post Championships meet and greet

a quick photo of the brothers from Italia and Marcus after the finals were over. It's about 11:30pm, we went to the hotel, cleaned up and went back out, not to return till almost 7am from partying with the Polish team, the Slovenian team and all the US team.

more pics to come.

15th World Traditional Karate Championships....Brazil.

Currently in Curitiba, Brazil, at the 15th World Traditional Karate Championships, with my buddy Marcus who is competing, along with the US team.

been a blast so far. tons of good stuff today, and many photos to follow. this stupid computer won~t allow me to upload photos or videos.

but here is a link to the Championships facebook page. they~re also streaming online the whole day.

tomorrow is the finals.
time to drink beer. hahaha

BRAZIL...but first LV.

Leaving for Brazil tomorrow morning, with a brief stop in Austin, Tx.

I'll be heading out as the official AAFK US National Karate Team Medic.

:D

so much to catch up on, but the adventures keep coming.

Hope to see the falls, and the Cristo while there.

Was just in Las Vegas last weekend, for the LVHHH RDR. Had a blast, spent 3 nights in Vegas, with the local H3 group.

and......

...a little bullriding. hahaha and plenty of PBR on tap.

A few of the Long Beach hashers and some SF hashers.

And the on-in for the fat boy recovery run on Sunday.

Trying to recover as fast as possible, before leaving for Brazil....tomorrow. :| hahaha

MIA

man, so many trips since my last post.

apologies for the long lost post.

with my last laptop dying about a month ago, it really put a crimp in my postings.

But now, thanks to my latest (early) bday gifts, I'm now an official MAC user. haha

not sure what it entails, but it sure as hell seems a lot easier to use the mac than the pc.

pics to come.

stories to follow. :)

Oregon trip, Day 2 - Astoria.

After a much needed straight 8 hours of sleep, I was up at 8am, in time to chat with A.J. before he headed off to work. So we talked about it, and Jason and I would stop by the shop, and I would get a chance to test ride the new Ducati Multistrada 1200 (with the 1198 motor in it). Sweet. Jason and I cooked up some food, got our things together, and headed out the door. After getting lost a bit, we made it to Motocorsa in Portland.

The new Multi is something else. It is super fun to ride, and with the on-the-fly electronic adjustment between multiple settings, such as "Enduro", "Sport", "Urban"...the bike electronically adjusts the Horsepower, Traction Control and Suspension. Enduro has 100hp, and I switched to the Sport version and gained an instant 50 hp. A nice kick in the pants, and got the front wheel up just a bit. :D It was a fun test ride. I just can't walk out of a dealership at the moment with a 21k bike (OTD). Sigh, I'd have to do with the test ride for now.

A few shots while at Motocorsa. On the left, is a table that A.J. made from spare parts for the cafe in the shop. It is probably one of the top Ducati shops in the USA, and I don't trust my bike fully to anyone but A.J. The center photo is of a nice Desmosedici, and also when someone purchases a new bike, this is the photo room. :) last photo is of a trick full exhaust system for the new Ducati Superbikes.

After talking it over with Jason, and going over the Oregon motorcycle specific state map (free at your local Oregon motorcycle dealerships), we decided we'd go to Astoria, Or. for lunch and then ride back via Washington, while A.J. finished up his work day.

We rode up to Astoria, first by getting out of Portland on hwy 26 westbound, and cut off at Hwy 47 north. This would be a phenomenal road. I have a lengthy video of it, and will try and edit it down to a good 10 min video for some good on the fly scenery.

We turned west on hwy 242 directly into Astoria, which is also known for a few of the movies that have been filmed here, maybe you've heard of them (Kindergarde Cop, The Goonies)

We stopped by the cannery, and had a Salmon burger, with a wasabi mayo side and som chips. I have to say that this was the juiciest, tenderest salmon I'd eaten in forever. So freaking good. It didn't help that we'd been on the road for about 2.5 hours already. But it went down perfect.

After letting lunch settle, and grabbing an espresso to avoid the ill-fated food coma, we decided to make our way back to Portland for tonights bbq. First a stop and a photo at the Astoria Bridge on the Oregon side. [A few quick facts about the Astoria bridge: Completed in 1966, it is the longest continuous truss bridge in North America. No pedestrians are allowed on the bridge except for the annual "Great Columbia Crossing" October 3rd, 2010 this year. The bridge was the last segment of hwy 101 to be built to connect Olympia, Washington with Los Angeles, Ca.] We'd decided to go over the Columbia River to Washington state, and ride back to the IH-5 on the Lewis and Clark trail.

First me....the bridge is near the mouth of the Columbia River that feeds into the inland, from the Pacific Ocean.

...then Jason.

We rode across the 6.5 kilometer long bridge and stopped for a quick photo. The weather is amazing and warm, actually hot in some places....and Portland was to be having a heat wave this weekend, in the 90's.

