.

This is Monday morning. Its always the right time to look for mopeds on Craigslist.

We packed the van that morning to hit the road for Chicago. Lets see, the total count as of now is six mopeds, and three bicycles on top of our clothing, tools, DVDs and other worldly possessions. Its starting to get a little full.

It was great to meet and hang out with you Mandy, Maggie and everyone else in Cincinnati. Derek we had a great time, Thank you for putting us up and showing us around. PLEASE hit us up when you come to New York, it will be our pleasure to show you the same hospitality you showed us when you're in our town.

MOAR!!!! Kentucky
MOAR!!!! Cincinnati

Northward bound.

2010-07-14T15:59:00.001-07:00

We left Orlando Tuesday June 6th. In our tradition we didn't leave until like 6pm. We drove up through Florida into Southern Georgia.

We crashed in a Motel in Adel Georgia woke up at 8:30am for the "continental breakfast" which sucked double hard. I hate it when a place claim's they have a continental breakfast but its just old bagels, muffins, and frosted flakes. We got back on the road by 11am.

Damn it...

We drove into Atlanta and pulled into a parking garage. We got our mopeds out and rode for an hour or so before we stopped to get some food. After lunch we rode for another hour or so then headed back to the van to load up the mopeds again.

You can imagine that the natural progression was that Tennessee came next. As we drove through Tennessee Brooks and I were both in awe of how beautiful this state was. Long rolling hills of forests, huge rivers and lakes, very few man made structures it was like this almost untouched section of land in the middle of America. This state was mind blowing.

The last picture we took before it got dark was this picture of Nashville.

We got into Louisville around 11pm. We called Sean Newport earlier that day when we were in Atlanta and asked him if he could get in touch with some Bandits (Louisville moped gang) so we had some people to hang out with. Even though we had never met any of these guys they were totally down to hang out. Zack Bandit called us while we were on the road and told us to meet him at the Monkey Wrench. We got there and a few Bandits were waiting for us. We hung out, had a few drinks and when the bar closed they offered for us to crash at any of their houses. The hospitality was really awesome. We spent two days in Louisville but we didn't take any pictures unfortunately. We went on a few rides. hung out at some local bars and met some of the gang. Thank you so much Zack for letting us crash with you, Thanks Elliot, Jason Elder, Jay, Mark Ryan, and everyone else we met. You are all awesome and we had a lot of fun in your town.

MOAR!!!! Georgia
MOAR!!!! Tennessee

MOAR-lando

2010-07-11T07:57:00.000-07:00

We left Mobile Wednesday June 30th. Here are a few pictures from the drive.

This ones for you Corey.

We arrived in Orlando on Wednesday June 30th. When ever we tell people that its one of our destinations they always look at us kind of funny and ask us why we're going there considering we're planning on going to Chicago and Detroit on this trip. Well one of my oldest and best friends Daniel Alvarez lives in Orlando and I promised we'd come see him while we drove across the country. It was a little out of the way, but well worth the drive.
I just want to throw in this picture real quick like. We stopped and got BBQ somewhere between Mobile and Orlando for lunch, we ordered root beer for our drink. This is Florida's idea of how much pop you'll need with your meal. I think its bigger then my head.

We arrived late Wednesday night and rode our bikes to Bar B-Q. We met a handful of Daniel's friends there, then we rode to Jonathan's house, had a few drinks then ended back at Daniel's. Around 3am we went down to the community pool and climbed over the fence to swim for a while.
Corey, this one's for you.

Sometimes it feels like Cookie and I are the only people that don't drink Whiskey.

Jen Mak and Allison.

Evidently a number of years ago someone had the bright idea of pulling up the paved streets and re-covering them with bricks. It also happened to be raining that night. As we were riding to Jonathan's house I fell off my bicycle and landed on my wrist. I hurt it pretty bad. I had to get a wrist brace and wear it the rest of the stay in Orlando. Great way to start the visit...

Thursday afternoon we picked up some gummy bears and went to Jen Mak's house. She loves gummy bears, but hates the red ones, so we licked them and threw them onto the ceiling.

We left there and went to Allison's house to relax for a while.

