Fall Colors

The Seahawks were getting walloped, nobody was biting on the new Craigslist ad I put up selling the Ford Ranger, and it wasn't raining. Three strikes and I'm out... of the door and onto the ninja for some fall riding.

The colors were absolutely beautiful over on High Bridge Road. I'm colorblind, so the shades are all different for me, but I saw yellows, oranges, reds and greens in the leaves. I saw blue in the sky and the river, white in the picket fences, and more orange in the huge pumpkin patch east of Woodinville.

I may venture out again on the bike tomorrow if no new sub jobs come up. I grabbed a high school female phys. ed job earlier this evening, but I couldn't make myself keep it. I'm sure they prefer a female teacher, what with the locker room situation and all, and I don't really want to be "that guy" who tries to bend the accepted norms. And by "that guy" I mean waffles, or the guy who played in the Ladies poker event and won it.

Last Days of Summer

Today I finally got out riding with Jared and Ben, my friends who purchased Ninja 250 motorcycles earlier this summer. Today is probably one of the last over 70-degree temperature days of the year, and I was immensely happy to be out on my bike. We rode out and around Monroe, WA, spending most of our time on two-lane country roads. We were either flanked by forests, pastures, or fields of corn eight feet high.The roads were winding (my favorite), and the number of rustic and white fences we passed were too many to count.

Ben had his first spill, which occurred trying to turn the bike around on a gravel driveway. His desired tail whip turned into a horizontal bike. Not too much damage to either him or his bike, can't ask for much more than that for your first drop.

A deer darted across the road a few hundred feet in front of me, and somehow managed to make it between two cars coming towards me, which couldn't have been more than 50ft apart, going 35+ mph. The thought of deers or other critters jumping out into the road while I am on my motorcycle scares the poop out of me. I will keep relying on the very low chance of it happening, especially when I keep the engine going nice and loud.

Flip Mode Squad (Kat bet pic)

I've been listening to a lot of Mos Def recently, as I'm in the middle of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy five-set, and Mos plays the role of Ford Prefect in the movie. Here are some links to Mos on Real Time with Bill Maher if you're unfamiliar:





There are plenty of links to Mos Def's music on YouTube, but most don't let embedding occur. Busta Rhymes and Mos have a few collaborations, and I had a few Busta Rhymes cd's growing up, hence the Flip Mode Squad title. Also, the flip mode squad title has to do with this post being a little flip from the norm... usually I see that I haven't posted for a week and do a lame list of what I've done during the past week in chronological order. It sucks because I don't remember the fun details from seven days ago, and by the time I get to yesterday, where I actually remember the things that happened, I am ready to wrap up the post. Today I'm going to try a reverse chronological order list from now to last week. It doesn't sound much better from the normal list, but hey~

Today I had two great motorcycle rides. The first was a quick loop down and around downtown Seattle to drop off my substitute information to the Seattle School District. I got on the express lanes into the city and I was the only vehicle the entire four miles into the city--it was awesome. On the way back I took 99 up along the water and was treated to some amazing views.

Later, Jared and I finally got out on a ride together. He bought a Ninja 250 about a month ago and my bike has been in the shop the whole time he's had his. We rode over to High Bridge Road, but the road was closed four miles into it. We got a few curves in, and the back roads we took to get to High Bridge Road were a lot of fun. It was great to get out on the bike and not have it assplode on me!

Here are a few pics, and one that fulfills my obligation to post a glamor shot (ugly mug shot) of me and my bike, sigh.





I've spent the last two days volunteer tennis coaching at my old high school. Tryouts started yesterday and the varsity coach did not have any help, and he offered me the JV job if I wanted it (I coached in 07'). I was torn. I don't have a job, but I really need and want a teaching job first, and a coaching job second. Right now I have very few strings holding me in any one place, and I applied to a job up near the San Juan Islands. I wouldn't be able to take that job if I get it, if I coach. I was struggling with my options, not wanting to give a half-assed commitment to coaching, but also not wanting to leave the varsity coach hanging. It all cleared up today though, and he found another ex-player to coach the JV team, so I'm off the hook!

The past week has been pretty stressful on the job front. Besides trying to figure out exactly where I want to live, and if I want to coach, there is a camping trip scheduled to depart tomorrow that I've been flip-flopping on. The trip sounds amazing, but I feel like I should be spending the time job searching during this crucial time to get a job. One option is to just do the camping, or just do the backpacking portion of the dual-trip. Coaching was getting in the way until today's discovery as well. I was flip-flopping on a lot of things, and being quite flaky with a lot of my friends, and that sucked.

The more I worked it out today, the more I think a camping trip is exactly what I need. I just need to get out for a few days, clear my head, and focus on what it is I need to do and not worry about the rest. I hope to be enlightened at the end of the trip, which is par for the course after a hiking trip for me :)

Well now I've gone off track and I'm back to today--oh well, flip mode squad has been vanquished. I'll pour one for my homies and say that I played softball, racquetball and went rock climbing a couple times last week--in chronologically reversed order.

Let it Ride till I Die!

With a free Monday, I decided to take off on my motorcycle and soak up some summer. I ventured north to Anacortes and Mount Erie. I took the ferry to Whidbey Island from Mukilteo, which was a quick 20-minute ride, without having to wait in line thanks to my two wheels. Fifty miles of island motorcycling later (the best kind of motorcycling?), I reached Anacortes. I wasn't supposed to reach Anacortes, I was supposed to stay on Rosario Rd., but I took a wrong turn and wound up in Anacortes.

Anacortes smells so good. It smells like fish, which makes me want clam chowder, but I didn't eat clam chowder because I had half of a day-old Subway sandwich in my backpack that I had forgotten about until midnight last night, then put it in the freezer after being in my backpack in the 90 degree heat for six hours... but that's another story. The sandwich was freaking good. Maybe it was just me being happy at finally finding the route to Mount Erie, and eating the sandwich with company of ants and these minuscule critters that kept biting me and dying by my finger tip.

The view at Mount Erie is ridiculous.



An old guy up there with his woman said he made the trek in February and they could see Mount Rainier from the view point. Mount Rainier is 100 miles away.



Add to the view, the too-many-to-count rock climbing routes, you've got one kick-ass location. I ate lunch on the summit, in the shade of some friendly trees. I read some from my library book that is due back next Tuesday, then I got out my climbing shoes and decided to test my might at a few of the little bouldering problems around, and one of the easier longer climbs, which had two of the little rope prongs at the top, which I ignored. The climbs were pretty easy, but with no rope and nobody to hear you scream, the adrenaline still flows.

After climbing, I tried half-assedly to take a dip in either Lake Campbell or Lake Erie (of WA), but I was running late, for a very important date! A date with lady luck, at Tulalip Casino. I road the back roads to the casino, at least until I hit I-5 at exit 218 and had to freeway the rest of the way. I road on Reservation Road, which intersected with Indian Road, and I could picture a Native American crying. I did my best to stop the tears by paying the ridiculous rake and bad beat jackpot at Tulalip.



Warning, poker content!

I had the shittiest stretch of cards for my first hour of play the the 4/8 limit game. The table was full of limpers, and I couldn't even limp with my 63o and Q2o. I almost played Q3 suited UTG because it was suited, but refrained. I was down about $45 from folding, folding, and more folding for an hour, until I finally won a pot as the big blind and checking down the flop, turn and river to win with 4th pair. I tipped the dealer.

During my stretch of shitty cards, there was this guy in his fifties who was drunk at the table and in a trucker's hat. All the staff knew him, and his name, Doug, was on his striped trucker/bowling shirt. He was a pretty funny guy, and said Mondays were his lucky day. When I first sat down, he had just won the high hand jackpot from the previous hour with AAAAT for $300. He was jubilant. He also brought up an interesting idea of letting the high hand jackpot ride, and having a shot at $600 the next hour. Him and the dealer discussed this at length, and they agreed that there needed to be some maximum hand, say quad 3's (why they didn't pick quad 2's, I'll never know). So if you hit quad 3's or higher, you can't let your high hand jackpot ride--and if you get beat in the second hour and let it ride, you forfeit your original $300. Also. ALSO! According to Doug, there needs to be a low hand jackpot, where the person who won a hand with the crappiest hand each hour needed to win $10 or something. This Doug is on to something! If casinos had low hand jackpots, people would play crap cards and call down with crap cards, trying to hit the jackpot. The only problem I see is having too much rake/jackpot money taken out of the normal pots. For every $10 in the pot, $2 is taken out right now, one to the jack pot and one rake dollar for the casino. But back to me winning money.

I won another pot with AQ on an Ace-high board, and the villain missed his 8 kicker, but called me down the whole way after a re-raise on the flop.

I won a pot with Q8 from my BB after limped to me and catching top pair with my 8. Same villain called me down and mucked.

I won my fourth and last hand of the day with AT under the gun. I limped (as was accustomed at the table) and got re-raised by an older gentleman in his 80s, to my immediate left. The guy to his immediate left called two bets cold, and I called from UTG.

