this weekend was the final rosarito to ensenada ride. i think this was the 6th time i rode the event and unlike past rides, i took this one pretty slowly. i hadn’t done much training for it and i rode my knobby-tired, retro mountain bike so it was harder than it had been in the past. spending that much time on my bike though, riding through a familiar course had me reflecting a lot on past rides. my first ride was the fastest and most hardcore, and the tandem ride with taka was definitely the most fun. at times, this one almost seemed like work, but being the last event made it special anyway.

most of this trip was just a carbon copy of the other rides: getting lost on the way down, eating tacos, fighting about politics, drinking beer, waiting in long ass lines at the border. for the first time in all my trips to mexico though, i got the montezuma’s revenge :( i’m not even sure what it was from (maybe this popsicle, or maybe when i rinsed my toothbrush). the whole trip i was making fun of eric for being so cautious about the water so i kinda deserved it i guess. saturday after i went to sleep it hit me pretty hard and kept me up all night. by sunday morning i was so dehydrated that i felt like i had a major hangover and the ride back home was pretty miserable. today my system is cleared up, but i still feel like i got beat to shit. not only is my whole digestive system fucked, but my bicycle seat wasn’t properly adjusted so my ass hurts, the mountain bike puts me in a different riding position so my back/neck is sore, and for this 4+ hour ride i wasn’t wearing any sunscreen, so my arms are burnt to all hell.

anyway, at least this was the last ride. probably the worst of all rides and defintely the worst experience in mexico but at least i was there for the final event. in a way i’m glad that there’s not going to be one next year, ’cause otherwise i’d have to come up with an excuse not to go. other than a cancun trip that taka wants to go on, i’d be happy if i never cross that border again. hasta la vista mexico!

here’s me and eric right before the start of the event. i filled my shorts with boxes of nerds to throw at the kids.

Thank goodness I only live a mile from the ups store.

check out all my s2000 articles on my honda s2000 blog.

i wasn’t planning on riding this weekend, but both eric and al hit me up so we decided to do the pv ride that i did last weekend. we kept a much faster pace than the last ride, and on the downhill coming over the backside of pv, i hit a top speed of 44 mph, which is pretty damn fast on a bike. i’m sure i’ll cruise through the event, and i’m planning on riding relatively easy anyway and enjoying the experience.

the ride we do is 25 miles and most of it is climbing with a very fast descent from the top. i’m gonna do my best to do the ride at least once a month even after the rosarito event, ’cause i really need to keep the gut in check.

in this retro bike build that i’m doing, i’m cannibalizing a lot of parts off of a 1996 gt karakoram. i decided to just take off the stem/handlebar set together and put it on the new bike. once i had it on there though, i realized i didn’t like the stem because it was too long, an ugly shape and had stickers instead of laser engraving. so i found in my stash of bike parts a stem that i liked, but the stem that was on there was a single bolt which meant i’d have to remove the shifters, brake levers and grips which would be a hassle since i had already got everything wired and tuned up.

so to save myself the hassle, i busted out the dremmel and just cut the old one off. this particular one is going for about $5 on ebay so it was no big loss and a big savings of time. the new stem had a multiple bolt design, so i could just clamp it directly on.

i’m not exactly sure why i’m conservative on many of the issues that i am, seeing that my parents were hippies and most of my friends are liberals. i think a lot of it was just to argue with them, to stand out by having a different view than most of my peers, i always thought alex p. keaton was cool. i voted for george bush in 2000 and 2004. for the most part, i thought invading iraq looking for wmds was a good idea. i listened to and believed the rhetoric of the republicans and even though my own values differed with many of their core values, for some reason i went along with them, for too long.