The section of hwy we rode on back to the IH-5 was about 65 miles long, and an absolute treat to ride on. At a quick pace we made ground quickly, while at the same time enjoying the amazing scenery that was our background for this spirited run back to the city.

We arrived back at A.J.'s house about a half hour after him, and busted out the PBR. After making our way to the supermarket, we purchased some of the thickest ribeyes I've seen, and slowly cooked them up with some of A.J.'s friends over for a great barbecue. Another succesful day, and our mileage today was 245 miles total.

Oregon Trip, Day 1:

As mentioned before, I was up for a long time before making my run up to Portland. I was to meet Jason at A.J.'s house, and we'd be planning it to get there at about the same time.

Wednesday, I got up around noon, as I needed to find a new chain for the Ducati Multi, since the one on it right now is so stretched out, I can hear it clacking as I ride. No bueno!

After some phone calls, I find the chain, and also the sprockets, which come to find out...are more expensive than I thought.

On the Multi, the rear sprocket and sprocket carrier are 1 piece from Ducati. costing $251 bucks. holy hell! So after some talking, I found out I could buy a seperate sprocket carrier for $170, and a sprocket for $60 bucks....which is total of $230 dollars to replace the rear sprocket....and in the future, the only piece that I replace is the $60 dollar sprocket. So I chose this route.

After working all Wednesday night, I got home about 8am, put the chain on, and decided to wait on the sprockets till I got to Portland.

I threw the bags on the bike (this will be the first time I ride with hard bags on any bike), and headed out the door, about 10:20am. Start mileage: 22, 596

The plan is to bomb up the IH-5 and get to Portland as quickly as possible, and not fall asleep on the road. haha

The day was long, and even though I had my gas spots planned out, I was working with different readings on the dashboard to see how far I could go. The first gas stop was in Willows, Ca. at 144 miles. not to shabby. But I thought I could push it more. So on the next one, I was watching the "fuel remaining" reading on the dashboard....imagine my surprise when the bike said it had used 4.3 gallons of the 5.5 available, and suddenly sputtered just before cresting over a long uphill. Forcing me to dive across 2 lanes of traffic past some more than annoyed 18-wheeler drivers, I'm sure. haha

On the side of the road, I shook the bike, and kept getting it to turn on and go about a 1/10 of a mile at a time. I had run out of gas just before the sign that said, fuel = 1 mile. So I knew I was close. The bike finally wouldn't start, and I stood there for a bit, before beginning the arduous task of pushing my bike to the gas station. for shame. LOL

A guy on a harley stopped by, asked what was wrong, I simply said it was out of gas, and he told me about the next gas stop. Nice guy, but nothing he could do for me at the time, so we said our goodbyes. About 5 minutes later, a gentleman with his family stopped and asked if I was out of gas...I said yes, and he simply says "I got some you can have". Super awesome!!!! Sure enough, Dario had a 5 gallon tank in the trunk of his car. After grabbing a gallon, I shook his hand, he refused any money, and went along his way. There are still very cool people out there.

After fueling up at Hilt, Ca. I resumed my ride north. I didn't lose much time either, about 30 minutes total.

With the day getting long, and me getting tired, since I've been awake since the day before, around noon...I am ready to get off the bike. I make it into Portland, right after 6pm, and wind my way to my buddies house, by about 7pm. Jason had just arrived 20 minutes ealier, and A.J. had arrived from work, 5 minutes earlier. I don't think we could have planned it any better.

I arrived to a stout beer, and great friends. End mileage: 23,236 miles (total for today, 640 miles)

After getting the bikes settled in, we had more beer, a couple cheladas, and one of the best freaking burritos I've ever had from the local restaurant "Los Gorditos".

We ended up downtown somewhere, having a drink at a bar, where a friend of mine works, and I got to say hi to her as well. A great first day. I need sleep!!!

Oregon

Soooo, Thursday morning finally rolled around, and after a long 12 hours of work, I got to the house, and put the new chain on the Multistrada. 30 minutes of work, the bags were already packed, which was perfect, as I just threw them on the bike, and off I go. 10am start time from S.F.

It was a long day of bombing straight north on IH-5 to just get to Portland. :) It finally got nice near the Oregon border, although unfortunately, while trying to check the distance of my gasoline, I ...................wait for it.......................ran out of gas. hahaha wtf?!

as soon as the bike died, I passed a sign that said, gasoline 1 mile. so the good thing is that I had no more than 1 mile to push my bike, so I had that going for me....which is nice.

After about pushing for a 1/4 mile, a dude on a harley pulls up, and asks what's wrong, I say no gas, and I thank him for stopping. Then a guy in a car, with his family stops, hops out, asks "out of gas?", I say "yes", and he returns with "I got 5 gallons in the trunk, grab some".