Flop brought an Ace and I checked. The older gentleman bet, and the dude to his left called. I hesitated, and could not really figure out what I could beat, but called anyways. We checked it down the rest of the way, which made me feel a lot better about my AT, and it held, making me wonder how much value I lost not betting it, but on the flop I wasn't sure why I was calling, and my chips were all racked up and ready to go. If either of them fires the turn I probably fold.

I was card dead for an hour, lost almost $50, then won almost $100 back, showing down each of the four hands and never having a hand as good as TPTK. It was a weird session.

After 90 minutes at Tulalip, I moto down to Kamiak for a pickup soccer game, and the traffic is non-existant. Completely opposite of last week, trying to get out of Seattle and up to Kamiak at rush hour. There is something to be said about going for a moto ride and coming in from out of town during rush hour, as opposed to leaving town at rush hour in the afternoon. The soccer game was fun, I scored a goal! It was hot, 90 degrees is no degrees to be playing soccer in.

Now I am home, in the basement, drank my GnT and ate my Dove Bar. Sleep soon.

4th of July Weekend (Quasi-Uber)

The time? 7:02pm, Sunday evening. I'm registered for two micro-stakes poker tournaments that begin in the next half hour, I'm about to fix myself a gin and tonic, and start writing about my weekend. Why don't you grab a drink, sit down and relax with me?

Finished making the G&T and found that one of the tournaments started and I missed the first hand. I would have folded, but the hand ended up being Q's vs. Aces, and the Aces turned quads... not a bad start to a tourney for that guy!

Music for the evening will be Dave Matthews Band, "Under the Table and Dreaming". I was big into Dave Matthews Band in high school, I went to three or four concerts out at the gorge, but then they became so popular with MTV and the frat crowd I was a bit ashamed to like the band. I've continued to listen to them, but on the sly. Tonight I break my silence: I like DMB still, go suck an egg if you think less of me now.

Music, check. Poker with lots of folding, check. G&T, check. Alright, I think I'm set to start recapping the weekend.

Friday marked the first of a three-day Potlatch ultimate frisbee tournament in Redmond, WA. I've been going to the tournament for the past eight or nine years, and when the 4th of July falls on Friday, the weekend, or Monday, the tournament is a 3-day affair instead of just two days. Three days makes the tournament stand apart from the other weekend ultimate tournaments in the summer, not to mention the 100 teams from all across the nation (and Mexico, and Canada!).



I decided to only play one day this year, for a couple of reasons. First, I've been wanting to go to Tahuya Day with Tessa and Jared for the last few years, and I have always picked Potlatch over Tahuya Day. Last year, I made plans to only play one day at Potlatch, then partake in Tahuya Day, but the weather was craptastic, and I would rather be playing ultimate in the rain than sitting in a lawn chair drinking margaritas in the rain, so I stayed at the ultimate fields. The other reason I chose to only play one day at Potlatch this year is because I'm fucking rusty! I play ultimate once every other week, and that just is not enough to be in shape or have consistent throws.

Poker update: knocked out of my first tournament when AJ on an AJ8 flop loses to a naked frush draw that gets there after the money goes in. Next tourney starts up in 7 minutes.

Friday ultimate at Potlatch was great. The weather couldn't have been better, it was around 80 degrees without much wind. We won all three of our games for the first time I can remember in a long time. I think my team a few years ago, maybe even last year, won all three games one day, but the team was a weird mix of really good college guys and crappy old timers like myself--so it wasn't a true Tacoma stink team--like this year! All of the games were tight, with the first going the distance at 16-14 in a game to 15 (a mini-Federer/Roddick match for the tennis lovers out there). The team was playing well, but I made a lot of throw aways, which was frustrating. The team didn't care much, because the throw aways did not lose us any of the games, but the throws I was botching are throws that I *can* make, but I wasn't making due to my rusty game. I should have holstered the cannon, but couldn't resist.

Our game schedule on Friday was such that we played a game, had a 2nd round bye, played a game, had a 4th round bye, then played our final game. The schedule kept us fresh, and even better than keeping us fresh, allowed me to pick up my motorcycle from the shop during our 4th round bye! I got a call from the shop at some point in the morning, and couldn't wait to get my bike! When I got to the shop, it didn't take long for me to pay and for them to wheel the bike around front and get me on my way. Before leaving, I noticed that they had not changed the front tire, which I thought we had agreed on. They did not bill me for it, but the front tire is just as old as the back tire that blew out on me a month ago, and it needs to be changed soon. I inspected the tire, and it still has some tread on it, so there is no imminent danger, but I am dreading taking it back to the shop now, after waiting a month for this fix.

I made it back to Potlatch for the last round, this time on the motorcycle. The ride back to the fields felt a little weird. Not good or bad, but just a little different. The clutch is still a lot tighter than I am used to, but that isn't necessarily a bad thing. I am used to the clutch catching right in the middle of the release, but now it catches about 3/4'ths of the way when I release the clutch lever. This makes shifting between gears a lot faster, but it also makes the initial shift from idle to 1st gear a bit longer. Again, some good to it, and some bad, but now that the weekend is over and I have gotten used to it, I think I prefer the tighter clutch. The fact that the back tire has a larger diameter than the old back tire, and the new tread on the back tire vs. the worn front tire also affect the ride.

One of the fun new sideline games at Potlatch this year was a Dare game based on cards. How the game works is a deck (or two, or three?) was passed out on Thursday night before the tournament started Friday. The goal of the game is to find the next higher up card than yours and ask them to give you a dare. If they do not think up a dare for you in one minute, you get to swap cards with them--also, if you complete their dare, you swap cards with them. I never got a card, nor was I too interested in playing because of only being there one day, but a lot of my teammates were getting into the game and trying to work their way up the ranks. The two best dares I saw on Friday were one guy licking the entire length of field tape (tape is put down at Potlatch along the sideline), which was about 100 yards. He was on all fours crawling along licking the tape from end to end for a king! The other dare was a girl going for a jack, and she first had to get this guy and all his friends cold beers, and then make out with another girl of this guy's choosing. By the time I left on Friday, my friend Josh was up to a queen. I stayed to watch the showcase game between Team USA and Team Canada, while eating free pizza and drinking free beer. Team USA won 16-14.

I had such a good time on Friday at Potlatch that I was beginning to question my decision to only play one day, but I'm glad I followed through with Tahuya Day. I got up early and met at Tessa and Jared's for an 8:00am caravan down to Tahuya, WA. The weather was flawless, and I was on my bike for the second day in a row, and it felt great. The caravan down was fun, and I'm glad to report it was uneventful. We rolled into Tahuya right around 11am after a stop at the QFC for a hundred cans of beer and some ice. The guys cracked open beers as soon as we dropped off our stuff, and I got to meet Tessa's family and friends. Her dad grew up in the house, and I can see why he never left.



They've got a compound similar to my friend Marc's, where Tessa's parents own one house, her uncle owns the next one down, and her cousin owns the third in the string, right along the water. The porch is huge, and there were probably 20 of us up there sitting in the sun and shade drinking. We got one game of liar's dice in before the parade started up, and Brian put me to shame at the end game. We were tied at five dice each, to Ben and Erin's zero dice (noobs!), and he ran a clinic.

The parade was pretty short and sweet, which is the perfect kind of parade in my eyes. Tessa's dad partook for the first time in a while, and his family pelted him with water balloons and water guns as he rode by, like any good family should! Tessa's mom made a strong margarita, and although I remember thinking, "Wow, this is a strong margarita!" I still had a second one, which promptly put me to sleep after the parade ended.

I woke up to people taking pictures of me passed out on the living room floor, so I woke up by being the first to hop into the inlet. It took me a while to figure out what to call the body of water just off Tessa's back yard, and apparently it is an inlet. It juts off the Hood Canal, and apparently Bill and Melinda Gates rolled up one afternoon last Autumn and Tessa's grandmother, a house down, was out ready to yell at the trouble-makers and run them off, then realized who they were.

We spent the rest of the afternoon shooting off small fireworks and swimming in the inlet. At one point, all of the youngsters (i.e. under 50), hopped in the boat and Tessa took us for a ride around the Hood Canal--it was awesome:





Poker Update #2: Second tournament started, and I'm chipping up in this one. Just had AA in the big blind and it was limped 3 ways to me, and for the first time ever, I checked with aces in the big blind. I bet the flop and it folded around, so nothing extraordinary happened, but I sat there with aces and my option and wondered, "Have I ever checked in the big blind with aces? I don't think I have, let's see what happens."

Back to Tahuya. Beers, clams, steak, swimming, and fireworks. That, my friends, is hard to beat. I grew up shooting off fireworks with Marc at his cabin, and we would get pretty into it, rigging our own fireworks in our teens. When I hit college I grew a bit tired of spending mass amounts of money on things to just blow up (funny how that changes when you use your money instead of your parents'!). Jared and Reuben went nuts this year and spend $300 on mortars and all sorts of goodies, and I couldn't help but share their enthusiasm. I taught them a thing or two over the course of the day, but they had plenty of ingenious ideas themselves.

