Heading Out On the Open Road

Well, i thought this trip would never start but on August 30 my dad and i had done our last minute packing and it was time to hit the highway, the Lincoln Highway. Not sure why my dad and uncle are so fascinated with this road...i could really care less if it was the first practical road to connect the east and west coast of the United States.

So, before we headed out my mom had to make us one final meal which consisted of eggs, bacon, and sausage.


i of course made a breakfast sandwich. i'll pretty much make a sandwich out of anything as long as there is bread available. Pretty sure i could eat anything between two pieces of bread, even Rocky Mountain Oysters.
After breakfast my mom had to pack a few more things in our bags such as rubber gloves because she heard me mention that one of my friends, brett, wore them under his riding gloves to keep his hands dry while riding...such she gave me about 30 pairs of rubber gloves...and she wouldn't let me take them out of my pack.

Originally my dad just planned on riding to Pittsburgh...Psh, not on my watch. If we're going on a biking trip we're at least leaving the state on the first day. So my dad and i planned on spending the night in Canton, Ohio.

While on the road my dad said he wanted to pull over to stretch his legs and grab a drink. For a change he could hear me perfectly through his headset and CB radio. While we taking a break another biker stopped for a smoke behind us. My dad being the 'social-biker' type went over to say hello tell the guy all about hour trip to San Francisco by taking route 30. My dad then asked the biker, Mark, where he was headed. He told us he was headed to Pittsburgh to meet a girl he met on the internet...

It took a lot for me not to bust out laughing because he just looked ridiculous in dirty jeans, t-shirt with a pocket, long hair, beard, and crooked. Mark then told us that hopefully this girl will be better than the last one he met on the internet...man it keeps getting better. He then went on about how this girl sells metric bikes and sue to sell harley bikes and hasn't been on the back of a bike for 20 years...More information than i needed to know, a lot more. Seemed like he really just wanted a girl to sit on the back of his bike and nothing more. Whatever floats your boat.

Took the first gas stop a little ways before reaching Pittsburgh. i still haven't found out what the deal is with my gas tank. It doesn't have your typical fuel gauge, its just five bars that run in a semicircle so i really don't know how much fuel i really have. Sometimes i'll get 35 miles before the first fuel bar disappears and other times it disappears after 7 miles....

i decided to bring a riding buddy, Babo. i wasn't quite sure if i wanted to bring him or not because i was kind of limited on space but i just couldn't leave him behind. i strapped him to the back with a cargo net and even gave him a camelbak incase he got thristy. Who needs a girl when i got Babo.
My Uncle Floyd said that there was a church my dad and i had to check out in Pittsburgh before meeting up with him in Goshen, Indiana. Knowing my uncle there was something different about this church. Its called The Church Brew Works. Its pretty much a church that has been made into a pub which i was totally looking forward to.

The beer was pretty good. i only had two since i was riding. The first pint was a Pipe Organ Pale Ale and the second was a Celestial Gold. The food was really good too.

After eating some perogies i dug into some Maryland Crab Cakes which were delicious.

Can someone explain this banner to me? Do they really have midgets running around playing football?

Even though my dad and i passed on dessert at the brew works to buy us some more time to get to Canton, we still found ourselves chasing behind the sun and wasn't long until we were riding in the dark. We didn't find a hotel until after 10pm. On our way to Canton we actually went through a part of West Virginia..managed 3 states in on day, not too shabby.

Son of a Bun

Ugh....i am so behind on my blogging. i'm sure the millions of people that read my blog have been dying to read a new post. My crazy motorcycle trip has started and i had planned to make a bunch of random posts before the trip started but that didn't happen.

i then planned to catch up on my random posts while i was on the road but the new HP tablet that my dad had bought can not see the pictures on my flash drive...probably because it is running Vista Home Premium, lame.

This motorcycle trips is going to be ridiculous. i have a feeling something horrible is going to happen. Oh well...should make a good story if something does come up.

i'm so tired every night after a day of riding, but i'm going to attempt to write at least a couple posts during the weeks of the trip.

My Twin Apparently

i got a text the other day from katie saying that she saw my twin at the Yankees Stadium. This guy looks nothing like me, katie must have been drunk out of her mind.

Some Saudi Randoms

Saigon chillin' in a car seat...

jack got a kite from his grandpa. Some crazy Pirates of the Caribbean kite with crazy sails...

Not sure what kind of beetle this was...but it managed to get on the back of my shirt...probably a stink bug.

