Ducati Hill Country 2008 ride weekend, Day 1

So this past weekend was the first 2008 official Texas Hill Country ride of the crew from www.ducatimonsterworldwide.org and boy was it a doozy!



Let me first say, the people I have met on ducatis and especially the ones from our forum have been the absolute best people in the world! I have been amazed by the support, sincerity, and just general acceptance from a community brought together by motorcycling.

One example of that support came on the first day of the hill country trip. I had planned on staying with some friends who have houses in Austin as everyone from Dallas, Austin, and Houston were meeting in Austin to hang out before the big move to the hill country. The problem came when all my friends with houses ended up being out of town that day!! So I posted up a feeler for anyone on the board in Austin who might be able to put us up for the night and I get the following place (from a guy who only knows me on the board and I haven't ever met IRL!)





We even happened to have a girl from DC from the forums in Austin at the same time who was able to come out and hang with the crew at Ming's Cafe in Austin (one of my personal favorite biker friendly places with great food) and then hang out with us at the gingerman, cuba libre, and 6th street follies...



Unfortunately, the Dallas crew all rode to the night stuff that night, and mounties ended up pulling them ALL over for 'failure to turn right in a right turn lane.' Total BS tickets because a LOT of people were giong straight on that particular road and these folks were from out of town and didn't know!



oh well, cory got pretty friendly with one of the horses at least =P



I even found out one of our Houston riders was UNDERAGE!!!! That pretty much killed our chances of going into a lot of places, but a couple of us still went in and drank before joining him outside again, hahaha



The view again from the loft at night... simply amazing.



end day 1

Nidda Thai Cuisine

ok, this is hands down my favorite thai restaurant in all of Houston!

It's a small unassuming little joint off westheimer a couple blocks down from montrose. It always seems to be SUPER quiet and not busy at all... maybe just the times I go or something, but man, I love the atmosphere, so cozy and quiet!

The food... oh the food!!! Absolutely amazing! You can completely tell that the cooks don't 'dumb down' this thai food for the american palate! It's how thai food should be - straight from the homeland! I took a friend there the other day and she said it was the BEST curry that she has ever had and I wholeheartedly agree!

Don't forget their special 'fish in a garden,' though! I actually got that twice in a row recently! It's a whole tilapia fillet, battered and fried with a super crispy and tasty shell, then covered with green onions, ginger, bamboo, and another green, forget what he called it, cashews, and as our first staff, Saxson, called it, the 'delicious magical sauce.' And how magical it is!!! soooo good!!!

I have NOT had a bad dish at Nidda! And I gotta say, the staff REALLY brings it all home for me, they are the nicest and cutest staff, and it matches the vibe of the place VERY well. They are a big FOBish, BUT they are clearly passionate about the food they serve and are VERYYYY obviously happy to serve such great food to you! It's a combination that really really works, trust me, just go and you'll understand what I'm talking about!

I still remember the first time Natalee told us about the sticky rice and mango dessert and the homemade coconut icecream with fried bananas. She went all the way back to her youth in her mind as she described how good these desserts were - how they reminded her of the super fantastic stuff she had back home. I was SOLD! and really, the mangos are perfectly in season now and the coconut icecream is right in the perfect middle of just sweet enough with plenty of real coconut!

highly recommend this place, in fact, I've been there three times this week!

James Sparks

Well, this past Monday, a good friend of mine and old coworker at Spacehab (my first job out of college) died from injuries sustained from a motorcycle accident.

He leaves behind an 11 yr old son and numerous loved ones who will continue to mourn his loss...

As long as I've known James, he's always been a good person. He looked like your typical pumped up (he liked to work out) jock/brash headed frat boy type, but he was never like that surprisingly. He always had his moral boundaries, was always always respectful to his elders no matter the situation, dropped whatever he was doing immediately if his mom or dad or friend needed anything, big or small.

He always understood what you were trying to say, never put you in a situation where you would be uncomfortable, was just a great guy. He will be missed and continue to be loved.