The two highlights of the night had to be Ben knocking over my tower of beer cans with a single roman candle shot, and when Reuben's huge mortar decided not to shoot up into the air, but instead exploded in the mortar tube and shot gravel shrapnel that cleared the house. I was 15ft from the shell and was lucky enough to turn my back on the blast just in the nick of time--I could hear the gravel hit the windows! That woke us up. A honorable mention would be Erin's early show of lighting a ground bloom and sticking it in a Corona bottle, which cracked the bottle in half. We tried to duplicate her feat numerous times and we turned another Corona bottle black, but couldn't break it in half.



Once the fireworks were done, most of the crew took off for Seattle, to sleep in their own beds, but Tessa, Jared and I stuck around and slept in the game room. The dozen or so beers since 11am found me with the sandman as quickly as my head hit the pillow. I was awoken in time for breakfast: bacon, eggs and whatever those breakfast rolls that start with a C are called--not cinnamon rolls. Polished that off with the help of some OJ, thanked Tessa and her family for the great hospitality, then headed out from Tahuya a different way than I came.

I rode north from Tahuya, and my word of mouth directions from Tessa's mom and dad weren't entirely clear, so I just followed the road along the water until it turned into a gravel road. I was a bit hesitant to ride on the gravel rode, given my nearly bald front tire, but the sign said only six miles, so I was hoping a return to pavement was the reward. Up until this point, I was still being very careful on my motorcycle, and riding still didn't feel quite right. On the gravel I was mostly in first gear, and the gravel road twisted along the Hood Canal for the six or so miles. I kept thinking I should stop and take a picture of the interesting road and forest, but there weren't any places to pull over and a few cars did cross my path on the ride.

For some reason, when the pavement returned, I also got my riding groove back. From being extremely cautious on the gravel road, I must have gotten a better feel for the bike. The road after the pavement came back was also one of the most fun roads I have ridden on. Between the start of the pavement again and Bremerton, I passed by every mile-per-hour turn sign from 10mph turns to 45mph turns, twice over. There were dozens of 20mph turn signs, and with proper balance on the bike, I was able to take them at great ease going 35mph--which gave me riding confidence back. After the first few turns, I was comfortable knowing the right speed to stay safe, so I didn't have to look at the speedometer while negotiating turns, which seems safer and the right way to do it.

I had a lot of fun on the ride back to Seattle. I got to the Bremerton ferry terminal literally two minutes before they started boarding, and as a motorcycle I got to hop to the front of the line, where only one other motorcycle was waiting. We briefly chatted and it turns out that he was coming back from Tahuya as well! Not bad for a town of 5,200, as of the 2000 census.

Poker Update #3: Second tournament, just got the addon for 11k chips at the first break, which is about 1.5k above the average stack. Got a ways to go, 550 runners left, 90 pay, $700 and change for 1st.

The ferry ride was nice. Since me and the other motorcyclist were the first vehicles allowed on, we also got dibs on seating in the ferry. I found a booth and zonked out once the ferry started moving. I woke up probably thirty minutes later when the sun started to shine on me and woke me from my slumber. We were in the middle of the body of water just west of West Seattle, and we had a gorgeous view of downtown Seattle:





I rode back up Hwy 99, spent a few hours at home taking a shower and talking to my Erin in Italy, then rode back over to Potlatch to catch the last few rounds of disc. I enjoyed the quick ride over the 520 bridge, and got to the fields just as my team got booted from the tournament in the D-pool quarterfinals. A team from my college was playing in the C-pool semi-finals, and I cheered them on, but they lost 8-11 in a tight game. The score was tied at 8-8 and there was a marathon point that must have lasted 15 minutes, whoever wins that point wins the game, and sure enough, that is what happened.

The finals was a rematch of the showcase game from Friday: Team USA vs. Team Canada. I didn't end up staying to see who won, but I did watch a few of the points with my Tacoma team. I found Josh and he was sporting a fluffy white baseball cap with the Ace of spades on it... I talked to him and found out that not only did he get an ace card in the Dare game, he got all four aces, one of each suit, which won him Five Ultimate shorts, a jersey, and the hat. I didn't realize Five Ultimate was putting on the game, but I told Josh I wasn't sure I even wanted to know what he had to do for those aces. He told me that his favorite dare was finding a woman, switching clothes with that woman, then serenading one of the girls who works for Five Ultimate in the other girl's clothes. Oh, and he had a zillion girl's numbers on his cast--so it looks like he had a good time this weekend, too!

If you see this man, run in the other direction.



Poker Update #4: Up to 19k chips with the average around 10k.

Hmm, running out of things to say about this weekend... it was fun! The weather is supposed to take a turn for the worse this week, but I'm still hoping to get out and hike. Also, take some resumes out this week to middle schools in the area to see what the job prospects are looking like for next year.

Well, I was hoping to do better, but the time is 9:29pm and I am finished with the weekend recap. I could keep on rambling with stuff while I play poker, but I may as well just finish this post off and call it a quasi-uber. Hope you all have a good week!

Two Wheels and Softball Action

My motorcycle is in the shop. This sucks, because of the accident, and because the weather outside is amazing. It also sucks because I called the shop yesterday at about 4pm to see what the ETA on my bike being ready is, and after fumbling around for a minute, the guy said he was waiting for my approval to order the parts... which I had given him last Saturday at the fucking shop! He said sorry, and he would have to wait until Tuesday to order the parts, because it was already past 3pm on Friday. Ugh.

In other two-wheel news, I have been using my dad's bicycle to get around lately, and I am finally starting to get the hang of bicycling again. At first, I felt like I was riding for the first time all over again--super wobbly, and very uncomfortable. The fact that his helmet nearly falls off my head doesn't help. I'm thinking about getting a used bike from Recycled Cycles @ UW, but I'm unsure about the purchase. I'm also in the market for an economy car to compliment my sport motorcycle, which is a purchase I should probably make sooner than later, so I am not too terribly time-crunched come August.

I rode dad's bike over to Greenlake today for pickup ultimate frisbee. The ride was really nice, and it served as a nice warm up for the ol' joints. Today is day 24 of no rain in Seattle, which is unheard of for May/June, much less July/August. The frisbee was fantastic, but I secretly wished I was playing in one of the two softball games going on at the fields. I miss softball.

When I got home, I browsed Craigslist and sent a few futile emails to people who posted they were needing players a week ago. Imagine my surprise when my cell phone buzzed 10 minutes ago and the guy wants me to come play tomorrow at Greenlake! I may have included that I have a female friend who wants to play as well, which may or may not be true, which may or may not have solidified my spot on the team.

Call Me Lucky

I had been looking forward to Memorial Day Weekend for months. Sasquatch Music Festival was a big reason for my excitement, but the closer this weekend came, the more I realized I had too much work to do for my teaching program, coupled with job searching for the Fall. Last week, I decided to sell my Sunday ticket and just make a long Saturday day trip on the motorcycle to the Gorge and back.

In hindsight, that was a mistake.

I left fashionably late on Saturday morning, around 11:30am. I wanted to see Vince Mira, who played at noon and does covers of Johnny Cash, but after him I didn't really want to see anybody until 4:30pm. I decided to leave later and make the day a little shorter, to keep me awake on the ride home.

There was quite a bit of Memorial Day Weekend traffic on the drive. When I-90 is stop-and-go in the middle of nowhere, there is either a snowstorm or it is Memorial Day Weekend. There was actually plenty of snow up at the pass, which I wasn't very excited to see on my motorcycle.

At milepost 93, the back tire on my motorcycle burst. I was going 70mph at the time, and the POP when my tire burst scared the life out of me. The back tire started to drift slightly to the left and right, and I wasn't sure what happened. Luckily, I was just coming up to an offramp, and I made it safely to the end of the offramp. Milepost 93 on I-90, otherwise known as: the middle of nowhere.

I had no idea what to do, so I called my parents. My mom was home, and offered to look up gas stations or towing operations around the area. She was not having much luck, when 15 minutes after the tire blew a pickup truck drove by. The man waved at me and I waved back and walked over to his truck.

"Need some air?" he asked.

He reversed up to my bike, then got out and we inspected my completely flat back tire. We couldn't see any holes until I slid the motorcycle back a foot and he said, "Whoa! Air's not going to help you." he said.

The hole in my tire was about a quarter wide and maybe six inches long. He asked what my plan was, and I said I had no plan, other than calling a tow company or gas stations around the area (there was nothing at this exit). He told me to hold on a minute, while he called his brother.

When he got off the phone, he said, "Well, my brother is out in the woods, but let me go grab his trailer and tow you into town. I'm heading into Ellensburg to change a tire anyways."

I couldn't believe my good fortune. First, I didn't die from blowing a tire while going 70mph on a motorcycle, and second, I go from having absolutely no idea what to do, to getting a lift (with my moto!) into town.