We went home to get our bicycles. As we rode to Jen Mak's house again it started to rain. I don't mean a weak San Francisco drizzle, this was a rain that I haven't experienced since I lived in New Jersey. It rained HARD! We got to Mak's house so wet that we had to strip and throw our clothing in the dryer.

Later that night we went to Bar B-Q again. We found some mopeds.

Dance party!

I want MOAR mustache!

While we're on the road, we only eat like champions, This is like 6am.

We picked Mak up from work.

Later Friday we went to the mall to go shopping.
This was a weird but very rad sculpture outside.

Photo shoot in Zara NY.

We left the mall and went to this weird party. We met a few of the food Lions (Orlando Moped gang) but a bunch of jerk offs were throwing black cats at the crowds of people all night. I don't think its hard to imagine how quickly that gets annoying.
We found a night Owl.

Great combination. Right Sean?

Saturday Morning we woke up and went to a coffee shop called Stardust.
Brooks was really excited about this for some reason.

Later that afternoon we went to Jonathan's house. There's Daniel and I on the left and Jonathan on the right.

Cats seem to know that Brooks is allergic to them, I think that's why they always seem to go to him. He's a good sport about it.

Jonathan.

We went out Saturday night to another dance party. Now in these pictures we're all deceptively gross. Its not ALL sweat. The roof of this dance floor was exposed and it was raining that night (well it rained every night for that matter) so its sweat mixed with rain water.
Why is that girl making that face?

Or that one?

Why is Brooks making that face?

Jonathan again.

Saturday evening we were riding and Brooks' moped mysteriously died. When we checked for compression there was pretty much none. The next day we took the top end off and this is what we found.

Seems pretty self explanatory.

Sunday was July 4th, America day. We went that evening to a party/show at one of Jonathan's friend's house.

We lit off HUNDREDS of firecrackers. We had bottle rocket and black cat fights, and the moped boys brought a bunch of mortars that they were lighting off all night. At some point it started raining pretty hard so most of the people went under the awning or inside.
This is where the party got a little intense (as if the firecracker fight wasn't crazy enough.) I was inside at the time but as I understand it the last band was playing and the singer's shoe came off during a song. One of the moped boys picked it up and threw it back at the singer. I guess nobody noticed that the police had just showed up to break the party up and the police officer was coming up behind the band when the guy threw the shoe. The shoe hit the officer in the face and she went crazy. I guess she dove on the guy who threw it and cuffed him. Her partner called in for backup and like five more police cars showed up in a matter of minutes. Needless to say that was the end of the party. There was an officer walking around with a video camera telling people,"If you're on this video you're under arrest." That's pretty much right when we decided to leave. We rode our bikes in the rain back to Jonathan's house and had an after party there.
While we were at Jonathan's house there was a guy (his name is escaping me) who started forcing all of the other guys at the party to take their shirts off. "ALL THE DUDES HERE BETTER TAKE THEIR SHIRTS OFF NOW!" then he proceeded to walk around and take all of our shirts off.

That seemed like a perfect time to have a gay photo shoot.

Dude on the left is the one who made us all strip.

This might explain why he wanted us to be naked.

Miz U Mak.

America day was fuuuuuuun! We were going to leave Monday morning, but America day was to rough. We decided to relax, recoup an extra day, and leave Tuesday. Monday was pretty uneventful because everyone had to work. When Daniel got off we went to his local bar and had a few drinks. (Monday is dollar martini night)

Mak.

We left there after a drink and went to a pool hall.

We closed the pool hall and went back to Jen's coworker Kevin's house for video games and hamburgers.
Thanks Mak for taking all the pictures.

I don't even know what Kevin is doing in these pictures.

Look what we found! I hope he washed his hands before he made the burgers.

We went back to Pom Pom's Teahouse Tuesday morning to say bye to Mak and to get another BOMB ass sandwich.

Thank you so much to everyone that hung out with us while we were in Orlando. Thank you Daniel for letting us stay, Thank you Mak for letting us watch all of your Its Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Jonathan, Allison, thanks for playing with us! We had so much fun!

