Jon and Kate plus 8!

So I've been watching this show if I catch it while flipping channels. So Jon and Kate started off with twin girls and wanted a third kid. Instead, they ended up with 6 more! Talk about a mad house... if you thought trying to keep track of one kid was tough, try 8 at once!

They talked about how when the six were babies and they had to drive somewhere, they had to carry each one individually to the car. So one kid to the car, strap them in, back to the house to get the next kid. It'd take 15 minutes just to load up. Of course, they'd have to reverse the process when they got home.

There's a LOT of logistics to handling eight kids... There's some other show about a family of 17 kids! But only one set of twins. So the older kids could help watch the younger kids. But 6 babies at once... and two more only 3 years older. Wow...

What a little more than a quarter million can buy you..

In downtown San Francisco:




http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/24/BUTM12GQMI.DTL

Kites can be crazy...

So on the drive up PCH, I saw a guy kite surfing. Pretty badass! It can also be pretty dangerous if you decide to go kite surfing during a tropical storm:

http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/08/20/kite.surfer/index.html

Yeah... us Floridans can be a little crazy. After all, the best time to go surfing is when a huge storm is approaching. But with the addition of a kite, it can be a bit more interesting!

Up in the hills of Palos Verdes

So... I finally busted out the mountain bike and hit up a trail. The trailhead is at the very top of this hill in PV. You get some pretty amazing views from up there. It's pretty high up as we're above some of the clouds. In the background is Santa Catalina island.

On the ride, I made the mistake of riding behind one of my buddies on the downhill section. I basically ate dust the entire way down; it had the consistency of flour and it coated all of me and the bike.

Drive PCH

You should do it at least once. Heading south from San Francisco is the prefered direction as you have a better view of the ocean and places to stop. But it's pretty good going north too :) Oh yeah, drive something fun because the roads are twisty!

Choose your language

Back in the day in Texas and Florida, I only recall spanish being the only other language option at an ATM machine. Well, here in Torrace, CA, the options are English, Spanish, Chinese or Japanese (not sure which), and an eastern European language (maybe Czech?).

I was just up in Mountain View, CA and was in the little downtown area. There were 3-4 Italian restuarants, 3 Viet, a couple Thai, and a Mexican. The oddest one was one of the Viet ones that was also an upscale bar. Anyways, I was eating at one of the Italian places and in the bathroom, the sign asking people to wash their hands was in english, spanish, viet, and chinese. Oddly enough, no italian.

Handball?

So while I was in France last year, they had some handball on tv. I was like... uh... seems like something I played back in middle school. Then I was watching the Olympic opening ceremony and noticed that handball is an Olympic sport! The thought of making it to the Olympics by playing handball started floating through my brain... and apparently, someone else thought of it already.

http://www.ehow.com/how_2221821_make-us-olympic-handball-team.html

Maybe if I train for the next 4 years....

Koi fish

So one of my buddys has this insane Koi fish pond he built in his amazing backyard; he's Japanese and built a Japanese style garden. He's got some really big fish in his pond but the thing that interested me was the fact that they reportedly can live up to 200 years! Apparently, pretty commonly in the 40-90 yr. range. How crazy is it to have a pet that outlives you?