Nice. haha so I throw in a gallon of gas and get to the gas station. Time wasted? less than 30 minutes. Thank you Dario.

The rest of the way was without incident, and I got to my buddy's house 20 minutes after Jason did (from Seattle). We caught up, drank a bunch, and I passed out about midnight. seeing as how I was clicking over the 36 hours of no sleep, and it was starting to take a bit of toll on me. haha (I had been awake since Wed at noon, it was now Thursday midnight)

Day 2: Jason and I took our time in the morning, and rode to the Ducati shop, where I got to test ride the new Multistrada 1200. I gotta give this bike 2 thumbs way up. With an 1198 motor in it, and fly by wire suspension, traction control and Horsepower adjustments at a click of a button...I went from "urban mode" to "sport mode" in an instant. what a difference.

Jason and I then rode out to Astoria, Oregon for some lunch at the Cannery. I'll just say that the Salmon burger, with it's huge chunk of Salmon fillet was so damn good.

We rode over the Astoria bridge, after having ridden up Hwy 47 (an amazing road of twisties, canopies of tress, no traffic, and the occasional adrenaline pump when I would go into a turn too hot and on the brakes) hahaha so much fun.

Pictures are coming. Jason is taking pictures, and we're headed east today. as well as to the Multnomah Falls. Another thing to cross of my list. :)

back with photos in a few.

Oregon road trip - Today!

Leaving after work for a ride up to Portland for a couple days, and then east on the bike. Which is completely dependent on getting the chain on and riveted. hahaha breaking the cardinal rule of never doing repairs or changes to your bike the day of, or night before, of a long distance ride.

but oh, well. before I say it's a simple change...I'll just say, the chain is ready to snake through the sprockets, and needs to be riveted and that is it.

Riding to Portland today, and meeting Jason there for some fun with my friends from Portland. should be good. I'll be back with photos, and yes, I've been slacking, thanks to a non-working computer (dropped my laptop from the bed hahaha) and now the screen doesn't work. :(

I think a new laptop is in my near future. along with many photos to come.
I see many monster energy drinks in my near future today. :D

work ends in 30 minutes.

brand new bag(s)...baby

First I'll start with a couple of updated photos of the new ride. :D I recently had the suspension dialed in by Dave Moss at Catalyst Suspension in San Carlos. The bike used to push wide in curves, but now, it banks and turns and seems to float on a dime. Very good setup at the moment.

So a few months back, I scored some used hard luggage for the Multistrada for long distance trips, and so I don't have to haul my messenger bag everywhere I go (as it gets painful after about 500 miles).

Picked these up for about 300 bucks, used, scratched up, and had them prepped (sanded), as seen above with the old Ducati Red. I got them back the other day, and went to town with some primer and black gloss paint......

....and finally

some clear coat to match the bike. not to shabby for a garage rattle can job. The clear coat is about the best you can do with a rattle can, UPOL-#1 Clear. depending on how you spray it, you can give it a gloss look, or a wrinkled look.

Finally, I mounted the luggage rack and hardware to the bike (about 30 minutes of easy bolt on), and latched the bags on the bike to see how she stands.

She's looking pretty good...even with a nice wide ass. hahaha junk in the trunk. :D

Soon, heated grips, and a custom seat, so it doesn't feel like a plank after 200 miles.

Had to purchase new tires recently, with 6,000 miles on the current ones, after finding a screw in the rear tire when I got home from Nevada. Can't say enough great things about the Michellin Pilot Road 2 tires.

A day at the range..

Saturday was pretty slow, and since I wasn't going to get a chance to go to Laguna Seca for the races this weekend, I figured I'd go and do something fun. :D Like shooting guns at the range. First stop, Jackson Arms, in South San Francisco.

Firing some rounds at the zombie targets...you know...just in case. HAHA Lin, on the right learning to fire the .45

After we were done, I got a call from my friend Will, who wanted to go to Bullseye range in Larkspur....so we threw the bicycles in the truck, and picked him up and tried to make it down to the ferry on time. Missed it by 5 min, so we just drove over the Golden Gate Bridge to Marin Co. Traffic was horrible, being a Saturday and all, but we got there, fired another round of shells, and made our way back. Thru bumper to bumper traffic....took us an hour to go what normally takes 10 minutes. lame. but at least we'd gone shooting, and it was a good day.

Will checking his shots.

Great times instructing a newb shooter (Lindsey), and firing off a few rounds (200).
afterwards, we were starving...as shooting usually works up an appetite. So we stopped by the In & Out burger, and I got two cheeseburgers and tons of fries. :D a good day for sure.

SF Armory.