Fifteen minutes later, we were on our way. We chatted for the 15 minute ride on the way into town. Me about my life, him about his. He is 60 years old and has 13 grandchildren. Some are worthless and into drugs, another is studying to become a minister, a few are in the military, and one is also starting her teaching career.

He dropped me off at the Suzuki dealership and service store, and once we figured out that the shop could put on a new tire, he was on his way. We finally introduced ourselves, and now "Lifesaver Louis" is in my cell phone.

The only mechanic in the shop said it'd be an hour or two, so I headed over to KFC for some lunch, still counting my blessings and wondering how I would tell this story to my friends and family. Two hours later, he rolled out my bike from the shop with a brand new back tire at a cost of $250. He said the accident was preventable, and that my rear tire was beyond shot when it blew--I probably should have changed it out thousands of miles ago (I hit 13k miles while going over the pass). He cautioned me that the new tire would be a little bit slick, and not to lean into my turns too hard for the first 100 miles.

I hopped on my motorcycle, started it up, and eased out onto the road. I noticed that where the clutch catches seemed to be off a bit while I slowly turned out of the dealership onto a side road. I pulled up to the stop sign, remembering to take my turns easy. I pulled out, turned left onto Main Street, and when I shifted into 2nd gear, going about 10mph, I lost it.

I honestly don't know exactly what happened. I think what happened is that I was so used to having the clutch catch halfway, that I anticipated it catching, and it didn't, so when I let the clutch out the rest of the way, the bike jerked forwards--while I was in the middle of a turn. The back end of the bike fish-tailed to the right, then to the left, then to the right again and flung me off forward, in front of the bike and onto the asphalt of Main Street.

My first thought was to make sure the bike didn't slide on top of me, so I flailed backwards to push or kick the bike in case it kept coming towards me. It didn't, and it laid on its left side with some shrapnel underneath. In that shrapnel was the left foot peg. I felt noxious.

The cars on the road were stopped, drivers and passengers had their doors open, mouthing words to me, but I couldn't hear them. My iPod was blaring music into my ears, but I'm not sure if I would have heard them without my iPod. I stared at passenger in one of the cars for five seconds, in shock. I couldn't believe that this just happened, after my flat tire going 70mph just hours earlier. I couldn't believe that my only two experiences at motorcycle dealerships involve my bike going down, at 10mph or less, minutes after leaving the shops.

A cop with its sirens on appeared in less than a minute (I think), and I quickly flipped off my iPod, with my helmet still on.

"Are you okay?" he asked, as I stood over the somewhat mangled motorcycle, in the middle of Main Street.

"Yeah." I responded.

"Hurt anywhere?"

"No."

"Let's get this bike out of the road."

He and I lifted the bike and I rolled it out of the road, and it seemed to me to have some alignment issues--I had to steer it slightly to the right to make it go straight.

"So, can you tell me what happened here?" asked one of the cops, of which there were now three.

"I... I was just at that shop. I had a flat tire. Got changed. I pulled out from that side street. He said it would be slick. I turned left. I can't believe I crashed." I spit out.

"Was it just you? Did any car cut you off?"

"Just me."

"Do you feel okay? Should we call the paramedics?"

"I feel okay." I said. My left hip hurt, as did my groin. Also, my right elbow felt scraped up.

A fourth cop had arrived, and one of the first cops to arrive at the scene had walked down the street 40ft and asked, "is this water bottle yours?"

I shook my head yes. Apparently, the water bottle that was in the side pooka of my backpack had been flung 40ft down the street (and I shared the water bottle with my class today as part of my story).

When I took my helmet off, my vision went completely blurry. It was strange. I haven't had my vision go blurry in years--it happened somewhat often in Sacramento, when it was really hot outside and I would stand up suddenly. Seconds after my helmet came off, I got incredibly woozy, and stumbled to shade near the side of a building. On my stumbling way I overheard, "Call the paramedics."

I sat down in the shade and felt better. My vision returned, and I could hear the ambulance siren from my right a few seconds later. A minute later I looked to my left, saw four cops, and three cop cars. I looked to my right and saw an ambulance and two paramedics. I looked down and still couldn't believe what happened.

The paramedics checked me out and everything was alright. They made me sign a waiver, saying that I refused an ambulance trip to the hospital. The cops got my license and registration and insurance, then left me alone with my mangled bike. The service mechanic had come over at one point and asked if I was alright and what happened. I told him, and the next time I looked over to him, he was gone.

I rolled the bike perpendicular to Main Street, aiming for the side road next to the motorcycle shop. The bike started up on the first try, and I flicked the bike into first gear without a left foot peg, which felt incredibly weird. I waited for a very long gap in traffic, and made it back to the service shop.

For the second time that day, I had no idea what to do. I checked out the bike and found the center stand was now bashed to the right, scraping both the chain and the back tire. The clutch lever was bent way forwards, making it difficult to shift. The left foot peg was in my sweatshirt pouch. And the foot-shifter was bent into the bike, making it hard to flick.

I asked the mechanic what could be done, and he said, "Not much. We don't have the parts here, so I'd guess the soonest you'd be out of here on that bike is Tuesday" (it was Saturday).

I called my mom back. I had called her from KFC, saying that everything was alright. She couldn't believe the new addition to the story. She offered to drive out to get me (a four-hour round-trip drive). Before we hung up, I saw that the mechanic was out working on my bike. I told my mom to hold on and wait for another call before she started driving out to get me.

The mechanic was wiring back on my left foot peg.

"I think I can fit this foot peg back on, so you can drive this thing out of here today. I can use a saws-all to cut out the center stand, if you don't care about it."

"Yeah, that sounds great to me, thanks again." I said.

"No problem."



He cut a dozen pieces of wire and somehow managed to attach the foot peg back onto the bike. Then he managed to disassemble the exhaust pipes on both sides of the back of my bike, to unhinge the center stand, without having to cut it off. Fifteen minutes later, he said that is as much as he can do. I asked him about the bent shifter and clutch, and he said if he or I tried to bend them back, they would likely break.

I called my mom back and discussed my options. I was scared to ride the bike, both because I just crashed it, and because the alignment seemed off.

I decided to ride the bike around town a bit, being overly cautious about turning. The bike seemed to ride alright, and after getting it up to 3rd gear on a back road with a 35mph speed limit, I pulled up to a stop sign, shut the motor off, and called my mom, telling her I was still planning on going to the concert--which was now only 30 minutes away (as opposed to the two-hour trip home).

Once I got on the freeway, it was smooth sailing until the exit, down-shifting, and turning. The two cars behind me were probably wondering why the guy on the motorcycle was moving like a slug on the off ramp. I let them pass once I made the turn. The road from I-90 to the Gorge Amphitheater is a 50mph road with twisties, that would have been a blast to ride on my motorcycle normally, but every turn scared me shitless. About halfway along the road, I felt a sharp twinge in my right armpit. I didn't really know what happened, because my arm or armpit didn't hurt at all during the crash, or on the 30 minute bike ride from Ellensburg. My armpit stung, like a bee sting. I couldn't tell if a rock came up and hit me, or what.

I didn't arrive to the Gorge until 6pm. When I parked the motorcycle in the parking lot, and turned off the motor, I felt a sense of relief. Once I got off my bike, I heard a buzzing. I leaned down to my bike to see where it was coming from, then noticed my right sweatshirt sleeve. A bee was in my sweatshirt. I flung off my helmet and sweatshirt. The bee flew off, and my armpit was starting to swell.

I couldn't help but laugh. All alone, in the middle of the grassy parking lot at the gorge. The relief I felt was for safely arriving at the gorge and being able to relax for the next four hours to great music. In the back of my mind, was the fact that I would be driving the motorcycle home that night. I wanted to get my mind off of motorcycle riding, and went to call mclarich, because I knew he was at the concert, but apparently I never uploaded his number into my cell phone.

I called a couple other people I knew in attendance, but did not meet up with any of them. Instead, I spent most of the evening lying in the grass, listening to amazing music and trying to make sense of everything that had happened. Do I still want to ride a motorcycle? Is it worth the risk?

After thinking about those questions for the last few days, I do want to keep riding a motorcycle, but I don't think it is worth the risk. And that confuses me.

I should have left the concert earlier than I did. I wasn't too thrilled about seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeah's, although I can see their appeal. I was looking forward to the Kings of Leon, but after waiting an extra 90 minutes that could have been spent on the road, I wasn't impressed. They seemed like a boy band, but instead of poppy music, it was good music.

I left the concert in the middle of "Sex on Fire", along with a steady stream of other concert-goers that had had enough for one day. On my ride out of the parking lot, one of the attendants gave me the "WHEELIE!!!" motion... yeah right. I'm not going to lie, the ride home sucked. The lack of visibility, improper alignment, gusting winds and temperature in the 30s at the pass made the trip rough. I was scared, but luckily being scared kept me completely awake and aware on the drive home.

Twenty miles from Seattle, and only two miles from having the highway lined with lights, I had to slow down for flashing lights up ahead. A roll-over accident in the left lane. The car was totaled and paramedics and a fire truck were already there.

