BALH3

Off to run the hash with the Bay Area Larrikins H3 in Corpus Christi, Tx. My brother and I are riding up (on seperate bikes, you dolts) this afternoon. Should be fun. Weather is awesome, sunny and clear....bit of wind. Nice time to get on the bike.

Pictures of TXIH to come....soon!!!

Texas Interhash 2010................................

will be hosted by KNUCKLEDRAGGERS H3 M.C.

That is all for now. I need to recover from the weekend. Lots that went on, I'll just say that the Kimchi will be at TXIH 2010 and it will be as epic as this past weekend. oh, and Miss Nude TXIH....holy geebus! Combining the two groups to camp together was epic.

Net passing out 4 times, rallying, taking care of his bet on piggus, was awesome to watch. Being so close to Oklahoma that we got some tornado force winds, enough to roll Net's tent down the hill. the KDH3 palace of pleasure, at the top of the hill, with strobes and lights bringing in all the hashers at midnite. Ballbuster that was neither a buster nor ballsy. but we did see a copperhead on trail, and my legs are shredded from the brambles. blech.

Recovering in Austin now. More to come.
and Gagger got her mug back. haha

Texas!

I leave for Texas tomorrow morning after work. Can't wait to make the trek. Sitting here at work wanting it to be done now, so I can go. It's been about a year since I go to the Valley, and should be good all around. I'll be heading to Austin first to see those fools and then up to TXIH for a weekend of letting loose.

Photos to come.

on on

San Luis Obispo 5th Anniversary H3 run....

So I decided to ride down to SLO for their 5th anniversary weekend, after checking my calendar and realizing I had Friday and Saturday off, and that I could ride home on Sunday and go to work. Prepped the bike, had my rego in, and then made a packing list.
1 extra pair socks
2 extra chones
runners
1 extrs t-shirt
1 shorts
good to go...oh and a beer mug and my camera. :D
It was an amazing day in the bay area, nice and warm, and I was looking forward to heading out on the road, as Spring seems to be here, and lots more riding is in the near future.
A quick shot of the mileage before heading down. The route that I plan on taking was sent to me by my friend Mike who goes to Cal Poly, it has me about 230 miles from SLO. Not too shabby.
The ride out of the bay is uneventful for the most part, and takes about 50 miles to just get out of the area. Once south out of San Jose, I hooked onto hwy 25 at Gilroy (which is a great town that has a garlic festival once a year).. south on hwy 25 with the suicide squirrels.
Seriously, if you've never heard of them you will definitely see them on hwy 25. I first saw them years ago, while flying down this road, and every so often just as you were about to pass, a squirrel would come flying out of the grass, unseen before it ran across the road, and miss my tires by mere inches. The first few times it was unnerving to say the least...especially when you are full leaned over and you catch the sight of a squirrel out of the corner of your eyes.

Honestly, I think Geico Insurance got the idea for this commercial from hearing stories of people swerving to miss these squirrels. Most daring one I saw, was on a straight path, and a squirrel ran out, stopped and turned around, just as I passed, I swear it turned around under my bikes handlebar...inches from the tire. hahahaha

Anyway, south on hwy 25, past Pinnacles Natl. Monument reserve, and took the G13 road to King City. About 200 yds in, I saw this riverbed with a bunch of old cars strewn along the river bed....they must have dated back to the 40's from the looks of some of the body styles. Pretty cool...except who knows how much pollution gets washed down the river with this "piece of art" hahaha
another shot with the bike, as I enter into Monterey Co.
The rest of the ride was awesome, and too awesome to pull over to snap too many shots. I ended up on Adelaida road (through a region of winery's and many tasting rooms) with plenty of switchbacks, and small, twisty country roads. I did get lost a bit, and had to backtrack, always keeping the sun on my right, which seemed to work out. I thought I was going to drop out onto the coast at Cayucos, but instead I ended up as far south as Morro Bay. hahaha wtf?! seriously, I thought I was further north. eh. no biggie. Some photos of Morro Rock. Which is, in fact, a dormant volcano. :-O
obligatory shot of me. I need to get another camera, as the fade spot that keeps coming up in the photos is not going away, no matter how much I clean the lense. booo.
While I was riding off, I saw this BADASS custom car sitting on the side of the road, and had to shoot some photos of it. Clearly a custom job, and I especially love the huge slicks on the rear...not DOT approved. hahaha
Now, if whoever owned this car would have found some white wall slicks, that would have been sick. Love the way the pipes are coming out, and I'm sure it sounds gnarly.
parting shot.
Well, I arrived at the hash hotel, and met up with a bunch of friends that were trickling in and out. Here is Cosmo and Gaynor from the Seattle H3, and us downtown at the pub crawl.
Not many more photos of the pub crawl, but I do remember a blur of hitting a pizza joint sometime about 1am, meeting a Vampires M.C. guy who knows a few friends of mine from the bay area, and then walking home to the hotel, and waking up with half a box of pizza laying in bed and me fully dressed. damn. haha

