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July 13, 2005

MotoGP at Laguna Seca

On Sunday, Sharon and I rode down to Salinas to see the MotoGP race at Laguna Seca. Paul at California BMW gave me a free ticket worth $75 to the race. We bought a second ticket off of a scalper for $50 on the side of the road entering the raceway. The traffic was backed up for about 5 miles with cars. We followed the hundreds of other motorcyclists on the right side of the road and sometimes passed over the double line too. Until, Sherrifs starting pulling bikes over. I got yelled at by one to stay on the right side of the line. Perhaps I looked respectable on my BMW with the wife on the back. We parked the bike and put my Aerostich into one of the side cases and my riding boots into the other. We locked Sharon's jacket to the bike with a cable. Slipped on my flip flops and we walked down to the track. Along the sides of the road hundreds of motorcycles were parked. Most of them were of the sport variety. When we got in I asked a guy where they were taking tickets and he said way back at the entrance. I said nobody was asking for tickets. We concluded that the traffic was so backed up that they just let everyone in to speed things up. We walked around and visited some vendors and then sat down on a hill overlooking turn four, right after the Andretti hairpin turn. The race was 32 laps and it only took about 45 minutes to complete. The American in the pole position, Nicky Hayden of the Honda Repsol team won with Scott Edwards taking second and the world champion Valentino Rossi taking third. These riders average about 1 minute 24 seconds to do one lap. I remember two years ago when I attended the California Superbike School at Laguna and it took me about 3 minutes to do a lap on my K75S. I've got some practising to do.
Full Photo Album here.

Posted by stephen at 12:05 PM | Comments (0)

July 5, 2005

Patriotism out of Fashion?

In honor of Independence Day this year I decided to hang the American flag I had bought for Sharon for our second wedding anniversary. Second anniversary is cotton. On July 3rd, I took the extension handle off of the deck scrubber and zip tied the flag to it and hung it from the front porch. It looked beautiful. The colors on this cotton flag are really bright not like those cheap polyester ones. We both stood in the driveway and an odd feeling overcame us. Two Canadians hanging an American flag on their house. It just felt weird. That evening we went to a movie with our neighbors and afterwards met up with friends of theirs at a bar in Santa Cruz. I recanted my flag hoisting story to them and their friend jokingly asked, "Are you a Republican? Because only Republicans hang flags on their houses." It appears that Republicans are considered to be more patriotic than Democrats here in the U.S. I don't think I'm a Republican. In late September 2001 I've never seen so many American flags flying from every mountable object in my life. I just hung the flag because it was the 4th of July and it's what you should do. When in Rome. I also thought it would bring us some Green Card karma. That evening after we got home, I went online and purchased a Canadian flag for next year's Canada Day on July 1st. Next year I'll hang both flags from the house.

Posted by stephen at 11:31 AM | Comments (0)