I had to stop twice to warm up on the drive home, which just consisted of me stopping at an off ramp, keeping the motorcycle going, and walking and shaking out my shivers. I made it home and couldn't get to sleep I was so cold and full of jitters. I hopped in the hot tub, warmed up, and fell asleep. For my last lucky of the day, I woke up and stumbled downstairs into bed, and instantly fell asleep again.

I tried to take a picture of my black and blue left-ass-cheek, but it didn't come out, sorry Waffles.

Three Day Weekend Hijinx

Three day weekend for me this week. I spent Friday morning up at Stevens and re-learned how to snowboard, day 17 up at the pass this year, not bad! The snow was slushy, and I stuck to groomers all morning, but by the end of the morning I was doing laps on the backside, which tired me out quick. My boots are a bit too big, and whenever I do a toe-side turn my heel comes up out of the boot, so I am putting all of my weight on my toes, particularly the big knob behind my big toe.

Once I tired out boarding, I hit the Foggy Goggle for a beer and catching a few March Madness updates. I caught one of my two championship-game teams, Pittsburgh, struggling against E. Tennessee State, which isn't a good omen for the games to come. My bracket is in shambles as of Saturday night, but at least all of my Final Four teams are still intact, which can't be said of half of my pool for picking Washington to make it to the Final Four.

Parents made it home Friday afternoon about 30 minutes before I got back from the pass. It was great to see them again and hear their fun stories from Arizona. It is sad not to have the house to myself anymore, but I also missed having them around. I can't make fun of them nearly as much when they aren't here goof-balling around to make fun of. We watched basketball until the last games of the day were over.

Andrew and BAM picked me up, and we headed up to Kenmore to one their college buddy Ross's house. We got a poker game going, and I cleaned house. Poker is easy when you get cards and hit flops. We followed up poker with Liar's Dice, and played a dozen rounds of liar's dice, which lasted until 4am. Liar's Dice just might surpass Quarters as the game kings play. I don't think I ever won a game of Liar's Dice, but I had a majority of my buy-ins paid for by side bets.

Alarm clock woke me up at 11am, nice and hung over. I didn't really drink that much the night before, but when my head hit the pillow on Friday night, I knew I'd be in for a rough morning today. Yes, indeed. I chugged cranberry juice and hopped on the motorcycle and headed down to Tacoma for the PLU BBQ ultimate frisbee tournament. Riding a motorcycle for the first time in a month, in 40 degree weather is one of the best hangover cures I have ever experienced. I felt fine on the ride, but when I got to the fields and changed into my cleats, I nearly toppled over because my head felt like it weighed 30lbs from still being hung over.

I just made a guest appearance today for a few games with the WSU team, and we won the last game of the day in thrilling fashion. Down 4-7 at the half, then 4-8 after the next point, we mounted a very nice comeback to win the game on universe point, 13-12. I stuck around for burgers and beer while watching the showcase game, then motored back up to Seattle.

Tomorrow I go help Marc install a hot tub at his place, watch more basketball, and yes, probably even drink a little more beer.

Joy

More often than not, I am happy. I think it is because a lot of things make me happy. The happiness is usually a subdued happiness, which might manifest itself in the form of a smirk here and an inner smile there. It isn't often that I have a shit-eating grin that I can't wipe off my face. This weekend was unique because it was filled with moments that made me extremely happy--moments you experience and think: I should remember this.

Shortly after my last post, I watched the Apple Cup. And it went to overtime, just like I called last Saturday. Now Jeremy's got to do 100 pushups on our first day of skiing this winter. I think I'll make it easy (and humiliating) for him by having him do ten pushups at the top of every chair lift until his 100 are done.

Poker night slash birthday night at Casa De Chako was amazing. Not to sound too mystical, but The Chakos always seem to have a glow of positive energy around them, which seems to instantly bring up the energy in a room. It might just be that whenever we're together we're giddy to play poker or go jump in a river, but I'm already looking forward to our next bash.

Zeem and Cayne's Josh filled out the poker bloggers, and a few newbies from The Wife's work joined us for two tournaments. I won the first tournament with a couple nice suckouts and then my hands held up and I took it down. Dr. Chako got second and The Wife got her money back in 3rd.

In our second tournament, The Wife and Doc both made the money again (ringers...), along with Zeem. I think The Wife took the second one down, with Zeem in 2nd and Doc in 3rd. After the second tournament finished up, it was around 11pm and we had a pretty interesting conversation about poker and styles of play. The Wife and I play a similar tight-aggressive game, but either because she is a woman or because she plays a wee bit tighter than me, she is always picked out at a table as the nit (for a definition of nit, here's a post by GadZOOKS). She provided a few stories from her casino trips where other players not in the hand comment "uh oh, look who's betting..." and guys will still call her down to middle pair when she's got the nuts. She takes advantage of calling stations by playing tight-aggressive, and it works: she is a winning player.

I'm still trying to figure out how to play multiple styles, and I think I learn a lot more by playing a small-ball style that Dr. Chako plays. You see a lot more flops and get the opportunity to test yourself with many difficult decisions. Normally, I play tight-aggressive and attempt to make my opponents make the tough decisions, but I often wonder how that makes me any better as a player. I've still got plenty to learn, and the complexity of poker is why I love it.

After poker, I gave Tacoma Josh a call to see if he'd still be up for some Guitar Hero World Tour, and he vocally nodded in agreement. I got down to Tacoma around 11:30pm and we rocked out on his new drum set and new sliding guitar until 4am. Mashing the drum set is an incredibly fun addition to the series, and I had flashbacks of my middle school percussion days. I was a terrible drummer. Still am! Highlight of the night had to be earning enough money to unlock the Tool set list, including Parabola, Schism and one other song. Tool songs are fucking epic. Parabola must have had five different outros, and all I can say is, I'm glad I was on the guitar and not on the drums.

During the second song, Schism, Josh started in on a drum solo like Animal from the Muppets...



... he was going strong for the first minute of the drum solo, while I continued strumming away on the guitar. After the second minute of soloing, Josh started to slow down. After the third minute, he started to fall apart. During the fourth minute of the drum solo, the drums were silent. I continued strumming, and noted the time the drums were quiet. 3:41am, and Josh has officially run out of gas.

Schism > Josh.

He grabbed energy from somewhere and finished out the set, possibly it was from the delicious Black Butte Porter. I drove back up to Seattle and arrived around 4:30am and fell asleep the instant my head hit the pillow.

I awoke at noon today to a sunny afternoon and decided to skip breakfast. Instead, I took my poker winnings, my motorcycle, and rode off to Duvall for a prime BBQ pork sandwich. I didn't plan on drinking in Duvall, but the lady at Teddy Bear BBQ saw my Moose Drool sweatshirt and let me know about their Moose Drool on tap special. I decided to grab a pint to go with my sandwich and watch the first half of the Seahawks game. Their bbq pork sandwich is so good, NOM NOM NOM!!

I talked with the owner after overhearing that they are opening a second store in Monroe, which just so happens to be directly on the way back from Stevens Pass. She let me know about their website, and I headed out to ride the High Bridge Road on my way to Marc's for the second half of the football game.

My third time eating at the BBQ shack and my fourth time on High Bridge Road, and they just keep getting better. My High Bridge Road ride today was amazing because this time was the first where I could see the snow-capped mountains to the west. With the onset of winter and my first season's pass, snow on the mountains is like the pre-game show before an NFL football game you've been waiting to watch all week. So close to skiing action, I can't wait!

The Seahawks ended up blowing it again, but Marc and I got a few games of Madden in before I rode back down to Seattle. The ride was freezing, but I had a pizza and hot tub to look forward to. A soak in a scorching hot tub after three slices of pizza is definitely something that gives me a shit-eating grin that does not go away. Add a woman or two and a day of skiing to the pizza and hot tub equation, and that equals a grin that will not go away all winter :)

Motorcycle Video

Another nice weekend in Seattle. I think this is the fourth or fifth "last weekend of summer." It might be a little too cold to call this a summer weekend, but I know there won't be many of these weekends for motorcycle riding until next May. I was hoping to get some ultimate in at Greenlake this morning, but despite the good weather only three other people showed up to play. We tossed the disc for an hour, then I decided a motorcycle ride to Duvall to try and save the day.

I revisited the best BBQ restaurant I've ever been to for lunch, Teddy Bear's BBQ, and washed down the Papa Bear BBQ sandwich with a Moose Drool. My parents are back from their two-week road trip and my mom got me this great Moose Drool sweatshirt that I'll be wearing all winter, for many winters to come! Teddy's Papa Bear sandwich is something I might kill for. It is that good. Just thinking about this afternoon's pork sandwich makes my mouth water. The fact that big trophies line the wall reaffirm that they know what they are doing.





