what I carry

 Everything I brought home for a 4 day Thanksgiving break.
whatta champ.

like that

…only fast people can ride a bike like that,
slow people baby their bikes,
fast people ride their bikes.

value, gratitude, wealth

 Last week I was on a bus when I overheard some fellow students talking about the current value of change in their minds. One had mentioned how the value of a quarter had diminished so much in their mind that it practically meant nothing to them. It held no value. I’m no economist or psychologist but I’m pretty sure that when we as human beings have reached a point where a quarter or even a penny has lost all value to us, something needs to be reconsidered about who we really are. I shouldn’t have to go in too deep about why valuing things of all kind is necessary to our humanity but I’ll leave you with this.

(okay, after 10 minutes of searching–I couldn’t find an appropriate quote…)

“Whatever you are, be a good one” -Abraham Lincoln

 makes me wonder what’s at the end of the sunset…

“Back In San Diego”

what happend UA?

 Leg Room in Economy Class of United Airlines. What happened, did I grow that much? Southwest had at least double the leg to chair space when I was flying home… shame on you.

meet OVERWERK

Nth Degree EP

hey

 Jet Streamin’

 down there.

Bay Area Peninsula.

oj no ice

“when you wake up to the sound of the stewardess’ voice, only to realize your neighbor is eating peanuts and they already skipped over you”

 Shure e2c revamp holding up well

cries of emptiness

 ”How am I supposed to think of something to reflect on later when you’re screaming and crying and kicking my seat little girl?”

“that emptiness in your body when you’ve left something or someone, and don’t know what to do about it” That’s what I came up with as the reason to the piercing sounds that resonated the airplane cabin as we all just hoped for a quick escape. I was met with turned heads and concerned eyes, and I was quick to respond with a confused “don’t turn around to stare, please.” I was able to sneak a glimpse through the reflection of the window behind me and immediately I thought–she’s missing someone close. Which brings me to that. Emptiness.

 Walking terminal 3 at SFO

1×1 shot at the Airport in SF

 1×1 raw square format shot at SFO. Passengers running between flights on the conveyor belt outside Terminal 3. Black and White post in Lightroom.

anyone remember when CMC was still around?

 cleaning out some old mail that I kept from high school

cards

 what’s the deal with cards and toilet paper themed wishes these days…

steady hands produce straight lines produce convincing messages.

You’ve Got A Way – Fall Walk Run

i have 1,391 too many, untagged photos on my flickr apparently. [insert winter break]

if you sure got a way, don’t ever change. I like it.

The Cave

 Black and whites of my mom’s clutter, a work in progress. She tells me she has too many ideas for numbers of hands.

 Thoughts everywhere.

 But somehow, she seems to know where everything is,

 most of the time.

 I bet my mom thinks she has the coolest stuff…

 Sorry for being too thankful for having a full plate of food in front of me that I didn’t have time to take a picture of it all. 

 I wrote this a few days ago, but last night after going for a spin with Mike, he reminded me of being appreciative. Insert week old write-up, raw:

as i sit here struggling to study for structural biochemistry, i’m actually browsing through wordpress freshly blogged and i’m quickly brought back to memories of elementary school lunches. My mom made me lunch throughout high school (thanks for that too–for waking up and making me lunch before even I was awake to leave), and i think she would have made me lunch throughout elementary school but let’s face it–the cool kids don’t bring bag lunches. i think my mom graciously allowed me to buy school lunch every now and then so i didn’t have to get sick of home lunches. Which, when I think back on it now–sorry mother, your lunches far beat out any school lunch I’ve ever eaten. I’d take one of your sandwiches in college any day. But thanks, for letting me buy lunch every now and then. I guess it helps me now, to realize how lucky i was.

Anyways. Elementary school lunches, I don’t know how it worked at your school, but at the beginning of each month, we got a calendar of the month’s prepared hot lunches. “hot lunches,” i think they were called. I think my mom would give me this calendar and let me circle the days I wanted to get lunch at school. She would then write a check out for how much those lunches costed, and we’d turn it in. “Cheese Pizza, Corn Dog, Tater Tots, Lasagne, Chicken Nuggets,” I very vividly remember reading through the month’s meals and circling which ones I wanted. Either that, or my mom would circle certain ones. I can’t remember how we chose them, or if it was based on what I wanted. Thinking back, I can’t remember if i felt ashamed at all for making my mom buy me lunch, knowing or not that it wasn’t a great deal/nor was it the healthiest. Something about sitting down and going through which days/meals I wanted to eat, instead of my mom’s lunch. Not trying to be cute with the story, but it gets to me–the things my parents did for me… the things they really didn’t need to do. Thanks.

