Just Dicking Around

Indoor Skydiving

2012-01-25T17:59:00.001-08:00

Did it today for lil' baby Jee's birthday. Going back for sure.

Blog quiet time is just about over...

2012-01-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

Found this neat-o pic of Coney Island in the 1980's, HERE. I have a vested interest in Amusement Arcade signs. More on that later.

The Sacred Mentos

2011-08-31T00:57:00.000-07:00

What a place. California is the land of happy and sunshine. The Landsquids moped rally is like that too but you more feel like you're at summer camp, when you were a kid, and not the dumb camps you were tricked into going to buy your parents. This was the full on one with a waterslide and mopeds to ride and the old school alcoholic energy drinks that are fulla sugar. What a time we all had. Matt was so stoked on the way back that he punched out his windshield. Not even joking on that one either. Crazy long flat roads there too. We rode on one levee as the sun was setting and I watched my moped riding shadow on another banked hill probably 100 feet away. Black Knight bike did well too, no issues what so ever. One guy had issues though, his name is TooFunTom.com and this is him trying to get out of the weather...

I got a bit lost on the long Sunday ride ad ended up in the country where there was absolutely nothing around me for a butt ton of miles. It was terribly quiet out there. Then I re-traced my steps and found my way back to the group. Everyone was hiding form the sun on the porches of this cool little old town. It felt like something out of the Grapes of Wrath and had a really rad bar in it. This below is one of the coolest murals I saw, which was not in the old town. Friendly people and good moped times. Soooo rad.

From White to Black and SackMemento

2011-08-25T10:19:00.000-07:00

The last top tank Hobbit I had didn't go too well for me. Readers of this blog may even remember the posts of frustration and anguish. In the end Betty White tried to kill me with a sticky throttle and a street sign. She only ended up warping her subframe and sealing her fate. When I got rid of her I still imagined I would build another top tanker down the road again. But up came this beauty, with all the parts on it I would have included myself. 70cc Athena, 24mm flat slide Mikuni with a four pedal OKO reed block and a MOTOMATIC exhaust (the best Hobbit pipe in existence). The bike is pretty fast but seems to love getting hot even though everything is tightened down and the jetting right on. Oh well, the tank is plastic btw...

Speaking of the wonderful guys in Ball Sacramento, I will be on my way there tonight for the Moped Parade extravaganza. Can't wait, I hear I'm bunking with the Cuperteens! What a lovely bunch of children they are. I'm going to start working on my "Yo Mamam" insults now so that I'm ready for the weekend.

Lost a Baby, had a Baby and Le Ocean

2011-08-18T11:44:00.000-07:00

Well now. Mopeds and things and other things have all been going on at a rapid rate. Sold Dragon bike is the main departure of my moped children, but you know I don't even miss that little brat. The bike was orange, which is my least favorite Popsicle and or Starburst flavor. It always made weird noises that I couldn't trace and honestly something was about to explode in there. So I sold it to a kid who promptly crashed it. Think, maybe that could have been me crashing it instead. I have been having a few years of good luck so I don't know really.

BUUUUUUUUT, then came along a deal of the century. I love it when people quit mopeds. For a small amount of money, somewhere around $600 to a million dollars I got two mopeds. One with all conceivable custom moped parts on it that with more tuning could hit 60+ and the other kitted with a pipe and title. Crazy I know. Plus he threw in baskets and baskets of parts to go along with it. I really don't have pictures of it right now, soon that will have to be fixed. Plus it would be rude to the memory of Dragon bike if I were to post a bunch of pics of my new prettier child. Here is the long gone one...

Lots of things have been going on down at A.D.D. Motorworks too. We got a Babay Pacman down there which Buddha willing will have sound today. So much fun to have in total silence. When the shop gets torn down and turned into an arcade this winter it's going to get loud in there. Loud and rowdy hopefully. More video games, less tools come October. More later on that possibly...

Last but not least of all I went to the coast for a day and a night this weekend. So cool out there, makes me proud to be from Washington since I often forget we have a coast line. Crazy rock peaks and stuff to climb around on. Not enough wind for my kite but that's better than when the wind blows sand into your teeth. Perfect time. I was able to get all the way around this big rock in the distance during low tide in the morning. Gotta get back there...

Things happening and the sun is now here

2011-08-04T23:39:00.000-07:00

Lots of goings on, but no real time to talk. For now a teaser picture will have to do...

Some troubles and some success as well

2011-07-21T00:15:00.000-07:00

Man what a bad blogger I am. I bunch of my pictures were broken on my last two posts due to shuffling FLICKR photos around. My dumb-smart phone has problems uploading shit to Flickr so I have duplicates and blah blah blah. Moral of the story is I fixed them. And there's a bunch more up that have been around a bit now though, CLICKR HERE.

I wanted to make a post of the before and after of my Hobbit DD (daily driver). It started making this terrible rattling noise at idle along with some tinging noises coming from the clutch side. I was thinking one of the bearings were about to go and that it was making the crank wobble some. Man I wish I could get it back to even that shitty state. For the first time it broke down on me today. Had to ride a mother chompin' scooter home from A.D.D. Wow. I really need to give this bike some lovin'. Once it's running some of my sanity will be back I think.

Also have you heard about THIS IS NATURE? It's going to be the next big thing so watch out. Remember you heard it here folks!!!

A Few Things Gone

2011-07-15T11:32:00.000-07:00

Back from my blog break. Maybe I've been busy doing stuff. Jeebees does have 3 out of 3 running mopeds now, with assistance from me, so that's something I've been doing. And then yesterday I sold a moped. It's the first one I've sold in a good long while and I think I actually made money on the sale. I knew he was going to bite when he pulled up in his all blacked out Range Rover and told me on the phone that he wanted the bike to sit in the show room of his "hipster granite shop in Georgetown." So long GREAT WHITE PUCH...

I'm pretty happy to have the cash and also be rid of a Puch. I' don't really like the Puch engine all that much, mostly due to it's lack of hill climbing abilities. I still have my Magnum and will probably always have it. That bike runs but is in bad need of some TLC. More on that later I'm thinking.

I also lost my stink hole the other day. By that I mean my garage. It was a 10 minute ride from my house since I moved to the Central District so it didn't really make sense to have. Pretty great when I was located a few houses down from it though. But a gross layer of mold and grime started accumulating on all the stuff in there from the high levels of dank grossness. Old Joey O. had some bikes in there so we loaded it all up in his minivan and got the hell out. So long stink hole...

Don't be too worried for me. Like any good American I still have plenty of possessions. I made my first pinball machine purchase. I say my first because I think there will most likely be more down the road. No need to wild like I did at one time with mopeds. But they say you always remember your first. Dragonfist, DRAGONFIST, DRRRRRRAGONFIST!!!!!!

Best Adventures of Kurt Hatanaka

2011-07-07T01:09:00.000-07:00

What a boy. The thing of it is... Kurt now lives on some Island country to the West of us. He is like the John Locke character and will bring life and destruction to the Island. As well as a sense of wonderment and good karaoke singing skills. He will sorely be missed here in the Pacific Northwest and across the country. If you would like to purchase memorabilia of the great and mighty Kurt Chicago of Seattle now Japan, please donate $500 for one picture of his person, circa 1996. Email is... kurtwhereismyscredriver@emaLEZZZZZ.net

A Really Reno Rally

2011-06-16T22:14:00.000-07:00

Went to Nevada for pretty much the first time last weekend. I'd been to to Laughlin, Nevada once before. A po-dunk little shit town in the far south corner which seemed to cater to just Arizonians. Reno was amazing though. Probably the weirdest town I have ever been to. So much old run down neat little places and then big giants ones with rows and rows of chandeliers and old people and craps tables right next door. On the subject of gambling, I only lost $60. But as I like to think about it; I bought two $30 drinks. You really gotta be sitting there a long time to get the free drinks I found out.

It was great though, and +A rally. They had three rides (as they should) which were all perfect, took us to a crazy show where the band was mostly made up of robots and on Sunday we played laser tag. On the ride I kept thinking to myself, "this place would feel like Mars if it weren't for all te strip malls." At the show I ended up being tossed in the air during the Freebird climax and crowd surfed around abit. The guy who put on the show was a fellow mopedder and was even into Bloodhag, a sci-fi doom rock band from Seattle. The spot that had the laser tag also had a killer Batman pinball machine that played better than any I've ever come across.

Oh and all my favorite Cuperteens were there (with the exception of Nick). Those guys are a blast, even when they make me crash. Technically, it wasn't Zach's fault that I crashed since he was towing my bike that had a broken throttle cable. It was really nice of him to tow me, maybe I just should have been holding onto him and not his shock. A half a second after saying, "this is great" my bike swerved at his and I ate it going about 15mph. I got away with nothing but a rip in the knee of my pants. Great guy that Zach, really. Butt Smith did a champ of a job driving his little T-cell, thanks guy. Even with the Google leading us astray and the BLOWER incident. And thanks too (if you can even hear me) to Jen, Troy and Lindsay for housing us Seattle folk. A well done rally it was, getting top honors for being rad and awesome in many different ways...

Nothing Happened Today, But Awesome

2011-05-29T23:04:00.000-07:00

More of the Reechmont Rally

2011-05-29T08:38:00.000-07:00

This place has some magic in it. We rode in the rain and some how didn't get wet. Then we we went swimming downtown and got really wet in some crazy rapids. I'm told it's the only capitol with class 5 rapids in it. I forgot to take a picture of the rigid maxi I was riding. The seat was extra cush so when we rode along all those gravel roads I was feelin fine. The party last night at the childrens commune was amazing too. Apparently I can still drop into a bowl on a skateboard. I don't know what to do at the otherside so the board got replaced with some dancin shoes. Richmond is mega awesome!

Richmond Verrrrginnyia

2011-05-28T07:41:00.001-07:00

What a place. Lots of folks from all over here. Little bit of mopeds too. Last night we watched the Hell's Satans movie in a really rad old theater. Not sure what today will hold. Maybe I will drink lots of orange juice and go to bed before 4am...

D.C. again

2011-05-26T22:19:00.000-07:00

The seat of power. Today I saw it all. It's surprising how accessible all of it is here. After my tour of the Capitol, which like a most of the other attractions here was free, I sat in on the House and Senate hearing that were going on. Some pretty important hearings too. The House today was voting on re-re-pealing "Don't Ask Don't Tell." It was pretty ruckus in there. 420 out of the 435 reps were there. Barney Frank was the first I recognized from across the hall. Little known fact: he has a flip phone, no iPhone for him. Then I saw Nancy Pelosi who was a little bit closer. Then, right under my nose was some of the Republican class one dickheads: Paul Ryan (medicare killer), Eric Cantor (probably beats his dog) and Michelle Bachman (dumb birther). I was really close to them though, like 5 feet.

The Senate was a different story. It was really quiet and only the person giving the speech and the one on deck was present. I listened to Chuck Grassley talk about free trade and Ron Wyden, Oregon's Senator talk about how much the PATRIOT Act sucks. Sitting alone on the Senate floor however, was the Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy who was trying to block the extension of the PATRIOT Act. So as I sat there and watched Rand Paul came in a chatted with him. Then Senate leader Harry Reid came in, after which they exited together. A second later Mitch "LOOKS JUST LIKE A TURTLE" McConnell peeked in and then quickly left. I had to leave my camera and listening devices at the door, but I can tell you there was some wheeling and dealing going on there for sure. Super interesting to see in person.

A few more things. I also scoped out the Air and Space Museum. They had some crazy shit there. I still like the Seattle Museum of Flight, but maaaan, they had the original plane the Wright Bros flew at Kitty Hawk. Next to it was one of only fiev existing bikes the Wright Brothers made before they got into airplanes. And get this, it was a fixie, #totalhipsters. Also Space Ship One and the Spirit of St. Louis were hanging up together, which are great examples of what non-government affiliated people can do in the sky. PLUS!: THE NATIONAL PINBALL MUSEUM. They had the larges collection of old machines I have ever seen. Also some replicas of old pinball crossed with pool tables from the 1700's that are supposed to be the pre-cursours of pinball. Click on the link to my FLICKR on the right to see what I'm talking about. There were also a bunch of really cool games that I never knew existed. They had: A Barbwire machine (based on the Pam Anderson movie), one (pictured below) that had a crazy upright section built into the back glass, a gorgeous Addams Family and also a soccer game that had no outlanes and was just timed. So much more too, but really, just look at the pictures and imagine it all...

The District of Columbia

2011-05-25T19:52:00.000-07:00

Big buildings, fancy suits and ties, some hot weather and me. I'm in D.C. right now! Never been here before and I gotta say I am really impressed. There is so much to see. I've been running around non-stop like I did when I was in Europe. After tomorrow I will be beat but maybe a little bit more cultured. Brimming with it, even.

Mostly it's just neat to see in person the buildings and monuments you've seen on the TV. The White House is neat. But Barry is in London right now so it's not what it could be. The Washington monument is huuuuge and there were a ton of people out on the lawn by it playing soft ball and kick ball right next to it. It was prob 80 degrees today, so not horrendous, just hotter than I'm used to. Oh and I went to the spy museum. That was rad and a lot bigger than I though it would be. Coolest part was probably the small dark air duct you could crawl down and listen in to fake Cuban conspirators conversations. The National Portrait Gallery was cool too. Came across some crazy lady eating ice cream. And their Metro is sooo much cleaner than NYC's subways. Very futuristic feeling. Also if you're looking for a place to fix up your dog and or horse, I got ya covered...

Tomorrow though I get to tour the Capitol building an hopefully spot some Senators or Reps. And even cooler than that... wait for it, the NATIONAL PINBALL MUSEUM. Yup. Gunna rock that place to the mo fuckin ground. Probably hit up a bunch of museums too since they are mostly all free here. I think if I saw Newt Gingrich I would spit on him, or call him "lizard boy." I mean it too.

New York City, NY

2011-05-23T14:10:00.000-07:00

I'm dicking around in NYC right now. Specifically, in Astoria Queens at my two buddies house whom I went to Evergreen with. They have a few names but are generally called: Katie and Akiva and they are straight up dope. Me 'n Jihee spent the last few days with them seeing some pretty gat dang interesting things. I think it would be real hard to live here right now with my partial knowledge of the city. Since if I lived here I would be moving at such a fast pace to see all the wonderful things it would all be a blur. But a blur of historic monuments and crazy awesome art and pretty people and rad graffiti and tasty food. We got in on Friday and I just saw my lady off to the airport an hour ago. She had fun. I'm still having some of it and now here are some photo images of what the source of all the fun was...

Coney Island was so amazing though. It's really just how you would imagine it from seeing pictures and movies and such. There's real scummy parts, and some brand new parts and weird bits and then there's the rides. I truly believe these roller coasters (with the exception of the Cyclone roller coaster) are the pinnacle of man's ingenuity. I don't include the Cyclone because it was made in 1927 and rattled the shit out of brain and back and all my bones. It was fun but something I will never do again. Bu the ball ride, which fits just two people at a time, that flings you 200 feet in the air and the roller coaster you lay down on and zoom about like Superman were fantastic. You're pretty much living the life of an astronaut with out all the paperwork...

We found a bunch of pinball here too. The first was in a tiny little skateboard slash pinball shop in the East Village. I told the guy I was surprised to come across this and though that pinball wasn't around much in the city. He asked me if I was from Portland. ZING! I got real sweaty in a bar in Brooklyn killin it on The Sopranos. And then played a limited edition LOTR game that basically just has spray painted gold legs. Played real nice though. Haven't been able to get my name up on any of the machines though. I still have a day or so here so we shall see if that changes...

Back on a Hobbit + LATEBIRD rally vid

2011-05-16T17:19:00.000-07:00

It's been weeks! My daily driver bike blue a big old hole in the exhaust and then got a flat tire and has been outta commission for a bit. We're back now, reunited. So good. Nice timing too since Dragon bike blows out bulbs and Magnum got a flat tire. Unfortunately Naz couldn't weld the rusty husk of my old Leo Vinci pipe back to working order, so I'm rocking the Weak Ends pipe. I only ever ran it on my race bike, so there's maybe only 10 miles on it (plus one or two crashes). I wasn't too crazy about it, as compared to say the Motomatic pipe I have. It should work well on this set up though. I did have to dremmel out the exhaust some to get it to mount up to the Athena kit since it was just a hair too wide. I hope their pipes have improved since there's quite a few things that just aren't right on it. Really this is a hard thing to complain about since pipes for the Hobbit are getting a little bit more scarce. Gunna take it for a test run here soon before I head off to MM...

And HEY, LOOK AT THIS! My camera emerged from the guts of Matt Smit's Tercel finally. The video is from the one ride at the Latebird rally that just happened. It's a bit long but gives a pretty good idea of what the ride was all about. Like angels, riding in the clouds. I swear, California has some of the most adorable roads ever...

