The 411 on this week...

This week my girlfriend and I have both been really busy. She's taking 18 credits at MICA this semester and I'm working 13 hours /day at two jobs in an effort to get my new DSLR and road bike for this upcoming road/photog season. So, I usually get home around 10:30pm and my girlfriend is usually painting away. (Oh, by the way: check out my easel. I made that puppy out of wood I found in the alleys around my pad. Sweet eh?) It's awesome to date an artist by the way... I get all... "learned" on the stuff I'm interested in by a great source and don't have to go to the library (I've been there once before).

Doris the dog is doing well as usual. She's enjoying life in Mt.Vernon and at MICA also. I hear she's the most happenin' pup on campus. She's one spoiled dog, that's for sure. Must be rough being a dog... all that.... eating... and ... sleeping. Reincarnation never sounded so good.

We did do Aylen's Choose Your Own Adventure Alleycat last weekend though. That was a blast. It was damned cold. I blogged about it in my last post but here are some pictures that my good friend Kevin Dillard took. By the way, go to his site and check out his work. His portraiture is nothing to overlook. His site captures the essence of messenging better than any I've ever seen.

Above: Go check out Kevin's awesome site.

Above: My girlfriend at Ground Zero before the alleycat kicked off. photo by: Kevin Dillard

Above: some ugly bastid. Photo by: Kevin Dillard

Above: Saba, me & John; long time alleycat racers. We rock. Photo by: Kevin Dillard

-Mike

Saturday's Alleycat.

Yesterday was cold... damn cold. And damned windy too. But we still congregated at Ground Zero for Aylen's Choose Your Own Adventure Alleycat. Messengers from all around came to Baltimore and duked it out on just about every inch of the city. The race was great, the people were great and the party afterwords was more than great. I didn't capture much racing action but I got a few shots pre-game and a few that I'm happy with from the post-race party. You can check out the whole gallery in the Alleycat Race section of my site or just click this!

Above: Kevin Dillard; photographer, cross racer, good friend.

Above: I like this shot of my friend Bruce from DC. He's been a messenger since 1989; that's awesome.

Above: My girlfriend worked a checkpoint for this race; bless er' heart. She manned her post for 2 hours for us racers but managed to thaw out at the after party.

-Mike

Holy crap; he updated!

Yep, I finally got around to updating the site's commuting gallery. Click the photo at left to be cyber booted on over there for a look-see. *Waposh!*

Enjoy!

-Mike

Snowy Mt.Vernon.

Yep, we got 8" of the white stuff here in Baltimore. I'm sick as a dog but my girlfriend and I got out and enjoyed it Sunday morning. I took a bunch of photos and put them in a gallery for you all here:

**The Big Bad Snow Gallery**
-Mike

Finally caught that cold...

So, yeah, I finally caught that cold that was going around. Sucks. I was amazed that I wasn't contracting this cold from my girlfriend who had it all last week. I guess it really was too good to be true. At any rate, yeah, I'm sick.

So, it's been a pretty boring day here. Feelin' like pooh, loafing around, playing Call of Duty on the PC. I did make some great eggs this morning. Do your egg cartons pay you compliments? Mine did this morning. (see photo) Not a lot of excitement going on here in Mt.Vernon today. I've been killing Nazi's and downing cup after cup of tea, listening to the Dead Milkmen, burning minidisks full of music so I'll have some new commute tunes... It's snowing pretty good now... that's nice. Think I'll rent a movie tonight. I need some soup.

"good morning beautiful!" ... awe shucks, I think I'll eat 3 of you.

... so tasty.

Eggs on Thomas' English muffins & a large glass of cran-grape juice... can't go wrong.

-Mike

Baltimore grafitti humor.

I'd like to buy, whoever wrote this, a Natty Boh.

-Mike.

Mice.

The mice in my apartment sometimes get out of hand. That's when I have to hire my girlfriend as a gunman to take them out. I have a .22 caliber pellet pistol that she uses for her assassin missions. She's not to be trifled with, mind you. I've seen her take out mice at great distances....

Not a lot happening these days... just riding to work, riding to more work, and riding home each day.

-Mike