@whatupwilly!

Being Prepared For The Worst - Part IV - First Aid Certified!

2010-02-03T21:17:00.000-08:00

As I mentioned a few times, C and I were planning on getting first-aid certified by the Red Cross. We both finished the class and passed the (relatively easy) exam at the end.

We are now certified for 3 years by passing the Red Cross first aid course.

So what does that even mean? In a 4 hour course, how much could they really have taught us?

Did I learn how to save someone's life if I pulled up next to a horrific car accident? Maybe (probably) not.

But they did teach you some fundamental skills/tips to not completely panic in the case of an emergency. And that sense of "I'm not going to completely lose my shit" is a nice feeling to have.

We only did 2 hands on lessons in the class (how to do arm splints and what to do if you find a person passed out face down). If you don't have time to take a class, you could definitely learn all the material out of a book:

(American Red Cross - First Aid & Safety Handbook)

Of course the beauty of the class is it forces you to learn. It would be hard to motivate myself to read a first-aid book and learn that way.

Here are the 5 most interesting things I learned from the class:

Consent - To avoid any legal troubles, ask for consent before you administer first aid to anyone. Good Samaritan Laws will protect you from getting sued if you at act reasonably and ask for consent. If the person is passed out, there is a concept of implied consent. (i.e. if a reasonable person was passed out in this position, would they want first aid help)
If you start, you better finish - If you decide to stop and help someone, at that point you are committed. You can't just walk away. You need to either wait for a professional to get there or the person leaves on their own.
Call 911 if... - The instructor gave a bunch of tips on when you should call 911 even if it doesn't at first look like an emergency. e.g. ) If someone bangs there head and you see fluid coming out of there ears or nose, they may say they are feeling fine, but they likely have a skull fracture and should see immediate help.
Shock - When someone is in shock it can be life threatening. There body is pumping all it's blood to vital organs to keep you alive. One of the symptoms can be extreme thirst. Do NOT give a person in shock anything to drink or eat. Food/drink does 2 bad things: 1) it makes your body spend energy on your stomach instead of vital organs (heart, brain, etc.) 2) if you need surgery, it's best if you don't have anything in your stomach.
Fire dept + Poison control - Put the telephone number of the closest fire department and the direct number to poison control in your cell phones. Calling both of these directly will be faster than calling 911. Calling 911 via your cell phone will route you to the California 911 system and there will be a bunch of routing required to get you to the local fire department anyway.

Be safe out there folks. Learn some first aid and be a bit more prepared to help your loved ones and anyone else who might need a hand.

Live Music In The City: Elevaters & Supertaster

2010-01-31T18:49:00.000-08:00

Every time I go watch live music I think "I should really watch more live music".

Last night gave me the bug again. C & I went to Coda Jazz Supperclub in the mission (it's in the old Levende space) for her birthday. We did dinner there and hung around for an absolutely amazing show.

Dinner itself was just OK. One of those meals where everything tastes "fine" but not great. Overall, pretty forgettable and I'm not dying to go back for the food.

But the music was incredible and very memorable.

Elevaters
The opening act was a group from LA called the Elevaters.

EPK from Elevaters on Vimeo.

From the Coda site:

California genre-bending band Elevaters is the new hope for people craving unconventional hip-hop. The racially diverse group manages to push their musical experiment to new heights, all the while never loosing their populist appeal.

C and I absolutely love this band now. Even a couple sitting near us who looked like they hated life and each other couldn't help but to nod their heads with the music.

Bands like the Elevaters make you wish you spent less time studying and more time practicing to be in a band with your friends. Forget all those books on finding the secrets of happiness. Watch these guys live and you will see 6 guys who will just make you feel happy listening to their craft.

I can imagine one of these guys telling their dad "me and my friends are going to start a band". The dad, wanting his son to be an engineer, delivered all the TV-cliches like "how are you going to earn a living? when are you going to start taking your life seriously? what will your grandparents think?". But the first time dad watches his son perform live and sees him in his element, making a club full of people happy, he understands and he can feel proud.

C and I got to say hi and thank you to a couple of guys in the band (Ben and David) after their show and you really could tell they loved what they did. Thank you Elevaters..we got a couple of your CDs and we will come watch you whenever you are back in the bay.

Supertaster
The other performers of the night were Supertaster.

Supertaster is the latest offshoot of the Jazz Mafia, San Francisco's eclectic and highly talented musical collective. [...] the band has become one of the most incendiary live acts on the Bay Area music scene. This dynamic five-piece ensemble has developed into a band that slides easily between raw funk, post-rock, glitch-hop and more.

It is really hard to describe the talent and range of this band. Karyn Paige has some of the most amazing pipes I have ever heard live. She reminds me of a cross between Erykah Badhu and Samantha James (if that even makes sense). Their drummer, Joe Bagale, has a soulful Harry Connick Jr. sound WHILE rocking the drums. Amazing. There are not a lot of bands that can switch from original jazz tracks, to hip-hop and rap covers (my favorite probably was "Forget about Dre" with some original lyrics and a trombone back-up"), to sets of freestyle rap.

I'm definitely looking forward to seeing Supertaster perform again too.

And finally, a big thank you to Coda. You've set up a great intimate venue for the bay to catch some great music. We will definitely be back.

Magify.me - Visualize Your Tweets

2010-01-28T18:34:00.000-08:00

This week, one of my closest friends, @nalin, launched a new site he built in his spare time (amazingly most of it done over a weekend of extreme food poisoning).

It is called magify.me.

Simply, it turns your twitter stream into a more visual experience. When you link magify.me to your twitter account, an instant home page is made. It takes the various links you may have in your stream and makes a very nice visual representation of them.

I love it. It's clean, simple and serves a really nice purpose. It isn't trying to be another twitter client as there are already plenty of those. But if you have been using http://www.twitter.com/username in your email signature, you should think about switching that over to http://www.magify.me/username. It's a lot nicer than your default twitter page and there are quick links to go to your facebook, actual twitter page, blog, etc.

The site is in early beta and @nalin has a list of things he wants to add when he has a chance. But play around and send him your feedback (via twitter @magify or even just leave a comment here).

A few interesting marketing-related things also happened when @nalin first launched @magify..but I'm going to save that for my next post.

Being Prepared For The Worst - Part III - Where will you meet?

2010-01-24T22:43:00.000-08:00

Did you know, according to the USGS, there is a 63% chance the Bay Area has an earthquake of 6.7 or greater before 2036 (i.e. in the next 25 years)?

63%. Scary.

But anyway, I'm not going to dwell on that too much or try and figure out/dissect how they came up with that number. The reality is, it could happen. I've beaten that horse to death.

Question: What happens if you and your family are not together when a big quake happens? What happens if the quake leaves phones down and worse, it leaves your home inhabitable. How do you meet up?

It's a pretty simple question with a potentially scary outcome. If you didn't decide a meeting place with your family and your home is not an option anymore, you could spend hours/days wandering aimlessly trying to reconnect. Every minute apart would be a minute wondering whether your family was safe.

C and I decided that our meeting place will be the parking lots behind AT&T park.

It's a good location because it is only about a mile from our house and there is a lot of open area where you can potentially stay clear of tall buildings (a bit harder to do now with all the condo apartments).

Even in a huge-building-crumbling earthquake it is likely you will be able to find a safe area to rest here. Also, it is near the water and that can be invaluable if the roads and such are down.

I'm not expecting the few people who are reading these posts to go out there and buy emergency supplies and stockpile your house. Most of you are thinking "well...I should" but aren't getting around to it. I get it. That's human nature and I've been talking about doing this for months before I finally did.

But this is one thing you should be able to do before you leave the house today. Decide a meeting spot for you and your family. It's an easy thing to do and you can feel good about getting 1 step closer to being prepared.

Being Prepared For The Worst - Part II - First steps

2010-01-19T21:25:00.000-08:00

C & I made some good progress in getting prepared for the worst.

First Aid Classes
We signed up for some first aid classes at the Red Cross in San Francisco. They are on Feb 2nd (4 hr class for $50). The class teaches: "how to recognize and care for victims of injury or sudden illness plus how to treat cuts, bruises, bone and muscle injuries, shock, bleeding and other emergencies." I think learning some first aid is a lot better than squealing nervously in the face of an injury.

Emergency Supplies
It is really amazing but it has been a week since the Haiti earthquake and news is still rampant about people who don't have water and food. I know the environment in Haiti (existing poor country, bad infrastructure, and all sorts of awfulness) make getting supplies to people who need it much harder.

But don't forget that when Katrina hit New Orleans, thousands of people were also stranded for days without water and food.

I hate sounding like a nutso-alarmist, but if San Francisco was hit with a huge quake, being on your own for multiple days is a real possibility. Think of this stat (via Wikipedia):

As of January 1, 2009 the California Department of Finance estimated the population at 845,559. With over 17,000 people per square mile, San Francisco is the second-most densely populated major American city.

Think about that. 17,000 people in a square mile. That doesn't even include people who are commuting into the city on a daily basis and the fact that we live downtown (SOMA) where the density is likely higher.

17,000 people in a square mile. In a major earthquake, water, power and electricity are likely out. Many buildings are in shambles. The roads are a mess. How many emergency personnel and how much time do you think it will take to get aid and supplies to 17,000 in a square mile. I shudder thinking about it.

I know..I sound like a nut-case. But after today, I'm a nut-case that will be a bit more prepared. We bought the following on Amazon:

Amazon.com Widgets

Our Survival Items - Round 1

I've always wanted a Leatherman. This little exercise was a good excuse to get one. A Leatherman makes a swiss army knife look like a fancy-Q-tip.

I absolutely love this. It's a hand crank & solar powered radio/flashlight/phone charger. Needing a flashlight is a no brainer. But I previously never thought of the importance of needing a radio. In the age of MP3 players and streaming music, I haven't owned a radio in years (let alone a radio that would work without needing to be plugged in).

First-aid kit. No explanation needed here. There are a lot of different options when it comes to First-aid kits so I settled on something compact and not too extravagant.

Water disinfectant. This little bottle, for only $13 bucks, will amazingly purify 500 gallons of water. God damn I'm sure they could use this in Haiti.

A few survival lists I read said make sure to have some of these emergency blankets. They are cheap, waterproof and windproof. You'll want to have these around in case you need to spend time outdoors in an emergency. I was also considering some emergency light weight sleeping bags.

Waterproof matches. Also a no brainer to have in the house/emergency kit.

This is just the start of our emergency kit. You can actually buy some pre-packaged kits (Quakehold! 70280 Grab-n-Go Emergency Kit, 2-Person 3-Day Back Pack,) but it was a good learning experience building up a kit myself.

Check out the Red Cross site for more tips on what should be in your kit.

Other things we still need to add to our kit:

Copies of personal documents (medication list and pertinent medical information, proof of address, deed/lease to home, passports, birth certificates, insurance policies)
Pictures of us
Some cash

What else am I forgetting?

Some of you may think this is a bit extreme. I probably would have thought the same thing before I read Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life. But just watch any news footage about Haiti, videos about Katrina or the South East Asia Tsunami in 2004 and you will sadly realize needing this shit is a real possibility.

Please donate to Haiti relief if you can.

Managing My Money

2010-01-17T20:00:00.000-08:00

I have helped contribute to building a half-dozen+ PFM (Personal Financial Management) applications. I spent 4 years working at Yodlee where I helped shape parts of Moneycenter. Since I've left Yodlee, I've consulted with quite a few start ups who were/are building "Mint-like" applications. All of that makes it ironic that I am not that great at managing my own money.

That's not to say I don't know how to save money. I'm actually pretty cheap when it comes to a lot of things (most things). I can save money.

My big problem is not properly managing my savings.

I have an Ameriprise Financial Advisor. I've been working with my advisor since 2004. She is really nice and seems to know the market and makes recommendations all the time on what I should do with my savings. Most the time I just nod my head and agree with whatever she recommends. Stupid I know.

My advisor has done a good job of getting me diversified (i.e. spreading out my money in different types of things: stock, cash, bonds, funds, etc.). Through 2008, I definitely lost a lot of money like a lot of people. However, it would have been a lot worse if I didn't have some diversification in other things (cash and bonds).

So what is my problem?

My problem now is that my financial life is too complicated. I have:

8 bank accounts (spread among Bank of America, Wells Fargo and VirtualBank [yes, that is a real institution])
10 investment/brokerage accounts (spread amount AccountTrax, Ameriprise, Scottrade, E*Trade and Invesco Aim)
4 credit cards (Bank of America, Wells Fargo, American Express and Citibank)

If it wasn't for Moneycenter, it would take forever to figure out what my networth is.

Some of the above is because I have incorporated myself as an S-Corp for my consulting business and I have set up separate accounts for that. But it doesn't need to be so complicated...does it?

I took my first steps to simplifying earlier this week when I met my advisor. She did her usual: "Here is what is going on with your accounts, I think we should do xyz with this account, abc with this account, move some money into this account, etc. etc. etc.". After 30 minutes I replied back:

Don't get me wrong. I understand everything you just said to me. Most of it made sense. But here is my problem. If I had to come back here tomorrow and repeat to you how my money is spread around and more importantly why...I couldn't do it. I have no idea why I have $xxx in a Wells Fargo Ultra Short Term Muni and $yyy in a Wells Fargo Short Term Muni. I see it on paper but I don't know why. We've been working together for 6 years and I think my finances have just gotten out of control. What can you do to help me simplify.

She looked stunned. But she quickly knew what I was talking about. By the end of the meeting we had consolidated 4 of my investment accounts into 2. I now only have 8 investment accounts! Well..it's a start.

This goes back a bit to my 2009 reflections where I said I want to do "More with less". I'm happy I ended this week with a little "Less" in my life.

I'm going to spend some more time this year looking at what else I can do to simplify. I read Ramit Sethi's book/blog "I Will Teach You To Be Rich". It has some good tips on simplifying and automating your money. I'll give it another skim and see what I can put in action for me.

What seems to work for you?

Being Prepared For The Worst - Part I

2010-01-14T20:25:00.001-08:00

We have all seen the awful things going on in Haiti right now. Please donate if you can (I actually think it's better to donate via websites such as http://american.redcross.org/haiti vs. the texting method because the money will get to the organizations faster via the websites).

All of this coupled with the recent slew of small quakes we have had in the bay area recently makes you wonder how prepared you are for a disaster.

I would say on a scale of 1 to 10, C and I are probably at about a 3 or 4 in terms of being prepared. I think the one thing we have going for us is enough water and non-perishable food in our house to last at least 5 days. We stockpile spam. It's a weakness.

But otherwise, I think we would be in rough shape.

I'm going to add one more New Year's resolution to my list (maybe booting off learning Chinese..because it hasn't been fun at all): being prepared for a disaster.

This is oddly something that C and I have been talking about doing for the last 6 months. We both read the book Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life, and believe me, when you read it you'll feel the urge to get prepared for a disaster as well.

It is a really fantastic book and it will open your eyes into how potentially helpless you will be in an emergency (i.e. a huge quake).

Here are a few depressing but thought provoking questions to think about (most are raised in the book). If there was a big quake in your city, and assuming you were lucky enough to have your apartment in tact, but the rest of the city is in shambles with likely no help to get to you within 48-72 hours would you know:

What to do if you or your partner had a severe cut or broken bone in the quake? If you did know what to do, do you have supplies in your house?
Do you have enough water for 3 days? I read that a person needs a gallon of water per day (I kind of question that..but it's a good benchmark to use when stocking up)
What do you do with all your shit and piss if all the plumbing is out?
How long after electricity goes out is the melted frozen food in the freezer going to be good for?
Do you have even the basics of flashlights, candles and matches/lighters in your house?
Do you have a plan in place to contact each other in case you are separated and phones are out?

Scary shit isn't it? I'm not an "End-Of-World Alarmist", but I think not being able to answer yes to the above and MANY more similar questions is a disservice to yourself and family. I can't answer yes and that is sad.

So my NEW resolution is to be prepared for the worst.

What do I want to accomplish in the next few weeks?

First Aid classes - I took some first aid in high school but there is a reason they make you get re-certified every year. You don't remember that stuff if you aren't doing it on a regular basis. You can get first aid certification at your local Red Cross (Bay Area folks - The Bay Area Red Cross has different classes for CPR ($60 for 4.5 hrs) and general first aid ($50 for 4 hrs)).
Emergency supplies - I'm not even sure what else we need to be prepared. Again, the Red Cross site has lots of good tips that we'll be going through. We'll probably be making a Target/Costco trip to stock up this weekend.

I'll be updating this blog as we make progress towards not being helpless in the face of an emergency. Hopefully it will inspire some of you as well.

Be safe. Donate if you can. Hug your family and friends extra tight tonight.

Another Term At De Marillac Academy

2010-01-12T20:16:00.000-08:00

I started another term as a volunteer running coach with De Marillac Academy today. I’ve been coaching an elective running group with De Marillac for about 1.5 years now and I’m now on my 5th term with them. I use the term "coach" loosely because I pretty much tell the kids to run in a circle for an hour once a week.

(me and a few of my kids from a previous term)

De Marillac is a pretty interesting school. It is in the heart of the Tenderloin and sadly surrounded by some pretty awful sites. On my 4-5 block walk to the school every week I regularly see junkies, passed out homeless people, blatant drug transactions and all the other things you expect to see in the Loin. My kids and I regularly see people shooting up on the streets. Sad stuff.

From the schools website:

De Marillac Academy is an educational family that provides an innovative, comprehensive and accessible Catholic education in the Lasallian and Vincentian traditions to children from underserved, low-income families in the Tenderloin and other at-risk communities in San Francisco.

(And no…I’m not Catholic and I have no idea what Lasallian and Vicentian are).

The school is in an old building and is sorely lacking in places for kids to play and exercise. There isn’t a gym at the school and they have a tiny little courtyard (smaller than a full basketball court) with a few hoops where kids can play. The entrance to the school is security gated and you have to be buzzed in via the intercom to enter. I went to a fairly middle class grade school back in Canada but it seemed like a country club compared to De Marillac.

Quite the dreary picture isn’t it? But what the school lacks in flash and amenities it makes it up with amazingly good kids.

I’ve gotten to know about 20+ different kids during my coaching and they are fantastic. Good natured, outgoing, obviously mischievous as 6th-8th graders tend to be, but definitely a solid bunch of little people.

These kids are surrounded with the type of poverty, crime and shadiness that prevent many SF residents from even entering the Tenderloin. But they never bemoan their surroundings. They take it all in stride and just have fun being kids. Inspirational.

So where do we run if they don’t have a gym or a field?

It’s not very glamorous, but we just run around Civic Center plaza. It’s that square in front of city hall.

If you are ever in the neighborhood on Tuesdays between 3 and 4 pm, don’t be surprised to see my kids (all wearing their school uniforms) and I running laps. It’s a bit of a weird site, but I’m glad I can help get these kids some much needed exercise.

Note, if you are in the city and you have a flexible schedule on Tuesdays De Marillac can always use more volunteers to teach their electives. Every term they try and have electives (including running) taught by a few volunteers. The electives will vary depending on volunteer availability and some in the past have included juggling, baking, fencing, and hip-hop dancing. So if you have some time and a special skill you would love to share with kids, let me know!

Special thanks to the group at JustRun SF for introducing me to De Marillac and my good friend @macknuttie who first got me thinking about volunteering with youth sports.

A Culture Of Lateness

2010-01-10T20:00:00.000-08:00

I think I have minor OCD when it comes to being late. I hate being late. It doesn’t matter if it is meeting friends at a bar or meeting clients for a meeting. I hate being late.

If I happen to be running late, I start feeling slightly nauseous. Even when I’m likely going to be the first one there, I still feel nauseous.

If I’m going to be 5 minutes late for a restaurant reservation, I usually call the restaurant to let them know even though I know they don’t really care.

My OCD on not being late is why I don’t understand why we live in a culture of lateness. We all have friends who start getting ready at 7:55 when they know dinner is at 8. We have all been to meetings when even the meeting organizer shows up 10 minutes late and walks in without even an apology. I just don’t get it.

When I started working at Sapient in 1999 I was in heaven. It was a professional culture/cult where being late was not accepted. You would often be fined (a dollar or something similar) for even being 30 seconds late to a meeting. I was in heaven. Thank you Sapient for making me realize I wasn’t crazy to want things to be on time. There are a lot of us out there.

Where did we learn being late is OK? I don’t think it was in school because I remember grade school being a time when being late meant being embarrassed at the front of the class. Did we learn it was OK to be late because…it was OK? Because it almost never matters if you are on time or not?

How many times has this happened to you:

4:58: You are meeting a friend for a drink at 5 pm. You get there a couple of minutes early just to make sure your friend isn’t waiting alone. You are the only one there.
5:00: Still the only one there
5:05: Still the only one there. You start getting a bit annoyed.
5:10: A bit more annoyed
5:15: Even more annoyed and you have probably looked at your watch/phone about a dozen times by now.
5:20: Your friend finally gets there and says “Oh my god, sorry I’m late again, blah, blah, blah”. Your response: “It’ OK” (while fuming a bit inside).

That’s why people are always late. Because the rest of society lets them get away with it. It shouldn’t be OK.

I’m obviously not saying you tell your friend “Fuck you asshole. Why are you always late? You think you are more important than me? *throat punch*”

But I think calling out your friend or colleagues in a non-deuchebag manner can go a long way.

This last week, I had meetings on back-to-back days with one of my clients. Both meetings had: Me, 3 or 4 people from another consulting company, and 3 or 4 people from the client team including the client CEO.

In the first meeting, everyone was on time except the client CEO. He has his admin open the call up on time and ask us to wait for the CEO. He joins us 15 minutes later without even an apology.

The next day the same thing happens! Same meeting, same people, and another 15 minutes late from the CEO. Lame.

After the meeting I asked one of the guys from the other consulting company if Mr. CEO was always late. The answer: “Always, it’s ridiculous”. But I also got the sense they never said anything to him about it.

After some thought and pausing over the “Send” button a few times, I sent the following email:

Hi CEO,

I wanted to quickly share some feedback with you.

During our last few meetings that I have attended with the wider team you've been 10-15 minutes late each time. I of course know you must have an absolutely hectic schedule, but at this point I'm sure everyone else does as well [Editor Note: It’s a crazy time for everyone on the team because we are a few days from launch of the site]. However, having 5-6 people waiting on a call for 10-15 minutes when time is so short right now seems inconsiderate and a bit unprofessional.

Personally, in terms of my time, I start tracking and billing my time the moment I dial into a conference call. In the last 2 days, I've tracked just under 30 minutes ($[xx] that will be billed to your company) waiting on the phone. That just doesn't make sense.

I kindly suggest that if you know you will be more than just a few minutes late, to have [your admin] let the team know when we can expect the call to start so we can continue working on other activities. I think this is especially true for the [other consulting company] team that is huddled in a conference room for these calls and not in front of their computers where they can be working to complete this release.

Thank you for listening,
Will

Yes, I was a bit nervous about sending this email. It might have rubbed him the wrong way and when you are a freelance consultant, pissing your clients off is never a good idea.

But this CEO, outside of being chronically late, is a good guy. He is friendly and he is always quick to thank his own team and the other folks working for him. I actually thought he would take the feedback well and appreciate that I sent him a private email instead of calling him out on the call in front of everyone.

And I was right. Mr. CEO sent the following email back:

Thanks Will. This is fair feedback. I apologize for the late start in the last couple of meetings. We have been swamped but that is no excuse. We highly value your time and the time of [Consulting company] and I agree this is not an effective use of time or money. The last few meetings I was stuck in between some urgent matters that I could not break away from but will work with my team to communicate things better and try to estimate the impact of unexpected emergencies.

Sincerely,
Mr. CEO

Well, I don’t know if it’s actually going to make him stop being late. But it felt good to not bottle up my annoyance and give my client that feedback.

So the next time someone makes you wait. Don’t be a dick about it…but don’t be afraid to let them know it’s not cool and their time is not more valuable then yours.

2010 - New Year's resolutions

2010-01-06T21:22:00.000-08:00

I’ve never been big on New Year’s resolutions. Not that I don’t think I have a lot to improve on, but I’ve mainly been too lazy to think about it let alone commit it in writing.