My FIRST first moped

2011-05-11T13:35:00.000-07:00

As some of you might know already, I had a moped previous to all this moped mania, while growing up on Bainbridge Island. I've been looking for this picture since I found myself another Honda Hobbit about 4 years ago. And now here it is, along with a picture of my Pops and his Honda 55, circa 1963. Thanks for finding it, Mom!

In 1996, which is the date written on the back of my picture, I was 15 years old. Pretty sure I was riding it illegally for a bit but back then it didn't matter too much. It was a real turd though. We had to make sure the bike was on top of a hill if we were going to start it since since it was REAL hard to start. I'll bet that either the carb was dirty or the belt was bad, or both. Had I known half as much as I know now about the bike back then, it probably would have at least idled and been easier to start.

We got it from the rummage sale Rotary puts on once a year. No one wanted it since it was missing the key and one of the pedals. I think we got it for $100. My Dad was pretty handy so he got those things fixed without too much trouble. As far as dropping the sub-frame to clean the carb, well we never really got that deep into it. It's funny that I would find the same kind of bike 12 years later and develop a crazed obsession with it. I also had no idea these bikes came with the top covers since as you can see, mine was lacking them. It was a great bike though, spent lots of time on it discovering the back roads of Bainbridge. I also low sided it once while taking a turn too fast but never told my Mom or Dad that. Not sure what became of it, sadly. And the baskets (if you're wondering), that's where I put stuff.

My Dad's bike I don't have too much information on. My Uncle Skip says it's a Honda 55, three speed. The picture was taken while they were living on Yokota Air Force base in Japan and he's probably a Sophomore in high school, which would be 1963. The two brothers owned it together and it sounds like they were given it to just get around the base on. My Dad apparently took it off base though, using it to see friends at some of the other near by military bases. It probably went about 45 mph tops, says Skip. And like the pictures show, we both kept our bikes clean.

Flying planes and hanging ones

2011-05-02T16:07:00.000-07:00

I doubt there's a cooler museum dedicated to flying in the whole world, I mean it, Seattle's Museum of flight is spectacular. I forget that since I only end up there once every five years. But now with resident Cruiser Mickey Thömas working there now I suspect I'll be spending some more time there. But what brought me there yesterday was the B-17 bomber tours. If you wanted to fly in it you paid 5 big ones. So myself, Jihee, my Aunt, Uncle and Cousin walked around inside of it while it was parked out behind the museum. This plane is significant to the Echert's as it's the one my Grandad flew and was shot down in during WWII. On the 13th mission the Nazi's shot him down, landing him in a POW camp for alomst 2 years. He was the Bombardier, like Yossarian in Catch-22. Also neat, in the museum they have the jet my Dad flew in the airforce, the F-5. Though when he was in it it was called the T-38, since he was training people to fly at supersonic speeds. Here's the B-17 Bombardier compartment and the F-5...

Cool stuff -humans flying through the air- at least I thought so. For more pictures from the day, click here... F.L.I.C.K.R!

Blog time again

2011-04-24T20:15:00.000-07:00

Wow, I don't have a job but somehow seem busy. If I had a job I think I would be nuts from all the running around. It's good to have lots of lazy time, makes your skin look better. Also I've found there are lots of ways to make money, even without a job. The other day I won the pinball tournament at the Pinball Museum and they gave me $130, TAX FREEE BITCHES! That's right. I had no idea I was going to go down there when I stopped by Brad's to hang out. Then next thing I know I"m playing undefeated against nationally ranked pinball playerZ. The machines are great there, and I guess I was just on. Maybe it was part a fluke though since I played REALLY poorly at the tournament the other night at ADD-A-BALL. He's got a new Lord of the Rings! Yup, all 10 games of the night long tournament I tanked at. Still fun playing, even when you lose. Or if you're playing against people with Wikipedia pages and NYTimes articles written about them. Crazy. Nice guy though, and he lives on the Island I grew up on. Also, Jihee got a score higher than anyone else got that night on Dragonfist 2, too bad she wasn't competing. Brad broke the glass on Stars, whups...

On mopeds: I am being constantly reminded of how much shit I"ve accumulated while I've been packing up to move. What am I doing will all these plastic bits that serve little or no purpose on a moped? I guess I could pawn all my junk off on old man Snordley... but what if I need it someday? Prob won't, but I might.

Someone posted this on Reddit and it perfectly sums up my video game life of the past week. Sure I recently played Halo Reach and loved it. It's all about Portal, always was, always will be...

AND... drum roll, I'm allowed to travel to Canada! I had a hard time getting in there for a while after being denied entrance into their pretty-much-America of a country. They didn't really have a reason, other than not liking the cut of my jib or some crap. The last question the lady at the border asked, which was talking on the phone to some superior, was, "How much cash do you have on you?" They used that as an excuse to turn me back the last few times. I told her $200 and we were free to go.

Vancover is something special though. We went into a cafe where you're encouraged to smoke pot. It was right next to Mac Emory's store. We rode a tiny small boat around to get to one of the islands right near downtown. They had a cool park there that I have vague dream like memories of from when I was a young one. Also saw that really cool sculpture at the border that looks like an empty screen. The Stranger's had pics of it up twice in the last year. And the big bubble is Science World, that was unfortunately closed. Come with next time, we go there...

It is unacceptable...

2011-04-13T01:30:00.000-07:00

It is unacceptable when a pinball machine works so poorly that you are forced to scream in agony. It should never come to that, it's game I realize this. But lately that's been the lay of my pinball world; agony and extreme amounts of frustration. LISTEN: The Medieval Madness machine at the Twilight Exit TILTS when you achieve multiball. That's right, as soon as you get it, the machine goes black and takes away your bonus despite no tilting having happened. What a bummer. It's like getting an ice cream cone on a hot summer day only to drop it on the ground as you go to take the first lick, then ants run all over the cone. I blame one person specifically and am in the process of thinking what kind of revenge I can bestow on him. His name rhymes with "Fark-O-Barrel" and he needs to fix his machines or I swear to God I will not put anther quarter into his sub-standard POS'ers.

My only solace has been playing pinball on the Xbox. I know, kind of dumb, but boy is it nice to know the machine isn't going to throw some curve ball at you like launching it right down the center, or tilting out when you should be hittin' hella jackpots. It's easier too, I'll admit. But you get to see cool things you wouldn't normally see at a machine at some bar. Like Barnyard multiball...

Oh yeah, also there's a new kitty at my house! I've been wanting to mention it but she doesn't like to stay still for pictures. I don't know how old she is but she's really pretty and very friendly. For a cat with such long hair she doesn't shed much, and she's quiet to boot! A damn near perfect cat. Her name is Maddie and she belongs to one of my new roommates. Unfortunately I don't get too much more time with her since I'm moving in with my special lady friend in the Central District at the end of this month. I'm happy about living in a cool room, inside a cool house with my lady close at hand and some fun roommates to hang out with. And really it's time to leave 12th and my weird dank garage hole. Here's a video of the cat, check out her radical white pants...

Go Go Gorilla

2011-04-07T13:36:00.000-07:00

Look at this mother fucker. Gorilla is an incredible human being from another world. If you look at the moving picture there you can almost hear the sound effects he's making in his helmet as he's passing me. "REEEEEEEEzooom!!" And look at that smirk for the camera. I generally try to hang on to my bike and not fall when at rallys. And enjoy the view, of course. Gorilla goes 70mph and laughs. You the man G.

As much as I prefer riding on a track to on the road, I'm prob not going to make it to the first race of the season happening this weekend. It looks like there's a 70% chance of rain. No thanks for that. Plus my bike is really hard to start from not being run for a while now. Gunna check that out here in a bit though.

LA again, more Latebirds rally

2011-04-05T18:31:00.000-07:00

Got back from LA yesterday. Well more specifically today at 4am. Hey, it's a long drive going across 3/4+ of Washington, all of Oregon and 5/8ths of California. And then, back. I think it took us 30 hours on the way back but we kind of Dicked around in Sacramento and then slept in the car for a few hours at some Cali rest stop. The rally was good but really we spent more time in the car than at the rally. Which was fine since I had such excellent company with my lady friend, Matt and Kurt. There was only one ride at the rally, which seems weird thinking about it but it was still a solid Latebird rally. My fourth Bird rally, can't seem to quit these awesome dude bros. Nice camping times though, weather (for the most part), Pacific Ocean swimmin', friends and late night beer times. The one ride we did went into the clouds onto crazy banked, narrow race track like roads. I love visiting the California and LA in particular. It's a magical word down there. Going to the Starbucks at Malibu was a bizarre experience. Before we left the city, myself and my three best buds toured around LA some. We got some food in Koreatown, went to the La Brea tar pits, the Griffith Observatory and topped it off with a Japanese restuarant where a Japanese man with a head cold cook our food right in front of us. LA: amazingly it's still considered EARTH. Here's some choice shots for ya, first one is the only picture I took with mopeds in it...

Race season cometh

2011-03-29T16:24:00.000-07:00

Watch me move my chicken legs around in this really neat video. See also: Phil raising his arms in joy, Naz blastin' and a shirtless and then Fred Flintstone resembling Joe...

Oregon SuperBikers 2011 Promo Video from Jesse Hollis on Vimeo.

Haven't touched my race bike since the last race of last year. Pretty much haven't touched it that is; I rode it in the rain like a dummy to a party since another runner I had was being loaned out. It was not happy afterwards. A few months ago I tried to start it up and it was super hard to kick over. The back wheel just dragged on the ground, even on a really steep hill. Should be all good under the hood though, ready to blast some fools next month. Yes, you too JJ.

Live from London

2011-03-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

I really do wonder what British men look like without a suit and tie on. Sure they look snappy -but hey bro, chill out with me for a bit. Relax. Londoners are pretty good at lines here though, or "queues" as they like to say. I use this a measurement to gauge how civilized a society is. This one particular measurment Cubans fail miserably at. But I've seen some major historic sights these last tow days here. I think that's really what this trip boils down to. Nothing crazy happened. I didn't get to interact with a ton of locals since I was in pretty touristed areas. But I did see some places that have had major historical signifigance for the world. Here in London I've seen: Trafalgar Square, Covenant garden, Hyde park, Buckingham Palace, the dirty Thames river, Big Ben and Parliment. Pretty historic here. Not as walkable of a city, but the Tube really gets you around.

For museums I went to the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum and the Tate Modern. The Tate was topps, for sure. Followed by the Natural History museums with its really cool rocks and animal specimens and stuff. The science museum was a sea of screaming children. I love modern art museums though, especially when they're free. The Tate also had a really cool large open area (building used to be a power station) that they showcase large scale works of art in. Last time I was here they had giant plastic ice cubes stacked up into a city that you could walk around in, and Jihee saw a radical setting sun when she was last here. Yesterday I walked in and found the place filled up with what looked like little tiny gray rocks. I thought, "rock garden, how lame." But upon closer inspection I found that the floor was coated with over 100 million ceramic sunflower seeds. Sooooo crazy. They looked just like sunflower seeds, but weren't. You could Tweet to the artist and ask him questions but I didn't and wouldn't have had I been able anyways. I don't know why he did it and don't care, it was rad. 100,000,000, perfect little tiny replicas!!!

My hostel is in a kind of strange area. The center of London. I am a few minutes walk from the Millennium bridge and St. Paul cathedral. I'm kind of in the financial district I think. The hostel is huge but pretty nicely set up. One more night and I'm home though. No more sleeping in a different bed every night. No more scrounging for some food with no meat in it. I've had fun traveling but am ready to see Seattle once again. Truly. Lately I have been pulling out my map and saying to myself, "right now we're here..." despite being all alone. Another month and I would be a little nuts, not to mention Jihee... See you soon sweets.

Here's a few last shots. Me on the Eye, looking like a gangster...

AMSTERDAM

2011-03-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

Hoooo boy I love this city. The canals are adorable, the pot shops are plentiful and the red light district is good for a laugh or two. For sure in my top three fav cities of all time along with NYC and Seattle. It's really easy to get lost here but it doesn't really matter since its so beautiful. And I got to see two wonderful Seattle transplants the last two days too, Ian and Alison! What a treat. It was good to have a brake from being the lonely traveling weirdo for a while. Mostly we just walked around, took pictures and got to see the Anne Frank House and Van Gough Museum. I had been to the Anne Frank House once before and it is still really really cool. I had a mega crush on her when I was 13 and reading her book. The Van Gough museum was surprisingly interesting. Learned lots of stuff about the man I hadn't known, like how he was really into Japanese wood print art. They also had a big section dedicated to Picasso and then another room with a bunch of Monet works in it. Pretty neat, but tiring too in the way museums can get. For the past few days none of the food I have been putting in my body is wanting to stay there if ya know what I mean. I think it was the weird egg and peppers ready made sandwich I ate in the train here that did me in. It tasted so good, but was apparently full of negative consequences for my intestines. Oh well.

It's the home stretch though in Euro trip and I'm trying to cram in as much stuff as I can. Like going to more "coffee shops." So here's a bunch of pictures now. I would really recommend you come here yourself though and experience the magic. ESPECIALLY the people who are reading this in Seattle. It has just enough similarities to that wonderful city in the NW but then is totally foreign at the same time that you will be blown away with awe and excitement. Fur reels, come here. Now: one of the pictures is the book case that lead into Anne Frank's hideout, one is of Ian and Alison at their new home, the canals, the cool Puchs they have here, more canals possibly, a crazy moped hot dog car and the hostel I stayed at (click to enlarge if you so desire, all pics up on Flickr). Enjoy. Tomorrow, London!

One more bit of Prague

2011-03-17T08:59:00.000-07:00

So beyond wandering around and looking at things and then taking pictures of them, I also played some pinball while visiting Prague. It was a happy sight to see, even though it was a machine I wasn't too familiar with. It was the new Stern CSI game, that played a lot like all the other new Stern machines out there. Kind of jiggly with gimmicky little things like the ball spinner and moving skull features. It was more fun than their stinking heap of a new Avatard machine but not as fun as say Big Buck Hunter. Unfortunately I wasn't able to get my initials up onto the board...

I went up to the castle today but figured the outside was neater looking than the inside and prob wasn't worth paying the entrance fee. There were two dressed up little soildger guys standing at the gate in little booths much like the London guard at Buckingham palace. I didn't take their picture since they had a very serious air about them. Here's what the castle looked like...

And then here's a few last shots of Prague...

In Praha

2011-03-16T11:35:00.000-07:00

Prague; the home of Kafka, not much vegetarian food, some fine looking eastern European women and lots of tall, ornate buildings. That pretty much sums it up but allow me to elaborate. On the train ride into Prague I had a pretty interesting interaction with a big black dude from Sierra Leone. We didn't talk much at first, I was reading and he slept. Then he looked over and saw I was reading a book in English and asked where I was from. He seemed relieved that I wasn't Czech and from there went on for the next 30 minutes telling me how terrible this country is and how hard his life is dude to the racism and despotism in the governemt (his word). It was pretty interesting, though a bit of a buzz kill for me since I was pretty excited to see the Czech Republic and Prague. He came here from Africa, has a job, a house, pays taxes (stressed that one a lot) and now has a baby with a Czech lady. He says the family is lying to the police about him being a bad father, the wife is being controlled by the mother and the government is telling him that he should just go back to Africa and wait for his child that is not even 2 years old. He told me that the next day he was going, "to the top man in charge" to talk about his case with his lawyer. I wished him the best and was struck by how much his story was like a real life version of Joseph K.'s predicament in Kafka's, The Trial. Kafka figures in pretty big here as a tourist attraction since he spent most all of his life here. Some of it, like the t-shirts and mugs, are pretty lousy tributes. The Kafka museum on the other hand was spectacular. Like walking into one of his books. You weren't supposed to take pictures there and the ones I sneaked didn't turn out too well. But the lighting was very cool and there the information was really well laid out with lots of different sounds in the background. If you couldn't figure it out by now, I'm a pretty big fan of the man. Here's a shot of the statues outside the museum having some kind of eternal sword fight whilst they stand in their own water urine...

I also walked and walk and walked (like I do most days) and found this miniature version of the Eifel tower that had a killer view from the top. You can see the three bridges that join the two parts of the town and then Prague Castle in the other shot. I'll go there tomorrow before I hop on my overnight train to Amsterdam...

Oh and today I went to the creepy bone church. It was a one hour train ride outside of town and totally worth it but also very gross. Apparently this town that the church is in - Kunta Hora- used to be a really rich mining town and lots of people really wanted to be buried at the church there. Most of the bodies came from the Hussite wars and the plague. So after a while they just started stacking the bones up. Even making weird bird sculptures with some of them. Pretty sick. If this wasn't a church people would be outraged. Not sure why they get a pass. And it was probably 15 degrees colder in there. Usually places like this are warmer when its cold outside not even colder. I'm going to assume its a result of all the angry ghosts in there, pissed at having pictures taken of their bones by dopey tourists day in a day out...

