You are currently browsing the monthly archive for December, 2008.
Jamin came up with this flyer that is just effin great. One of the many festivities going on for New Years.
I cut my little vacation to Southern California short to attend the Race for the New Year in Pleasanton. The race didn’t seem like it was planned all too well, but I figured the company was good so the race would be good.
Tim and Dennis figuring out where to go.
There had to be at least 15 San Jose riders who made it to the Tri-Valley, which accounted for at least a third of the racers. When we arrived, things didn’t seem too legit, as none of the checkpoint doos contacted the organizer. The race commenced anyway, and about half way through most of us pulled out since there were no checkpoint guys. A few of the guys did finish, and Bennett ended up taking home the grand prize of $60.
I thought JP found the checkpoint guy; but no he just needed to relieve himself behind a tree.
Some girl in a nice little SUV shouted out Mark’s name, so we backtracked and flagged her gas guzzler down.
Luckily Ben lived in the area, so we rode over to his pad, where he graciously threw an impromptu BBQ. BTW, I’m sitting in my jammies as I write this.
One of my goals for 2009 is to be completely debt free, and as of now I am paying off all of my student loans in turbo mode.
A neat little thing I learned today was that if you sign up for the automatic monthly deduction, you can get your interest rate knocked down by .25%. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but you can apply that extra money saved towards the principal amount and not have to worry about late penalties.
Alright, I’ve been a little behind in updating with the upcoming holidays and all, so here is something that went down last Saturday.
Completed Winter Wipeout Manifest
The folks up in Stockton put on the Winter Wipeout Alleycat, which had seven checkpoints at Starbucks shops all over town. It was nice to see the boys from San Jose take home a good amount of prizes, in both the race and tricks competition.
I think we had more than a few riders finish in the top ten. Except for me, I came in 42nd place, which is funny considering there were only 30 racers. Whatever. I still got a prize!
I know I used the term ubiquitous in the last post, but Starbucks is ubiquitous. The entire race was based on the different Starbucks locations around Stockton. Shoot, I mean it’s like they completely saturated the coffee market everywhere. It was really funny/ironic, because I just happened to be reading a book about Starbucks, How Starbucks Saved My Life. I didn’t think too highly of Starbucks as a company before reading the author’s (Michael Gates Gill) memoir. After reading the book, it changed my view of da Starbuk doo; I don’t think of them as the Walmart of coffee shops anymore. It was actually quite the contrary. They treat their Partners well, by providing health insurance, education reimbursement, relocation assistance, etc.
Last Friday Mojo’s in San Francisco hosted a Goldsprints event to showcase the new electronic/computer gadgetry, and I must say it was pretty awesome. It was my first attempt at doing Goldsprints, and I was so incredibly slow that they officially changed the name of the event to Bronzedawdle.
Tim was able to break the sound barrier, with a time of 18.71.
Wilson learned the hard way, and found out that Red Stripe does not have electrolytes. He left a lovely acidic parting gift on the curbside.
The new Goldsprints design looked pretty cool, as it visually showed the frontrunner of each race in realtime, and had a bunch of different stats that would have made the CNN ticker jealous.
Alex received word about a free screening of Helvetica from his old graphic design professor, Joe Miller, who also happens to serve on the Board of Directors at Works. I’ve been meaning to see this movie for quite some time, but never really got around to seeing it. I have always been fascinated by typography, and I had heard good things about the documentary.
A few of us headed over to Art Ark Gallery, where the “intimate movie night” was taking place (only a handful of us were there). The movie night was being sponsored in part by PBS’ independent lens series.
The movie is really good, as it gives insight to the history and dynamics of typeface. You really get a feeling of how ubiquitous Helvetica is; I mean just look around..right now! Joe Miller’s brief talk was also really interesting, as he went into the other typefaces leading up to Helvetica.
Then to make the night even better, there was a survey making the rounds for 10 free itunes songs! “Are we human, or are we dancer,” here I come! (Still have yet to hear the song haha)
On my way home from work I ran into Richard Masoner, who is somewhat of a flickr and bike community celebrity. He asked if he could take a picture of my mini spoke card collection, and we spoke for a quick minute. Apparently his commute is 90 minutes each way, from Scotts Valley to Menlo Park and back!
-Photo taken by Richard Masoner
The City of San Jose was sponsoring a free light and helmet giveaway at the MLK Library, so I raced down there to try and snag one. I came a little too late, they had already run out of lights, but the scene was still crazy.