But 2010 is a new year.

I was a bit inspired by one of my favorite bloggers Penelope Trunk. She wrote a short post on “How to keep a New Year’s resolution” .

I love Penelope Trunk’s blog because she doesn’t just spew what she thinks on a topic, but she’s absolutely fantastic at referencing “bigger-picture-human-behavior-traits”.

For example, her tips for keeping New Year’s resolutions: start small, think in increments of three weeks, get the wording right, visualize what you will look like and start now are all great, if not obvious-when-read, tips.

But what got my attention the most in her post was this paragraph:

I realized this after spending two years reading what positive psychologists have discovered makes people happy. And, it turns out, that everything we know about what makes us happy comes down to having self-discipline to do what we know want to be doing.

I love that. It makes so much sense. It’s so obvious. It’s empowering. And for the most part it’s a great reminder that being happy is sometimes as easy as “Do what you want to be doing”. Duh.

The hard part is sometimes answering the question “What do I want to be doing”.

And that’s where my 2010 Q1 resolutions come into play. Yes, Q1 (i.e. Jan -> Mar) resolutions. Nerdtastic. But I think keeping some shorter term goals (but a bit longer than the previously recommended 3 weeks) will keep me a bit more focused.

Here are my Q1 resolutions in no particular order:

1. Blog More

I really have this love/hate relationship with writing. I think I’m a decent writer. I can sometimes make people laugh and I can sometimes narrate a fun story. I’ve tried to restart blogging quite a few times. But I sometimes find the act of writing a drag even though I’m usually very satisfied with the end result.

I’m commiting myself to blog at least 3 times a week for the next 3 months. If Sunday rolls around and I haven’t hit 3 posts – I’m going to just do 3 bullshit posts and then look at myself with disdain. Hopefully by the end of March I’ll remind myself whether blogging/writing is something I want to be doing. My 10th grade social studies teacher who told me to go into journalism would be proud. Thanks Mr. Scott (?).

2. Launch 3 Websites

My great friends @nalin and @emh are both fantastic technologists as well as great “idea” guys. We have had many a conversation about “Wouldn’t it be great to build a site that did this”, “I think we could make money building an app that did blah, blah, blah”. @nalin has been good about developing a lot of his ideas and @emh is also pretty decent at starting side projects. But I’m the worst. I just stew on these ideas I have. I don’t act. It’s sickening. And my inaction depresses me. The worst part is I have a technology and product management background. I really have no excuse to not crank out a few fun sites.

I have 3 fun website ideas I’ve been brewing for a few months. I’ve built a prototype of one. My goal by the end of March is just to put these sites out there. They won’t be that pretty and they aren’t going to change the world or make a lot of money. But I’ll get them out there and I’ll break my streak of “All Talk”.

3. 30 minutes of Rosetta Stone Chinese 5 times a week

I’m Chinese. I speak Chinese at probably a 4 year old level at best. Maybe a mentally challenged 4 year old. A mentally challenged 4 year old that drank too much contaminated Chinese milk. I’m going to China at the beginning of February for a few weeks. I know I’m not really going to fine tune my Chinese by then. But it’s good incentive for me to hunker down and start learning some Chinese. I’ve done a few sessions with Rosetta Stone…and it’s an interesting experience so far. I’ll probably blog more on that later.

I of course have a larger list of things I want to work on. Cook more inventive and fun foods, surf more, start triathlon training again, volunteer more, etc. But the 3 goals above are good to get me going and keep me focused for Q1.

What are your resolutions?

2009

2010-01-05T19:26:00.000-08:00

[Editor's Note: I know. I've tried to restart blogging about a 1/2 dozen times unsuccessfully. 2010 is my year to change that]

Why do some years seem to “fly by” and some years “seem to never end”?

Thinking back to the last 10 years of my life (my life in San Francisco) I always seemed to think every New Years “this year really flew by”. But this is likely just due to some kind of memory trick that is projecting how I felt about this last year onto my last 10 years.

Because 2009 really flew by.

I feel like it was just a few months ago when C and I were flying back from spending New Year’s 2009 in Brazil. My memory of eagerly waiting to feel the cool, beautiful, mosquito free breeze of the bay area is clear as can be. I fondly remember the smile on C’s face as we walked out of the airport to kiss the breeze.

I feel blessed that 2009 was not a year that seemed to never end. There were a few months in 2009 that felt longer than others and I believe it was because they were extremely emotionally charged months. But I digress and won’t go into all those gory details now.

2009 was a very interesting year of work. I continued to do some consulting with my good friends at Pacwest Consulting Partners. However, as oil prices fell, so did some of my work with Big Oil. I logged about ½ the hours I did in 2008. This was for the best, as consulting and writing code for Big Oil Supply Chain management isn’t nearly as fun as it sounds.

My side gig doing freelance Yodlee consulting far exceeded my expectations. I worked with 8 different clients helping them integrate with Yodlee’s SDK (Software Development Kit). It was a fun mix of start-ups and older school financial services company. I got to write a lot more code this year and it constantly reminded me how much I enjoy coding. You just can’t compare the satisfaction of creating code vs. PowerPoint’s. Big thanks to my friends at Yodlee for all the referrals.

You add all that up and I oddly still worked less in ’09 than I ever have. This was my 2nd straight year of cubicle job evasion and it has been fantastic. But I still have that itch.

That itch of doing something great. Of doing something more than just making a living consulting. That itch of legacy building. Do I tell my kids –

“You should have seen me when I was in my 30s. Sometimes, I wouldn’t need to leave my apartment for days or even need to shower to do my work. I would work in my underwear eating salami and cheese by the fistful….kids do you believe that..my underwear! Those were wild times”.

Well that actually doesn’t sound too bad of a story to tell.

But a part of me just wants to do more. And that’s my mission for 2010. As 2009 ends, my 1 guiding principal for 2010 is “More with Less”. And I will write more about that in a future post.

To wrap up this post, I’ll end with my most important lesson learned from 2009: Just shut up and listen. This works in business and in love. Just shut up and listen. I really used to think I was a good listener. And sometimes I was. But a lot happened in 2009 that made me realize sometimes the only listening I was doing was to myself. When I finally learned to just shut up, conversations took on a new life. I learned. I grew. I hope I’m a better person for it.

Just shut up and listen.

10 Days to PMC Challenge - 160 mile bike ride!

2009-07-22T16:46:00.000-07:00

10 more days until I start a 160 mile cycling journey to raise money and awareness for cancer research!

You can find full details here: http://www.pmc.org/profile/WY0004

The race is a 2 day ride through beautiful Massachusetts. The below isn't the exact route, but it's close (and the maps on the http://www.pmc.org site are quite..odd)

I've been training pretty well for this race. I put in about 60-120 miles a week riding (and boy is my taint tired). So I feel like I'm in great shape for it and ready to tackle it!

I'm $900 dollars away from my fund-raising goal of $4200 and I feel like with a big push over this next 10 days I'll be able to hit it.

Huge huge huge thanks to all my friends and family who have already donated. You're all the best.

If you have been thinking of donating but haven't yet....go ahead and just do it now. You'll love yourself for it later: http://www.pmc.org/profile/WY0004

Wish me luck!

HTML/CSS rebirth

2009-07-08T10:56:00.000-07:00

This is going to be a story I tell my grand kids.

I remember when I developed my first web page. It was in 1996 at my first co-op (internship) at Nortel in Ottawa, CA. I worked for a software research lab and living in -30 degree weather was a great incentive to do nothing other than work.

I remember creating a few Hello World test sites and the first bug I ran into was why the hell was the <centre> tag not working. Well..because HTML doesn't recognize Canadian spelling (e.g. centre vs. center).

I went on to do a lot of PERL development and cgi-bin apps. I learned a ton and it I felt like such a pimp going back to college and knowing how to build web apps. Over the next dozen or so years I've done a lot more web development (mainly java and .NET).

One thing that's always been lacking for me is mastering HTML and CSS. I've picked up CSS and can make my way around it but my skills are mediocre at best. I think I'm still stuck in the 90's mentality and wanting to put everything in tables and put styles right in tags.

During my developer years at Sapient, I worked on over a dozen web projects. However, almost all of them were staffed with "Site Developers". These folks cranked out HTML and CSS while peeps like me did the programming to make the pages do something other than look nice. And after years of just plugging together pages that were handed to me I realize I have a lot to learn to create sites from scratch myself.

Hence, I'm going to forget everything I already know.

I'm going to throw out my experience hacking together web pages, kludging together CSS, butchering sites by throwing in a few inline styles, etc.

I'm on a mission to relearn front-end dev skills so when I start creating some new sites I won't cringe at the HTML and CSS when I look back at it a few months later.

Cindy Alvarez makes a great suggestion, that I can access Safari books for free online using my SF library card ID! Only need to dig that up now...

But I also stumbled across this set of tutorials that look like a pretty solid place to find the tricks of the trade.

Any other online tutorials you would suggest?

I'm back?

2009-07-07T14:03:00.001-07:00

I know better than to say "Man I miss blogging, I'm going to start blogging again for real!!". I've had the urge to restart blogging in the past and I never get restarted.

BUT, I am really itching to start blogging again. I am in a bit of a lull with work and I have (even) more time on my hands than usual. So...let's see if I can keep this up and start trying to write something worth reading.

Over the next few weeks, I'm planning a bunch of mini-projects for myself (get a lot better at CSS, whip up an app idea I've been stewing on for a while in Ruby on Rails, change this awful blogger template, take a CPR/First-Aid class, take some dance classes, continue training for PMC, building a simple Yodlee-SDK web app, etc.). I'll see if I can keep this blogging up and write about those projects along the way.

Running of the Bulls - 2008 - Encierro 1 July 7th

2008-07-20T00:21:00.000-07:00

SIDE NOTE: WOW, an update to my blog. It's been 2 years to the day! Guess running with bulls was inspiration enough.
------
I have never wanted to run with the bulls. Never.

I have seen it dozens of times on TV and on the internet.

I have never ONCE thought: "I want to do that". It was always an abstract-absurd-mystical event that I knew occurred, but not something I thought I would ever take part in. Kind of like a Japanese game show.

I have now run with the bulls.

I have felt terror and fear like I never could have imagined. And I hope to never feel that again. A dramatic-hyperbole of a cliché, but it’s true.

...Yet it was one of the highlights of my life.

Short Story
On July 7th, 2008 - 3 friends (Nalin, Aaron, John) and I ran with the legendary bulls in Pamplona, Spain. We did it for Aaron’s bachelor party. It was scarier and much more dangerous than any of us imagined it would be. We wouldn’t necessarily recommend it to any of our friends. But we are all immensely glad we did it. I know, it sounds stupid to me too.

We all came out of it relatively unscathed with the exception of a few bumps, scratches and a deep stomach-churning desire to fire-hose vomit.

The running turned out to be a huge physiological and psychological experiment on my body and mind. The "Long Story" of the running is below. It is heavy on a lot of details that may be helpful to anyone who is also planning on running it.

Long Story
The long story below is REAL long. You have been warned. A few short cut links are here.

The Journey To Pamplona

The running of the bulls is actually a week long festival that has a running every day for a week. We decided to run the very first day (Monday July 7, 2008 aka Encierro 1), what is traditionally the most popular day to run.

It is notoriously difficult to get a hotel in Pamplona during the festival; hence, many people don’t bother. Instead, we left our stuff in our Madrid Hotel and jumped on a train to Pamplona with nothing but a bit of cash, our white outfits and a sweater. I recommend not even bringing a bag.

Tips for taking the train:

This website has some good tips on booking your train ticket ahead of time which is highly recommended: http://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g187514-c80518/Madrid:Spain:Buying.Renfe.Tickets.Online.html
If you can afford the extra euro for the first class cabin, splurge. You get a meal, movie (in Spanish) and nice-comfortable reserved seating. I can’t tell you how valuable this is, especially on the journey back, when you are dirty and exhausted (not having slept for about over 24 hours)
If leaving from Madrid, you take the train out of the Atocha train station which is breathtakingly beautiful for a train station. It’s near Madrid’s Prada museum and is a 30-40 min walk from the center of Madrid.
If you print up your train tickets ahead of time (recommended) you really don’t need to get to the train station any more than 15 min before your train leaves. The beauty of train travel vs. flying

The ride itself was about 3.5 hours and we got into Pamplona around 6:30 pm. Well, we now had about 14 hours to kill with no hotel.

Pamplona
Pamplona is an absolutely beautiful city in Northern Spain. We heard that no travelers go to Pamplona except for the festival. After being there, I can’t imagine this is true, because it is a lovely city of winding alleys, cobblestone roads, bars, restaurants and modern plazas that surprised us all.

Walking out of the train station, you immediately see everyone dressed in the traditional white outfit with red scarf and sash. Not just the other travelers or tourists visiting Pamplona. I mean everyone: grandmas grocery shopping, kids playing in the park, older couples in coffee shops.

During the San Fermin festival, it seems like everyone embraces the tradition and events whether they are running it or not. You slowly begin to understand that this isn’t just a tourist event but a deep routed tradition.

Since we had 14 hours to kill, we just walked from the train station hoping to stumble upon the main area (we had no map). This turned out to be fairly easy as the train station turned out to be just a mile or so from the festivities.

We hit a fair where we picked up our own scarves and sashes (8 euro each, which we later learn is a rip off - if you wait to get to the t-shirt shops along the route they are 2.40 euro each, but we figure that was a small price to pay for fitting in).

(John, Aaron, Nalin and Me)

Soon, we stumbled upon the main festival streets of Pamplona. And calling it a block party is like calling the Superbowl a football game. It just doesn’t do it justice

(Jam Packed Revelry In Pamplona)

It was street after street after street of people packed shoulder to shoulder drinking and partying. The streets were absolutely filthy with bottles, cups and who knows what.

(This was was the streets looked like for blocks on end)

At this point, anyone who knows Nalin, John, Aaron or myself is going to assume we got ourselves a few drinks and joined in. Surprise! We didn’t. A few reasons:

We did not want to be hung over (or drunk) running with the bulls
We were out in Madrid until about 6 am the night before and were still feeling it a bit
Not drinking at all helped us stay awake all night

I really recommend anyone who runs not drink very much the day before. They say that police will stop anyone who looks drunk or hung over from running. However, unless you are barfing as you try to get on the course, I don’t think they are going to stop you. So just do it for your own safety.

The next 12 or so hours was spent walking around Pamplona (we have this place memorized) including the bull running course numerous times, talking strategy, eating, sitting on benches people watching, and a bit more eating. It actually went by a lot faster than I was expecting. You can kill some time eating a later dinner until about 2 am in some places and then grab a very early breakfast at about 5 am like we did.

At the beginning of the bull-run course, you can get a close up view of the bulls in their pen. They are enormous and their horns look extremely sharp. Something hit all 4 of us when we saw the reality of what would be chasing us in a few hours. I know I’m not the only one that started to get a barfy feeling in his stomach.

(The Bulls the night before the Run. My theory is they keep the spotlight on them all night to make them grumpy and angry for the run itself)

A lot of people you see fall asleep in the streets or parks around town and then wake up for the running. I actually wouldn’t recommend this because you obviously become a prime target for pick pockets and thieves. Nalin and I met a guy named Evan in Ibiza who was in Pamplona the same time as us. He fell asleep in a park, wrapped his bag around his legs so no one would steal it, and was surrounded by his friends. When he woke up, his bag was ripped open and some of his stuff was scattered around him - minus his camera of course. Be careful.

(Random dude passed out on the sidewalk in the middle of the night)

The Morning Of The Run

The running of the bulls starts at 8 am. We heard that you had to be on the course at 7 am or they don’t let you on.

We headed over around 5’ish am to do another walk along the course and scope out our starting spot.

There are quite a few websites that list tips for running of the bulls. We read a lot of them before coming to Pamplona and we narrowed down our strategy to the following:

Start immediately before Dead Man’s Turn (map below) - this is one of the most dangerous parts of the run. You often see bulls sliding into the wall of this near 90 degree turn, often slamming people between them and the wall. We figured that if we started right before the turn, we would be well past the turn by the time the bulls got to us.
Run along the left hand side - In general, you want to run on the inside lane of any turn (e.g. if it is a right turn, be on the right side) to avoid the bull slamming you into the wall (see above). After Dead Man’s turn it is nearly straight into the bull arena with a slight left before entering the arena. Because of this we wanted to run along the left hand side.
Run fast as fuck - This is a bit self explanatory. We weren’t trying to be one of those guys that runs right beside the bull and slaps them.
When in doubt - Escape - Along the remainder of the course there were 2 potential spots to jump off the course through a set of fences. We each told ourselves that if there was any question for our safety we would jump ship.

Simple enough right? The best laid plans of mice….

Monkey Wrench #1 - Policia Try to Fuck With Us
At about 7:40 am (20 minutes before the run starts) the course is PACKED shoulder to shoulder. We are standing about nervously, talking about our plan over and over again and debating how fast we can move in such a large pack.

Suddenly, the Policia separate the runners into 2 groups. They form a line directly behind where we are standing and start telling us to walk forward? Huh?

We don’t really have any idea what is going on and we are marched past the bend. No one knows what is going on. Suddenly, strategy #1 is out the window.

We now overhear some horrifying news. For some reason, all of the people in front of the police line (half the runners, including us) are being ushered OUT of the course. We are being told that we cannot run today. WHAT?

We are furious. We are livid. The entire point of our Europe trip was to run with the bulls. And a lifetime highlight was being made a lifetime lowlight. We look at each other cursing.

[Psychological side note #1: Interesting side note here. As I mentioned earlier, I never really had a desire to run with the bulls. Even standing on the course nervously in the morning, I was having a few second thoughts about the sanity of this decision. However, the moment I found out that the opportunity to run was being taken away, there was nothing more I wanted to do. Strange. This reaction surprised even myself.]

Hundreds (thousands?) of runners are moved off the course and we all look at each other despondently. The running starts in about 15 minutes.

Well, we didn’t come half way around the world to stand on a fence.

Many of the displaced runners just walk and mill about sullenly, but a small handful just start running. The 4 of us, still not really sure what just happened, break out into a mad sprint. We are desperate to find a way back onto the course. No one is sure where we are going. We are like lemmings running to find our way back to the top of the cliff.

We sprint through various winding back alleys of Pamplona hoping to find a fence that we can jump. After what seems like 5 minutes, I am alone. I’ve lost John, Aaron and Nalin in the confused scramble. [Psychological side note #2 - Again surprisingly, I didn’t even think to double back and find them. All I wanted to do was get myself back on the course. Weird. Really weird]

I finally find a fence that is crowded 4 people deep waiting for the run to start. These folks have been waiting for hours to get a good spot to watch the run and I feel it isn’t going to be easy to push my way through. But before I know it, I squeeze my way through the crowd, crawl through 2 fences and I’m on the course!

I feel happiness and elation that is inappropriate the position I am in. I am almost right at the gate where they let the bulls out. The start of the course. This was not part of the plan.

Amazingly, I find Aaron, Hesh and Nalin all on the course and we are back to together - breathing heavily, legs tired from the sprint, but all as elated as me.

(Minutes away from the start)

Luckily, we manage to keep moving our way up the course and oddly end up back to where we were planning on starting. We still have no idea why the Polica did what they did. That was fucked.

The Run
My watch reads 7:58 and the race is about to start. This is a map of the course (about 0.5 miles total). This map actually notes the injuries that occured on the day of our run.

(The Course)

The race uses multiple rockets to signify significant events. We read:

Rocket 1. Signifies that the first bull is released
Rocket 2. Suppose to be about a minute later, the last bull is released

Everyone says that you start running lightly when the first rocket launches and then start hard running when the second rocket goes off. All in, it should take the bulls about 3 minutes to finish the 0.5 mile course.

*BOOM* The first rocket goes off.

I start the jog with the rest of the group. Surprisingly, the masses move quite well together.

About 15 seconds later, the second rocket goes off. WHAT? Already? Panic. This was unplanned for.

The masses begin to sprint. Hard.

I am running up the left side and I see John and Aaron vaguely around me.

People are crowded all along the very edge of the road making me run a lot closer to the middle than I was planning (and yes, the middle is generally where the bulls tend to stay). I wasn’t expecting people to just stand ON the road the entire running.

My adrenalin is pumping probably harder than it has ever pumped. Marathons, triathlons, and even swimming from Alcatraz had nothing on this.

In total, I probably had about 0.25-0.3 miles to run before getting into the bull fighting arena. Before the run started, I thought it could be possible that I get into the arena before I even see a bull.

Not so.

As I am sprinting, the look of fear on the faces around me is shocking. I see hundreds of faces turning around and the fear on the faces is like a Godzilla movie with white people. Lots of cursing is heard. John overhears someone yell "Whose idea was this anyway".

The fear is contagious because I get more terrified by just seeing everyone’s faces and it becomes very real.

I continue sprinting.

Someone trips up ahead. Bad bad news.

Imagine tripping and falling on the ground…with hundreds of people running as fast as they can right behind you. A cartoon like pile up ensues with people just falling over on the fallen runners and making a large dog pile. Carried by my momentum, I run right into the pile up, pushing a few people to the ground (sorry). I manage to not fall completely, and with a hand on the ground, spin myself out of it to avoid most of the mess.

One of my biggest worries was getting caught in a pile up and having a bull smash right into us. It happens. Luckily not to me.

I keep running and then I hear someone shout "They’re coming".

I feel even more panicked. I contemplate jumping into a doorway, but think better of it, and just keep running.

I hear cow bells. And not the funny Saturday Night Live kind.

I mean cow bells attached to 1 ton beasts with very sharp horns.

I keep running.

The sides of the road get even more crowded as the people running in the middle move to the sides. I see the first pack of bulls run by me. I’m unscathed. I catch a quick breath but keep moving.

Another side note about the run: about 12 Bulls are let loose in the run. It is safest for runners if the bulls stay in a pack. If they stay in a pack, they generally stay in the middle of the road and don’t bother anyone (unless you fall in front of them). But often along the twists and turns, the bulls separate into multiple packs. It is the most dangerous when a bull ends up alone because it will get disoriented and start attacking people. It may even run back into the crowd.

I keep running.

I make it to the turn into the arena when out of the corner of my eye I see a bull spin out right at the turn. It is lying on the ground about to get up. It is now a disoriented lonely angry bull. Scary.

I have a big decision to make. Do I think I can make the final 30-40 yards into the arena before the bull gets up and beats me in there? Or do I jump the fence now and call it a day? My mind is racing. You do NOT want to get caught in the narrow tunnel into the arena with a bull. But if the bull got up and started running, we would hit the tunnel at the same time.

I’m contemplating jumping over the fence and forgetting about the arena. My heart is pounding. Then I hear Aaron shout: "It’s clear! Get out!"

Fuck it. I go for it.

I sprint. Or at least try.

[Physiological/Psychological Side Note #1: At this point I only have about 30-40 yards left and I am sprinting. I’m telling my body to sprint faster because I don’t feel like I’m running very fast. I can’t move any faster. My mind is positive I can run faster. My legs refuse. I still don’t know why]

I enter the tunnel (about 10 yards long) and I want to turn around. But I’m afraid if I turn around I may see a bull right there and I’d rather not see myself get gored. So I keep running.

I enter the arena and veer left right away. I HIGHLY recommend you veer left or right immediately when getting into the arena. As the bulls enter the arena, they just run straight to the exit.

I see Aaron in the arena. We made it! We are alive! We ran with the bulls!

Here is a YouTube video of the run itself:

The Arena

I didn’t know until this year, but the running of the bulls actually ends in a real bull fighting arena. Runners try and make it into the arena before the last bull, at which time they close the gate.

A rocket goes off signifying that the last bull has cleared the arena!

We don’t see Nalin and John after the rocket, but we assume they just jumped a fence and are fine (we hope).

Aaron and I hug and jump in joy. Words cannot describe the jubilation and elation we feel. All the people around us are smiling, hugging and are giddy.

We cannot help but to scream into the jam packed arena: "Are you not entertained? Are you not mother fucking entertained?" I think we earned the right to be a bit douchey.

(Our Fans In The Stadium)

*BOOM* a rocket goes off. The lesser known "Act II" of the running of the bulls begins.