Out infront of the Golf Course in Dhahran...

Picture infront of the Golf Course in Ras Tanura...

Bennigan's!

The other day (July 28) brent called me and said he wanted to get something to eat...at either Bennigan's or Friday's. Brent took the day off because he was sick or something. But he was well enough to drive to Bennigan's and have a beer and some greasy food. i didn't want to go but then brent offered to pay, hard to pass that up...and i was due for some brent time (BT).

When i arrived he had already gotten a table and ordered us some mozzarella sticks. i asked brent what i should get and he said the Monte Cristo was pretty good...but i probably wouldn't finish it. Psh, please..i can finish anything.

So i got the monte cristo. brent ordered the same thing but however he asked that the grill it instead...Instead of what? Instead of soaking the sandwich in batter and deep frying it and showering it over with powdered sugar...i should have read the menu. Yeah i don't do too well with fried foods...i just get sick.

i did finish 3 of the sandwiches but could not eat the batter of the fourth one...pretty much scrapped off all of the batter and ate the insides.
After dinner i wanted to see a movie but nothing we wanted to see was showing before 9pm. So we decided to go to his parents house and bother them. Of course julie and his mom were not home and his dad was sleeping on the couch. But soon julie and aunt janice came home from shopping.i had a nice picture of julie but she took my camera and deleted it so because of that i'm posting this crappy picture of her. If only i had snapped it sooner to get her face.
Brent's hair is getting pretty long...i keep offering to cut it but he keeps turning me down. One of these days i'm going to asking and when that happens you'll beg me to cut it but i won't....it'll happen, you'll see.

Not sure what was going on in this picture, he actually posed like this...it wasn't a surprise shot.

The next day i was talking to michelle and she sent me an article saying that Bennigan's is closing its restaurants! How about that? michelle said, "i guess brent didn't pay enough..." the day before when we went. Bummer. Bennigan's has all those crazy Guinness dishes too...At least the independent franchises will be open for awhile.

Hoochie Momma

marie and sarah came to the house after some shopping. Bought a bunch of junx and along with some fancy shoes. After looking at them at home marie thought they might be a little too 'hoochie' for 9 yr old sarah. Steve really thought they were too 'hoochie'. So marie had to go back to wherever (probaly kohl's) to return them. So apparently i would make a horrible parent because i thought they were nice. If i were a girl, i'd have a million pairs of wedges so i'd look taller. And wedges look more comfortable than heels but i've never worn either (well there was that one time...) so i wouldn't know. Oh well, poor shoes...looks like someone else will have to buy you.

Day Spent with Marie and Sarah

Our first hang out was East Cuisine where supposedly is some good sushi. The only problem was that marie forgot where the place was so there was a little bit of calling back and forth before we actually met up.

For sushi sarah got the california rolls, marie got the salmon rolls, and i got the hoppin' spider rolls. Spider rolls are the best...not sure what is in them but whatever it is its cooked and not raw and i think its some crazy soft shell crab. The spider rolls were really good. i wasn't too crazy about the salmon rolls and i didn't taste the california rolls because those are boring. Ever see people mix wasabi with soy sauce? Yea....you're not suppose to do that. i just load up on wasabi and give my sinus a ride of burning sensation.


marie said they have a crazy hair day back in Saudi. So she bought this ridiculous skull cap for jack. It is extremely weird because its like a brain with hairs coming out of it. i wish i had a crazy hair day....
After sushi we went to Atlantic Books...i believe this was my first time in the crazy book store warehouse. Sarah picked up some ridiculous Hannah Montana books. i don't get what the big deal is about this girl. i mean, sure i'd like to be Mily Cyrus because then i'd be ridiculously rich...but its impossible for me to sit through one of her shows. They're so painful to watch.

After walking around i ran into these books...Seriously spider-man, what are you doing? Are you so broke you have to resort to ridiculous kids books about respect and loyalty to get some money to pay the bills??
Look at the Incredible Hulk...he look super gay just swinging around on the front cover...don't even get me started with Rhino in the picture above....
After the shopping was done, it was about time for dinner. marie wanted some baja fresh, sarah wanted Friendly's, and i could care less. i was kind of leaning towards Friendly's because Baja Fresh has a super lame atmosphere and its always cold. At least at Friendly's i could sit at a booth. Sarah won and we ended up at Friendly's.

i got the buffalo chicken melt and marie got the hamburger melt thing. My dish was way better...looks like marie should just order what i do for now on. After our meals we got ice cream because you have to have ice cream at Friendly's.