People snagging lights and helmets in front of the library
Luckily my buddy Raf was able to nab one, so he gave me his old light which is exactly the same, only with a North Face sticker so it “knows.” The headlight is worth $20! I owe you a drank doo. Unluckily for me, my battery died and I couldn’t take any more pictures for the rest of the evening.
The City of San Jose was giving away free Cateye lights!
After a quick ride and a couple of grub sessions, a few of us decided to hit up Sabor, for a “doos night out” (no aero). Best decision ever. Felipe was there, so he snapped a nice lil photo for us.
The craziest doos West of North Vietnam
I had the pleasure of watching these gents take on the whole damn scene! They were handling every female in the club, on the wall, floor, ottomans shooooot. Ahhh, Tuesday nights.
Started the day off with a Ride-n-Rail up to the city (read: took bikes on caltrain and traveled to San Francisco), did a loop short loop around the Embarcadero, and got attacked by a huge mechanical spider.
Wat da suc doo?!??
It was an absolute gorgeous day in San Francisco, and all I had was my stupid point and shoot camera again.
Worked up an appetite by then, so we headed over to….the Oldest Slot Machine Video Games Manual Hand Crank Devices Museum.
By then I was seriously hungry, but we couldn’t eat just yet. We came across the biggest gathering of Santas south of the north pole, and got a good view of Santa from behind.
After that we finally were able to grab some food, where Bennett hooked it up by way of his broken Cantonese. Can I get a shieng sha jee jee?
where you want to eat doo?
The holiday season isn’t truly complete without some lame lame lame sweaters and White Elephant!
I'm Jared, and i hook it up ariiiiight??!?
Hey you slap da jack doo!
By the end of the night, the true manifestation of my idiocracy had been fully revealed to all. Bravo peoples, bravo.
I seriously look like an idiot 100% of the time; except right here.
The other night Jabeezys and I were bored after riding over to TJ’s, so we stopped by Zanotto’s to grab a DVD from one of those DVD vending machines. The machine carries new releases and popular DVDs for an advertised $1.79 per night. Good deal right?
Wrong. I return the DVD the next day, and it says that they charged me $3 and some change. What a crock. Stupid fine print. Public libraries ftw.
Last night the group headed out to Fowler Park in East San Jose. It was actually my first time on this route, and I was pleasantly surprised by the nice neighborhoods and views on the east side. The total ride was approximately 18 miles give or take. It really sucks because all I had was my point & shoot, so the pictures didn’t come out too nice.
View of San Jose from Fowler Park
Taking a quick breather atop Fowler Park
The weather was seriously cold, and to add to that I blew yet another TWO tubes going over a fatty pothole.
Spiro invited us to go to Sabor, and then decided not to show up for his own birthday. Haha. He missed out because the whole team was working it all night long.
Tina was able to find herself a man, err World War I survivor. Good for her!
I would post the next picture in the series, but I’ll try to keep this blog safe for work.
Also had a board meeting tonight for Works, and apparently there is a chance that the gallery could move to….my building! The owner of my building, has two closed shops underneath my apartment. One is an art gallery, and the other is a wine type boutique. Neither have been open for years now. I think it would be a great opportunity for Works, and also it could help out with filling the huge void in my building. And best of all, it would be right underneath me!
The empty gallery as it currently sits....except with more junk now
I was supposed to wake up in time for the 10am train to Sunnyvale, but almost missed it due to oversleeping. Luckily Tim called me at 9:25, and I shifted into turbo mode to make it to the station on time. Haha, I am sooo dramatic.
I carpooled with Tim to San Francisco, where the 3rd annual SuperMarket Street Sweep was being held. The sweep is an alleycat race that helps benefit the San Francisco Food Bank. How does it work? Basically each rider goes around to supermarkets in the San Francisco area, and picks up the items that are listed. Each participant was given a race manifest that included two different types of races; speed, where you try to pick up the items and complete the checkpoints as fast as possible; and points, where you try to purchase as much food as you can possibly haul.
Tim, Wilson and I decided to go with the points option, simply because it would be more laid back. Maybe a little too laid back. I have a few alleycat races under my belt now, and supermarket sweep was by far the easiest one. But the whole point is to raise food for the SFFB anyway. It was fun ransacking all of the stores for items, and then piling them into a shopping cart to take out.
The sponsors for the race donated some amazing prizes and freebies. Just for showing up to race, everyone received a Crumpler Bags cellphone holster case; which I used to carry my camera. Tim went balls out towards the end, and loaded up the Timbuk2 bag that he won from Goldsprints with cans of corn. He ended up winning a North Face hat for his valiant effort.