Act II - Arena Mayhem
I didn’t know until this year either, but after the arena is closed and full of runners, they let a bull back into the crowd. Yes. They LET a bull back in. Luckily (?) these bulls are a bit smaller and their horns are tapped. But they are still extremely fast and angry.

A bull charges into the masses and knocks a ton of people down. Aaron and I run for the walls and try and climb out. Aaron is about to climb out when someone just pushes him over and he goes flying. I am just hanging on top of the fence as the bull passes.

They let the bull run around for a few minutes while runners try and touch the bull. Machismo at it’s highest. Bodies are flying all over the place.

The bull eventually gets to exit the arena and the crowd continues to erupt.

Well, it’s not quite over. They repeat this lone bull terrorizing activity about 6 times (new fully energized bull each time).

Here is a video I took of one of the runs. I’ve noted a few notable moments.

35 seconds..bull running right past me
55 seconds bull picks a guy up and he rides his head
1:50 me running for shear life
2:40 the bull jumps over the railing into the crowd and the policia jump into the arena because of it (not really well captured on the video)
3:58 the bull almost getting me again
4:14 a huge cow bull (?) comes out of no where and almost smokes me and the guy beside me

It’s finally over. They open up the arena and I leave. I’ve run with the bulls and walked away in one piece.

I go to our predetermined meeting spot and Nalin, John and Aaron are all there in one piece too. However, Nalin is doubled over in pain, but is ok. [Physiological side note #2 - A weird thing happened to all 4 of us during this event. I’m sure everyone has felt queasy at moments of nervousness. But all 4 of us (especially Nalin) felt like barfing after the run. Adrenalin overload? Any ideas?]

We all exchange our running stories. We all say how it was one of the greatest moments of our lives. And we all say how we would never do it again.

We walk back to the train ready to leave Pamplona. I have blood on the back of my t-shirt. It’s not mine. We see a guy walking along the street with his shirt ripped open and a foot print on his back.

Happy to be alive is an understatement. Great work boys:

NOTE:

To any haters that want to say: "You guys are chicken shits. Real men hit the bulls as they run by, chase them down in the arena, blah blah blah". Fine, fine. Whatever.
To any PETA folks that think the running is cruel. Well, I can’t say I disagree. But I have no problem eating meat either. Even foie gras and veal. Mmmm…baby cow. Go splash paint on someone wearing fur.

One month

2006-07-20T22:58:00.000-07:00

One month since my last post. Yes, I'm alive.

I haven't been very inspired to blog recently. No real reason other then a lack of inspiration and interest.

But I figured a post to let people know I'm still alive would be nice. Let's see..what's going on these days:

- Still going out a lot. A few mini-black outs. But nothing too dramatic to warrant a post onto itself (not including July 4th weekend in Vegas..but I'll leave that post off here). I've got a handful of pics on my Flickr site. That's probably a better place to check on a regular basis to see what I'm up to. I recommend viewing the sets on the right to see the pics grouped into a more logical order.

- I'm not training for any marathons or triathlons right now. And it feels GREAT! I'm still keeping in decent shape, but it's nice not feeling the freakish desire/need to work out 10 times a week. Good luck to my buddy Merrill on doing Iron Man Lake Placid this weekend! His first.

- I just came back from the worst business travel trip ever. Even worst then my last trip to Jersey. My boss and I were flying from SF to San Antonio for a meeting. We had a 1 hour stop over in LAX and were scheduled to land in Texas at 11 PM. Kind of late considering we had a 7:30 am meeting the next day. Bless our luck, but a power outage causes most of the airports in So Cal to shutdown. Our 1 hr layover becomes 5. We land in San Antonio at 4:30 am. A lovely 2 hrs of sleep for an all day meeting. Wheeeeee. *whine* *whine*

- I'm flying to Bangalore, India next week for work. I am really excited about that. My first time and I'll be gone for about 10 days. I hope I don't get food poisoning and crap my pants..again.

- The day after I get back from India, I'm off to Vancouver for one my best friend's weddings. Congrats Schaubnuts!! I can't wait.

- Watched 2 Indie movies recently at my neighborhood indie theatre - Lumiere:

Heart of The Game - One of my favorite movies of the year. A documentary that follows a high school girls basketball team for about 6 years. The natural and unforced drama in this movie put Hollywood shit like Coach Carter to shame.
Lady Vengeance - I oddly watched this movie by myself in the theatre..completely drunk. Don't ask. It was a weird night. Here's a combo that doesn't work so well: artsy fartsy korean movie, subtitles, drinking-drowsiness. I fell asleep 3 times in the movie. I had no fucking clue what was going on. All I know is there is one mean bad ass Korean chick in this movie.

- Watched 2 Hollywood movies back-to-back a few Sundays ago.

Superman - Loved it. I enjoyed Batman Begins a lot more. But I liked Superman Returns more then the first 2 X-Men movies and Spiderman 2.
Pirates of the Caribbean 2 - Hated it. How did this crap make so much money?

Why are Hollywood movies so long now? I literally watched these movies right after each other..and that was pretty much 6 straight hours of screen time. I had bed sores.

- And I got a promotion at work. Mixed feelings about it..but that's a whole other story that isn't really worth blogging about..just drinking about.

Alrighty, that's my last 30 days in a nutshell. I left out a few things like almost getting blown up in Vegas, my car being broken into, my new love of mansion pool parties, retiring of my favorite t-shirt and replacing it with Long Green Love, and a few other mundane details.

Just find my anonymous blog to get all the real juicy details.

I hate America

2006-06-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

OK, I don't really hate America. I love living in the states. It's treated me well this last 6+ years.

BUT, it's treatment of the NHL hurts my soul.

Last night, the Carolina Hurricanes beat the Edmonton Oilers in a gritty Game 7 Stanley Cup finals game. The Oilers played their hearts out..but were simply outplayed by the better Hurricanes team. Bravo to both teams.

As I leave a bar in South Bay (Bennigans) where I watched the game with some Canadian friends, I immediately turn to sports talk radio stations in my car to hear game recaps.

KNBR - has a baseball game being broadcast. The other AM sports station has a sports talk radio show on. What are they talking about? The U.S. Open of golf! The Stanley Cup finals just ended 10 minutes ago and they are talking about a golf major that ended yesterday???

This morning, I drive to work and listen to Sports Talk radio again. KNBR is talking about the NBA finals. The other station is interviewing a baseball player! What the hell..I listen to the radio for 30 more minutes switching between the 2 stations and the hockey game is not mentioned once.

Jesus...it's impossible to be a hockey fan in the states.

So wrong

2006-06-11T21:21:00.000-07:00

100_0402
Originally uploaded by whatupwilly.

It was like a car accident. I know...I'm an ass. But I couldn't help but to take this picture.

And if you think this was bad, about 15 minutes later, this old-dirty-homeless looking guy came up to her and they started making out.

The homeless guy even proceeded to rub her near-bare ass in the park.

I would have taken a picture of that, but the vomit in my mouth slowed me down.

When I grow up

2006-05-20T15:57:00.000-07:00

I think I figured out what I want to be when I grow up.

A writer.

Writing is such a strange thing for me. In highschool, writing papers was what I hated the most. I would literally write papers where each paragraph would take me 30 minutes to an hour. I was tortured over how to word things and string together sentences. But I managed to write. And what came out was actually pretty good.

I remember I wrote a story in grade 7 (that I loosely ripped off of The Terminator plot) and my grade 7 teacher thought it was amazing. Mr. Bell actually spent 10 minutes reading it out loud to the class. I remember the surrealness of the situation like it was yesterday. My teacher and classmates laughing as he hit the funny parts. The mild and lackadaisical clapping at the end. Pretty cool..but I still hated writing.

And I continued to rock English in high school. Being a stereotypical Chinese kid, I of course did well at Math and Science. But I always looked back at my papers as my proudest accomplishments in highschool. I would proof read them and think: "wow, that's pretty good". I even won a couple of English awards. My Dad was sad I didn't win the math award. My socials and English teacher both told me I should think about going into journalism. I scoffed.

Anyone who reads this blog with any regularity (hey Schaubnuts!) knows that my writing is really not that great. It can be funny at times. But it's easy to sound funny when I'm writing about the stupid things I do when I go out.

But I think I have it in me to be a decent if not a good writer.

I'm inspired by writers like Bill Simmons of ESPN. His casual, funny, and poignant writing style is something that I feel I can relate to and perhaps emulate?

I also just got a book at the airport on my flight to JFK. Magical Thinking by Augusten Burroughs. He's the same author of Dry, Running with Scissors and Sellevision. I have no idea why I bought this book. I haven't read any of his other books. I had never even heard of Magical Thinking before. I never buy books like this. I have nearly a hundred books at home, airport souvenirs from my 100% work travel days. Easy reads: James Patterson, John Grishman, and all that other New York Times best selling, easy reading stuff.

These books are the literary equivalent of summer Hollywood movies. Entertaining, easy to digest and generally predictable. Seriously, how many CIA conspiracies or Southern lawyers with dark secrets in their past stories can I read about? Apparently...a lot.

But for some reason, while walking by the Magical Thinking book, I was compelled to pick it up. It's a collection of Augusten's own true stories. Stories about growing up. Working at an Ad Agency. His quest to become a writer. Just a bunch of odd and humerous stories from his life.

I'm inspired.

I can write like this. My life may not be as exciting as Augusten's is (I was never given a blow job by a taxi driver who used to be a cathloic priest), but as I was reading this, I couldn't help but to think I can write stories like this that will make people smile.

I know I could never be a novelist. I don't have it in me when describing a man walking into a house to note details like the creak on the 19th century floor boards, the smell of vinegar used to clean the 15th century antique table in the expansive Victorian foyer of his late mother's Georgia home that use to be one of the first cotton farms in the South that freed slaves. I don't have that level of detail or attention in me. Nor do I care to.

But I think I have short stories in me.

With the exception of blogging, and writing in journals when I traveled, I don't write recreationally. I haven't tried writing fiction since high school

But I think I'll give it a shot. Maybe start with a story loosely based on my childhood? I dunno. I'll think of something. A satirical, based on reality, memoir?

I may or may not post any of the writing here.

But if I do, it may be a nice change to read some fictional drivel I write instead of my narratives of snorting rum or eating sweaty cheese.

See Will Tri - Wildflower Half Ironman Triathlon

2006-05-14T12:40:00.000-07:00

My first half ironman triathlon. In brief, it was awesome. I finished strong, I'm really happy with my time and as much of a cliche as this is, most importantly I had fun.

Summary

Overall - 818th out of 1768 athletes
Overall men - 707 out of 1264
My division (Male 30-34) - 136 out of 224
Total time - 6 hrs 15 min 7 seconds
Swim 1.2 miles - 34:39
Transition Swim->Bike - 5:01
Bike 56 miles - 3:22:34
Transition Bike->Run 3:08
Run 13.1 miles -2:09:45
Number of showers taken in 48 hours - 0

The Long
The below recap is LOOOOOOOOOOOOONG. I'm writing most of this on a flight to New Jersey so I have some time to write. I don't expect many people to read it all (hell..I couldn't even get through re-reading it after I posted it), but scroll down and see some pics as well.

Morning Prep
We camped over at Lake San Antonio on Friday night. A lot of my friends think this must have sucked because I wouldn't get a good nights rest. In fact, it was the total opposite. Camping makes you go to bed early (pretty much once it gets dark) and I slept solid from about 9:30 till 5:30 am.

At 5:30 I lied in my sleeping bag just thinking about the upcoming race. Surprisingly, I wasn't that nervous. Sure my stomach felt a bit queasy, but I didn't quite want to barf like the morning of my Alcatraz tri.

Camping with Merrill and the other people in SF Tri Club (my AWESOME tri club) actually had a calming effect on me. Everyone was pretty chill in the morning and no one was freaking out. When I prep for events by myself in the morning, my head goes a little crazy and I get a little neurotic. Not so this morning.

I ate a couple of peanut butter bagels, bananas and some coffee and I felt pretty great. Refreshed, energized and ready to go. Only one thing left to do. And that was to crap.

*too much info ahead*

Taking a shit has to be about the most important thing before an endurance sport. When you are going to be doing something for 6+ hours, not carrying around a pound of bio-waste in your gut and intestines is a good thing. I INTENTIONALLY didn't crap the night before to make sure I could poop in the morning.

As I walked over to the bathroom I was actually nervous. No joke. The following thoughts ran through my head:

"Do I have a crap in me?"
"OMG, what if I can't shit"
"Please God, loosen my stool and let me push it out"

I'm not even joking. My walk to the bathroom was the most nervous I felt all morning. I sit on the surprisingly clean campsite toilet and try and poop. *plip* *plop*. I get up to wipe my ass and what do I see? Two fucking raisin sized pieces of shit.

"That's it?" I actually say out loud in the bathroom.

F@CK. I ate 2 giant plates of pasta, 2 bagels, 4 eggs, ham and toast the previous day. How can that only result in the losing entry in a rabbit shitting contest?

I begin to feel scared for the first time all morning.

As I begin to walk back in pooping-shame back to the camp site I begin going over some of my mental mantras that will get me through the day. "THINK POSITIVE". I force myself to laugh about it and tell myself

"Shitting 2 raisins is better then nothing. That will probably shave a minute off your bike".

*end of too much info*

I get all my gear ready and like everyone is paranoid that I have forgotten something. But I'm confident that I have everything: wetsuit, cycling shoes, running shoes, runners cap, body glide, advil, power bars, gels, sunblock. I'm set!!

Merrill and I jump on our bikes and make our way down to the transition area.

On our way down, miracles of miracles happen. A rumbling stirs. And my prayers are answered. I need to poop again!

*start of too much info*
I stop off at a port-o-potty (which again is..oddly spotless) and I must have lost a pound.

I walk out in victory and think: "Maybe the key to a successfully pre-race crap is to wear your helmet" (which I was).
*end of too much info*

We get to the transition area and I get all my stuff set up. I feel good about my transition area considering that this is my first tri of the year and I haven't practiced transitions at all.

(Transition area - sea of racked bikes - Lake San Antonio in the background)

I mentally tell myself:

When you come back here after the swim, take your time. You're going to be doing this for the next 6 hrs, spending an extra 30 seconds in transition to make sure you have everything is not going to kill you.

Merrill comes over to my transition area and he forgot his body glide (body glide is like a deodarant stick, but you rub it on all the parts of your body that may chaffe - it helps prevent things like bleeding nipples, wet suit rash, thigh chaffing, etc).

"Can I use some of your body glide?" asks Merrill innocently
"Sure..but..um...I need to warn you" I begin to say. "Actually, never mind, here you go"
"Um. What? Tell me" stammers Merrill, already painfully aware of what I'm about to say
"Well, that has been used very liberally on my inner thighs and balls already. And even well applied to that spot between my asshole and balls".

Merrill grimaces, but when faced with wet suit rash or the prospect of what is effectively me tea bagging most of his body, he takes the virtual tea bag. Merrill groans extra painfully when he applies the body glide to his neck.

The Swim - 1.2 miles - 34 min 39 seconds
I am waiting near the swimming area for my heat to start. It's pretty cool because I get to see the pros take off and come out of the water. I also see Nalin and Monica who made the trek down just to come and watch. You guys are awesome.

My heat - real men wear PINK!

Watching the pros come out of the water

Monica and Nalin did a great job taking pics!

I feel good. Swimming is my strongest leg. I begin to tell myself another one of my mantras:

"Swim hard, sight well, don't panic, and have fun".

I use a lot of these mantras to get me through the day. More later.

I started in the last Male 30-34 year old heat (damn it..I'm still 29). With pink swim cap on (eveyone in the same heat is given a matching cap), I jumped in the water waiting for my heat to start. I pee in my suit for good luck and warmth and I'm off!

Warming up and peeing in my suit before starting

The swim start was great. There were not that many people in my heat and it was not a chaotic mess at all. I immediately get to the edge and I don't feel anyone kicking or clawing me. I'm lined up aiming for the first buoy and my swim stroke feels good.

And we're off!!

About 5 minutes into it, I think: "Why isn't anyone trying to kick me?". I take a quick peak and realize I'm already slightly off course! What the hell? How did that happen? I look at the buoy and think I'm lined up straight for it. But everyone is to my right and there aren't many people around me. "Don't panic".

I shake it off and just start making my way for the first buoy and I get back into the mass of swimmers. The first turn feels good and I feel like I'm close to the front of the pink cap heat. Actually, I have no idea if I am. But I tell myself:

You are kicking ass, you are out ahead of these other swimmers. Nalin and Monica are going to be amazed when they see you are one of the first pink caps out of the water.

That little motivational pep talk keeps me going strong. I even begin to see some yellow caps from the swimmers in the heat before me (started 5 minutes earlier). I feel even more confident and pick up my stroke.

I think I get a little caught up in telling myself what a swimming stud I am and I realize I'm a little off course again. I'm inside the buoy line and I need to correct. "DON'T PANIC". I correct myself, but I'm a little mad that the voice in my head was too busy telling me how great I was and not reminding me to keep sighting (sighting is when you look up every few strokes to make sure you don't go off course).

I make the last turn for the final stretch back to shore and I'm feeling good. Then it happens. The first green cap passes me. This is first guy I notice who started 5 minutes after me (in the 35-40 year old heat) and has caught up to me and is now passing me! I try drafting off this obviously faster swimmer and he smokes past me. I have no hope in keeping up. I need to pull out another one of my mantras (that I was actually very pre parred to use on the bike, but not so much on the swim): "IGNORE IT WHEN PEOPLE PASS YOU, JUST RACE YOUR RACE".

That mantra calms me down a bit and I swim hard for the finish.

I swim all the way until my hand hits the ground and I launch out of the water. I feel great! The arms are a little tired, but I feel pumped. I hear the cheer of the crowd and as I peel off my wet suit to show my SF Tri Club racing jersey, I hear "Go SF Tri!" from some of the other athletes.

Coming out of the water

Stripping off my wet suit - you can see my SF Tri Club jersey on underneath

Transition 1 - Swim to Bike - 5 min 1 sec
This is the first tri I have done where I wore my tri shorts and tri top under my wet suit. The first few I did, I just went commando and put on my clothes at the transitions. Not only does this slow your transition time, during Escape from the Rock I think a good 50 or so spectators got a good view of my junk (it was COLD WATER!) as my towel fell off.

The transition goes well and I'm on my bike pretty quickly. The only thing I forgot to pack was some advil. But I didn't really feel the need for it on the bike anyway.

The Bike - 56 miles - 3 hrs 22 min
Biking is by FAR my worst event. I haven't been cycling very long and I just don't know what my body is and isn't capable of on the bike. But I have my game plan in place and I just tell myself some more mantras:

"IGNORE IT WHEN PEOPLE PASS YOU, JUST RACE YOUR RACE"
"CYCLE CAREFULLY, DON'T GET A FLAT"
"DON'T BE DISCOURAGED IF YOU GET A FLAT, JUST SUCK IT UP AND FIX IT. DON'T CRY YOU BITCH"
"EAT, DRINK, EAT, DRINK, EAT, DRINK"
"SAVE YOUR LEGS FOR THE RUN"

I'm hoping for just finishing the bike in under 4 hours. This is ridiculously slow, but that's my goal. I want to make sure I save enough leg strength for the run.

I start my ride around 9:40 am.

The 56 mile bike course

My nutrition plan is simple and I stay on track with it:

Drink every 10 minutes
Eat a power gel 10 minutes after each hour (10:10, 11:10, 12:10, etc)
Eat a whole power bar at 40 minutes after each hour (10:40, 11:40, etc).

I end up eating and drinking a lot and it worked great. I had energy the entire ride and I never cramped up or bonked. I ended up eating 4 whole power bars, 4 gels, a banana and probably 4 bottles of Gatorade on the ride. I didn't even need to pee once on the bike!

The bike felt really good. I let people pass and I kept on what was probably a 17 mph pace. Not fast, but I was happy with it. I remember reaching the 1/2 way point and thinking: "I feel great, 1/2 way done and I feel fresh and energized".

I keep cycling, literally having hundreds of people pass me. On the entire bike course, I probably only passed about 10 people. I was fully prepared for this to happen, so I just don't care. I feel good and I'm just hoping to finish without a flat.

At about mile 41, we hit Nasty Grade. It's the "famous" part of the bike long course. It's about a 2-3 mile stretch where you climb about 1000 feet. I calm myself down and just power up it. I actually manage to pass a few people on the ascent and I continue to feel good.

Check out the climb at Mile 41

After I made it up the grade, I was pumped. I knew the bike was mostly downhill from here . My main concern right now was: "Don't kill yourself or get a flat".

I whip down the hill of Nasty Grade and almost hit 50 mph. Frightening. Someone actually took a very ugly spill going down the hill and I felt for the guy and wished he was ok.

I start pumping my way towards the end of the bike and I realize that I am going to finish the bike in about 3 hrs and 30 minutes. I'm ecstatic. I never thought I would finish that quickly and I begin to think "Wow, I might break 6 hours and 30 minutes".

Yes...I was flexing for the camera. :)

Going into Wildflower, my main goal was just to finish. I also would have been happy with finishing in under 7 hours. My streeeeeeeeetch goal was to break 6 hours and 30 minutes. When I finished the swim and bike in about 4 hrs and 5 minutes, I realized I was probably going to hit my stretch goal!

Transition 2 - Bike to Run - 3 min 8 seconds
Transition #2 was pretty simple. Rack my bike, get off my cycling shoes, put on the running shoes, drink, eat a gel, eat a banana, apply sunblock, pop some advil, pack some gels for the run, throw on my hat and start running (I forgot to put my running # on!)

As I said in a previous post, I haven't run in 2 weeks becomes of shin pain. So I was a little nervous about how my legs might hold up. But they felt GREAT! I didn't even have that jelloy feeling of switching from cycling to running.

My legs felt fresh and my body felt energized, even after 4 hours of activity.

The Run - 13.1 miles - 2 hrs 9 min
I'm running out of the transition area and I see Nalin taking my picture. It totally lifted my spirits. I also see Monica and I give her a high five and I think I had a banana in my hand at the time. Sorry Mon :)

Yo Nalin!! I feel pumped!

I've run a couple of races in about 8 min/mile paces before. But I knew not to try and push it that hard for this run course. It's very hilly and my legs weren't in top shape. I told myself just to run at whatever I was comfortable with. And this turned out to be about 9.5-10 min miles.

The first few miles of the run are normally the worst for me. It's when your legs are just getting used to running instead of cycling and there is normally a lot of discomfort. However, my legs felt great! They felt better then they have in months and I felt extremely lucky. I couldn't help but to run with a smile on. There is no doubt in my mind that I am going to finish this race. And that was a great feeling.

Me in all my spandex glory - I swear, I hate the fact that my top is a belly shirt. For real...it's a LARGE!! I don't know why they make them like that...

At about mile 2 I stop to piss. I have probably finished drinking 72 oz of fluids in the last 4+ hours but I have not pissed once. I brace myself for what I know is going to be a painful piss.

OK, I don't know the science behind this, but whenever I go on long rides and don't pee, that first pee I take after a couple of hours screams with pain. Is my urethra dehydrate and the warm-flow of urine is a shock to it? I don't know. Doctors?

We hit some pretty rough trail hills on the run. My plan was to just keep running, even on the hills. I try running up one of the hills and realize I'm barely moving. I see people around me doing the same. Lots of arm swinging and leg moving, but we are moving at a craaawwwwwwwl. So I figured I might as well just walk up the steep hills and use the opportunity to stretch my legs.

Running the hilly trails

I think this was a great plan, because I wasn't really that much slower then the people "running" up the hills. I was a bit afraid I would lose any momentum I had and just want to keep walking, but that wasn't the case.

My nutrition plan was to eat a gel about every 40 minutes and drink Gatorade at every mile. I stuck to the plan and again I remained cramp and bonk free. Oddly, sticking to my nutrition plan is one of the things I'm proudest of this weekend.

I kept expecting to hit the wall during my run. I felt that during my first SF 1/2 marathon around mile 10. The last 3 miles were incredibly painful. I felt that during the Vancouver Marathon. My legs were in a ton of pain the last 2 miles.

But it never came. I just kept on running.

