Maybe I should take a break?

Well... almost three weeks ago, I sprained my ankle. It happened while playing ultimate frisbee when I was trying to come to a stop and I stepped into a pothole. One of my friends heard it basically let go. So I didn't play volleyball for a week.

First volleyball class of the new session, I dug this one guy three times in a row, and he was hitting HARD. Well, ended up with a nice bruise on my left hand.

Another thing, my right knee had felt unstable a couple times while playing ultimate and the first volleyball class. So I wore a knee brace the next volleyball class. Well, next morning, my knee is all swollen and it still is three days later. It has gotten much better though and I'm guessing it'll be fine by Monday.

Oh, and my lower back bugs me once in a while, usually after playing volleyball.

Some girls really are that worthless

So I'm flipping channels and came across this show, "Pants-Off Dance-Off". Basically, some contestent dances and removes clothes to a song. Anyways, so they have these little snipits of interviews of the girls that are dancing. Check out this real winner (in slightly valley-girl tone):

"When I marry rich, I'm going to hang out with my girlfriends all of the time. I mean, I'll have to hang out with my husband once in a while. We can have kids, I probably won't have them, but someone else can and we'll buy them. We can adopt kids from other countries."

I'm still completely dumbfounded.

Housing is still crazy...

Since my sister decided to move out here, I've been looking around at housing and whatnot. I got home from volleyball class tonight and flipped on the telly. My roomie Maria had been watch the HGTV (home and gardening?) channel and a show called 'House Hunters' was on. This episode was in Canton, Texas and they had the Cowboys cheerleaders helping out with the show. I do miss my Texas girls!

Anyways, the couple was looking at this one house for $148k, 1800 sq. ft, on 1.3 acres of land. I just drove by this house in Redondo Beach, 1833 sq. ft, NO yard (all the houses are RIGHT next to each other), for the REDUCED price of $779k! It's actually a pretty good deal. There have been a couple of houses on the same street as me that have been for sale since fall and both are in the $1.2-$1.4 million range. The 4-bed/4-bath house across the street for me WAS for sale, but couldn't find any buyers, so now it's for rent. Only $5900 a month with $8k security deposit.

Cathedrals

So my manager just got back from a trip to our office in Brno, Czech Republic. He was showing up some pics of Prague and there was one of the cathedral there. I was a little surprised, but the cathedral in Strasbourg, France (right on the border with Germany) is of similar architecture, and completely different than the rest of France. Here's the one in Strasbourg (has some AMAZING stained glass):

It's warming up!

So it's hitting mid-70s this weekend! This is a shot from a webcam over looking the Hermosa Beach Pier area. Sometimes, when we're playing volleyball during December, we like to call all of our friends in colder climates and tell them to check out the webiste:

http://www.hermosawave.net/webcam/

Playing chicken with a Ferrari

Yeah... some moron driving slow in a Ferrari... So the location is the overpass ramp from the 405 to the 10 and it goes from one lane to two on the overpass, and merges back to one lane as it gets onto the 10.

So usually, there's one clear lane on the overpass, which bends to the left, to pass everyone that goes slow. A toyota corolla in front of me is going slow and stays in the left lane. So I switch to the right and then there's a Ferrari in front of me but he's going slow too. So I switch back left, after having passed the toyota, and pass the Ferrari 599.

We're catching up to traffic now in the left lane and it's going to start merging soon. I'm at least half a car ahead of the Ferrari, and he's not going faster than me, so I just close up pretty close on the car in front of me so there's no gap. The right lane has to merge into the left so I have right of way, and I'm half a car ahead. He runs out of road and is forced to slow down and pull in behind me. He was honking and gesturing at me like I did something wrong.

Lets see... He's going slower than me, he's in the lane that ends and has to merge, he's behind me, and he expects me to slow down to let him pass me and get into my lane? I think not... My sister was in the car and was completely bewildered by the guy in the Ferrari too. Oh, and too top it off, after we get onto the 10, the guy in the Ferrari gets all the way over to the left lane (4 lanes over) and drives slow.

Traffic

LA traffic a little after 5pm on Monday, in case you ever wondered what traffic was like here.

Freakin headlights@$#!#@$!@!

Just got done with a battle royal with a head light bulb install on my sister's friend Minh's Mazda 3. It uses this super pain in the ass retainer clip/spring which 'hooks' at two points on each side of the bulb to hold it in.

Minh's boyfriend tried earlier today with no success.... the dealer wanted $40 to change it so they said screw that! Anyways, I took my crack at it. First, it's really hard to see what you need to do as there's the windshield washer bottle and power steering fluid bottle right behind the headlight, so there's not much space. Minh's boyfriend had already gotten the clip and old bulb out, but couldn't get it back in. I had to check out the other headlight to figure out how it was suppose to go.

