No Armed Swimmer

This is pretty crazy! If you go to the link, watch out for annoying popup ads, but the video is cool. Amazing what people can do.No Armed Swimmer

not so close now

During our trip to Mendocino last weekend, AGR learns a lesson about the dos and don'ts of petting a horse.

Sushi Fun in SF at Zushi Puzzle

My dad and I have safely arrived in San Francisco (after having to run through Dulles to catch our plane).

We rented an RV for the weekend so the three of us will be off to Mendocino tomorrow morning and from there...who knows?

Ahh, the freedom of the RV.

For tonight it's dinner at 8:15 PM at Zushi Puzzle, a favorite sushi place of ours right around the corner of Allen's apt.

top ten web fads

Oh, how I miss the days of putting my unsuspecting friends pics up on hotornot.com. Here are the top ten as reported by cnet. By the way, have you done a search on rate my lately?

Boy's Retreat Weekend

Thank you Brad! For originally suggesting the idea of getting together over the July 16 weekend. It was a simple idea, but something the four of us had not done since about 1996? That's way too long to go in between hanging out and having some fun.

The prework started long before the weekend for those of us with a wife and kid(s). We had to carefully negotiate freedom from our domestic responsibilities. Once freedom was granted, the weekend started, and we were chill'n. We could pretend like we were back in highschool, but somehow each conversation drifted to work, wife, or child, snapping us back to reality.

So now it was time for some manly activities like white water rafting. Here we were ready to go, unsuspecting of what a disappointing and low adventure rafting trip we were in store for.



Basically it was like riding down the lazy river at the Smurf theme park. There were almost no rapids, and the little rapids we did have, were filled with river guides spewing commands at us to ensure our safety. Safety from what? The scariest thing was the horse fly that almost got us. If you don't believe me check out how "vicious" the water is behind Austin. Of course he stoicly paddled through it.


As the weekend went on it was great to enjoy eachother's friendship, and we were shocked to realize we've known eachother for 20+ years. More suprisingly we all agreed we've changed very little.

Especially Hung, whom appears to have a somewhat scary series of pictures. Note that none of these are staged, it's just Hung's natural pose when taking a picture.

First in his apt.



Then in front of Austin's car.


And on the rafting trip.



Can you identify a pattern? And Hung you call me angry? Hmmm.

tron a thon

This tron beats to a different drum. I can't believe how much revenue potential is available in the adult entertainment industry, especially for the entrepreneurial type!

OLN will Air Ironman Events this Fall

The Outdoor Life Network (OLN) has announced that it will air seven of the 2005 Ironman qualifying events this fall. Beginning September 18 and extending through October, OLN will air an event every Sunday at 2 p.m. CST. Events will re-air the following week; check local listings for exact times. For more information, visit www.olntv.com

Looks like Virginia and the DC area in general are tops again!

I just happen to notice this and couldn't resist posting it after all the negative Virginia/DC area stuff. Virginia and the DC area keep showing up in top ten lists for areas. Great Falls VA comes in at #1 for highest median income http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/earners.html. Potomac MD and Fairfax Station VA come in at 5th and 6th respectively on the same survey. The DC area is also the most educated according to a survey done by the same group http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/educated.html. Chevy Chase MD, Bethesda MD, Potomac MD and McLean VA come in at 1st, 2nd, 4th and 9th respectively. I didn't see any CA locations on that list. Again on another survey done by the same group, Onboard, Ashburn VA, Leesburg VA and Sterling VA come in at 5th, 6th, and 7th for fastest job growth http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/jobsgrowth.html. Sorry Big Al and Allen, I didn't see any place from CA on that list either. A top ten list for school spending http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/education.html lists areas all in the DC area except #1 NYC. Washington, DC oddly comes in at third on that list. They must be including all the private school students as well because I don't know anyone who lives in DC who sends their kids to public schools if they can afford private school. Don't worry Al and Allen, CA does well in other lists. CA comes in at #1 for hottest places, as in heat not how hip a place is http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/hottest.html. CA also dominates the priciest homes top ten list http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/homes.html.

Contrary to what many might have guessed NJ has three locations on the top ten LEAST (no this is not a typo) polluted areas on a survey from Onboard http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/topten/leastpolluted.html. That was a surprise. No place in CA or VA/DC area made that list.

