From Imperial Denim

My Samurai’s are on day 540. Direct sunlight shows just how blue they get:

From Samurai 710's

Some of the button holes are starting to loosen, but it shouldn’t be a problem for awhile since there’s a lot of thread holding them together:

From Samurai 710's

I’m very happy with both pairs, but wearing just two pairs of jeans all year is wearing them out really quickly. Might need to get another pair to throw in the mix.

From Samurai 710's

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Obligatory denim post

Unfortunately, sometime after the group photo and riding home like normal, I started to hear a clicking noise. I looked down and there was a nice fat tack in my front tire. I moved it a bit and started to hear air rushing out. Being the lazy person that I am, I let the tack go back in like it was before and rode slowly home. The tack itself acted as a sealant and I made it back just fine. I then removed the tack and all the air rushed out.

From Biking Photos

Since I had ridden a few thousand miles in my tires and the front was started to develop some holes in it anyway, I jumped for some Continental Gatorskin tires Wilmot recommended to me. The tire feels a lot stronger and sturdier than my original set so my front wheel will be happy for awhile. I still have the original tire on the rear wheel so hopefully it won’t get jealous.

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Excuse for a new tire!

From Sonoma Team Offsite

From Sonoma Team Offsite

Besides the nice views, I wouldn’t go out of my way to recommend these wines and still prefer my favorites like Cakebread, Michel-Schlumberger, Seghesio, etc.

Probably the highlight was spending the late afternoon / evening at a gigantic home in Sonoma. Dan and Mark fooled around on the basketball hoop:

From Sonoma Team Offsite

We cooked a lot of food, like bacon wrapped asparagus, grilled pineapples, mac n cheese:

From Sonoma Team Offsite

And also ate some burritos, went swimming and hot tubbing, and played pool.

So all in all, a good Sunday.

This Sunday is Labor Day and despite a 3 day weekend, I stayed in town and am relaxing and taking it easy. Work has been hectic and planning a wedding is a lot of work! At least for the latter, we’re very very close to finalizing our venues!!

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Sonoma last Sunday

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‘cuz being engaged doesn’t mean you talk in real life…

And since Joshua was the one who showed me this in the first place, Rihanna’s “Umbrella”:

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Covers are usually not great…

Stood in line twice because Sophia and Mark are slow. Pretty good burgers and a ton of fries but I’m not sure it beats In-n-out. Let the great debate begin!

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Craziness at Five Guys

At the aftermath of the baseball game. Waiting for the Caltrain to take us to our unexciting lives in the South Bay

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Nbradley sighting

But free tickets thanks to Lockheed Martin! Be sure to get the Gilroy Garlic fries when you’re here.

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Nosebleed seats at the Giants game

I recorded the first half of the ride on MyTracks:

View First Half Of Tour Of Napa in a larger map

Unfortunately the track stopped recording at the second rest stop. Maybe because I was waiting there for 45 minutes for everyone else? At least I got to rest up a whole bunch.

For the most part, the ride was fairly flat, with some climbing up Ink Grade road and then lots of fun flying down the other side of the hill. The end of the ride was pretty tiring with a lot of wind, so I did roll in to the end around 4:30 when we had originally left at 8:30AM. Had some BBQ chicken and then drove back. Correction: Nelson drove back because I was tired. Thanks, Nelson!

Would I do the ride again? Probably not, to be honest. It was really far away and there are plenty of decent rides and climbs nearby. Plus, no free shirt for participating. COME ON

If anything, since Wilmot’s gone I have a few more friends who like biking! Gotta drag these guys up OLH:

From Biking Photos

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Tour of Napa

To start, we took a red-eye out of SFO to get to Dulles. I don’t recommend this – the flight was a bit too short so we only got around 5-6 hours at most and since it was a really bumpy flight, I think I was near 1-3 hours. We landed in Dulles and took a $70 cab ride to our hotel in downtown Washington D.C. We did, however, have all of Friday to explore the city but I was so tired I fell asleep during the National Museum of the American Indian movie which was actually really really loud. Not sure if I would do the red eye again. Ronald Reagan is much closer and accessible by metro, but the downside is there are no direct flights from SFO to the airport. So, we traded route for price and convenience. Better solution would be to not visit D.C. for some time so I don’t need to think about this.

I’ve been to D.C. numerous times (lived in Rockville, MD) so visiting the museums was nothing new to me. My compatriots, Arden, Justin, and Kolina had never explored the city so going to all the museums and attractions was great for them. And not going to lie, I do really like museums so I enjoyed walking around as well. What’s great is that the Smithsonian Museums are free to the public. This means huge crowds, but also a great, inexpensive way to spend your day. Only $8 to get an all-day metro pass and you’re set!

Anyway, where did we go? Had a good time exploring the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum:

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

And the Smithsonian Natural History Museum:

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

I’ve been really enjoying taking jumping photos in front of national landmarks:

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

And got my college friend Mariana in the action:

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

We also made our way to Virginia to check out Ray’s Hell Burger, made famous by a visit from President Obama:

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

Let me tell you, it’s one hell of a burger. Highly recommend going. 5+ stars on Yelp. Inexpensive. Amazing toppings (foie gras! truffle oil?!). ATM with no fees!

Spent time also at the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. My second visit and really glad I went back. It’s an incredible museum, both in terms of layout and subject matter. Finally, we ended with a trip up the Washington Monument and then I ran off to the airport.

From Washington D.C. Aug 2010

Luckily the weather worked out and it wasn’t incredibly hot. It was a bit humid, but cloud cover and then a downpour of rain on Sunday helped.

Anyway, if you’re looking to visit D.C., the following site really helped us out in terms of ideas of things to visit:

http://washington.org/visiting/browse-dc/attractions/100-free-things-to-do

I would say though, that exploring the Mall took up the whole weekend and we didn’t even get to all the museums. There’s plenty of stuff to do!

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D.C.