bike repairs

I love hanging out at the community bike shop! I always feel so productive and knowledgeable. I'm not a bike guru at all and probably barely qualify as a bike geek for that matter, but I feel that I can usually figure my way around my bicycle or learn quickly enough. I took the bike in a few days ago and tightened up the brakes, cleaned and lubed moving parts and generally adjusted a bit of everything. The best bike rides (aside from long summer ones that involve carrying home free food) are the ones where you roll home from the bike shop post-repairs on your oh so properly functional bike!
Winter is still around putting sticks in my wheels though, and by putting sticks in my wheels I mean being so cold that my brakes freeze. I totally forgot to re-tighten the back brakes after I loosened them to adjust them, so I'll fix that up soon when I grab my wrench back from TKJ....

Like I ride a ghost bike

I'd like to think I ride fast, but the winter is catching up with my slowly. Last Friday my key snapped off in my enormous lock and I had to hide my bike until I got my shitty U-lock back from TKJ. That's not the big deal though, I went to a locksmith earlier and they were able to get the key piece out (fo' free). However, on the way there I noticed a few things:
a) My bike is almost all white, from salt build up
b) Most of my moving parts are covered in frozen slush
c) My cranks are either rusted or very much frozen to the point of moving slowly.
So the things I need to do are, respectively:
a) wipe down bike with a wet rag while indoors, then dry it
b) keep bike indoors long enough that all the slush I didn't aggressively kick off, melts off, then dry those parts too
c) lubricate and allow my cranks to defrost
A trip to the bike shop has to happen soonish, my bike is singing to me and by singing I mean squeaking a thirst for lube and oil and spring. Oh Bicycle, how I too long for the long days and warm breezes.

More dancing and something new for me

On Friday I went to Faggity Ass Fridays for the first time. It was super great. Basically a very awesome queer dance party. I went with Chibi and two other friends and once we were there I ran into West, Rainbow and a lot of other friends (including the beautiful people I ran into at the Balattou). Danced danced danced! The theme of the night was "gaywatch" so, you know, I wore swim trunks and asked Rainbow to lend me a bikini top which was super fun, it was drenched in sweat by the end of the night but it won me a free drink ticket. Danced with friends, danced with strangers, may have almost kissed someones girlfriend, by accident, almost kissed a friend, not sure if she dances that way, or wants me to kiss her or something else. No idea, on the other hand two strangers kissed me which was fun, once by a cute French girl on the neck while dancing and once by this older guy on the hand who was trying to dance with me, didn't enjoy it as much as the first one. Cute people continue to kiss me though!
Rolled home on the bike, my key broke off in my lock which is lame, I gotta take it to a locksmith because I wanna keep using it, I'm using a smaller lock at the moment. Went to the cabaret last night ran into a jillion friends and had an alright time, CHG(see below) met me there and it was her first time at the coop.
I'm hanging with a friend who I'll called CHG, I'm not sure if she's impressed by me or likes me. It's clear that she thinks I'm cool and interesting, nothing wrong with that, I guess I'm just not used to having people think I'm cool but not necessarily hot, *shrug*. Nothing wrong with that I guess, especially considering there are people that I want to kiss a lot more than CHG... Iunno...

so good

Wednesday night: super awesome.
Went over to the coop to eat some foods and hang out with people. After some pizza and soup we rolled to a bar called the Balattou which has live world music, people played the kora (an African harp) among other cool instruments. We crossed the street got Belmont stamps and went back to the Balattou and started the dancing up. From there on it was a super feel good night.
Danced a lot, friends arrived, strangers showered me in compliments, I winked at a friend's friend without being creepy, pretty people smiled at me, I got a cute girl's email.
Afterward me and Igs went to the Belmont and ran into a friend. We didn't stay too long because the music wasn't what we expected or wanted to hear. When we were leaving our friend decided to head out also and they gave me a kiss on the cheek on the way out!
So ummm, yea, dancing, and dancing and feeling good and being awesome :)

