It's a Blustery Day In the Neighborhood

Remember that crazy wind we had a few days ago? If you don't, you must not be from NorCal. However, I am proud to say that all of us here at UH... are not biased against anybody except those we choose to be biased against, so you can still read this post. Back to the relevant details:

The 22nd of May here in NorCal, it was a very windy day. Many people decided to stay indoors during the wind storm, thus missing out on all the fun one can have with wind. I was not one of those people. I decided to get my skateboard and go wind sailing down a smooth road. So I loaded up a couple PVC pipes, a large sheet and my skateboard and drove to the nearest smooth road I knew of: Interstate 5.

I parked on the side of the road and began setting up my equipment. Within minutes I was standing on my board sailing along with about a quarter sail in the wind. Apparently some people did not like my pioneering of this new sport; I could deduce as much from the honking, gesturing and yelling of most of the cars that passed me. Suddenly I heard sirens, so I naturally turned my head to see who the cop was after. This caused me to swerve across two lanes and into the fast lane with the cop car coming on at a furious pace. I knew I needed lots of speed really soon to avoid a collision with the cop, so I opened up full sail. I shot forward with a lunge and was quickly gaining on and passing many of the cars that had passed me before. Luckily the cop car stayed pretty close behind me, so the traffic parted before me like the red sea before Moses.

I continued like this for a few miles, when suddenly the road pitched upwards and I realized I was on one of the exits that go from the fast lane into a three way intersection in the sky. I was on a death path straight through the intersection and into a 6 foot wall on the other side. I knew what I needed to do, so I did it. I held my sail with one hand, held onto my board with the other hand, and jumped as high as I could. The sail lifted me over the wall safely, then slowly lowered me towards the ground. When I say slowly, I mean I was falling slowly, but I was still being propelled at over 100mph. When I touched down, I was jerked forward and then I felt like I was in a giant tumble dryer on its highest setting.

When my kinetic energy was finally exhausted, I looked behind me. About 40 feet above and 1000 feet behind me I saw an overpass with a gaping hole in its wall. 10 feet behind me I saw the burning remains of a dodge charger with blinking lights on its roof. I struggled to my hands and knees and crawled over to the wreckage. Inside was an unconscious middle-aged man. I pulled him out of the vehicle and had barely drug him 5 feet when the entire car blew up into a million pieces and everything went black.

The next thing I remember is waking up in an uncomfortable bed with a thousand bright flashes going off in my face. When the flashing calmed down I saw hundreds of photographers and reporters yelling questions at me. At that point I remembered nothing, so somebody told everyone to be quiet and told me that a witness had seen me pull a man out of his burning car just before it blew up. Was this true? I said yes, even though I had no clue if it was or not. Then a doctor told me I had pieces of shrapnel all in my back, so I couldn't leave the hospital for a few weeks. Then the reporters started screaming again, the room started spinning and everything went black. The next morning I awoke in time to have somebody shove a newspaper in my face. The front page was all about me and how I was the greatest hero of all time! The man I saved from the car said he didn't remember anything that had happened or why he was in a burning car, and I wasn't about to enlighten him.