I will post up what pics I have of him later, but here's a vid his cousin made:

http://myspacetv.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids.individual&videoid=33692105

Onion Creek Cafe

Ok, finally got a chance to head out to Onion Creek Cafe! Unfortunately, I didn't get to have the FULL experience because it was raining - I didn't get to go out to the deck/patio area.

In any case, it was completely packed! And what a great mix of crowd too! Plenty of eye candy out there and diversity was top notch! Definitely thumbs up for crowd.

The logistics of ordering was a little questionable though... I had to go up to the bar everytime I wanted another beer or food. For a place like that, not having servers was a little odd.

Thursday night was apparently $2 red stripes, so that was fine with me and I ordered the Country Ass Reuben. Not a bad sandwich at all! The dressing was very tangy and it came out between two big ol slices of rye bread, not bad at all. The potato salad had all kinds of BAACONNN in it too, which was a nice surprise!

Atmosphere seemed laid back, which is good, but I sat with my back to a high traffic area and kept getting my chair kicked... not good.

All in all, I've decided I need to go back and give the place another shot on a beautiful day where I can enjoy the patio area and get a little more involved with the crowd. Definitely worth a try if you're in the area though!

and we're back! Two reviews, food and drink!

Cafe Montrose

Finally got a chance to check out Cafe Montrose and I have to say, the overall feel was wonderful! Very cozy and intimate, yet very friendly and open. You could tell that the staff has been working together for a while and they either ARE family, or have definitely become family at this point and that kind of service trickles all the way down to the customers, both new AND old!

You could most definitely tell that there were many many regulars and locals that frequented the place and that's always a good sign! Gwen, our waitress for the night, was amazingly friendly and had the most endearing accent and way about her!

Between Gwen and Sonia, we had excellent service. Sonia was not as personable, but you knew that she cared about the food, it's ok, she had a very european feel to her in the kind of no nonsense way about her. Again, Gwen was so downright friendly and inviting, it was like walking into their home.

Besides the excellent belgian ales ON TAP there (boy that could be dangerous for me), the food was very french-heavy, but quite tasty.

We started with Croquettes de Fromage that had sooo much cheesy goodness it was great! The mouthfeel was much more like a creamcheese as you would expect, but so much more complex in flavor. Much more meaty, yet silky creamy...

I had the Lapin aux Pruneaux (rabbit), and although I'm not generally a fan of fruits and such in my sauces, you really have to classically pair rabbit with that and it goes so well. The rabbit was not gamey in the least and cooked very well with plenty of fat still on to provide just that bit of mouthfeel that makes you go mmmm...

My friend had the Large Moules curry (large because I knew I'd be eating some!). I'm not a fan of curry and although I didn't really think the curry was all that fantastic, my friend enjoyed every bite she could until she was just too full to take any more. For me, the curry was pretty typical, with a bit too much salt, but otherwise good. I would like to try the cream sauce next time I go for sure as the mussels were very good underneath the curry!

13 Celcius
13 Celcius is a very trendy kind of wine bar that you would typically expect in midtown. Although there were plenty of the 'be seen, get seen' crowd here, I was unexpectedly surprised to see that the crowd was very diverse with older and younger, soccer mom, 20 something hipster...

The staff was very attentive and very accomodating. Mike took care of our wine selections and since I was there with a regular, he knew what she liked and hit it on the spot. We had a nice australian grenache that, although was a little sweeter than I typically like, was matched very well to the dry and breezy air of the night (it really was a beautiful night to sit outside and chat while uncorking a bottle).

One of the other staff, Shannon, was sooo nice and down to earth and she really felt like a bit of an oddity in the mix of people there that night. Everyone else felt a little on the snooty but still will talk to you side.

It was a nice surprise to have the owner of the bar greet us outside (Ian, with his gf Jennifer I believe it was) coming from a gala of some sort. I would have never known he was the owner, he put off a business friendly attitude and was more than happy to stop and say hello, never once mentioning and or acting like the place was his. I thought he was just another regular who had stopped in for a drink!

