I know I go to San Diego a lot and you’re probably getting sick of reading about it so I’ll try and keep it short, but this weekend was pretty fun and adventurous.

Friday we woke up and decided to go on a bike cruise, we didn’t really know where to but it’s a free and fun activity. So after eating a bit we headed out to the boardwalk in front of Ashley’s house. We just started riding and enjoying the sites around us, we were heading to places neither of us had been. There were some really cool homes in the Crown Point area, but I’m not going to lye it turned a little bit into the ghetto when there were spray painted walls everywhere and groups of hoodlums hangin around. We quickly got through that section of the bike path and got back on the boardwalk that follows the waters edge around the bay. We rode for hours and hours, over bridges, through tunnels, next to roads, through the parks and finally we decided we should try and make it back so we took a little short cut and headed back to Ashley’s before the sun went down. Mission Bay is a phenomenal place, and I got to experience it in a whole different light later in the weekend.

Saturday was the big sky show day, so naturally I was really excited. You see I never really had a 4^th of July this year which is traditionally where I would get to see all the pyrotenics and whatnot. Instead on my 4^th of July I was stuck in a small black box trying to sell fireworks just to turn a profit on the week, but that’s neither here nor there. The sky show was at night naturally so for our day activity we decided to ride bikes but this time to a beach and hang out and play in the water. We rode all along the oceanfront boardwalk, dodging pedestrians, skaters, bikers and drunkards. I don’t know how many of you are familiar with the San Diego beaches on the weekends in the summer, but since alcohol is allowed on the beach it basically turns into a giant party for 20 something year olds. Anyway, it was fun to people watch and ride along the boardwalk. Eventually when we reached a spot that wasn’t as crazy we locked up our bikes and staked out a spot on the beach. After spending a few hours laying around and playing in the water it was time to head back and get ready for the big sky show. The show actually follows a San Diego State football game, unfortunately we got there late but that was OK because they were getting pummeled by the Utes. About 15 minutes after the game the show began with half a dozen people dressed as Elvis flying into the stadium on parachutes with pyrotecnics attached to them. The show went on to amazing me in many ways with huge displays, creative arrangements, and fun music. It really was amazing, I’ll try and put some pictures up so you can see what I am talking about. Anyway, my night was complete after seeing that, but we decided to get a bite to eat afterwords. Long story short, we went to about 4 places and called at least half a dozen only to realize there are no happy hours on Saturday. Finally we just decided to get pizza at Uno’s Chicago Style Pizzeria and head back home.

On Sunday my weekend of Mission Bay fun expanded as Ashley and I set out on the waters in a small sailboat we rented from the Aquatic Center. Have I ever mentioned how much I enjoy sailing? The wind was strong that day too so we were constantly healing over and leaning out of the boat to try and keep it from capsizing while maintaining our speed. We took some fun photos on the water, I’ll have to share those with you too. We couldn’t stay out too long because Ashley had a lot to do and I had to head back to Malibu, but it still was a blast of a weekend.

- Carson

After a long day working I thought it would be nice to try and fix Pete and Tesha’s dishwasher that had mysteriously broken sometime over the past few months. I figured why not help a friend out and since they have a oven I’ll kill two birds with one stone and cook myself a pizza while I work on it. So Pete and I finally dig into this project. We did several tests and could not find out what was wrong so the next step was to take it apart further. By the end of our dismantling there were over a dozen various sized screws laying on the linoleum with several different pieces of the machine nearby. A few shocks and a couple of screws later we finally figured out that the switch which turns it on only when the door is closed was not functioning properly. The pain of this one was that we could not just get a new piece because a plastic piece of the switch had broken. So we had to get a little crazy with the solution. Ultimately we ended up drilling a hole through the plastic cover for the control panel to expose the button on the switch. Then by rigging a screw through a metal plate they would be able to toggle the switch on and off with the twist of a screw. As it turns out the cockamamie system we designed to fix the dishwasher actually worked. Yeah there is a small screw extruding from the face of the machine a little like Frankenstein, but at least it’s alive now.