Life in the Spotlight, part six

It was pretty easy to pull the wool over the head lifeguard's eyes. It seems they were short handed and needed someone real bad. The dude hardly even glanced at my papers before telling me I started in two days. He said my papers showed I had done some lifeguarding before, so he wouldn't bother going over my duties, except to show me where the lemon squeezer and ice were. So two days later at noon I was all settled in my high chair, shaded by an umbrella and sipping lemonade. As far as I could tell I was the only staff member there, so I didn't even pretend to be for real. The day went smoothly besides the few times some kids tried to climb out of the pool, but after some firm shoves and a little yelling I managed to keep all those brats in the water.
The next day is when it all happened. I was sitting on my throne, sipping my lemonade and controlling my pool with an iron fist, when some kid started screaming that he was drowning. Then my self-sacrificing instinct kicked in. Soon I had climbed down from my chair, ran over to the steps, climbed down the steps, and sunk to the bottom. Now it was an all out fight for survival. I thrashed, kicked and struggled for what seemed like hours, all to no avail. My life flashed before me in a time-lapse slideshow. Could this really be the heroic end to my wonderful life? No! I would never give up! I must complete my mission, impossible though it may seem. So I struggled onwards and downwards. Then it all came to an end as suddenly as it had begun. I felt my limp body being drug across the cement deck. I slowly and painfully lifted my eyelids. All I could see was a blinding white light. As the light faded, I became aware of three kids, not over ten years old, pulling me by the arms and head. Then my ears emptied of water and I heard a torrent of laughter that rolled on and on. Looking around I saw hundreds of kids rolling on the ground erupting with merriment.
After my brief encounter with the shallow end of the pool and what followed immediately thereafter, I have decided to retire from the lifeguard corps and find another career path to follow. I am still looking and any suggestions are welcome.

PC MotorX

In the past I have been accused of posting only my adventures that contained lots of gore. I must agree. However, this is only because I think they are my only adventures worth posting.

So this time I will post my adventure in PC formatting.

It was a cloudless day, so I decided to go take a ride on my bike. As I backed my low-emission, ultra-light, non-fat, vitamin-enhanced, no-plants-or-animals-harmed-in-the-making Honda out of my garage, I could not help feeling good about how successful the fight to let every human follow their roots and do what felt right to them was going. I turned the key and felt my engine purr to life. I tell you what, nothing beats an electric motor. All you have to do is plug it in, and in 3hours it will magically be ready for an entire 20mile trip!

I looked down the road stretching in front of me. A warm feeling crept around me as I watched a bunny rabbit hop unheeding in the same direction I was traveling. I decided I should learn something from nature, so I followed the bunny. Soon we were out in the country going at a peaceful, relaxed pace. Here and there the bunny stopped to nibble some grass. What a perfect picture of what humanity should be: each member should go along peacefully minding only their own business, taking only what they need from the communal basket of goods and services provided by the overseeing organization of the world. Even while I was in the middle of this thought, an unnatural sound began to grow and shake the very earth I was traveling over.

Then I saw it coming fast. It was one of those monsters of society, one of those evil machines of destruction, one of those max-emission, ultra-heavy, toy-hauling destroyers of civilization.
Yes, it was an SUV!!

I floored my Honda to try and warn my bunny friend, but it was too late! The red liquid of life was spilling from his white coat of holiness. Suddenly a butterfly flew past me and landed on bunny. Bunny is probably happier as a butterfly anyways.

Morning Fun

Today, I awoke with a start. Then I knew why. My little brother was jumping on me and my bed screaming "MOM SAYS TO GET UP SLEEPY HEAD!!" My entire body felt sore and I was cramping all over. As soon as my brother saw I was awake, he ran with all his might out the door. I slowly and painfully pulled myself out of bed and went to find and punish this little imp. When I found him he was sitting on the back steps of our house. I made a raging charge towards him, ending in a gracefull but determined dive straight into our freshly cleaned glass sliding door. The door held firm, but my face didn't. Through a cloud of stars and blurriness I barely made out the form of a tiny human moving away toward the back gate.

My head was spinning, but after some self assesment I desided to once again pursue my prey. When I went outside, my brother walked right up to me wagging his tail. I immediately plunged, pinning him to the cement. But wait! I must be blind! This isn't my brother, it's my dog! After this incident, I desided to postpone the punishment of the imp until some stars had once again disappeared. After an hour of laying on the couch, no stars had left, but the sun had come. "Oh, I give up!" I said to myself aloud. Suddenly, there was Mr. Imp jumping all over me and the couch screaming "MOM SAYS IT'S TIME FOR SCHOOL!"

