Mighty Mighty Bostones @ the Fillmore

So a few weeks back I was talking to some friends about ska and we brought up the Bostones, and how nothing had been heard from them, and mostly the guys were saying that they didn't tour anymore. Imagine my surprise when I saw them pop up on the fillmore lineup. So I grabbed 2 tickets to the show. Managed to convince some friends (Correne and Dave) to come out to the show. With a co-worker of mine sharing the other ticket, we were on our way.

Then I get a call from my buddy Shawn asking me to buy him some tickets, since he's on his way, and he'll give me cash at the door. So I get two more tickets and text him. He arrives at the restaurant and says he bought tickets cause he didn't hear back from me. wth?! hahahaha

well Shit!!! So we call Ed, and Stan and they both are game, so now we got 6 of us out at the concert. Couldn't have worked out more perfectly. I was stoked to catch a band that I listened to a long time ago.

Funny, cause on stage the lead apologized for their long drawn out hiatus and promised that a new record is in the mix....as he put it, he became like "Axl Rose" of guns&roses, and he was sorry for that, and how long it took to get more songs out.

With that the show went on, and man it was jammin...

Non stop....

hahaha I ran into the mosh pit, and had my phone camera set to take pics. snapped this one off in the middle of getting bounced around, and running the pit. Some jackass decided it was a grand idea to bring a pint of beer into the pit. : Sherioushly dude,! WTF?!?! hahaha the beer didn't stay in the glass for that long, and I was wearing a good portion of it. but who cares, it was too much fun.

A good closing encour...badass time, and really great show.

a nice mention....

Read this race report from the WS100. Nice little mention. :)

Duran Duran @ the Fillmore

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Mighty Mighty Bostones....

at the Fillmore in San Francisco. Yep, going to see them on the 10th of July. Should be a rockin' concert.

ws100 volunteer experience

This last weekend I went up to Auburn, Ca to volunteer at the medical tent, at the finish line, for the Western States 100. I wanted to get an up close encounter with what this event might have in store. It is one of the more challenging 100 mile races in the states, and runners come from all over the world.

A bit about the Western States 100, it is in it's 35th year of running, and had 399 runners signed up to run it (edit: 238 runners finished). With the 2008 race being cancelled due to smoke from forest fires being to thick, many of the runners that were slated to run in 2008, were actually carried over to 2009. I signed up to volunteer and was placed at the finish line. Some years they have enough volunteers and others, they don't. So I prepared myself for anything. Mostly, figured it'd be a lot of mass casualty scenarios as runners are coming in close groups, near the end. Lots of IV starts, rehydration and monitoring for hyponatremia, vomiting, et al.

I arrived on Saturday morning, while lots of the structures and finish line setups were just being put up, and then went for a quick run in the blistering 103 deg F heat of the central valley. It was fucking hot, plain and simple, with little to no air movement in the valley I was running, it sapped the energy right out of me. My friend, Steph, went for a bicycle ride around Folsom Lake instead, and did 45 miles, and also came in pretty beat.

My shift wouldn't start till about 9pm that night, when they expected the first runners to come in. I was asked if I could work till 11am, as that is the cutoff (30 hours) for all runners. I said I'd see what I could do.

After meeting the friendly staff in the medical tent, we went through what might happen, how the runners are acting when they come in, and what to expect...since this is my first year volunteering there. It was a good time, and then the waiting for the first runner, who was on par to finish in just over 16 hours, so we had heard. List of finishers.

The winner, Hal Koerner, finished in 16 hours 24 minutes 55 seconds. Damn.
The course record is 15:36, if I remember correctly.

It was interesting to see the first 10 finishers (which included the top woman finisher, Anita Ortiz) come in, some of them deliriously blabbing on and on, others acting like little babies, that need to be coddled and throwing tantrums in the med tent, cause they want to be tucked in and shit. really, come on dude! you're fine, you're now trying to take advantage of the situation. make room for the next runner. The womans 2nd place finisher (my new crush) came in and ended up needing some assistance and we kept her in the tent longer than normal. This was her best finish at ws100 and she'd pushed pretty hard. I was happy to see her get up and walk out on her own later on.

I spent all night there, till about 0730, when I decided it was time to go for a break, and was pretty much done for the day, since they had 5 more volunteers that were going to cover the morning portion. I started 14 IV's, and we monitored more than that, as they'd come in, cool off and then weren't able to move anywhere, vomiting, cramping, and needing fluids.

