i picked up a used copy of warren g: g funk era at a music store the other day. so damn nostalgic, and they reference ‘94 in like half the songs since that was the year the album came out i guess, and the year i started high school.

it’s crazy to think that 1994 was 14 years ago… half of my life ago…

i love my car, and like most people fear and loathe dents, even small ones. i usually park way in the back of parking lots so that no one can get close and ding my door. i park in corners where i can get as far away as possible from the door next to me, preferably next to a passenger door which is less likely to be used. i even look at the type of car i park next to. i prefer the medium-high priced cars that are in good shape. people don’t care about crappy cars and the really rich don’t care either. i also try to never park next to 2 door cars as their doors are 1/3 as long as sedans.

all that said, this weekend i got a massive ding, right on the bodyline, having not followed any of my own advice. when i checked into the hotel last saturday, i figured since i was only going to be away from my car for 5 minutes, i parked next to a lexus sc430 (pricey), which is a 2 door, and on its driver’s side. gah! and i figured since the ding was on the bodyline that pdr probably wouldn’t work and i’d have to go with the expensive (quoted $600) route of real bodywork and paint.

i called around and was referred to david pelikan of sos dent out of los angeles. he came to my place, spent about 45 minutes working on it with various tools, and for $150 completely took out the dent. i was pretty skeptical that he could get it completely out, but he seemed to know what he was doing. he was really friendly and even explained the process of energy waves as he lightly hammered my door in places no where near the ding. anyway, amazing work, and i definitely recommend him: http://www.sosdent.com/

before:

after:

feel free to ask me offline what i did to the sc430 when i saw it in the parking lot later that evening :)

since i’m getting older and have more responsibilities and a wife and probably soon a kid or two, i bought life insurance through my farmer’s agent. actually, maybe he’s the responsible one, because it was his idea and i went along with it because buying a life policy would actually save me money overall with my two cars and apartment insurance that i’m already paying for. it worked out that i would save $200 a year if i bought a $200k policy, so what the hell right?

so on to the title of this post… to get a life insurance policy through farmers i had to get blood and urine tests. peeing in a cup is no problem but i *hate* needles in my arm and i hate giving blood. the nurse actually came out to my place to do it, so i was kickback watching csi: miami while she did it, but seeing my precious blood flow out of my body into plastic viles just doesn’t feel right. i know i’m a pussy and if i was actually a junkie, the displeasure would be worth the reward, but still. ugh.

sunday was “corporate partners day” at the page museum, and since my company is a contributor to the museum, we were able to make free reservations and spent some time there on our way back from santa barbara. i remember my mom taking me there when i was little kid, particularly the big elephant-ish animal stuck in the tar and the baby crying for it. why do they gotta make it so sad? i didn’t realize how close the page museum was to places i’ve been to recently, like the wilshire grand hotel.

the lacma museum is right next to the page, and we’re planning on going back there in 2 weeks. anyone wanna go?

[flickr pics of the page museum]

man, even the pets in northern(ish) california are laid back, pot smoking liberals. these guys were just walking around jenga-style up and down state street.

the best part was when this little kid ran up to them and was like “how is that possible?!, that’s just not right!” he seemed pretty agitated by it. anyway, i’m off to buy a rat and give this a shot.

i’ve been having random knee troubles for the last couple of years, and with bicycling weather around the corner, i decided to switch to the knee-friendly speedplay pedals. the speedplays have 15 degrees of non-centering float, so my leg can spin naturally, and not confine my knee’s movement to a particular track. since the float takes place in the cleat and not in the pedal like traditional clipless pedals, these speedplays are very light (shaved 105 grams by switching from look fqv’s) and small.

steph, thanks for the giftcard ;)

^fergie: glamorous, anyone?

well, the integra is finally gone. i had that car for 10 years. 10 years! i seriously grew up in it, and it was hard, but definitely time to let it go. i sold it to some kid who seemed a lot like me 10 years ago and i’m sure her ricer days are far from over.

i bought it right after i turned 18, so it was mah ride for all my adult life. i bought it with 30k miles, and sold it yesterday with 193k. i drove that car a distance equal to 6.5 times around the earth, or three-quarters of the way to the moon. in all that time, it only stopped running on my 3 times, once that i was able to fix on the spot, and twice on the 405 right next to eric’s place where i pulled in and spent a few hours fixing it.

i replaced the timing belt and water pump twice, the brake master cylinder once, the starter once, all the hoses twice, the distributor once, 5 axles (one of those was costin’s fault), 3 radiators, 2 motor mounts, a/c lines once, and of course regular maintenance like tires, oil, plugs, cap and rotor numerous times. while that may sound like a lot, it only adds up to a couple thousand dollars over almost 10 years.

i also spent a lot of money on ricer stuff. it had 3 different sets of rims, 2 different sets of seats, 4 different sets of sideskirts, 3 different front bumpers, 1 different rear bumper, and i had a carbon fiber hood on it when i sold it.

damn, and think about the gas. even at an efficient 30mpg, 160,000 miles / 30mpg =  5633 gallons of gas. at an average of what? $2 for regular over the last 10 years = $11,266! that’s only a few thousand less than i paid for the car itself.

and how about the pollution? this site says that a 1.6l (the integra was a 1.8l) car produces 200grams of carbon dioxide per kilometer. so for my 163k miles (or 262k km) that’s over 115,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, yikes!

well, what’s done is done, and i’ll definitely miss that car.

them were the days:

i’ve been taking protein shakes on and off for more than 5 years, and i’ve always gone with the chocolate flavor because it was marginally less gross than the strawberry, vanilla or banana flavors they offered. to me, protein has almost become synonymous with chococalate because of it. but in my quest to change things up, and after reading about what works well, i bought a couple of jugs of ast vp2 whey protein in… citrus flavor! it tastes way better than the chocolate shake i was taking (although i may just have been sick of the chocolate, and i may be just as sick of this soon enough), almost like orange julius.

it’s about twice as expensive as the bargain stuff i used to take, and if i don’t see a difference with it, i won’t keep forking out the money, but it’s worth a shot. the cheapest i found was $24 for a 2lb jug at cheapvitamins.com.