Mobile

2010-07-06T21:30:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay on the postings, you'd be surprised how difficult it is to stop and take a break to post on the blog.
So We left New Orleans on Sunday June 27th.

Wait, what the hell is that?

I don't know why but Brooks DEMANDED that I take a picture of this water tower. He liked it for some weird reason.

This is one of the first things we saw in Alabama, it tripped me out that things like this actually still exist. I guess you don't really understand when you have only lived in blue states.

We arrived at my Uncle Chazz and Aunt Martha's house in Mobile. I found a bug.

We relaxed the first day and just laid around and watched Tombstone a few times. You'd be surprised how after a month on vacation, we needed a vacation from vacation. Mobile was perfect for some R&R.
This didn't help.

Thursday we woke up early around 2pm and went to a graveyard.

DANIEL NOOOOOO!

And then we found this.

This ones for you Corey.

Then we cruised around and saw some of the old historic homes in Mobile.

There's Unkie Skunky.

No terrorists allowed in Mobile.

Big tree.

Then we went to the Mobile Bay.
That's a big boat.

That's a big fish.

That's a big spider.

That's a BIG bug.

We saw an alligator.

The last night in town we went out for some southern cookin'. Fried okra, collard greens, pulled pork, corn bread dressing, and among other things, fried green tomatoes.

Hans, Dad, and Carl, I think you remember this. The horn of Plenty.

Anyway Mobile was very relaxing. Thank you Chazz for letting us stay and for taking some time to hang out with us.

MOAR!!!!

THE JAM!!!

2010-06-29T18:01:00.000-07:00

Hey, I think its only right to give you guys an idea of what its like to be us right now. Here are a few things you can do to be with us on the road right now.

1)Pour some gasoline and motor oil into a rag and set it in a small box then crawl into the box to get an idea of the smell in the van.
2)Turn up the heat in your apartment/house to about 100 degrees then buy one of those novelty battery operated fans and hold it three feet from your face to get an accurate feel of the temperature and AC in the van.
3)Eat McDonalds, or Taco Bell, or any greasy Southern food two meals a day everyday.
4)Sweat all day everyday and only take showers or change clothing every few days.
5)listen to these songs non stop.

This ones for you Christy.

Please anyone and everyone comment on this post and give us a song or some songs that you love that you think we should listen to on our trip.

Thank you everyone who is reading.

PS post comments on every blog, we'd love to know that people are reading. MIZ U.

The drive from Austin to New Orleans

2010-06-29T16:52:00.000-07:00

So in the tradition of the rest of the trip we planned on leaving Austin at noon...well we didn't wake up until after that so by the time we left it was closer to 6pm. We drove through the night, stopping at Denny's for dinner, then kept on driving. We stopped in Houston to take this picture.

Then got back on the road. Here are some pictures we took after the sun began to rise. Coming into New Orleans.
We saw another thunderstorm.

There were signs on the road that said "high fog area" or something to that effect. Its no San Francisco fog, but driving through a swamp at the break of day and seeing this is kind of eerie.

When we arrived in New Orleans we took a nap in a Walmart parking lot for an hour or so then we called Robin. Robin is one of three people that we met in Austin. We met them at Shagri-La a bar in Austin. We were talking about the road trip and we told them we were going to be in New Orleans next. They told us they were from New Orleans and that we should hit them up when we get there so they can show us around. That was a great offer because at that point we didn't know anyone in New Orleans and we weren't sure how much time we were going to spend there because we didn't have anywhere to go or anyone to see.
Anyway, we called Robin around 8am when we woke up from the Walmart nap and she was still awake, she was up all night partying.
We rode a little before we found her.

We went back to her house and took a nap.

Adria

then they took us out to see the french quarter.
This ones for you Corey.

We stopped at Cafe Du Monde to get a Beignet. I guess that's the thing you have to do when you are in New Orleans. It's pretty much tastes just like a Funnel cake.

Oh my god, is that fountain on fire?

It Definitely is...

Bourbon Street

We went back to the apartment and got ready for the evening.

Chris.

Adria.

Robin.

What's that?What did we have for dinner? Oh, Tater Tachos. Its Tater tots with nacho fixins and pulled pork on top of them. Yes it was as delicious as it looks.