In the middle of the night, I texted my friend Jasper to encourage him. He texted back later saying he'd had to drop (mile 55) cause he was sneezing/coughing up blood. shit. well, I felt really bad for him, but he was in good spirits when he came in, and we talked for a while, as well as the other hashers that were crewing for him.
They went to the bar to get drunk and relax, and I went back to work, this being about 0030 in the morning.

I was almost ready to leave in the morning, when another hasher (Finger in the dyke, from the Long Beach H3 area) came running in. She wasn't the happiest, as she'd been on a sub 24 hour pace, and bonked hard, bringing it in about 25 hours and change. Still, she finished.

What did the constant site of pain and agony do for me...well, the same as the joy and elation that runners had when they crossed the finish line, it made me want to be out there doing the same thing. I have a long way to go in training and need to finish some races first, before even thinking about doing an event like this, but I've been known to do stupider things. So On On to new goals.

The most impressive runner, to me, was the older genlteman (had to be in his mid to late 60's) who was announced as he came in, and they read out his accomplishments for 2008. He had run 15 - 100 mile races, 5 - 50 mile races, and 4 marathons. WTF?!?! hahahaha that's awesome.

My computers have been giving me problems, but I'll be back with more photos of the RTO race, and the last few weekends of adventure and fun. With more coming.

Reno/Tahoe Odyssey Relay Race - prelube

A few weeks ago, we went up to Reno and ran this event. A few months ago, a friend of mine told me they were putting together a hash team for the relay race, so I signed up. We had 12 of us on the team with two vans. I got in on Thursday after driving up from SF, and working the night before....meaning no sleep by 2pm....figured if I got to Reno and started drinking, that I could stay up later. Most of the hashers were in, and we all met at the hotel, after the vans were picked up and we painted all over them, we headed out for dinner and beer.



beaver spit, myself and sister.
Your Bitch, from van #2
Lycktonite and myself, finished work.
Then Mike came in and added the posters to the vans, cause he had a special theme he was going to use through the whole race. Here I was contemplating whether I should go pack up and stop drinking or continue drinking. I opted for continue drinking till pass out, delegate bag packing, be ready to drink the following day. hahaha it all worked out.

Lycktonite and Exxcess. Our hosts in South Lake Tahoe over the weekend.
Myself, sister and Call Girl.
A bunch of bay area hashers.
The evening ended at midnight for me, after being awake for about 36 hours. We had to be at the start by 0900, so not too bad of a start. Our van would be starting the race, and I'd be running leg #4 for another hasher that had hamstring issues. More miles for me. haha

Time to ride.

time to roll out. Riding down to Paso Robles for the BARF rally, meeting up with about 60 other riders and spending the weekend in SOCAL drinking and riding (while sober) in that region.

now to find my camera.

peace out.

What's racing without a party and bbq...

haha, it's not fun, that's what it is. So we've thrown our pits together, and had a great crowd of racers.
Stan (#750), Conan (#849), Chris (#897), and myself (#782)

For lunch, we had invited a bunch of friends from our motorcycle forum, and usually get a good crowd of enthusiasts who come out and cheer us on and hang out to eat our food and drink our beer...hahaha much like hashers.

So for lunch, we fired up the grill and threw on the dogs and burgers. The sun was out, and this was a phenomenal day of riding.

I am very happy with my conditioning and the higher miles of running I've been doing, as I don't feel tired, nor out of breath after running a race or a long practice session as I used to. It takes a lot of muscles to man handle the bike around a track consistently over and over....and it's obvious when the guys get tired, as you can see their lap times slow down, and they don't go into the corners as confident. Not conducive to moving up in the ranks.

Our pit set up. We got a good crowd to come out for lunch.

Bryan Davis, probably one of the fastest men out in 650 Production. :D hahahaha poor B.
Josie loves our weiners. for real.
Group six?! That boy is fast on his bicicleta.
Stan "sexy" Chan
"I don't do autographs, please don't take my photo, or I have to charge money" hahaha ghey.


Marco and his son out cheering on the local BARF racers.
Josh took over the grilling duties.
Da pimps of DC (Daly City), sorry guys, we didn't have any rice cooked for you all. :( hahahaha
Val, rocking out! hahaha
myself, Stan, Conan, Chris.
and finally, Joe from 4theriders.com came over to get a group shot, and we obliged with a little kung fu action, except Chris who was too cool for school, and just used sign language to let everyone know how efeminate he was. :D

Awesome weekend. I am skipping out next round to do some other things I have planned over the summer, as well as the 5th round to go down to Souther California to a hash campout in the southern Sierras.