I felt like Forrest Gump. "Run Will Run" I could almost hear Jenny saying in my head.

I hit the 7 mile mark, where I was definitely expecting to feel bad. But I didn't! I only had 6 miles left. I told myself: "You run 6 miles all the time. This is just another 6 mile training run."

I look at my watch. Oh my god. If my math is right, I am going to break 6 hrs and 30 minutes! In fact, i might even hit 6:15! It's weird. When I realized this, I think I might have even slowed down a bit. I knew I was about to beat all my goals, so I told myself just to keep a steady pace, enjoy the scenery, smile and thank all the volunteers and great spectators shouting words of encouragement to me and not push it.

As I started running through the campgrounds with all the campers, triathletes and other people cheering I feel amazing. I'm smiling, my arms are pumping in the air and I literally feel the best I have running in months. No real pain or discomfort. Just a big fat stupid grin on my face. Special thanks to the amazing SF Tri Club group who cheered me on loudly as I raced by our camp site. More cowbell!!

I reached mile 12, and with only a downhill mile left, I'm not just grinning. I'm all out smiling. I have a huge shit-eating-teeth-bearing smile on. Patented rectangle smile and all.

I'm running into the chute before the finish and I see and hear a bunch of SF Tri Club people cheering me on. It feels amazing. I don't even really bother sprinting to the finish line like I normally do. I continue to just run my pace and enjoy the experience. The cheers, the sun, the crowd and the announcer: "And crossing the finish line, William Young from San Francisco".

I finish. I'm a 1/2 Ironman. Months of training, fear, doubt, angst are behind me.

I jump up and click my heels at the finish and I'm done (I think I got more air then I did at Alcatraz).

My Best Matrix imitation

I hi-five a bunch of my other Tri Club members who finished before me. They all look great and I'm happy to share my accomplishment with them.

I also see Nalin and Monica at the finish. These 2 were amazing. They drove all this way, spent the night at a hotel on Friday night just to see me race. They probably saw me a total of 4 times for about 2 minutes total. But the smiles on their faces when I finished meant the world to me. Thanks again guys. You're the best. I have much love for you both

Aftermath
I finished the race with no cramping and no real pain. I'm obviously tired, but I continue to feel great. I saw a lot of people cross the finish line and just collapse. Or at least completely cramp up and need to be assisted to the medical tent.

5% of me wishes I picked up my running pace to about 9 min/mile and finished the race about 10 minutes faster. But 95% of me is glad I raced the way I did and enjoyed every moment of it.

My good friend and training partner Merrill finished in 6:13:40. He beat me by just over a minute. This is pretty amazing considering we started at different times and never saw each other once. So it was not like we were pacing off each other and he just sprinted past me in the end.

As we recounted our races, we realized how he was able to beat me. Merrill pissed multiple times while riding. Literally. He didn't even whip it out. Just pissed in his shorts while riding. Barely slowing down. Merrill has a 9 year old kids bladder and he pee'd 4-5 times on the bike. If he stopped to pee each time, that would have probably added 2 minutes to his time and I would have beaten him. Hahahaha. Great job Merrill. We did awesome. Good luck at Lake Placid for your first Ironman.

Even as I write this 4 days later, I still feel euphoric about the whole experience. It was amazing and something I will always remember.

I don't really know what is next. Maybe Vineman. Or Escape from the Rock again. Or surf more. Or hit the gym more and put on some weight. Whatever. It doesn't matter right now. I'll figure it out.

Shout Outs
I wanted to really thank the many people who have supported me leading up to the tri.

SF Tri Club - You guys are the best. The training weekend at Lake San Antonio we had gave me all new levels of confidence, and the long weekend ride/run bricks did as well. Janelle and Richard going a couple of days early to set up ALL of our tents was even more amazing.

Merrill - my most regular training partner. Our emails on "I ran 8 miles yesterday, what did you do?" were a great constant motivator.

Nalin and Monica - again..thank you.

And all my friends who encouraged me along the way or checked in on me after the race: Schaubnuts, Aileen, Tushman, Eva, Alice, Doug T, Pat, Erica, Brandee, Vanessa, Shannph, Evan, Nik, Aaron, Lisa (thanks for an AWESOME pre-race care package), Grace, Elena (who even while chillin in India remembered to email me the day after to see how i did), V, Jason E, Doug, Sarah, Lynda and I'm sure a few other.

To my family..who didn't call or write before the race, and still has not called or emailed to see how I did...oh well. I'm too happy to be bitter.

Woo hoo! One 1/2 Ironman in the bag. Ironman Canada next year?

Finished my first Wildflower 1/2 Ironman triathlon!!

2006-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

Wooo hoo! Finished my first 1/2 Ironman Triathlon yesterday.

I finished with a time of 6 hrs, 15 min and 7 seconds.

As this was my first 1/2 Ironman, I didn't really know what my time would be. I would have been happy with sub 7 hrs and I would have been ecstatic if I brok 6 hrs and 30 mins. So finishing at 6 hrs and 15 min...wow.

Relatively, I finished 816 out of 1257 male athletes. Not a great percentile..but who cares! I finished! Wooo hooo!!

I'll post a full race report soon, but I wanted to let my friends know I'm alive and well and feeling great.

Peaking

2006-05-01T23:58:00.000-07:00

5 days before my big triathlon.

5 days before swimming 1.2 miles, biking 56 miles and running 13.1 miles.

And I feel great about it.

A lot of books I read about triathlon training talk about peaking at the right time. Not training too hard in the beginning so that you are worn down by the time your event comes, or not training enough before you realize it's too late, etc.

Although my training could have been better, I feel like my conditioning is really good right now.

My legs have still been bothering me a lot when I run, so my running is limited to once a week. This in itself does suck because my original training plan had me running around 3 times a week.

But whatever...

The last few weekends I did some big confidence building work outs.

3 weekends ago, I did a 60+ mile bike ride (Lucas valley/Nicasio) followed by a ~6+ mile run brick. It felt great. I was sore and tired, but I cranked through it.

2 weekends ago, Merrill and I did another ~60 mile bike ride (Paradise Loop + Marin Headlands + Legion of Honor + Ocean Beach) followed by another 6 mile run. Again, I felt great! My runs were ass slow, but who the f@ck cares. I finished, felt strong and I mentally feel great about Wildflower.

Wildflower is a hell of a lot harder ride then the 2 rides we did above. But I still feel good.

So much of endurance sports is mental. And I feel like I'm mentally ready to make Wildflower my bitch. F@ck whatever time I get. But I'm confident that I'll finish and that's what I care about.

Oddly, this peak in training has coincided with a dramatic increase in the amount I have been going out. In the last month+, I have been doing the Thurs-Fri-Sat-night-back-to-back-to-back going out trifecta almost every weekend.

In fact, this past weekend, Evan was in town and we went out Thurs-Fri-Sat-AND-Sunday night. I still did a couple of hung over works out on Sat and Sunday though (begin to taper down a bit, so nothing too intense).

Life is all about balance, and I love the fact that my body is letting me drink, hang and dance till 3 am and then still go out and exercise for 5+ hours straight. Woo hoo!

Who says life is over at 30? F@CK that...life just gets interesting. Well..especially when you are like me and have no real responsibility outside of my job, working out, keeping in touch with my family back home...and having fun as much as possible. Life is pretty entertaining.

*OK* This post was pretty cocky sounding. But that's what blogs are for, to brag when you're feeling good..to whine when you're feeling low. And I am feeling GOOOOOOOOD. So haters..you can lick my newly-shaved-for-atheltic-performance balls.

San Francisco's finest

2006-04-26T17:07:00.000-07:00

I'm sitting in Starbucks, waiting for the work on my car to finish @ Tire Broker.

In front of me are 4 San Francisco parking and traffic employees. Yes, that's right, the fine civil employees who give us all parking tickets.

It's easy to hate these people right? But isn't it just their job? And you can't hate someone for making a paycheck and paying their bills right?

Well..maybe you can.

I wish I could take a picture of these 4 without them noticing.

They are all crowded at a table and they oddly brought their own tray of cinnamon buns. That's right..their own tray of cinnamon buns. And not just regular cinnamon buns. I mean the type of buns you get in the mall that are at least 1000 calories each.

And no wonder. Each of these workers are probably a good 40-50 lbs over weight. Apparently riding around in the parking cart doesn't burn a lot of calories.

I'm not saying you should hate these folks because they are overweight and on what looks to be a 1 hour "coffee break".

I'm saying you should hate them, because as they shovel cinnamon bun after cinnamon bun into their borderline obese bodies, they are recounting some of their favorite tickets they have given people.

"One time, I gave this guy a ticket when he was just a couple of inches inside a bus stop area. Boy was he pissed...hahahaha"

Bastards.

I'm never gonna dance again...

2006-04-18T08:43:00.000-07:00

I was at The Monkey Club last Saturday night. I like this place, it's cozy, has good hip-hop, strong drinks, and nice bartenders.

A rare occurence happened and a random girl asked me to dance *gasp*.

I didn't really want to dance, so I dropped this line:

I'm never gonna dance again
Guilty feet have got no rhythm

She just stared at me. Confused.

That's what happens when you quote songs from the 80s to someone who is in their low 20s.

Karma

2006-04-12T22:28:00.000-07:00

My "check engine" light turned on for my Xterra a couple of days ago. F@CK.

It's oddly enough my first car, so I got a little paranoid about it and took it to the Nissan dealer.

On my way there I stopped to get some gas. I take off the cap on my gas tank and I see an empty potato chip bag stuffed in there! WTF? F'n parking on the streets of SF and the sh!t that happens.

I tell that to the mechanic and he says that a lack of a vacuum in the gas tank (caused by the crumpled bag) could have broken a sensor. But they needed to do a diagnostic check. Price tag just for the check? $200 bucks.

MOTHER F@CKING POTATOE CHIP WRAPPER!!

I leave my car there and get called back by my mechanic a couple of hours later.

Apparently, the KNOCK sensor is busted. Whatever the hell that is. The price tag to fix? $700+!! To fix a stupid sensor that the mechanic couldn't really properly explain what it was for. He also said I needed to replace my engine belts ($200+) and all my tires ($800+).

Great. Stupid car.

So why Karma?

On my way back from picking up my car I stopped at Burger King to grab a Double Whopper and 4 piece chicken nuggets.

It cost $4.64.

I gave the drive-thru guy $10.04. And I got $6 in change instead of the $5.40 I was suppose to get back. Not only that, I got 8 piece chicken nuggets by accident as well!

Wow. $1700 in car repairs. But I got 60 cents extra back from Burger King and 4 extra chicken nuggets.

Someone is really watching out for me.

MOTHER F@CKIN POTATO CHIP WRAPPER!!

Friday snorting bar hop

2006-04-08T15:19:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've posted a "I'm stupid and drunk" story. Well..here's a quick one :)

Last night was supposed to be a chill night. A bit of sushi for dinner and maybe a drink or two at a lounge.

Started with some great sushi at Sakana and a giant large Asahi. Yum.

Pam and I then whipped over to Swig for a quick Sapphire Tonic.

Next stop: Blur. This is where things started getting a little sloppy. They had this promotion going on for Chivas Regal. I ended up getting 3 free Chivas Regal Dirty Apple Martinis. Yeah..it's as disgusting as it sounds. But I'm Chinese and I can't let free stuff go to waste. And of course, it's Blur, so we had to do a Fernet shot with Amy.

We pop over across the street to meet Simon, Van, Shannph and Cecil at Vertigo - and that's where CrAZyWilL starts to come out.

I've kept CrAZyWilL in check for some time. I don't know what it is about last night that inspired the bender.

But at Vertigo I have a giant 16 oz Mango margarita. So let's recap:

Large Asahi
Sapphire Tonic
3 Chivas Dirty Apple Martinis
Fernet Shot
16 oz margarita

That's a lot of mixing going on. There is a party going on in my stomach and everyone's invited.

We are about to head to R-Bar so we order one drink for the long 200 yd walk over. Drink of choice: Lava Bowl. It's like a scorpion bowl. Lots of rum, juice and ice.

Here is a pic of us putting it down. Fun fun fun.

Notice that little divit in the bowl? That is filled with 151 rum. I think Vanessa dared Simon to down the middle. And of course in my not so sober state I need to one up that. So I offer to snort it.

Yes that's right. Snort it.

Snort.

151 rum.

With my nose.

Yes. CrAZyWilL is not a good person. He's evil.

So I snort it. And my face goes numb. I felt like Booger in Better Off Dead when he snorted snow on the mountain. I don't recommend ever doing that. Ever.

And the night doesn't end there.

We head over to R-Bar (hate that place - it's a lame Marina bar transplanted to Polk street) to meet up with Maria, Lisa and Aric. I don't think we even had a drink here. After some giggling and laughs, we head back to Blur.

All I remember here was rows of Fernet shots. Literally rows. *POP* Blacked out.

I wake up this morning and I get a call from Calvin:

Calvin: Dude, how are you feeling this morning?
Will: Like shit.
Calvin: What do you remember from last night?
Will: Wait a second. Did I see you last night?
Calvin: Hahaha. Yes.

I guess after Blur - Pam, Kevin and I went to Zebra Lounge. I don't remember that. *sigh*

Stupid CrAZyWilL. I hate that guy.

Best triathlon advice ever

2006-04-08T15:10:00.000-07:00

Less then a month before my big tri. Yikes.

Besides the obvious physical training, I have also been doing lots of reading to pick up tips and tricks for the big event.

Here are the 3 of the funniest tips I have read recently:

The first 2 tips are from "The Triathlete's Training Bible" by Joe Friel. It's pretty intense reading. I feel like I'm studying for a biology degree when I'm reading most of it.

Tip 1: From the chapter on "Racing" (tips on race day)

Before leaving your room, use the toilet. If your body isn't accustomed to bowel movements first thing in the morning, train it to do so by going to the bathroom every morning before working out. A warm drink or a little food may help with this. Eventually it will become natural.

Hahah. Awesome. It's funny...because taking a shit is actually on my pre-race checklist. My checklist from my Alcatraz tri:

Tip 2: Later on in the Racing chapter.

When you arrive at the transition area, rack your bike and position equipment as you always do. Don't try anything new today. Visit the toilet. Acquaint yourself with landmarks for your rack, such as its position relative to trees, light poles, pavement marking, signs or other permanent markers. Visit the toilet. Walk to the swim and bike finishes and locate your transition stall from those perspectives. Visit the toilet. Rehearse the best route from each to your rack two or three times. And, of course, visit the toilet.

OK, Joe...we get it. Triathlete's need to shit.

The next tip is from my Spin class instructor Edith. She gives out these great hand outs every class. The topic of the last hand out was: "Maintaining Balance & Health: Ancient Wisdom from Modern Athletes".

Tip 3: Sexual Activity and Athletic Performance

In Chinese Medicine, sex is considered a natural and healthy activity. As with everything else, moderation is the key. Too little sex can result in illness relating to stagnancy or accumulation (Editor: blue balls). Too much sex will deplete and exhaust the body. The ancient medical texts offered elaborate discussions including mathematical equations on how often men should ejaculate as he ages, and techniques for enjoying sexual activity without ejaculation and "depleting one's essence". In modern times, we can giggle about these exact numerical prescriptions and techniques. But the idea of considering sexual activity in the context of one's health and sports performance is both interesting and important.

Without a doubt, two people of the same age will be different. It's always best to listen to your body. If you feel fatigue/weakness after sex, or if your athletic performance is affected by having sex before the night before big workouts or competitions, then you may be having sex or ejaculating too frequently (Editor: too frequently? is that possible?). Also, traditionally, it is said that the healing of bones, tendons, and ligaments require the same "essence" that is also the source of reproductive/sexual energy. Moderation in sex, along with all other activities, is considered important in helping sports injuries heal more quickly.

Wait. So the more I ejaculate...the slower my injuries are going to heal? Great. No wonder my legs hurt so much.

Surfing pain in the ass

2006-03-27T22:06:00.000-08:00

I went surfing for the first time in a while last Friday. I haven't been surfing much recently because I've been really focused on tri training (which has been going pretty shitty..but that's another story).

Woke up at 5:30 am, hit the beach by 6:10 am and was in the water by 6:30. The waves looked pretty good from the lot and Archie and I headed to the north end.

Whoa. Once we got out there, the waves seemed a lot bigger then they seemed from the beach.

5 minutes in and I go for my first wave. It's about 2 ft overhead and i go flying down the face. Feels great to be back in the water. Once I get to the trough of the wave it breaks right on top me and I wipe out. Badly.

I get tumbled around and my surfboard whips around like a slingshot on my leash and whacks me right in the ass. The fin digs right in and leaves a hell of a bruise. BTW, I just bought a new camera, so expect a lot more pics soon. So one of my first pictures I take...my bruised ass:

Enjoy! Nasty isn't it?

OK. That's not really my ass. All of the above actually happened, but the surfboard nailed me in the back of my shoulder. Here's where I actually got hit:

Haha. Sorry ladies, the real ass shots need to be requested via email. And no, I didn't actually mean to take a picture of my shoulder hoping it would look like an ass.

Gorillapod ring

2006-03-06T21:27:00.000-08:00

Some of you gadget and digital camera fans may have already seen the Gorillapod.

How bad ass is that? A flexible camera tripod that can be wrapped around whatever is around.

Anyone who has a digital camera can immediately see how great and cool this is. How many times have you been out with your friend and you are too shy to ask someone to take your picture for you?

No more!

Now you can continue to be an anti-social member of society and never need to talk to strangers again. Just set up your camera and Gorillapod anywhere. Fences, branches, poles, a bottle, chairs..whatever.

Check out some of the very cool press that the Gorillapod has gotten:

Video review of the gorillapod on CNET.com
Gizmodo review
Digicamreview review

All the other reviews are here: http://www.joby.com/contactpress.html

I'm also proud to say that I know one of founders of the company that is responsible for this amazing device. What up Ken! This thing rocks.

I've been staring at the Gorillapod for a good chunk of today, contemplating the possibilities. And I can't help but to be reminded of another very popular device. A cock ring (or more politically correct: love ring). Compare and contrast:

(Cockring vs. Gorillapod)

I haven't gotten my Gorillapod delivered yet, but I'm willing to bet it could be cinched pretty securely around my package. Seriously, it was meant for wrapping around poles right?

So for only $25 bucks (Sean Michael cockring is $10 bucks) you can get a tripod and an erection maintaining cockring!

Even better, think of all the great pictures you could take!?

You are going to be taking Point Of View (POV) dirty sex shots to a whole new level.

And why stop at your cock?

It's only fair to get your girlfriend involved in the picture taking fun. To demonstrate, I'm going to use some of the great (relatively clean) diagrams available at Kamasutrafree.com.

I've pulled some of positions I feel would be most appropriate for the Gorillapod.

1. Winged Eros

I recommend it on the girl's right ankle and have your camera set to video mode or picture taking every 5 seconds. You are sure to get excellent shots alternating between downward shots of the girl, a couple of penetration shots and maybe an "O" face.

2. Silkworm Spinning A Cocoon

Ahh...the good ole Silkworm Spinning A Cocoon. To quote the site:

The woman can imagine her vagina as a flower blossoming into orgasm

Here I recommend attaching the Gorillapod onto the guy's thigh. The penetration shots achieved by the thigh attachment will include your entire package. Not just the tip as if you were using it as a cock ring. Guys, remember...TRIM and it will look bigger.

3. Position Of The Goat and The Tree

Haha..what a great name. Really, this is just the girl sitting on your lap. I recommend putting the camera wrapped around the girls knee pointed towards you. This is great because you will get nice breast shots.

4. White Tiger Tao

Please compare the name "White Tiger Tao" to "Doggy Style". Damn Asians are poetic when it comes to sex position names.

A white guy once probably saw 2 dogs shagging in an alley and went home to his wife and said:

Man: Honey, let's try something new tonight.
Wife: What do you mean?
Man: I call this Doggy Style. You bend down like a dog, I mount you from behind and I thrust like a dog in heat.
Wife: *slap*

An asian guy saw the same 2 dogs shagging in an alley and went home and said:

Man: Honey, let's try something new tonight.
Wife: What do you mean?
Man: The most noble animal in the jungle is the White Tiger. It's brave, it's courageous, and is known for its undying love for its mate. Once a white tiger find its mate, they are together for life. Honey, tonight I want to make love like White Tigers.
Wife: *already naked and bent over*

For the white tiger position, I recommend attaching the Gorillapod gently around your girls neck. This will take nice pics of the girls ass and your "O" face if you time it just right.

Alright - that is it for now.

Now go out there and buy a Gorillapod and make some sweet creative love with your partner.

Please share any pics you take.

UPDATE 03/08 - My friend Ken hooked me and my readers up with a Gorillapod $3 off coupon. Enter: WUWILLY on check out.

Also, help me make this post del.icio.us:

Good Night, and Good Luck

2006-03-05T17:08:00.000-08:00

It's Oscar night. Zzzzzzzzzz.

I've never been a big fan of award shows (except maybe the MTV Movie Awards..it's a guilty pleasure).

But I figure it would be appropriate to watch one of the movies nominated for best picture: Good Night, and Good Luck.

It was definitely a great movie. The best thing about this movie? It didn't feel the need to be gratuitously looooooooooooong. It told a compelling story, with great acting, interesting cinematography (damn they smoked a lot in the 50's) all in 93 wonderfully efficient minutes.

Compare that to Munich another Oscar nominee. Munich was 164 minutes! It was so long I had bed sores at the end. I think the only movies that can ever justify being that long need to have Hobbits, Corleones or Jessica Alba (if she doesn't try and act or talk - just frolic in a bikini).

My favorite part of the movie was David Strathairn's (playing Edward R. Murrow) final speech.

He talked about the need for TV to educate and not just to entertain. 60 years later...and TV is probably much worse in its ratio of entertainment vs. education.

One thing Murrow suggests is "what if every 3 weeks instead of showing another Milton Berle show, they aired a program on the US policy in the Middle East (or a similar topic)".

That got me thinking - if I sat down to watch Lost on Weds and ABC preempted it with a non-biased news program on the effects of the Iraq war...would I stay and watch?

Or would I bitch, moan and flick to the other dozens or hundreds of programming options available now?

Sadly, probably the latter. I think VH1 is showing some show about toys.

Damn I miss Gobots.

Updated 7:40 pm - OK, I've been sucked in and have watched almost the entire show already. Jon Stewart...you are bloody brilliant. The best line of the night so far:

For those keeping track at home: Martin Scorsese - zero Oscars. Three 6 Mafia - one.

Hahaha.

Google WiFi

2006-03-04T17:00:00.000-08:00

I'm sitting in Union Square right now in the heart of SF. It's touristy, it's commercial..but it's a great people watching spot. I wish I had my camera on me.

The people around me are probably 50% tourists. Families. Vacationing couples. The other half represent the total spectrum of bay area residents. White Yuppies. Young spiky haired asian kids. Mid 20's "trendy" peeps wearing ratty used looking t-shirts, tattered blazers, big sunglasses, retro sneakers - that I'm sure was paid for by their cool ad agency jobs. There is even a wedding party here taking pictures (first time I've ever seen that in Union Square).

I'm outside Il Cafe Rulli, a decent Italian cafe right in the Union Square plaza. I like this place because you can get beer or wine and drink it outside and people watch.

I fired up my laptop once I was outside, hoping I would find an unsecured wireless connection I could piggy back on.

To my pleasant surprise, there was an unsecured "Google WIFI" network. I heard that Google was bidding to provide free wireless access to all of San Francisco. I guess they are starting with Union Square.

There has been endless articles on the impact that Google has had on people's lives. But I am still constantly amazed at how a search engine company has the ability to sneak into all these different corners of your life. A little spooky.

But hey, any company that provides free internet access so you can surf porn while drinking a beer in Union Square can't be possibly be bad.

Nemo in my nightmares

2006-02-26T19:28:00.000-08:00

If you thought the Monistat applicator was scary, you haven't seen scary yet.

Everyone loves Nemo right? How could you not love that handicapped clown fish? So when I heard they were doing Finding Nemo on Ice (you know..when Disney recreates their famous movies on ice), it had to be great right?

Parents, if you take your kids to this, they are going to have nightmares. I haven't watched it...and I never will for one reason. The mutant head on Nemo.