After eating, I made my way to the windy road Susie introduced me to a few months back. I had my camera with me, so I experimented with taking a video while I rode the motorcycle. After a few failed attempts, I eventually tightened the string to leave as little slack as possible around my neck so the view from the camera would be above the windshield of the motorcycle. My first few attempts had the gas cap as the lead role, but the final try worked out okay. I think the camera shut off after five minutes, which is alright because I got stuck behind a truck shortly after the video cuts out. The quality is a lot better on the original video, but YouTube cuts the file size from 450mb down to about 20mb.




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Cabin Trip with the Chakos

Zeem also joined in for a great way to spend one of the last 75 degree days of summer. Seven of us headed up to my parents' cabin near Darrington. I headed out early because I wanted to check out the Oso Loop road and do a quick check on the mileage from the river to the cabin. The Oso Loop Rd. is a really nice two-mile offshoot from Hwy 530 with windy turns and two overpasses that cross the Stillaguamish. Ever since riding the motorcycle up to the cabin for the first time last year, I wanted to check out the road through Oso, and it did not disappoint.

I got a few chapters read in Clifford Simak's "Way Station" before the Wife and Dr. Chako (and au pair and kids) arrived. We took a brief tour of the cabin and surrounding areas before Zeem arrived. Per usual trips to the cabin, we didn't spend much time at the cabin proper. From the cabin to the river wound up being 1.5 miles, and the seven of us made the trek while picking blackberries along the way.

The water was a bit on the chilly side, but we still spent a good three hours at the river. The rope swing is still intact, and there were plenty of skipping stones to occupy our time. Dr. Chako has got some skipping skills, and we each had throws that skipped clearly a few times, then started the trail of nearly impossible to count skips as the stone slows and eventually falls from the surface. Older son gathered up enough courage to try the rope swing, getting a nice rope burn in the process. Sandwiches, grapes and delicious chocolate chip cookies rounded out our riverside picnic. A fisher upstream caught a HUGE salmon, but nicely released it back into the river so it could lay some eggs, or at least pee on some eggs.

After three hours of fun in the sun, we hiked back up to the cabin and rode into Darrington for beer, onion rings and fries. An almost perfect end to a fun last days of summer trek. What would the perfect ending be? Ice cream!

The ride back to Seattle was kind of crazy. I was zooming on 530 and passed a few cars on a long straight stretch. The instant I got back into the right lane two motorcycles flashed past me going around 100mph. I thought, "crazy bastards" then realized with them ahead of me, there is no way a cop will pull me over. Maybe not the smartest approach, but it made for a fun and stress-free ride to Arlington.

Being Unique and Praise

How important is being unique? To me, it is a pretty big deal. From playing video games to picking remote hiking trails, I like to take the road less traveled.

Tyler and I have had numerous chats over the years about certain classes in various games we have played. He is usually one of the few people to see the potential in classes that rarely get played--he was one of the first suppression runemasters in Daoc. He was the only one around when he stopped playing the game; six months later he reactivates his account and half of the guild is suppression-spec. In one of our latest games, Team Fortress 2, you can change between nine classes at any point during the round, and I am usually switching to the classes that aren't played both for balance and uniqueness.

I love to go hiking on non-popular trails. Hiking through the woods on an uncommon trail gives me more ownership over the hike than passing by hordes of people along the way. Coming to a lakeside campsite where no tents have been pitched is a very cool feeling.

Uniqueness came to me yesterday while riding the motorcycle down to Tacoma from Seattle. I was the last person allowed onto the express lanes heading south on I-5. On a perfectly sunny, 70 degree Saturday, I was the only soul on the express lanes within view for seven miles through urban Seattle. I-5 was packed going both north and south, which made my uniqueness all the more noticeable. Of course, I took advantage of the solitude and zig-zagged across all three lanes like I owned the highway. As I approached the merge back with normal I-5, I caught up with a red pickup truck and as I passed him we exchanged wide-eyed ear-to-ear grins.

The rest of the ride down to Tacoma I spent thinking about uniqueness and how important it is for students. In my summer health class, Judy re-introduced me to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, which states that certain needs have to be met in order for other needs to be considered and for personal growth. Teaching is all about having our students attain personal growth, so an understanding of Maslow's theory makes sense.



Physiological needs have to be met before we worry about safety needs. If we don't have respect for others, it is hard to imagine having morality. Uniqueness fits into this pyramid at the upper level, as self-actualization, but in order to think about one's uniqueness, an individual first needs to feel good about themselves and their skills. Acknowledging and praising each student's unique talents is something I hope to do while teaching. After the second day of teaching, Teach told me about a student he praised for getting a math problem done correctly. It wasn't a hard math problem, but Teach praised the child nonetheless. That student said Teach was the first person to ever say he was good at math. And until Teach praised his math skill, he believed he was bad at math.

Teachers have an enormous amount of power when it comes to the minds of students. One unintended put down by a teacher can mean a life of hatred for a particular subject. My special ed teacher told us on Friday that good teachers are great liars, which I got a chuckle out of. Lying to students and lying to parents are necessary skills for good teachers. While not necessarily a lie, praising a 4th grader for being able to write down his name and add numbers together (which most 2nd graders can do) is not necessarily deserving of praise to me. In a parent-teacher conference, reporting that the student is excelling at math and pushing himself every day is a much different route than "Billy is failing math and won't pass the WASL." Praising students' talents both to the students and their parents is such a boost to self esteem that it makes criticism of students a waste of time.

My next question is how to bring up areas where the students are lacking, and how to deal with the angry parent who waves the failed math WASL report in my face. I thought you said Billy was doing great at math, what gives?! If a student is bad at math, is it enough to praise their ability to add two plus two? Will praise alone open the floodgates to students pushing themselves to try harder math and eventually attain grade-level aptitude at the subject? I think starting with praise and bringing in areas where the student can improve, or give examples of exercises the student can practice might be the way to go.

Summer Break - Week 2

Week two of summer break I ventured off to three different lakes. The first lake, and the most familiar of the three to me, Lake Tapps, I already wrote about for Jimmy's bachelor party. The second lake, Lake Cavanaugh, I was invited over for a Saturday night get together to christen Renee's Dad's new lake house. The third lake, Beaver Lake, is located over on the Olympic Peninsula, and is the only of the three lakes I did not jump into, as the weather cooled off on Sunday.

Friday and Saturday were the hottest days of the year in Seattle, and I got to spend Friday in a pool and Saturday at a lake. Friday I spent with my friend Joe and his wife Kristen and their 1-yr old baby Jane. Jane is much more of a climber than she is a swimmer--as soon as her little feet hit the water she would start climbing whoever dare lower her into the water. Saturday I made the motorcycle ride up to Lake Cavanaugh around noon. The road was perfect--zig zags and two-lane highway once I got off I-5. Tyler, Renee and a few other friends I hadn't seen in a while were already at the house, and when I arrived we all walked down to the lake with a cooler of beer and two inflatable Mylee Cyrus dolls rafts.

We spent the majority of our time swimming in the lake and playing ping pong. Willy, Tyler, Mike and I must have played fifty games of ping pong on Saturday, it was a bit overwhelming. We were all so evenly matched that it made for very tight games--the tightest being a 28-26 victory by Mike and I over Willy and Tyler. That brought our mini series to a 2-2 tie, and Mike and I won the fifth.

Sunday involved a lot of motorcycle riding. I left Lake Cavanaugh at 10am and rode back to Seattle. I grabbed some lunch and some warmer clothes then made my way to the Edmonds-Kingston ferry. Riding motorcycles on the ferry is a great deal because not only is the fare cheaper, I also get to skip the two-hour line of cars and head straight to the front of the line! I rode west on 104, which takes you past a really neat little town called Port Gamble. There was a wedding going on at the church when I drove by, and it looked almost too good to be true. Highway 104 keeps going and it takes you along the Hood Canal floating bridge. Nothing too special about the bridge itself, but the view was holy. Rays of sunlight were shining down through the clouds from the southwest and directly to the west were the snow-capped and foreboding Olympic mountains. I felt like Frodo leaving the shire. For reals. Unfortunately, no stops on the bridge, so no photo from Frodo.

Highway 104 eventually meets up with 101, which took me past Sequim and Port Angeles, over to the bustling town of Beaver, WA (just outside of Forks). The ride on 101 along the south edge of Lake Crescent might be my new favorite stretch of highway. Ten miles of 30mph curves along a beautiful lake is motorcycle riding at its very best. It reminded me a lot of Tahoe.

I met one of my closest college friends in Beaver, Jenna. She is living with her boyfriend and his family on their property which covers a good five acres on Beaver Lake. Apparently Andy's grandfather used to work at the lumber mill and the mill's owner gave the land to his grandfather for a ridiculously cheap $9,000 in the 70s. The place is great, and when I arrived the whole family was outside playing volleyball in the backyard, celebrating Andy's dad's birthday. Jenna and I tossed the disc, then we all went inside for some delicious blackberry pie.

