Buzzed

Got a new job with a hefty commute. On a good day it takes me about an hour. Tonight it was a bad night. On my way home, driving through Hollywood, I got buzzed. Buzzed by a helicopter that is. In LA the traffic is so bad the LAPD and Sheriff use helicopters to chase and catch the bad guys. Well, I was in gridlock and noticed a helicopter overhead. It was black and unmarked. I watched it circle overhead and mindlessly listened to NPR. But then I realized that the helicopter was talking on it's loudspeaker. So I killed the radio and cracked a window. "Put down your weapon and walk to the nearest police officer." Being only a block away from the apparent standoff, I took a left and circled through some neighborhoods to get the hell out of there. Not sure what the deal was, but it took me 1.5 hours to get home tonight. I have a feeling with the rotten economy and the heat of summer coming, it's going to be a long couple of months of commuting. A few weeks ago, a clerk at my grocery store was robbed at gunpoint. That doesn't happen in Burbank. The general populace is getting stressed financially...it's almost riot season people!

LA DWP Light Festival

Last night Alexey and I celebrated the start of the Christmas season by hopping on his vespa and riding it through the Griffith Park Light Festival sponsored by LA DWP. The line to enter the park was HUGE! Two lanes of grid-lock traffic for more than an hour. But we cut our travel time to 20 minutes by lane-splitting right up the middle of all those suckers in cars and SUVS. One driver even yelled "Cheater!!" out his window at us. To that I say, Absolutely Buddy! We were cheating the system and it felt great! Turn in your SUV and get a scooter and you could do the same. FYI, all you non-Californians, lane-splitting is 100% legal here. So we buzzed to the front of the line and enjoyed all the twinkling lights and Christmas music on the P.A. system. The photo is a shot from the walking tour only night of the light festival. Imagine it bumper to bumper gridlock. And then imagine a little scooter with two goofballs riding down the middle of the lanes!

Simpson Stacie

Everybody's doing it. I caved. I Simpsonized. I never made it inside the Kwik-E-Mart though. One of the converted 7-11s was 5 minutes from my house. But the lines were ridiculous. My boss made it inside there one morning though. So we've got a box of Krusty-Os in the office. And the guys were addicted to the Homer donuts.

Vespa Video

Click here to watch 'The-Vespa-Monster'
Yep, that's me.

Vespa With Stencils

So I did this awhile ago but forgot to post photos. Here's my military vespa. I've since stuck some DOT semi truck style reflectors on it to make it safer for night-riding.

EARTHQUAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha. Just kidding. Nothing worth screaming about. Had a little earthquake tonight around 1AM. Supposedly registered a 4.5 magnitude with an epicenter out near Chatsworth. Chatsworth is about 20 miles from Burbank. Our house still got a decent rumble and thunk out of it. Actually kind of heard a rumble and then the house seemed to rise up and come down. Like it was breathing a great sigh of relief. I can tell you that I'd rather have that sigh of relief than the tornadoes that hit Brooklyn earlier today. How strange is that?

Goodbye Sweet Baby Bambi Jo

She was one of the most sweet, silly, and smart pups a person would ever meet. A very best furry friend. Today she had to be put to sleep. We will all miss her smiling face and kisses. Goodbye my special Bam.

Military Vespa

So here's the new paint job on the vespa. Looks a lot better than the two-tone monster. It's running well now and I'm having fun riding it. This weekend I may do the military stencil work on the legsheid and cowls. I'll post pics when that's done.

What's Happening

Drinking coffee, trying to wake up this morning. A couple weeks ago we went to a scooter rally BBQ. Lot of fun. Quite a few vintage bikes...and an amazing cloud of blue 2 stroke smoke filling the air as the ride tooled down the street. My vespa monster is working fairly well now, thanks to the guys at Bar Italia. I plan on taking the motorcycle safety class soon to get my full license so I can start riding at night. Night riding means I can commute on the vespa.

In other news, our Baghadad pit of mud and rubble that was our backyard since we moved in, is finally starting to grow grass. We've been aiding the process by tossing our used coffee grounds out there every day. Coffee grounds seem to make good fertilizer.

Not much else going on.