Of Sumo Wrestlers and Panda Bears

The other day I was thinking...Who would win in a wrestling match between a Sumo wrestler and a Panda? At first I figured a Panda would win because it has claws and it probably weighs more. On second thought, however, I decided that a Sumo wrestler would win because he has experience in the subject. But then again, Pandas are so huge, the panda would just sit on his haunches chewing bamboo while the sumo guy aimlessly pushed, pulled and tugged. So, this really did not get me anywhere. (If you are still reading you are probably as bored as me).

Next I thought about whether a ninja would win against a sumo wrestler. Ninjas are so cool and fast that this one is obvious...the ninja would come out on top. Then again...the sumo wrestler is so armored in fat and grease that the ninja's kicks, punches and chops would either bounce back or slip by the slick surface of the sumo wrestler. (If you are still reading I now know that you don't have much to do or that you are really horrible at prioritizing your schedule).

The conclusion I came to is that Sumos are the best fighters from the Asian region. Of course there are tigers, but I wanted to compare animals that can sit and eat with hands or paws.

Sumos are the new Ninja!!! If you want to buy "I am Sumo!!" t-shirts, let me know!

Valentine's, Shmalentine's

"Valentine's already? I'm still sick from the super bowl!"

That is what all males are thinking right now. Some who have girlfriends might be thinking: "What? I just worked overtime all month to pay for that Christmas date I had to take girlfriend on so she wouldn't dump me!"

Unfortunately, females don't think this way. For some reason, they don't have fun cleaning up after superbowl parties and they look forward to Valentine's. They think: "Yes! A time to relax, maybe boyfriend will take me to a really fancy dinner!"


My sister is one of those female types. One problem though: she does not have a boyfriend, and I don't have a girlfriend. For the past week she has been walking around the house looking very depressed. Yesterday morning, I saw her walking down the hallway, more depressed than usual. I decided to cheer her up, so I said: "Good morning! Why don't you stop being depressed?" I immediately realized my mistake. I could imagine what was coming next.

"YOU GOOD FOR NOTHING LITTLE NOSY UNCARING WRETCH!"

Then she would proceed to thrash me into a million pieces. The only way to handle women is to compliment them. But don't get carried away. For example, if I had said "My, you look much better than usual today," she would have snapped out of depression on the spot; and started thrashing me all the same.


But my sister did nothing I expected. Instead she got all excited and yelled "thank-you, thank-you, thank-you! I'm so happy now, I could scream!" Then she screamed and busted my eardrums. Now this was a very strange reaction, so I called up a female counselor and asked what it meant. Guess what? Now I have to take my sister to the fanciest restaurant in San Francisco to keep her from becoming permanently depressed! My counselor told me that when I talked to my sister yesterday, she was so depressed she thought I asked if I could take her to dinner since she had no one else to take her. Now I walk around the house all day long, looking extremely depressed. My sister never even notices. Maybe I will let you know how the dinner goes. Then again, maybe you don't want to know.

First race of the season

I admit it, I am at a loss as to what to write. I'm sure everyone knows this feeling well.

So, for this post, I've decided to share a race report with everyone. Although a race report isn't necessarily meant for humor, most people find them to be quite interesting...however, these people are fellow cyclists so they have more of an interest in reading how my race went. I guess this is pretty much an experiment on our readers so be sure to let us know what you think about reading race reports and we will post them every once in a while. Maybe we will add some video footage of the race just to add a little twist. Here it goes!

Here are some definitions so that you can understand the cyclist language:

Tempo: The speed and intensity of a cadence.

Cadence: The number of pedal rotations per minute.

RR: Road Race, usually 50-80mi.

Crit: Criterium, a short fast race around city blocks. Races usually average 25-30mph for 40-60 minutes.

Cat (5, 4, 3, 2, or 1): The category a cyclist is in based on their ability. Cat 1's and 2's are the fast, professional cyclists.

Climb: The main steep section of a race.

Field: The group of cyclists in a race.