oh, btw, we swammed

Jer has guests from Jersey up for the last few days, they just left yesterday but they were fun to have around. Apart from dancing it up and stuffs we did one awesome thing that I'm really happy about...
The first place we went to we got kicked out of, that was no fun and the guy wasn't having any of it either, no sense of humor.
We walked into the front doors nodded to the guards and beelined to the elevators and hit the basement button. That was dumb of me, I assumed it'd be in the basement but a sign on the other side of the elevator indicated that what we sought was actually on the 11th floor. Well, we mashed the 11 button, but the elevator only took us up to 10 which was good enough really. We took the stairs up one flight, opened a door, took a turn or two, saw our destination and realized we lacked key cards. Looking through a glass wall at what could be ours, one of ours went around and we don't know how but she was on the other side of the glass!
She disappeared around a corner for a bit and then returned and opened the door for us. We were in, we all went to the bathroom, removed our clothing, felt a bit worried, carried our clothes with us to the deck , left them in a pile beside a chair and waded into the jacuzzi :D Some went into the pool a bit, I liked the jacuzzi a lot but the steam room was good times also.
We didn't bring towels, we dried with the hand dryer and paper towels.

Dance and explore

Last night a jillion of us went dancing at the Belmont, on Wednesdays there's dubstep music and it's usually pretty great. However as of late a lot of bro kids have started showing up and less and less hippie kids and other fringe type kids. I can't stand for that, so I told a bunch of people to come it also helped that it was Barracuda's birthday. We rolled in a jillion deep only to discover that the line was a a bajillion people long because it turns out it was the DJ's birthday also. We waited around outside until we got in I checked my hoodie with a friend so we could split coat check.
Well we got in and danced it up and moshed a lot and had a good time, Barracuda even kissed this hot girl <3.
At around 1.30 we split, some of us left and some of us stayed. I was with the group that stayed. We danced more and the next time we moshed some dude tried to pick a fight with a friend for pushing him, which is ridiculous, because well, when you mosh you push...
We brushed him off, don't wanna deal with fools like that. After a while me and Rainbow left. I was in just a t-shirt since I left my hoodie in my friend's bag (I got it this morning). We walked to DJ's house since people said they'd be there, but they weren't so I started walking home as did Rainbow. As I was walking someone stuck their head out the door way of a pizza place and called my name!
I turn around and it's my old neighbor and this girl I had theatre class with. I joined them in the pizza place and we chatted for a bit I used her phone to figure out where everyone was (at my house of course). After a bit me and my friend from theatre walked toward my house and split off to our respective houses. I jogged home and went to sleep...
Today I explored an abandoned building with Barracuda's roomie, it was good times. Not the ideal place for a free store but def a fun time altogether. We checked the roof and both stories and took some pictures. Dumpstered a bit after that. Not much of interest went down after that...

Circa Christmas

I made some gifts for christmas. I made a buttflap for my sister, a drumstick holder for my dad and a bag for my mom. All from jeans I found in the trash among other things. That was cool. The night before christmas eve I went dumpstering with Virgil and found a ton of foods, even cake and pizza :)
Other than that I got some books and a hat and head phones for christmas. Having headphone is gonna be convenient. I watched "Capitalism: A Love Story" which was pretty cool, I also finally saw Avatar all the way through great movie, colonization sucks, as does the bleak future a lot of sci-fi depicts, umm, let's not let that happen ok?
Other than that I'm hanging out in Maryland with family it's good times. I'll be in Montreal the night of the 27th probably. Gonna spend the New Year in Montreal. I'm excited for that and Skidmas.
Also I have some awesome tattoo on my arms.

Shows and Malls

Not too special, been hanging out with Spaghetti and just chilling. Nothing too crazy, I went to a show with her on Thursday which was fun. Apparently I make her less angsty and cynical than she usually is. Hung with Igs yesterday, we went to hear poetry at a cafe with some other coopers, it was okay, but it gave me and Igs time to catch up since she was out of town a bit and I was up to a lot while she was gone.
Today we went to a mall to table dive, malls are terrible terrible places. Ugh, we ate some Chinese food and a woman we asked for food from was totally shocked and probably appalled that we wanted to eat her left overs. We walked around to browse the various food courts and just got dirty look from people. It's ridiculous, the mall is such an artificial place; it's dry and warm and clean and full of zombies, when outside it's snowy and wet and cold and people seem more alert. Also the only thing to do in the mall is buy shit, bleh...
After that hung with Divo and Igs at the house, he's working on a zine so I'll probably help him with that a bit at some point, we dumpstered a bit and then parted ways, I'm here now but I'm gonna head to Giggles' place to bake food and hang out before cabaret at the coop. I'm excited :)

