awesome memorial day weekend!

sara and I had 2 good choices for our memorial day weekend... longbeach with her parents or odessa with the stumpjumpers. since there would be a guarantee of sun and riding in odessa we chose it.

odessa is a quiet little town north-east of Moses Lake, click here for the map. it's probably most well known for the annual Deutschesfest. it's also becoming well known for the Desert 100 and a potential ORV mecca. anyway, it's one of those little places that is relaxing to be in and you just lose all your worries being there.

we camped at the new race site for the White Knuckle, which is off of Jerry Schafer's property just above Odessa. Jerry's son, Marlon (owner of odessaoffice.com) hung out with the stumpjumpers all weekend and partied it up with us. Marlon is way cool and helped us out throughout the weekend.

there is a flat track at the new site as well as about 12 miles of course that is a lot of fast grass trail with ravines and hill climbs mixed in.

saturday most everyone rode the 12 mile course. I took off on my harley to do what I planned to be about a 3 hour ride but turned into over a 5 hour ride. I rode north to Lake Roosevelt and took the Keller ferry across. Then across a small mountain range to the bottom of the grand coulee dam and back.

saturday evening we had a potluck then a flattrack race. the flattrack race was pretty damn cool and fun to watch, just wish I could have been riding! sara and I didn't last long that evening as we got in late friday night and didn't have much sleep.

sunday was the stumpjump competition. shawn kicked ass and won it hands down! I was pretty impressed. then most of us headed over to Jerry's lake for some fishing and relaxing. sara managed to catch a decent sun fish that we cooked up along with some steaks for dinner. then some more beer drinking to finish the night.

my only disappointment was we discovered the coffee shop is closed sundays, which had me wishing I brought my espresso maker!

evergreen speedway - may 12th

sara and I went for a night at the evergreen speedway... it's been years since I've been out there. I get a kick our of the place because unlike other tracks I've been to the track officials seem to let the drivers play a little bit and they often will do some killer smoke shows and doughnuts.

they ran several rounds of figure eight racing and whatever class that runs the 2nd largest oval. I'd really like to make it out there this year when they run the full oval.

friday night bbq

shawn decided to have a bbq, at my house! no problem though, I have been thinking along the same lines. he bought steaks from double D, and they were delicious! Don brought the beer, Jon potatoes, and I picked up corn and salad. I busted out some margaritas that I have to say were pretty damn good!

after dinner we all went to DQ for desert, jon busted out a nice break slide in the acura, sweet! myself, sara, shawn and gene headed over to eddies after DQ but the band at eddies sucked and was way too loud so we only stayed for one beer.

my death run

saturday I ran my usual 6 mile loop up around lake tye, past adventure motorsports, and out to main st and back. it went well and didn't seem to bother my collar bone.

so sunday morning I decide to go for a run and change it up a bit. my buddy tyler had suggested a loop through lord hill park, I took his advice, though going the opposite direction. it was just over 9.35 miles mapped ount on Gmaps Pedometer

death run pedometer track

however, I probably did 10 miles total because I ran down a road the wrong way for at least 1/2 mile so 1 mile roundtrip to come back.

it was actually a pretty cool run except for once I reached the entrance to lord hill park coming down the steep paved road sucked and I had to walk that for about .5 mile. then running the 2-3 miles along the old-snohmoish hiway was gay, no shoulder and danger of being hit by a car.

I am not sure how long it took exactly, but I know I was out for at least 2 hours. my legs killed me by the time I got back and I felt like an old man that evening!

I want my 250 xc back...

I don't know what it is, but for some reason my 250 XC just has not been the same lately... last few races/rides I can't get it to work for me like I remember last year. it was so awesome at 25-hrs of starvation ridge, seeing this picture made me really miss how it was then :-(

ultimate coffee machine

the clover coffee single cup coffee maker has to be the ultimate coffee maker, especially at over $8000!!!

it's an interesting but simple setup... basically you add coffee grounds, it feeds hot water into a tank with the grounds for the coffee to steep. then extracts the coffee once brewed filtering out sediment/etc. they call it a "vacuum press", which I assume because it you brew the coffee like a french press but the coffee is extracted similar to a vacuum pot maker.

the great thing is you can control the water tempature, water/coffee ratio, brew time, etc.

here is the FAQ: clover FAQ

it's intended to allow cafes to serve fresh drip coffee, but if I were rich...

shelton valley enduro

This last weekend, May 5-6th, was the Shelton Valley Beginner Enduro and Enduro. My collar bone still has about 4 more weeks to heal so I worked the event sunday and spent saturday taking some pictures and hanging out with my friends.

It was tough not being able to ride, but fun seeing all my friends having a good time and at least being able to hang out some. The conditions for the entire weekend appeared perfect.

Sara overalled the beginner enduro Saturday winning the PRO class! And she did awesome sunday scoring 4th in her class. Shawn borrowed my ICO computer and scored 4th in his class with still burning 2 checks (that's shawn for you). This was Gene and Randy's first time riding an enduro and they seemed to have a great time. Jon and his son taylor rode together and also appeared to have a great time. I think Jason won Open A and did awesome overall. I believe jerry allen won his class as well!

I have some pics of the event:

beginner enduro

sve enduro


it was a great event! working a check sunday was a good experience and fun seeing all my friends coming through!

my olympia cremina story

The short is A +$2000 machine I got for free!

This lever machine is a Olympia Cremina. It is made in Switzerland and is sought after machine, newer versions sell for +$2000. I actually received this machine from a white elephant gift exchange! The person that brought it took care of a rich elderly couple who had given it to her, she had no idea it's value and at the time neither did I. It takes a little more practice and patience to use this machine, but works great. The machine itself is built like a tank.

here is an excellent post on olympia machines

olympia factory tour

Welcome to Vinaccio Coffee, the best coffee in town!

Welcome to Vinaccio Coffee, the best coffee in town!So I discovered that sultan has a sweet coffee roaster and been loving their coffees! I've drove by the shop in sultan many times and never realized it's a roasting house.

Their espresso blend, Quatro e Uno, is great! Really like the Hazenut right now too (sara's idea to get that, good call!!!).

Anyway, if you are a coffee lover I highly recommend Vinaccio

new workout machines

Check out the killer new machines at the gym! Built in tv!