Distance: about 43 miles
Time: 1hr 5min.
Place: 7th

This was the first race/real ride I've done these past few months so I was pretty pessimistic coming into this race. At the start there were not very many cat. 4's so the official combined the 4's and 5's to give us a larger field. The start wasn't very cold so I did not have to wear too much; it turns out I over layered and ended up too warm on the climb. The first few miles were really windy but we were still riding at a pretty good tempo. I stayed in the front but made sure to never let myself in the wind. Once we were officially in the canyon road conditions turned really bad, lots of erosion, silt, mud, water, boulders and rocks... many riders went flat because of the rocks and such.
As we neared the climb a group from the z-team started taking control and I knew they were setting up their climbers so I prepared myself for a good ol' suffer fest up the hill. Sure enough they attacked on the climb and splintered the field, I was a little bit back from the front but I knew I wasn't too far to make up the distance so I stood up and...wait!! I've lost my legs from the end of last season, they don't want to cooperate! The acceleration I was expecting from myself dissolved into a sea of anguish as I resigned to the fact that I would have to do my best and make up the ground descending. Descending on this death trap of a road?? Yeah, right. I ended up with a group of 6 on the way back down but they were inexperienced and working with them was more work than it should have been. I worked pretty hard for a while until I realized that we weren't going to catch the leaders so I decided to rest a little and do a bit of work every now and then. It turns out that even though my group wasn't very good at working efficiently they were really strong!! And I began to feel that I was becoming more tired than they so I stopped working altogether and hoped to hang on till the end. At the end we split up on the final climb and I ended up behind them early so I rolled over the line quite a ways behind all but one.
The good thing about this race is that I finished quite a few minutes before the main field so I am happy to know that early on this season I am a little stronger than most of the field. I am hoping to get some points and upgrade to 3 ASAP so knowing that I am ahead of everyone else is encouraging.

There it is. If you did enjoy it, let us know.

Life in the Spotligh, part four

When Gore started yelling we finally woke up. He was walking calmly around the room, smashing pitchers, throwing chairs, kicking mirrors; he was amazing. I have never seen such professional fit throwing in my life! We all retreated to the bathroom and locked ourselves in. After an emergency consultation (and placing a poll on the web), we decided to come out fighting.
We threw open the door and charged out yelling with all our might. Gore glared at us and suddenly we found ourselves retreating again. Al made a pounce in our direction and then Brock whispered, "Why did you wake us up!?"



Encouraged by this, Josh yelled "WE QUIT!! HA! HA! HA! NOW WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO DO?" Gore lunged at us, grabbed us by the back of our necks and dumped us in a pile in the gutter. He then climbed into his tiny green tricycle car and proceeded to putt-putt down the road. 10 minutes and 3 feet later, I saw Al get out of the car, pick it up, and slam it repeatedly against a wall. Then I blacked out.


When I woke up, I was lying on the cement floor of a jail cell. Apparently the Vegas police system thought Josh, Brock and I were just a few wednesday morning drunks. After being released, we were hauled off to the Las Vegas Sanitary Facility, otherwise known as the dump. Soon all three of us had collected a few instruments and we decided to put on a show for those dull Waste Management workers.


This time, Josh had an old ukulele, Brock was on a broken piano, and I had a broom for a mic. Under the circumstances, I thought it sounded pretty good. Some guy started playing this cool beat behind us. It sounded like "beep, beep, beep, beep..." Maybe we should have got the hint, but we didn't, and the truck ran us over.


Now we are all home, separated forever. We decided being around each other gave us all bad luck. So much for my band.

Over waxed plank + skinny long rail = hilarious jibulation comedy!!!

That is a pretty interesting combination isn't it?? Well, you are about to read a story about the inspiration to this title. First let me define some of the supo - wiry terms used above.

Over waxed - Excess wax on object causing the sliding action to be very out of control.

Plank - A board of some sort used for sliding, spanking, building and many other things.

Skinny - Not much width (hmm)

Long rail - a slippery length of steel usually used for support but many times used for sliding over.

Hilarious - funny

Jibulation - extreme tricks for one to show off their style!

