Monthly Archive for August, 2007

Lost & found

So I was home early on Friday and my dad answers the door & says its for me. Some guy I don’t recognize is checking out the FJ40 ‘Cruiser. Wonder what he wants? I go out to meet him. Turns out the car wranglers are looking at it for Lost again. They wanted to make sure it was still around, they weren’t certain if they’ll need it. Should find out sometime this week. Derek came over Sunday afternoon and after some monkeying with battery, jumper cables, and squirreling the gas from original FX into the FJ, it groaned back to life. The last time it was run was when Lost rented it before, wow, I neglected the poor thing! But after a bit of complaining and sputtering and letting the gas flow to clean out the carb, she was running again. Continue reading ‘Lost & found’

Is it supposed to do that?

Rabid melonI saw this melon at Times Aiea over the weekend.  I didn’t buy it.

Panko ride

Chris, Root and I hit St. Louis yesterday for some F/R.  The weather was nice all day, but as soon as we unloaded bikes at the top, it started to drizzle.  The sky was blue over Manoa, but clouds were rolling in slowly behind us over the mountains.  Intending to check out some of the stuff we saw last week, we dropped mainline.  Rain-specked glasses and goggles immediately fogged,  keeping speeds down.  Dirt clung to wet bikes and shinguards like breadcrumbs and clogged tire knobs into dirt-slicks.   Continue reading ‘Panko ride’

Mada koshi ga itai

Finally had to go and see Mitch yesterday about my back.  I’ve been resisting because of his new office location, but the discomfort grew too great.  I had trouble climbing in and out of the work van all morning, and after lunch just leaning foreward a little sent searing twinges of pain from my back all the way down the back of my left leg to my heel.

This all stems back to putting new shocks in the Land Cruiser months ago.  The pain had decreased before the Whistler MTB trip, and was not an issue during all the riding up there.  Even after I got back it was fine, but this week it just went wild.  After Mitch worked on it, I could bend forward, but it still hurt.  I took a TC3 and hit the sheets.  This morning I felt like a million bucks, then I squatted down to pick up some breakfast cereal that I spilled and wham – the pain was back.  It’s almost lunchtime and the pain seems to be back to pre-breakfast levels. 

Pinched nerves suck.

The Two Horesmen…

Only Chris and I made it out for F/R Monday yesterday.  Ckucke had a dinner, JT was at an art opening for Tracy’s works, and the Root was not right.  The weather was ominously overcast, but no rain had fallen all day. 

We went down the sideline then dropped onto mainline, then turned off at the powerpole cutoff.  Someone has been busy, since the turns along the powerpole cutoff were all bermed in.  Climbing back up to the 4-way junction, we discovered in the failing light that someone had built some platforms in the Norfolk Island pine thicket on either side of the inner loop trail.  On the uphill side was a head-high platform, and on the lower side, next to the abandoned homeless encampment, was a ramp.  Both stunts were constructed from cut-down Norfolk Island pine and store-bought planks.  Chris climbed up on the platform and said it felt solid, but after seeing how things were built in BC, the 4″-diameter logs that were being used in this instance looked rather spindly and unsubstantial. Continue reading ‘The Two Horesmen…’

Chelsea and Nicole

On Sunday,  I went to my cousins’ graduation party at the Hale Koa hotel, Waikiki Ballroom.  Root knows which cousins they are – he saw them at Dangerway once when we were getting Saturday dinner ingrediments.  Nicole graduated with a BA in something from UHM, and Chelsea graduated from high school. She’s on the cheerleader/dance squad, so she and a couple of her friends performed several well-choreographed sets (I wonder if Mitch’s daughter knows her?).  Sorry – no pictures! Continue reading ‘Chelsea and Nicole’

Gorilla ride

It was nice yesterday morning, I wasn’t feeling really sick, and Chris had the evening free to ride, so the Monday night St. Louis F/R was on!  The afternoon brought dumps of rain and deteriorating conditions, so we opted to just session some urban stuff around Moiliili.

The rain started again as soon as we crossed over the freeway, so we headed to UH.  Near the Biz-ad building, JT found a rubber gorilla, which was apparently filled with some very bad mojo, because he immediately laid it down on some slippery stairs and hyperextended his thumb backwards – all the while trying to maintain his hold on the gorilla.  Ckucke attempted to throw it on the roof, but it came bouncing back down menacingly.  It ended up in Chris’ pack, where it brought bad mojo to the remainder of the ride.

D = 4.04-miles, Vavr = 6.6 mph, Vmax = 18.0 mph, T = 36-minutes of actual riding time/2+ hours of actual hooliganism

Jumpo

Dang I’m getting old, I’m feeling the effects of yesterday afternoon’s jump session at Koko Head park up my street. But we did deny our age by doing something we’re supposedly old enough to know better, we caught a tow up the street with Ckucky’s van. The jumping was fun too! And although we’re pretty lame, we managed some cool pics. Scat always manages some pretty rippin pics! Check out more on the gallery page!

Back

Returned yesterday from the land of the Acura CSX, 5-door Toyota Yaris, Nissan X-terra, and Suzuki Swift Plus!  No, not Japan – Canada, eh!

Seem to have picked up something somewhere, as I have been feeling a little achy beyond the scope of the pain of having just ridden over 100 cumulative miles.  Felt the fever ache and chill today, so I’ll pass on the Monday night St. Louis ride and go home, have some soup and a shower then hit the sheets.

More on the 7 straight days of riding to come, including:

  • running over a squirrel
  • bear poop in the village
  • deathmarches galore!
  • where the hell IS the tennis club?

Retro

Sexy retro goodness. Just got done drooling over dpreview’s review of the Leica M8 digital rangefinder camera. This thing is sweet sexyness in a German kind of way. Built like a tank, functional no nonsense design. Also demands that you know what you’re doing, no AIAF ass detection megazone AE stabilization technology. Damn I want one. Damn I don’t have $6000 lying around to throw around. Been tantalized with the possibility of actually getting to physcially play with one sometime in future. We’ll see!