Arizona – Antelope Canyon
Jan 28
Arizona, USA Nature Photography No Comments
Category: USA
California – Halloween Pumpkin
Oct 31
California, USA Halloween, Pumpkin No Comments
Normally I carve two pumpkins every Halloween, but because of my trips to Germany and Argentina, I only had a chance to carve one this year.
California – Halloween Pumpkins
Oct 20
California, USA Halloween, Pumpkin No Comments
Since it’s almost Halloween, I thought I would upload some photos of my past Halloween pumpkins.
2008
2008
2007
2007
2005
2005
Colorado – Motocross of Nations
Sep 26
Colorado, USA Motocross 2 Comments
Motocross of Nations is an annual motocross race that has been happing since 1947. It’s a bit different then most motocross or supercross races because it’s a team event. Three rider teams from 30 countries compete to see which country has the best riders.
The race is actually three races (motos) where two riders from each country race in each moto. The combines finishes of all three riders in the three motos is used to determine the overall winning country.
Every year the race takes place in a different country, so it’s fairly rare that it takes place here in the US.
Saturday was the qualifying races. Only the top 20 teams qualify for the main races on Sunday.
Team USA's Rayn Dungey races with Steve Ramon from Belgium in one of the qualifying races.
Team USA's Trey Canard
Teams USA's Andrew Short
Andrew Short
Sunday was the main races.
Moto 1
Jonathan Barragan from Spain gets the holeshot on the start of moto 1 with Ryan Dungey in second.
Rayn Dungey was able to take the lead and win moto 1
Trey Canard
Trey Canard had crashed at the start and had to work his way through the pack. He ended up 12th in Moto 1
Moto 2
Andrew Short in the lead, battles with Ken Roczen from Germany early in moto 2. Unfortunately Short crashed hard and got back up in 25th place. He was able to work his work back up to finish 13th for the moto.
Andrew Short
Trey Canard got another bad start on moto 2, but this time he was able to move up to 7th by the end of the race.
Moto 3: Team USA’s bad finishes in moto 2 meant that Team USA was in second place overall behind Team Germany going into the last moto.
Andrew Short gets the holeshot on the start of moto 3 with Rayn Dungey in 2nd, followed by Brett Metcalfe from Australia in 3rd.
Andrew Short
Andrew Short and Ryan Dungey running in 1st and 2nd.
Ryan Dungey
Sequence of Ryan Dungey hitting one of the big uphill jumps.
Even though Andrew Short was in the lead, Ryan Dungey was riding just a little bit faster but holding back so not to pass his teammate. Around lap 4 Short waved for Ryan to go ahead and pass him.
Ryan Dungey
Andrew Short
Andrew Short
Ryan Dungey does his imitation of the space shuttle blasting off over the huge table top.
Team USA’s 1-2 finish in moto 3 means that they win the overall. The top five countries end up being USA, Belgium, Germany, Great Britain, Italy.
Colorado – Motocross of Nations – The Fans
Sep 26
Colorado, USA Motocross No Comments
The racing at the Motocross of Nations was amazing, but one of the things that also made the race more interesting were the fans. The Motocross of Nations is an international event so there were fans from all over the world, many who like to support their country by dressing up in their countries colors. Since the race was taking place in the USA, the majority of the people were from here and some came up with interesting ways to show of the Red, White and Blue.
There were two Captain Americas running around. I kept waiting for them to get into a fight to prove who the the real Captian America.
Lots of people were ringing cow bells or blowing horns. This guy modded up a super horn using a compressed air tank.
Not really a fan, but I thought that guy was pretty interesting. He's one of the professional photographer shooting the race. He's mounted his iPhone to the end of his camera lens so that he can take photos and shoot video at the same time.
This guy went for a really old school look.
I'm not sure which country he was cheering for, but I dig the rear sprocket mounted in his helmet.
California – LA County Fair – Food
Sep 12
California, USA Food No Comments
County and State Fairs are known for livestock, farm equipment, carnival games, rides and booths selling ShamWows. They are also known for lots of booths selling interesting and sometimes strange foods.
I’ve survived eating raw horse and fugu in Japan, stinky tofu and a thousand-year-old egg in Taiwan, poutine in Canada. So now it’s time to try some of America’s strange fair foods.
I'm a believer that deep frying anything can make it taste better. And many of the food booths at the LA county fair seem to believe that also. Deep Fried Twinkie covered in chocolate syrup. Actually pretty good.
Chocolate Covered Bacon?
Yup, it really is chocolate covered bacon. Not as bad as it sounds, it has a strange salty, meaty taste under the initial chocolate taste. The salty chocolate taste is a bit like chocolate covered pretzels, but then you get the bacon taste that comes on strong as you chew. My biggest negative was that the chocolate used was dark chocolate and I'm a much bigger fan of milk chocolate.
The main course, a deep fried White Castle Hamburger.
The White Castle is battered and deep fried, which gives it a crispy outside over the standard mushy White Castle. Not something I would want to eat everyday, but not too bad.
California – I’m back in LA
Sep 05
California, USA Panorama No Comments
I’m back in Los Angeles after spending a little over a month in Japan. Japan was an amazing time, but it’s nice to be home.
Panorama of downtown Los Angeles
Japan – Back in Japan
Jul 26
California, Japan, USA Airport, Panorama No Comments
I’m back in Japan to go to the Fuji Rock and Summer Sonic music festivals and then to hang out for a couple of weeks. This trip I flew United Airlines instead of one of the Asian airlines. The flight was also a little different because instead of flying directly to Tokyo from LAX, I flew to San Francisco, switched planes and then flew to Tokyo. Coming back from Japan I’ll fly directly to LAX.
Panorama of my jet waiting to be boarded at San Francisco International Airport
The Jet had a flat tire that they were changing before we boarded. I wonder if they have AAA roadside assistance?