Now for the story:

The other day I was Snowboarding at a ski resort in the Central Sierra Nevadas. While there I decide to test my limits in the park; I was hoping to jib the kinked rail (a rail that abruptly changes directions from up to down to left to right and so on). As I passed over the park while riding the lift I was amused by watching people attempt the kinked rail. Some were amazing and some were lame. I was especially impressed by a skier who landed with his skis split parallel to the rail. He rode it like that the whole way!! I wished that I was flexible like him...although I'm pretty sure that it had an effect on someone's destiny.

All of a sudden I heard yelling and other unmentionables!! I soon realized that while watching the people below I had passed the lift exit zone and was now on my way back down the hill! When I came around again I made sure to exit at the right time but I still ended up leaving a part of me behind (I really need to work on exiting the chair).

Soon I was on the path toward the kinky, butterflies building, and as I zoned in on my mission time sloooowwed doooowwn. Wooooshhh! I flowed onto the rail and then time sped up and I was sliding on my bottom all the way down. Ouch! I've never had such a sore bum!! You might be thinking that it was the impact that really hurt but actually it was two laws of physics that came into play.

Let me explain. First, metal hitting metal can cause sparks and this happened when the metal edge of my board shot across the rail. When two surfaces scrape together, friction comes into play and when conditions and length of time are right, heat can be released in large amounts. So, first there was a spark, then there was my rear causing friction with the rail, and the next thing I felt was intense heat and a burning sensation under me as I slid more and more.

The next day I was in the hospital with a 2nd degree burn and a tip of the tailbone fracture. The doctor told me to always wear bottom pads from now on so now when I snowboard people tease me about being poofy.

Flats Happen

Today I went on a bicycle ride to get relaxed after my hand/spur surgery. I soon realized, though, that changing gears is harder with a spur than with a hand, but I made up for it by getting a good laugh every time I spurred a friend to make him ride faster. You should have seen them take off! Pretty soon I was all alone. A bad mistake. After just a few miles, my tire suddenly blew up, rocketing me two hundred feet into the clear blue sky. For a few quarter seconds I forgot about the danger I was in and was only conscious of how good it felt to be flying. Suddenly all thought of flight flew from my mind as my face contacted asphalt and proceeded to shave my face down to the bone. Then I woke up.

Ok, so this is what really happened: My friends made me work so hard I decided to fake I had a flat. Then I fell asleep on the side of the road and dreamed this whole story up to tell them when they came back to find me, which they didn't do. Instead they all went out for lunch and enjoyed my non-presence. While I waddled the 250 miles home I decided I would try something new: not get a flat next time I rode. Also maybe flying wasn't such a bad idea.

Jellyfish Rides!

I have a friend who lives on a ranch. Amazing, isn't it? I agree, it's absolutely amazing that I have a friend. Anyways, the ranch has horses. The other day my friend invited me to come ride a horse at his ranch. Ok, ok, to be totally honest my friend (Fred) is antisocial, to me anyways, so I had to help him invite me. So yesterday I showed up at his house, ready to ride! Fred already had my horse saddled and put in a skinny little stall so that the horse could not move. Fred said this was so I could get on easier. Fred explained everything about riding a horse, then strapped some spurs to my yellow mud boots and gave me a slap on the back that nearly broke my neck. As I was climbing down onto the horse, it was jumping up, trying to get out of the stall. Fred said that was a good sign, it meant the horse would be really docile when it was let into the big arena.
With a bit of trouble, I finally got my hands strapped down onto the horse. I never realized before that you were supposed to strap down your hands so tight. Fred opened the gate and the horse took off, bucking all around the arena. I frantically tried with all my might to slam my spurs into the horses rump like Fred had told me to do to make him slow down, but it wasn't working. The horse bucked me off over and over, but since my hands were strapped to him I always ended up back on top again. This was a wild ride! Once or twice the horse bucked me off on his side, then ran sideways against the wall, crushing every bone in my body. Finally the horse bucked me so hard, one of my hands tore off at the wrist, allowing me to slip the other one out.
After laughing his head off, Fred called an ambulance to take me to the hospital. I tell you what, hospital life is good! All the food you can eat, video games (which I can't play with only one hand), no school and lots of TV. Fred has invited me to come back any time, which I will do as soon as I have my new hand. This time, though, I'll be sure to kick even harder.