Sarah got this crazy thing called the "Monster Bash". It kind of looked like Stitch. But stitch is an alien not a monster, huge difference.

After we were done eating we walked over to pay...and sarah wanted to do that crazy stuff animal crane thing. This one is different because you can't lose...but you do pay more, a whole 2 bones.

Fun Times With Anna

Now that Anna is a little older, she can now realize how awesome and fun i am and doesn't throw a fit whenever i try pick her up or play with her. Our favorite thing to do is stretch out our fingers like in E.T. and when we touch we both make a "BZZZZZZ!" sound and she laughs like its the funniest thing in the world. Good times...

Just like dano, acacia, and gabe...marie's kids love the ridiculous hula chair.

i took anna outside to show her the creeping water fountain child. She loved it of course just like my parents thought she would. She kept pulling out the ceramic fish and putting them into a pile and then taking them out of the water again and making another pile.
It was all fun and games until 15 minutes had passed and i wanted to back inside. i asked anna to get down from the chair so we could get inside...she gave me a death look. Like i was crazy for wanting to leave the freaky fountain child to go inside in the nice air conditioned house. Luckily she didn't go nuts but you could tell she really didn't want to go back inside. And that was the end of our play date.

New Shower Curtain

When michelle last visited, she said it was time i got a new shower curtain because the one i have now is just disgusting. Just go to a dollar store and pick one up for a dollar. A little mold and mildew never hurt anyone...helps strengthen the immune system right?

When marie arrived at the house, her son jack (7 yr old) wouldn't even get in the shower because of the nasty shower curtain-liner. Chunks of mold and mildew were falling off the curtain when it got hit with water. i guess it is time i got a new shower curtain...
Went shopping with marie and she got me a fancy shower curtain. No cheap $1 curtain for lazy son, instead she got me the the $6.99 Super Weight Premium Vinyl Shower Curtain-Liner 'Will Not Mildew'. We'll just see about that...i'm sure i can manage to get some mold on this crazy curtain-liner.

Tuna

While my parents are on their cruise, my eating of plentiful good food pretty much stops. Luckily i have tuna fish. i end up opening 6 or 7 cans and making a whole bunch so a tuna sandwich is always easy to make. But why open 6 cans when i could just open one massive can!

Made a trip to Costco where i can find over 4 lb and 2.5 oz of tuna in a can. Awesome. i tried using a motorized can opener but it seems that they were not designed to open massive cans of tuna...so i had to do it the old fashion way, lame.

i like to make my tuna fish with miracle whip because it has less calories and tastes amazing. i didn't have any relish to throw in it so i just dumped in random stuff like crushed red peppers, mustard, old bay seasoning, pepper... Not really sure what i was doing and it sure tasted like i had no idea what i was doing. But i still ate it...everyday for 5 days. i thought the tuna would last me longer.

Weapons or Eating Utensils?

Howdy, for some reason when Father's Day rolled around i got a gift from my mom. As far as i know i'm not a father...but i still got a gift. i actually received the gift a couple days after Father's Day because i was partying that whole weekend.

Anyway, back to the gift. They're fish! Not just any fish...you pull them a part and they're weapons! Just what i've always wanted! Fish weapons! Well, not really but i still like them.
At first they look like weapons, but after a closer look maybe not. They could easily be some crazy take on a portable knife and fork for travel. Yeah, you just use the fork looking thing as a fork and the blade as a knife. They're just for decoration so the knife isn't sharp but you could still do some damage with the pointy parts. i guess i'll never know what they were designed for.

Italian Pinot Grigio

Started a batch of Italian Pinot Grigio. This batch was a little weird because it did not come with any cool elder flowers or oak chips. Since its summer and the A/C is cranked up to keep the house cool, the laundry room where i keep the wine is a lot cooler than it usually is. When day five came after starting the fermenting process, they specific gravity was only 1.042 when it should be below 1.010. i should have thought about the temperature thing before, oh well. i then moved the primary fermenter to the sun room where it is warmer. i took a reading after two days in the sun room and it read 1.020. So maybe after one more day i can rack it into the carboy.

Brent helped me start the process. i had him do most of the cleaning though it wasn't that much. Look at him with his hair slicked to the side, kind of freaks me out.