AFM Rd. 3 - Infineon Raceway - race report

May 23rd and 24th was the AFM Rd 3 races at Infineon Raceway in Sonoma.
I did very well at my last race here only 1 month earlier, so I was looking forward to another fun filled weekend, hopefully without the drama and injuries that marred the first round at IR.

I decided to skip practice on Saturday to save some money, and try and budget my weekend, hence only 2 races on Sunday.

Some of the guys were already up at IR, so I drove my things up there on Saturday morning to set up my pits and hang out at the track. It was cold on Saturday and a few guys had gone down due to cold tires and pushing it too hard.

Mid morning we heard that the track was red flagged and they were out picking up some riders, about 15 min later we saw the chopper coming in. Fuck. Never a good sign. Wishing whoever it was a speedy recovery.

We got to working on bikes, and then I saw the crash truck come through the pits, and a friend of mines bike was in the back. shit! Went over to his pits, and after looking at the bike, it looked in really good condition....so where was Mark. Turns out, he was the one that got life flighted out. He lowsided in T2 and in the process of vacating the track, he was struck by another motorcycle, hard, and was thrown down the track. It's basically like being hit at about 50+mph...as from the reports from the NMP's (National Motorcycle Patrol) the yellow flags didn't fly immediately, and the two riders that came up on him, didn't realize their was an incident on track. First bike saw Mark, and went around him, but the 2nd bike couldn't avoid him. He hit Mark, and also went down, fracturing a jaw and getting beat up. Marks injuries were worse, with several fractures, from scapula, 4 ribs, pelvis and elbow. update: he's out of the hospital and recovering at home, as cantankerous as ever. hahaha great thing to hear.

With Saturday pretty much being just a day of hanging out, I went home to get some sleep, and come back on Sunday: May 24th.

I arrived just a bit late, so didn't have everything prepped, and I hadn't teched my bike the night before, so down to tech, registered and got the bike started, as Practice session 2 was coming up fast. I got out to the hot pits by 3rd call, and only did about 3 laps in the hot pits, no where near what I should have, or usually do, and went out on track with cold tires. The weather was overcast and cold still, and I thought I was taking it slow, but as I came around T3b (a cresting right hander) the front just tucked all of a suddent and I lowsided as I went over the crest and slid to the outside of the track. WTF?! Well, this sucks, I've now crashed my bike in the first lap of first practice and I'm Race #1. :|

After I stopped sliding, I looked around, hopped up and ran for the fence, lest I get run over by anyone. We managed to prop up the bike, and I had to wait for the end of that session, which seemed like forever. Afterwards, I was given a quick break to grab the bike and take it down the hill. After getting her started, I managed to bring the bike back into the pits. With all the guys there, they immediately jumped on the bike, without even asking me if I needed help. They quickly assesed the damage (broken brake lever, frayed throttle cables, bent clip on tube, bent Right rear set, some rash, otherwise good to go).

The guys started grabbing parts, and tools and immediately went into action tearing apart the parts that needed either replacement or repair. It was very cool to see the comraderie of a race weekend and all of these guys working super hard to get me out on track for my first Race.

Random racers (Thanks #517) stopped by to lend parts, after going to their pits and bringing everything they had to help with the rear sets.
Alan came by to see if I needed anything, and offer help with repairs.
The craziness ensues, tools flying, repairs made, and trying to keep track of who I owe parts too, and who helped was getting out of hand. hahahaha
Rear sets torn apart and I managed to frankenstein functional rear sets on the bike, from all the parts donated.
Hands everywhere. Throttle cables replaced, reset and tube replaced, front brake lever replaced.
On On mofo's.
Determined to do something, or at least give it a good effort, although at this point I had mostly resigned myself to missing the first race.
Cleaning out the rest of the dirt and grime that was all over the bike. Luckily nothing went down those blue tubes, which feed through the carbs directly into the motor. One little rock, and the engine would have been toast. I really need to get some type of filters on them.
Well, long story short......the guys managed to get me rolling out of my pits, down to the tech garage, teched the bike, got my grid position, and made the riders meeting as it was starting...and hell yeah, I made my first race. Race #1, Formula IV. Fucking awesome...but with the quick turnaround, I didn't have time to tweak the throttle tube, and it was a bit stiff throughout the race, not letting me get on the throttle to full throttle as quickly as I would have liked coming out of the corners. Oh well, I was racing dammit! haha
Cresting over T3b where I earlier low sided in the morning. Under full throttle trying to keep the front tire down on the ground.
A nice shot apexing T2 I believe.
T2, with Marcus behind me. haha He is very fast, and is the guy who lent me the other set of throttle cables. Thanks dude.
I wanna say thanks to all the guys that helped out. Stan, Conan, Dimitry, Alan, Marcus, Bryan Davis, #517, #791, and everyone else that I may have missed.