The next morning was fairly easy S.O.P. hit the pool for a while, drink mimosas to cure a few hangovers, and back to the beer, till the trail starts. After a quick chalk talk, the hares are off, and we wait 15 min. then take off after them. It didn't take long to start the hill climb in the neighborhoods, with the pack thinning out. We got to our 3rd beer stop at this antenna station, and then the hares pushed us up to the Turkey/Eagle split.

Up we went to the split. Lots of huge holes in the grass from the cattle that run around here.
Turkey trail went down, Eagle went up...so up we went.
Hit the top of the hill and ran the ridgeline, which was flipping cool.
Hashers up in the distance, I think there was about 5 that broke off and were making better headway.
After the ridgeline we dropped on the other side of the hill...which cold mean only one thing...yep, we'd have to climb again, to get back on the right side of the hill to get back to the hotel. This spot was weird, as there were all these different structures and sculptures out in the grass...we began our climb again, and ran into our last beer stop. not bad, 4 beer stops on the trail. A good 7.5 mile trail, decent circle that we did in the pool, with people called to the circle being thrown in the water if they couldn't come up with a response fast enough. Lots more beer, and then time to build costumes for the party.
The party was an ABC party (Anything But Clothes), so being that I was going the cheap route, I snagged some trash bags, and had my trusty duct tape with me.
Myself, Cosmo and Sparerib (europe hasher)
and voila, roman centurionish skirt/kilt thingy...hahaha Cosmo, in the middle above, went and got bubble wrap and card board boxes and had some harriett tape him up till it wasn't moving much. We made the 2 block walk over to the community center, and lo and behold they had a basketball court. before long, we had a game of 3 on 3 going. With us winning pretty easily, as our ringer, Chubsucker (a small petite young lady) was found out to play on the mens basketball league, after the fact. she was sinking baskets left and right. hahaha awesome.
The hash band came on at 7pm, after dinner had been served (and prepped and made by one of the hashers, salad tosser, who is a chef) very good food.

The hash band played till almost 11pm and it was awesome, with a wide range of music and everyone in costume dancing it up. Did anyone else know that doing all kinds exercise, dancing, playing basketball with a costume made of trash bags, is the worst idea ever, cause it makes you sweat like crazy. Thankfully there is a pool at the hotel.

Sin D Bare, on drums. Check out the cans on this one. Rowwrr..
The costume contest went well, with the hasher dressed up as the disco ball winning the womens..
and Cosmo losing in true form.
Weed Whacker got up and sang a song near the end. He was a sumo wrestler of sorts...disgusting. hahahaha.
A group shot, myself, Chubsucker, Salad Tosser and Otter eat my clam (she's a marine biologist)
Great party, great fun, didn't go to bed till 4am. We got up and I was moving slowly the next day. Here is myself with C-Fck Run from the Humpin Hash in San Diego.
The ride home was uneventful, I took 101 north to the bay, and the mapquest said 201 miles, and I was home in 2 hours 40 minutes. Not too shabby. boring, but I had to go to work. I got a burrito, showered, and napped, and headed off to work, walked in the door and they all looked at me strange, and I didn't see my name on the board. hmmmm, wonder what that means...oh yeah...it means I'm not working tonight. :| motherfcker! hahahahahaha I guess I didn't have to work, which was awesome. Home for more sleep and a couple beers to round out the weekend.

Great pre-lube to TXIH which is this coming week. I leave for Tx in a few days, and will be seeing some of you in Austin, Tx. On On

A couple shots from the highest point in Cartagena. This is a working monastery, and also was a canon emplacement meant to launch canonballs into the bay to help defend the city.

The peninsula in the distance is the main hotel section where we were staying.

