You’d think after all these years working as a technician I’d heed the moto of never assume anything and always check the obvious first. I feel like such an idiot. So tonight I head home early and started taking apart the dash around the steering column. I curse at one stuck nut that is spinning around in the plastic connector so I can’t pull it out. I manage to work the test leads in anyway. The switches seem to check out ok. WTF? The relay checks ok, the fuses check ok, the switch checks ok. Leaves only the wiring between the switch & lights. The highs come on so I know that part of the wiring should be ok. Before I go crazy digging through all the wiring some more, I decide just to be sure I better check the bulbs. Damnit! The heck! Both bulbs (which BTW are tinted) are burnt out. Sheesh, I feel like such an idiot. I thought it was unlikely that both bulbs would burn out at the exact same time and assumed they were ok. You know what they say about assumptions…. On the bright side it’s a simple fix, now I have to go back out there and put everything back together.
So we had the somewhat annual ignore the Super Bowl gathering at Greg’s place. Well, Greg actually follows football so he kinda gives a hoot. Us, I didn’t know this particular game was happening until the email went out Friday. An excuse to get together, eat badly, and drink. Polish sausage, a 6 lb ham, chicken wings, some potato rolls, Doritos, oh look, throw some corn and some bell pepper & onions on the grill, those are veggies! And we only had one beer, split between the four of us even! 
 So it was a slightly big can….
Anyway, the game was actually fairly entertaining. I found the halftime entertainment to be fairly weak. Some commercials were pretty good. I think Amp won pretty well for a memorable commercial that also came at the end of the game. Come on, jumper cable clamps on nipples. That’s pretty good. Continue reading ‘Stupour Bowl’
Ahh! To be back in Honolulu where a decent Mexican dinner can be had!
Met Fabio, Tracy, and JT for dinner at Los Chaparros last night. I had a 2-item meal with a chicken enchilada and a soft taco al pastor ($13 USD). It was “$3 beer night”, so I had a Negra Modelo.
If it’s one thing that Whistler is missing, it’s a good Mexican restaurant. There’s Caramba, the Mexican restaurant that serves Italian food.  I’ve been there once the first time we visited Whistler and never had any hint of a desire to go back. There’s Dup’s Burritos, the little hole-in-the-wall with the ethnically insensitive sign (it features a round-faced dark-skinned man with a sombrero and a big moustache). I’ve heard mixed things about this place. Kevin and Naomi had nachos there and found them to be good, but the Symphony Ninja Sandwich Boys described a Dup’s burrito as, “a wrap with crap in it”. That has almost a Ted Geisel ring to it… There is a new place over on Creekside that opened this season, but we didn’t have a chance to try it. Maybe next time…
WTF!
I hit the brakes and the parking lights come on… Ofuk! All that rain the other day shorted something in the FJ80 and now I have some weird, undecipherable electrical problem!  I get home and start messing with stuff.  Pull the parking light fuse – still does it – OK, the circuit is getting power from somewhere in back.  I open the rear access panels and check for moisture on the rear lamp cluster connectors, but those are OK. I disconnect the left cluster – problem persists. I disconnect the right cluster – problem goes away.
Got back in from Vancouver on Sunday night. Washed all my gear last night after work. I managed to get one set of outerwear last the 7 riding days. It was almost always below freezing except for a few times at the bottom of 7th Heaven, so the clothes didn’t get too funky.
My legs are fine – no muscle pain or burn. My rear-leg knee is a little sore though. It got a bit bad on about day 5, but tapered after that. I have a couple of bruised or cracked ribs on my back. They hurt when I cough of sneeze.
Just a couple of weeks until I’m off to hit the snow in Japan!
Last Day of Vancouver Trip. Root left ultra early at 0315 to make his 0839 flight, now Risu and I are at YVR waiting for the flight.
At the now relocated Voyages Bar.
Boarding conditions were okay, though we only caught one day of new fall, but the remaining days were jibtastic! Right up until I broke myself!
All packed up and ready to go to Vancouver tonight. I hope I didn’t forget anything. I noticed last night that I only had 3 gels, so I ran into McBike while stopping to pick up lunch at Yamagen and got several more. the Whistler weather report calls for some flurries tonight through tomorrow, but they predict sunny skies with an arctic outflow at the beginning of next week bringing F-ing cold temperatures. Fabio will recall the Thanksgiving trip last year when it got down to -25C in the village. Woo hoo! Party! Looks like the groomer board unless for some reason Ullr blesses us with a crazy dump later in the week.
Finally a rainless afternoon on the Windward side!  I took the Ellsworth out for a short spin yesterday after I got home from work. The new Easton EC-90 seatpost works fine, but the new Fizik saddle may need a little break-in time. The supposedly flexible “wings” on the front edges of the rear plane aren’t flexible, so there is some discomfort forward of the ischial contact zones. This could also be from a slightly flatter contour than my Titanio 200, or just from not having ridden for over a month. No leg burn, but my lower back was feeling it.Â
D = 10 km (6.21-miles), Vavr = 16.7 km/h (10.4 mph), Vmax = 38.9 km/h (24.2 mph), T = 36-minutes
Man, all my Snowboarding outerwear is trashed – especially my jackets. My newest jacket is suffering from dandruff – the semi-permeable laminate on certain colored panels is flaking off. Still looks nice and new on the outside, but when I take it off I’ll be covered in white flakes. I ran it through the dryer inside-out on “air only” a few times to try and shake as much out through the inner mesh liner, so hopefully it won’t be too bad.  My “Captain America” jacket has a hole at a seam where the stitching has gone away and the taping and laminate is failing. I stitched up the hole and put some Gore repair tape on the inside, so it should last until the end of this season. Continue reading ‘Semi-Homeless Boarding’
We went to Island’s Fine Burgers in AMC last night for some monster burgers and brews. The hostess was from Oz, so Fabio was briefly in dreamland, until our server with ADD showed up. They were out of “hef-wize-in†or however she mangled the pronunciation, so I got a Kona Big Wave Golden Ale. Fabio got their Kona-coffee-flavored Pipeline Porter, and root got the Longboard Lager (all Kona drafts were $4 USD). The Big Wave was lighter in both flavor and color than the Longboard, which is their version of a classic continental lager (like Sam Adams Lager). I’m not a big fan of Longboard – it tends to be a bit overhopped, and I’ve had a few in bottles that have gone skunky. The Pipeline Porter was coffee-flavored beer. The other coffee-flavored beer I’ve had was the coffee stout at Brewhouse in Whistler, and to be honest, I didn’t really like either. A good, dark roast on the malt is all the smokiness I need – no additions please. If I could point out one thing I liked about the Porter is that it was mildly hopped, so there was just the coffee and the malt flavor – no bitterness or floweriness. I did like the Big Wave, however – I’d say it’s the best thing from Kona Brewing Co. that I’ve had so far. They have some things on tap at their brewpub locations that I’d like to try, including a hefeweisen and a porter that doesn’t have coffee in it. Continue reading ‘In the Islands Again’