I'm not very familiar with living the rural life or having a big family, but they made me feel right at home. The most amazing part of the family get-together had to be Andy's aunt Cathy. She will be 58 in November and she has Down's Syndrome. The average life expectancy for people with Down's Syndrome is in the 30s. Cathy looked great, and she was my partner for a game of marbles after we all finished our pie, and we wiped the floor with Jenna and Andy (ok, we beat them by a single point). Cathy's situation seems to be perfect--she works at the grocery store less than a mile away, she has nearly her entire family living close by to help and support her, and the entire town embraces her whenever they go to the grocery store or come by the house to visit--no wonder she's lived so long.

Jenna decided to get a bit frisky and challenged Andy and I to a 2v1 match of horseshoes, and she got her ass handed to her. Well, OK, we only won by one, but if not for a lucky ringer by her late in the game, the score would not have been close. After horse shoes, Andy taught me a new game called "The Beaver Lake Game." You take two rocks, throw one up in the air over the lake, then try to hit the first airborne rock with the second. It is nearly impossible, and an impressively fun way to spend time by the lake, especially while looking for good skipping stones.

We decided to retire back to Andy's house and play some cards before calling it a night. I was gathering up my stuff from the grandparent's house when I realized I was missing my keys. Checked my pockets and my bag--nothing. Checked around the bike, inside the house where I set my stuff, then out on the lawn where I first greeted everyone--nothing. Jenna offered to help me search, which I took as a sign that she had probably pilfered the keys and wanted to poke fun at me, but that didn't turn out to be the case (after much prodding on my part). We looked for a good hour with no luck, so we headed to Andy's and had a fun project to look forward to in the morning... the three of us played some cards for an hour then hit the hay.

I woke up around 9am with a guard dog at my feet. Brock is part husky and part wolf, and had been rightly accused of mauling two kittens at a neighbor's house the evening I arrived. But does Brock really look like a killer?



Stone cold, baby.

Andy was long gone for work, so Jenna and I had some breakfast and played cards before our second attempt at finding my keys. Lucky for us, the 30% chance of rain was not happening just yet, and within 30 minutes I miraculously spotted the keys in the grass right by where Jenna and I had tossed the frisbee the day before--which is a place we had combed over multiple times, but just didn't have the right angle to spot them. Huge sigh of relief on my part, and I must have stuck them in my sweatshirt pouch and had them flip out.

We drove to "Third Beach," not to be confused with First or Second beaches. It was super foggy on the ocean, which was not too much of a shocker. The fog made for a pretty cool view of the rocks stretching out into the ocean, and the seals were showing off for our crowd of two.



We grabbed lunch at the place Jenna used to work and I downed a french dip and chocolate shake while we played a game of cribbage (which I held on to win! a first!). Playing all the card games with Jenna definitely made me miss playing cards with Andrew. We haven't been in the same town since 2000, and when we get together cards always get played.

I decided to wrap up my time in Beaver early at 2pm on Monday because it looked like the rain would be coming into town soon. Beaver is a fun little town, and if Jenna can keep busy I'm sure she'll have a great time. I got lucky on the ride back and missed nearly all of the rain except for a little drizzle while waiting for the ferry. It just POURED when I was in the warm, sheltered ferry, but by the time we docked in Edmonds the rain had stopped and I made the twenty minute ride home with ease.

Week 3 I originally planned to get another motorcycle ride in, but the weather looks crappy. I'll be recharging my batteries to full capacity during the week. I also got invited to play in a frisbee tournament up in Burlington on the weekend, so that should be a fun way to cap off summer break :)

Edit--8/31/08

Also on the trip to Beaver, the diner I ate lunch at with Jenna also doubles as a gas station. The gas station is so old, and oil prices have gone up so much, that the price the pump shows is actually half of what you have to pay. It says so right on the hand-written sign at each pump: "Payment is 2x the price shown."

Summer Break - Week 1

My first week of break started out with a bang. Monday I met up with a few classmates and we headed up to Lake Wenatchee for a couple nights of camping out under the stars. There were so many stars at night we had to turn on a light to make out the constellations. The lake was amazing and the weather was beautiful. We cooked steaks, played board games and even got in some Asshole (a drinking game where my true colors shine).

From Lake Wenatchee, I ditched my camping gear with one of my very awesome classmates and continued on to Winthrop, WA, where I met up with my parents at Sun Mountain Lodge. It is as swanky as it sounds. The motorcycle ride from Lake Wenatchee to Winthrop was a lot of fun because I had eight hours to travel what amounted to a four-hour trek. I stopped in the bustling town of Entiat for a big breakfast. I stopped at Lake Chelan for an hour of reading in the shade by the lake, which turned out to be 30 minutes of reading transformed into a 30 minute nap.

The nap recharged my batteries and I rode in to Winthrop with two hours until check-in time, so I stopped at the ice cream parlor in the middle of town. My family usually eats there whenever we go to Sun Mountain, and we usually get a round of putt-putt golf in, and my Mom usually wins. Unfortunately, we didn't make the putt-putt round this year, but I at least got to have some ice cream before their arrival (picture below). Winthropians know how to do ice cream. I spent another 45 minutes there eating ice cream and reading. From Winthrop, I rode nine miles to Patterson Lake, just below Sun Mountain Lodge. It was still sunny and 85 degrees when I jumped in the lake, but when I left the lake an hour later (more reading), clouds appeared out of nowhere, which made for my first arrival at Sun Mountain not in the sun.

Sun Mountain consisted of fine dining, deer 10ft from our back door, gin & tonic drinking, reading, pinnochle with the parents, sun bathing, billiards, ping pong and... golf! Golf with my parents is amazingly fun, and even giving my Dad three extra strokes each hole this year, I still retain the title as best male golfer in my family. I actually beat my Mom this year too, but that was a fluke.

You may be asking what has got me all wound up in a book. To my knowledge I haven't mentioned any books on this blog for years. I stumbled upon Clifford Simak's "City" last Friday at the library and picked it up. It had me hooked all last week until I finished it this morning. It won the 1953 International Fantasy Award for Best Novel. It is about Man, Dogs, Robots, the past, present and future. It is a great book, and although I have not read much science fiction, after seeing some of the author's who praised this book (Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Gene Wolfe, Allen Steele), and actually recognizing a few of the names--I think I might check out Simak's "Way Station" next.

Friday morning I took off early from Sun Mountain and experienced quite possibly my most enjoyable motorcycle ride to date. It is hard to top a few of my rides around Tahoe in the first months of motorcycle ownership, but my ride on Saturday comes as close as possible. From Winthrop, I rode West across the North Cascades Highway, then up to Vancouver, B.C. for the World Ultimate and Guts Championships. I had been looking forward to riding the North Cascades on my motorcycle from before I bought it over a year ago. When I was in my teens, I dreamed of renting a fast sports car and driving the North Cascades Highway for a birthday. Doing it on a motorcycle did not creep into my mind back then, but now that I have done it, I can't imagine a more fun way to experience that road. The weather was perfect and I never got stuck behind any slow vehicles in the 100 miles from Winthrop to just outside Burlington. The North Cascades Highway itself is a beautiful 2 to 4 lane highway which is the north-most passage across the Cascades in Washington. The road is closed during the winter and the speed limit varies between 50-70mph, but the majority of the ride seemed to be on 35-45mph advised turns. 35-45mph advisory signs are aimed at semi-trucks, but on a Kawasaki Ninja 250, with a little leaning, I can take those turns at 60-70. The ride was everything I hoped it would be, in fact, I was not even listening to music as I made the ride. I've become accustomed to listening to my iPod on any ride longer than 20 minutes or so, but I wanted to take this ride in with all my senses, and I'm glad I went with the music of the road instead of the iPod for this section of highway.

Customs was slow. Why don't they have an HOV/Motorcycle lane at customs? I guess it might take just as long, with the additional passports to check, but I waited about an hour getting into Canada at noon on a Friday. I also thought the speed limit in Canada was extra slow prior to this trip, but I was averaging 70mph on Canada 1, heading West into Vancouver. The km/h meter on my bike is cut off by the mileage ticker, so I know I was going somewhere between 40km/h and 140km/h, but I'm not sure what 70mph translates to.

I got a bit lost in Vancouver, trying to find University of British Columbia solely on my memory of a googlemap I scouted out the night before. I crossed a couple of bridges and was stuck in traffic on the second bridge when a guy on a scooter zipped past me and barely missed smacking into the stopped truck in front of me. Guy turns around and says, "Nice day for a ride!" The guy turns out to be an 80-year old dude with a white mustache and decked out in full leathers--riding on a scooter with flame decals. We rode together for a while along the coast, chatting at stop lights, until I finally asked him where the hell UBC is! He said he was actually heading there too, but just taking the scenic route, he'd be glad to show me the way. Sweet!

Then another image popped into my head. The old guy in Family Guy who is on Chris's paper route. "Hey there, muscley-arm! Why the long face? Do you like popsicles? There's a freezer full of them in my basement! Why don't you run down and grab a few?"

