Entries this day: fun_wheels

fun wheels

11:55pm Tuesday 30 January 2001

I've been meaning to write after each interesting event today, but I did not.

This morning, relatively early for work, I decided to go say HI Ricky, the owner/manager of a Chevron (gas) station in downtown. I've known him since I was with Tammy, back back back about 10 years ago. I would stop by and say HI often on my way to school or to and from work.

Great to connect with him again. Big hug as he joked, "I thought you didn't like me anymore!" He had called me a couple (few?) times and I never called him back. Told him all the latest news: house, engagement, spanish classes, costa rica in 2002.. Ironically did not tell him about our imminent (sp (sorry, Laura!)) trip to Australia; I didn't want to "brag" though I know he would only have happiness and blessing to offer. That feels weird to me that I didn't tell him.

He has a new grandson via his daughter, with pictures to prove it.

- - - -

Around 11am, Dude IMed me at work:

Dude: MB?

Dude: Sorry, gotta boot, brb

I got the message a couple minutes later; I was talking to Kevin at the time, but Dude never IMed me back. So I emailed his blackberry (pager).

Turned out he was on his way with peeps from his work, so I met them there. Due to the lunch rush, the parking lot was wacked when I arrived, so I parked down at Whole Foods and rode my unicycle the 2 blocks to Mission Burritos.

By the time I got my burrito, they were pretty much done, but I still got to meet them all and say HI a bit. David in particular said my unicycle was cool.

Oh! And I must say that riding a unicycle is just like riding a bicycle, in that I was able to just get on and ride. I haven't been on it in a couple weeks, but I just got on, first try and rode. Perfect. Awesome.

- - - -

After work, I met Wende at Spanish class and we took essentially the second class in the series, though we took the third class last night because the Monday night group is a week ahead of us. Next week we will take the fourth class on Monday, the third class (again) on Tuesday. We will miss two weeks, effectively the (5th and 4th) and (6th and 5th) classes, and we can take the Tuesday night 6th class after we get back. So really we will only miss 1 class. We can certainly learn that ourselves from the book while in Australia.

- - - -

After class, as planned during lunch, I called Dude and we met him and Veronica at Mission Burritos for dinner! (Mission Burritos is really awesome, and they had 2 for 1 burritos on Tuesdays in January. Muy bueno!) We talked about espanol, their house for sale, hardwood floors, home owner disasters, a plane mystery on NOVA, and other random stuff.

Near the end of dinner, Dude described the latest scooter races at his work. They have a course set up for people to race on scooters. The entire floor is super smooth cement - excellent for scooters and skates. He said the fastest time was 28.5 seconds, and then Dude beat it, and then the original record holder beat him again, to like 27.57 seconds (as if they can really time down to hundredths of a second..)

As soon as he said 28.5, I thought in my mind, "I can do it in 25 seconds."

After his story, I told him, so ..... we went to his work to find out.

Wende dropped off Veronica at her house, and Dude took me to his work, leaving my car at Mission Burritos.

- - - -

Elevator to one of the upper floors of the building, where his company has the entire floor. Super smooth concrete everywhere, as I mentioned. Scooters were left against various walls and doors as if so many kids were called in to dinner.

We said HI to a couple of people who were working late, and Dude showed me the course. As I saw it, I recognized my fallacy. The course is more than just an Indy 500... there are a few tight turns that must be manuevered just so, or several dollars of equipment could be damaged. It's not like a china shop, but still.. it's certainly no oval track.

I rolled around the course a few times while Dude looked for the stopwatch. He never did find it, but I raced twice, using his wristwatch as the time keeper.

On my first zing around the track, I kinda hit a wall, and fortunately didn't break anything except my shirt and scraped my shoulder. I made that in 28 seconds according to his timekeeping.

The next time I didn't hit anything, but I only got like 29 seconds.

The next time I totally crashed into the most dangerous (in my opinion) obstacle of the track, (not an expensive computer, but) a solid hip-level countertop that would spell agony if clipped by a hip that didn't make it through the door adjacent to the rough edge of the counter.

In this case, I totally didn't make the turn and just slowed myself and bonked into the counter. I knew I was lost, so I turned around and "snuck up" on Dude from the other direction just to be funny.

So I didn't make 25 seconds, but I was within arguing range of having tied the record on my first try. Nice.

- - - -

On our way out of the building, we said HI to Gloria, the security guard who has quite a few stories to tell. She ragged on dude for listening to hip hop, saying that it will rot his brain and all kinds of shit, and she let her word choice roam relatively freely across the map. Quite entertaining.

- - - -

Dude dropped me off at MB and we left the parking lot at essentially the same time. He turned left at a possible short cut, but I had the green light at the next intersection, so I made waggly moose ears at him out my side window as I drove by.