Just look at it. On first glance, it looks like a great costume. But you look more closely..and you see this freakish painted head at the top of the costume. Nemo has a brain tumor!

It's disgusting. You know when your drunk friend is bothering you, so you take a plastic bag and put it over his head and suffocate him? And you see the plastic wrapped tightly over his head and being sucked into his gaping mouth with horror? That's what these freakish painted heads look like on the Nemo skaters.

That's just sick. Shame on you Disney for your Island of Dr. Moreau creations.

Drugstore observations

2006-02-26T18:35:00.000-08:00

Mucinex DM

I picked up this nasty chest crushing cough while I was in Baltimore for work last week. The cough was the worst at night and I thank it for keeping me up most the night for 3 nights in a row.

Cough syrups have never really worked for me. So I don't even bother now. There was even a recent study that showed that over the counter cough syrups are all essentially bogus.

But on Friday night, a friend with a wide expansive knowledge of drugs brought me some Mucinex DM.

It's not a cough syrup or even a cough drop. It's just a plain pill.

I almost didn't even bother trying it I was so skeptical. But since my friend was nice enough to bring me some...I figured I would just try.

And POOF. Magic. I slept like a baby all night and didn't cough once.

It wasn't just a co-incidence either (i.e. my cough wasn't already "healed"). I woke up in the morning and started immediately coughing again. I took another pill..and POOF. Cough gone. Hooray for you crazy

Monistat?

I'm watching TV and there is a commercial for yeast infection medication. At the end of the commercial they show what must be the applicator. Yikes.

What the hell is that little ball? The medication? Ladies, you have to shoot that ball in you?

That's crazy...

And ladies...when you are buying a yeast infection medication...do you really need to see the applicator and anti-yeast-bomb-ball on the box?

-----
Well...I know..some of you are thinking:

"You don't write anything for 1 and a half weeks..and this is what we get? Coughing pills and yeast infections?"

Well at least I'm not writing about my crap (again) OK?

Vancouver Sports Physio in Torino

2006-02-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

Finally hockey has started in the Olympics.

And as expected, Team Canada kicked some Italian ass. Woo hoo!

One of my good friend's Harry is actually in Torino right now. He's the physiotherapist for Canada's men's ski team. A pretty dope job because he gets to travel with the team. He tells me about how in Europe, winter sports athletes are treated like rock stars (not like here...where they are passing memories uttered by Bob Costas). When he wears Team Canada gear, random people in Europe ask for his autograph! And all Harry does is have to rub the men's teams balls when they pull their groins (j/k...)

Harry has a blog (which I'm hoping he updates soon...go find some Internet Harry) that chronicles some of the stories from his trip with the team. Check it out: http://vancouversportsphysio.blog.ca

Harry and his friend also run http://www.vancouversportsphysio.com. An informative site with some free physio tips.

One of Harry's other verry amazing skills (besides giving ball rub-downs to pro-athletes) is that he designed and airbrushed a lot of the custom helmets worn by Team Canada. This is from a post on his blog:

Since this is totally off topic I won't spend much time talking about this post. When I was in Panorama, near Invermere, BC, I spent a lot of time painting these helmets for some of these athletes. This has nothing to do with physiotherapy, so I would treatment was always the first priority. After dinner, when I was done with my "real" work, I would stay up late and airbrush these helmets. You can see in the background of the first pic that my treatment table is covered with garbage bags and paint.

(Editor Note: That's Harry. Yes, he's Brown. Way to represent in a typically caucasian sport/field!)

The following pics are of the various helmets I completed. It's neat to see that our team sports the most custom painted helmets of any ski team in the world. Who knows, maybe a trend will start (I could only hope). I did 2 last year, 9 this year so who knows what will happen next year

The above helmets belong to Julien Cousineau, Stefan Guay and Kelly Vanderbeek.

Patrick Biggs.

Thomas Grandi.

Michael Janyk.

and I think the pretty helmets are bringing out Trevor White's inner-model.

My infomercial for boring

2006-02-13T23:45:00.000-08:00

My In-N-Out 100x100 interview aired on Saturday (Feb 11th).

(The promo for my interview on KCRW)

Here is the link to the episode (Thanks Eddie Lin).

You can listen to it via iTunes podcast. If you haven't listened to podcasts on iTunes before, just click this link.

It will then pop open iTunes and then show you all the episodes for the "Good Food" show. Look for the show that aired on Feb 11th.

My interview comes on around minute 35 and goes for about 6 or so minutes. To steal a great line from Sara Silverman, it's officially an infomercial for boring. I think I sound like an idiot. Oh well..it was still fun :)

Don't forget to play the drinking game if you listen. Like all things in life, it becomes more interesting when sauced.

You will probably get about 7-10 shots out of my interview. I think the term sweaty cheese was mentioned 4 or 5 times. And Evan (the hostess) said "God" and groaned twice I think. Vomit was also mentioned.

Yum.

First brick of the season

2006-02-12T09:36:00.000-08:00

I did my first training brick of the season yesterday. When I woke up this morning...one word...OUCH. My legs were SPENT.

Brick's in triathlons are back-to-back workouts, normally cycling then running.

Merrill and I started with the paradise loop ride (about 40+ miles).

(Paradise Loop)

It was absolutely gorgeous out. The sky was blue, the sun was out, and it was generally just a great day to call the bay area home.

This was my first road ride since my last tri. I was definitely rusty, but it felt great to be out there.

I followed up the ride with a 5.5 mile run (my house, down the marina, around the Palace of Fine Arts and back). My legs were pretty sore during the run and I was running quite a bit slower then my target pace. I definitely will need to start doing more weekly bricks to get my cycling/running legs working together.

I'm off to go swim at Aquatic Park now to finish up my training for the weekend.

Mini week recap

2006-02-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

What is this? A post not about the now infamous In-N-Out 100x100? Yes...that's right!

To all the new readers I might have gained because of the In-n-Out thing..you probably want to stop reading now. It's back to normal life. Yes, you will occasionally get a funny nightlife story, a self deprecating "what was he thinking" tale, and other interesting tidbits like Vegas recaps.

But there are also going to be relatively uninteresting posts about my triathlons, surfing, and even what I ate (no..not a 100x100).

Sorry, but this is a "regular life" post (but I do have some more In-N-Out follow up posts coming).

Work has been pretty busy recently so I didn't have much time to blog during the week. Here are just a couple of my non-work highlights from the past week.

Tuesday @ Mavericks

This past Tuesday was known as the Superbowl of Big Wave surfing. The annual big wave surf contest was at Mavericks and some coworkers and I played hookie to go watch. And boy was it worth it.

(Photo from Mavsurfer.com)

It was incredible. It was visually one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed in person in my entire life. Insane. And to think...these epic, world famous, earth shattering waves...happen right near where I surf! But these guys who ride Mavericks are not surfers. They are not surfing. They are riding 50 foot mountains of extremely powerful and deadly water. They make the over-used sports cliche of "extreme" sound like an understatement.

This pic is from the contest as well.

(from Mavsurfer.com)

Here are a few points to thing about:

The impact of him hitting the water is going to hurt!
He has a ~25 ft (smaller wave of the day!) chasing right behind him to smack him around
That wave becomes an onslaught of "white water" that is like being put into a nuclear powered washing machine.

Let me put this into a bit more perspective. It's not like I'm an expert surfer or anything..but I've been surfing for about 5 years. I have been CRUSHED by 6 foot waves. Crushed and worked to the point that I literally thought I might drown. It was SIX FEET! These guys are riding 50-60 feet mountains. I can't even comprehend it. But endless admiration and props to these crazy bastards.

There is some great video here. And Mavsurfer is also a great source for pics and video.

Thursday - D & B at the Cellar
We went to go check out the Cellar on Thursday. It has been a long time since I listened to a lot of Drum and Base. But I use to be a huge fan during my early SF 1015 days. I use to rock the D&B basement like a monkey on crack.

When we got to the Cellar they were already spinning D&B with a live female vocalist. This is the first time I have ever heard live vocals on top of D&B and it sounded great.

I finished the night in the Cellar hip-hop room. I love D&B, but I can only listen to it for so long before I feel a base inspired brain tumor start growing.

---------------
Did any of my new readers make it this far? If you did..congrats! You really have too much time surfing the web :) But I do promise a few interesting 100x100 follow up posts coming up. So you may want to keep reading.

Last 11 Days of Sweaty Cheese

2006-02-06T22:03:00.000-08:00

It's been 11 days since me and 7 friends gained Internet Fame by eating an In-N-Out 100x100. Bun, lots of meat and of course...sweaty cheese.

It has been a really fun 11 days. I've gotten dozens of emails, over a hundred blog comments, odd amounts of praise, yadda, yadda, yadda. So here are some of the highs and lows of our recent Internet Fame.

The Highs
1. On the radio
I did my radio interview last week. Jennifer from KCRW said it will now air on Feb 15th. She said they are saving it for regular radio air because they didn't want to "waste" it on the pledge drive (less listeners). I guess I was that good :) If you play the drinking game while listening..you may get about 5 shots out of it. Exact details of how to listen to this will be posted when I find out. I have a small feeling that after I hear how stupid I sound on the radio...this will become a low.

2. I'm popular!
Dozens, if not hundreds, of websites now link to me. Traffic has obviously declined since the beginning (peak), but I'm still getting about 3000-4000 hits a day. Remember, I normally got about 20 to 40 a day! A nice by product of this is I have made about $80 bucks in google ads since.

Check out some of the traffic graphs:

A week - Friday Jan 27th to Fri Feb 2nd

Jan 7th to Feb 7th 2006

3. Made the Blogger home page
Thanks to the Blogger team for profiling me on their home page!

4. Contacted by Reuters
Yes, that's right...Reuters - the News company. Fred from Reuters contacted me and got my permission to make these pics available to news organizations and online clients. I don't think they have been used yet...but you never know where they might appear now.

5. On my way to becoming a Pro blogger?
I've been asked to join a blogger network. It's a blog/media network that writes tales targeted at entertaining 18-30 year olds. Through this network I'll be able to keep a more consistent reader base and maybe make some more off advertising.

This is in early discussions now..but it sounds like fun. Now all you 18 year olds out there will know you're never too old to pass out in public or pretend to be hit by a car.

The Lows
The only low that I have been able to think of is also one of my highs : I'm popular. A little too popular.

I've been writing this blog for about 2 years now. Until now it has been fun just having about 20 friends read it on a somewhat regular basis. Especially friends back home in Vancouver who I don't keep in touch with as much as I should.

But ever since the In-N-Out story became so virally popular - people at my work stumbled across it. Hi Sarah. Hi Cindy. Please stop reading this blog :)

I obviously write this blog knowing it is possible that people will stumble across it. But seriously, try and do a search for me on google (no cheating and using "In-N-Out 100x100"), it's near impossible to find me. Now that I know people at work might be reading this...are less drunken tales a reality? Probably not...I'm stupid that way.

Overall, this whole experience has been awesome. I'm looking forward to seeing what else unfolds from it. Hopefully more fun and no stalkers.

America : A country divided!

2006-02-01T23:00:00.000-08:00

George bush gave his state of the union. We love or we hate this guy.

Education?
Health care?
Iraq?
Domestic spying?
Supreme court justices?

You either love what he's doing or you hate what he's doing.

All that has been covered enough in the media and people who are actually Americans (I'm Canadian)...so who am I to think I can add any original insight?

So instead, I'll focus on one other thing dividing America.

You guessed it..the In-N-Out 100x100. Damn..I really can milk this topic.

Just check out the comments in the original In-N-Out post. Most people are: "You guys rule!". But there are a handful of people who think we are wasteful, stupid Americans (again..I'm Canadian).

I found 2 different blogs that epitomize the polarized political view on the In-N-Out 100x100.

U-S-A, U-S-A, U-S-A - America The Great
Ah Ben Kepple. Bless your United States of America loving heart. To quote from his site:

WHY, YOU ASK? Well, one could mention the Constitution and the whole "rule of law" and "personal freedom" stuff, but there's also the fact that in America, people can go into a restaurant and order a 100-patty hamburger -- with cheese! And not only will the restaurant staff be happy to make up the order, they'll help celebrate when a party of eight somehow manages to finishes the behemoth.

[...]

And how did the store handle this, you might ask? They went to work making that $97.66 burger, set about creating a storage mechanism for the three-foot high construct, and in short, made it happen [Editor - see the video!]. It's that type of dedication to capitalism and the free market which makes America great, competitive, and prosperous.

Ben, when I read your post, I heard bombs bursting in air. Absolutely beautiful.

Death To America!
Eugene Son...LA resident and faithful season ticket holder of LA Kings hockey tickets (dude..are you Canadian?). By no means am I saying Eugene Son doesn't love America with every ounce of his Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle loving heart. But he clearly thinks the 100x100 is America at its worst. OK, maybe not worst..but definitely not at its finest. From his blog:

EXT. SOMEWHERE IN THE WORLD - DAY

An Al Qaeda RECRUITER talks to an AVERAGE JOE.

                 AVERAGE JOE
       No thanks.  I don't want to join Al
       Qaeda.

                 RECRUITER
       Don't you hate America?

                 AVERAGE JOE
       Not really.  America's never done
       anything to me.  I'm interested in
       earning some money, dating some hot
       chicks, and maybe leveling up my
       World of Warcraft character.

                 RECRUITER
       You don't hate America?  Not even a
       little?

                 AVERAGE JOE
       Not really.

Pause.

                 RECRUITER
       Did you hear that some Americans
       went to In-N-Out Burger and ordered
       a burger with 100 patties and 100
       pieces of cheese?

                 AVERAGE JOE
       They... did?

                 RECRUITER
       And they ate the whole thing.  Just
       because they could.

                 AVERAGE JOE
            (grabbing rifle)
       DEATH TO AMERICA!

Yikes. That..is..EXTREME!!!! Obviously, Eugene is not serious and this is his comical editorial on our consumption of sweaty cheese. Props to him for creativity (instead of just calling us a "Tosser" as one of the commenters has).

My point in all this? None really..I'm just trying to think about how many story spins I can do about this 100x100.

p.s. i am not advocating SPAMing or flaming either of the above posters...I love them both. I only referenced them here because I thought they both had interesting and differing views on this. God bless America. And damn you Canada for voting and taking us 1 step closer to becoming the 51rst state. Just when I'm thinkng of moving back...

p.p.s PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE refrain from commenting on how much you love or hate GW here. There are plenty of other places to rant or rave about the prez.

Hear about the 100x100 on the radio

2006-01-31T10:41:00.000-08:00

The ridiculous just gets ridiculouser.

Believe it or not, I'm going to be on KCRW (LA public radio) Wednesday morning (2/1/2006 @ 10:30 am PST).

From Jennifer over at KCRW:

The host of the program that will be interviewing you is Evan Kleiman. (Woman.) She is a chef and owner of Angeli Caffe in LA and has been host of our program for 5 years or so.

We'll interview you for about 10 minutes total. And we'll ask for all the details and stats.. how you can order more than a 3 x 3, how many ate the thing, how long it took you, why some patties were raw (yuck), how many calories, and most importantly, what the after-effects were like.

I almost turned down the interview request. I'm a Director at a software company damn it. Is this what I really want to be known for?

If you are in LA, I highly recommend you tune in and make a drinking game out of it. You do a shot every time:

My voice cracks and sounds like a girl
I say the term "sweaty cheese"
Everytime the radio host groans or says "God" or "Jesus" in a non religious way
Everytime I plug Zappos.com
Everytime I give a shoutout to Tine and the blogger team who created the tools for sharing our indulgence.
1 shot for every 5 seconds of awkward silence
Everytime I say "raw meat" and then giggle
Everytime I hint or explicitly mention vomit or bowel movements

I'm going to be taking the call from work. I may be very very drunk at 10:45 am.

Update Feb 1rst 1:00 pm - According to KCRW, it won't be on the radio until Feb 4th. But it will be podcast and archived!

This will air on Saturday, Feb 4th (in the middle of our pledge drive (sorry) but it will be also podcast and archived on our website at kcrw.com, keyword: Good Food.

Update Feb 8th - Did my radio interview. It won't be airing till the 15th now. More details to come.

In-N-Out 100x100 Video

2006-01-31T00:43:00.000-08:00

I literally forgot I took a few video's with my digital camera that In-N-Out 100x100 day. But after all this buzz, I looked around my computer and found it.

In the grand scheme of things, it's really just 8 people ordering a hamburger...but after some editing by Elena (the barfer), it turned out pretty funny.

Enjoy as I drag out my 15 minutes even longer.

Remember, it was Halloween damn it. That's why Tony (Zappos.com) and I look so busted.

I think my favorite parts from the video have to be:

How ridiculous Tony and I look
It takes the first cashier 1/2 a second to realize there is no "100x100" button
Slow motion In-N-Out cutie
In-N-Out cutie asking us: "Is that it?" What..a 100x100 isn't enough?
What the hell would they have done if we asked for it to go

On Internet Fame

2006-01-28T17:28:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Internet fame. It's been longer then 15 minutes, but I'm sure it's fleeting.

This In-N-Out 100x100 thing has brought just an unbelievable amount of traffic to my site in the last 3 days.

Let me put a couple of things in perspective.

I normally get between 20 and 50 visitors a day depending on how often I update my site and the general interest of my stories (am I drunk? am I surfing? am I gambling?). In the 2 years I have had this blog, I have gotten about 10,000 user views TOTAL.

Well, this story "broke" on Thursday (thanks LA Foodblogging). On Thursday I got about 2000 hits in one day. WOW! That blew me away. I couldn't believe so many people were interested in a bunch of Asians eating sweaty cheeseburgers.

Then on Friday, it got picked up by more and more sources. A LOT more. By the end of Friday, you know how many hits I got in one day? 60,000. I shit you not. SIXTY THOUSAND. In ONE DAY.

So far today, there have been about another 16,000 people come and check out the magnificence of our feat.

Wow.

So, like any reasonable person, I thought: "How can I make money off this?". And yes, to my 20-40 regular readers, you would have noticed that I added Google AdSense. And in the last day and a half, I have made a little bit more then $25 dollars from people clicking on those links. Not a lot, but $25 bucks in a day for doing nothing...I'll take that. Help me fund our next eating feast...

I've been a little obsessed recently on finding out how people are finding out about the In-N-Out story. Thanks to SiteMeter and various Google and Tecnorati searches, here are some of the places this story is cross posted and the interesting/funny things you might find on the site.

1. Email forwards
A lot of people are coming to the site from their email accounts. Just like other stupid things you find on the internet, people are forwarding this to their friends. Andy and Nalin have both had people email them saying: "Dude, you're famous...I just got forwarded this email about these morons eating a 100x100 and I was blown away when it was you". To those who contributed to the world's spam by forwarding our gluttony...thank you.

2. It all started here: LA Foodblogging.
Thanks again guys (and thanks to Starcreator for finding out that my blog was the source of the pic). [Update 1/30 - Also a BIG thanks to Why We Type, who actually posted to LA Foodblogging. Sorry I left you out the first time :)]

3. Some of the more interesting sites
- Superized Meals - Who knew there was a site about stupid things we eat?
- Gorilla Mask - One of the web's most popular time wasting sites.
- AOL Info Junkie - A one line blurb brought about 10,000 people to my site
- BoingBoing.net - A popular daily read for a lot of people
- Defamer - An LA gossip rag. The comments on this post are funny. One person can be quoted stating: "I've never seen Wilmer Valderrama so happy!!!", referring to this pic of course.

(That's Wilmer on the Left and Pedro "Nalin" Martinez on the right)

- SepiaMutiny - Desi cultural site that picked this up. It's great . My favorite quote they made about Nalin (who is Indian) : "Bro, as a mass moo assassin, you ain’t coming back a Hindu in your next life. And that next life might begin any day now — deadly sin is right."
- Tucker Max - This is the one I'm probably the most proud of. Tucker Max, the legendary teller of tales such as "Tucker Max Tries Butt Sex; hilarity does not ensue"..I made it on his forum. . And when a man who has repeatedly vomitted on himself, had sex with a tranny and didn't know it, shat himself in public a couple of times, left streak marks on a couch while getting a BJ, etc...calls you "Disgusting"...you can really hang your head high.

Tucker Max

4. Other people's Blogs and Content sites - This is a list I pulled of other people who linked to the story.

5. Foreign Sites
Perhaps I am even more impressed that some foreign-non-English sites have picked this up. I can't read what is on the sites, but it is probably something about: "Check out these stupid Americans" (although I'm Canadian).

http://chururun.jp (Japanese)
http://slepocrevo.com (Slovenian)
http://www.skoften.net ~~(German)~~(Dutch)

6. Random forums
I've also found myself linked in a LOT (about 50?) weird forums. You'll see some mildly humorous discussions on those forums. Some of my favorite quotes found:

"but a couple of very hungry mental giants decided to try something most of us have only joked about around the lunch table"
"i want it. all i can do right now is chant "U S A" in my head"
"Why does it not surprise me that it would be a thin asian that had the capacity to devour this monster?"

Here is a list (there are probably a few I missed):

7. Car Forums
I have no idea why this was popular among the car (and boat) lovers out there, but it has shown up in their world as well.

8. Isn't it Ironic?
Well, it might not be ironic. But it sure is funny to see this in Weight Watchers and Men's Health forums

9. Male Asian Lovers
And last but not least, the fine ladies at FWAAM.com. To quote their site:

"This site is for women who wish to discuss the culture, romance, relationships, and mysteries of Asian men. Whether you wish to talk about Bruce Lee, Jackie Chan, Ang Lee, Chow Yun-Fat, Jet Li, Tony Leung, Yo Yo Ma, or your next door neighbor, you've come to the right place."

Ladies, I'm Asian, I'm single, and I can eat a lot of cheese. Please discuss...

To all of the above (and those that I have left off), thanks for adding to my 15 minutes of fame. Let's see how much I can milk it for.

p.s. Jessica Alba, if you are reading this...I'm Asian, I'm single and I can eat a lot of cheese.

p.p.s. Believe it or not, we found a few video clips that we completely forgot we took. We'll be posting it soon.

p.p.p.s. Yes, I agree with V, that is probably the most attractive fast-food employee you will ever see. Someone call Maxim.

In-N-Out 100x100

2006-01-23T22:05:00.000-08:00

I noticed in my SiteMeter logs that I was getting an abnormal number of hits today. And it looks like the famous In-N-Out 100x100 is making its way around the internet.

First, I noticed that someone referenced it about a month ago here (check out comment #43):
http://www.badmouth.net/in-n-outs-secret-menu/

But this week, it was stepped up a couple of notches. A couple of days ago, the people at la.foodblogging.com somehow got a hold of the picture (but didn't know about my blog at first). Check out their post here.

Next thing you know, it's cross posted in a couple of different places:
- ahamburgertoday.com
- livejournal.com

Hooray..everyone knows we're pigs!

With the new attention, I thought I would detail the whole In-N-Out 100x100 story.

It started innocently enough with a Halloween weekend in Vegas (2004). What started as a drunken, silly weekend..became quite legendary.

Throughout the weekend, Andy kept on saying: "We should go get a 100x100 at In-N-Out". Over..and over...and over again. Until we finally broke. So on Halloween night, we went to go chowdown.

The receipt 100x100 $97.66 - 1 Dbl/Dbl, 98 Extra patties

Furiously cooking the 100x100..they were shocked. They said the biggest order they had before this was the 24x24

The Completed masterpiece

Close ups - they jury rigged a couple of boxes together

I need to stop right here. Please take a CAREFUL look the picture on the right. There is a common misperception that the 100x100 has a hundred buns. No, that's not true. It's one set of buns and ONE HUNDRED meat patties and ONE HUNDRED pieces of sweaty-oily cheese in between the buns. Clearly, the worst part of this experience wasn't the meat..it was the sweaty cheese.

Horizontal view

1/2 way done - just look the disgusting left over pool of cheese on the right

The following are some very nasty close ups. Click on the images to feel even more disgusted.

Thank God..we are almost done. 5 patties left.