A wholesome and eventful weekend

This weekend; gypsy music, house party, folk concerts, now I elaborate:
Friday was Balkan music, we went to (read snuck into) Divan Orange. It was good times dancing Chibi kept getting hit on by creepers who wanted to dance with her which was both humorous and annoying, I got danced on/groped by this cute but very not sober girl. We ran into the guy who gave us a thumbs up last time we were there. It was a good time and the music was pretty good. Of course we got barefoot halfway through it. After getting home me and Barracuda fell asleep watching Night at the Roxbury after I cleaned off my feets.
December 5th, the day I was born and (consequently) Ninja Day! This was a pretty great day because well I was born on it and also House Party at Mount Olympus because my birth must be celebrated! Lotsa people showed up, my roomies made me an anarchy cake and Kunoichi firespan in the courtyard.
As it got late people trickled out and a few slipped in. Those are the ones who we stayed up 'til around 7 in the morning with cuddling and painting bodies and listening to hippie music and generally chilling with. Once we were actually going to sleep V and two other people went to my bed and the rest of us stay in Kunoichi's room on her fold out couch/bed in a big ol' cuddle puddle. Sucks for V though, turns out the two people fucked right next to him (on my bed!) and he lay there through the whole thing...
No idea, I would have left the room if I wasn't involved, bleh, not something I understand, if you're uncomfortable, which happens when people, you know have sex right next to you. But yea I washed those sheets. Someone (Spaghetti) got me a stack of patches for my birthday, which is awesome although I'm usually anti-gift I can't resist DIY charm...
Same person had invited me over for the next day because there was to be a folk show at their house so go I did. It was good times, I ran into someone I kept seeing everywhere but didn't really know and actually talked to them. I met some cool people and of course heard some great folk music, like actually good stuff I was surprised at how fun the music was. At some during the music Spaghetti started scratching my hair (umm best idea ever?) and we cuddled until the music finished. Once the music was done I stuck around a bit to socialize and talk to everyone a bit. Went to Spaghetti's room when people started to leave and hung out and talked a bit drowsily (running on minimal amounts of sleep). We probably talked more than we planned to, and soon only the roomies were left. With permission I crashed the bed and we held each other and pretended to try to fall asleep. Really though we were trying to seduce each other which isn't to hard when both people are trying to do the same thing and we ended up touching lips and stuff...
We didn't get enough sleep...
I'm excited to see where this goes.
Today was tons of snow, lots of it, falling out of the sky and piling up on the sidewalks. Dumpstered cheese after napping upon return to the house. Hung with Divo, dumpstering at pharmaprix and just chilling at the house. I'm gonna be the subject of some documentation about dumpstering tomorrow, dumpstering is getting all cool now.
I wish there was less snow though, it's gonna snow a lot this week...

Dear Dumpster Gods You Are Fucking Amazing

Tonight was awesome. I got home from hanging out with Kunoichi and her roomies and was settling down to watch a nice kung fu flick when I thought I'd enjoy it more with a bag of chips (you know, for health reasons). I didn't want to eat the last bag of pretzels since I know Kusa loves them, so I went out into the ridiculously cold night and pedaled through some snow, totally worth it since I came back with:
2 Boxes of K4shi Cerial
5 Bags of Various Snacks (including chips, pretzels and cracker jacks)
2 Bags of Salted Cashews
1 Small Bag of Peanuts
1 Fruitcake
2 Cartons of some Soy Beverage that looks healthy and expensive (I'll check it out later).
Funny how I got just what I wanted and then some, especially the nuts, I just ran outta meat so the protein just replenishes itself, it's like the dumpsters and the fridge are teaming up to keep me happy.

On another note, I'm really getting into punk music and the culture that goes with it. I want to go to some punk shows, meet some anarcho-punks and that kinda thing, aparently I'd like it a lot according to a few friends. (I hear they're down with diving, travel, and a bunch of other things along those lines).

