Tales on the Courier Shift: Closing of a Chapter

By the middle of January 2015, the initial rush of courier deliveries that I had with Postmates was past its peak and was on a sharp decline. The holidays were hard, not just because I lost three weeks worth of work due to a sudden death in the family, but also because delivery assignments were far and in between.

In addition, I was transitioning work to a new delivery service, and I will have to say, there were quite a few rough spots during the early shifts that tested my mental fortitude. By the way, I am forever boycotting Poulet Du Jour in Hermosa Beach (233 Pacific Coast Hwy, Hermosa Beach, CA 90254) due to their mistreatment and disrespect of me when I just came in to pick up food for delivery. This restaurant may claim to have some of the best rotisserie chicken in the South Bay, but I don't pay money to get verbally abused.

Tales on the Courier Shift: Outside deliveries warrant a dessert.

In this episode of Tales on the Courier Shift taking place between 1/31-2/1/15, I received a request from an outside courier company to deliver mail correspondence to residents in the San Gabriel Valley. It was so impromptu that I was at the courier hub within two hours of the call and out on the road for the next ten hours after that. This one was particularly grueling because I was just thrown a list, the letters to distribute, and left to my own wits and mapping skills. Fortunately I had the combination of a standalone GPS, my smartphone, and my Sena SMH10 Bluetooth Headset to get me through the night.

Nostalgic Bites: Lomeli's Italian Restaurant (Gardena, CA)

This particular food review is a bit special for me as it answers a question nearly 28 years in the making.

So a little background story here. For the first four years of my life, I lived in Gardena, CA, a suburb south of Los Angeles for the out-of-towners. Occasionally, I would be treated to pizza for dinner from a place called Lomeli's Italian Restaurant (2223 West Redondo Beach Boulevard, Gardena, CA 90247). My parents never told me where the pizza came from (they figured I was too little to care), but fortunately I learned to read at a very young age and was able to remember the restaurant's name from reading the receipts and the pizza boxes. However, that wasn't the only thing that ingrained that name into the deep recesses of my childhood memories; it was the distinct taste of the cheese and the homemade sauce together when I would eat my pizza slices. There was no other place that I would find in my motorcycle adventures and pizza trips to other shops across the country that would replicate that particular flavor.