Prague is beautiful though. Lots of neat-o streets and cafes and bridges. Glad I came here...

Berlin Again

2011-03-14T02:37:00.000-07:00

I rode a bike today for longer than I have all together in the last 10 years. I checked it out at 9am and in at 10pm. I went to three museums and had lunch but other than that I was peddling around my trusty (yet ugly) steed. She only had three gears which was fine since there aren't really hills in Berlin. It wasn't a fixie but when you jammed the pedal backwards it braked and its gears were internal to the back wheel. Purdy cool. I followed the length of the Berlin wall in the morning and then made three more loops around the city before the day was done. Oh yeah, the real big news is that I found a few pinball machines. Yeah, I was jumping up and down in the air like you must be now too. Played, Attack from Mars at one bar and then found another with BBH (Big Buck Hunter) and the new Stern Batman game which I don`t really care for. Plus the second bar had another Attack from Mars and the first one had a broken Addams Family. So rad to see these weird fun devices over here. And I had Pho for dinner. Add a moped to that and my girlfriend and I could just as well be home again. But I'm not home, I'm in Germany and it's beautiful here. As evidence, the Brandenburg gate at sunset...

I remember when I was in Jamaica and Cuba for a month getting serious pinball withdrawals. I was about to start gettin the shakes but these machines I played last night helped me to stave off a little bit of that feeling. They were all in really nice condition too, no weird tricky things the machine would throw at you. I wanted to get my name up on them sooo bad but in the end wasn't able to. I got a bunch of replays, which was nice since one game was 50 Euro cents. Which I think is like 75 cents US...

But the three museums I visited, all rad in their own way. I guess it was really four if you include the Topography of Terror museum that was all about how Germany got all messed up from the 1930's and onward. Some amazing pictures there and it was right next to a very large intact portion of the Berlin wall and the basement of where the SS used to be headquartered. But the top three for the day I guess were the motorcycle museum, the video game museum and the DDR museum which was all about living in East Germany while the wall was up. The funny thing is the first two museums I just happened to randomly bump into while I was biking around looking for pinball machines.

This is from the DDR museum, it was all hands on and they encouraged you to open things up and touch stuff. Which is just how I like a museum. They had a reliplica of an old prison that made a big THUNK when you walked in like you were being locked up and also a really cool East German kitchen. And this war dove and nudist beach diorama too...

The motorcycle museum was not too large but had some immaculate motorcycles on display. They had a few mopeds but they were really old ones that looked more like bikes with motors on them than what most people think of when they her, "moped." Lots of CZ bikes though with giant cylinders and crazy bulbous scooters. Glad I went in. The video game museum was pretty similar to the motorcycle museum actually. Not too terribly big but still really neat with stuff I've never seen before. They had a bunch of text adventure games set up to play, and a 3-D PS2 game along with some old stand up arcades. Very cool to see this here...

I was talking to the Japanese guy who is staying in the dorm with me, his name starts with an "S". He says this city is too quiet for him and a little sad. I like this guy, he has this crazy nervous boyish laugh and has been traveling for the last 3 months all around the world. I kind of see what he means but I think the sadness he sees is just what happens when you go past the point of hip. Berlin is, dare I say it... UBERhip. I found a street with some of the sleekest cafes ever and some rad (but expensive) clothing stores with lots of very attractive, sad people. They are the Uberhip of Berlin and I want to go up and touch all of them. But I won't. Maybe I can get some sneaky shots of them for you to see though so you can see what I mean. I'm also bunking with a bunch of Spaniards who looove REM. Once of them is an older guy named Oscar who sits around with no pants or shirt on and uses my bed as a table. He doesn't speak any English and I try to talk to him using the small amount of Spanish I know. We get along great despite the language barrier. We speak through Michael Stipe.

This was really cool. It's the Holocaust memorial. There were probably 300 cement rectangles all lined up here that you could walk through. Some were only a few feet tall and some were 20 feet tall. I don't think I was supposed to but I climbed up on top of one of them in the center. Very moving tribute though...

One more neat-o place I visited in Berlin: The Dudes Factory. Also randomly happened upon this gem. The guy who ran it was really cool and confirmed that the tags I was seeing in Berlin that looked a hell of a lot like the ones I saw in Istanbul were in fact from the same crew. But the art in the store was amazing. I showed them Pat Perry's site since there were some similarities and they were totally into it. Here that P.P? Probably not. But if you click around on the site you can make your own custom shirt with the art that they put on display there. It's kind of expensive but I haven't seen anything like this yet.

In the Berlin now

2011-03-12T12:00:00.000-08:00

This place is amzing ya'll. To put it in Amazon.com terms: People who liked New York City, also liked Berlin. It's got some of the same feeling but with wider, cleaner streets. And boy is it good to be gone from the crazy drivers in Istanbul. It's almost like the west coast of the U.S. here where drivers actually want to stop for you. I was fearful for my ankles being run over in Istanbul on multiple occasions. But Berlin, I've only been here for a day now and I am very impressed. I love the German super structure architecture style they got going on. And I had an amazing meal of spatzle and salad,which is fried dough with cheese on it. I made a golden unicorn out of the foil on my beer as an offering to the travel gods...

First moped I saw, of course, a Sachs...

And this isn't a moped but it almost looks like one could be hiding inside of it...

This is the cathedral that was behind the Sachs. It's on museum island that has way too many cool places to go. So I know I will be back here some day fur sure, to get it all done...

The picture doesn't do it proper justice. It has got to be the biggest god damn church I have ever seen. And there's that ball on a stick thing behind it which is waaay taller than the Space Needle. They make TV there or something. I will prob go inside of this monster church tomorrow to snap some shots and maybe hit one of the museums as well if I have the time. Then there's Berlin wall stuff to do and I found about 6 places that should have pinball that I'm really excited to check out. I think I will need to rent a bike for the day to see it all since I want to have 3 full days in Prague.

Gotta post just a few more pictures of Istanbul. It was my first experience in a Muslim country and a great one at that. I loved hearing the call to prayer everyday and seeing the people who look exactly what you imagine when you think of a Turkish person...

The top of the three is looking at the city at sunset from the Galata bridge. Second is at the Topkapi Palace that I went into on my last day there. I saw some really impressive diamonds and ruby and gold water jugs. Plus they had what Wikipedia pretty much confirms is Moses staff and Muhammed's hair and tooth and jewel encrusted sword. I was shocked to see such crazy important relics and a little bummed that you couldn't take pictures of them. I got yelled at for trying to take a sneaky picture of Abraham's dish or something that was sitting next to the foot print of Muhammed. And then the last picture is of Taksim Square taken from a cafe overlooking the madness. If you look real close you can see the ferocity in the eyes of the drivers and the fear in the hearts of all the pedestrians.

Boogie outta Turkey

2011-03-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

Wow. For some weird reason my blog ısn´t blocked at this cafe. It´s a really neat cafe too, overlooking Taksim Square which is like the Time Square of Istanbul. Now I don´t have to spend what little time I have in Berlin blogging. I leave Turkey tomorrow and am happysad about it. Turkey has been a nice home for the past few weeks. The people are nice and have some of the most interesting noses you have ever seen. I have to give the food an overall 7 out of 10 though. I´ve had some okay meals and some down right bad ones too. I don´t dig on the giant meat stick they twirl around everwhere so I´ve pretty much been having pizza and pizza like things. The snaks though are killer here: fresh pomegranate juice, baklava, weird donut things, roasted chestnuts and these sesame seed bagel things that are for sale on every corner. I would for sure come back here again some day. There are a lot of tourists here which is expected in any major European city but ıt´s also a fully functioning city too. In old town there are mazes of streets each selling their own specific product, like fancy shoes and sporty shoes and fabric and silver and god knows what else. Really neat old buildings here too which is the main thing that attracts me to a city I think. Here´s some pictures now that don´t look like crap. And if you click on the Flickr link to the side you will find a whole bunch of non-crappy pictures [EDIT: crappy quality pictures on previous two entries have been re-posted for most best quality] ...

Look who I ran into

2011-03-10T09:46:00.001-08:00

Yup. Me and Mr. Treats both happened to be in Istanbul at the very same time. It was great seeing him, treating out and drinking tea while we talked about what was the best jet. He was over in northern Iraq wandering around. Sounded really nice and laid back there. The Kurds in the north love Americans since they were terrorized by Saddam. But yeah, we even found two little tiny moped shops. They mostly just had scooter stuff with various Moby and Peugeot parts mixed in. Nothin really that he couldn't get cheaper. Still cool though. I found some gloves that are probably endowed with magical abilities. Benji's the best though...

Istanbul

2011-03-05T08:25:00.001-08:00

Well I'm here. The city that was once Constantinople does not disappoint. It's crowded but in a good way. The streets snake all around the hill the old town is built on. There's lots or stores selling fabric, spices, kebab and lots of trinkety crap as well. The food is good, the sweets even better. All around are old guys selling these fried churro like things that are dripping in sweet juices. I've got to find out what they're called. The mosques are amazing too. I got in from my all night long bus really early this morning before the blue mosque had opened so I just have pics of the outside for now. Tomorrow I go inside, also the haiga sophia which is right across the street. I've come to believe that another 3 weeks in Turkey might be overkill so after some searching online I found a really cheap ticket to Berlin. I'll have the whole week to explore Istanbul and then its off to Western Europe. Last time I was in Europe in 2006 I regretted missing Berlin for Munich and not seeing any of the Czech repub. Time to make it happen. I'm told none of the pics from the last post I tried to make showed up so I'll try again...

Turkey hates blogs

2011-03-02T08:45:00.001-08:00

Well this is unfortunate, here I am in a perfectly wonderful country only to find the internet on lock down. Any blogspot site you try and access comes up with a message saying, "the court has decided to block this site" in big red letters. This is on my phone and a few different computers. I'm typing this on my phone through the Blogger app. The app will let me make posts but to view it you to through the browser and get bounced. I guess what I've got is better than nothin but far from ideal. I need to have WiFi (which hasn't been too plentyful) and can't really post pictures that well with it. Sucks for you, Turkey. There's lots of great blogs out there. Funny thing is, Wordpress seems to work fine. In the mean time, you can imagine what I would blog about if you image search "Pamukkale Turkey." That's where I am right now. Yup.

The Roads of Rhodes

2011-03-01T01:25:00.000-08:00

Medevil Greece is pretty awesome. Unlike Santorini there are people here, like using the city and stuff! It's not just an amusement park for tourists. Things are working out well here too. I came in a day before the ferry to Turkey leaves, which only runs twice a week. Then just as I got into the old part of town while I was wandering around looing for a place to stay an old guy on a scooter pulled up and asked if I needed a place to stay. So I hopped on the back of his scooter and we took off through the crazy narrow stone streets of Rhodes. He smelled a bit like booze, not drunk but getting there for sure. I snapped a quick video from the back, I was simotaneously trying to hold on and not laugh. Nassous is one cool guy...

Here's the scoot scoot we were on...

His internet wasn't working at his house so I tried getting it running for him with one of his other friends. The computer was in this funny little hole that got full of empty bottles of beer and cigarette smoke real quick. We didn't get it to to work unfortunately. I'm not sure what made it harder, that the computer was in Greek or that it was running Window Vista.

My legs hurt from walking. I got pretty lost last night trying to come home but I think I've got it now. Walled cities are the best though. There's cats everywhere but just like in Athens and Santorini they really really don't want you to touch them. I haven't had the time to get any tasty food yet and for some reason my body only really wants one meal a day, not sure why. Here's a few pics I snapped...

Oh and I spotted a Puch Dart with pegs this morning. Never really liked those mopeds. This one was hott though, almost new Vespa Ciao...

Very soon I will be in Turkey. I'm especially excited for this. Before I met Nassous I hadn't really had a conversation with a human being since my (wonderful) gf saw me off. Greeks are nice but if the answer to your question is just one word, that's all you're gettin'. Hopefully Turkey is a little warmer.

Santorini

2011-02-27T06:39:00.000-08:00

This is Greece. For reals, very picturesque. Hence the large amount of pictures on this post. I'm glad they turned the electricity back on so I could post this stuff. It was off on the whole island for most of the morning, not sure why. So I did a lot of walking around 'n stuff. The ferry ride here was great. The boat was a lot like other ones I've been on in Canada and even a little like the ones to Bainbridge, except a lot bigger. Once you land on Santorini you need to get a ride up the mountain on this crazy switchback road. It's not the one you see in the far off shot below. That is Santoini as seen from the water but the switchback there is a pathway down to the smaller dock, where the original town was. The main town on the island, where I'm staying is Thira. It's a pretty cool little town, though mostly boarded up right now. Which is fine since I don't really want to buy useless trinkets and fight to get around German tourists. I leave here at midnight to go to Rhodes, so that'll be another 7 hour ferry ride. Sweet!

The Athens of Greece

2011-02-25T18:48:00.000-08:00

Welp I'm here, and no longer asleep. I spent the first two days snoozin', pretty much. I think I'm out of jet lag city though, and knee deep in Euro land. It's purdy interesting here. I saw the Acropolis yesterday, the temple of Zeus and the theater of Dionysus. Unfortunately a lot of the relics and stuff here were either destroyed in a war or carted off to some other place (like London). Most all of yesterday I spent wandering around aimlessly, trying first to find the street signs and then to read them. I think I saw most of what I wanted to see, which is good because in a few hours I get on a boat and head out to Santorini. I picked that city at random since there wasn't a boat out to Rhodes tomorrow. From Rhodes I can get to Turkey easily, I think.

Parts of Athens remind me of Havana. The city is packed, the streets go on for miles and miles and there is an insane amount of traffic (2 and 4 wheeled) that has no interest in stopping for you. There's also a lot of stray dogs and cats, stinky parts and more garbage than you would expect to see. Some really stunning sights too though don't get me wrong. Here's the money shot...

It's the Parthenon, which sits on top of the Acropolis hill over looking all of Athens. Pretty interesting history, read it HERE if you're interested. The most interesting part is when the Turks took it over in the 1600's and used it as a place to store their gun powder. Didn't take long for it all to go BOOM! Before that it was mostly intact. After that, there was no roof. It was pretty cool seeing something you've seen before 100 times in pictures and Rick Steve's specials. It was super windy up there too. And at night it's all lit up. If I lean over the balcolny of my hotel room I can see it. There were some other ancient sites scattered around town too but this is the big um.

I don't know what this building is but I do know what the graffiti means. The day I flew in all the transit workers were on strike so I couldn't take the Metro into town. Instead I filed into a line of about 100 people to wait for a cab. Along with the strike were protests that turned into riots over the austerity measures the EU and IMF are inforcing on the failing Greek economy. One of the riot police got hit by a molotov cocktail and caught fire. But yeah, I thought it kind of funny to see ACAB written on a Greek building. I wonder how many other people get it...

There's also a lot of better less intrusive graffiti here too. Found this piece while wandering around the narrow little walkways below the Acropolis...

And here's my first Greek meal. It seems like an American take on Greek food. Sure if I ate meat there wouldn't be french fries in it but hey, that's what she gave me. It tasted kind of how it looked, good but weird in an alien sort of way. Hopefully there's better veggie Greek food out there for me...

Oh, and I saw a moped. Well a few actually. A handful of (dual shocked) Vespa Si's. This Peugeot Vogue though was my first sighting. There are a ton of motorcycles and scooters here. Most of them are 4 stroke but a few are still 2 strokers. They pile up at the front of the line of traffic and take off when the lights turn green. This guy was just sitting, waiting for a sunny day perhaps. If you click on the link to my Flickr there on the right hand column you can see a couple other pics of it. There was this funny bar used to lock it up attached to the swing arm. I would take one of these in a second...

A Scottish Hero

2011-02-20T13:44:00.000-08:00

This guy, I mean seriously, THIS GUY...

Gone Soon

2011-02-18T16:26:00.000-08:00

Not gone from here, but gone from home base. Yup, leaving again. It's kind of weird to me that I've been back from Jamaica only 2 months. Feels like it's been a lot longer than that. But yeah, I'm going to Greece and Turkey for a month. Greece is mostly islands (which I'm into) and Turkey is about half the length of the US. This is just an estimate looking at the map above my desk. Here's the books I'm bringing...

I'm not bringing any other travel books than the one for Athens since more books is just going to make my backpack heavy. On my last trip I read: You Shall Know Our Velocity by Dave Eggers and four Philip K. Dick books. YSKOV was the perfect book to travel to since that's mainly what the narrators are doing the whole time. Plus it's super good clever writing. I found that PKD in a strange setting makes the stories even stranger, try it. I would reccomend Radio Free Albemuth. It's part biography part fiction, which kind of gives you this glimpse into what PKD's brain might have been like. I'm excited to read Catch-22 again, it's been too long. And the Plato book is pretty touristy I know, but oh well whatever, suck it. Trust me, this has been a hard decision; weighing the book's entertainment value vs. their actual physical weight.