Now at this point...we all feel extremely sick. VERY sick. Disgusted. It's not quite because we are all full. But it's more a factor of just being completely disgusted and nauseated by the sweaty cheese. Can you blame us...

the final 5 patties

To make us feel even more disgusting....we hit a couple of raw patties near the end

But we finished! We rule in our fatness....

All that was left was..yup...the 2 EXTREMELY soggy and greasy buns.

Gross...was anyone actually going to eat that? Oh yes...we FORCED Andy to because it was his idea. Watching this almost made us barf.

And here is the victorious team with the great people at In-N-Out.

(The crew. And yes...the guy on the right is Tony, CEO of Zappos.com, The Web's Most popular shoe store. He doesn't normally dress like that...but it was Halloween. Go buy some shoes...once you buy online, you'll never go to the mall again for shoes. Free shipping. Free returns. Price protection.)

Here are a couple of interesting stats to summarize the experience:

Total calories (extrapolating from info provided here): 19490 calories
Total eaters 8 (2 girls and one guy who already ate dinner and only ate 6 patties)
Most patties eaten by one person : I think I ate about 20. I think Nalin ate about 20 as well (including the raw ones)
Time to finish : less then 2 hours
Number of people who barfed : 1 (way to go Elena!)

Oh yeah.... nothing says "Vegas baby" like barfing, not because of booze..but because of burgers.

The sad thing is, In-N-Out use to be one of my favorite things in the world. Now..the thought of it makes me sick and I haven't touched it since. :(

Update 1/29 - So this innocent little post has made us, as Chowmag.com describes us - "Internet-Enabled Legends". Maybe not quite legends, but it has made the last couple of days interesting. Details here. Also, we will be posting a quick video clip that we forgot we took that day.

Updated 1/31 - I just posted a quick video of us at In-N-Out that day...mildly interesting.

Updated 2/1 - Embarassingly enough, I was interviewed on the radio today for my love of sweaty cheese.

Asian Crusader

2006-01-19T13:27:00.000-08:00

I've had quite the blogging writer's block since the new year. But my friend Van has inspired me to write.

Van is a total crusader.

Some of you may already read her blog (linked on the right). If so, you might have seen her posts on her campaign against Spencer gifts.

http://vanessa_au.blogspot.com/2006/01/boycott-spencer-gifts.html

There are a couple of posts on her blog, but it starts with the above. She has started a separate blog that is dedicated to this topic: http://wearingracism.blogspot.com/

Well her grass roots campaign is gaining momentum. They just posted an article on Tolerance.org about it. Article here.

Honestly, I can't help but to laugh at these shirts. I know they are offensive to Asian culture..but I laugh like I would laugh when I see someone trip crossing the street. I laugh even though I know it's wrong.

Would I wear these shirts? No.

Would I say something to someone I see wearing them? An asian person...probably not. A white person...maybe.

Regardless of how they feel about the shirts, I know the people who know Van (obviously myself included) are MAD proud of her for this. Van...you're awesome...keep up the good fight.

If you are offended by the shirts, please sign this petition:

http://www.petitiononline.com/APA911/petition.html

1029 Signatures as of 1/19 1:45 pm PST.

Happy New Years drunk ass United pilot bastards

2006-01-02T07:03:00.000-08:00

I just spent the last 12 days in Vancouver for the holidays. It was amazing. Mind blowing even. I love home. I'll try and post a few pictures later.

I'm at the airport now attempting to catch a 7:30 am flight. *UGH* Painfully early considering we partied until about 8:30 am yesterday for NYE.

Why am I flying so early? Because when I originally booked my ticket I didn't realize Jan 2nd was a holiday so I planned on going straight to work. F@CK.

To make matters worse, when I get to the airport at 5:45 am (paranoyingly early) I find out my flight is delayed. The reason I was given:

Sorry sir, your flight is delayed. The crew is sleeping. They got in late last night.

What? That is such bullshit. Just because the crew is hung over from NYE they delay my flight for 2 hours? OK, if it was a international 13 hour flight I would understand their need to get an extra hour or 2 of sleep. But the flight to SF is only 2 hours!

Lazy drunk bastards. I hope your New Year's resolution was to stop getting drunk before you fly you United Airline's asses.

Jessica Alba Loves Andy

2005-12-21T19:40:00.001-08:00

A little while ago, I realized that I was getting about 3 or 4 hits a day of people who were looking for Jessica Alba pictures. They all ended up being linked to this post: Weekend in LA.

On that page is a picture of Andy with Jessica Alba because they ended up eating at Boa at the same time and Andy asked for a picture.

It's one of Andy's proudest moments.

So a little while ago I tried going to http://images.google.com and typed "Jessica Alba Andy".

You know what the very first picture was? That's right..this one!!

Jessica Alba and Andy at BOA

For the last 2 months, this has been one of Andy's proudest achievements. He shows everyone. This last weekend when I was in Vegas, he says to our friend Mimi and he does our favorite image search.

His picture is no longer there! Noooooooooooooooooooooo...

Google must have changed their indexing/searching algorithm. Not only is Andy's picture no longer first. But it doesn't show up at all.

Andy was devastated. Andy is no longer famous. He is just another creepy guy who bothered a star when they were trying to have a quiet dinner.

To help a brother out, this is my quest to get him back on the search results. Not only that, I want it when you do a search for "Jessica Alba Loves Andy" you get this picture.

Jessica Alba Loves Andy

Because Jessica Alba really does love Andy.

At least that's what Andy tells himself when he's alone at home...in the dark...weeping softly to himself.

So my hope is posting the pictures a couple of more times and renaming it to "JessicaAlbaLovesAndy" will improve his chances of showing up in the search results. Good luck Andy. Jessica's waiting for you.

p.s. Any google search experts out there who can give some tips to accelerate getting this in search results. Let me know.

Jessica Alba Loves Andy

Thank God for the ban...

2005-12-20T11:36:00.000-08:00

A federal judge on Tuesday banned the teaching of intelligent design as an alternative to evolution by Pennsylvania's Dover Area School District, saying the practice violated the constitutional ban on teaching religion in public schools.

Full article here.

I'm clearly not a religious guy. I don't have anything against people who are religious, although I don't really believe in a lot of the teachings of organized religions.

But when I see religious people trying to shove it down people's throats...it's one of my greatest social pet peeves and it drives me crazy.

But crazy in a way that sometimes I like it when I'm at a social gathering and someone tries to shove religion at me. Because I relish taking their speal and shoving it up their ass in front of people and embarassing them a bit.

The worst was when I had an ex girlfriend tell me:

GF: Will, I'm worried about you
Will: Why?
GF: Cause you're going to hell
Will: Huh?
GF: I'm sorry, but it's true.
Will: Huh?
GF: You don't believe Jesus died for your sins
Will: Huh? F@ck...no wonder we are not having sex.

OK, the conversation didn't go exactly like that. But she did end up saying I was going to hell. And no..we were not having sex.

My bad trip

2005-12-15T23:36:00.000-08:00

I had about the worst travel experience of my life earlier this week (yes..this post isn't about drugs).

I was in New Jersey for a 2 hour meeting on Tuesday. It was an important meeting so I don't mind having to fly across the country for a 2 hr meeting.

The trip there on Monday was uneventful. Drove and parked at SFO (SF airport), jumped on a 4.5 hr flight to Newark, NJ and then had a car take me to my hotel. It was about a 50 mile drive to my hotel so it took about 1 hr to drive there.

On Tuesday our meeting ended at 3:30 PM EST and my flight out of Newark didn't leave until 6:20. Plenty of time to catch the flight right? WRONG! Here is the Seinfeldesque sequence of events that went down:

The drive from my meeting to Newark. 51.6 miles that should have taken 1 hr and 10 minutes.

WRONG. There was a monster accident involving numerous big rigs on 95 and the 1 hr drive became 3 hrs and 40 minutes. Yes, almost 4 hrs to drive 50 miles.
We (me and 2 coworkers) obviously miss our 6:20 flight but we are hoping we can catch ANYTHING out of Newark.
We get to Newark at 7:15 PM EST. Bad news, we have missed every single plane leaving Newark that would have gotten us back to the Bay Area. Including connections!!
We call around and find out there is a JetBlue flight flying out of JFK at 8:50 PM into Oakland. Good lord, can we make it? This is how far it is from Newark to JFK (32 miles - 54 minutes according to google maps).

Newark to JFK (32 miles)

We ask a cabbie how long it will take to get to JFK and he says between 45 minutes and an hour and a half. Shit, it is already 7:30 and the last flight to the bay out of anywhere in New York leaves in 1 hr and 20 minutes.
But we go for it! We jump in the cab and the cab driver goes warp speed to JFK. He is swerving through cars like an F1 racer. We come across an accident (of course) and he maneuvers us expertly through it.
We make it to the airport at 8:30 EST and the cab costs about $100 bucks. We have 20 minutes before the plane leaves!!
We do the mad airport sprint to the JetBlue counter. We don't even have tickets yet!
We beg and plead for them to let us buy tickets. The absolutely AMAZING JetBlue agent calls the gate (the plane is boarding already) and asks for permission. They say OK but we need to HURRY!
We buy the tickets right on the spot and the attendant says: "You're not going to make it unless I run with you"
She hops over the counter and screams: "Run run run"
We are SPRINTING through the airport weaving through other passengers who are just staring at us in awe.
We get to security and the JetBlue attendant brings us right to the front of the line and hustles us in. All the time yelling: "hurry hurry hurry". I'm oddly reminded of my highschool girlfriend.
I put all my stuff on the Xray machine, take off my shoes and belt and get through the scanner.
I glance at my watch: 8:48.
I come out to pick up my goods to have the JetBlue agent yell in my ear: "hurry hurry hurry..the plane is about to close the doors. You don't have time to put on your belt" (once again, reminded of my highschool girlfriend)
I grab everything haphazardly and we all start sprinting to the gates.
My pants are literally falling down because I didn't have time to put on my belt
All along the way, more JetBlue attendants are just yelling at us: "RUN RUN RUN"
We get to the gate and it's still open! The lady at the gate of course yells: "Hurry, get to the plane fast!"
We get to the plane..and we MAKE IT!

*WHEW*

The moment we walk on the plane..dripping with sweat, my pants falling down, we're out of breath and the entire plane is staring at us...they close the door.

I check my watch: 8:50

Just on fucking time!

The flight is a long 6 hr flight that unfortunately brings us to Oakland. Great..my car is at SFO (30 miles away)

(Oakland airport to SF Airport - 30 miles)

A coworker rents a car (that takes a while to get) and drives me to SFO for me to get my car and FINALLY drive home.

Here's the final tally:

- I leave to the airport at 3:30 PM EST (12:30 PST)
- I walk into my house a little after 2 am PST

THIRTEEN AND A HALF HOURS TO GET HOME!!

All for a 2 hour meeting.

We better win this F'n deal.

Being a naked man

2005-12-14T22:11:00.000-08:00

Seeing all these pictures of myself 1/2 naked with other STRAIGHT men (here and here) has made me wonder:

"What is acceptable [straight] male nude behavior"?

Personally, I have this thing where I take off my shirt as much as possible. It's not like I'm showing off my body because I really have the upper body of a 13 year old that is about to hit puberty (no armpit hair and all)

But I find when I am at home (and probably too frequently in public) I just can't wait to be topless. Go figure. Nalin, my roommate of 6+ years is probably just glad I'm not walking around completely naked.

My first analysis of nude male behavior is focused around nakedness in the gym locker room.

Ah the gym. Where other men show off their wieners with open abandon. There are 3 types of nude behavior in men's locker rooms. I call them: pinky-dicks, average-joes and the show-offs.

Pinky-dicks
This classification of men are the guys in the changing room who will never ever expose their penis. It's not that they necessarily have pinky sized dicks...but I'm assuming that is the reason 80% of them act this way (hence the categorization). I'm guessing the remaining 20% are just a bit gun-shy and don't want other guys to see their packages.

Pinky-dick behavior is classified as:

Walking to and from the shower with a towel wrapped around them
Wrapping the towel around their waist when they change their pants and underwear
Stepping into shower stalls with their towels on, closing the curtain and then removing the towel
When finished showering, you see a hand come from the side of the curtain, reach around blindly for their towel and then dry themselves off in the stall while the curtain is closed. They exit the stall of course wearing their towel wrapped tightly around their waist.

I'm not being critical of guys who act this way. It's more an observation.

Average-joes
I think I fall into this category at the gym. We are the guys of likely average penis size and girth who are comfortable with our nudity but don't necessarily need to show it off. I think our typical behavior is

We walk from the lockers to the showers with the towel wrapped around our waists
We take off our towels before entering shower stalls but we enter the stall quite quickly after disrobing
We don't wrap the towel around our waists when we change underwear, but we do try and show our balls and packages for as little time as possible

I consider this fairly normally behavior and would estimate about 60-70% of male gym patrons act this way. Of course I think this is normal because it's how I act.

Show-offs
Now this bunch is a whole other story. These are the guys that want to be naked as much as f@cking possible it's actually offensive. Some of the "show-offs" are guys with Dirk Diggler donkey dicks and clearly are saying: "Hey..check out how huge my cock is". Honestly, if I had a 12 inch hammer I might act this way too.

But, I've also seen "show-offs" that had pinky-dicks. Which is odd..because if I had a penis so small you couldn't see it through my pubes, I certainly wouldn't be showing that fact off.

Plain and simple, these guys walk around naked constantly. CONSTANTLY. I have seen some of this behavior from "Show-offs":

Walk to the shower naked with the towel wrapped around his shoulders
Oggles themselves in the communal bathroom mirrors fully naked
Get dressed by putting on their socks, then shirts, then finally their underwear
Do the "rub-the-towel-vigorously-between-their-legs" technique. You know the one I'm talking about...one hand in front, one hand in back and then a sawing motion back and forth.

Wait. It gets worse. I have even seen some of this EXTREME naked behavior that I think is clearly socially unacceptable:

There was this guy at my old gym that would sit on the bench and then lube and moisturize his cock and balls in front of everyone...VIGOROUSLY
Another guy at my old gym was a total donkey dick show off. He would stand naked in front of the mirror while he was shaving, but his cock was so large he actually put it on the counter and it would dip into the sink a bit while he shaved. NASTY! (and incredibly unhygienic)
Another guy would do STRETCHES naked in the change room. I'm talking bending over and touching his toes style stretches. Dude, don't ever point your open asshole at another guy in public.
In highschool, we had this one guy who would stand naked 1 inch behind you while you were sitting and changing...he would then say something to make you turn your head around and you would literally turn your head into his balls. This guy HAD to be gay (not that there is anything wrong with that)

And no, I don't stare at guys packages while I am in the change room all day. But I go to the gym a lot and unless you walk staring at the ceiling you can't help but to see dicks.

So clearly, the "Show-offs" above I think exhibit non-acceptable social naked behavior. But what am I going to say to them? "Dude, would you please cover up your johnson?" Now that would just be awkward...

Turkey weekend poker

2005-12-12T20:27:00.000-08:00

I had the PLEASURE of spending 5 days in Vegas for Thanksgiving..and it..was...AWESOME.

But I have never not had a good time in Vegas, so no real surprise there. Here are the blog posts for my last 3 Vegas trips:

Halloween 2004 : Infamous 100/100 Weekend -
April 28 2005 : Mitch, Evan and I take Vegas by Storm
Labor Day 2005 : Poker and Craziness

It was Thanksgiving weekend in Vegas and we had a giant feast at Tonys.

2 turkeys (one deep fried! soooo juicy)
Prime Rib
Ham
Deep fried duck
Enough sides to feed an army

The feast was so delicious and I literally ate Thanksgiving leftovers about 9 times over the course of the weekend.

My blog has been full of "nightlife stories" recently, so I'm going to keep this post poker focused. After all, it is Vegas and I've been short on poker tales recently.

Poker Highlights
From Thursday night to Sunday afternoon I played about 24 hours of poker. Every night, after a night of clubbing (or turkey dinner) we played till around 6 am. I would then go home, sleep for 2 hours and then go back to the casino to play in a No-Limit (NL) tournament that started at 9 or 10 am. This went on for 3 nights in a row...needless to say... I was tired and burned out at the end.

1. My First Money Finish in a tournament
I played my first tourney of the weekend Friday morning at 9 am. I was the only one motivated enough to wake up and go play at the Silverton. It was a 30 person No-limit tourney. I've been playing a lot of tourneys on party poker recently, so my NL game has been pretty sharp. The tourney paid out the top 3 spots ($500, $300, $200). I made the final table (10 peeps) and I was pretty excited...this was my first final table in a tournament. The field quickly thinned down to 5 of us. When it got down to 5...one guy looked at all of our stacks, and oddly almost all 5 of us were even stacked. This is a bit rare for NL tourneys. Normally you have 1 or 2 enormous stacks. But right now, all 5 of us had pretty even stacks. So we ended up just stopping the play and chopped up the pot evenly among the 5 of us. So I won $200. It would have been fun to play till the end..but it's hard to turn down guaranteed money. Plus I have only slept 2 hours and have been playing poker for about 9 hours in the last 12 hours...so stopping there did my body some good.

I ended up in playing in 2 more tourneys. Saturday's tourney I made the final table again and finished 6th. Shit...the top 4 made money in this one. Sooo close. Sunday I got knocked out about 12th. I was grinding it out when a guy sucked me out with a bloody 6-9 suited to catch a straight. Bastard. Nalin finished 2nd in Sunday's tourney playing VERY solid poker and won about $500.

2. Palms No-limit
On Saturday night after a long night of drinking at Rain, Aaron, Nalin and I played some 2/5 NL at the Palms. I have gone on some great runs playing at the Palms and Sat was no exception. I played real solid and won over $800 in 2 hours. Woo hoo!

3. Best Hand I Have Ever played (or worst...)?
I think I played one of my best hands ever at the Palms on that Saturday. This is how the hand went down:

I've got about $350 in front of me and I am dealt 4-4 in early position
I raise to 20 dollars
Only one person calls
The flop comes: 8, 7, 2 - this is known as a rag flop
I bet another 20 dollars. My pair of 4's is pretty weak, but I try and steal the pot by betting aggressively
The guy who called my earlier raise just stares at me for a while. And he raises me another 60 dollars. This would be the 3rd time I have raised and the guy re-raised me. The first 2 times he managed to get me to fold. I just SENSE that he is trying to steal this pot again. I feel like he thinks I must only have AK or AQ and I am just firing at the pot.
I stare right back at this guy and I re-raise him another $100
I am fully expecting him to fold..but he doesn't, he calls!
At this point, I think shit...I'm done and have probably lost this hand...that is until I notice that he didn't look happy to call.
The turn comes and it's a Jack
I check and the guy checks too! If he bet all in I probably would have folded. He showed some real weakness here.
The river comes and it's an inconsequential card.
I bet all in (my last $150 or so)
The guy looks at me and stares at me for a while.
He calls...and I literally GROAN at the table. I was really hoping for him to fold.
I flip over my pocket 4's...
The guy SWEARS out loud and mucks his cards! He didn't have shit!

My guess is he had pocket 3's and was hoping that I really had nothing. This guy f@cked himself on this hand...but I'm just impressed that I read that he had nothing properly. Ended up doubling up to about $700 on this hand.

4. Harold and Kumar
Friday night NL at the Silverton was one of my strangest nights of poker...EVER. First, Aaron, Nalin and I are just blitzed and in SUPER obnoxious mode. We are the worst to play with when we are this way because we are just so incredibly annoying. Every time I would win a hand, I would cackle out loud and rub the chips all over my face. God...how lame of me. But in the peak of our fun..this guy says to Nalin and I:

Guy: "Hey you guys look like Harold and Kumar"
Nalin and I: *silence*
Another Guy: "Hahaha...that's so funny, you guys do look like Harold and Kumar"
Will: Yeah...it is pretty funny...if you are RACIST

That's right, I pulled the race card. Actually, Nalin and I normally find it pretty funny when people call us Harold and Kumar. In fact we were about to dress up as them for Halloween. But in our drunken state, Nalin and I got so pissed off. And we continued to call these 2 guys racist bastards all night.

Harold and Kumar

Harold and Kumar?

The testosterone and the tension started to rise...which leads us to more tension:

5. All In Fold
Shortly after the Harold and Kumar incident, Nalin gets AJs and raises. A guy goes all-in (with about $130) and Nalin calls his all in. All of a sudden we hear the other guy say:

Hey...where are my cards??

Believe it or not, the dealer took his cards by accident! Hahahahahahaha. And rules are rules, even if it's the dealers fault, if you get your cards taken away you lose the pot. So Nalin won an all-in call without even having to show his hand! The guy who lost his money and hand was the same guy who called us Harold and Kumar, so I was loving this moment

But understandably he was FURIOUS! He started screaming at the dealer and then at the pit boss. We all just kind of started laughing in his face. The pit boss pulls him over to the poker counter to try and calm him down.

We continue to hear this guy yell at the pit boss when all of a sudden:

BAM BAM BAM - Steve the pit boss slams his hands on the counter loud 3 times and SCREAMS: SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!! ALL OF YOU SHUT THE FUCK UP!!

The room goes silent.

We turn to each other in awkward silence like when you are in a restaurant and you hear an angry mom just yell at her kids at the top of her lungs in public.

The pit boss then takes the bitter loser outside to deal with him. And honestly, I feel a bit bad for the guy...but that's what you get for being racist. :)

6. The Escort Out
Believe it or not, it's still the same Friday night at the Silverton. This is how our night ended:
- I yell over to a dealer at another table that we want her to come back and deal at our table
- This ass clown at her table says something stupid back to me
- I say: "Shut up #6, was I even talking to you" (#6 being the spot he was sitting at the table).
- He then holds up a stack of chips to intimidate me. He holds up about $13! Our table laughs and we tell him that his 13 dollars isn't scaring us.
- He then stands up and challenges me to a 1:1 game for a HUNDRED THOUSAND DOLLARS. What? Huh? The guy is playing 2/4 Limit and we are playing 1/2 NL. NONE of us are high rollers and this guy just looks ridiculous right now.
- Aaron, Nalin and I now all tell this guy to shut the hell up and come play at our table if he thinks he's so good
- Steve the pit boss comes back and tells us all to calm down...Steve's had a hard night, so we give him his due respect and stop our obnoxious ways
- About an hour later, this guy is leaving with his girlfriend and on his way out he says something obnoxious to our table
- I stand up and tell him to shut up and just play with us if he isn't chicken shit (oh yeah, i pulled out some real grade school throw downs this night...sheesh)
- He then AGAIN challenges me to a 1 hand $100k game. Our entire table is laughing at him hysterically
- I'm still standing and he walks right up to me and we just begin BARKING at each other. Our faces are about 2 inches apart.
- Next thing I know Aaron stands up and then Nalin stands up..uh oh, could be trouble...when all of a sudden I turn around and we are suddenly SURROUNDED by 7 security guards. WHOA! That was quick...
- Steve the pit boss comes over and says: "I'm sorry guys, that's it..I'm going to have to ask you to leave". And when you are surrounded by 7 security guards it's not something you can really argue about.
The funny part, not only were we asked to leave but we were escorted out of the casino. They actually walked us to our car to make sure we got in and left.

Yay!! Grade school fun! I was actually back at the casino in about 3 hours for another tournament and they let me back in.

That's all the poker stories. So I thought I would end this post with a recap of the weirdest story of the weekend (poker or otherwise).

The Ride
After we were escorted out of the Silverton we all headed back to Tony's for a bit. It was about 6:30 am and the sun was just coming up. Aaron amazingly had a 9 am meeting he had to get to so after a few laughs at Tony's it's time for him to go back to his hotel. This is how it all went down:

Aaron: Alright, I'm leaving guys
Nalin: Um..how are you getting home?
Aaron: I'll just go walk and catch a cab
Nalin: You should call a cab to come here
Aaron: No, it's cool..I'm sure I'll find one on the street

NOTE: Tony lives in the suburbs. It's now 7 am on a Saturday morning. There is absolutely no chance Aaron will catch a cab just walking the streets. He starts walking and quickly realizes this. So what does he do? He starts hitchhiking!! No f'n way...