Operation: Frozen Shut

Tonight me and Kusa we supposed to go to Igloofest (look it up) with a few friends, but they changed their minds, after a while Kusa convinced me that we should still go, but when his friend bailed as well we thought hey, lets try to sneak in and if we don't get in we didn't lose anything but effort.
Gear-:
Me-
Black Pleather Jacket
Dark Blue BDU Pants w/ Bumflap
Grey Beanie
Black Neckwarmer
Black Leather Gloves
Brown Boots
Kusa-
Blue Coat
Dark Blue Jeans
Brown Boots
Tan Hobo Mittens
We rode out on our bike and locked up out front of the main entrance and began a quick recon. Our plan was to get in and then vanish into the crowd, so we didn't bring specific gear or anything uniquely NO related. We walked the whole east side until we hit a fence blocking our path, we then went to check out the west side but they had security and a fence that was the barrier between us and the interior of Igloofest. After our quick recon walk we learned the following:
*Security guards were everywhere, but easily identifiable by their bright orange vests.
*All the fences were either spiked or flimsy and spiked so speedy crossing was impossible, we had to find a spot that was out of site.
*The festival wasn't so crowded that security wouldn't notice us if we dropped into a secluded area and walked into a crowded.
After a quick discussion we decided to hop the fence on the east side and explore to find a more viable route since there seemed to be a lack of security to the south west of the festival.
We climbed over the fence and walked through the snow, taking a detour around a fenced vacant lot until we got close to the festival again, noise wasn't an issue since music was blasting out of Igloofest. Once we got around we were basically walking on flat, towards more fencing, we noticed a security guard in the distance with his back to us behind the western fence we saw earlier during the recon, but we weren't worried since there was no light behind us to silhouette us. We moved to another fence where we would be able to see the back of the festival, we decided to approach from the back and see if we could choose a route that was secluded enough to hop the fence but also unattended. We hopped the fence of the vacant lot slowly (spikes) and made our way to the back fence of the festival. We crouch walked behind piles of snow and looked over for maybe 15 minutes trying to figure out our next move. We were at the back where all the trailers were, the DJs, staff and really light security were hanging out there, unfortunately we didn't want to go backstage we wanted to go the crowd at the dance floor and there of course was a wall of orange vests between the back stage and the public areas. Although we would've been able to get over the fence and get into the back stage area we had no way to get into the public zone undetected. After more observation and contemplation regarding the consequences of rushing and hiding in the crowd we decided to head home and figure out something else to do with the night (which turned out to be a fun idea). We snuck back to the gate hopped it, walked to the fence hopped that in front of a bunch of people (hey, we were leaving anyway) and took off on our bikes.
Lessons learned:
Don't underestimate security setup at public events
Sneaking is fun even when you fail
We need to develop a fast quiet method of getting over spiked fences

Functional Bike and a lot of Snacks

Friday I took the time to go and get a new axle and fix up the bike with Dreads. I'm glad I have a bike that works, it's really practical, my chain seems to slip every time I pedal too hard but I don't mind it too much. I rode around a bit and it's smooth sailing. I need to steal a new crate for the back because the one I have it falling apart, it's really big but it's pretty flimsy, but I have a plan for getting a new crate.
Tonight my initial plan was to go to Igloofest with Kusa and Kunoichi's crew but we changed our minds so I went home to hang with Kusa, we ended up going just us too and tried to sneak in...
Later that night we dumpstered a bunch of food and got some other goodies too:
5 Cans of Vegetable Soup
9 Bags of Various Snacks (also dropped on off at Kunoichi's place)
1 Bag of Sugar
1 Bag of Peanuts
1 L4dy St!ck Deodorant
7 Bars and 3 Bags of L!ndt Chocolate
1 Bottle of Royal Jelly
1 Jar of Peanut Butter
1 Box of Th3rmaCare Heat Patches

Afterward we started watching a movie and snacking but Kouka Mono came by and we had a good time hanging with him.

Back in MTL

I just got back to Montreal. The break was alright, last years was better; no buildings climbed, no parties successfully attended (the cops shut them all down), no crazy adventures for the most part. I showed my parents dumpster diving and they're alright with it. Planned the traveling summer trip a bit with Cipher and Crisis, it should go down in August, we'll probably head down to Key West and then come back up taking a total of 4 weeks. Cipher doesn't seem too down with hitching around which surprises me, there's stigma around it I guess, but riding trains is dangerous shit if you don't know what you're doing, so I'd wanna learn from someone before hopping out on my own.
Now that I'm back here I'm gonna be diving food again, and exploring new places to dive with my bike :). I also have to make up for the vacation's lack of parties...

Xmas gifts

I'm happy with the xmas gifts I got, not to many by my family's standards but money's been tight as of late. The gifts I got that are related to this blag are:
Fujita Seiko: The Last Koga Ninja by Phillip Hevener
No Ticket? No Problem! by Scott Kerman
Grandfather by Tom Brown
A Dark Blue Bike Helmet
A green Shirt
The other things aren't too ninja or anything so I'll spare you. Started reading Fujita's biography, guys had a really crazy life and some conditioning exercises are described which will be interesting to try out.