We woke up Saturday and we went to a graveyard. We were told that you have to see a graveyard in New Orleans. They were right...

I guess because the whole city is below water level people have some sort of issue with their loved ones dead bodies being under water. Sooooo all of the graves are above ground.

We went back to the apartment, hung out till the evening, then we went out with our new friends to a bar that was having a dance party. Have you ever been to a dance party and it feels like over 100 degrees in the bar then you step outside to get some fresh cool air? Well imagine being in a bar that feels over 100 degrees then you step outside and it feels over 100 degrees. We thought Texas was hot, well it doesn't have any game on New Orleans.
Thank you so much Chris, Robin and Adria for showing us around and giving us a place to crash. We are in debt. Come say hey next time any of you are in New York.

MOAR!!!!

NO NOT THE BEEEEES!!!!

2010-06-26T16:28:00.000-07:00

So we were planning on leaving Austin Sunday morning But Saturday night Rob made a proposition that we couldn't turn down. He said he and his friend Eric were going to catch a swarm of bees and relocate them to a community garden at a bicycle collective in town. "Wait you're going to catch a swarm of bees and move them in the car with us to another part of town? WE'RE IN!"
Here's how it all went. Rob and Eric are friends with some people who work at the bicycle collective. There is a community garden behind the collective that is kept up by either the community or some of the bike collective volunteers (I'm a little fuzzy on that detail). It sounds like they expressed some interest in getting a bee hive for the garden. Rob recently did some research on bees and thought it would be fun to start a hive. After some brief searching on Craigslist he found a gentleman that had a swarm land in his back yard. The guy has kids and didn't want the hive forming in his backyard. The gentleman said a few people offered to come kill the bees for him, but he understands the importance of bees and he'd rather have someone come take them.
Saturday evening at Robs we made a bee mask out of Mosquito netting and Brooks' Motorcycle Helmet.

Sean really likes dogs.

The next evening we went to the house that the bees had swarmed to and we started to suit up.

Shaun's like a kid in a candy shop.

The guy who's bees we took.

We taped up the box and put it in the car and drove about 30 minutes to the community garden and put the box next to their new hive. There is something really terrifying about driving in a car that has a box that quietly hums with several hundred honey bees in it.

This story is based on actual Nick Cage events.

MOAR!!!!!

Keep Austin Weird?

2010-06-26T09:43:00.000-07:00

To begin I need to say that some of Austin is going to be out of order. We spent a little over a week here so some of the stuff got a little blurred together.
Oh Austin... Where do I begin? Brooks and I had an amazing time in Austin. We arrived Wednesday June 16th and we were planning on staying until Sunday June 20th. Wednesday night we went to a place called Barten Springs. Its a man made dam like structure that is fed by an underground spring. I think its the only place in the entire city that has cold water.

This is what it looks like during the day.

We went swimming every single day. You kind of have to when its usually 95+ degrees in Austin. We went to a pool called Deep Eddy.

One day we tried to go to a swimming hole called Hamilton Pool. We drove about 45 minutes out of the city to go to it, but when we got there evidently there were "high bacteria levels" so it was unsafe to swim there. Sooooo we drove to another watering hole near there called Pedernales River. The only thing that has me a little confused is why were the bacteria levels to high at Hamilton pools, but we went to another river around the corner from it that didn't have high bacteria levels? What ever I aint no scientist.

So we met up with our friend Dashiell on Thursday and rode around town with him. We stopped at Live Strong which is Lance Armstrong's organization that helps people with cancer get the right treatment and find the right docotrs and stuff like that. Dashiell is interning there so he gave us a tour.
What is that?

There is some really awesome artwork in Live strong.

There were also a hand full of origional Shepard Ferry's.
We left there and went to a new fixed gear bike shop called Fast Folks.

It had sort of been raining on and off all day, but when we left Fast Folks it started to DUMP! Coming from San Francisco it really caught me by surprise because it NEVER rains in SF. All it does is occasionally drizzle. It was actually kind of refreshing to be rained on that hard on a day that was that hot. We rode through the rain to Mellow Johnny's which is Lance Armstrong's bike shop. There was a bunch of rad stuff in there too.
Most of the bikes on this wall were over $2000

Dad, Carl, I thought you might appreciate this ride.