I would say it's not quite the down to earth spot that I really enjoy sitting around and chatting at, but for a slightly upper end affair, it would definitely fit the bill. The grenache was 30 bucks, so not bad on prices either.

If all the staff were like Shannon, that would definitely make the difference!

Mirror post from facebook: The glass half full; let yourself experience.

I'm sure there's a tool to mirror or put updates on facebook from xanga and this blog... gonna have to look into that at some point =P

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So the other day I was at a party talking with some people, who, like many in this huge city of ours, have had to transplant themselves from wherever they either are from, or want to be. The unfortunate attitude that comes with this type of move more often than not is, "Houston sucks, I'm leaving the city in X number of years once I get my chance."

Listen, I understand the problems that come with living in Houston. I understand traffic blows; I understand finding the cool things to do in this city requires effort and driving long distances; I understand that 'long distance' means something completely different to you if you're not from here; I understand the weather is HOT, your lawn may not be soft and cuddly, the world as we know it may be completely unbearable at times.

I get it.

I may not agree with you in all the things that suck, but I understand.

What I don't get is why continue down such a negative path and live your life hating everything around you in this city? Really, this isn't even a rant about my distaste in the 'houston sucks' attitude, it's larger than that. If everything sucks in whatever or wherever you are, why not find the things that don't suck and make some compromises in your life so that you can enjoy those things that could really make you happy?

I am of the opinion that no matter where I am, I believe I could find people and experiences that can really make me happy.

People. People make such a difference. You can stick me in the scariest, or most boring, or most terrible situation you can think of, and with people, I can find joy, happiness, love, life. No matter where you are, no matter what the language, the social barriers, the pedigree, you can find wonderful, wonderful people. How do I know? Because I have found it; found them in all that I do. A simple recalibration; a simple opening of your mind, attitude, and barriers, and something wonderful happens - people do the same for you.

Experiences. We fly through life from one experience to another. Whether small or grande, those experiences make life wonderful. Why take so much effort to identify or continue having a bad experience? A simple recalibration and you may not be able to get rid of a bad experience, but you can minimize them and hell, make them learning experiences. Is it simple semantics? No. It's how you live your life.

Let's make active choices to live as we want to live. If you truly want to continue to live in negativity, then that choice is yours, at least you've made it. But can you at least try to see the other side and let go? Let go, let yourself experience.

New Radiator for the Accord...

So last thursday, 3/27/08, my poor car's radiator developed a crack on plastic upper reservoir portion and was leaking like a sieve under pressure =(

I tried to do a temporary fix with JB Weld, but under pressure, even the JB weld wasn't able to contain the crack (it wasn't even that big a crack!!). You can see the JB Weld mess in the pic (and my blue coolant):
Well, I've now had this car 10 years, so I figured I could forgive one cracked radiator in 10 years. haha.

Unfortunately, I was without a car for a full week though while waiting for the parts to come! I called a couple of local dealers and they wanted $370 + tax for the radiator alone, AND I had to wait 3-4 business days because it was special order!!!! x-(


Since those were the numbers, I decided I'd just buy from the place I always buy online and just have it express shipped. hondaautomotiveparts.com to the rescue (Majestic Honda up in RI)! Not only did I buy the radiator for way under $370, I also got new upper and lower hoses, clamps, and radiator mounts upper and lower, AND 2 DAY SHIPPING for $345!
(Here's pics of the new spankin and old cracked radiators)

Got the new stuff in on Wed 4/2 and had it all installed that night! Not bad!


The operation was really pretty simple! Undo the mounts, pull the hoses, pull the whole assembly up and out of the car! The fans and stuff all went over to the new radiator while out of the car which made things very simple:



Here's the engine bay all ready to accept a new radiator!

I'll upload finished pics in a day or two after I've been totally sure there's no leaks! haha