My very first delivery hug!
I met the most adorable 3-year-old today on the Enterprise Farm route. I called a few minutes ahead to make sure the customer would be home. Apparently the little girl REALLY wanted to meet “The Vegetable Man,” so her mom woke her up from her nap. When I arrived, the little girl was bleary-eyed but full of energy, bouncing around the apartment wearing just her Pull-Ups. She introduced herself as “Cinderella,” and then demonstrated some yoga poses and chattered continuously, only half of which I could understand, while her mother wrote out a check.
As I was leaving the mom told me that “Cinderella” had wanted to give The Vegetable Man a hug, and then asked the little princess if that was still the case. She shyly nodded, leaned out of her mother’s arms and gave me the daintiest little hug. Made my day! Mother and daughter watched from their 2nd-story window as I hopped on the trike. I waved to them one last time before riding off into the rain.
I’ve been terrible about taking photos on the Enterprise route… too focused on getting to the next stop. So just for kicks here’s a shot I took last week of the Somerville Theater. The life-like statues, created in the 80s, are based on people who actually lived around Davis Square.
MetroPed has been in the local papers quite a bit lately. If you haven’t already, check us out in the Boston Herald, Boston Phoenix and Somerville News.

A lot is going on in my life at the moment, currently in the search for my next apartment. I know it’s kinda early since I am moving in late August, but you have to get a head start or all the college kids with their parents paying will scoop up the best apartments. I [...]

So I have to be the only bike messenger in Boston whose out before the sun rises working. On my way to Petsi Pies in Porter Square of Cambridge I pass no other bikers once and a while a roadie doing a training ride before work. There are next to no cars, and the world [...]

I need a bumper sticker that says, “Eat my crank!” … but that might get me arrested.
I hooked up my camera to the front of the trike frame with my Gorillapod, but didn’t get much out of it except for this shot on Prospect St. in Cambridge. Are you supposed to blur out the license plate number in these photos? I can’t imagine why it would really matter. Note the trike reflection in the bumper.
After both Enterprise Farm routes (23 stops), a Harvest Co-op grocery delivery and a Taza Chocolate drop at Diesel Café, I was spent… fell asleep on the couch watching the Sox last night. I know we’re supposed to “Believe,” but I’m guessing they didn’t pull off a miraculous ninth inning rally. Oh well… I think I’ll live.

Yesterday I was a zombie, getting up early and then working a full day had it’s toll on me. I ended up falling asleep at 8pm upon coming home from a full day of bike mechanics after my presunrise bike deliveries.  At the shop I was on my game and busted out a lot of [...]

So I’m back at the bike shop full time, and this blog is going to focus 2/3 mechanics and 1/3 messengering for the next half year. But I also started my new route for Metro Pedal Power which is 530am-715am Wed/Thr/Fri delivering for Petsi Pies.  Today was also my last day doing the Enterprise CSA [...]

Look who I ran into on Saturday… none other than “A Little” Lino “Would Be Keen-O”!!!
Lino left us sometime in the fall for higher pursuits… Peet’s Coffee being a part of that. He’s probably working on his art, too, but he’s always too busy to talk when I stop in to visit. Not too busy to mug for the camera, though!
I included a link to this MetroPed video in my last post, but it may have gotten lost there at the bottom, so here it is, embedded right into the page. Cutting edge technology! If you don’t want to download QuickTime, there’s always YouTube!

I took this photo outside the Belmont library on my way home one day last week. It’s a sweet, antique bike with a hand-crafted wooden rear rack which holds that huge yellow recycling bin from Lunenburg, Mass. (home of one of our CSAs, Parker Farm). The part I don’t get is why it’s locked up. I mean, who would steal a bike that conspicuous? It can’t be worth much on the black market, can it? And this is Belmont after all: “The Town of Homes”… and Bike Thieves, I guess.
It’s been an unusual week here at MetroPed. Our main client decided to end our 16-month relationship for business reasons. So that means my usual Tuesday and Wednesday routes will be somebody else’s concern… somebody in a van! It’s too bad because we worked with some great people down there.
I have to say it’s a bit of a relief not having to do those routes, though. Until this week I had done double Boston routes 22 Tuesdays in a row… almost as long for the Wednesday Cambridge routes. Relieved of this brutal burden, Dan and I each took one of the two Enterprise CSA routes this past Wednesday. Mine was only 12 deliveries and covered 9 miles, mostly in Somerville. Two hours… a breeze!
Since I wasn’t riding as much this week, I had time to work on some other things, namely this video advertisement for MetroPed. If you can’t see it because you don’t have QuickTime, it’s also on YouTube, but it’s not rendered as well there. I created the background music with GarageBand and put the thing together with iMovie. Let me know what you think…
Well… happy trails. Until next week…

In my ongoing quest to understand the creative process behind billboard advertising, I have hit yet another snag, Exhibit A, above, at the Lechmere Green Line T station. It is a rather eye-catching ad, with the ample white space, but who is supposed to be delivering the message here? Aliens? The Quaker Oats guy, presumably dead for some time now? God? I’m just not sure. But maybe that’s the beauty of the ad… it makes you think! Genius!
Last week I mentioned the new billboard pillar being erected near Rt.1/I-93 and the Gilmore Bridge. Well, one advertiser has already claimed a spot. If God is trying to sell us Quaker Oats, then his boy is getting in on the marketing act, too. In case you can’t see the photo (should be to the right), the billboard reads:
Need a miracle?
www.miracleJESUS.org
WE DID!
A happy-seeming family is pictured in the bottom-right corner. Another cryptic ad. I checked out their site but couldn’t quickly figure out what they are pitching. Jesus must have some bucks, though, ‘cuz that primo ad space has got to be esssspensive!

Joking around, I changed my Facebook status to “How Many Drunks Will I Run Over Today With My Bicycle?” I got some funny responses throughout the day while I was riding, including “not enough” “extra points if they are wearing orange,” and “be a human pinball machine.”  I chuckled alot at the if wearing orange [...]