It freaked me out. But, true to his word, he showed me the way, which involved crossing another bridge. I made it to UBC just in time to see my friends play against Japan in the semi-finals of the World Ultimate Frisbee Championships. Those Japan guys are speedy, but they just could not match the skill and intensity of the USA team. Not to mention the height difference--that didn't help Japan one bit. I got a couple sweet shots of Sam catching the game-winning score at the end of this post. We went out to an all you can eat sushi place after their game and we ate so much sushi they eventually booted us out, taking a loss I'm quite sure of.

I was tired, full of food, and no place to sleep. Room at the Sockeye house was full, but I knew a handful of other people in town for the tournament, but had no way of getting in touch with them. I made sure I got a room number for Will before I left the fields. He was staying in the UBC dorms, so I made my way to The Rits and found the place with some help. I walked around the building a few times with no way of entering until I spied some people coming down the stairwell and I rushed to the entry, getting there just before the door closed behind them. I made my way up to 209, knocked--no answer. Balls. Walked around some more, scouting out the dorm, looking for a lobby or a place I could catch some Z's... when I ran across a magical dojo in the middle of the dormitory.

It was crazy. There were sliding paper-pane doors, just like the ones you see in Japan, or at least in movies about Japan. The "please remove shoes" sign was posted outside, so I slipped off my motorcycle shoes, slid the screen to the side and walked into the dimly lit, matted room. The low table occupied the middle of the room, but nobody else was in the room and although the mats were hard, I slid the screen closed behind me and used my towel as a pillow.

I woke up the next morning with the sun and walked over to the ultimate field. The clock outside a coffee shop said 6:45am, and the first round wasn't until 9am. The guys final game wasn't until 4pm, but I lasted the entire day at the field to see them lose to Canada 15-17. It was an amazing day of ultimate, and although I considered leaving earlier in the day for Seattle, I enjoyed the gratuitous amounts of ultimate watching.

It would have been a perfect weekend if not for one thing...

the ride back to Seattle last night was horrible. Wearing a long-sleeve t-shirt and a motorcycle jacket without the rain liner, I rode the 150+ miles from Vancouver to Seattle in a rain storm, half of it in the dark. I didn't think I would make it, especially after taking a wrong turn at the US border and heading East for 15 unnecessary minutes. I stopped in Bellingham drenched to the core, hands frozen. I sat in a booth at Denny's, knowing that if I took any of my clothes off, putting them back on would be 10x worse. I ordered a cup of hot chocolate, a bowl of vegetable-beef soup, in attempt to warm up my core before another 80 miles on the highway. I felt great leaving Bellingham, it wasn't raining and I was warm. Before I made it to the freeway, the skies closed at it poured--just POURED. I gritted my teeth, breathed through my nose to keep as much warm air in my mouth, and tried to think warm thoughts as I froze my way home.

I crawled up the back steps in Seattle, teeth chattering and skin blue. I stripped down and rolled into the hot tub. It stung at first, and then I realized I still had goosebumps. I was in 100 degree water and had goose bumps... that's not right. After soaking for a good 45 minutes I felt like slush and zonked as soon as my head hit the pillow.

Week 2 Outline:

Bachelor Party Tuesday night at Lake Tapps.
Camping Possibly?
Lake Cavanaugh party on Saturday.

I don't think it will beat week 1, but I'm going to have fun trying :)

Photos from week 1 (chronological order):

10,000th Post!

Just passed my 10,000th mile post on my motorcycle! On my ride into school this morning I saw the 10,003 tick over to 10,004, because I forgot to look five minutes earlier--weak!

May 12th was my bike's first birthday. 10,000 miles in 14 months isn't too shabby. I was looking at putting together a little motorcycle recap over the past 14 months, but I am a little too lazy for that. Looking to the future, I'm hoping to get in plenty of motorcycle rides around the cabin this summer and also hitting the North Cascades highway and getting over to Port Angeles and Victoria, B.C.

A Little Bit of Everything

Motorcycle trip, live poker, pictures and maybe even some poetry if you're lucky--how about them apples?

I rode the ninja up to the cabin today. I was in dire need of a good motorcycle ride, and the trip up to the cabin was perfect. I checked the mileage when I rolled up to the cabin and the trip is just over 70 miles--35 miles on the freeway and 35 miles on windy two-lane highway. The freeway riding is fun, because traffic was moving along quickly, and the two-lane highway was a blast because I only got stuck behind a semi once, and I was able to pass him within a few minutes.

Because I was at the cabin, and my potlatch team is "Spear It!" this year, I tried to find some tree limbs to whiddle down into spears. I found a couple good stashes of fallen wood to use, whiddled a few "spears" and then left for more motorcycle riding. I'll likely be back up to the cabin on Sunday with the family, and there will be plenty of time to whiddle then. Good ol' whiddlin'

There is a mountain loop road up near the cabin, and I wanted to go check it out for future reference. I wasn't really sure what to expect, because I knew the Cascades had gotten some snow this past weekend. The cabin is only at 500ft elevation or so, but lies in a valley surrounded by mountains. This morning was mostly cloudy, so I could see the base of the mountains, but not the peaks.

I love it when clouds mask the true height of mountains. The way the clouds settled in today, the mountains rose from the valley, up about 1000ft, then became engulfed in clouds. With the cloud cover, you just have to guess where the mountains end, and I invariably look about twice as high as where the mountain peaks probably are. I couldn't shake the "Big Rock Candy Mountain" song in "O' Brother Where Art Thou" from my head:



The mountain loop road eventually changed from paved to dirt road, and I don't have much experience riding on anything but pavement with the ninja. Ninjas are meant to ride on pavement, but this dirt road was the smoothest dirt road I've ever been on. I fishtailed quite a bit, but besides the monster pothole or two that rocked me to my core, the road was a lot of fun to ride on. I didn't see a soul for about 20 miles on the dirt road until I came upon three other motorcycles stopped at a turnout.

They were low on gas, asked me if I had been on the road before. I hadn't, but I knew it was a loop, and we were close to the midway point. They said they would be able to go about five more miles before they would have to turn around and get gas. Lucky for them, about a mile later the road took a turn for the worse:







Snow and motorcycles don't mix, as my Dad can attest to (ask him for the story next time you meet him). I headed back to town a bit disappointed about not being able to do the loop just yet, but my gloom was quickly lifted when the sun started to shine through the clouds on my way out of the forest. I was running low on gas myself, and after getting gas at the only stop sign in town, I had to go back to this park I passed by to take a few pictures of the mountains:





The blue sky reveals that the mountains do not actually rise to Olympus (darn!), but the lighting was really cool. I wish I had brought a disc and a buddy to toss with, then it would have been perfect.

It was still early, so I contemplated taking Jordan's advice and hit a casino on the way home for some live poker. I contemplated for the next 40 miles or so, and decided to go for it. It had been a long time since my last time playing live poker, I was due!

There were a handful of tables running at Tulalip, and I put my name on the 4/8 limit and 1/2 NL lists. I would have rather played No Limit, something I have only done once or twice live, but the 4/8 seat opened up first.

The first hour of play had me folding non-stop. The table was lively, and there was money to be won, but every hand was going to a showdown and I simply didn't get the cards or the flops to see showdowns with. I finally picked up a pot raising UTG six-handed with 99 and picked up the blinds.

A few hands later I get dealt KK in the small blind. Old guy who just sat down a few hands ago raises UTG, button calls, I repop it, which gets a few "Ohh??'s" from players not in the hand... UTG calls, as does the hijack. Flop comes a very nice uncoordinated all unders flop, and I bet out. Old man UTG calls, Button folds.

Turn comes the dreaded ace, but I have UTG on QQ-TT, with AK a possibility, but for some reason I doubt it. I bet out again and he just calls, so I am pretty sure I'm good. River comes a blank and I fire again, and he insta calls with... Jack-4... for J-hi. What?!?

If you've played low-limit live limit games, you know most of the old guys are the steadiest rocks out there. This guy just called the river with jack high. It was a huge pot and brought me back into the positive, but I went on to spew half of my chips over the next hour. There were a ton of limped pots, and I was getting more than enough odds to call with suited connectors and those dastardly middle pairs, but I just wasn't hitting anything on the flop, turn, or river.

I got 99 three times within about 20 minutes and the only time I won was the first time when the blinds folded to my UTG raise. The other two times the flop came all unders, which made my hands almost impossible to get away from. The first all-unders flop was against the same old UTG man from the last hand, and he ended up having kings this time.

The second all-unders flop I took with my nines was a brutal hand. Four of us capped the betting preflop and saw a flop of 2h,3h,4d.

Second to act across from me bet out and the three of us called. Turn came the 7c.

Same guy bet out the turn and the three of us called again. River came the nasty 5s.

Same guy bets out the river, guy to my right flat-calls and I fold. First to act check-raises the river and the other two players call.

First to act has 66 for the rivered straight.
Second to act flopped a set with 33.
Third to act rivered a lower straight with AQo.

I was surprised to see I was ahead preflop, but found it incredibly hard to get away from this hand before the river. I pretty much just spewed chips like this for two hours outside of the big hand with KK. Damn live poker.

Overall, a very fun day, and I can't wait to get more of these in during the summer :)