Even though I rag on CA a bit, I do like many places in CA. Katherine is from CA, so it can't be a bad place. If it weren't for all the liberals and earthquakes, CA would be a more desirable place. I'll stick with my red state and hurricanes that I can at least see and get away from. When I think of living in CA, I have thoughts of sitting on the bottom section of the bay bridge in SF when an earthquake hits and I realize I'm screwed.

vlogging

Big Al's Friends! Get with the picture. You are all so passe with your antiquated text blog. Who's going to be the first to start vlogging?

Nike Casting

There's still time to be in a Nike Ad. they are Casting for a commercial in SF.

I bet there will be a lot of hotties there!

Armed bandits in Brazil robbed a vehicle carrying more than 400 breast implants

Hard to believe what some people will steal.

Must be bad news for local beauty pageants.

Vienna VA number 4 in Money Mag's Best Places to Live

I know Alex doesn't like Virginia but I happen to like it and was heartened to learn that Vienna Va was fourth on the list of Money Magazine's Best Places to Live listing http://money.cnn.com/best/bplive/?cnn=yes . Don't feel too bad Alex, Mill Valley California squeezes in at number ten. Virginia overall had 41 contenders and 4 finalists for a 9% finalist rate. Not bad for a state that is dwarfed in size and population by California. California had 222 contenders and 11 finalists for only a 5% finalist rate. Don't get me wrong, I like many places in California but I just thought someone should stand up for Virginia.

Home-ade Play Table for Grant

Another big part of my weekend was completing the play table I was building for Grant. Here is the unveiling of it. Grant loves it! I made it the perfect height so he could stand at it and bang on it since that is what he likes to do. See more pictures of the play table in action on my blog.


My next project is building a suitable workbench. I'm about 75% through this project so far. Below are the plans and here is a picture of my work to date.

Block Building

Here was one of the highlights of my weekend. Building blocks with my son. It was very difficult to build it this tall because usually Grant-zilla destroys it much faster than I can build it.

2005 Big Sur Ride Beats the Blue Ridge Ride

Yet another reason why California is much better than Virginia. We have the Blue Ridge Ride, and they have the Big Sur Ride 170 miles and 11,000 feet of climbing in Carmel Valley and Salinas California near Monterey.

If you haven't been there, Big Sur is gorgeous! I'd love to do this ride.

Sounds AWESOME!! Who's up for it??

I hope this guy makes it

thefatmanwalking.com

As a Marine, I bet he will.

more social networking

Smack's list was a little weak, so here is a more complete list of social networking sites. This should keep you busy for the rest of your life!
http://socialsoftware.weblogsinc.com/entry/9817137581524458

Amazingly enough, they left off one, yub.com

A rare night

I wanted to try to keep up with all of Sandy's posts. We lucked out here for the Fourth, no fog, so check out these first 4 wonderful pictures. Makes you want to move back, huh?

Size of woodworking shop proportional to distance from a Major City

I have come to find out that the size of one's woodworking shop, is directly proportional the distance from a major city.

For example, when I lived in Hyde Park, Ohio, I was about 12 miles from Cincinnati, OH and I started to have a decent set of tools for woodworking. Then when I moved to San Francisco my shop went to zero! Of course this may have been due to space, which I had about zero of that. So no woodworking shop.

Now that I'm back in the suburbs I've reopened my shop and begun adding to it. My latest and greatest purchase is the Ryobi Mitre Saw below which is AWESOME. I don't know how I had a shop without one of these handy tools. I posted a whole seperate entry about it on my blog if you're interested. It includes my reasons for not buying DeWalt anymore and instead buying Ryobi.



So back to my story. I'm in Reston, about 20 miles outside of DC and my shop is little and mobile. It occupies some of the garage and frequently has to be packed up depending on the garage needs. Now my friend Paul lives in Ashburn and has a much better shop than I do. He has an entire dust collection and air filtration system. Plus a much better table saw, a drill press, and a router table. Ashburns about 35 miles from DC.

So I imagine, if I went even futher out, maybe past Leesburg, I'd probably find Norm Abraham, Master Craftsman.

Another one of those sites...

Have any of you heard of The FaceBook?