Happy New Year

Well, another year come and (almost, at the time I am typing this) gone.

Almost everyday I am amazed that I was somehow able to, and am responsible for, raising 2 children.

I feel good that natural selection did not kick in and remove them from the gene pool.

I am responsible, in that I think that I have talked them out of most of the "bad" ideas for fun they had, just to keep natural selection at bay.

I do often ask them, after they have done something I told them was not a good idea. "How was that? I see that exactly what I told you would happen, happened. Are you going to do it again?"

Although, I think the most effective deterrent that I have found is, "You should do that later in life, when your body is more able to deal with the trauma this will cause you. :) ) So far, no objections(hee hee).

I am also responsible for many of the hours that Felex(aka Fox) has spent in front of the Xbox playing games.

He and I are a very good team at just about all of the Lego themed Xbox games.

Almost entirely responsible for introducing both Dex(aka Rex) and "Fox" to Runescape, and the hours of playing that they have spent trying to catch up to me in the game.

Completely and utterly responsible for the amount of easy cheese they have consumed.
"Cheese in a can?"
"Yes, cheese in a can. It is pressurized and shoots out and will cover, with cheesy goodness, whatever you put in front of the spout. Mmmmm, cheese."

Not at all responsible for the amount of sushi they consume. Honestly, I can take it or leave it. This was proven when Grandma took the boys out to dinner on a recent visit. I think, if memory serves, I removed only 1 sushi boat from the endless river/sushi boat caravan. I ate all the edamame I could get my hands on. The boys, on the other hand, turned out to be bottomless sushi pits, I kind of already knew that. I guess that I really should have warned Grandma before hand, but I think she figured it out. She's a smart cookie.


I am entirely responsible for Mr Fox's love of the British auto. He and I have been working on a few. Mostly dis assembly. Soon, he will enter into the hate portion of the relationship, assembly and trying to make it run, AND keep it running, WELL! Ah, the love/hate relationship. At least he will get Love/Hate 101 with dad.


I don't think I am responsible for the kids already arguing over who gets the green MGB when I die. I keep pointing out to them that I am still ALIVE and they should have the courtesy of not arguing over who gets my stuff when I am around. And by "around", I mean within hearing distance. And of course, STILL BREATHING!!! Of course I take this chance to mess with them and tell them that it could be another 4o or 50 years until they assume all my debt and non-running vehicles. Either they don't care, or they are messing with me. Hmmmm.


Well, as I said at the beginning, another year has come and gone. We all made it.


Happy New Year.

South of the Border, down Mexico way

Well, its official. After years and years of staying between the North and South boundaries of these united states, I am once again going out of the country.

In March we are going to Mexico. As a family. On the same plane. AT THE SAME TIME.

I am sure that it will go better than my last trip South of the border, and I don't mean to Taco Bell.

It seems like it was yesterday, even though it was last century.

A bunch of us, 25 or so, thought that it would be fun to go into Mexico and hang out at a hot spring for a few days while drinking in the local culture and a few cervesas.

Well to be honest, we don't have to be in Mexico to drink in culture and beer. Not necessarily in that order.

Every year when we lived in San Francisco we went on a desert trip. Sometimes I drove my pickup/chuck wagon and other times I would ride one of my many motorcycles. Well if one was running and I was reasonably sure that I would make it round trip, I would ride it. Although a few trips I did make on a motorcycle I ran into a "sudden unplanned maintenance interval". Meaning, that while I was as far away as possible from my manuals and lots of tools, something went wrong. Just as you would expect.

Well, the last time I was South of the border was no different.

It started out like any other day. Driving through Mexico. Heavily laden with beer, camping equipment, dogs, tools, food, beer, and creature comforts. I had taken my pickup so the dogs could go with us as all of our dog-sitters would be on vacation with us.

An hour or 2 after visiting the Tecate brewery, and 25 or so miles of washboard dirt/gravel road we found our campsite. I always loaded the cooler in last so it could be first out. You never know when you are going to develop a thirst or hunger when you are unloading your truck and if this is easily accessible well, it just makes unloading that much easier.

We had been at camp for 45 minutes or so when people started trickling in.

A few riders at first.

Then we saw someone coming in with very little gear. That's not good.

This rider told us of an accident on the dirt road that one of the riders in our party had.

Hmmm. That is never good.

"How is he?"

"I don't know, he was getting back up as I came by. He looked OK."

The next rider was a little longer getting in.

"I wrecked too. I left my wife to look after Tim. I think he broke his collar bone."

"Great. How are you?"

"OK. You should go get Tim." Came the reply.

Well I had the best vehicle to do it with. I grabbed a co-pilot and hit the dusty (really dusty) trail.

We passed just about everyone else on the way in. They had jettisoned all non-important cargo in order to navigate this road easier.

When Brad and I arrived, we saw a mountain of gear and 2 people sitting on the pile waiting for us.

We took stock of the situation.

Broken bike, pile of gear, broken person and a long way to a hospital in the States.

We pushed the bike behind a big bush, loaded up the gear and the people, got Tim some liquid general anesthesia, well all of us really, and hit the road.

I could not go too fast as all the bouncing on the road jiggled Tim too much.

About 2o minutes later and we were on a paved, relatively smooth, road.

I finally had a chance to get out of 3rd gear.

Not for long. About 10 minutes into our drive toward medical help, my right rear tire had a massive blow out. I managed to stop without doing any damage to anyone or anything.

Well good thing I have a spare.

All the spares in the world won't do you any good if you don't have a way to put it on your vehicle.

When I got out of my truck to start fixing the flat, I had a flashback. It was of my jack and jack handle/spare tire removal tool, sitting on the garage floor back in San Francisco. I had to use it to replace a water pump and timing belt on a friends car as my floor jack was at the shop in Berkeley.

OK, time to use some ingenuity here. Luckily I still had the lug wrench and my wheel lock key. BIG sigh of relief. We just had to find a way to get the flat off the ground, the spare lowered and everything back to normal.

The Egyptians would have been proud of us. We pulled a fence post out of the ground to use as a lever. I hope the poor farmer didn't lose too much livestock since we had to cut his fence. We did put the post back. We got a big rock and now had our jack. I used my Leatherman to cut the cable that held my spare.

With the blow out changed we headed into the States to get some medical help. While Tim was getting help and meds, we stocked up on liquids as well.

On the way back we stopped and had road side tacos at 3 am. As we were driving away someone asked what kind of meat this was as the tacos were some of the best I have ever had.

"Cabeza de Burro." came the reply.

I don't think that I need to comment on that.

We did finally make it back.

Tim did indeed separate his collar bone. His bike was also broken. My truck was now spareless.

What we didn't know at the time.

Kevin, the other rider that wrecked had fractured his back. His wife had a mild concussion.

I really hope that this time when I go to Mexico, I don't get a blow out.