I put this up on youtube already, but here’s soundcloud, too!

Step 1 - Make sure that you know the exact make/build of your wheel and can describe it to a tee.

Step 2 - As soon as possible, post an ad that describes your stolen wheel in vague terms; “looking for a flipflop hub rear wheel,” as someone “downtown” that “just moved from Brooklyn” as an example.  Maybe change up all of the elements in quotations so as to keep the thieves on their toes.

Step 3 - Once the thief bites, make sure that the description is as exact as possible.  Set up an appointment to buy the wheel at whatever price they ask via an email address that doesn’t indicate your name.

Step 4 - Go to the police station closest to where the appointment will take place and explain your story with all of the pertinent details in hand.

Step 5 - Wait around quietly at the cop shop while they bother the person that stole your stuff.  If you luck out, the thief will apologize and give back your stuff.  Make sure to thank all of the helpful officers profusely.  If not, you make a report, get a new wheel and fuggedaboutit.

Step 6 - (Bonus level) Bring fresh, hand-made donuts to cops in gratitude.

Lesson learned:

Inscribe the serial number of the bike on your wheel.  They have engraving tools that you can borrow from your neighbourhood police station.  This can generally be found under the bottom bracket.

Ah (insert major city name here)…how fucking horrible you can be sometimes.  The city in question for this particular scenario is Montréal, which shockingly doesn’t have a quickly rememberable pseudonym (eg. “The Windy City” [Chicago], “City of Lights” [Paris], “Fucking horrible piece of shit” [Los Angeles or New York, take your pick].)

As surely any denizen of a major city can tell you, having shit stolen sucks.  For a cyclist, it’s easy to commiserate and sympathize when a friend tells you that their bike was stolen.  As a cyclist trying to break this shit down to a non-cyclist (aka: urban motorist read: person that finds threatening my life on a daily basis to be light morning entertainment) I’d have to say that the emotional equivalent is getting your car stolen.  Furthermore along this vein of thought, not even your whole car, but just the rear wheels that you built with your bare hands.  At this point, the motorist probably just takes a final plug of vodka before driving home to their suburb and almost murdering a fellow cyclist en route.  But I digress…

In any case, this was partially my fault and I’m struck with a strange combination of extreme anger and disempowerment (traditional victim emotions) and great pride in my work.  You see, I built this bike wheel.  It was my first wheel that I built and while I didn’t assume it to be a great thing (hence its placement on my winter bike), I knew that the components were well chosen and it took a good amount of time, beers, and tokes off of a joint to create with some fellow cyclists in our little bike garage.

When I first fully regarded my crippled bike on the ground and in the snow, I felt what all urban cyclists must feel when they see a similar sight: “That blows…dude totally should’ve locked his rear wheel.”  The second little synapse that fired off in this 3-second span of time was: “That must’ve been a nice-looking wheel”.  Lastly was: “Shit, this is, quite frankly, very impractical and hinders my evening considerably.”

As I was angry-walking and keeping my eyes peeled for my wheel locked up around the vicinity, I had an epiphany: as pissed as I was that I was out $100, I was still more angry about the shithead that honked at me on a small residential street earlier in the evening.  What fucking asshole does that?  At least the thief probably has some sort of reason to steal (drugs, landlord, car insurance payments), but the motorist?  Come on…

This is that first track redone in FL.

In my first appartement here dans cette belle ville, I lived with too many people.  Now, one may think something sort of normal like 3 or 4 but no.  I lived in an apartment with SEPT personnes.  There was one bathroom.

All that aside, being artsy-fartsy types (a photographer, a painter, a poet, a sculptor/builder, a violinist, a trombonist, an academic cellist-type, etc ad nauseum) we had a nice little La Boheme sort of dynamic happening in our little nest of low income and a million stirfries.  This is a long-winded and braggartesque way of saying that we had no money.  Having hailed from France, B.C., Minnesota, Ontario, California, and Australia, respectively, we also had no furniture with which to fill our crowded little NDG abode.  Logically, we picked stuff up off of the streets on garbage day.  This, to all of us, seemed perfectly reasonable.  We shockingly had no problems with this.

Now, for those of you unaware with Montréal (and Toronto and New York City) there is this terribly obnoxious phenomenon that has re-commenced in North America since the general public stopped washing their walls with DDT (your grandma probably did this crazy shit).  All that being said, I got some lovely little houseguests for a few months after moving to Parc-Ex (surprise!!)  Two exterminator visits, many lost hours of sleep, and the shattered remains of a 3-year relationship later (icing on the cake), these horrible little creatures were extermininated (do I still write [sic] if that was on purpose?  Try saying it out loud.  Shotgun a beer and try to say it again.)

After going through that debacle, I decided to move…next door.  The move was easy enough, suffice to say.  I later moved a block over.  I should be in Little Italie or Mile-Ex or the Mile End by roughly 2037 if current trends continue.  That all said, I was again left in want of furniture.  In lieu of spending money that I didn’t have to re-furnish my new homes (I didn’t want to keep the bed-buggy stuff,) I opted to just get some wood (lol), cut it, and screw like a madman.

There was a little bit of planning involved overall, but most of the building happened very organically once the pieces were all laid out in front of me.  This improfurnishing (as I lovingly refer to it in my head) has given me a couch which I sit upon, a corner table (littered with books), a record rack, a media centre (it really just holds my record player and stereo, but media centre sounds more impressive,) a bedside table, a kitchen table, and a chop block for my kitchen.

The idea that I could just improfurnish my home was born back in 2006 when I was living in San Francisco (I didn’t leave my heart there.)  After moving into a totally empty apartment and having been hired for a pretty well-paid job, I went to Ikea and bought a load of that viking shit.  I managed to break my bed, the chair I bought, and the little desk thing that I bought.  Hell, even the hammer from the tool set died after not too long; i didn’t think that that was possible.  After all of that fuss, I realize that I a) paid a shit load of money to vikings that have starving Chinese people put wood and screws in boxes along with Lego directions and b) built all the damn crap myself.  This led me to think, why don’t I just buy my own lumber and make my own damned material trappings.  The photos above are evidence of the most recent project.

Some things just do not translate over de la belle langue.  This is behind the Marché Centrale here in town.

No, as in the scotch.  You aren’t very snarky.

I’ll discuss my ditties how I damn well please.

This is the more refined younger sister of the earlier-posted sweet potatoes.  This is what happens when I take it easier more or less the night prior, have less tv to watch (I’m caught up/ridiculous), and more overall inspiration.

To make this fun little spicy number, I did the following:

1) Cubed the patate douce and dropped into a pan and boiled until soft, yet firm (like a gentleman.)

2) While that boiling was going on, I got my trusty cast-iron hotting up and started caramelizing some onions in sunflower oil.

3) Once the patates were douce enough, I strained them and let them sit for a minute so as to get rid of the water.

4) Once the onions were caramelized, I added the patates and fried them up on high heat to lightly braise the outside.

5) I removed the pan from the element and added a fun blend of ground spices: turmeric, cardamom, cumin, and spicy pepper.  Salt jumped in last and everything was mixed up along with some olive oil just for good measure.

6) After plating the goodness, I garnished with a dollop of yogurt, a half-spoon of honey, and a cherry tomato.

I watched the new Dexter and Walking Dead episodes from last night and was underwhelmed.  I suppose that this is good because this means that their collective grips on my attention’s throat are weakening and as they are about serial killers and zombies, this is probably for the best.

My name is Grant; as per the title of this blog.  I kind of go into some detail about this in an earlier post.