I hope my parents realize how thankful I am for what they do sometimes. Happy Thanksgiving, lum.

 When it seems your high school is the last one in the state with a track that’s older than most of the buildings, and it feels like all the other schools around you have had modernization projects going on since you were in middle school, insert Lynbrook High School. Couldn’t be happier to come back and see all the changes.

 Fall done right. At least here on the west coast, since I’ve never actually experienced a real fall on the east coast. The following day that I was home, I knew rain was in the forecast, so I decided to wake up early and go for a walk through the neighborhood and check out my alma mater to see how progress on the school improvements was going. I must have walked down this street endless times, whether it was in the morning going to school, or during lunch to grab food at home, or running home during the summer after cross country practice. It seems to be the one reminder to me that signifies, I’m actually home. I hope my parents never move out of this neighborhood, too many memories just from this one street, heading to school. As much as the houses and families might come and go, this street will always remain the same in my mind.

Previous Post

 Thanksgiving at Costco, a vivid reminder that this place is a warehouse. And they take their pie sales seriously. By the palet. I saw one dude walk out with a entire cart full of pumpkin pies. This same guy was also wearing a chef’s outfit… makes us wonder. Hope he had some special plans for those pies, like grinding them up and turning them into a pumpkin pie stew, or deconstructing them like on top chef, or donating them all to the poor… As long as he wasn’t gonna serve them at his restaurant out-of-the-box.

 I went to two costco’s today, for no specific reason. And I’ve never been so amazed at the pie displays… you really had to see one in person to understand just how many pies the bakery was churning out by the hour. And if you know costco, these weren’t some dinky personal pies… they were costco done right.

 Picture needs no words, just your eyes.

high in the city

 Sutro Tower, Palace of Fine Arts, Port of Oakland, The Bay. What can I say? Couldn’t be more thankful on the eve of Thanksgiving for a flight like this, with a view like that. (typically you don’t fly over the bay when landing in San Francisco, at least in my experiences).

new overwerk ep is gonna be outrageous

November 30, 2011

riding around like a little kid again.

  I don’t think I could ever get sick of this view of the sky near Mike’s place along Genesee. The slightly banked road puts you up just high enough to catch the horizon without any buildings obstructing your view.

 FIGHT FAT! SEX

 Window lurkin’ on the ucsd shuttle.

On my ride home late tuesday night. Meet 1/10,574, La Jolla security out in full force. Roaming.  Note the drunken love tap above the front wheel well. Adds true character.

 cabbage wedges, onions, chicken stock, olive oil, salt, pepper.

scopin’ talent at You@TheLoft

 Junoflo and Brian Park, the whole city came out to watch these guy tear it up at You@TheLoft last Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Great show guys, glad I could make it out to watch you two. Great comedy and music rounded out the rest of the night.

 Brian, those jeans still fit you?

early feast with lil t

 Killed it as usual.

Happy Thanksgiving 2011

 

Take time off, spend time with loved ones, appreciate and enjoy. Eat plenty, stay warm, be thankful and consider those who are less fortunate.

 Technology is crazy. Filming a group video project with an iPhone 4s.

 +1 euro swag grocery shopping right? When do I reach the boss level… Do I get to fight him off with baguettes and bunches of thyme?

