memoryloot

As I was sitting on the train today I was staring out in darkness and began to reflect what’s been happening in my life the last couple of months. I’m at a completely different phase in my life right now compared to last year. First of all, I’m sitting on a train to work! I’m sure I never thought I’d be doing this a year ago. I’m actually happy that I am doing this to help be more green and not contribute in the demise of our environment.

Last year, I was playing poker on a weekly basis. Now we’re playing once every 3 months as it seems. I miss the face time to BS with the friends and catch up. I got to do that 2 weekends ago when all of our schedules allowed it.

I’m 10lbs lighter than I was a year ago. I’m more active and enjoy running and biking this year. Last year, my bike was sitting in the garage collecting dust. I was coming with all sorts of excuses not to go to the gym. It was not until the blood results that came in on my annual check-up to wake my lazy ass up. I’ve already run 2 5K back-to-back weekends. I will be participating in my first sprint triathlon relay this year and hopefully the LA marathon next year. I’ve added 2 more bicycles to encourage myself to ride them. And ride them, I do. This is one trend I don’t want to forget.

This year we’ve been actively searching for a new home for my family. Unfortunately nothing has turned up and I may have to look for property for myself. I can’t help it when my folks are so picky about all the places we’ve seen. My second offer to potentially the last house of our search has been submitted. It’ll take a miracle for the seller to accept the offer but I guess we’ll see.

I’m in this weird purging phase. My motorcycle is listed on Craigslist still. I’ve had people who were interested inquire about it but no formidable offers that I can entertain. Lots of people want to trade me for another bike and even a boat. That does nothing to someone who doesn’t know how to swim. I’m also playing with the idea of selling my trusty car and get a more fuel efficient Honda Fit. I love the fact that you can carry crap in such a compact vehicle. Maybe after I buy my first property.

I’ve lost interest in gaming from last year. Yes I still play my XBox but it’s still the same game, NBA 2K8. I love that game!

In the work front, things aren’t looking so good. I’ve inherited more applications to handle and it’s starting to stress me out. The overall company politics is making it harder and harder for me to do my job. It’s only a matter of time where grinning and bearing won’t work. Until that time, I can only keep my head up and work through this tough time.

As promised, my new roadie for competition training. It’s definitely rides different than my commuter and the fixie. It’s smooth as butter but still needs a little getting use to. I changed the pedals on it so I can use my riding shoes on it. Hopefully I’ll put in some miles on it in this weekend’s training ride at Zuma!

Some specs on it:

2:00PM – The picture on the Lemond website shows a much more aggressive looking Reno. I’m gonna have to fix that when I get home tonight!

10:42PM – Much better! I thought it felt kind of weird sitting upright on the ride Sunday.

I finally removed 4 of my wisdom teeth this morning. The experience was very interesting because apparently, when I was sedated, I didn’t even realized it. One minute I was looking up at the light in the ceiling, the next I’m waking up with gauze in my mouth and ready to go home. The pain did not set in until I got home and had to change the gauze. Nice and bloody ordeal but still not as painful until I began drinking water and eating. The good dentist prescribed some antibiotics and and trusty ole’ pain-killers. I’ve been taking them round-robin as the time is required by the prescription.

Last week I went to the doctors to do some further testing on my HDL and triglyceride level. 6 months ago in my annual check-up I was told my HDL (good cholesterol level) was too low and my triglyceride level (fat that you burn for energy) was way too high. It made me more proned to getting metabolic syndrome which is a bad thing. So as part of my new life changing goal this year, I exercised more. This time, I’m not just doing your run-at-the mill weight training and cardio. I asked to participate in a marathon and a spring triathlon competition. I took it on myself to prepare for these events by being very persistent and running and now bicycling alot. To be honest with you I enjoy running and bicycling so much that it was almost natural for me to be doing this. At the same time, I rediscovered my love of bicycling and prompted me to be car-free during the week. Not to mentioned adding 2 more bicycles to my stable. I must digress. The results of this time’s check-up was everything was back to a healthier level just because I did one thing different, exercise. And this time I’m not going to stop.

Edit: I realized that I didn’t mention this but I did buy a new roadie for the triathlon training and for my greedy self. Pictures to come once I have a chance to take them.