I had a chance 2 days ago to stop by the old Armory in SF. 14th and Mission. The building, surprisingly enough, is pretty inocuous and slips your sight if you don't pay much attention to it. It is surprisingly bigger than what it appears while driving by it too. The building was built over Mission Creek, which still runs under it, and housed the National Guard, after being completed in 1914, in the style of an old Moorish Castle. It stayed in use until 1978, when it was designated as a historical site. Some much planned condos were put by the wayside, after they encountered much community resistance. Eventually, it was quietly sold to a company, which now leases it to it's current occupants.... Kink.com :D


Parking outside, with seemingly no entrance, and no signs anywhere.
The indoor photo is of a window, lining the side of the 39,000 square foot drill court. The windows housed anti-aircraft guns that could fire over the city and into the bay. pretty cool shit.

Underground/basement walk through shows, on the right, the indoor rifle range, which is pretty significant in size, and to the rear of that photo is Mission Creek.

On the left is a movie prop, used for...well.....you can distinguish, that that is a chainsaw belt, with tongues attached. :D haha Johnny Five, is alive!! There were underground horse stables, which have since been converted into movie sets.

I'll have to go back for the official tour, but it was still a great day to get inside such a historic building. As well, as touring along with it's current occupants. :D

Gold Coast, July 4th, 2010.

So for a long time now, I've enjoyed just simply going on a motorcycle ride and finding an unassuming town and enjoying whatever little tidbits it has to offer. Whether it be enjoying a farmers market, a parade, a local show, etc... it's always fun to experience a bit of Americana on road trips.

So this July, I had about 5 days off, and figured a road trip was in order. The multi would be going on it's first west coast ride.

I had no real plan, but to ride north, maybe hit some of the fantastic roads that Norcal has to offer. I would end up taking 299 from Redding to Arcata which was fun enough, with light traffic. Not to shabby, but I still need to hit Hwy 36 with it's imposing 140 miles of twisties.

Since we were on a leisure ride, and no real plan, we simply got out of the bay area on the first day, slabbing it north to get some distance towards our destination...wherever that may be.

Spent the first night in a regular motel, in Anderson, Ca.

Then jammed it over 299 to the coast.

Along the way, we stopped for some gas and a pbr, and took a photo with this homage to a local legend. Bigfoot. :D

From Arcata, we rolled north along the coast on Hwy 1 towards Oregon.

We made a run through the Redwoods N.F. (note myself and the bike under the redwood) and stopped at the Trees of Mystery to check out this giant statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox. :D with testicles and all. hahahaha

We passed into Oregon, without much fanfare, and stopped at the tallest bridge in Oregon. The Thomas Creek Bridge, at 345 feet.

..and walked around to some of the sights....this photo above, is about 500 ft above the water below. pretty deceiving unless you look closely. The reason the trail was closed, was due to the high amounts of poison oak along the trail...hahahaha didn't see the sign, before I went over the log blocking the way. Oh well, PO doesn't affect me. so it was all good.

With the day getting long, and it being super windy, we decided to go no further than Gold Coast, Oregon. I'd been thru here before, on my rides to Seattle, and found a nice cheap local motel to stop at. After getting settled in, we bought some drinks, and went down to the beach for a nice sunset. A bit chillier than socal, but still enjoyable nonetheless.

No one else on the beach, but with a nice sweatshirt, thanks to the Kimchi, it was just fine.
Especially while enjoying a Chelada on the coast. :)

The next day we decided to make the most of the trails in the area, and hike about. As well as to stick around Gold Coast, and enjoy the local 4th of July celebration. Which would start with an F-15 fly by at about 11:30am. That was cool to see, even though it was quick.

We rode around, and saw Arch rock, and then a few of these ginormous boulders, rocks, remnants of a bygone era........and the sheer size of them is impressive. That's me on the far right photo, down by the water.

After a nice day, sunny, yet windy, we headed down to the piers where the main festivities would be held. On lineup, was the Cajun band to play, the pie and watermelon eating contests, and the patriotic pooch show. hahaha As you can tell from the above photo, there is always one little dude, who doesn't care about what others think. He got out with the band playing and danced to his own tune. Much to the enjoyment of the entire crowd. That is how I hope my kid will be one day. Simply can't be bothered with what others think of his behavior, and about people looking/laughing in his general direction.

The patriotic pooch show went well, with many a different class of dog out there, and all the local kids trying to be in as many events as possible. The pie eating contest was held with great fanfare, and the little dudes (dancing dude included) went at it full throttle. hahaha

Finally, it was time for the fireworks, and they were stellar. Great to spend a good evening checking the fireworks, and enjoying a bit of rural America, in my opinion, every now and then. Reminds me of why this country is so great, and why I love it so much.

We took it easy that night, as it was 400 miles home the following morning. It went well, with a spirited ride down the 101 south into SF. With an obligatory stop to get a post-ride beer, at Zeitgeist. I went for 2 pbr, as that is how I roll. :D

great trip, great experience, and I can honestly say, this was one of the better July 4th's I've spent in a long while.