So I go at it for a few minutes, and drop the spring down into the headlight assembly.... ARGH! There's absolutely no way to get fingers in there, so I try to figure out how to take off the whole assembly. Looks like I need to start by taking off the center grill. No biggy, two bolts. I get those off and start to tug on the center grill.... which is actually integrated with the entire front bumper. Well, scratch that idea. Fortunately, I found a magnetic screw driver that I was able to manuever into the proper position and get the clip back out. I procede to drop the clip back into the headlight assembly another 4-5 times.

My next dropping point is into the fender. So I have to remove the splash shield from the bottom of the car. Did that twice. After battling for an hour and a half though, I WON! That's right, take that you stupid *&@@%^*@^!!!! So if anyone needs to change out the head light bulb on a Mazda 3, I figured out how.

New Style Mr. Potato Head!

I'm a dork, but I had to buy it! Optimash Prime! I bought Spudtrooper for my nephew Logan.

2nd LA Moment

So... my sister is in town visiting and we met up with her friend Minh and her friends. We ended up going to a karaoke bar in K-town (Korea town). There was a good mixed crowd there... and also Judy Reyes (from Scrubs) and Zoe Saldana (from a bunch of movies). Both of them are pretty damn good singers! Judy did "All Cried Out" from Allue & 112 (yeah..... uh, I have this song on my ipod). What was awesome was for the guy parts in the song, she lowered her voice and kept on singing, it was great! Zoe sang Mr. Big's "To Be With You". I should've asked for Zoe's number...

Some foods don't make for good leftovers

36 hour old sushi sucks.

For all those people trying to lose weight

So... a friend of mine had an interesting tidbit... drinking cold water helps burn calories. Is it true? I don't know, but it makes sense; body has to generate more heat (i.e. burn calories) to offset the cold water.

What I do know is true (based on some study) is that 'fidgeting' burns calories. So all those people twitching in their seats are burning more calories than people like me who fall asleep.

And some things are bound to happen again....

Yup, it's been about 2 years since it last happened, but I busted my ankle. Considering how much volleyball and ultimate frisbee I've been playing, I've had a pretty good run. Oh well, so here I sit with ice numbing things up.

First time for everything...

I can finally touch the rim of a basketball hoop! I guess playing volleyball three times a week has helped my vert which I guess is roughly 34"?

Saturday mornings

I moved to Hermosa/Redondo Beach for a reason! This is what I ususally do for 3-4 hours in the morning.

Tire wear

1. New rear tire with about 50 miles on them and not very much cornering.

2. Tire with about 150 track miles. You can actually 'read' the tire to see how the suspension is performing. In this case, that edge which is a bit raised indicates a lack of rebound damping (I think).

Bike track day, part II

Another interesting distinction between car track days and motorcycle track days… All but the advanced group of a car track day require ‘point-bys’ in order for one car to pass another. So the car in front must signal/allow the car behind to pass them. At a motorcycle track day, mirrors are usually taken off as a precaution should the motorcycle get wrecked (more on this later). No mirrors mean it’s a lot more difficult to see behind you. So there’s pretty much open passing anywhere. In my novice group, they did limit the passing while in a corner to only passing on the outside. Still open passing on the straights.

I tend to be the courteous and cautious type, so if I saw someone closing on me (glancing back once in a while), I’d wait until a safe section of track to slow down a tad to make it easier to pass me. This was fine for those who were also more cautious. However, there was a LOT of very aggressive passing going on where a few guys cut it pretty close. Lesson, just ignore what’s behind you and make them work to get around you.

So what happens when you have a bunch of over aggressive guys? You end up with a bunch of wrecks. I think there were 13 wrecks with at least four guys going to the hospital. The number was abnormally high (first real track day of the season), but not an uncommon occurrence at all during a motorcycle track day.

Here’s some vid from the B/Intermediate group to give you a flavor of what it’s like. My buddy Cam is in the blue leathers on the dark colored motorcycle.

First bike track day!

Pretty crazy experience. I've done a number of car track days, but this was the first on the bike. Being one of the first track days of the 'season', it was completely packed. The riders are split into advanced, intermediate and novice (A, B, C). Since it was my first time, I went with novice. Thank goodness I did because I was only mid/lower level in the novice group! It's not like I was putting around either! There were a bunch of B guys running in C because B sold out first; so it was an unusually fast C group. Regardless though, this novice class was nothing like a novice car trackday group.

There were a few 'slow' people, but for the most part, people weren't afraid to crank that throttle and lean the bike over. This is in contrast to the novice group in car days were a lot of people seem like they're on a sunday drive.

Anyways, I'm tired. Post up more later.

Donuts!

I was going to post about something, but forgot. So here's a pic from Barcelona with a guy balancing a tray of donuts on his head. Something I found a bit strange... little kids show up in clothes, strip naked and run around, then put clothes back on and go home.