B.B. King at the Fillmore

With Mark being a big blues fan, I managed to find some tickets to BB King at the Fillmore. So for his birthday we rolled on the bikes up to the city and caught a really historic act. It was amazing to watch the band come on, start to play and get the crowd warmed up, and then the announcer came on "And now, ladies and gentlemen, Mr. B.B. King...." to a roaring crowd.

The ladies love him, just as much as they do Willie Nelson. I don't know what it is about these old guys, but the ladies were at the brink of tossing their panties on stage. hahahaha

BB came out, center stage, took his seat, as Lucille was brought out to him. That had to be one of the greatest concerts that I saw. The Legendary B.B. King.








Fun times, more concerts to come.

Mark's visit

Monday went a little like this:

Me: so, lets pack up some things and we'll move them to the new pad.
Mark: ok, sounds good, lets get some bfast first.
me: okay

4 hours later

me: so, you wanna help me load things in the truck and move them
Mark: yep. lets do this

3 hours later
Me: you wanna get some beer
Mark: yep, lets do that instead.

hahahahahaha
so much for moving things the first day.

I worked Tuesday, so my rooomates entertained Mark and took him to dinner.

On Wednesday we rode up to SF to the motorcycle meet and hung out there, after showing mark around the hills of the bay area. Loving it, and the weather has been super cooperative.
Thursday was the bigger treat for Mark...as we were on our way back to the Fillmore....

a few updates...

...before heading back out for the weekend.

Spent a well deserved day with my Mom, Sister and Brother in Reno. After which, Mark and I drove back to the bay area, where I had a few concert tickets purchased for his birthday. Once settled into the bay, we went and grubbed down before heading out to the city on the bikes.

First show, "Chickenfoot" (as in the peace sign), a newly formed band (playing their 3rd show here at the Fillmore). Sammy Hagar on vocals, Joe Satriani on guitar, Michael Anthony on bass, and Chad Smith (of the chili peppers) on drums. Rocking show, especially getting to see the red rocker in full glory. hahaha it was sick.

Best thing was watching them end with "Highway Star".

a few photos:




After this we stopped by Benders Bar and Grill for a few pints before rolling home. Great start to the week of shenanigans.

Relay Race this coming weekend.

Feeling overwhelmed and under prepared for the next race. Reno/Tahoe Odyssey Relay race
I'll be running legs 4, 18 and 30. Originally I was running leg 6 instead of 4, but a hamstring injury for that hasher has put him out, and it would be too difficult of a run for him, so I was asked to take it. Not looking forward to the altitude, but fuck it. I'll do it. :)

Leg #4: 8 miles
Leg #18: 4.6 miles
Leg #30: 3.5 miles really looking forward to this final leg as it ends at the "Bucket o' Blood" Saloon. A beer (several) will be in order before we jump to the next relay location.

Our team "Speed Kills" is comprised of 12 hashers...running 3 legs each. We'll start the race in downtown Reno at 9am on Friday, and hope to finish mid afternoon on Saturday.

Sister graduates!

May 15th came and went like any other day, except for the greatness that I was able to witness as my sister walked down the aisle to receive her Masters degree in Speech Pathology.

It's been almost 3 years, since she signed up for and was received into this program, and it had been a very long and hard fought road for her. In the middle of it all, the family suffered a great loss, our grandfather. The brighter note was that he was able to walk her down the aisle at her own wedding in October of 2008.

I came up to Reno that same day, and managed to arrive on time, to get ready and head out to UNR for the ceremonies. Luckily the undergraduates would be received on Saturday.

I'm extemely proud of my sister, and happy to see her complete her advanced degree. Things are looking up and hopefully the job in Reno will come through and they will be able to move forward with their next goal.