Mavic Chasm: Review

 Mavic Chasm, found these on Chainlove for 95 shipped (sorry Kevin! Told ya to wait for me, haha). For a number of reasons, I’m beyond satisfied with dropping the bill on these shoes. As with my helmet, my previous shoes were definitely nearing the end of their life cycle. I’d been looking for a new pair of shoes on and off for about a year and a half now. It started when I first threw on the eggbeaters on my track bike. Originally wanting a new pair of shoes, I decided to hold off and see just how much more life I could squeeze out of them. Year and a half past, and I’m glad I held off on getting new shoes. I can comfortably say that I used these shoes to the end. The cleat had already been scraping, but I continued to ride in them. The cleat no longer has definition–it’s flush against itself and the cleats on my shoe are at least 3/4 worn down, if not nearing the actual sole of the shoe. I must have logged at least a thousand miles in these shoes, and I’m glad to move past them. I’d been looking at the Mavic line for a while now, ever since I first saw the neon Furys, I knew it’d be hard to turn these down for Sidis, they just have so much more attitude than black on black. I’d looked at the Razor, the Tempo, and the Chasm. While the Razor had been the best deal in mountain clipless ever since they came out, you can’t deny the ergo straps help distinguish the Tempo, Chasm and Fury from the rest of the clipless world. For a while, the Razor had even been on sale at Performance for about 60, and I was pretty close to jumping on them–the time just wasn’t right and, shoes weren’t on my list of priorities at the time. A few months went by and they weren’t on sale anymore, but instead went back up to retail and hovered around 100 till now. I was a little skeptical about the ergostrap too though, even though it’s “kevlar” wire, I’d been reading comment after comment about how sketch they looked… and if they snap, you’re done (unlike a full velcro strap which is hands-down trusted all around.

Some other things I had to consider were, the full carbon sole plate on the higher end models, which I’d read to be uncomfortable when walking around, and also whether or not I’d be able to shred on the bottom–since that’s one of the reasons I went mountain over road for the track bike. Personally, walking around though is the bigger reason. While I may not walk around school a lot, since I have the option bringing a second pair of shoes, when the time does come where I have to walk around a cafe (so euro.), or up a hill (let’s face it 46×15 can’t get me up everything), it’ll be far more comfortable and economical to walk in mountain shoes than road shoes. Plus stairs, I won’t even start on how sketch it looks doing stairs in road shoes.

I’ve only ridden these shoes for a few days, commuting to school and back so I can’t say I have a thorough ride under them. From what I have noticed, they’re not uncomfortably stiff (I feel like that term gets thrown around too often… SO STIFF!). My previous shoes were stiff, and hard–you couldn’t bend them in your hands, but too hard. Thinking back, there were definite hot spots around the pedal, whether it was from the lack of a shoe bed, or the actual shoe, I’ve noticed that with the carbon sole plate, the pressure and stiffness is much more evenly distributed around your entire food as you power down. I’m not sure how great the Mavic insoles are, and while they are definitely an improvement over the “piece of cardboard” I was standing on in my previous shoes, I’ve heard that they weren’t the greatest, maybe I will try some Specialized Footbeds one of these days. I was reading that the higher Mavic models don’t flex as much when you walk because of the carbon, and as a result–you get heel slippage, which I can imagine is definitely a possibility with these shoes, I even got a little slippage myself. A few extra notches on the ratchet and problem solved. Sure the sole doesn’t flex enough to be a walking shoe, but I’ll have to try out the razor to see what flex from “walking” in the lower end models due to a lack of carbon, really means.

The contragrip is definitely a plus, I no longer have to walk around in clogs and grab the attention of everyone around me. The best description of the contragrip is “rubber” instead of molded plastic. Hopefully, these won’t slip on rainy concrete. I’ve read and heard that the ratchet on the Mavic tend to break, and while I haven’t exactly been able to compare solid and weak ratchets, I have noticed that if you try and slide the strap in too close to the shoe, it doesn’t insert to the right hole, probably just a first-time user error though. Sizing, I’ve heard these run about a half to a full size smaller. So size up homies, I previously wore a Forte 43, and that equates to about a Mavic 9. Since my previous shoes had a little wiggle room, which you aren’t supposed to have with cycling shoes, I stuck with 9, knowing it’d be smaller than a 43. Let’s just say they’re cozy, and I like it. Finally, a pair of cycling shoes I’m not ashamed to walk into class with on my feet, or strapped on my backpack…

 Paired with a set of Crank Brother’s Candy 3s

Any questions? I know there’s a lack of Mavic Chasm reviews on the web–I looked, before buying these… Let me know if there’s anything you want to know about them.

 More pictures

1lb full house medium shrimp

Happy Birthday T.

Rockies for dessert? yes.

perfection bites

perfection bites you in the butt sometimes. weouthere, iwannabethere.

Saturday evening ride to Cardiff with David

 Buttermilk Bar and Maple Glazed VG donuts, always.