the wrath of rathy

i couldn't help it. the title was too funny. the short, obscure, essence of the story goes like this:

at work i encountered a disgruntled canadian man named george rathy and his daughter. we argued back and forth for a while. he threatened to sue. i typed up a fyi/warning note for the managers in the morning. i ended the note with "Beware the wrath of Rathy".

fyi: canadian visitors have a reputation here in hawaii. so do airline employees. candian flight attendants? forget about it.

funny cars

READ THIS PART LAST!
sorry i uploaded in the wrong order. is there a way to manipulate the order of the photos you upload or are you at the mercy of blogspot? anyway, mike mckenna in kailua is selling these weird vans.







driving into kailua today i saw a white version of this car. its called a tesla. i'm not sure if thats the brand name or the model name, but its the worlds first commercial, fully electric sports car. i first heard about it in a magazine article about its inventor. hes some eccentric, brainiac from south africa.

then i saw this little thing driving up the pali coming back from kailua. i'd seen several around town (and by town i mean "town") and never thought much other than, oh, cute and if you get in a wreck in that thing... i just figured it was a moped wth doors, so i was curious to see how it would handle the climb up the ko'olaus. HOLY SPICOLI the bugger can move. the acceleration was unreal, and the incline was no problem. i checked the smartcar website and found out that they have 70 horse power, which seems manini, but they're so light thats all you really need. especially considering that the average moped that maxes out at 35mph only has 3 horsies!

i must say, today was a good day... for spotting fun cars in K-A-I-L-U-A!

rough rider

this dudes from honolulu and is set to blow up nationally - he has a single out called "nothin on you". back in the day i remember seeing him on superkids and that hawaiian host michael w perry show as the world's youngest elvis impersonator. as a high schooler he did a MJ impersonation at a show in waikiki. his dad is a musician and used to perform at the hotel i worked at so he's grown up on and around the stage his whole life. he is an american idol reject. he went to roosevelt high school. i'm not sure how i know so much about this guy.

bike days: the case of the hammajang tires

i'll try to keep this short and to the point because it is a longish story.

a friend of mine who has a medical condition that affects his eyes recently bestowed his mountain bike upon me. soon after he bought it his eyes got real bad and it wasn't safe for him to be riding that thing around. mind you this was like 10 years ago. anyway his peripheral vision is good, but his straight ahead vision is not. he supposed he could keep the bike and ride around with his head cocked to one side to make use of his peripherals but decided that that would look too funny. and still was a little dangerous.

the bike was in good condition for being chained up in a basement for a decade. the tires needed air, but for the most part it looked good enough to get me to work and back. heres where the fun begins...

i took it home and pumped the tires up. only the front held air. i noticed that the whitewall area of the tires seemed to be deteriorated and left this dusty, grainy stuff on my hands when i touched it. this was a clear warning sign that these babies were no good. i disregarded the sign.

went to sports authority and bought 2 tire tubes. went back to return them after i found out they didn't fit my bike. my bike has a presta air valve. i bought schrader valved tires. oops.

took the cash and went to mccully bike and got the right ones. fitted my back tire after watching some online demos. felt like a champ and ready to ride to UH to play basketball that week.

halfway to UH on my virgin bike mission, pssssssssssshhhhhhhh. the back went flat. had to walk it. wife picked me up.

back to mccully for an outer tire. i still had the second tube at home since the front tire held up so far. this was a second clear warning that the front tire was in danger of breaking due to old fartness. again i disregard the warning.

redo the back tire and it looks good for another ride to UH the next week (today).

made it all the way to UH and then pssssssssssshhhhhhhh... front tire deflation while turning left at semi-high speed... whoa... crash! some old guy saw the whole thing. make A. phoned the wifey who said, "walk it to the bike shop and take care of it." yes ma'am.

back to mccully for a matching front tire and tube. took a while to find what i thought was the exact tire i bought last time so the bike would look alright with matching tires. get to the register and realize the tube vs tire sizes don't match up. back to the tire section for some pro help. yada yada yada, he recommends a different tire appropriate to the size tube i have. which means my back tire has the wrong size tube inside. oops.

so now i got a skinny smooth front tire and a big knobby back tire. theyre made by the same company but theres this loud/atrocious labeling on them, which draws attention to the fact that theyre mismatched.

lesson: dont act chinese (even if your last name is chang) when it comes to doing things right the first time. especially if you have issues about matching bike tires.

silver lining: i'm pretty good at changing tires now.