Here's a neat shot from me 'n Jee's park adventure the other day. I had the Great White Puch running, but not well. Re-jetted it and it still had no take off. Later I messed with the timing and got it going a little better but not by much. Am I just running up against having Hobbit expectations on a Puch? Hope not, since looking nice isn't enough for me to justify keeping a bike. Oh, that guy on the hill is indeed flying that kite...

And here's a picture of my dear little gf. She loooooves to do numbers. Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and her her scrawling down numbers. She can even long divide!

Even More of Portland

2011-02-08T14:36:00.000-08:00

Went back down south this last weekend. More good people, more good times, etc. infinitum, as per usual. It was me and Jee and Matt. Mostly we went down for a real cool motorcycle show, but did some other things there as well. Here's some shots from the ONE motorcycle show...

The first picture (that is not very good) is of a bike that was made from parts, "scavenged from shops and bartered for beer." The only moped they had was the unfortunate bastard child of the moped family that no one likes and every one wishes never existed, the AMF Roadmaster. Seriously, ANYTHING would have been better than that guy. It's friction drive for fuck's sake, how did these motorcycle guys not look at this bike and realize how much of a turd it is? Oh well, next year I should try and get a bike in the show, I think that's a doable goal probably.

We also went to visit the Burside park for a sesh. Not really, let our boards at home. Matt also forgot his fruit boots. Unfortunately there were only little children riding razor scooters around in the park with one guy who was kind of okay at skateboarding. There was a pretty magical mystique of ornery locals and super good skaters from the spot when I was a young impressionable high schooler. But I guess I can't judge its current state on one visit on a Saturday afternoon. I mostly love this park because I have virtually riped it up while playing Tony Hawk's skating game...

And look they have an armory there just like the one in SF. Who knew? It's probably not owned by kink.com though, which uses it to shoot dungeon pornos. Since it's Portland it's probably one part bike co-op, one part organic Zine store, with a big Stumptown right in the middle...

For reference, this is is the SF one (pic from G. image search)...

Speaking of cliches of Portland: you can watch episode two of the Portland documentary RIGHT HERE. This ones even better than the first episode I think. BIKE RIGHTS! And hey, the place we were staying was right near the women's book store they shoot one of the skits in... I mean real life Portland interactions (since it is truly a documentary)...

And check out Matt Smith's new blog dudes and lady dudes... FartsAndLeisure.blogspot.com!!!!

My Stink Hole

2011-02-03T14:16:00.000-08:00

Man this place is wretched in the winter. My garage that is. Water leaks in through the walls because there is a garden above it. Sometimes this weird white powder forms on the walls that I hope is not toxic. There was a Ferrocement boat floating out in Eagle Harbor for a few years, I bet the hull of it looked a lot like my garage, just with less mopeds...

As an aside, I still stand by my belief that my filthy stink hole of a garage would be a good place to wait out the Zombie Apocalypse. In the short term that is, I think if I had food and water I could live in there for a good solid 10 days. After that I would ride all my mopeds out to freedom.

And this runs, now that I put a jet in the carburetor. It's pretty gutless at the moment so I need to tune it more if I'm going to expect it to get me around. Look at the cool Spokesmen logo shadow it made...

Seattle is nice now, a bit chilly but still very very nice...

Red disaster and an all white Puch

2011-01-31T12:00:00.000-08:00

Not really a life goal completed, but it was cool going to the open house the other day at City Hall. Me 'n the lady hung out in the City Council chambers for a bit, even saw the mayor buying some ice cream too. What a guy, now if he would only get going on letting our bars stay open till 4am like he promised...

Also this happened...

And my Pinto is down at the Wizard shop, gettin' worked upon. It's going good, might visit it real soon here and put some finishing touches on it...

Great White Puch is way closer to being done though. Has spark, plug gets kind of wet and it should have a butt load of compression; JUST WON'T START. I've pedaled that thing till my hands hurt and have only gotten one pop. I think that pop was the head gasket moving around, so I sealed that up better. Next step is to get some actually good plugs and make sure everything is fine with the carb. Coming Soon...

Revolution

2011-01-28T17:44:00.000-08:00

Love photos from revolutions; big fay weighty pictures that tell a story. Here's two I've seen from the ongoing revolution in Egypt that I've been looking at all day now...

So cool. The guy looks like he's just about to cry or kiss her back or something. And the people, pulling off a successful group ducking maneuver. Using water as a weapon though, very clever. I'm pretty excited for all the goings on in North Africa. I'll be not really -but kinda near there next month. Specifically to Turkey so it'll be my first time in a Muslim country. Should be neat, hopefully I won't encounter any fire hoses.

And here's a few more famous revolution pictures that I found while randomly surfing...

That's Yeltsin on a tank, Fidel and Che yucking it up and a shot from Sarajevo. Here's one I actually took in Belfast in 2006. Sprinkled around the city are murals designating local alliances. This one, made by the opposition to the IRA...

LINK TO IT.

San Anton'

2011-01-24T14:03:00.000-08:00

Favorite city in Texas, San Antonio. Sorry Austin I just don't know you well enough. And sorry birth city of Houston for having a terrible lack of interest in visiting you. Nothing beats that riverwalk. I wish all streets were half cement for mopeds and the other half cloudly watered, bar lined rivers. It's like Venice here, but Texasized. I got far too many good pictures to post here, these are the real gems though...

I think I've been in the Alamo 10+ times now, and it never gets old. I love that you have to take off your hats and that your asked not to touch the walls. It's pretty much a shrine and I think has a lot to do with the mystique of Texas. They got their asses whupped at the Alamo but then came back in overtime and intercepted the ball from Old Santa Anna. (I've been watching some football here, since that's just what you do). It's a great story, weather it's all true or not. Plus you know, I'm kind of a part of it being named after the Colonel of the Alamo. Go there, if you haven't been...

There was a really cool miniature solider store in the lobby of the hotel where Teddy Roosevelt recruited dudes to be Rough Riders with him. I took laaaaats of pictures, they had scenes of bunches of these little guys re-enacting major battles of the past. Napoleon was such a cute little dictator...

Below is a painting of Bill Clinton wearing a t-shirt from the Mexican restaurant/bakery we had lunch at, Mi Tierra. It's amazing in there, all lit up and full of people cramming their faces with some of the tastiest Mexican around. And they're open 24 hours a day! Notice in the bakery case in the middle left side the half candied oranges. Bet those taste gud...

Getting on our flight home here real soon. Unfortunately Texas waited till the last day to get all sunny and nice. Oh well, it was good to see the Uncles (Mom's brothers) and my semi-homeland once again. Be back soon Thanks JD!

Dear Mother: Four shots from Austin

2011-01-23T23:57:00.000-08:00

Texxxas and #300!

2011-01-22T21:10:00.000-08:00

Texas Texas Texas. The land of big trucks, large glasses of water and really good Mexican food. I'm here with my lovely lady friend, visitin family and seeing the sights. It's cold though, yesterday was colder than it's been in Seattle for a good while. Still sunny though, and awful awful purdy. My Uncle John (my middle namesake) has been a most wonderful tour guide so far. Texas has a pretty deep history with its battles against Spain, the French and then the Mexicans. We went to Goliad and saw the fort there along with a neat done up mission. Here's the fort, below is the mission and this is the WIKIinfo on what all went down here...

Also made a quick stop in Shiner, TX which is the home town of Shiner beer (good stuff if you're lucky enough to find it). The tour was nice, the free beer was even better...

We spent the (kind of cold) night in my other Uncle, Paul's trailer that's parked right near a marina. We got up with the sun this morn' and found a whole flock of Pelicans dive bombing the water looking for fish. Pretty sure they were having fun too, I know would be if I was them...

There were dolphins too, but I didn't get any good pics of them. Jee balls did though I think. A short drive from where we were staying in Aransas Pass is Port Aransas. There's a free ferry going across the inter-coastal waterway that takes all of 5 minutes. Here's what the ferry looks like...

Port Aransas is real neat though. It's a lot like any other coastal town, and even looked like Jamaica in parts. People move slow, the houses are up on stilts and everywhere lays claim to having the best seafood EVER. As you may know eveything in Texas is bigger, that goes especially for the shark sculptures. Here's Uncle John, un-phased by the massive man eater...

Oh yeah, this is post number 300 on the Just Dicking Around info blog. Not sure what to think about that. Probably going to make another 300 more ad infintium. DEATH TO FACEBOOK (but not really, I just think blogging is a higher form of inerweb-communication). Blog on my brothers and sisters!

More on Texas later, going to Austin tomorrow.

FLICKR LINK FOR MORE FLICKRS.

This is the moped equivalent of an airplane

2011-01-17T12:58:00.000-08:00

And I would trade all 37 of my mopeds for this thing...

As seen on BoingBoing.

A Pinto-ped

2011-01-16T14:05:00.000-08:00

The Pinto is an oddball moped. Most of its allure is in the strangely shaped tank. I would love to meet the person who designed it. It's truly unique, to the moped world and really anything else out there. The main reason I started building this bike was because I found a new tank. It didn't have the decals so I found a guy on the Buy/Sell forums to make me some. Then a powdered frame from The Phil and I'm damn near close to having a full on moped...

Most every part on this bike is new. It's pretty fun working on a clean bike, in the warmth of my room. Unfortunately I'm not totally into this bike. It'll be a comfy ride and should be reliable and medium fast but I'm just not feeling it anymore. Having found a really nice minty OG Puch Newport is probably part of why I've lost interest in this guy. Plus not having a job, thereby stopping me from dropping cash on TREATS. I'll finish it, get it running (with some help from the Wizard). But then it's probably going up for sale. You enter'sted?

Plus, someone had a b-day! Her name be Jihee and her age rhymes with: Dirty Free. It was a two day affair, full of fun and lots of lounging and eating stuff. Hope you had a good time, grrrrl. I didn't get any pictures of the exciting, bleeding ears, jumping for joy moments. But here's one of the aftermath, nerding out morning time lounging...

WHAT LEVEL ARE YOU AT NOW?

Free Association Adventuring Again

2011-01-12T16:18:00.000-08:00

I've been playing a lot of pinnball lately, yes this is 100% true. I have no job so I have plenty of time on my hands. My mother is not fond of it when I sleep in, but I've done a good job of sleeping till noon only a few times in the past week. Mopeds are a little harder to do when its as cold out as it is right now. I read on CNN that snow is present in 49 out of 50 states with only Florida snowless. The ride last night over powdered streets fun. Would have been batter though if I was able to see where I was going. So yeah, mopeds are difficult right now. Here's the free association part of the post though...

I enjoy playing Addams Family pinball...

Which was based off the movie Addams Family, staring Raul Julia...

(man isn't he like the better looking brother of Luiz Guzman if there ever was one?)
Who was in a really good movie I have been meaning to see, The Tempest (1982). I saw it once when I was a kid I think, it's the Shakespeare adaption and is sooo good.

It takes place in Greece so I think I"m going to go to Greece, in the end of February for a month again...

Also, to bring it back around THEY HAVE PINBALL THERE! I have sort of confirmed this though doing a very quick glimpse of the situation through Google. I think I might go to Turkey also, should be neat seeing where civilization started, eh?

Number one Pinball news

2011-01-11T14:50:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was a supremely good day of pinball for me. I was totally on the ball (ha!). Really though, it's not often at all that I get on the board of a machine. My goal when playing is just to get replays so I don't have to pay for the next game. I don't really care when I get a super high score. But... look here:

The Mars is the one at the Highline on Broadway. Did that early on in the day, only to out do the achievement that night at the Twilight Exit. I do like this Medevil Madness machine, it's a little wonky but over all good. The multiball that should be 3 balls is only 2. But yeah, killed them both. There's of course a Grand Champion score on top of both of those, but I'm happy.

Things to do: SF RENO & LA (and others)

2011-01-10T14:37:00.000-08:00

I think there's people from those three moped infected cities. If not then oh well. But if you do by chance live in SF, Reno or LA. then there's a show happening that you might want to attend. Even if one of the dudes in the band wasn't my roommate I would still be recommending these guys. And even if you're not into the hip hop, I would still be recommending them. Mad Rad, is their name and they put on a hell of a show. Here's their WEB SITE, their blog is linked on the right as Out For Stardom. If you like fun, you will like these dudes. Here's a video of them perfrming on Seattle's best radio station. My roomie is the one in the goofy sweater...

Really though their new album (on the iTunes even!) is stellar. There's a lot more singing on it than the last album, with some really nice 8 bit sounding beats too. I'm not sure I'm a fan of the name of it -The Youth Die Young- but if that's the only thing I can find wrong with it then it's golden in my book. Seeing them live though is where its at. The last few shows they've played in Seattle have sold out quick, and not at small size venues either, Neumos got full on sold out.

For those of us who don't live in one the above mentioned cities don't feel left out. I just discovered a new activity that I think we ALL should be getting into. It's called Speedriding and is as the description of the video exclaims: BEST EXTREME SPORT. You decide, but I'm pretty sure I'm going to agree with them. It looks like something from a video game, I can't believe people can really do this shit...

The land of ports

2011-01-09T11:44:00.000-08:00

Portland Portland Portland. You really are incredible; I don’t know what I would do with out you. My theory is that PDX is the Las Vegas for the young bar loving crowd. The drinks are strong and if you’re not happy with the bar you’re at you just walk next door to the other one. Plus there’s amazing veggie food, a ton of karts to serve the food from, strip clubs, a volcano and coffee that’s just about as good as Seattle’s. And there’s pinball in almost every bar. Lots of them have a hand full of really nice machines. Which is great since their arcade, Ground Kontrol is super lame now. They moved it a block away into a big empty space that has no soul. The old one had the cool upstairs and a funky restroom from the 80’s with urinals that go all the way to the floor. It’s a shame they ruined that place, but there’s other options so yeah.

Riding mopeds too, that happens there apparently. I got a loaner from Nate of the Uphill Battle. Best loaner I have ever had, period. It’s so nice to ride a bike with good brakes, a taillight and hauls serious ass. Yes, a kitted Derbi that definitely goes 50+. The Derbi used to belong to Vic, and I had a ton of fun riding it around. It was only a little bit cold on the ride Thursday but was the perfect re-introduction to riding mopeds. Since I was gone for a month I really haven’t ridden mopeds for a good long while. The smooth roads, ominous fog and a few good friends ripping up the town = THE BEST. Mr. Hoffa of the UB has a sweet fast Pug too. And a rad pad that I crashed at one night. Portland has nice bars as I’ve explained above, but even nicer are the people.

Cutters as per usual were a pleasure to see. I’m told I had a lot of fun with them. I have a bunch of frosting in my hair as proof too. The reason being, that last night there was a for reels dance party at Miguel’s house. There was a big giant gingerbread house city that got destroyed just after motorcycles were started up in the basement. But the frosting made the floor really slick, which may or may not have helped the dancing. Pretty sure it helped the wrastlin’. It’s funny too since at the UB Mega(n) rally a huge bag of popcorn got emptied onto the porch making the floor slipperier than ice. Good times, Portland you win again…

Oh yeah, sorry Portland that I had to steal from you. But if your machine to buy tickets for the MAX isn’t working then I ain’t gunna pay. I think that was the first time I rode on the Max though, I love it. Next time I promise I won’t hop on without paying.

A Mild State of Dis-repair

2011-01-06T10:59:00.000-08:00

This is weird, I have no working mopeds. I can't remember the last time that happened. There was a real good long stretch there where I had multiple running mopeds, seriously. Now though, nothing. I used to get all antsy and frantic when I had no running peds. Now it really just means I'm cut off from North Seattle, and going on M(oped)M(onday) rides too. All my running peds started having small little problems just before I left for Jamaica and I never had the time to fix them. With the intervening month and change, some have gotten worse than not running. Take for instance this here Puch Magnum, which has seen some better days...

The day before I left the country there was a bunch of snow and ice on the ground. I had to get over to north Seattle and have lately really hated taking the bus anywhere. Not that it was running much that day. So I got across town and back with no issues and then parked it. Guess I should have wiped it down or something. No B.I.Ggie though, I need to tear this bike down and start over. It's never gone as fast as it should have and it needs a little time out before I can be excited about it again. I think the ignition is bunk on it, who knows.

So instead of working on my bikes I'm going to go to Portland. A little vacation, well deserved I think. Hopefully U.B. will partially have their shit together tonight for a ride, maybe see some of the lovely looking/smelling Cutters while I'm there too. I'll have to try not to miss Phil too much since PDX is the scene of our last romantic rendezvous. How did the interview go Philly?