So he sticks his thumb out and amazingly enough someone stops to pick him up. Aaron's a relatively clean cut looking kid. But would you pick up a random dude who is wearing clubbing clothes in the middle of the suburbs at 7 am in the morning? The following conversation ensues:

Aaron: Hey, thanks for stopping, where you headed?
Driver: uhhh..just driving around
Aaron: *thinking this guys looks a little fucked up*
Driver: where you going?
Aaron: Bellagio
Driver: well, if you want to pay me gas money I'll drive you there
Aaron: For real? Cool. *jumps in sketchy truck*
Driver: so 2 bucks cool?
*NOTE: it is about a 25 dollar cab ride from the strip to Tonys.*
Aaron: Oh yeah, for sure man. *Aaron later gives him a WHOLE 5 dollars for his trouble*
Aaron: So what are you doing just driving around?
Driver: You know, just kind of coming down from my high
Aaron: Um..ok. High from what?
Driver: A little weed and a little rock
Aaron: *silence*

Hahahaha..the guy was literally a CRACK HEAD.

Aaron got picked up hitch hiking by a crack head who only charged him $2 for what would have been a 25 dollar cab ride. Only in Vegas baby....love this town.

Looking at it will make you fat

2005-12-11T19:01:00.000-08:00

I made this sandwich the other day, and I wanted to share the masterpiece with you all.

Click to enlarge and salivate

Oh yeah! I don't F around when it comes to spam and sandwiches. That's right...Spam. V, I was thinking of you when I made this.

What's in this work of art that would cause gastric-masturbation?

Bottom Deck

Mayo
Ham deli meat
Turkey deli meat
Cheddar cheese (none of that pre-sliced shit, I mean thick wedges off the block cheddar)
Fried spam (about 6 sliced and friend pieces)

Top Deck

More mayo
Ketchup
2 Fried eggs
More cheddar cheese
More mayo

This of course was accompanied by good ole BBQ chips.

Toast, merge, eat, and then one rub one out. Enjoy....

Drunk-Will-Pretends-To-Be-Hit-By-A-Car game explained

2005-12-08T12:09:00.000-08:00

I've gotten a couple of requests to elaborate more on my near arrest and the great game I play called: "Drunk-Will-Pretends-To-Be-Hit-By-A-Car".

Here are the steps to play the game:

Have a drink or two.
When leaving a club, make sure you are on a street where traffic moves relatively slowly. This is normally easy during club closing time because people are filling the streets in general and this slows cars down.
As a car approaches, slowly start crossing the street. KEY: do not look at the car, pretend you don't notice it
Let the car pass you
Right when the car is about to pass you, slap it hard with your hand and then flip in the air
Stay lying on the ground. There are 2 preferred techniques here. a) Motionless. This is fun, because the audience and driver assumes death. b) Twitch. This is fun, because the audience and driver assume great amounts of pain and possible paralysis.
After a few seconds, bounce up really quick, dust yourself off like nothing happened and recite one of the following lines:

Calmly: "Phew, close one" *dust self off*

Screaming: "Oh my god, did you just see what happened? I can't believe that car hit me"

Wheeee! Choose one of the above quotes based on the crowd around you. Some crowds prefer theatrics more then others. When you are in a ghetto crowd, the reaction is great. It's like you just did a pass-off-a-guys-balls-while-dancing-ending-with-a-reverse-dunk on an And-1 mixtape. Everyone just starts jumping up and down, screaming such common phrases as:

"Oh snap..no he didn't just do that"
"Dude, that was dope"
"Hommie, that was some crazy shit"
"Yo yo yo..do it again brutha"

It's probably why I play this game so much. For the fans. I do become a bit of an attention-whore sometimes.

I have probably played this game literally about a dozen times. Not a single time has a car ever stopped. There was once at 11th and Folsom when I did it and the car slowed down and then VERY quickly peeled away.

NOT this weekend though. Here are some pics of what I described here.

Corner of Columbus and Broadway. Hit this car and flipped kind of hard. Have a huge bruise on my hip. I stayed lying on the ground for a while until I heard the car actually stop and the door open...uh oh.

Angry driver questioning why I hit his car. My answer: "I'm dumb and I'm sorry". Side note, thanks for backing me up Andy. Glad to know that if this guy wanted to throw down you would have been there taking pictures...ass wipe.

(Very quickly, 2 cop cars pull up and I get lectured and threatened with arrest. Nothing really happens except they take down my info)

Wheeeeeeeeeeee! So I'm honestly on the fence of whether I continue to play this game or not. What do you all think? Risk vs. Reward?

Dry skin dilemma

2005-12-06T11:42:00.000-08:00

I go to the bathroom this morning to get some moisturizer cause my skin is insanely dry right now.

Uh-oh, it's not there.

I take a peak in Nalin's room. Oh no...it's beside his bed.

I think my skin is better left dry...i'm not touching that bottle.

Evan is doing my job for me....

2005-12-06T09:36:00.000-08:00

Wow.

Was this past weekend crazy. Really crazy. Really really crazy.

I was going to write a great post on it (I still owe one from my Thanksgiving in Vegas..1/2 done it) but Evan beat me to it. So I'll just refer to his blog here (he has 4 separate SF posts):

http://www.pondrings.com/emh/

Perma link to SF posts: http://www.pondrings.com/emh/index.jsp?tag=san%20francisco

Enjoy!

The only detail Evan really left out was the fact that I almost got arrested on Friday night. I have this trick I do when I've had a few too many drinks. It's called: "Drunk-Will-Pretends-To-Be-Hit-By-A-Car". It's a really fun game. I do it all the time. The car I did it to didn't think it was so funny (the North Beach crowd loved it though). The cops didn't think it was so funny either. All of a sudden I have 2 cop cars U-Turn and pull up beside me. Our conversation:

Officer: Why did you hit that car?
Will: Because I'm stupid sir.
Officer: *tries to suppress his laughter...at which point I figured I wouldn't get a ticket"
Officer: Give me your ID
Officer: *takes down all my details*
Officer: What do you do for a living?
Will: I'm a director at a software company.
Officer: Really? You think being arrested will look good on your resume?
Will: *gulp...i think i pooped my pants a bit here* no sir.
Officer: OK, then get out of here and I better not still see you here in 5 minutes
Will: *phew*

Hoooray! Still a clean record!

Becoming an Ironman...or at least 1/2 of one

2005-12-01T13:34:00.000-08:00

It's official.

I just signed up for the Wildflower 1/2 Ironman Triathlon.

That is a:
- 1.2 mile swim
- 56 mile bike
- 13.1 mile run

Yikes.

Looks like I'm going to be busy training the next 5 months.

One past the goalie

2005-11-18T21:03:00.000-08:00

Congratulations Mitch and Michelle! Two of my favorite people in the world are going to be proud parents soon!

hey models....

The baby is due next May. Mitch, all that hard work paid off! I'll stop with my low sperm count jokes now.

Actual Prenancy Test...Ewwww...it's been pee'd on

You guys are going to be GREAT parents. Even you Mitch...pictures like the below should not be any reflection on your parenting abilities:

Drunk...with flippers?

Love you both! Congrats.

If anyone would like to leave a congrats for the happy couple, feel free to comment here.

Dawn till Dusk

2005-11-18T20:56:00.000-08:00

I went surfing today for the first time since I popped my shoulder. It was AMAZING out. This week in San Francisco, the stars aligned and it was a week meant for surfing. The weather has been spectacular. I was in the Linda Mar parking lot at 6:30 am this morning, the sun is just about to come up, and I am amazed. I am standing in the parking lot and I feel this strange sensation trickle across my face. I can't believe it...but it's warm air! At 6:30 am!

Normally, I stand half naked in the parking lot...freezing as I put on my wet suit. But this morning it was warm out!

Surf conditions have also been phenomenal recently. Incredibly glassy, beautiful shapes and consistent.

Jason and I started surfing and before 7 am, the surfline was already packed. I guess beautiful weather and perfect surf conditions make for a crowd. Oh well, it was worth it. I caught quite a few amazingly fun waves. Great drops, cut backs, bottom turns, and the rides were long. Almost every wave took me right onto the beach. We finally pulled ourselves out of the water a bit after 9 am. My body was completely exhausted but nothing makes me feel more alive then a morning of great surf (cheese).

I head to work and there is catered breakfast! Can life get any better? I put down about 14 pieces of bacon, 2 plates of eggs, 2 plates of potatoes, pineapple, juice and coffee. Yum Yum.

I'm sitting at my desk at work and I can't stop thinking about the amazing surf. I keep looking out the window at the blue skies and I start going crazy. I check the temperature..it's bloody 80 degrees out! It's almost December! I just can't take it anymore.

I sneak out of work.

And I head back to the beach.

My body is pooped but I'm just jonezin for more waves. I get back in the water at about 3 pm and conditions are still pretty good. I surfed until the sun went down about 2 hours later and now my body is really spent. Tough Friday wasn't it?

Can't wait to do it again tomorrow morning.

Off By One + Surf Injury

2005-11-05T10:16:00.000-08:00

Off By One
I woke up this morning at 6 am and the weather looked great so I figured I would run the US Half Marathon.

I haven't been running much recently. In the last 3 weeks, I've probably only run about a TOTAL of 12 miles. But I figure what the hell. I ran this race last year and it was pouring and I was looking forward to running in some nice weather.

I drink some coffee, eat some waffles and head out to Fisherman's wharf where the race is starting. I didn't bother registering for the race (saved $60 bucks) and my plan was to just run with the participants anyway.

I'm almost at Fisherman's wharf and I begin to think: Shouldn't there be more traffic here?

It then dawns on me: Races are NEVER on Saturdays...

DOH!!

God damn...the race is tomorrow! I have no idea why i thought the race was on Saturday. I'm such a retard. Justin, you're safe for now. We'll see if I'm still motivated to do the race tomorrow after a night of drinking.

Surf's Up
Well, it's 6:30 am on a Saturday and I'm up and wired already. So I figure I might as well go surf.

I have been on a surfing rampage recently. In the last 12 days I've surfed 7 times (all at Linda Mar). This week alone I've probably logged about 6-7 hours in the water.

The weather at Linda Mar was gorgeous and it felt great to be out there. I caught some real fun waves and was feeling pretty good. The only problem was it was getting REALLY crowded out.

I see a wave start rolling in and I start paddling for it. I pop up on it and am sliding down the face when all of a sudden I see this surfer bob up in front of me. SH!T, I'm about to slam right into him.

I try making a really sharp turn to avoid him but I just end up wiping out. One of the most dangerous things about surfing isn't sharks, but is probably other people's flying boards. They can be like 8 ft pointy missiles. As I'm wiping out I'm worried my board my hit this guy so I try grabbing the board with my right arm as it is flying through the air...and then:

*POP*

I dislocate my shoulder. OUCH!! The force of the flying board literally pulls my shoulder out of it's socket. It feels like daggers being stabbed into my shoulder and my hand goes completely numb.

OUCH!!

Luckily the surf wasn't too rough out, because it was a challenge just to drag myself back onto the beach with just 1 arm.

I'm back at home and eating spam right now...and nothing makes a surf injury feel better like spam, rice and eggs. I think that's why Hawaiians love Spam so much.

Apple Rant

2005-11-04T19:18:00.000-08:00

I've had my iPod mini for about 11 months now. In general, it's great. It's small, it's comfortable to wear on my waist when I run or work out and it holds a ton of songs.

But my iPod battery life lasts about 40 minutes these days. The box says it should last 8!

It's still under warranty so I decide to take it to the San Francisco Apple store downtown. But before I go, I figure I'll give them a call to make sure they can replace it.

I call the number, I press the option for tech support and repairs, and I get routed to the Apple Care hotline.

Rant #1
I'm on hold with Apple Care for about 10 minutes, I finally get on with them, they take a ton of my personal information..about 5 minutes, just to tell me I have to call the store directly to deal with it!

Will: But I did call the store and I got routed here.
Apple Care: Sorry, you'll have to call them back and choose the last option
Will: But they will replace my iPod?
Apple Care: Yes, definitely sir.

Rant #2:
OK, so i call the store back, wait another 5 minutes and this is the PAINFUL conversation:

Will: My battery only lasts 40 minutes, can I bring it into the store to get a replacement?
Apple Guy: Yes, come in and we will take a look
Will: Well do you guys have replacement units in stock? Because I really need a working one for tomorrow.
AG: Sorry, we can't tell you that.
Will: Huh?
AG: We can't tell you if we have replacements in stock.
W: Wait a second. You don't know...or you can't tell me?
*at this point, i hear a manager speaking into the guys ear to tell him what to say*
AG: I'm sorry..we can't tell you.
W: What? But, if you guys know you don't have any in stock, I'd like to go to a different store.
AG: Sorry, you're just going to have to come in and we'll take a look.
W: OK, honestly...does that make sense to you?
manager: *i hear the muffled instructions of the manager to Apple Guy* "It's not about making sense, that's just our policy."
AG: I'm sorry, but..
W: Wait, let me guess...it's not about making sense right?
AG: *laughs* yeah..sorry.
W: Well, just tell me..if you guys DO have it in stock, I'll be able to get a replacement right?
AG: Yes. I can also make you an appointment to see our Apple Genius (service people) at 4:30.
W: OK, thanks

So that was stupid and painful. But whatever, I felt like leaving work anyway.

Rant #3

I get to the apple store at 4:30 and even with an appointment I have to wait 40 minutes. I don't have a good feeling about this and I am pretty annoyed at this point.

I finally talk to a real human being, and this was our conversation (they pretentiously call their tech people "Apple Geniuses" - my guy's name was Stephen":

Stephen: What seems to be the problem?
Will: *blah* *blah* *blah*
S: OK, so this is the deal. We need to diagnosis this before we can replace it.
Will: OK...great.
S: Well, we can't do that here.
Will: WHAT???????
S: Yeah, you could go to one of our other stores and they can do it.
Will: WHAT???????
S: *noticing my noticable agitation pauses and looks anxious* Umm...or you could mail it to apple and they'll ship you a replacement in a couple of days
Will: WHAT???????

I then go on a borderline insane rant to this guy telling him how 2 different people specifically told me to come to this store because they could take care of it.

Grrrrrrrrrrrrr....

So I tell him that I'm planning on running a 1/2 marathon tomorrow (I kind of am...I'll decide when I wake up tomorrow morning) and I would really like something that plays music for more then 40 minutes because I'm not that fast.

So our next conversation:

Will: OK, it's not your fault that 2 other geniuses told me to come here. But you seem like a smart guy. Can you guys give me a loaner or something that I can use for tomorrow while you figure out what's wrong with this iPod?
G: I can go find you an iPod shuffle or nano in an open-box for you
Will: AWESOME, that would be perfect. A one day loaner would be awesome and I'll come back and switch when it's fixed.
G: Sounds good, you'll just have to pay the $25 re-stocking fee when you return the nano.
Will: WHAT???????

At this point, probably 1/2 the people at the Apple genius counter were staring at me as I try not to lose it on this guy.

*sigh*

In the end, the guy tells me to go to the website...get apple update software and restore the iPod to factory settings. That may fix it.

God f@cking damn...

20 minutes of phone calls
40 min round trip walk
40 minute wait
15 minute tirade

...and here is what I get for my trouble..a URL:

http://www.apple.com/ipod/download

F@cking Apple...

If my iPod runs out while I'm running tomorrow...Justin Clark of the San Francisco Apple store...I'm coming back and I'm going to hand over my iPod for you to get it fixed.

But before I do...it is going to be rubbed up and down my sweaty ass crack at the end of my 13.1 mile run. And then rubbed on my sweaty balls. And then a couple of passes over my arm pits. And then one last swipe of my ass for good measure. And probably one more vigorous rub against my sweaty genitals cause I like to touch myself in general.

F@cking Apple..

Justin you better pray it lasts at least 2 hours after I followed the instructions on that all so powerful URL you gave me.

Dress up weekend

2005-10-28T11:08:00.000-07:00

It's time for Halloween.

I'm not a huge dress up fan..mainly because I'm lazy. I've had an amazing track record of just EXTREMLY low budget costumes.

I was the San Francisco bush-man twice. It's a pretty easy costume to dress up like a homeless guy, get 2 branches, and carry a can of change for money.

Last year was probably the most dressed up I have gotten in years:

Party on Wayne...Party on Garth

I might recycle the above rocker outfit for tonight....

If I'm not too lazy, I've got a pretty good idea for a Sat night costume. I won't spoil it now...but if I get my act together and actually put it together..expect pictures of me with a HUGE smile on my face shortly.

Happy Trick or Treating everyone.

Faith in the world again....

2005-10-28T10:54:00.000-07:00

My blog is faaaaaaaaaar from a political blog. You all know I like to keep it about as superficial, shallow and potty-humor-based as possible.

But every now and then, something happens that makes me believe in the system (kind of).

Finally, after 2 years, Lewis Libby (VP Cheney's Chief of staff) was indicted for his role in the leak of a CIA operative's identity. Libby immediately resigned after the indictment.

Let's put this in perspective. This is one of GW's top offiicals, and this guy could go to jail for 30 years! What the hell does that tell you about GW?

Karl Rove, I hope you're next.

I just don't get how anyone can still support Bush after all this.

In the back of my mind (and a lot of others), I'm willing to bet that Libby will get off with no conviction...and probably Rove as well...and Bush will still be president.

But for now, I'm happy that at least there was a little justice dished out...albeit slow moving.

Do I Need More Proof?

2005-10-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

So some people have been telling me:

"But Will, you're so fun when you're blacked out"

That may be true, but I just got the below picture from someone at Tush's wedding. Is there any more proof I need to "tone it down" a bit? Em is right...admitting it is the first step :) And a little embarassing self-deprecation will help make sure I don't do this shit again.

Yes, that is me...on the main stairs of the Ritz Carlton during Tush's wedding. Sheeeesh.

And some may be wondering:

Shit, is Will an alcoholic?

I can honestly 100% say no. Alcoholics go to meetings. I'm just a lush.

Blackout free commitment

2005-10-18T17:35:00.000-07:00

I've been giving it a lot of thought, and it is decided. No more blacking out. OK, until at least the end of November.

As ridiculous as this seems, I thought about my drinking induced black outs a lot this weekend. And I realized how incredibly stupid it is when these happen. Not so much for my health...but I feel like I'm depriving myself of some funny memories or putting myself in situations that I don't really have a lot of control of.

My blog is scattered with a few of my more interesting black out stories. However, it wasn't the possibility of inadvertently being part of a gay-gang-bang, but it was the thought of missing the end of my friend Jon's wedding. Like I said in that post..this is one of my closest friends and I don't even remember the end of his wedding! Stupid. Really stupid.

Yes, this is going to be a much easier commitment then my previous detoxathon. But it could still be a weee bit of a challenge. I think I'm on 4 successive weeks of blacking out at least once. I'm such a retard.

I've dug up 2 emails from some of my previous black outs for some reflective laughs...not sure why I haven't posted them here before:

-------------------------------------------------------
To: Nalin, Andy

i had a ROUGH night last night....got super wasted with coworkers.

my earliest black out ever..blacked out by 10 pm. i've been hearing
stories about myself all morning:

1) almost got in 2 fights (so unlike me) - both of which thankfully
never happened because apparently the guys i was trash talking we're
enormous and would have destroyed me in seconds.
2) got kicked out of a cab for threatening to punch the guy in the
face if he didn't go the right way
3) being kicked out of voda
4) meeting up with christine and not remembering at all. apparently i
also tried to have sex with her in belden lane. completely molested
her...and bit her. i get a voicemail this morning that says: "thanks loser,
i got bite marks on my neck this morning"....when i heard the voicemail i
was thinking: "I saw christine last night??"
5) ended up being 1/2 carried into our apartment by my friend doug

and all of this...and i made it into bed at 11:30 pm.

hahahaha

----------------------
To: Nalin, Herman, Andy, Enlai, Shannph, Cindy

i have no idea how last night ended.

none.

i wake up on the couch this morning...herman's in my bed....i have
food in my mouth.

i don't even remember eating...

is it food in my mouth? or puke?

fucking drink club.

somehow..i still managed to close my tab and get my card back last
night. i don't remember this..so thanks to whoever helped me do that.

i have to move my car at 7 am because i parked in a street cleaning
spot....i move it at 7:15..i still get a $40 ticket...

i get to work at 8 am...i'm still drunk. i sleep in my car..in my
work parking lot. this in itself isn't bad...accept i left my car
lights on...so everyone who walks by, sees my lights on notices my car
with extra attention..and see me sleeping in it. shit.

fucking drink club

----------------------

NOTE: it is later discovered that the "food" in my mouth is cheese. Apparently when I got home I went to the kitchen, got a giant block of cheese, laid on the kitchen floor and just started eating...a block of cheese....on the kitchen floor. Nalin says I eventually fell asleep on the couch with a block of cheese in my hand. Another weird thing from this night...I see a picture on Andy's camera the next day. It looks like I am sucking an enormous white cock. Thankfully...it is actually from me putting Cindy's entire fist in my mouth..and that "cock" is her arm. *phew*.

Tush's Wedding

2005-10-11T00:38:00.000-07:00

I just spent this last weekend in Boston for one of my really good friend Jon's weddings. This is going to be a LOOOONG post, cause I have a lot of time on the plane ride back. For my few, but loyal, readers...consider it making up for no posts in the last little while.

First, a lil' background on Jon Tushman (Tush) and I.

Tush was one of my first friends when I moved to San Francisco. We worked together at Sapient in San Francisco from September '99 for about four months. After the project was over, Jon went back to Atlanta (where he was living at the time). However, our mutual love of Java programming, Ninjas, Tetris, spastic-borderline-socially-awkward-dancing in clubs, and good laughs created one of my closest friendships to this day.

In the last 5 years, I have only seen Tush about a 1/2 dozen times. However, somehow every time we hang out, it turns out to be one of the funniest-strangest-bestest times of my life. Here are maybe my top 3 previous Tush memories:

My first holiday Christmas party @ Sapient
Tush and I tore it up this night. Highlights from this night include:
- kissing my manager's wife on the lips
- dancing crazily and drunkenly in the middle of the dance floor..completely by myself...with not a single other person on the dance floor
- vomiting into a giant plant in the corner of the ballroom
- vomiting into an air conditioner vent on the floor
- kissing a co-worker on the cheek after vomiting and leaving a bit of vomit on her face
- standing at the front entrance of the ballroom as the party is ending and yelling at every girl who walked by to give me a kiss...and one random girl actually did...right on the lips...and yes this is after the rounds of vomit
- waking up the next morning, in my suit, shoes...the works @ 8 am...and having to go to work (damn Thurs night Christmas parties). I walk in late to our morning team (20 people) meeting completely smelling of alcohol and still drunk. 1/2 way through the meeting...I literally fall off my chair for no reason other then the fact I was drunk. This gets good laughs. I am not fired.

The Stripper Incident
I flew into Boston a couple of years ago to celebrate Tush's birthday with him. We did the club thing and as we are leaving the club at 2 am, Tush's friend Sean invites everyone over to his place for an after-party. It just so happens that it was also one of Sean's other friend's (who is a girl) birthday...so we ended up having about 30 people come over to Sean's place. Little did we all know, Sean arranged some late night entertainment for the after-party.

He gets 2 strippers...one guy and one girl for the birthday guests! Now picture the following situation:
- Tush and I are sitting on the couch watching the stripper, and Tush's girlfriend (at the time) is sitting right beside him. Awkward. The next thing you know...the stripper comes and gives Tush a VERY dirty lap dance. Yup, his girlfriend is still sitting right beside him. Awkward.

The entire room is tense watching Tush get a lap dance while he is holding his girlfriends hand and she is visibly pissed off. Tush finally smartens up and pushes the stripper off him onto me. Well, I had no problem with this because I didn't have a girlfriend at the time. This stripper was DIRTY. She did a move that I dubbed the "Chocolate Starfish Somersault". Sweet.

I get up after my living room lap dance, concealing my boner with a well placed beer bottle and make my way to the kitchen for another drink. About 30 minutes later...I realize I don't have my wallet anymore. F@CK! I positively know I had it when I sat on the couch...so I run back to the couch and it isn't there. Not in the cushions..no where. No one has seen it. Double F@CK! I am 98% sure the stripper stole my wallet while giving me a lap dance!! Incredible...I don't even want to know where she hid it.