These "old shoes" as they're titled are a small sculpture dedicated to a local poet who wrote a poem and dedicated it to Cartagena
Sitting in the shoe. Castillo San Felipe in the background.
The Colombian version of Pocahontas....this is the statue dedicated to Catalina, the Indian Princess. She was instrumental in helping tenuous relations between the Spanish and local Natives. She went to Europe and learned to speak 5 different languages, and continued to assist the crown in communications. And yes, the statue seems to be very form fitting and realistic. I can see why the Spanish took a liking to her and a lot of the locals.
The statue is near the Castillo San Felipe, near to the markets.
Along the wall of the old city, overlooking the Caribbean ocean. Unfortunately, with the high winds and break waters along the coast here, the clear blue colors of the Caribbean are not well noted around the shores here.
Canon emplacement with the castle in the background.
Just some horses wandering their way through the city streets. hahaha
This is the security section of one of the local banks. You push the button and the door closes while you are within this booth, you can be checked for weapons, and there is a camera. There is also a security guard on the outside portion of the bank. That's Alan trying to change money at the bank.
Wesley, Alan's kid, playing with the ipod.
Just some shots as the sun was going down on the beach.
So we went out to the beach, got some beers, purchased some Cuban cigars, and basically just hung out catching up, drinking beer. The vendors are relentless....and they come out of nowhere and seem to just cycle through non-stop. Finally got to the point that we started a game to see how fast we could get rid of the vendors as they came up to us. Alan started by pretending he was going to throw up, when they started talking to us. The more he interacted with them, the more vomiting motions he made. hahahaha they wouldn't stick around for very long. I took a different approach and started using the "force" to wave them off. :D It was hilarious to see their confused faces as I waved my hand and said "these aren't the tourists you're looking for" and "move along". It would take them a second or two, and then I would just keep repeating it, and finally they would move along, confused. hahahahaha
we were laughing so hard about it, cause we'd done it a couple times, that I told Alan to go and take a picture with the next guy. So here is a quick sequence of our attempts.

These two black ladies walk along the beach and try to get you to let them give you a foot massage. They are very persistent and after you've told them no for the 47th time, they then start to try and massage your feet, to show you how good a foot massage feels. how about "NO, YOU FUCKING ANNOYING BROAD" just go away. sheesh. then they acted all indignant when they realized that Alan really meant it, that he didn't want a foot massage. fucking hilarious.
Some guys cart...making sno-cones.
Some more late evening shots of the lifeguard station.
Waterfront.
When the red-flags were out, the beach was closed due to high winds and bad shoreline conditions.
Chillin', drinking beer, and smoking a cigar.
That is the old city off in the distance.

Saw these two fellas roll up the beach, just patrolling. I didn't want to be the one to tell them that in America it is socially unacceptable these days for two guys to be riding on a motorcycle. hahahaha I think it's ridiculous, but it's generally all the homophobes that go on about this. Hell, no one used to care. Either way, I wasn't going to tell them. :D I don't see it as a problem really, especially when the guy on the back is packing a machine gun, as the military motorcycles were.
Romantic evening riding off into the sunset. :D
Lifeguards going after some swimmers who are ignoring the red flags.
The swimmers. :D
From our balcony at the hotel, we could look down on the Naval base, that is 2 blocks away. They had a few ships in port, and these two subs. At the end of the week, there was a lot of commotion and movement of the local military and security forces, as we found out that there was a large economic summit being held in Cartagena between the leaders of South America, and many prominent businessmen of Colombia. Lots of money and lots of security.
Here is Emily's family, celebrating their mom's (in yellow) birthday.
hahahaha and one of their nephews who, when the music was flipped on, was doing all kinds of crazy hand stands and jumping. It looks better than what it is, cause he would just jump up on one hand and then fall over. It was hilarious to watch.
Here's Wesley taking a break.
An old galleon down by the civic center and main harbor.
Late evening in the walled city, as we were wrapping up some shopping and headed to get some dinner and a beer.
One of the main churches in the old city squares.
From our dinner spot, I shot a couple photos up the street.
These "statues" were everywhere. That lady had just tipped the guy, so he was changing his position in a robot like fashion. Note the ball and chain on his ankle.
Old city.
The horse carriages will take you around the city and give you a brief tour...but you have to haggle the prices down. Cartagena is probably the most expensive city in Colombia, and even more so for tourists. Luckily we had Alan's wife with us most of the time, so they would bend on the prices. Even though we could talk them down quite a bit, they would still give us tourist prices, until she came in to the picture. Was funny to watch.
Some local dance troupe performing at a square. They played for quite a while, as the hat was passed around for donations.

This photo is right next to the statue of the "reclining woman", by Botero. They were filming what seemed like a music video. It took them about 11 takes to get this one scene down. We just drank beer in the background. :D
Apparently it's very popular to cover the seats of your motorcyles with these covers of hot women. Saw them on almost every motorcycle here.


I'll post more soon. I'm off to San Luis Obispo for their 5th Analversary hash event. on on