And yeah, like Jihee mentioned on her blog I had a visitor come stay with me from a far off land. Gna, from Seoul. Really neat guy. I met him in Kingston. We were both staying at the same place and he offered me sugar cane. Really sweet, if you can imagine. But so we talked a bunch, about Korean stuff and travel stuff and told him if he could make it down from Vancover that he had a place to stay in Seattle. Now me 'n Jee have a place to stay in Seoul. Whatta deal! But the guy has been doing some serious traveling; 25 countries in one year. Hearing his stories from Madagascar and India and all over make me want to travel some more. For now I'm going to go get on a train. BN.

So Seattle

2010-12-30T16:53:00.000-08:00

Being away from familiar surroundings tend to give you a lil' different view on tyour home. Well, yeah, no shit. But really, I believe this to be true. Seattle's nice, though gray right now. I'm back in the land where pedestrians rule supreme. In Cuba I think the drivers were trying to him me. And now I don't have to think and debate about where to get a good veggie meal. Oh, donuts. There were good bakeries in Jamaica. Lots of them would have these triangle shaped pineapple fruit pockets. Like the ones Bobby Hill eats. Top Pot though -welcome home- that place is solid and the coffee is really good...

Like the Seattle style outdoor swimming pool? Just needs some tiki lamps I think, maybe a few tall boys of Busch to set the mood. And I'm really glad that this was my first wild moped sighting in Seattle. I was a few blocks away and just saw it from the back, wondering who it belonged to. Gurrilla, of course. Parked in front of his lady's place. Tell him to fix his brakes though if you see him...

Naz too, member him? The newest iteration of his crazy fast water cooled Pug is gorgeous. Very well put together, the wiring is totally hidden and the radiator looks the most natural of any water cooled ped I've seen. He's got some pictures on his FLICKR OF THE BIKE.

And here is a video of underwater shrubbery I took in Jamaica. Such an odd camera, runs on two double A batteries and has no view finder so you don't really know what you're filming. Look though, it's sort of neat...

Bunch more weird and boring gratuitous underwater shots on the FLICKR.

Back now, some 2nd part Treasure Beach shots

2010-12-27T10:59:00.000-08:00

Yup. Back in the warm womb of 'Merica. I've played some pin, saw True Grit (which was the best Western I have ever seen) and got to hug my gf. And my accent has gone away. Which I never really had and still could probably not even imitate if I tried. Listening to Jamaican's talk sometimes was like listening to birds singing, or a rap battle in some other language. Jamaicans have their own language, but it's not a true language. I say this because it's not really written, only a spoken language. Its part English, part French, West African and Spanish. But then they speak English as well, with a lots of times, a super heavy accent. I have a quote, from a Jamaican newspaper I picked up just before I took off...

Notice the front page story, ha ha. I heard that from lots of Jamaicans too, that the price of ganja was going up. None of them mentioned increased police busts for the reason why it was getting more expensive. They said it was from bad weather in the West. Back to the way Jamaicans talk though, here's a quote from that story.

Persons from a number of inner city communities who use the illicit drug say that they now have to be paying more for less of the commodity. "Yes di weed man dem all start push up dem price...Dem a complain seh weed scarce cause di police dem deh pon road so much. If things nuh go back to normal mi ago stop smoke weed," Ricky Pooch* a resident of Fletcher's Landing in central Kingston said.

The asetric explained that the name given was not his real name. Thanks Jamaica, I had a great time. Here are a few shots from Treasure Beach and from on my way out of the country. I will for sure be back, some day... (click to enlarge them and then go HERE for the Flickr)

Treasure Beach PART ONE

2010-12-23T08:30:00.000-08:00

This is the spot, without a doubt. I'm really glad I came here, it was a bit of a hike but well worth it. By hike I mean like a three hour drive. There wasn't a single car to be had for rent in all of Kingston so Oliver (the guy who's places I have been staying in) rented out one of his cars to me. Driving in Jamaica I have decided, is difficult. There are very few signs and all of sudden the highway you're on has a round about in the middle of it, with again no signs telling you which direction to go. Big rocks in the middle of the road too, watch out! I nailed one and put a thumb sized hole in the tire. Some nice Jamaicans helped me change the tire (for a small fee of course) and down the road a bit I bought a new tire. But I'm here now, and I don't want to leave. I'll have to post again about the bar in the middle of the ocean since the internet is slow here and my time in Jamaica is slowly running out. Tonight is my last night in Jamaica, tears... but it's time and I do miss the great NW a bit. Here's two choice shots that describe this place perfectly. For reals, you need to come here...

The bar was Waterworld (the best action movie ever made). The boat ride takes about 30 minutes to get there, hugging the coast line, going west from Treasure beach. There a few guys inside playing dominoes, you can order fresh seafood and of course, Red Stripe. Which I got a bit drunk on from being in the sun and not drinking much water. There were kids swimming around catching fish with spear guns. And that's about it, you sit and drink and talk and take in the gorgeous view. Truly amazing.

Last thoughts, CUBA and her CARS

2010-12-21T05:34:00.000-08:00

Have to post just one more quick bit on Cuba. Everyday I spent there was like a classic car show, with a bunch of weirdo cars you'd never see packed in there as well. Lots of "Lada's" which is what I believe this cute little pink number to be, made in Moscow. And Peugeots too! I have no idea what the purple capsule car down at the bottom is, just that it's incredible and actually being used as a valid form of transportation. Adios Cuba...

Oh yeah, I got some Cuban cigars. They are so smooth, like smoking a wooden boat that Ernest Hemingway once rode in. Seriously, no bad smell or taste whatsoever, like the ones you find in the U.S. I took some pictures of it all, the cool box they came in and the documents, since I'm worried I won't be able to get them back into the country. I tried sending them through FedEx but they didn't want to take them. I think I will take off the rings on the cigars and put them in my pocket and have the box in my bag. Might work. Though on top of that I now have 2 exit stamps on my passport from Jamaica. Going to Cuba I got a tourist card that they stamp so that you don't get the $10,000 fine for visiting there. But now I have to think up some lie for customs as to why I have the extra stamps. I think I'll just say I went to Barbados for a short trip and they didn't stamp me. Or they won't care and I'll get though just fine,who knows.

Leaving Kingston for the South-west corner of Jamaica soon. Might sit on the beach first in the super old part of town that was first set up by pirates. You can rent boats there that take you to desolate little islands where you can relax. Then I hear the spot I'm headed to they have a bar that's 3 km off shore, on stilts made from bamboo. To get there too you have to rent a boat. This place, though lacking the stunning buildings of Cuba and cool cars, is quirky and gorgeous at the same time. Like Tina Fey, she's weird and probably has a mind that goes around and crazy circles, but real good looking too. Ya dig?

Successful escape from Cuba

2010-12-19T22:51:00.000-08:00

Safely in Jamaica, in my second (sort of home) on Durham road. Cuba was nice. The city really is dripping with history. A crazy metropolis in the middle of the Caribbean. I doubt theres any city like it in the world. I got a small taste of the politics while there too, which was part of the reason for my wanting to go there. It's for sure a dictatorship style government, with propaganda billboards up around town and such but really a pretty benign one. All the people I met were happy and loved their country and the U.S. too. Some of them saw the end of the blockade as the point in time when Cuba rebuilds, others didn't. Either way, I'm really glad I went. Happy to be back here though too, I didn't encounter as many travelers in Cuba so it got a bit lonely. And really the food sucked. I don't eat meat so I had a different experience than most but I've heard from meat eaters too that their food is far from fantastic. I took a shit ton of pictures there though, here's a few (for the full photorific story click to the FLICKR)...

This is taken from inside the castle El Morro, across the bay from Havana. It was made to deflect the pirates that would come into the harbor and then later to defend against the British. They cracked it open with a well placed mine, so the story goes...

I was pretty bummed the lighthouse wasn't open. I've been in two lighthouses; on in Half Life 2 and one in Left 4 Dead. Never been in a non-virtual one though...

The cars there were ridiculous amazing. Lots and lots of old American ones and cool 1970's ones from Russia too...

Saw this gem on my last day there. I think it's a shifter. If you click on it to enlarge you'll see an extra cable there, and the grip looks a bit beefier than a normal moped's does...

Good call on the last moped Bob. Duh, a Jawa. Not one of them had any badges on the tank for some reason. But these guys where all around too. And in Cuba people actually use their side cars, unlike in the U.S...

Here's a shot from the back of one of the hollowed out Orange coco-Taxis...

This was the happening spot in the 1970's after the hotels built by the mobsters in Vedado started to dry up. Watch Godfather II if you haven't already...

So many crazy buildings there, I could go on and on and on...

This was taken at the Plaza de Revolcion. There was another building close by with Fidel on it. Pretty huge, pretty rad...

Here's a Doctor hanging out at the municipal hospital...

This is the beer of choice. It's like Heineken but a little less skunky...

Stay classy Cuba...

The still blue waters off of the Malecon. Havana, Cuba...

Mas de Cuba

2010-12-17T13:06:00.000-08:00

I'm tired. My eyes don't want to see anymore but my legs can't stop. Ironically that's the defense I use against the "jintereos" (which is the name for their street hustlers). They yell out, "Hey where you from?" and I keep walking like I have somewhere really important to go. It may seem a little rude but after having 20 of the exact same conversations that start with, "Oh, the US, I have family in Miami" and end with, "You want to buy cigars man. Looking for the chicas?" you would get a little tired too. Havana is amazing though. It goes on for miles and miles and miles. Buildings sandwiched together like in SF, exhaust choking you out a little, people yelling and all kinds of food and nick nacks for sale. Really nothing like it. For instance, you ever seen one of these things before? It's two stroke, and a hoot to ride in...

They love Che here, and not in a goofy ironic way either...

This is street pizza. You find it all over the city, sold out of the doorways of people's homes. Though not amazing in taste they are very very cheap. You use the national Peso to buy them, 10.00 CUP. There's 24 CUP to one CUC and the CUC is abuout 1 to 1 with the U.S. dollar. (Once you get over the crazy tax you have to pay for exchanging American money.)...

Here's the view from the house I'm staying at right now. It's in Habana Vieja and technically a "casa particular." Basicalls someone's house that they rent rooms in. Very clean and a much more real Cuban experience than a stupid hotel. The last few nights I've been staying at one in Centro Habana. The whole family was at breakfast this morning where we had awesome coffee and fried eggs and fruit, everyone yelling in Spanish. The location of this one though takes the cake. All the streets around Habana Vieja are super narrow and cobblestone with momuments everywhere, so so pretty...

Here's the moped I see around the city pretty frequently. I'm not really sure what it is or who makes it but they all have rad three star mags and appear to be piston ported with a Dellorto. I've seen a white Vespa Ciao and a Moby too but wasn't quick enough to snap a pic of them. I've got two more days here though so hopefully I'll spot another...

Vespa Apes are all over too. They use them maily for transporting things around. This one, pastries...

Yesterday I went to a Camera Obscura on the 7th floor of a building in Habana Vieja. It was in a dark room, a big dish about 4 feet across with a hole in the roof and mirrors and lenses and stuff that made an image on the dish. The presentation was all in Spanish so I don't really know how it all worked but it was a basically a live video displayed on the dish. I heard Leonardo DaVinci in there so I think he made it. I don't know, Google it, I'm in Cuba!

Coo Baah

2010-12-14T18:52:00.000-08:00

Well here I am, in the land of Castro and old cars and all that. It's a pretty big change from Jamaica. On the plus side they drive on the right side of the road. Not so great, I can't speak their language. Which is really my failing not theirs. It's beautiful here though, so weird and weathered, part European a little Soviet and some bits of San Francisco in there too. It's crazy to think that at one point these people were the US's mortal enemy.

So the flight out of Kingston was delayed 3 hours. For the last hour we were corralled into this small room where everyone was yelling in Spanish and pushing to get to the front of the line that was not moving an inch. A lady in the front, I called her Jack because she was the leader of the island, would hush everyone when things got too loud. After a while an airport staff lady came up the stiars and told us the plane was delayed because they were figuring out "the bill." They needed to pay the pilot to fly more, and she wasn't joking. Then one guy (after we had all been through security allready) pointed a large electronic device at our bags one by one till it made a loud beep. It was so weird and I still have no clue what he was doing.

Finally we take off in our dinky little twin propellor plane. The descent into Hanvana was spooky. The plane pitched side to side more than I've ever felt. As soon as we touched the tarmac everyone started clapping and hootin' and yelling. It was like the pilot scored the winning goal. Customs was a breeze, changing money not so much. The lady at the teller scoffed at my Jamaican money. Damn. So I walk around the airport, have discussions with the information desk ladies in broken English and then finally find a couple I recognized from the flight. They were German I think. I convinced them to trade me $2000 Jamaican dollars for a US $20. Which is a good deal for them. They were great, livesavers. I finally got to my hotel only to find it was full but that they were sending me to another hotel that was a 5 star hotel, at no charge. Hotel Presidente. Welcome to Cuba.

Yesterday and most of today was made somewhat stressful due to the fact that Jamaican dollars are not taken any where, in the whole of Cuba. No bank, no Cambio no one wanted my $50,000 Jamaican. They were as good as used toilet paper here. Which really makes no sense, Jamaica is their neighbor for gods sake. No one told me this and my book said nothing besides mentioning over and over again how US credit cards don't work here due to the embargo. Whups. So after making smoe calls my Uncle came to the rescue and Western Unioned me money. This is in fact the second time he's helped me while in trouble in a country that starts with a "C." In 2002 he helped me when I got denied entrance to Canada. I'm happy now. Thanks Skip!

But like I said, this place is amazing. A whole lot more photogenic than Jamaica. The buildings are all old, colonial and slightly fading away. In a lot of ways it's still 1950 here. The big old American cars are everywehere, since they were the ones around before the reveloution making them available to sell on the open market. Anything newer is controlled by the state. Lots and lots of two stroke bikes too. I've even seen some mopeds! I'll have to post some of those pictures later, the internet is horiffically slow here, worse than the slowest dial up I ever had. Sadly there are no pinball machines. But they do have abandoned swimming pools you can play around in...

This place is right by my hotel. Kind of eerie, that something that built up would just be sitting there wasting away. It was an awesome view from the top of the high dive. The wind was whippig the waves up onto the sea wall, sending plumes about 25 feet up in the air. A bunch of the streets around the water were basically rivers. I met a guy there who said he worked there named, Mike. He ws Cuban but spoke pretty good English. He me they had the Olympics there but that a storm came in '94 and washed the place out. One day he says, when the blockade is over, it will all be built back up. He was nice. Things got a little weird in the end though when he asked if he could have my shoes or my t-shirt as a souviner since those things are very expensive in Cuba. I explained that I was using both.

More pics later, or when I get back to Jamaica. The internet is really really bad here.

The caves of Oracabessa

2010-12-11T15:34:00.000-08:00

Gone from Ochi. Spent the night in Oracabessa -the jungle- and now I'm back in Kingston. The jungle was, well it was green and smelled nice and had lots of birds. Unfortunately there are no monkeys in Jamaica. No large wild mammals really either, mostly due to deforestation. But the caves, ho boys the cave here are rad. Oliver (my Jamaican dad) has a place in Oracabessa which is near Ocho Rios. He also owns the place I have been staying at in Kingston and was the catalyst for setting me up with all these super cheap beautiful places to stay. Yesterday though, the driver man for the place took me around to the three cave they discovered on the land a few years ago. His name is Time, yup like the magazine. Here he is lighting up a "cave cigar"...

They seemed to go pretty deep but without proper lights and ropes and stuff we hung out near the mouth of the cave. You could throw small rocks down though and listen to them bounce and bounce and bounce for a long time. The rocks the caves are carved out of are (as most caves are) limestone. The parts around the cave are super jagged and sharp. Inside though where they've been weathered down by dripping water you can tap on the stalagmites with sticks and make cute little chime noises. Listen...

Above is the crazy fig tree roots that make their way down into the Earthen Buttholes (as I call them). Time said that one time a German guy lowered himself down into the cave and spent about an hour exploring around there. I told Time that since he found them one of them should be named THE CAVE OF TIME. And that when you come out it should be the year 1850. He laughed is raspy little boy laugh at that one. The house also had a gang of awesome jungle dogs. This is Bobby...

Here's Rocky, wondering when the last time I showered was (not sure on the answer, I think I have showered 4 times since I've been gone. COME ON. I've been in the Ocean and two rivers and the showers here are way colder than any of those were. Plus, why the obsessive need to be clean?)...