Tim's bag filled with food for the SF Food Bank.
Dirty Dave and a few others brought cargo bikes with big ass trailers, some so heavy that they were straight oakland scraping the ground.
Bennett trying out some crazy mini geometry cross hybrid flying car bike complete HED wheels.
After the race we jetted back down to San Jose, to watch the epic Manny vs. Oscar, aka Filipino vs. Mexican boxing match at Mark’s house. It was also Matt’s real birthday, so we celebrated in true epic fashion. There was plenty of food, vegetarian and otherwise, and “specialty dranks” to go around.
Hey look at the Filipino and Mexican punching each other
Celebrating the Filipino's victory and the Mexican's loss
December 5th was a Friday, so it was time for yet another First Friday art walk. I was over at Works helping out for most of the time, but I did manage to check out Anno Domini as well.
Things started of pretty slow, but as the evening went by, everything picked up and we ended up with close to 600 visitors! Considering all of the other things going on that night, (Christmas in the Park, horrible parking, cold weather, etc.) ~600 is a very respectable number.
The Art Benefit Auction was the very next night, so it was important for Works to get the word out. A huge percentage of the proceeds goes to keeping the gallery alive, and the auction is one of the biggest moneymakers for the gallery. I wasn’t able to make the auction, but I heard it was a huge success!
Please check out http://workssanjose.org to see how you can help!
Last night about 10 of us rode down to the south San Jose area, and conquered Communication Hill. The climb was pretty brutal, I was winded before we even got a quarter way up. But the ascent was really worthwhile. It was really unfortunate, because the view was breathtaking, and yet nobody had a camera!
Afterward we rode around Christmas in the Park for a little bit, and we saw PIANO MAN panhandling the streets of San Jose! For those who don’t know Piano Man, he was a random guy that decided to join one of the group rides one night, complete with keyboard strapped to back!
Piano Man playing at 4th St. pizza- Credit to jmpgraphy for photo
Well, tonight he was Magic man, and he used his sorcery to impress us with his card tricks.
That's my card doo! -photo credit to Jenny
Then we hit up Cinnabar for some cheap drank, and headed off to Temple for Matt’s pre-bday bash.
Matt- the ladies man doo- photo credit to Jenny
thanks to halley and jenny's photoskillz for making it look like i can dance! -photo by Jenny
jp, mark and mike doing it while the girls look on - photo by jenny
JP posted this video up, and I thought it was worth sharing.
Most people know that I can’t dance. Got no coordination, no rhythm, no skillz, no nothing. But I still love to dance. Cardiff Lounge over in Campbell has House music nights on Tuesdays, so a few of us headed over there.
House music dancing - Photo by Chris
Not my thang. I couldn’t get into the ITZ izT izt IZT DADADADA type beats, and its even harder to dance to. Some doo’s got really into it, but it seemed like the girls and guys were really segregated or something. That’s what BBOY competitions are for right? No potential to bump and grind with a loved/lusted one?
Glad to see that the dancers and patrons had fun, although I’ll stick to my Top 40 hits. Seacrest Out!
Wow, I went to go watch Transporter 3 over the Thanksgiving holiday for some cheap thrills. After spending a little over an hour watching this abysmal film, my cousin and I came up with the same concensus: what a horrible way to end this franchise.
The action was lackluster, there was little to no innovation in the pursuit sequences, and the dialogue was nothing short of EPIC FAIL.
Luc Besson tried to make this movie like a romance flick, by writing some serious cringe inducing dialogue. There was a scene in the movie where Jason Statham and his “love interest” talk about what they want for dinner for 10 minutes! This is an action film folks!
Aside from that; the movie still blows. Go watch James Bond: Quantam of Solace instead. Not as good as the first rehash, but very poignant and succinct.
I’ve been really flaky about getting new posts up. Why? Is it because I am just downright fat and lazy? Maybe. Enough excuses. I don’t want to sit here and say that my New Year’s resolution is going to be “blog more.” I was never one to follow conventional rules, so damnit, I’m going to “blog more” right now! The format of this blog is going to be more about life in general now, as opposed to focusing on just one or two different subjects. I’ll try to update once a week for now, and we’ll see how that goes before I try to do anything too crazy. Here are a few photos to bring you up to date:
Enjoying life..
Friend's wedding up in Seattle
Sharks-best start in NHL history -photo by Anna Marie
Halloween
Epic races
Tailgating @ a Niner game
LOLering hard. -photo by Mark
Hoping to keep my end of the bargain up, by posting more, you must keep yours, which is to keep coming back!