Feast Little Spider

So i've mentioned my fly problem. Well they're in the basement now. i was too lazy to go up stairs to get the fly swatter so i had to be a little more creative. Can't swat it with my hands because that's just gross and i don't feel like going to the bathroom afterwards to clean my hands because that requires more walking.

Anyway, i noticed there is a spider that has made a web between the window and the screen. i first cracked open the window and then guided the fly down to the opening. The fly was probably like,"cool! a way out". But then when he sees the spider he'll be like,"lemon..".

Sadly i lost track of the fly but i'm sure the spider caught him, at least i hope so. i'm sure the spider doesn't get that much to eat in the windowsill. Don't say i'm weird for feeding the spider, i know you would do the same thing in my posistion. You would right?

In this picture you can kind of see the fly at the top. At the bottom the spider is waiting...

Lord of the Flies

Apparently when my parents leave it means 'House Party for Flies'. Two days after they left the house has been taken over by flies. i've literally killed over 30 (yes i've counted) of them. So ridiculous. i tried not killing them at first. i would just lead them to the door and let them fly out. But that got old fast and i whipped out the fly swatter.

They gather by the kitchen sink windows of course. They also like to hang out by the front door and the door leading out onto the deck. i started making piles out of their bodies, so i could count them later. It was working until Cheri came back from her New York and Jersey visits and brought over the third uncle and aunt that had just arrived from Vietnam and someone cleaned up my amazing pile of flies on the kitchen counter. i'm sick i know.

The weird thing about the flies i kill by the front door, is that they disappear within 24 hours. Pretty weird. My guess is that they are flies infected with some crazy viral strain that turns them into zombies after they die or they taken away by ants. i'm thinking zombies is the better guess.

The pictures or horribly blurry, i know.

The Blue Bedouin

Just to warn you this might be a long one. So the past couple months i've been looking for a new motorcycle since it would really be a pain to take my current bike on this crazy trip to California and back. i decided that i wanted a blue bike...red isn't really my thing, black is boring, white is too bright...

As for the kind of bike i wanted something big and awesome. i narrowed my search down to the Honda VTX 1800 or the Kawasaki Nomad 1600. Since my current bike is a kawasaki and i like it a lot, i was leaning towards the Nomad. Also the Nomad comes with a bunch of accessories that would cost a lot more to get on the VTX. When i figured out what i wanted it was time to do some searching.

Two months went by and no one was selling a used Nomad or VTX, at least near me. i have like no money so a new bike was kind of out of the question since a new 2008 Nomad is $13,000. i was pretty bummed so i decided maybe i could take my little Vulcan on the trip and it would be ok since i have the highway pegs to stretch out my legs and some riding experience under by belt... My dad wants me to go on the trip because i'm so much fun of course, or he thinks it'll be a fun experience for me. My mom wants me to go on the trip because she doesn't trust dad on a motorcycle. Not sure what having me along will do. Its not like i can ride up next to him and tap him on the shoulder to see if he is awake.

On July 15 i did my last search for this Nomad i wanted...not only did i find one, but two! One in Jersey (ew..) at a dealer and another in South Philly! Excellent... i then set up a meeting with the philly guys not knowing the shadyness i would encounter.

i roll up to the house the next day and the bike is awesome. Everything i expected. Now it was just getting the price down. The price they wanted was $7995. Psh...com'on, i'm poor give me a break. It was a father and son selling the bike. The father owns a harley bagger. He wanted his son to get into riding and told him to buy a bike. So the kid looked up bikes and found this Nomad in Jersey from a private seller. The kid doesn't have a motorcycle license and has never been on a bike. Buying a 1600cc bike for her first ride is just asking to mess it up and cost loads of money to fix it. The kid told his dad he was getting a bike and the dad thought he was getting a 800cc bike.

Once the father came home from his vacation and saw the bike, he pretty much slapped his son telling him he's an idiot for buying such a big bike. They fought about keeping it or selling it. So by the time i had seen the bike they have had it in their possession for less than a week. They said they bought it for $8,000 and they just wanted to get their money back. Another weird thing was that the title was still in the name of the guy they bought it from and the bike was not registered in PA yet. Ugh.

i went home to think about it for a bit. The price wasn't too ridiculous and i knew someone would be willing to buy it if i didn't buy it first. So after a little more haggling i got them down to $7800. Not very impressive i know. i really wanted $7500 for it but my puppy eyes just don't work over the phone.