NY Trash is also delicious

I'm in NY now, hopefully there will be some jams and all that. Crisis is here and Cipher gets back tomorrow so we'll all meet up and plan and scheme and all that. It's covered in snow here, I wanted to get back to some dryness but I guess that won't be the case. I did check a NY dumpster map and went out to get some food, you know to show my parents that trash is awesome, they we're already pleasant surprised by my trash jeans. I went to a supermarket and brought back:
5 Pomegranates
3 Apples
2 Bags of Bananas
1 Bag of Oranges
Some Broccoli
2 Peaches
I went out on the bike and dad was totally thrown off when I told him I brought everything back from the trash. Bombarded my with questions and I think he'll be down once he learns more. Also I feel that you can't really deny results, if the fruit is sitting there looking delicious what can you say to make it less so?

Bad Weather/Jean Sheath

I'm gonna be bored for a while, I have a bunch of free time and no plans, also everything outside is covered in snow, so footprints and slipperyness and wetness kinda turn me off from sneaking around doing parkour, but don't think it'll turn me away from getting free food.
Anyways, I made a sheath for the bokken. The old sheath was starting to look pretty suck (it was rubber bands and paper towels) so I took a pair of jeans that I dumpstered but didn't like and cut the back of a leg into a sheath; it's the length of the bokken and then some with the extra space used as a pocket, I sewed it off and added a button, ideally I'll somehow get a zipper and I'll replace the button. At some point I might add a picture of the sheath, maybe...

Year one and some pics

This blog has been up for a year at this point, rejoice a year of ninja adventures, mostly in cities. Also last night I found a ton of foods AND took a pic with the webcam, enjoy the deliciousness that is trash:

Not shown eggs and milk
4 Blocks of Cheese
Talked to Cipher and Crisis, they seem to be down for traveling this summer. We're all going to get together and plan it out this winter break maybe over some snowboarding.

Frozen Monkeys

I've created a group called the Frozen Monkeys, it's a small local parkour crew. so far it consists of me, Kusa, Kunoichi, Pines, Guts and V. Guts and Kunoichi are just just starting so we'll guide them through the basics and keep them progressing. I've told other people who have come to me inquiring about parkour about the crew so that they can come learn or train or jam. Our first meet up will be this Saturday if the weather permits, and will be either a jam or a class depending on who shows up.
Frozen Monkeys because once it gets cold we'll just be jumping around in the cold like frozen monkeys.

Motivation, weather and new spots

Today I woke up late and missed class, but that doesn't man I didn't get anything done. The weather has been getting nicer and the snow piles are becoming puddles (but they're still there). The nice weather combined with the fact that I ended up on youtube watching parkour while I lay in bed near the window was the much needed motivation I needed to start parkour training again. I asked Kusa if he wanted to train but he had stuff to do. I decided to go out anyway and explore a spot I wanted to train at but never took the time out to train on, it was nice and I had a good time working on climb ups, cats, vaults and jumping. I also walked around and explored my neighborhood (which I barely know actually) and found a few rooftops that were easy to access, so I might go back with Kusa and check them out tonight with some darker clothes.
On a side note I'm working on handstands to improve body/spacial awareness and because it's just cool. Also I've accomplished a kinda goal I've had, climbing up a house and entering through the balcony window, not to visit a girlfriend with crazy parents but still fun nonetheless.

Indoor Parkour Conditioning

I ended up training indoors with Kusa last night but didn't go out with Training Crew today...
Me and Kusa went down to the laundry room and did a bit of yoga to stretch and warm up. After that we worked on rolls on the tile floor, which inevitably improved my technique because pain and experience are good teachers and I was learning from the former. I really need to brush up on my left side roll and the back rolls, front and side rolls are fine. After rolling around we worked on jumping and landing for both height and stealth, Kusa is improving quickly, we worked on two footed landings, crane landings and konging onto the washers/dryers. After that we did shimmying facing forwards and backwards, some jumping down into forward rolls, break falls, forward rolls from prone and other unusual positions. We ended with unusual konging at slanted angles and breakdance freezes to work upper body strength. I want it to be summer or spring so I can go and train outside without getting covered in snow and all that.