- Carson

(((Week in review, rather long read)))
After spending a week in St. Lucia in the Eastern Caribbean and flying from airport to airport for an entire day Graham finally ended up at LAX last Monday. He was tired but that didn’t slow down his productivity. I think he said it best when he mentioned he “sat around the beach in the sun all last week, he didn’t need to do more of that here while there was stuff to be done.” He was anxious to get going but still a little drained from the traveling fiasco (traveling is getting pretty ridiculous with the no gels or liquids or pretty much anything you need but I understand– but for Graham it’s even worse because he has a metal rod in his leg from a lacrosse injury and it sometimes sets off the metal detectors.) So anyway after he arrived at LAX in the early evening he was ready for a meal of food because he hadn’t really eaten since the night before. There seemed to be only one logical stop to make for his first meal back in California, In-N-Out of course. I can’t say I’m a huge fan because I don’t eat burgers, but from what I hear the place makes really good ones and is native only to the southwest region of the country. After eating we hung out at Lacey’s house for a little, enjoyed some television and conversation then headed back to Malibu for the evening.

The next day (Tuesday) Graham got started early. He single handedly cleaned up the entire bus. He says it took him a few hours but I bet it took him even more than that because Luke and I haven’t cleaned it in ages. He picked up all the random pieces of trash lying around; he organized the whole bus too from all our cloths to our gear to our food and so on. Cleaning the whole bus was a huge step but it was only the beginning of Graham’s productive week.

Wednesday there wasn’t much left for Graham to do by himself. He started out by making a few plans for some projects to do on the bus that would help to organize and make more storage as well as create a more hospitable environment. After drafting a few things up he was unable to continue without help and tools. So he continued to be productive and used Luke’s computer to do some research for bus parts and so forth. He found some information on creating a solar power system and some info on generators so that we could one day have electricity on the bus. Luke and I met up with Graham at a coffee shop in Santa Monica where he had been doing his research. From there we went to scavenge trough the stuff at Goodwill to try and find some of the items we needed for the bus. We really were looking for some sort of cabinet to store a bunch of our crap in but we ended up only finding a table that we figured we could convert into our booth table top. The sun quickly set and limited our ability to get things done on the bus so I decided to get some pizza on 3^rd street and hang out for a bit while we made plans for the evening. As it turned out there were no plans to be made so eventually Graham and I went back to Malibu to play some hoops at Pepperdine while Luke went out with his friends Matt and Matt. I hadn’t shot hoops in a long while so it was nice to be out playing again.

The real production began on Thursday because Graham was finally able to get some fulltime help. We began the morning making dozens of measurements and trying to plan out the projects that we could get done in the next couple days. We ultimately decided on three projects: the table, the closet, and the couches. The table was the biggest project, it entitled drilling holes through the bus to bolt the seats into place, modifying the table with all sorts of extra wood and metal, creating a hinging structure with a leg so the table could fold up, and all the little things in between. The closet was a little simpler because all we had to do was to take the cloths off and add some diagonal strapping to the back of the structure to create lateral stability. The other project was the couches and all we really had to do was to elevate them with some left over 2×6 so that there could be some storage underneath them. With all the plans set it was time to get the necessary materials. We had most the wood we needed from the leftovers of the bed construction. We just needed to get a hinge for the leg (we already had two that would work on the wall side), one long 2×6 cut into two 55” pieces, some drill bits, some screws, and some strapping. First we quickly stopped by our favorite restaurant in Malibu, KFC, and ate some chicken while we watched a crazy fiasco on the shoulder of PCH in front of KFC. To make a long story short, some lady couldn’t get into “a” car that we all assumed was hers so people would come up and try and help. This went on for hours and all sorts of people came up with advice, one man showed up with a ‘slim jim’ in his back pocket, another had a few screw drivers, another just had his own set of keys, and another was a local sheriff. After about a dozen people over the course of an hour had a crack at it the cop and one Samaritan finally got it done. Anyway, back to the story, we left KFC to head to Pete and Tesha’s to get our drill battery charging. From there we went to a supply store that rhymes with Chrome Repo to get the stuff we needed. We spent over an hour in there and all we managed to get was the one board, a hinge, some screws, and some drill bits. We went back to Pete and Tesha’s and started working. We got many of the pieces cut that we needed but then we were interrupted by a neighboring family that wanted quiet (a.k.a. no power saws) while they ate dinner. With nothing to do we began playing Sega Dreamcast which Pete had recently acquired. We got hooked into it and played it all night. Friday needed to be a big day of construction.