Matt, that's a RVCA Cinelli Frame.

Soon after that it was time for some foodies, so Rob took us to one of the better places to eat. An empty lot with a bunch of food trucks driven into it.

Hehe, Me so Hungry.

Rob and Shaun.

Miz U Rob!

Rob was right. This may have been the best place in the city to get food. Only out of a food truck can Brooks get something like this. Its Chicken and waffles, but the way its prepared is what blew our minds. Its a chicken and waffles TACO the chicken is inside The waffle that serves as the taco shell. Then they threw bacon in there and melted cheese onto the top.

I guess the bicycle riders in Austin take bicycles very seriously. So much in fact that one critical mass isn't enough. They make up other names for group rides other days of the week And by group ride I don't mean "ten people riding around together" I mean like a few hundred. There's a night that they have an all girl ride (i forget what they called that one). And the one we went on, the community ride. The community ride met up, rode around town and ended at Barton Springs at 9pm. Between 9 and 10pm Barton springs is free ($3 the rest of the day) so all the bicyclists jumped into the pool for an hour. When Barton Springs closed we all jumped on our bikes again and went to a designated bar for that evening that then served free beer to the community ride.
I have a doppelganger in Austin who was on the ride. Its not just weird that we're both pale, have the same colored hair, and are similar looking. But the dude also stole my mustache.

Damn it...
We left there because one ginger is enough and went to a bar called Jackalope.

I think this picture answers your question. Yes its hot in Texas.

We're from San Francisco, we're allowed to jay walk.

Here's some more stuff from that night.
Night Owls Haunt!

Thats Rob and Chelsea.

Miz U.

Cookie gets pissed off at me pretty easily. Maybe its because I keep calling him Cookie.

Then he decides to be a gentleman again.

We got back late that night and laid in the street until about 5am.

Saturday We went to Austin Mopeds and met Lester and some of the gang ACR.

Thank you Lester for being so friendly and playing with us while we were in your town.

Come on ladies, Keep your shoes on.

We always ended up back at the say bar called Liberties. Maybe it was the cheap beer, Maybe it was the huge back yard, or maybe it was the Pork buns.

Another food cart. This ones in Liberties.

We had to get Texas BBQ. Pulled pork? YUP! It was amazing!

We went to a swimming hole called Twin Falls, It was unbelievably hot that day. We rode mopeds there and were sweating like dogs. Then we had to hike like a half mile down to the river and it was filled with people. The water was just about as hot as it was out side.

This is me really pissed off about the heat.

We decided it was to hot so we left and went to Barton Springs again. That water is very refreshing!
On Monday our friend and gang leader Jenny came to visit us. She works for United Airlines and will occasionally decide to jump on a plane and just fly places. I've had conversations with her about whats she's doing a certain weekend and she's said,"Ummm this band I like is playing this weekend in London, so I think I might go see them." She called us Saturday and asked where we were. We said Austin, so she jumped on a plane and came to Austin to sleep Monday,

and hang out with us Tuesday.

We love you jenny, thanks for stopping by and seeing us!
Couldn't forget you Cassie.

Rob, Shaun, Chelsea, Dashiel, Lester, and Cassie, Thank you so much for hanging out with us and showing us around, please come see us in New york when you get a chance.

The only thing that I think I left out are the bees, but that's going to have to be another post.
-Jim

The long drive

2010-06-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

So after breakfast and some pictures we drove out of Sedona at about 3pm. The loose plan was to drive from Sedona to Roswell (only because it looks like tis about half way between Sedona and Austin) find a place to crash in Roswell and finish the ride to Austin the next day. Well due to a few prolonged and unexpected stops, by the time we got to Albuquerque it was about 11pm. I told Brooks "Hey man, I don't think we're going to make it to Roswell, maybe we should think about finding a place to crash around here." Brooks thought about that for a minute and then in a calm and collected voice said,"I have a better idea, lets drive straight to Austin." I laughed because I thought it was a pretty funny joke. I turned to look at the humor in his face but he looked at me completely seriously. I was like, "Dude, are you fucking serious?" He was, so we did... We stopped at the Walmart in Albuquerque, bought four, five hour energy's and four Redbulls and drove straight to Austin.
The entire drive through New Mexico was at night so we didn't get to see what it looked like, the only thing we saw was a thunderstorm not far off on the horizon. We took these pictures.