My bike is finally featured on the fixedgeargallery.com page. This site was the reason why I wanted to build a fixie to ride. Not the fact that I wanted to be featured on the site but rather the beautiful bikes that is featured on there. Some bikes are a work of art!

I’m finally putting this on Craigslist .

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sgv/mcy/726153291.html SOLD 07/03/2008

It was a hard decision, but I think the time is right to hang up my motorcycle helmet (for now) and put on my bicycle helmet. I’m making room for a third bicycle in the stable. Damn this bicycle addiction.

I’m finally done with my fixed gear conversion of a Nishiki International road bike. I’m not going to lie and tell you that this was close to even being a cheap ordeal. Here’s the list costs that was necessary for this complete build:

• 19 teeth cog and new bicycle chain = $48.71


• Bar tape & 3 inner tubes (1 for spare) = $19.78


• Nitto bullhorn handlebar = $54.89


• 2 Panaracer Strada Pro tires, front brake pad , and White Lightening chain lube = $80.18


• 2 rim tape = $8.64


• White Specialized Alias 143 seat & brake cable = $72.09


• Spray paint & electric tape (extra bar tape) = $5.80


• Cyclocomputer, front & rear lights, wedge bag, mini pump, and miscellaneous items = $149.32


• Donations for stand time @ Bike Oven = $65.00

Grand Total = $504.41

I guess I could have went real cheap and buy the plain black tires with no puncture protection or no red stripe sidewall or even gone with a bulky wired cyclocomputer or big no name front lights. This bike, in my opinion, deserved a better assortment of accessories. Hence the expensive bill.

I did gain 3 things from all this:

1. Being comfortable with taking bikes apart and working on it.


2. Owning a kick ass fixed gear bike to ride.


3. Fixed gear riding is sooo different than regular free gear riding.

Converting the bike felt like when I first got into computers in college. I was obsessed and was laser focused on the task. I was thinking about the bike when I wasn’t around it. And when I was working on it, I felt at peace. The time working on it went by very quick. I think I’m going to actively volunteer at the Bike Oven to learn and work on bicycling. This is so fun that I’m actually considering selling my motorcycle so I can use that to buy a very nice road bike. Yes, I am that into it.

Here’s the before picture of the bike when I picked it up:

Here is the finished conversion with new white toe clips and all.

Anyone on Twitter? Follow me!

I’ve been fascinated with the idea of building my own fixed-gear bicycle for a couple of months now. I first caught sight of one when I was looking around for ways to improve my current commuter. I came across a beautiful bike with no brake levers and no derailleurs. It was just a bike with one chain around the wheel and nothing else. A fixed-gear bike does not have a free wheel. This means that when you pedal backwards on a complete stop, you actually can go backwards. It makes it challenging if you ride around hills both going up and going down. You can simply pedal backwards if you wanted to stop. There’s plenty of people who uses fixed-gear bikes for tricks and stunts. You can find clips on YouTube. Track bikes that are used in competitive racing are all fixed-gear. It’s suppose to improve your riding and is good for training. I’m going to be doing a triathlon in September and thought that this would be neat to ride.

A friend of my gave me his old Nishiki International road bike. It’s a pretty old bike but still in very good shape. I took it to the Bike Oven in Highland Park to begin my project last night. The folks at Bike Oven were awesome. They were very friendly, receptive, and most importantly patient. I spent about 3 hours taking parts off of my bike, rebuilt the headset and bottom bracket. Things I thought would be hard wasn’t too bad. Of course I was spoiled by the plethora of tools that was available around me. What remains is buying a cog for my rear wheel and a new chain. Hopefully I’ll have it completed by this Saturday so I can take it out to ride during the upcoming holiday weekend. The before and after pictures will come shortly.

No time to post a detail rant but here are the photos. We made it back a week ago and was delayed once again.

Boston & New York City Trip – April 25, 2008 to May 2, 2008

Lesson learned… Always check-in at least an hour before your flight takes off. We arrived 37 minutes before our flight and was denied boarding until 1:35PM. Our flight was suppose to leave at 7AM. Yes, 6 hour delay. To top it off, we didn’t even get to make that flight and was asked to wait another 2 hours. We didn’t get into Boston until 12:10AM.

At least we made it here and collected our luggage, which arrived before we did. Time to get some shut-eye. It is almost 5AM here! Yikes!