The weather outside is absolutely wonderful and I am inside as usual...Days like today really make me miss the joy of working out of doors. During my daily walk from five points MARTA to the office, I saw a bike courier riding over to file something at the USDC and a flood of memories came rushing back.

Yes, the couriers days, married to a bi-polar nutcase, not earning even enough money to buy a decent bicycle, living off Buford highway within the immigrant gang's turfwar zone. Good times, yes, good times indeed. What was I thinking?

Ahh, but the good memories of those times, the other bike messengers made me feel like I was part of an elite group of individuals who worked outside the system while all along providing the speed, flexibility, and punctuality to move the deliveries of architects, the doctors, the lawyers, the Ad agencies, the marketing agencies, I could go on with these groups for a while but I think you get the picture, all around the ATL. On an average day, I could easily ride about 50-60 miles, I ate nothing but fruit and bread, I drank copious amounts of coffee and water. The end of the work day found me at the stein Club in midtown on Peachtree Street. It was a great bar for couriers, it was a real dive. Cheap pitchers of beer and a nice private outdoor patio out back to wind down after a hard days work. Too bad it is now nothing more than a memory now.

Atlanta is like a memory to me now in a way. Nothing is a same as it was and strangely with all of this growth it seems that it is not getting better, it is only becoming something different. When I was much younger, Atlanta had real coffeehouses, locally owned, more hangout than the corporate coffee machine could ever be. Live music, low lighting, no pretense. I remember one such place with a great deal of fondness, it was called Homage and was over in the space presently occupied by Formosa.

There was another place on Ponce I feel needs mention as well, it was called the liquid bean and it was quite the spot. They were so low budget. They actually had a Mr coffee espresso machine and a cluttered room full of old mismatched sofas for relaxing. Who cares, its long gone now. Up the street from the bean was the first MJQ. Wait, I am not even going to get into that nonsense in this post today. Screw MJQ.

I feel that Atlanta may just be going nowhere fast. Things do change but rarely do they change in a positive way. I am not sure as to what I am getting at but it is like this city is missing something, something that could make it real. I will let you know when I figure out exactly what this may be....