Didn't get a good shot of Blacks unfortunately. Time also had a few cats. He was a really great guy, one of the best in all of Jamaica I think. He had to be 50+ years old but loved to party and smoke and even had himself a nice girlfriend. He didn't like the Israeli guys that stayed at Villa Sake though. But neither did I. Probably the worst travelers I have met. Time took them to the store and waited an hour for them and they gave him $100 Jamaican ($1.17 US). I took the bus back with them to Kingston and they started freaking out when the guys wanted to charge them an extra seat for their ENORMOUS bags. The whole bus started yelling and I kept on reading my book. They've been traveling for 3 months now so their bags are quite large, probably 70 pounds each. They ended up paying (which was like $4 for an extra seat). Then they haggled with the cab driver in Kingston over $100 Jamaican in the price. I huffed and said I would pay the extra dollar. There's a point to being frugal, but making everyone else around you dislike you for it is another thing.

Here's a crazy dead moth I found...

And here's the stairs leading to the roof of the place I stayed in the jungle. You could see over the canopy all the way out to the ocean from there...

Yup. Hanging out in Kingston for the night and most of the day tomorrow then I fly to Cuba. I shall have more tells to tell I think.

So, Ocho

2010-12-08T12:35:00.000-08:00

Well it's me again. Can't resist the pull of a foreign internet cafe. This is where I get my daily info. Though the house I'm staying at has CNN. I saw this morning that the first private space ship made a successful launch into orbit, and then a safe splash down in the Pacific. This is purdy rad if you think about it. Hopefully by the time I'm an old man I will be able to experience zero gravity without having to sit in an airplane that merely simulates it. Conan is funny now too apparently. (I get two channels -pretty much- CNN and TBS, not too shabby.)

So, Ocho...

All over Jamaican towns you find cars like this where people drive around and blare out crazy loud reggae music or make announcements for parties or when it's election time, announce candidates. The downtown part of Ocho Rios is pretty bustling, people walking around trying to get money, others sitting around in the shade, more people trying to sell stuff. And taxis everywhere, that's how you get around here, cheap taxis that get shared by who ever needs them. It's too bad sharing taxis like this wouldn't work in Seattle or really the US. Ocho Rios is a pretty simple town where you're either trying to go east out of town or west back into it.

Then there's the section of town made for the white people. I found it yesterday and kind of wanted to puke on it. YOU HAVE TO PAY TO GET INTO THE BEACH! What the fuck is that? Should be free. But we've got to keep these white people safe, yes we do...

I guess it's good they're here, but really the West part of town is no different than the West part of Juneau, Alaska. I lived there for a year and got to see the t-shirt shops open up in the spring for the cruise ships and then turn into a desolate wasteland in the winter when they ALL shut down.

The signs here in Jamaica are hilarious though...

I'm always at a loss as to what to do when it gets dark around here. Going to a club would probably be weird. The last few days I've just hung out at my place. I sat out on the rock precipice lounging area this morning and read the book my lovely GF lent to me. I fisherman rowed by in a little tiny boat and went through almost the exact same introduction the hustlers I meet on land go through, "Hey mon, where you from?" Maybe he was just excited to see someone, there's no real beach in the part where I'm staying. Just a jagged rock cliff about 10-15 feet high. The fisherman had oars that were just small tree trunks with flat pieces of wood nailed on to them. He was holding his fishing line in his teeth as he rowed the boat around. When he got closer I saw the fish he had caught, 10 or so of them all about as big as your hand. He tried to bum a cigarette off of me, which I didn't have and didn't see how I would have gotten it to him anyhow. The ladder coming up from the water was washed out earlier this year leaving just a rope to help you back up. I chickened out this morning going for a swim since it's hard to tell how deep it is. I think I just need some aqua-socks and I'll be fine. Yeah, sounds about right. Here it is, the edge of The Island...

Up in Ochi

2010-12-07T14:27:00.000-08:00

I am staying in a magical ocean side villa in Ocho Rios (Ochi to the locals). If I could have a moped, my Seattle friends and a few pinball machines I would live here for years to come. For now it's a great place to relax, mon. This is the window in my room, going straight you would eventually hit Cuba...

The windows on the right of the house are the ones to my room. The picture is taken looking back from the lounging area you get to along a narrow rock path. And that's Anna, kind of weird seeing her since you know, she's dead now. [sad face] Here's a video introduction to Villa Saki.

I really wish Rastafarianisim didn't involve worshiping an obscure Ethiopian king. Otherwise I would take part in more than just their cuisine and green things. The vegetarian restaurant that Mickey (driver mon) showed me in Port Antonio was really nice. A small hole in the wall with a hot case full of food that would change daily. On the last day I had come sweet and sour Tofu, vegetable protein chunks in kind of a bean sauce with rice and a bread dumpling...

The Rasta place in Ochi is better though. It's called I-tal food, short for vital food. They use no dairy, no preservatives and even no salt. The food I had this morning was majestic, like when Haile Selassie flew into Kingston to be greeted by thousands of followers. The followers being my mouth and Haile Selassie of course being the food...

Ochi is rad though, but more on that later...

Adios Port of Antonio

2010-12-06T16:28:00.000-08:00

Yesterday was great, the day before not so much. Mostly because of what a failure it was trying to surf. Glad I did it but the strange erratic Jamaican waves + my little chicken wing arms made for a day of no waves. But not really a whole day, more like an hour or so. I spent most of the time sitting out right where the big waves break trying to avoid getting tossed. The board they gave me was pretty long so it was hard to duck it under the breaking waves. They were really erratic and the ones the locals caught were only a 5-15 second ride. The water is super warm though, and Boston Bay is a very cool place.

This dog followed me all around on the beach and then even up onto this narrow walkway built on the rocks overlooking the surfers. No fear dog. He liked to nip though, in the butt...

But yesterday I floated the Rio Grande (not that one, the one here) on a raft made of bamboo. It was pretty laid back. The French brothers (from Nice) who were staying at the house with me had rented a car so we drove out there. The raft was not inflatable but actually 15 foot longs bamboo poles strapped together...

That's Trevor our guide and of course the Frenchmen. We got to row back down the river. I did an okay job of it, sorta. The Frenchies were total dude bros but lots of fun to hang out with. One of them didn't speak much English and the other did but had a stutter. It was pretty funny seeing them drunk or othwise messed up in the head. After rowing we went to Boston Bay while my new Frenchmen buddies tried to surf. They failed even more than I did, barely making it out of the shore break. We got some good eats. Here's my veggie burger, which was mostly seaweed or spinach but 100% wonderful...

Then we went to Reach falls where I finally go to do something I have alawys wanted to do: walk through a waterfall into a secret cave.

Well it wasn't exactly secret. Reach falls is on the east coast of Jamaica. There was an entrance fee which sorta sucked, but in the end wa totally worth it. There's a quick hike to the falls where you find a guide. He pointed at a spot in the falls and said, "walk thru dere." It was kind of cold since the sun was setting and there was some rain too, but I ran for it. The part you walk through is on the right in this picture, by the rock (used the filter on the camera since it looked more realistic than the actual picture)...

I didn't get anymore photos since the camera I had on me wasn't waterproof.  It was awesome inside the cave though. Loud and kind of dark with a small opening in the back that we scrambled out. From there you get led up the river further, swimming in the pools where the water is deep and walking across the rocks where it's not. All of the water here is super clear and blue, we were kind of cold but were having too much fun to notice. Had the entire river to ourselves!

Further along we come to this hole in the river about 3 feet round, the guide lowers himself ten feet down and told me to block off the water pouring in while the Frenchmen get lowered down. I was last and got down with a coldish river of water rushing around me and my guide showing me where to put my feet.  Down below was another cave that went back further and had a few exits. Sooo rad. The guide then ducked/swam below a waterfall and from the other side held out his hand. We all grabbed on, one at a time and he pulled us into the next pool. We could stand there but it was a real tight fit. I started laughing at the hilarious scene of being shoulder to shoulder with two Frenchmen and one Jamaican guy in a river in the Caribbean. There was one more waterfall to go under to get out of the underground section. I lived! Aand the cherry on top, after you're done coming down the river you get to jump off the falls!!! Though not as high as the bridge I jumped off of in Montlake in Seattle, it was still pretty up there. In the picture above it's the part on the left hand side of the picture. The green part between the streams. Maybe it was 25 feet high, into a cool pool at the bottom.

Afterward we hung out at the restaurant right on the beach where some guy tried to steal one of the Frenchmen's iPhone. It was the second time that day we had a run in with a guy who was coming on a bit strong.  In the morning I had to tell a guy that we didn't need his help anymore and he got kind of pissed. The Frenchmen found him the night before and despite saying he wasn't a hustler claimed that he needed them to give him some money in the end of the night. He showed up in the morning too and I got to be the one to tell him off. The Frenchmen didn't speak all that good of the English and were more hesitant. He walked off yelling, "stupid white boy."   Oh well. Then at the restaurant in the end of the day a guy offered us coconut jelly, which looked a whole lot like sperm. One of the guys asked before how much it was and the guy said, "no problem" like he was doing it for free. But then later there was a charge, surprise surprise. You kind of come to expect this. Outside of Kingston a lot of people are great and nice but kind of just want your money.  But it turned a little sour when the guy took the Frenchmen's iPhone. The waitress and two of the Jamaicans at the place were yelling at him to empty his pockets, when he turned around and took it out of his pocket and tried to tuck it into the hammock like it was left there. Dude left in a hurry when we got the phone back and he probably felt like shit. Alls well though.

Wagawa

2010-12-03T10:06:00.000-08:00

Wagawa: "what's up?" in Jamaican.

I've got a ton a pictures and instead of picking and choosing it would probably make more sense to just link to my FLICKR. Also the internet is painfully slow here. But here's a few choice ones though that have some special significance...

This is the shack that is perhaps my new favorite bar. I had some drinks there with Werner one night, we walked back in the pitch black, bumping into each other and getting distracted by the fireflies. The fireflies which have a more LED blue color than the ooze green I've seen on the ones in Michigan.

This is the Akee fruit. Not my nuts. If you were to eat it off the tree like this you would die, fur reels. Once it opens up its safe to eat and then becomes to die for. You cook it like eggs and it tastes buttery, best breakfast ever.

The yellow things that look like the lungs of baby frogs is the cooked Akee fruit. It's amazing. Then there's a lizard, not sure what's up with his tail. Kingston as seen from the mountains. A shot from inside and outside of the shack I stayed in in the mountains and a crooked sign. Also, up top is Mickey my driver man, morning spliff in hand. He took me up to a coffee estate in the mountains where I had the best cup of joe ever and then off to Port Antonio. There's lots more to tell but it's time to go.

Jah Jah Jah

2010-12-01T14:35:00.001-08:00

I'm in the mountains right now, staying in a tree fort on the edge of a cliff overlooking a waterfall. I'm sharing my room with a gecko. Last night I went to a bar/shack with an Austrian rasta named Werner. It's my new favorite bar, they have really great cheese snacks and cold Red Stripe. There are Rastas everywhere and I can barely understand a word they're saying. I walked 2 miles up the road today, then got a ride through the military base on the back of a rock truck where I guy tried to get me off the truck because he "had work for me to do" I looked at the two other Jamaican kids on the truck with me and laughed, "I'm on vacation, why would I want to work." They laughed too. I hopped off the truck at a cafe that had an incredible view of all of Kingston. The clouds came in and it got chilly, which makes sense since I'm almost a mile up. On the walk down all the military men at the base changed their military uniforms for soccer jerseys and were listening to Michael Jackson really loudly (Billy Jean). On my walk down to this cafe, which is basically a shack, I got surrounded by a gang of goats. No pictures till I get to Port Antonio tomorrow, where I will finally be able to dip my toes into the Carribean sea. This place is magic.

More JA and pics

2010-11-30T08:19:00.000-08:00

Feeling a little more comfortable here. Kingston is supposedly the most dangerous city in Jamaica so if I can get along fine here I should be good, ya man? We'll see how Cuba goes. I booked my flight, December 11th to the 19th I'll be there, drinking cuba libres with Castro. I talked to a kind of dicky American guy here at the house that spent a month in Cuba and said it was "chill dude." So yeah.

Walking around aimlessly this morning I found what is pretty much Kingston's mini-Chinatown. Me and Julio ate at one of the places here for lunch and it was okay, though I'm not really a fan of Chinese food. But it was just about what you would expect from a Chinese restaurant in the U.S. (greasy). I was hoping to meet a Chinese guy there with a Jamaican accent but I didn't. Which is probably good since I don't think I would be able to stop laughing while he talked...

Went to the Bob Marley museum with Julio (my new Peruvian bud). I do like Bob and I figured as long as I'm here I might as well see the place. The museum is in the house he lived in in Uptown. He lived in Trenchtown too but that area isn't as nice. The house also still to this day serves as a recording studio for Tuff Gong recording label. His room was left pretty much intact and was pretty sparse. They had a little marijuana plant growing in the garden, "Bob's favorite stuff" the guide said. It was pretty nice, the guide sang to us as we walked around and they even had a life sized hologram of Bob. Little known fact: Bob Marley used to ride a fixie. They had his bike there and lo and behold, no gears (though it might of been a freewheel sprocket on the back). We weren't allowed to take pictures inside but I snapped a few outside...

In the middle picture is Bob and his family, with Ziggy in the middle smiling all big like. The guy above is putting back into his pocket a foot long branch of ganja. He wanted $100 USD for it, which was a rip. I told him about the cheap plentiful greens in PDX, he wasn't having it. Nice guy though, he name is Ryan.

On the way back we saw this...

It's like a cross between Jamaican and Mexican food, if you will. Then a few blocks up we stopped in to have a Red Stripe at the Car Was Bar. It was pretty much a cross between a car wash and a bar, if you can imagine that. Red Stripe was $160 Jamaican there, which wasn't too bad. If I had a car I would totally wash it there...

I'm off to the Blue Mountains now. The home of the best coffee in the world. I actually haven't had any coffee since Miami, which is the longest time in a good while I've been without the stuff. Internet might not be as prevalent there I'm tinkin. More later.

Jah.

2010-11-28T19:23:00.000-08:00

I don't even know where to start. Okay, I'll skip Miami, I was only there a night but what I did see was pretty un-inspiring. The flight to Kingston was short and sweet. The ice and snow I left in Seattle is very much not here. It's eternally 80 degrees and kind of sort of humid. I took the bus into town, which some people thought was not the best idea since downtown is not a very friendly place for tourists. But the bus only cost a hundred Jamaican dollars, instead of the cab ride which would have been close to 3,000 dollars! (It's a pretty easy exchange rate, 100 Jamaican dollars is about 1 US dollar.) I didn't feel unsafe really, just overwhelmed. People yelling, loud music, everything you could imagine being sold in every imaginable way. Plus this is the first time I've been the lone white dude. Though maybe it's just my stunning good looks that are drawing the attention... nah, I'm a white dude in what is pretty much an African country. Every single person I've talked to though has been overwhelmingly nice. "Relax" is the general mantra here. Though you wouldn't know it by looking at the traffic they have. The super scary ride from downtown to the house I'm staying at was almost enough to make me forget about riding any kind of two wheeled machine here. Also look at gas prices, almost $100 a gallon, yikes!

In the two days I've been here I've been offered ganja twice. I'm assuming that number is going to only go up from here.

Today I walked around town with a guy I met at the house I'm staying at. His name is Julio and is Peruvian but lives in Rio de Janeiro. It was pretty cool hearing his take on the shit going down there that I had just read about in the New York Times a few days ago. We caught a cab into New Kingston, it wasn't a legally registered cab but oh well. You need to go for the ones with the red license plate, even though the unregistered ones are more plentiful and cheaper. They were having some kind of fair in the downtown section of New Kingston. There were a bunch of booths set up, half of them selling jerk chicken and the other half selling couches and love seats. The funniest part was when I saw my first Jamaican clown...

I am happy to report that really young children being frightened out of their minds by clowns is an international phenomenon. I didn't snap a pic of it but this clown was getting really close to a cute little kid that was having none of it. Probably didn't help that this clown was in fact, frightening.

So we took off from there, trying to find a park, aimlessly walking around. Going past this one restaurant we get a call to come in a have a beer. I was kind of hesitant at first but being with another guy put my mind at ease. Really glad I went in though, it was the most amazing, totally Jamaican experience. We just sat there outside, in the side yard and drank Red Stripe and talked. I almost passed out from the sun though, my vision turned to black and white and made it seem like I was looking though a toilet paper tube. I was hot and thirsty, sitting down and drinking some cold Red Stripe helped. There were 4 other dudes there and one lady. One of the guys, Mr. B was really drunk and I got to be the translator between him and Julio (who speaks perfect English, but had a hard time getting the already hard to understand Jamaica). There was one olde Snordley type guy they there too, they just called him The General. (Which is also an awesome movie.) He would dance and sing and the salute every once in a while. He claimed that he was the security guard there for 5 dollars Jamaican a day, which is about 6 cents. He's also the oldest guy I've ever seen smoke weed. The owner of the place, who waved us in was really cool too. He lived in Florida for a while and is part Indian. He named his restaurant after the first organized group of people to inhabit Jamaica, the Arawak. He saw us on the street and just wanted us to come hang out with them. That's Jamaica, so far. Here's a pic of The General...