We got to the border of Texas around 2 or 3am.

We drove through the morning and saw a ton of these oil wells

Some menacing stuff.

Then we got to a part of the state that really surprised me. We started to see wind mills all over the place. We drove and the wind mills stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions for over an hour (at 75mph).

(video to come)
We finally arrived in Austin around 1pm. 22 hours on the road? Yeaaaaaah, my life hurt. We definitely had to take a nap for a cool minute when we arrived.

Hoover Dam.

2010-06-22T11:16:00.000-07:00

We left Vegas Monday morning and drove over the Hoover Dam. This is the Nevada side.

This ones for you Corey.

Here's the Hoover Dam.
No terrorists allowed.

They're building a new bypass around the dam.

The Arizona side.

Thank god for cruise control.

MOAR!!!!

Brooks was told by a friend that we HAD to stop in Sedona Arizona. So we drove all day and got into Sedona at about midnight of the Monday the 14th. It was dark when we drove in so we were like "I can't tell why this dude recommended this place. The architecture is coolish I guess..." We spent the night in a motel that someone in Sedona told us was "The cheapest motel in town." The price sounded right, but it was cheap for a reason. It smelled like years old stale curry and dead people. We woke up the next day to this.

This ones for you corey.

Dick Rock.

This is what the drive out of Sedona looked like.

Sedona is probably the most beautiful place I've ever seen in my life. I'm happy we went a little out of our way to come here. Now I get it.

There were a few places outside Sedona that were pretty cool.

But Arizona for the most part looked like this.

MOAR!!!!

2010-06-16T18:14:00.001-07:00

Saturday we woke up and watched the Belagio Fountain go off a few times

Then we rode mopeds to breakfast with Anthony.
Chicken and waffles??? yup!

We rode around all day then we did a photo shoot with Anthony. (pictures to come)
That evening Anthony and his crew Battle Born had a break dancing competition. They won... Here's a video. They're the crew on the left in this video.

If you want to see more the competition was called Vegas Shake Down 9.

On Sunday we didn't do much, we spent a lot of the day sleeping because we went to sleep at 5:00am. Brooks went to Blake's room to relax and Anthony took me to old Vegas.
Corey this ones for you.

We went back to the hotel to meet Brooks, but we parked in the back and walked through the Forum shops. This is the shopping center in hotel.
Is that an Aquarium? yup!

Some of the statues are robots and every hour some of the statues do this crazy show where they move around in a creepy animatronic way. But at least there's fire and loud noises, so its not that bad.

MOAR!!!!

2010-06-16T17:50:00.000-07:00

We spent the first night in Vegas at Brooks' brother Blake's room in Caesars Palace Hotel. I've never seen anything so gaudy and over the top in my life. There are statues and gold and fountains everywhere. We hung out in the room for a while, then we made our way down to the casino.
Blake

Keepin the tanks full... Of Redbull!

View from the hotel room (37th floor)

Heres the hotel.

Then after a very good, but very expensive BBQ burger we met up with Anthony.

We walked around with Anthony, who is a great tour guide. We went to a bunch of hotels and casinos. We walked up and down the strip and ended at the New York New York hotel Casino. This is the only time and place that we actually gambled. There was a huge slot machine, I mean huge, the arm that you cranked was like 4 feet long. Anyway Brooks was trying to get me to play it since neither of us had gambled yet. I refused but I said I'd pay for him to play. I put in the $2 and we got Bar Bar Bar. We won $60 on our one and only slot machine! Almost made the trip worth while.

This ones for you Corey.

Chocolate fountain?

I got my $2 back

Cookie kept the rest.

We went back to the hotel at about 3am.
Back at the hotel. I'm not sure why, but we all ended up with our shirts off...