i agreed to meet the father at 'his' auto tags place near the Phillies Stadium the next day. i was hoping that steve (the brother-in-law) could drive me down and just make sure everything was okay. But he and marie has some important Target shopping to do in the morning. So my mode of transportation was the train, awesome.

manthan agreed to pick me up at 30th Street station and we drove down to the auto tags place early hoping we could get a head start on the paper work. Not a chance, the Father was already there. He's this big italian dude that is like 6'3" and probably weighs 250lb. Pretty intimidating. He didn't want a cashier's check, he wanted cash. Yeah, i love carrying around wads of cash in south philly. He wanted cash because he didn't want to claim it in his bank account. Like any amount under $10,000 would matter, whatever. The registration stuff went well despite manthan getting yelled at by the father because he said that manthan was 'looking at him as if he didn't trust him'. That was a little tense but nothing too serious.

The father told me that his son is 27 years old (looked like he was 19) and when he first got his driver's license he got in like 9 accidents in the first 2 months of having it. Just minor stuff like denting the bumper and knocking off the side mirror. The son was not nearly as tall as the father, probably 5'10" but pretty thick. Probably weighed 220lb. Did not come off as very bright, but i'm sure that's just first impressions. Once the paper work was done and the checks signed it was time to get the bike. manthan and i followed the son to their house, mounted the license plate, and i rode it home. Once i got on the blue route the low fuel light came on....awesome. But i made it! It was my first time using a 'heel and toe' shifter and because i'm retarded i didn't figure it out right away and stalled like 9 times. i thought i was shifting down when i was shifting up, i'm dumb i know.

Though i did get home in one piece! Not a huge fan of the windshield though.

Now that i had the motorcycle...had to figure out some way to get my car. My sisters have already left to go to New York and Ocean City. Hmm, Ah Ha! i can ride my bicycle to the train station, can't i? My tires were flat...but i had recently bought a cheap hand pump that i didn't know how to use apparently. But after 15 minutes i had the tires inflated again. My cousin eric would probably cry if he saw my road bike because it is so crappy. Pretty much the worst constructed bike was the one i bought. At least its somewhat light...i just wish i could shift gears but i have no idea how to fix a derailer.
The bike ride wasn't too bad. Its been about one year since i've ridden my bike and i only came close to death twice before reaching my car. i guessed it would take me 20 minutes to bike to the station but only took me 15 minutes. Now i just had to figure a away to get the bike in the car.

It was pretty easy getting the bike in the car. i probably didn't have to take the front wheel off but i did anyway. Please disregard the bottle of Jack Daniel's in the bottom left the picture. The car ride back to the house took 5 minutes.

After having the bike for a few days the first thing that had to go was the windshield. i ran into a problem when i found out one of the hex bolts were stripped and i couldn't get it off. Looks like someone was using some english tools rather than metric, bastards. Of course i was doing the same thing but someone stripped it first. So all i could do at first was move my highway pegs over and the headlight visor (can't stand the old school headlight). i called my uncle gary to look at the windshield because he has some crazy tools to pull out stripped bolts and screws.i also got a camera mount for my bike. That's right, a camera mount. Now i can video tape and ride at the same time. Well, i could do that before but now i can do it with both hands on the handlebars. i also managed to switch the grips on the two bikes. The only thing i need to move over from the old bike now is the CB radio and license plate tail light. But since i was too hung over to watch my uncle install it the first time...probably shouldn't be doing it by myself.This bike is heavy weighing around 772 lb. My old bike weighs about 516 lb. i'm pretty sure i'll have this bike for a long time. i wish i had a sport bike...because they're so sexy but its kind of a pain to do long trips on them. If only i new someone with a sport bike that would let me ride it....So you have to name your bike right? Well i came up with 'The Blue Bedouin". Because its blue...and the nomadic people in the middle east are called 'bedouins'...and i was raised in the middle east. What do you think? Brent thought it was lame. He said just stick with "Bedouin". Eh, i maybe i'll do that...but i wanted some kind of alliteration ya'know? Now manthan on the other hand....said something along these lines,"when i think of bedouins, i don't think blue. More like earth tones like browns and blacks." Oh yea? Earth tones? Do a google image search for just 'bedouins' and the first picture is a....BLUE BEDOUIN. BAM! How do you like 'em apples? i just have a few things to buy for the motorcycle trip (if my uncle doesn't mind me tagging along) such as some liners for my hard saddlebags, a backpack for the passenger seat, some other small things, and maybe even a rack to bolt on the back of the passenger backrest (sissy bar).