I need to get a picture of the geckos here. I had lizards as a kid and loved the shit out of them. More later.

So snowy, So windy too

2010-11-22T21:30:00.000-08:00

I woke up to a light smattering of snow on the ground. I had heard rumors of snow for Seattle but was pretty surprised to actually see it. Keep in mind: if snow sticks on the ground before Thanksgiving then we're in for a white winter. This is a PNW axiom (pretty much)...

Once darkness time fell however, the winter wonderland was turned into a hellish Antarctic land of... well cars going slow and some streets being closed. Pretty quick work for the snow though, to go from a dusting to about 3 inches in one day...

Pay no mind to the lack of snow on the cars above, they were moved recently. And also there really is about 3 inches of accumulated snow out there there too, it just got blown away, HONEST! And seriously, it is right now, 21 degrees outside!!! I was about to go to Moped Monday as it's the last one I'll see for a while but decided that I would rather not crash my moped so that I could go down the hill and sit at a bar by myself.

Going going...

2010-11-21T13:46:00.000-08:00

Few things have happened here in DICKING AROUND LAND™since last we spoke. Like I said I got laid off other day, which is in fact a good thing (I'll get to that later). You would think I would be blogging more but looks like that has yet to happen.

Went to Portland with that swell fella named Phil the other day. It was a sort of a goodbye for him since he's high tailing it back to the midwest. He will of course be missed. It was a classic PDX visit though: lots of PBR, staying up late, teasing all the fixie riders and hang time with Portland's moped aficionados. Uphill Battle came too, they even rode their mopeds! I guess they haven't learned yet that it's not cool to ride mopeds when it's cold out. Then I went to sleep, when I woke up there was a cat drinking my water...

Oh yeah, I did terrible in Shorty's pinball tournament too. Of the five games I played I only won one of them. That one though, I really really won. It was the first game I played, on their Arabian Nights machine and I got replay on the second ball. Sadly I lost all of the other ones I played. It was a double elimination round so I played later on Avatar and lost both of those games, though not too terribly. That machine sucks hard though.

Oh yeah, the reason why it's good I have no job is that I can now go to Jamaica, the country, in the Caribbean. Gunna be gone for a month, leaving after T-giving and coming back X-mas day. I'm going to try and go to Cuba too. I have the Spanish vocabulary of a 4 year old, so I should be okay (right?). Word on the street is Obama loosened up some of the Bush restrictions on visiting Cuba and Raul Castro loosened up some of Castro Castro's restrictions on doing business. I plan to get a bike when I'm there, and ride it into the ground. Maybe surf some too. More on all there later though.

Let them roll

2010-11-15T13:05:00.000-08:00

TSM tank still leaks, despite my best efforts. I had to sand down some spots on the tank and JB weld them up. It looks like the tank was pressed together with wooden dowels or something. I do have a nice condition General tank here that might fit on there and its orange so it will match but really I would rather not do that. On the other hand I don't want to mess up or destroy the TSM tank. It does run however. Probably needs a pipe for it to run faster than 20 mph. It's a weird set up right now with a 50 kit, 19mm PHBG, some reeds and that big old stock pipe. I've got a lot of time on my hand now though since my job laid me off. So it should be golden soon. And it's actually pretty nice that I have no job now, they're still taking good care of despite being kicked to the curb. Going to miss this wonderful view though...

And being able to look up at this and call it a kind of a home. I remember when I was a kid my Dad used to call it, "the building that looks like a pair of golf pants."

Oh and the death of 4 LOKO was also the rebirth of long lasting wild parties for MF (possibly). The bottoms of my feet hurt from walking over a floor covered in 300+ copies of Jurassic Park. There's a person under here believe it or not...

Oregon still sells this magic in a can so really if I feel the hankering I can just take a trip down there to load up. But really this stuff is unnecessary is is not really helping society as a whole. Imagine if this stuff was around when you were a kid... I would have gone totally bonkers. Think I might go to Portland tomorrow. See you there maybe.

RIP: big cans, heartburn and wild times

2010-11-10T13:08:00.000-08:00

The Washington State Liquor Board says I can't have fun anymore. Binge drinking 40 beers is still fine, as long as there is no caffeine involved. That's right, 4 LOKO and JOOSE (among others) are now being banned in Washington. Not that this is a great loss for society. Unless you think free choice is paramount to a free society, in which case it is actually a great loss for 'Merica.

For me at least, 4 Loko and Joose are (for better or worse) intrinsically linked with moped rallys. Being out of your mind is really the best way to appreciate the times when you are totally in your right mind. Matt SLUDGE can confirm this. By day he's a modest mechanical engineer. Get him on the LOKO though and he's a seething pit of despair, joyfulness and destruction. Also, according to Google Analytics my second most viewed page on this blog beyond the main page is THIS POST I WROTE ABOUT ALCO-POP DRINKS. It's too bad the fist picture isn't there anymore. It was a beautiful picture of Bob Barrans and his one true love.

Maybe we can work something out like they did with pot. Marijuana is illegal but if you are able to prove it can help you medicinally then you are free to have it. What if ugly people were able to prove that 4 LOKO was instrumental in getting them hooked up with the opposite sex? What if people who get really sleepy after 5 beers can prove that they need 4 LOKO to stay awake at parties and avoid having their face drawn on? What if I just want to have one for fun because it makes me feel funny inside and has no real lasting effects on my person? Then can I have it? Fuck you liquor board, you suck.

Almost but not quite

2010-11-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

Maybe its the goofiness factor or the fun vs. usefulness of these two personal transportation devices that reminds me of mopeds. You wouldn't go long distances on either, they probably break a lot and you really just want to laugh at them. And thanks to the Creatures mopeds are now synonmouns with bad techno (*) just like these two weird machines...

Both are electric and if you didn't notice, way radical. Obviously I would rather have the SeaBob, if the sky started raining money that is since the thing costs about $18,000. But really I think I would need to live in Florida if I had one since swimming in the murky cold Puget Sound would probably not be all that fun. So yeah, send me one of those roller blade motorized things. Or we can just make one, Phil almost MADE ONE BY ACCIDENT ONCE.

And shoot, looks like the TSM just might run this week barring any unforseen catastrophies. There are so many side coves on this thing, I love it. And the funny thing is they're not really covering up anything, just the open gaps and holes where you would think something should go...

TSM coming back to life and THE WALKING DEAD

2010-11-05T12:37:00.000-07:00

Getting my TSM into this condition was a lot harder than it should have been. I'm not sure if my vast intellect is helping me here or hindering me. Really I'm just not that French smart I guess. I probably spent an hour on that damn tension spring alone. Someone (Naaaaaaazzz) needs to show me the proper way to rig up this motor, that does not involve: tons of effort, a dremmel and a hammer. My hands are in danger of losing their boyish look/feel...

After the Naz machine (who is this guy even? I seem to talk about him a whole hell of a lot here...) got the bottom end together for me my only major hurdle was attaching that bottom end onto the bike. That's done now though so the things left to do are well within my grasp. That variator though, what a mess. Hobbit variators are way less complicated than these French piles of poo. The point of all this is that in the next month I should have a working TSM, boo-yes. Love it, getting previously dead mopeds to run again that is. Working on mopeds yesterday with Joel gave me a taste of that good old feeling. Going fast is fun but getting a moped to just run is infinitely more satisfying.

In the land of the half living, we now have a nice new TV show. I've been waiting for this one for quite some time now...

For a good few years now the graphic novel for this new show has been sitting on my desk, looking at me. I really loved the story it told, too bad the art went so downhill after the first book. Since the TV show relies on real live people, this isn't going to be much of a problem. And after seeing the first episode, I can safely say I'm not worried. It's fantastic. Well cast, nice pacing and the Zombies look fucking scary. The makeup and sounds the "walkers" make are more realistic than any of the new Romero movies (but we all know that's no big feat since old George has gone way down hill lately)...

HERE'S MY THEORY: All Zombie movies can be judged on the first major Zombie encounter. If it's a good movie you will remember that first encounter vividly. For instance: the priest in the corpse filled church in 28 Days later, the girl in the backyard that gets impaled on the pole in Shaun of the Dead and the guy in the cemetery in Night of the Living Dead, "he's coming for you Barbara!" Each movie has their own special take on the undead but really its that first scene that sets the mood for the film. The initial Zombie encounter in The Walking Dead cut right to the chase. Rick (the main character) still wasn't sure what was going on, but didn't really hesitate much before shooting the kid above in the head. And boy was it a beautiful head shot; like throwing a watermelon off of a 3 story building. Can't wait to see some more.

WATCH HERE.

THE GREAT WHITE PUCH

2010-11-02T14:31:00.000-07:00

This is it; your great white Puch. I hear it's missing the back wheel. Well it is. Naz is supposed to do something to them, bearings I think. I got the bike from Sully after longing over it in the back of the shop in Gtown for a while now. She got it from some dude in the Oregon, who obviously took real good care of it. I think this is the first moped I've bought that probably was not at one point abandoned in the woods. Got a black Techno Boss pipe on the way for it, keepin' it conservative. The top end is a 50cc TCCD. I'm not crazy about the SHA on there but it will do fine for now...

H eh double el Oh W double E N

2010-11-01T11:27:00.000-07:00

Creepy, spooky and ooky...

That of course is me as Pizza Zombie and m'lady as a gerbil caught in the fourth dimension and/or plan B aka: Jihee's favorite past time of attaching things together to make them into geodesic domes. And here's pig boy in the smoke...

Along with being a celebration of our pagan heritage, the night was also a celebration of these two people and their first year of Satanic matrimony. Aren't they cute? One dressed up as a cat and the other as a mechanical wizard, take a guess which is which...

The uptight host of our party kicked us out for no good reason so we hung out in a garage. There's wasn't much to do so Naz drunk dialed a bunch of people...

I figure every costume from here on out is going to be Zombie ______. Last year I was Zombie Santa. Though, I had originally planned on dressing up as a character from Team Fortress 2. I don't think anyone at the party would have gotten it and I think a costume is a failure if you have to explain it all night long. Maybe next year though, Zombie Scout...

And so can you

2010-10-29T11:26:00.000-07:00

Got this little do-dad the other day. It's nifty and useful and you should probably get one before the tide of Zombies approaches and you have to ride your moped for days on end...

FEED ME TREATS!

In total it takes about 14 seconds to install. Most of that time is spent taking the crush washer off your (new) spark plug and deciding how to route the wire. Comes with handy dandy sticky to stick it to things. If the wire were longer I would have put it up higher, but oh well. Cruising temp is about 270 degrees. Cool as a cucumber.

An addendum to my last post: here is a wonderful moped video from a group of people called The Cream City Cranks out of Milwaukee, Canada. They are going to be voted into Moped Army very soon, without a doubt...

Best of luck perspective branches!

2010-10-26T11:49:00.000-07:00

Yeah, this blog post is dedicated to all the teachers that told me I'd never amount to nothin', to all the people that lived above the buildings that I was hustlin' in front of that called the police on me when I was just tryin' to make some money to fix my mopeds, and all the groms in the struggle, you know what I'm sayin'?

Lots of branches applying to get golden on MA this year. This is the third new branch review I've seen thus far and just like the other years I have no clue how the vote is going to turn out. Though the first one I witnessed it was pretty obvious that the Latebirds were getting in, they did at the time and still to this day, RULE.

Dearest CUPERTEENS and UPHILL BATTLERS: You're the two branches I know the best out of the bunch and I'm really hoping you guys get it but also know that if you don't, it ain't no thang. Over any of the other branches you have the special distinction of being a branch that's actively involved in the moped racing scene that's going on (either through spectating or actually racing). I don't imagine you guys losing interest in these dumb little machines any time in the near future so either way, you'll be minted in a week or so or we'll just do it all again next year. But really, come and visit, you know you're all welcome any time. Good luck to METAL PONIES too, though I haven't met any of you in person I do like your internettlyness.

Few more race photos

2010-10-25T09:38:00.000-07:00

I think I took about 2 pictures at the last race. I was sorta busy. Luckily there were other people out there who took some really really neat photos.

This one is from the Official (?) Pacific Scooter Racing Association Flickr...

They also have a good one of Jesse, then Phil being all matchy matchy, Naz and his dope lookin' helmet and JJ Herz-dogg with the meanest lean out there. Hope you find the Derbi of your dreams JJ.

Isaac took these two, along with a whole slew of other great pictures...

And this last one of me crossing the finish line is from the fanciest fancy lad, Mr. Kurt Beast...

Really hope its not raining tonight for Moped Monday, 'cause I really wanna ride race bike around. I guess the number card is off it now so technically its BIG RED, but yeah, I think it's supposed to rain for the next week or so...

Lovely Wimps

2010-10-24T11:44:00.000-07:00

Presented is a collection of videos arranged in a clickable, story driven manner, enjoy.

The world is many things. Painters PAINT it, singers SING about it. Some use TOOLS to CREATE things. Others COMPETE against one another, HILARITY ensues. Then we REST. Later on we use our knowledge to do some TRULY EXCITING things. This is Earth man.

Nightwatch, kitty lookin' and Hobbit schemin'

2010-10-22T10:10:00.000-07:00

It's not the best option for seeing at nighttime, but it's better than a crappy expensive light that will not stay on when my bike gets up to speed. Plus the new addition of these lights my bike looks more like a goofy looking monster of like it grew a set of nipples...

And if you didn't alreay know, this is CAT FACTOR. See you have to factor the cat into all your shots since you really can't see the top of the playfield...

The owner of this beautiful cat has taken up photography to go along with his busy day time job of pimpin' and money makin'. Check out his website: PoopingintheGarden.com.

Wish I got a better shot of it, when the sun came for like 12 seconds yesterday. This is the wheel on my trusty daily driver, yes the same one that broke the belt the other day. I noticed that some of the spokes are coming loose, the transmission is leaking oil onto the rim and the Gazelle tire on it is worn down to the shape of a trapezoid. Check out all the belt dust that stuck to the oil...

Here's what Old Yeller looks like now with a new wheel. This transmission has the Malossi racing gears in it so I did notice a slight loss in bottom end. Which really is fine since it would still wheelie if not careful. Previous top speed of this bike 47mph, should have no prob hittin' 50 now though...

Also there was a Hobbit convention on the corner of 11th and Pike the other day. You probably weren't invited, so don't feel bad. Nash (aka ako) was in town on his buddy's Hobbit. This is an approximation of the scene...

My bike goes 60 mph+

2010-10-20T14:08:00.000-07:00

Got my race Hobbit to go 62 mph on Harbor Island yesterday, don't tell my Mom. I wasn't sure where to get my bike up to speed; didn't want to go on I-5, 99 gets lots of traffic. First I went from my house to Sand Point but my top speed was only 58. I knew it had 60 in it. I have my head temp senson on, which is real handy. Cruising it stays at around 320-370 degrees. At the races when I had the big head leak I saw it get up to 450, no problems. I'm also getting RMP readings. Idles at 2000, hits at about 7000 and max RPM is saved in as 12,600!

I've often thought that I've gone 60 on a moped, but was never really positive. Both times I've ridden on the Golden Gate for instance, I think I got going real fast on that thing. But yeah, if my phone is to be believed, this current bike goes 60+. I rode out from Sand Point to 99 (bottom level, no exits), which I took me right to H.I. Turned on the app at the top of the Island and then zoomed south. Got real fast, real quick...

This what I stopped in front of after the bike took a big gulp of air like it was going to seize. Kind of like a hiccup. But I hear you can sneak into this place, used to be an old flour mill...

There's no lights on that bike so I defer to Old Yeller to get me around under the cover of darkness. Riding that up to Lynwood last night I broke my belt. Never heard of that happening on a Hobbit before. It was real worn out though. After about 10 hours of thinking the guy at O'Reiley's had a new one for me.

First, and Third + Race season re-cap

2010-10-18T12:33:00.000-07:00

And that's it folks. The season is over. Yesterday I took home first place in the moped race and third overall for the season. The illustrious, Dr. Michael Mike McNazzer took first for being the most consistent/fast rider with two W's under his belt and JJ from Portland took second for being a rad dude who races like a really smart crazy person.

(ABOVE) Me thinking about winning. (BELOW) And me just after I won getting Bobed and Brodeoed.

All together, the weekend was spectacular. We got to ride down on our glorious bus, myself and 6 other Fleeters. Partied in Portland for the night where popcorn falls from the sky and Uphill Battle rules supreme (sorry Cutters, best watch yourself, your dorky little brother is getting handsome). Then Saturday was practice day. I was happy to have kept both wheels down the whole time I was on that track. I also found my bike had a ton of top end speed. I pulled hard on some scooters in the straightaway, which made me pretty happy. Also this top speed advantage was what helped me win in the end.