Simone

MOAR!!!!

2010-06-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

Here are a few pictures of the drive from Redlands to Las Vegas.

What the hell is that building?

MOAR!!!!

Bye bye California...

2010-06-14T17:42:00.000-07:00

So we rode on Wednesday from Elan's apartment in Santa Monica to Arlene's house in Silverlake for some foodies.

This is the view from her back porch...

She actually lived double close to Choke, The moped shop in LA. We stopped by and met some gentleman and hung out for a while.

After we chilled at Choke for a bit we rode our bikes downtown, and to the American Apparel factory.

Matthew Schwartz gave us a tour around the American Apparel factory. Its amazing how much is going on and how many employees there are. Unfortunately we weren't allowed to take pictures. We went and had dinner with Matthew after and then went back to Elan's to pack up.

MOAR!!!!

We drove that night to San Diego. We left at 11 and arrived at almost 2am. Brooks' sister Brittany was asleep so we snuck in and crashed. We woke up, hung out for a few hours then drove to Redlands to hang out with Brooks' friend Nicole.

Here is a little bit of the drive from San Diego to Redlands

Miz U Sean!

MOAR!!!!

We crashed at Nicole's house Thursday night and drove to Las Vegas the next day.

Vegas Pictures to come soon.

-Jim

2010-06-12T13:48:00.000-07:00

I just want to start this post with a disclaimer.

MOM, DO NOT READ THIS.
if you want to keep your peace of mind.

We were in LA for three days, Monday Tuesday and Wednesday June 7, 8, and 9. We arrived Monday evening and went to Elan and Laurel's house. We took it easy and had a couple brew pups.

Tuesday morning we woke up and rode our mopeds down Santa Monica Blvd to the Promenade.

After we hung out there for a while we came back to the apartment where Elan's sister Angelika and Laurel's friend Erin met us. We started playing this drinking game that Laurel knew. Everyone sits in a circle and you count to thirteen clockwise in a circle. I say one, the next person says two, the next person says three and so on. Whenever you get to thirteen everyone takes a drink and the person who was the number thirteen makes up a rule for one of the numbers. So when that number comes up again instead of saying the number you have to do whatever the rule is for that number. If you forget the rule or you say the number instead you have to take a drink and we start the counting over. The rules ended up being:

1. Stand up and make your body the shape of the number one.
2. Make a fart noise.
3. Take your shoes off if they're on, or put your shoes on if they're off.
4. Pet the cat.
5. Open the fridge.
6. Touch the ceiling.
7. Brooks drinks.
8. Sing a line from a rap song.
9. Stand up and spin in a circle.
10. Change the song.
11. Turn on every light that's off in the house, and turn off all the lights that are on.
12. Drunk Dial someone in your phone.
13. Shotgun a beer.

13 was the last rule so only one person had to do it. After the drinking game is when the night got crazy. Erin knew about a party in Venice so we were all down to go. Erin was the one who had to shotgun the beer and she was also driving.

We piled six of us in her car. Erin and Laurel in the front, Brooks, Elan, Angelika and me in the back seat. Laurel Turned the music up really loud and Erin started driving like a maniac. Speeding, running stop signs, taking turns really sharp. Elan, Brooks and I were screaming in the back seat. "OH MY GOD, SLOW DOWN, I DON'T WANT TO DIEEEE!!!!" We were screaming the whole ride for like 30 minutes straight. Then when we got there we all jumped out and were like, "WHY THE FUCK WERE YOU DRIVING LIKE A MANIAC!???" Erin said, "I'm sorry, the music was so loud it scared me so i drove faster." As soon as we stepped into the party they were like, "there's no more beer everyone get out."...

So we went to another street and to a bar called Rooster Fish. We didn't know it but it was a gay bar. In the boys bathroom the entire ceiling was collaged with gay porn. We danced and drank for a few hours until the bar closed.

this one's for you corey.

My god that night was fun! Thank you everyone for playing with us that evening.

MOAR!!!!

2010-06-11T11:36:00.000-07:00

These are the last pictures we have to post of San Francisco. It was the party Friday 6/4/2010 at the warehouse for Bella's going away.

