from the twisted minds of snm
How’s this for ergonomics – In the current 1G Chevrolet Cobalt compact sedan, the parking brake lever and the center console armrest are incompatible. If you get the upgrade package that includes the armrest, I take it that the manufacturer assumes you are in a user demographic that doesn’t use/need the brake…
Thanks to Velcro for the photo.
It was a beautifully clear day yesterday, until we met for the ride at 18:00, when the sky turned grey and the rain came down. Since St. Louis was socked in, there was no hope of anything up there other than slippery rocks and roots and panko dirt for the next few hours, so we embarked on an urban assault of the Ala Wai jump. The two coconut trees there had been cut down, and the dirt disturbed. Even after a little shoe-digging and water sprinkling, the jump was weak… Shovel required. Continue reading ‘Sunny, Rainy, Moonlight’
Dave having just gotten back from Japan, this past thursday dinner was definitely not going to be Japanese. So we went across the street from McBike to Chiang Mai. A quite popular Thai restaurant, and rightly so. Tasty food, reasonable price, nice atmosphere that’s not too stuffy not too casual, good service, conveniently located for us. Continue reading ‘Chiang Mai’
The CSR quit, and the F/O Admin is going on vacation next week for three, so I’m flying the reception desk at work for a while. I’ll miss driving around all day, but especially being able to go to the bank or Lion Coffee Cafe whenever. My body is definitely suffering from its regularly scheduled dosage of caffeine. The order entry part is a fairly understandable task - I just have to get used to the various idiosyncracies of the accounts. Answering the phone and not saying, “Good morning, McBike,” out of habituation is the difficult part… Â
Okay, why is it that in a country as supposedly “culturally polite” as Japan is supposed to be, when teen to twenty-something girls get on a fricking plane, they forget the simple niceties of “sumimasen” or even the common courtesy of just keeping their shit under control. I swear, after I got seated on JO 074 to come back to HNL from NRT on Monday, I got smacked in the arm or head by at least 5 handbags and 2 shopping bags without a single apology. WTF?! Where the heck were you all when they called for the ghetto seats “row 50 and higher”? You rush the gate like lemmings when they call for pre-boarding of the executive club members, and parents with little kids.Â
And what on earth are you doing buying shit from the duty-free store before you go to Hawaii anyway? I can see on your way home, but going? Are you going to use that new Coach handbag, Chanel whatever, or whatever booze in Hawaii?
Dammit! Get away from me… even if you are fricking cute! …and have CT… and VPL… and exposed midriff…  and just smell really nice…
I got back from Japan on Monday morning, but have been too busy to post anything yet – and I still have to post Whistler MTB stuff too! Anyway, here are a few tidbits for the car-fans out there.
The most obviously numerous cars I saw out East were Toyota Vitzs and Suzuki Sprints. The Vitz is known on the USDM as the “Yaris 3-door”, but occurs on the JDM as a 5-door only, and is not available with a M/T. Those up North of the border can get the Yaris in both 3 or 5-door versions (dammit!). The Toyota Belta 4-door sedan was fairly common also. This is available on the USDM as the “Yaris 4-door sedan”. This car replaces the Platz (USDM Echo) on the JDM. Continue reading ‘JDM’
Here’s a good one from Roy. This past weekend they went to see latenight showing of Shoot Em Up. Afterwards they went to Zippys near the Dole Cannery Theaters. So their group is in the booth enjoying a pretty animated conversation about the movie. Needles to say, it was peppered with quite salty language. Then dear old dad in the adjacent booth confronts Roy and tells him to f*’n stop using f*’n bad language in front of his kids. WTF? Roy would remember more accurately what he said, but you get the idea. And keep in mind that this is past midnight. Well, kids learn best from parents, so I think worrying about them picking up bad language is pointless. Actually, I think his point was to teach kids how to be a moke. Ah well.
A two week gap and 1 hour difference from the Labor Day monday night ride and what a difference. We crammed Dave, Ckucky, Scat and myself and our four bikes into Dave’s LandCruiser. Glad we could provide entertainment for the City Bus driver who seemed quite amused by the clown act. By the time we made it up the hill to St. Louis (Waahila) the sun was just setting. Riding into the park lights were needed already. Trail conditions were primo except for the fallen tree. It was damp enough to keep dust & loose dirt down, but not slipery from wet. It was right at the edge of panko. Some of the grassy stuff was starting to encroach. I fully hooked a high side dead treelet hiding in the brush on a small drop before agave with my handlebar. Sure got my adreniline pumping! Any faster and I would have been catapulted off the trail on a pretty gnarly area. BTW, its not there anymore, in my pumped up state I went back and angry aped it, broke it, & tossed it somewhere off the trail. 
It was nice to be on bike, Dave was pretty hardcore having come back from Japan this morning and still hit the DH! Ckucky is Mr. Fitness now, having dropped five pounds and bringing down his cholesteral levels a signifcant amount in a matter of weeks. And speaking of cholestoral, dinner was at Toritos in Market City. I hadn’t been there in years, it was quite good!Â
D = 4.44-miles, Vavr = 8.1 mph, Vmax = 20.5 mph on trail, T = 32-minutes
So after the Thunderbird’s show (a slight letdown as the weather hampered the performance) Derek and I hoofed it back on foot from Hale Koa to Ala Moana Shopping Center where we had parked. We knew better than to attempt to drive into Waikiki on this day of chaos what with a parade in the morning and the airshow in the afternoon. We easily beat the auto traffic going into Waikiki, and now returning the traffic was hellacious in both directions. Aside from the heat (or rather the stiffling humidty) it was an easy walk, we made it back to Ala Moana around 4:15PM. So now we pondered the question of whether we wanted to go to the Autumn Okinawa Dance Matsuri final bon dance of 2007 at the Hawaii Okinawa Center in Waipio. Continue reading ‘Traffic is Stop!’
After a quick meal at Islands Burgers, we huffed it over to the Hale Koa Hotel, where my sister had a ocean facing room. There were thousands of people everywhere, all fighting the gloomy weather to catch the final show celebrating the US Air Forces’ 60th anniversary. Started posting up some images at the gallery. It was unfortunate that the low cloud cover really limited what they could perform, but still worth the effort!