Sunday morning was cold, shrunk testies all around. BUT, the track was dry so there were no massive pile ups like the last time at Pat's. I missed practice trying to put on a new head gasket that Uphill Battle Matt gave me. It blue immediately. After some work I got it going again and placed first out of all the mopeds in the three heat races I took part in. In the first Pee-Wee novice race I had the lead for the first 7 laps. On lap 6 I felt the bike starting to lose compression and then got passed on the last lap. The temp on my Vapor read 550 degrees, which is very close to seizing. After some wrenchin' and tweakin' I was able to get up and running. I ended up ditching the Derbi head I had been running for the stock (milled down with a crappy squish band cut by hand) Hobbit head I had on my other bike, along with another head gasket from Matt. In the end, loads of compression and a good amount of top speed got me the win. I followed JJ on lap one and then passed him on the straight during lap two. I didn't look back as much this time but I could hear him there and see him in the shadows occasionally on the track. It was truly a pleasure riding toe to toe with that guy, tons of fun. Thanks BTW to the wonderful people who came out to the track; the Barransies, I-sack, Kansas, Kurdle, Jee-balls, the Patrie family and the Snords. It was all for you guys [tears]. See you all next year.

That's me shaking the hand of my lead mechanic. Though this engine build I had at the track yesterday was totally assembled and tuned by me, I wouldn't have been half as fast as I was without him. Lots of parts on my bike were created/modified/wizarded by Naz. Pretty sure he fixed JJ's HPI once too, so really he's the man.

Here's how it all played out for me this season, click on the "Race _" to read about what all went down.

Race 1 (PGP) -- Placed first (though it was just myself and Phil on the track).
Race 2 (MAC) -- First!
Race 3 (MAC) -- Won the Pee-wee novice and then crashed while in first on the moped race.
Race 4 (Pat's) -- Near fatal head leak on earlier race and then first in the moped race.
Race 5 (PGP) -- Third, behind JJ and Naz.
Race 6 (Pat's) -- Exploded my piston up. JJ takes the W.
Race 7 (MAC) -- Won the Pee-wee novice and then crashed while in first on the moped race.
Race 8 (Pat's) -- Nearly fatal head leak on earlier race and then first in the moped race.

See the pattern there? I only got one third place, all the rest were either crashes while in first, actual first place or catastrophic failure. And two of races at the Mac track as well as two races at Pat's Acres played out in almost the exact same fashion. I do like consistency I guess, my room is pretty clean and my desk at work always has everything in the exact same place as the day before. Still, kind of weird.

Off to race and important scores

2010-10-15T10:05:00.000-07:00

Leaving tonight for deep south Washington, aka: Portland. It's the last race of the season and I am only a little bit sad. On the one hand I will have plenty of time to work on Puchs and other such non-sense real soon. But I'm also probably not going to be seeing my Portland friends as often now that the races are ending. Next year is going to be super rad though, I figure there will be a smattering of new racers to play with too. I've heard from at least 6 other people with interest in racing, even if 2 of them come through the track is going to be a whole different place.

In more important news, I am both a Grand Champion and a Jump Rope Champion. Yeah, seriously...

I have no clue how I got that score on Ironman, I don't even like that game. But it's the only one at Mecca, so me 'n Jee went for a few rounds. This was the first game we played though, I think I got a few multiballs and a ton of Jackpots. The jump rope achievement is really the amazing part. There's a feature in Champion Pub where the ball is set on a platform and a jump rope spins around, when you hit the flipper button the ball jumps over the rope. If you skip to 1:14 on THIS VIDEO you'll see what I'm talking about. But yeah, I did 30 jumps, which is amazing. YOU'RE WELCOME!

Crumbling Empires

2010-10-13T12:13:00.000-07:00

This is probably my favorite pictures of all time. That dude is so intense, the guy holding the map, man look at him go! Kidding, the guy in the middle is the real bad ass here. He would love to cut off my arm with his sword I'll bet. The photo is from the Boshin War, which was basically the last hurrah for the Samurai class. See also, Sakamoto Ryoma for further interesting reads. Why is there not a movie about this guy?

Why did I buy this?

2010-10-11T09:58:00.000-07:00

Look close, it's an Iridium spark plug. As seen HERE.

I think I'm running out of things to do to my race Hobbit, aka: BIG RED. Also I'm a sucker for gimmicks, I'll admit that. I could (with help from Naz) get a big flat slide carb on to it. But I really like the PHBG set up on there. I know I'm not going to destroy the carb if I crash since it's tucked up inside the bike. Also, changing jets on the bike has gotten real easy since I cut up the air box on the sub-frame allowing me to access the jet via the race float I have. This mod by the way is really a must for people who like to whine about changing jets on their Hobbit. Don't think it would work as well if your running a stock carb though.

But back to the spark plug, the claims that NGK makes about this plug (as listed on the Treats link above) are almost too good to be true. It's like when I bought some Castrol Oil, "Your bike will not seize and bunnies will come out the exhaust!" But in the end it's just better to go with synthetic oil. I'll have the bike running in the next few days so maybe I will notice a difference with this plug, but I kind of doubt it. I've never been one to tell a difference in the performance on a bike running a B5 spark plug and one running a B8 or B9.

On the subject of spark plugs, look at the plug Jihee's Hobbit came with. Doesn't look like any of the other stocks ones I have seen. Maybe Casey put this in when the bike belonged to him? I've heard side gapping you plug (which is what I believe this one to be) allows the flame to be directed straight out instead of deflected around the compression chamber. But reading in Jennings the other night it sounds like the sudden change in pressure in the combustion chamber is what moves the piston around, not the burning gasses. So again, if a spark plug is just igniting the mixture why does it matter what type the plug is?

Freaks like games

2010-10-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

SEE THE FREAKONOMICS MOVIE, it's good (if you're into things that smart people like). But really I can't wait for Jackass 3-D. 5 more days!

Also I just got this in the mail, eBay sent it to me...

There was an Arkanoid machine at a coffee joint in the U-District once upon a time. As the barista there once said to me, "that game is very unforgiving." It's basically the same as Breakout for the Atari system; you control the paddle that the ball bounces off of to break the bricks above you. I'm assuming they made the NES specific controller for it when no one could get past level 4. So far I've gotten to level 6, what an improvement [sarcasm]. If you ever see a sit down "cocktail" style table of this game you need to promise to tell me. I think someday I will have one of those machines or this guy, one of my favorite pinball games...

It's Baby Pacman, a stand up half arcade half pinball machine. You start out on the Pacman level and then exit through the bottom openings to start the pinball side of the game. While playing the pinball side of it you earn the big white dots for the video side that allow you to gobble up the Pacmen. It's pretty fun, I'm better at the pinball side of it since I've always been more of a Megaman kind of guy than I was a Pacman guy. If you ever see one I highly recommend putting in all the quarters you have in your pocket.

Red 'n Rad

2010-10-08T09:51:00.000-07:00

I'm no Phil, I don't really drink soda. But deep down somewhere inside of me (in my knee caps perhaps) I'm a Texan. Born in Houston, escaped when I was 2. So any time I have a hankering for a sweet bubbly drink, it's Big Red. There's only a few places I've seen this drink in Washington, in Texas you can't walk ten feet without getting hit in the head by some Big Red. Thankfully one of the places that sells it here is just down the road from my house. If you haven't had it before the best I can describe it is - cherry cream soda...

This leads to a larger point that I now have a (glowing, gorgeous) red mag on the back of my race bike. The front has spokes still, due to the disc brake I'm running. I got told by many a people at the Creature rally that my back wheel was "hella wobbly, dogg." This mag isn't dented so it must be true, true?

Looks pretty good I think. The bike is all together now with the new crank and fancy bearings. It's having a few issues that need to be worked out, but I got time so I'm not sweatin' it.

Funny thing, when I was taking apart my previous race engine I found these little guys smooshed up on the wall of the case. Left over debris from when I exploded my piston...

I"m pretty surprised they didn't ruin my crank. I think I raced with it like that once and rode through an entire rally as well, crazy. I felt a rough spot when turning the HPI rotor and though that one of my bearings was about to go.

And here is what the red wheel looks like on the front of my daily driver, hope I don't get a ticket (for being too radical!)...

Ceramics Class on Pandora

2010-10-04T13:27:00.000-07:00

Here's what I'll be doing this week...

Look real close, the actual balls of the bearing is ceramic. According to the Naz, ceramic hybrid bearings like this have a higher tolerance to heat, which makes for less wear on the bearing. They're also lighter so there's going to be less drag on the crank. Thanks be to Naz, and the good people at VXB.

I'm putting them on a new super stuffy crank from the saintly people at Treatslanderia...

I messed up the stud holes on my other case and I think that the bearings are going on it. Regardless, I wanted to have two good Hobbit race engines, for the future, for next year, to test stuff on, to display for friends and family, to sleep with. If I do race next year it will be on the same bike, I know there's more I can do with this Hobbit, no sense in switching to some entirely new bike.

NEWS FROM THE PINBALL WORLD: There's a new machine being released soon by Stern, the last remaining pinball manufacturer. It's Avatar, the blue people movie. And it's probably going to be lame and cost 75 cents instead of 50. There's a VIDEO OF IT HERE and it really looks a lot like Ironman (which sucks). Sorry to be negative, today is Friday after all. Peace be with you.

The Ceremony in SF,CA

2010-09-30T14:20:00.000-07:00

Ten out of ten, so much fun. San Francisco is by far one of my favorite cities to ride in. The views are enough for you to WANT to break down. But I guess then you would miss what's coming next so it's a good thing I didn't break down. Funny story though; as I sat there in the Bus, getting ready to strap down my bike for the ride home to Seattle I pulled on the throttle cable and it snapped right off. How perfect is that? The bike that Jihee was riding of mine got a flat at the last bar on the last night of the rally, also perfect. She also had another more dramatic problem with the bike which I'm sure she will TELL YOU about.

Day one all of MF took a ride through GG park out to the ocean. Bob and Ann got pulled over by a Vice cop that I had tipped off about their illegal riding practices. Nah, I didn't really tip them off, they were undercover vice cops though that wanted to impound their bikes. Dicks. After all that we roamed around Sutro Baths and had a hootin' good time...

Here's a few Bobs, Rufus, Smudge and an Albo loungin' in the shade on top of Twin Peaks...

Here's a view of the city just after crossing over the big red bridge...

Stopping at Bolinas was like a little mini-vacation in the midst of the rally. Everyone moved a little bit slower there. The idea sleepy little costal town with two bat shit crazy old ladies and some surfers hanging loose...

And here's a pic of me 'n Matt Smudge going across the Golden Gate bridge. I really can't describe how radical it is riding across that bridge. It's windy, the thing is really really tall and I think my bike runs about 5 mph faster on there. I wish I had a speedo for the ride back across it. I was ready to blow it up so I opened it all the way up and got to what was probably 55 mph. BLAST!

The picture is from a dude who took some great photos on the ride and has A COOL BLOG THAT YOU SHOULD CHECK OUT, fur reels.

Me 'n the lady stayed in SF a few extra days to see some sights and hang out with her old friend from school. It was kind of wonderful. We saw lots of stuff with the rally but there was plenty else to see once it was said and done.

This one is looking out from inside the MOMA. There was so much to see I think I enjoyed it more than NYC's version. Click on the picture and see if you can find him though...

Taken from the back of a cable car...

It's amazing the weirdo business in Chinatown are able to stay afloat. After a few blocks they just start repeating...

This donut shop was so great in so many ways...

The view from the place we stayed in the Tender-nob (half way between the Tenderloin and Nob Hill). It's funny how similar SF is to NYC and then in the same second, totally not similar...

And here is my lovely lady contemplating the jump down from a trolley car. You can do it!

Take it away Butters!

2010-09-22T19:19:00.000-07:00

Do you ever try to fix something and then make it 10 times worse? Yeah, I do, lots. I had a nasty head leak this morning. Fast forward a few hours and I had a broken stud stuck in my engine.

This is what a massive head leak looks like if you weren't awares...

I had a stripped out stud hole that I found at the last race that I was able to successfully Heli-coil. Then I found another one. The head leak wasn't disturbing the bike too much, but it for sure needed to be fixed before SF. Maybe I tapped it crooked? Either way, it broke off with just a little nub sticking out. I tried using some extractor bits on it but the stud is in there too solidly. So today was spent swapping parts over to a new engine. I've got the Wiz kit on now and points (yay lights!) so it's not as fast as I would like it to be, but oh well. Oh, and a stock crank. Hopefully it will last the weekend.

CALIFORNIA TOMORROW!

See ya all there!

Don't blow it!

2010-09-21T00:29:00.000-07:00

You know who you are... your name is Phil and you should be going to the SF rally so that you can do fun stuff and see cool things and talk to people. These are three activities that you are well known for partaking in. You're hired, COME RIDE THE BUS.

Related video posted above. The You Tubes . com

Real Racers

2010-09-20T11:14:00.000-07:00

In my imaginary world where I race motorcycles at death defying speeds (as opposed to reality, where I race 30 year old mopeds that were originally intended to help old people get around when they park their RV) I am spiritually linked to all racers. Despite this new worldview, I still agree with this sentiment...

It's not just the fact that they are just driving in one big loop for 500 miles, but also that their cars are all restricted. I didn't know about this till Phil told me about it recently. Apparently all NASCAR cars are outfitted with this restrictor plate over the intake...

Isn't the point of racing building a machine that goes as fast as possible? From reading on the WIKI is sounds like the restrictor plates have been put in for safety concerns. There's got to be other ways to help maintain safety on the tracks besides these plates. One guy, who went out and raced without a plate said this, "There's no way we could be out there racing at those speeds... it would be insane to think we could have a pack of cars out there doing that." Sounds kind of pussy to me. Racing should be insane, not about drafting each other like a flock of birds.

Today, The New York Times has a great video up of some serious, truly insane racers. Take a peek...

"You never know if you're going to make it through the cross over."

Back on top

2010-09-18T17:18:00.000-07:00

I was once the Sopranos pinball champ but got bumped down by some obvious loser good for nothing dick licker. But I'm back baby, back on top!!! Previous best score was 98mill. Let's see this wastoid top my new best score of 143mill!

The picture is crappy, I know. But it's proof enough. I will say though that this particular machine, since it's at Gameworks, is a 4 ball game whereas most are 3 ball games. I left the thing with 5 credits on it, since I'm a baller.

Here's a better picture of the backglass...

In my opinion (which is implied anyways since I'm the one writing it) The Sopranos is the best American television show of all time. If you hated the last episode then I think you just haven't thought it over enough in your mind enough. Yes there were some slow points in the show but overall, it's damn near perfect. One day I want to edit the series so that all you see are the scenes with Corrado, aka Uncle Junior (old guy with the Mr. Magoo glasses). He's an amazing actor and was given lots and lots of funny/sad/smart things to say by the great writers of that show.

No longer a swinger, Naz is a hard mount king

2010-09-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

When I first started messing around with mopeds it made zero sense to me why you would want you engine to move around. I get it now, but am not really keen on the idea. There are many many different ways for a belt driven system to take up the slack made by an increase of power, Mobys and Peugeots choose to have the motor move. Motors, generally, over the course of history have been stationary objects with moving parts inside of them. French, fancy, fruity, fast, funky, etc... I had an idea once for a variated bike; it's a Hobbit motor with the normal front variator but the back variator is just normal pulley (like on a Peugeot). To account for the belt becoming slack you have the back wheel on a track that pulls it forward and backwards. Probably wouldn't be safe to ride, but it's in the early stages of brainstorming.

Dr. Naz on the other hand has found a very nice and easy way to hard mount a Peugeot engine. Take a peek...

You can see in this pic below how it mounts to the bike. Keep in mind that this is all still being tinkered with and is not in the final stage. The horizontal piece is part of what keeps the engine still. The final design will have it grabbing on both of those engine bolts instead of just one. On the back section of the bracket you can see the arm that the delrin (a super duper plastic) roller is on, and obviously the spring is there to push up on the belt from below.

The most impressive thing about all this is that is actually ran. He had to do the stuffing cardboard in the variator trick to get the belt to grab but after that got figured out it took off. The position of it he said needed to be changed some as it was rubbing and a different tension spring might be in order as well. As for the benefits of this design... One: it's rad, as well as sensible, LESS MOVING PARTS!. And two: you can get a big old carb in there now and not have to worry about clearance issues. What a strange and wonderful man...

Oh yeah, I almost forgot. Here's another one of Nazzy's designs. This one is not a hard mount but is equally ingenious in the way he has worked around the stock designed variation...