Myself and Pat

Bryan and Elliot

Justin

OMG bounce house!

Cookie and Monica

Ut Oh, lockits!

Cristina and Ashley

Miz U

Wait, why are we leaving??? I don't remember anymore, but I remember why I want to stay. Miz U, please come visit everyone.

MOAR!!!!

2010-06-10T14:13:00.000-07:00

We know its kinda late to post these pictures because they were taken Saturday May 29th, but better late than never?

Sean was out of town so we stayed at home and cried ourselves to sleep.

Miz U Christy

Sion

Amanda GayLay

MOAR!!!!

Our last day in SF

2010-06-08T10:20:00.001-07:00

So we spent our last day in SF at Monica's house rebuilding her E50 and hanging our with friends.

The van is a perfect work station.
I'm Still trying to decide if I think its a good idea for Brooks to spray brake cleaner in the van we're about to spend the next two months in.
Davey was in town for our last day. No I don't want to trade any of my mopeds for your hobbit. I appreciate the offer though.Miami.Liam
Davey
Pat, BTW thanks again for helping us get all of our shit across the country. MIZ U!
Matt. (We're not friends)
Our last night in SF. We went to thieves, we had no business being up all night drinking whiskey when we were expecting to wake up at 6am and drive to LA...

That's Christy and Sean.
Sean... Miz U.
Christy... Miz U.

MOAR!!!!

-Jim

Check out the size of that guys package!

2010-06-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, like pretty much the entire month of June, was a disaster... We were up super late Sunday night finishing packing, Taking apart bikes and mopeds, carrying all the boxes downstairs, and starting to pack the pallets. This morning we started double early finishing packing the pallets. The guy next door to us in the apartment pays for the garage space under our building he was nice enough to let us build the pallets behind his car so we could start the night before and the pallets would be safe Monday night. The only stipulation was that the pallets be gone Tuesday night so he could get out Wednesday morning. That wasn't a problem because the moving company was scheduled to come between four and six Tuesday evening. We built the third pallet on the sidewalk because there was only enough room behind his car in the garage for two pallets.

We finished packing the pallets at about 4:20pm and we had a beer and listened to music on the street while we waited for the moving company. 30 minutes went by, then an hour, and by the time it was 6:30pm we knew something was wrong. I called the moving company and to make a long story short they said they called this morning and left a message that they weren't coming today and that they had to come Wednesday to pick the pallets up.....

We talked to the neighbor explained the situation and asked if he'd mind moving his car now so we could put all three pallets in the garage. He did, but we don't have a pallet jack so we had to break apart the two pallets in the garage and remove all the boxes so he could pull his car out. Then we had to rebuild and re-wrap the pallets. Then we had to push the third one from the sidewalk into the garage. I think Anne has a video, and when she sends it to us we'll post it up.

These are the pictures after the first loading of the pallets while we waited for the moving company NOT to show up.

-Jim

Definitley smells like gasoline in here

2010-06-02T11:36:00.000-07:00

So we bought the van and drove it home and found out that the gas gauge didn't work. Brooks' first thought was that the float was broken so we threw the van on a lift at work and dropped the gas tank down to take a look. Well turns out he was right so in the process of changing the float in the gas tank we spilled gas all over the place and on each other. There was a car in the shop that smelled like wet dog covered in feces that had died and sat in the sun on the side of the road for 3 weeks. So my boss didn't smell the gasoline the next morning.

MOAR!!!!

-Jim

"rape" van

2010-05-28T19:25:00.000-07:00

So we finally found a van to aid us on our cross country journey. The search was long and stressful but I think we got a great van for a good deal. We almost settled on an old BayPorter Express van with 969,000 miles on it...I'm glad we didn't. Here's some sweet pics.

-Brooks

Night Owls Haunt

2010-04-13T09:39:00.000-07:00

Main Entry: Haunt
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: A place for socializing

Main Entry: Night Owls
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: A moped gang created by Jen Paff in San Francisco CA in 2009

I created this blog to discuss mopeds, and moped related stuff. It was also created as a window into the life of the Night owl gang. Postings will probably be few and far between, but the information will be invaluable.