Rain and Snow!

It was raining! So, logically, that meant that somewhere it was snowing! Well, I wanted to know exactly where it was snowing, because I like to ski and you can't ski on a river. My brother and I grabbed our gear and loaded up in the car. We had been driving for about five minutes, going about 65-70mph when we started hydroplaning. Now anybody but my brother would have freaked out and let the car fix itself, but my bro was not about to let a chance to have fun slip away that easy. He slammed the brake, locking up the wheels, and yanked the steering to the right. Soon we were going sideways down the road at about 70mph. I naturally screamed and threw up my hands as I would do on a roller coaster (my brother later used it as evidence that i was scared). Now that we were sideways, my brother added an extra twist: He hammered the gas pedal. We suddenly regained traction and shot off the road, launching off the embankment. We must have got twenty feet of air!
Soon we found some snow. Around 1:00pm we had finally built a jump and were getting comfortable on it. My brother wanted to do a flip. He was flying down the slope toward the jump, when he decided to try a new trick instead. He fell and began rolling head over heels down the hill. Soon he had become a huge snowball. The snowball launched off the jump and flew all the way until it landed on our car. The snowball splattered all over, revealing my bro. A week later he said it was the funnest thing he ever did, but just then all he was saying was "wahoooo he ha howtch hee hah!" I wasn't sure, but I thought he was telling me to take him home, which I did; well...sorta. On the way home, I saw a patch of ice. I was a fast learner and so I did what I knew my brother would do: drive right onto the ice. When the car began to slide, I hit the brakes and turned the wheel. This time the car did not turn, it careened right off the side of the cliff! Stupid car!
When life flight finally arrived, they were nothing but a pain. All they could say about the fun I just had was that I should have put my bro inside the car instead of leaving him on the roof where he landed. Party-pooping paramedics!

A Day With The Dentist

The day began just like any other: I got up around 11:30, ate breakfast and took my mid-day nap. After my nap I did something far different than normal: I brushed my teeth. I performed this unusual and strenuous duty because I had an appointment with the dentist at toothurty (2:30) in the afternoon, to take care of my seven cavities. I arrived ten minutes after the appointed time and proceeded to wait and read a dentistry magazine. I saw an explanation on how to conduct a cavity filling and thought I would read it just so I knew what these people were going to do to me. I soon regretted it as the magazine instructed the dentist to perform duties such as stabbing the patient in the cheek with a needle and a toothpick, and other horrendous deeds. I was not relieved when I was called to the operating room and instructed to lie on the wooden table in the center of the chamber. Finally, the dentist entered the room. With an evil grin, he leaned over me, slapping on a pair of stylish latex gloves. He pushed a button and suddenly I was strapped to the table with hundreds of cables. The dentist's assistant walked in carrying a large syringe with a three inch needle at the end. The dentist brandished this formidable weapon before me for what could have been hours, then forced open my mouth and jabbed it into my cheek. I heard a sucking noise and then everything went black. I awoke with a start two or three minutes later to the most agonizing pain I have ever felt, and it was in my mouth. The dentist had stuffed my mouth full of cotton and was now drilling away the inside of my tooth. I screamed, yelled, even snapped a couple of cables. After that the assistant put some expanding cementing stuff in the hole that was drilled and the torture of having my tooth pushed out in lots of different directions had started. The operators repeated the drilling and stuffing for all my six other cavities. When they had finally finished, my voice was gone, I had cuts all over my body from fighting the cables, my entire mouth was bleeding and all I could see was a bunch of stars. On the way out I ran into the wall, a door, and the counter girl. To top it off, on the way home I ran my car into a light post and the back of a semi. When I finally reached my abode, I went straight to bed. This had been a long day.