The Famous Lobster Story
This story has been recounted dozens of times, in multiple cities, by numerous people. It's legendary. It was another random weekend in Boston and we did the Boston bar crawl thing. We end up at Whiskey's...where they have one of the greatest Bar games ever. You know that arcade game where you control a hook and try and snatch a stuffed animal? Well, Whiskey's has one...but instead of stuffed animals, the controlled hook is in a live lobster tank. No shit. I of course just have to try it for $2. Low and behold, on my very first try...I actually catch a lobster and this live lobster comes flying out of the machine.

Apparently this doesn't happen too often because the bar just erupts in cheering. Everyone is patting me on the back. I am a star. I am "Red Sox" famous for this moment. In my drunken stupor, I am walking around the bar holding my winnings high and proud. I am showing off my lobster who I immediately named Sparky. I kiss Sparky on the lips (?) while I tour the bar in the glow of my fans.

Then the unthinkable happens.

I am with Tush and some other people in a little huddle and we are all petting Sparky (who is still alive) when some random guy comes over and asks to see Sparky. I say sure and hand Sparky over. This guy says thanks me, takes one look at Sparky...and you know what this sick f@ck does?

He bites Sparky's head clean off and spits the head on the floor and throws the twitching body to the ground.

Yes. That's right.

He bit the head off a live lobster.

In a bar.

Tush and I both simultaneously scream like school girls in horror. We were horrified. Mortified. Disgusted. Disturbed.

This guy said his reason for this:
"I saw someone do that once and I just had to try it"
He was actually quite apologetic and his girlfriend was furious at him for doing it. So he spent the next 15 minutes and 20 dollars (10 tries) trying to win me another lobster. To no avail...that bastard.

The Wedding Weekend
Ah, back to present day. Tush is getting married!!

I surprisingly got to spend a ton of quality time with Tush before the wedding. The first night (Friday) a bunch of us went for drinks at the Rattlesnake. It was my first time meeting Maggie (who I LOVE) and it was great catching up with Tush. At about midnight, Tush's groomsmen are getting pretty drunk and are asked to leave the bar. Forcibly.

Ben ends up being body slammed to the concrete outside the bar (completely unnecessarily) by the bouncer and literally breaks his 2 front teeth on the sidewalk. The weekend stories started early! Ben thankfully gets 2 fake teeth the next morning because he is making a speech at the wedding!

Saturday, we did wedding lunch at Quincy Market and drinks at the Redline and "Hong Kong" in Harvard. Pretty fun night where it ended with me watching a friend slip on Hong Kong's stairs and skid down multiple steps on her ass. At the time her pride is hurt more then her ass because she is pretty drunk. But she wakes up the next morning and doesn't even remember falling..and isn't sure why the lower left side of her body and ass were completely sore.

Sunday was the big day. I got to hang with Tush and the groomsmen all day (I was a wannabe groomsman all weekend). We did brunch and got ready at the hotel together. This is when the drinking started. Uh-oh...some of you who know me can sense what's about to happen.

Long story short...by the time the ceremony starts a couple of hours later, I have about 4 beers and 4 shots of whiskey in me. I'm drunk. Good times! I manage to keep my shit together for the ceremony (a traditional Jewish-Taiwanese ceremony :) although Todd did tell me later that I was already smelling like a homeless person. Sweet. And Classy.

The ceremony was beautiful and Maggie and Tush looked great.

Well, with the reception of course comes more drinking. And they weren't f'n around at this wedding. When you have a wedding at the Ritz Carlton in downtown Boston...it ain't no cash bar. Only top shelf stuff here. The rest of the night flies by. Some highlights:

- Partaking in the Jewish tradition of carrying the parents in chairs. Quite cool because this was my first Jewish wedding. Todd and I got real sweaty doing this because we didn't realize the Jewish secret was to keep the chairs on your shoulders...not just lift with your arms.
- The best men's (Danny, Sean and Ben) speech was fantastic. Funny, charming and completely classy. Great work guys.
- Todd and I both trying to score points with the lone single girl at our table. This picture sadly tells how that went

Lefty, you bastard :)

- Me blacking out 2/3 through the night. Damn it. I've got issues...I know. I really wanted to remember this night. I've been told that I wasn't tooooo embarrassing in my black out mode. Just really really really drunk. And I guess I did pass out on the stairs. Of the Ritz Carlton. They won't be having me back. Classy.
- The fact that one of my closest friends got married to an absolutely fantastic girl!! Yeah Maggie Cheng Tushman (that name is going to get you some looks ;)

Congrats you two...you two are the best. Hopefully you're JAsian (Jewish-Asian) kids will inherit Tush's beautiful blue eyes and not his Austin Power's chest hair. Cause harry asian guys just look weird.

p.s. if you actually read this entire thing...leave a comment. I'm always curious who has too much time at work.

Ridiculous Life Highlights

2005-09-18T08:57:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting around to updating my blog with a quick Vegas and Maui recap. My week back has been absolutely crazy already. My first day back at work, I worked until 7:30 am finishing up a document and I had to fly to New Jersey for a quick biz trip (it took 13 HOURS to get back from Philly on Thursday night).

No tears for me though...that's what you get for slacking off and too much play the last couple of weeks.

Vegas
I thought I would change up the format of my recaps to keep things interesting. So I'm breaking down my vegas trip in Letterman style lists.

Top 6 Poker Moments
I played a LOT of poker this trip. There was one day I played 3 times in 3 different casinos. Long story short..I sucked this trip. Out of I think 6 different poker sessions, I was up twice, even once, down 3 times. But there were many good times had revolving around poker:

1. Edward Moncada
This had to be one of the coolest parts of the trip. On Tuesday night we went to a penthouse in the Palms where Tony and Andy's friend Edward Moncada ... was having a small party. He had a great reason to celebrate because it was the first time they were showing him play poker on ESPN. Ed won just under $300k at a WSOP event this year. It was awesome watching it with him, because it was the first time he watched it as well. We got his behind the scenes commentary ("You guys will love this hand coming up", "Although it seems like I called right away, it actually took me about 5 minutes", "wait...watch her face coming up, it's great") that added a whole new perspective to watching poker on TV. There were also a bunch of other poker pros in the room..so meeting them was kind of cool as well. And there was jumbo shrimp....yum.

2. Private Table No-Limit at the Silverton.
At about 4 am, 6 of us went to the Silverton to play poker. They opened a table just for us (1/2 NL) and since we were all friends they only charged us a $1 rake. I love this place.

3. Getting cut-off.
Same night at the Silverton, about 6 am rolls around and we are all just RIDICULOUSLY drunk. I mean ridiculous. Nalin attempts to order another drink, the cocktail waitress checks with the pit boss and he says "No" and we are cut off...in Vegas?! Well, that just won't do, so Nalin's response:

"If you don't serve me more alcohol, I'm taking off my clothes".

Amazingly, that actually works and they started serving us again after Nalin takes off his shirt at the table. You would think that would be extra reason to not serve us anymore.

4. 9 am Poker Tourney
Still the same crazy night. The Silverton has a poker tourney that starts at 9 am every day. Amazingly, Nalin, Dana, Aaron and I decide to play after a quick breakfast (dinner?). I am on about a total of 6 hours of sleep in the last 72 hours, still drunk and still drinking, but it was a cheap buy in so we figured what the hell. I ended up making the final table and finished 5th out of 30. I was only 2 spots out of the money!! F@CK! The turning point was where I got my rockets busted on someone's bad call and unlucky turn. If I won that hand I would have been tourney chip lead. Oh well..that's poker baby.

5. Balls of luck.
On one of the last hands of the tourney, I had just a few chips left and I say to my chips out loud at the table: "You guys are my last hope, don't let me down, I'm going to rub you on my balls for good luck". I then proceed to rub the chips on my balls as the rest of the table yells "fold". Hahaha. I'm sure it was just a coincidence that they happened to fold that hand.

6. Monday Night Poker
We go to play at the Silverton again on Monday night. In the course of a couple of hours we do 15 shots of vodka each. Holy crap...my body hurts. A sign of how unsober we are? Tony cashes out his chips and left all his money on the counter and we left!! Hahaha..luckily they know him and set the money aside.

Top 5 Nightlife Moments
Vegas is also all about the nightlife. Over the course of the long weekend we went to Studio 54, Drais (twice on 2 different nights), Voodoo lounge (oddly 3 different times in the same night), Lure and Light.

1. Girls Gone Wild
At one point in Lure, we randomly stumble across these 2 girls and somehow start talking to them. Next thing you know..I'm directing them for the following pictures. Like Evan says..it was like a car accident, you couldn't help but to watch.

(I think that's my hand...)

2. 30 min black out
So as some of my previous blog posts have show, I sometimes have a tendency to black out when I drink a wee bit too much. However, I had a saying all weekend: "Vegas memories are too good and precious to lose to black outs". So no matter how much I drank this weekend, I made sure I ate a lot and kept myself in check a bit. Precious memories. Yet somehow, I had a 30 minute period in Lure where I blacked out. I know it must have been only about 30 minutes because:
a) I remember getting there
b) I remember meeting Andy's friends there
c) I remember leaving, going to play poker for a few hours, then going back to Voodoo lounge until about 7 am.
If you asked me the next day if I "lost" any memories that night, I would have almost guaranteed the answer was no. However, when I started looking at some of Andy's and Evan's pictures...I couldn't help but to raise my eyebrows and think: "I did that?". In this short 30 min blacked out period apparently I was hugging/mauling people I don't even remember meeting and I guess there was some biting involved.

3. Nalin's ID
On Sunday night Nalin ended up leaving the house without his wallet. WTF! Who does that in Vegas? This could have resulted in bad times, but it surprisingly worked out. At Light, Nalin just kind of walked past the bouncer. We then went to Drais, and I did the license pass back with him. I went in first, took a step back and gave Nalin my ID. This story is made the funnier when you think about what Nalin and I look like:

(Nalin, Me, Andy @ Voodoo Lounge)

Nalin show's the Drais bouncer my ID and the bouncer literally stops Nalin and says, "Hey, let me get a better look at you". At this point, he gives his best "Chinese" impression...and somehow the bouncer just lets him in. Awesome! Good work Chinaman.

4. Voodoo Lounge - Round 3
As I mentioned earlier, I ended up going to Voodoo Lounge 3 times in one night. On the third time, i got there around 6 am. It turned out to be a pretty crazy scene because a Pimp'N'Ho party ended at The Orleans and migrated to Voodoo. And there were a lot of Pimps and Hos out! Voodoo Lounge is also really cool because it is on the roof of the Rio and has an enormous deck. It was pretty amazing to get this amazing view of the strip, in the day, around all these drunk Pimp's and Hos.

Ahhh Vegas...you're always there for a good time. Thanks again Tony for your excellent hospitality.

Maui
Maui was lots of fun. I went with Tony to a wedding of his co-workers. Here are the top 5 highlights:

1. Telling everyone that Tony and I were on a gaycation. It was hilarious for Tony to introduce me at the wedding to his friends..and whenever he said friend he would use "air quotes" or we would wink at each other.

2. General beach frolicking. Maui is a pretty chill place...not like Waikiki at all. The beaches are much more mellow in Maui. However, it was still great to just hang out on the beach, get sun, and play in the surf.

3. My friend Melissa. Randomly, my friend Melissa was in Maui on vacation with her family. It was cool to hang out with her in such a random place. Stella Blues...yum!

(Tony, Melissa, Will)

4. Volcano Bike Ride - Tony has always wanted to do this. It's a bike tour where they drive you to the top of Maui, you watch the sunrise, and then you bike down the volcano. It is a really relaxing 40 mi bike ride ALL DOWN HILL. The sunrise was beautiful and the biking was relaxing..but it got a bit boring after a while. It also sucks that they literally pick you up at 2 am to bring you up to the volcano. And oddly..you still get to the top at 4 am and just sit around for a couple of hours waiting for the sun to rise.

5. Room service breakfast on our hotel room balcony overlooking the ocean. I LOVE room service.

It was a great gaycation...but a bit exhausting when it was preceded by Vegas craziness. Literally, the expression most often mentioned between Tony and I in Maui: "I'm sleepy". And no..that was not to get each other into bed. :)

Alright..back to real life! I hate real life...

My ridiculous life....

2005-09-02T15:15:00.000-07:00

I almost hate to write this post...because it will unavoidably sound incredbily pretentious...but I've got a pretty bloody amazing week coming up.

In 4 hours, I'm on a plane to Las Vegas with Evan and Nalin. If this trip is anywhere near as fun as my last trip to Vegas - you can definitely expect some interesting post-vegas blog posts.

The original plan was to be in Vegas till Monday...and then back to the grind.

BUT, the heavens have been shining on me recently. Low and behold, I'm going to end up staying in Vegas until Weds. On Weds I fly out to Maui..to attend someone's wedding. I have no idea who'se wedding this is. But I haven't been to Maui since I was a little kid..so when I had a chance to go on a gaycation with my friend Tony...I jumped on it.

After a week in the blazing sun of Vancouver and Tofino, 5 days by Vegas pools, and 3 days on Maui beaches...I am going to be soooooooooooooooo dark and tanned when I get back.

...now that's pretentious....

That's Just Racist!

2005-08-31T12:35:00.000-07:00

This animated image is funny..but disturbing at the same time. Click on it to see the full size.

More Alcatri Pics

2005-08-30T20:45:00.000-07:00

Brightroom just recently posted some pics of my Alcatraz Tri so I thought I would share them here because some are pseudo-humerous (and I'm narcissistic)

Atheletes Jumping off the Ferry

View of the Swim..the masses in the Bay

I'm a bit disappointed this was my only picture from the swim..not very exciting - I'm taking out earplugs.

This picture makes me laugh...i don't know why (lighting, angle, shorts bunching) but my balls look ridiculously enormous in this shot. What am I wearing a jock cup? Packing some oranges for later in the run?

Why do I always look so gay (not that there's anything wrong with that) when I run? Honestly, why the hell am I rubbing my nipples in that 2nd picture? OK, I like to rub my nipples. But I don't remember doing that during the run.

Yay! Running pictures where I actually look normal. The ones with the GG bridge in the background are pretty cool. You will also notice that my balls have returned to their correct size.

Some bike shots

I LOVE these pictures. This was me jumping at the finish line and clicking my heels. This got some good laughs at the finish line...

At the end...me and Merrill

The week in pictures

2005-08-28T14:48:00.000-07:00

I just spent the most amazing 10 days in Vancouver. It was a great balance of friends, family, chilling, partying and playing. I thought I would steal Tine's idea and sum up the week with a couple of key pictures with just a bit of commentary.

Friday Night
My first night here. Pat and I go check out Tokyo Lounge and just get caught up. It's Pat's last weekend in Vancouver before moving to Chicago to do his MBA at Kellogg. So I'm glad we have a chance to hang out before he leaves. No pics this night...

Saturday
I spend the day shopping on Robson and hangin with Pat. He has a going away dinner tonight at Jupiter

Pat and Melissa at Pat's going away dinner at Jupiter.

Only in Vancouver..we are at Shine. Pat notices something in the seat cushion..he pulls it out...and it is a small baggy of weed

Sat night is a really fun night where we hung out in Shine exchanging assorted sex stories. It starts fairly tame ("i made out with this person in a club once") to completely disturbing ("so he told me that he still wasn't walking properly because he was fisted by a 6'5 black guy"). Good times! This must have been the only time I have ever been to Shine and not danced...odd.

Sunday
My last night hanging out with Pat. So we go check out Balthazars with Tricia, Naomi, and Sharon.

Big Pimpin....

Tricia and Pat

Putting down the free pizza Tricia got (she leaned into the Kitchen and says to the guy making Pizzas: "mmm...that looks good", 5 minutes later, we have a free pizza)

Have a great time in Chicago Patty...

Monday

My brothers (Eddie and Andre) and my dad are off to Tofino (Vancouver Island) for 4 days of sun, surf and food. It turns out to be one of the best family vacations I have ever been on.

On the ferry ride to Tofino

On the way to Tofino...we made a quick stop at a swimming hole

Dad, Me and Dre

Once we get to Tofino, the first thing we do is go to a Pier and go crabbing. This is before we even check into our place!

Nothing makes crabbing enjoyable like Vodka shots

Our first pull after 5 minutes got about 7 crabs!! We ended up throwing about 4 of these back in

We caught 10 crabs the first day...we also lost a trap and Andre jumped into the water to go get it. From Zero to Hero!

Chefs in the kitchen at our place in Tofino (an amazing condo on Chesterman Beach)

Young men about to chow down

Crab feast (steamed, chili fried and bbq'd)

Chesterman Beach...a 200 foot walk from our Condo

Bros

Chesterman beach

Chesterman as the sun is going down

Chesterman sunset

Tuesday
The mission for Tuesday is to surf and get some sun! Thankfully, the weather held up all week and it was just amazing out.

About to go surf in Tofino at Long Beach

Crazy small world thing..on the first wave of the day..we see our friend Steph in the water. We didn't even know she was going to be in Tofino

Eddie about to catch a wave

Andre riding some ankle biters

Wednesday
We don't have much planned for Weds except for more surf and a couple of hikes

My dad...the constant explorer. This cave was only accessible during low tides

The surf at Chesterman beach

Me and Eddie surfing on another tiny wave together (Me on the left)

On a hike through Tofino's beautiful rain forest trails

We went crabbing again on Day 3. And we lose another crab trap off the dock..this time I'm the one to jump in and get it.

Thursday
It's time to pack up and head back to the city on Thursday. It was an amazing 4 days of no email, cell phones, etc. Nothing but beautiful nature, family and never ending good food!! Before we head back to the city, we surf a bit more and go on a few more hikes.

A hike along the Pan-West coastal trail

On our way back to the ferry on day 4, we stopped again at the swimming hole for a dip...

...and a jump!

Eddie preparing for his big jump

The sunset on our ferry ride back to Vancouver. Tofino...you were beautiful and I miss you already.

Friday
Coming back to Vancouver for another weekend means more going out! It also happened to be my birthday on Thursday so my Dad takes us out for some great Chinese eats.

Me and my dad at my birthday dinner

Everyone at dinner..Chinese feast
(Lauryn, Naomi, Ed, Dad, Me, Andre)

Thanks for dinner guys!

After dinner I go meet up with Mitch and we end up going to Stone Temple with some people. Yes..we somehow randomly ended up at Stone Temple. I haven't been to Stone Temple since this one time during UBC. At one point in the night these girls come up to get us to sign up on their email list in exchange for a shot. Mitch and I sign up (anything for a free drink) and the girl asks us:

Girl: "Do you come here often?"
Will: *I look at her and say* "I bet you the last time I was here you were 12 years old. So OK, how old were you 8 years ago?"
Girl: *Looks at me oddly* "Umm...I dunno, I'm not good at math"
*Mitch and I stop dead in our tracks...stop and turn to each other and bite our tongues to avoid laughing in her face. About 30 seconds later she says:
Girl: "Oh, you're right...I was 12 years old"

Hahahahahaaha....

Tricia and Mitch at Stone Temple.

It's been a while since Mitch has gone out. For some reason, guys were buying Mitch drinks all night and he didn't hold it very well. We head back to his place and...well...he loses it. Badly....

We of course have to torture Mitch while he is hugging the toilet (disgusting Mitch..your head was resting ON the toilet...and I pee'd a little sloppier there earlier..sorry). So we insist on putting flippers on Mitch while he is puking. Don't even ask why...

Saturday

The next night is actually Hansen's bachelor party that Mitch and I crash. We go to Aqua and Hansen is in full gear. School girl outfit. Hot. Very Hot.

Hit me baby one more time...

Joy drinking a drink out of Hansen's tits.

Mitch and I end our Saturday night going to Edgewater Casino where we play poker till about 5 am. We both come out winners...Mitch won a whole Four dollars after playing for 4 hours.

Wrap Up
This trip to Vancouver was one of my best ever in so many different ways. I'm seriously SERIOUSLY thinking about moving back..but more on that later. Love you 604!

Off to the 604

2005-08-19T17:32:00.000-07:00

I'm at the airport...waiting for my flight to Vancouver.

Woo hooo!

Can't wait for a long long overdue week off. It's my good friend Pat's last week in Vancouver before he moves to Chicago to do his MBA....so I'm glad my visit is timed with seeing him off.

My bros, my dad and I are also going to Tofino (Vancouver Island) for a 4 day surf trip (yes...surfing in Canada). It is going to be awesome...expect some excellent surfing pictures posted soon.

I get back to SF Monday the 29th and then I head out to Vegas for Labor day weekend. I sense some more epic drunken tales....

Blurry Tuesday

2005-08-17T22:43:00.000-07:00

My last 4 posts have all been about my Tri. I think a "get-drunk-boy-am-i-stupid" post is in order keep things interesting.

Last night Nalin had a date over at the apartment. I wanted to give him his space so I went to go kill some time and have "one" drink at Blur (1121 Polk St - 415-567-1918).

Blur really is my neighborhood place to go and it was a fun night. I had some drinks with Amy and she introduced me to a bunch of the other regulars there. So my one Saphire Tonic turned into about 6 drinks. What the hell is wrong with me? Why can't I go somewhere and just have one drink like a normal person. It also didn't help that I didn't eat dinner. Yup..you can almost predict the disaster that is to come.

In my drunken friendly state, I must have become friends with everyone in the bar. I ended up talking with this other group of people who came into the bar after me. I don't remember all of their names but I remember Mario and Sky. Mario is FLAMINGLY gay and so were most of his friends. Mario says he "dances" at Divas, the tranny bar down the street. Sky was a very attractive girl who I think she said worked with Mario and his friends at their day jobs (restaurant I think).

Next thing you know, I'm jumping in a car with this group of people I just met and we are off to the Castro to go check out The Cafe - 2367 Market St (415) 861-3846.

Yes, there are a couple of odd things at play here.

1) For those who don't live in SF, the Castro is commonly known as the Gay Mecca of North America. It is an SF neighborhood where being gay is the norm and seeing burly guys walking down the street in leather chaps is not that unusual.
2) The Cafe - Is about as gay as a club can get. A description of this place on sanfrancisco.com describes it as:

No cover. Strong drinks. Super-gay top 40 dance mixes that bring scraggly-haired lesbians and boys who buy their youth at the tanning salon. It doesn't get much more Castro than this.

3) I'm going there in a car full of gay guys and a straight girl I just met.
4) I am already SUPER drunk
5) I'm wearing jeans, a t-shirt and flip flops. I wasn't planning on going out..this is what I wore to work!

But anyway..we get to the Cafe and yup...it sure is gay in there. Thank God I have Sky to protect me a bit. But seriously, some gay guys have NO shame. Even though I'm hanging out with Sky, guys would come up to me at the bar and make VERY inappropriate comments. Holy Crap..now I know how girls feel sometimes. Even scarier, a couple of the guys straight out just came up to me and grabbed my balls. One guy even tried putting his hand down my pants. No shame!

Now here's the real scary part. The last thing I remember it was about 1 am. And then yup:

no dinner + lots of drinks = black out.

The Morning After
I thankfully wake up in my own bed alone at about 10 am this morning. I have absolutely no idea how I got home. None. I feel like dying. I get up to go get some water and in my head I literally think it is Saturday morning.

I am rudly brought back to reality when my cell phone goes off and it's work. FUCK! It's only Weds! And I have already missed 2 meetings at work and am about to miss another one. Oh shit...

Nalin told me I woke him up at 3 am (wait a second...clubs close at 2. what the hell was I doing between 2 and 3?) buzzing at the door. I think I lost my keys. Nalin says I looked in REAL bad shape..maybe the worst he has ever seen me.

I shower before rushing off to work. I literally touch my ass to make sure that it hasn't been violated. Honestly....that is a scary couple of hours where who knows what happened. But I still have my wallet, phone and anal retention..so it couldn't have been that bad.

I get to work and life is miserable. I feel so sick. I only manage to stay at work for a couple of hours before I come back home and crawl into bed. At about 4 pm I literally have to run out of bed and I vomit. I don't remember the last time I threw up the next day after drinking. I also don't think I have EVER done it as late in the afternoon. I end up in bed sobbing softly to myself till about 8 pm.

Nalin later finds my keys. They are on the floor..outside of our apartment. Doh!