Courier Yuletide Spectacular

18 December - Freezing day, the roads were very icy and had a few moments where I almost lost control despite beingvery careful. Today I went to visit my work colleague, Dimitri (i'm not a fast paced guy), for some lessons on Zen and the Art of Bicycle Maintenance. He used to work in a shop and was very knowledgeable about all things bicycle. We cleaned the bike, degreased the cogs and chains, reoiled it, trued the wheels and adjusted the derailleurs. Learned a lot from him, wouldn't be happy doing everything we did by myself just yet (don't have a lot of the equipment anyway) but certainly learned enough to be able to do a bit more basic stuff on my own so I don't have to rely on the arseholes at Simon's so much. Very generous guy Dimitri to share his afternoon and his knowledge like that - but I bought him a coffee and some grape bread so I think we're even.
Afterwards headed down to the Brickyard for the annual Courier Yuletide Spectacular. A lot of the city's couriers were there, not all by any means, and quite a few who I hadn't met before - most of them friendly but, of course, not all. There were reg droppers (just do the regular trips), ghost riders (never know where they are), core rats (stuck in the core), slackers (obvious), side bikers (like me!), juicers (couriers who pretend to have dropped off trips so they get given more), trip scoopers (steal other people's jobs), rim riders (not sure what they do), pre-bookers (another mystery), dopers and copers ...
It was pot luck catering with the food varying from a box of chocolates or a packet of chips to some pretty exotic curries and italian dishes - my contribution was Cheesymite teatimes that I commisioned the local Cobs to make for me (well, it's Australian). Also had a Secret Santa gift exchange (i got lottery tickets, great ...) and there were courier themed games (a very obscure jeopardy competition - I was very happy with getting about a quarter of the questions ... How the hell am I supposed to know what the highest street number is in downtown, where I would deliver a nosntop to Nanaimo or where the Australian consulate is (888 dunsmuir apparently)???) and a track stand competition (easily won by the fixed gear racers). There was also an enormous amount of marijuana to be had - at one point there was a circle of eight of us outside (in the freezing seedy alleyway) and there were no fewer than five spliffs rotating around, toked away for a little while but shortly gave up and started just passing them on as soon as they was handed to me. Wobbled home at around 11 o'clock, definitely not looking forward to the next morning.