Read more

since i moved up to the south bay at the beginning of the year, i’ve had time warner cable which only has had about 15 channels in high definition. being a complete hd snob, it pained me to watch even the shows that i love like mythbusters, future weapons, how it’s made and a few others, mostly on the discovery channel.

so yesterday i saw a commercial saying that time warner has the most hd programming of all the cable companies and i angrily mumbled under my breath about how i used to have an hd discovery channel when i lived in long beach. i figured i’d check out the website to see what the hell they were talking about, and low and behold between now and february 2009, they’re updating the system with 13 more channels in hd, including my beloved discovery channel! ok, now just give me the bbc in hd, and i’m in cable tv heaven.

here are the new channels that i now have available in high definition:

i got this stumpjumper frame off of ebay for $40. the previous owner had it built up as a 3 speed town bike, hence the solid fork and other random crappy components, but in it’s hey day this was a pretty high end frame. this 17″ frame weighs 3.75lbs, so not super light, but not too heavy either. overall it’s in pretty good condition, with a few scratches here and there and some good cleaning to be done. can’t wait to get this bike together.

i have most of the drive train (vintage shimano lx/xt mix) ready to go from another old bike that i kind of inherited, and for now i’m going to use a rockshox indy fork, which is era-correct but i ultimately want to get a manitou 2 or 3. my onza ti spindle clipless pedals, selle italia flite saddle, and a few small technical parts are in the mail. if i can get the bike together by mid-next week and get at least one good test ride on it, i’ll probably ride it at the rosarito event on the 27th.

look at those beefy american welds!

on friday night, me, eric and ben went out drinking and 2 bars (well, restaurants), 2 beers and 3 martinis later i was pretty obnoxiously drunk and don’t remember much. what i do remember is waking up with a terrible hangover on saturday morning. luckily it wasn’t a sick-to-my-stomach hangover but just that foggy slow motion action that keeps you from doing anything. so after walking to store to get some rockstar i just watched tv for half the day until eric finally convinced me to go to the gym around 2pm.

so i got around to watching 2 dvds that i got from blockbuster last week. eastern promises is a movie about the russian mafia in london doing mafia things and having the typical internal mafia power conflicts. i swear half the cast were people that i’ve seen at dave’s parties. the plot line was a bit complicated to try to explain, but trust me it was a really good movie (88% fresh).

after that taka and i watched feast of love which i hadn’t even heard of, but the dvd cover had morgan freeman and greg kinear so i figured it had to be good. later on i looked it up and it actually was in theatres, but only made about $3m and was 41% fresh on rotten tomatoes. the story is just about a bunch of different people in love and different kinds of love. the thing is, it’s about intense, complicated love, kinda like closer, but a lot more tittes and a little bit of heart-warming morgan freeman thrown in.

eventually eric dragged my ass off my couch and another rockstar and back workout got me back to normal so the day wasn’t a complete waste. but yeh, definitely not as young as i used to be.

i’m sure most of you were as pleased as i was to see the sexy tina fey portray sarah palin in the opening skit of saturday night live tonight, since they already look so damn much alike. sarah asked that people stop calling her a milf, and hillary asked that people stop calling her a flurg? what the hell is a flurg?

i assume it was just a joke, because flurg.com just got registered within the last few hours, but here are some of my suggestions for the acronym of flurg:

fat lady under regular guy

fake lying ugly racist grandma

fun loving unctuous rollicking geaser

anyone else have any suggestions?

update 9/17/2008:

so per ben and a few other commenters, the acronym is probably FLIRG, with the first 3 letters being “first lady I’d.” like from the comments: First Lady Is Really a Guy

we all have so many pics of wakeboarding from the last few years, that most of us don’t bring a camera anymore. luckily shali brought one to the labor day bbq and got a few good shots. actually i think this is the first time anyone’s taken pictures of the boat while not on the boat. here are a few that i’m going to have printed and framed.

pulling up anchor and getting ready to head out. i know most of you aren’t the csi:miami freak that i am, but for those that are, this (including the image in the header graphic) is the set of waterways that almost every scene that has a jetski or a boat is filmed in.

me towing mike

shal, sanam and taka sitting in front of the most complicated-to-assemble tent ever

thanks shali!