Friday we spent more time cutting and charging at Pete and Tesha’s as well as at Peter and Tim (and 6 other guys’) house in Malibu. We were finally ready to build. We screwed on the 2×6 frame onto the bottoms of the couches but our drilled died and we ran out of sunlight for the day. We then headed back to Pete and Tesha’s to get ready for the evening, we were going out to see Los Pingos in Santa Monica. We left the drill battery charging and we left for San Mon. After a 10 dollar cover which I was pretty bitter about we got in and watched them play. They were really good though I could only understand a few words they sang (they’re from Argentina and sing in Spanish). The cover was alright this time though because I felt like I was paying for a concert.

The big build day had to be Saturday because Graham was leaving in the evening and we had yet to get all the projects done. We started by gluing some pieces onto the table as part of its grand modification process. As the glue dried we went on to fix the closet. We had to make a quick trip to the local hardware store to get the glue and strapping for the closet. We fixed the closet in no time but decided we needed to let the glue dry a little longer on the table before we returned to that project. Seeing as how the week had been mostly working and productivity we decided to go to the beach and get in the water for a little fun time. Surfrider was the closest spot and it’s a pretty fun area to walk around and see the surfers and whatnot. It was a little windy out so we didn’t go in the water but we did watch people surf. Also we went into the Adamson House which is pretty cool and if you ever come to Malibu you should check it out. After our nice tourist break we returned to the bus to work on the booth/table. Drilling through the bus became a big fiasco as we didn’t have a large enough drill bit, but we managed to wrestle everything in place. The seats were set the table just had a lot more work to go. We had to modify one piece of wood by using an old steak knife as a saw and a screw driver as a chisel. After a few hours of primitive craftsmanship we put the hinges in the recessed part of the wood and glued it all together. We ended the carpentry day with the table almost complete, the leg was on and hinged, and the table was fully modified but not mounted because the glue had to dry. Graham frantically got ready by packing all his stuff up and we headed for the airport. Traffic wasn’t too bad on that Saturday so we managed to get there on time. Graham took off back to Washington and the team was back down to just two, but we are excitedly awaiting the arrival of another member and possibly the return of Graham.

-Carson

Ashley is about to start school at USD so I decided to make a solo trip down and hang out with her on her last days of summer. We spent time at the beach across the street from her house hanging out, walking around the boardwalk and enjoying the amazing San Diego bay. We also hung out with the rather strange cable guy that came to install the internet and TV. Oh and FYI cable guy tried to charge $15 per installation of any item (such as s TV or the cable internet) but what he didn’t tell us is that by “install” he meant screw the cable into the device. They don’t really install or run any cables, all they do is screw things together then call the main office and have it activated. Anyway, after he left I set up the wireless network for the house and fix Jessica’s computer (one of Ashley’s roommates). We also ate a lot of food, mostly chicken because that’s all I eat, but it was amazing. Just like last trip to SD, we once again went to the Del Mar race track and bet on a couple horse races. It was only my second visit to the track but already they were treating us like royalty because when we walked up to the ticketing area we were handed VIP passes that entitled us free entry and access to the Turf Club. Unfortunately we weren’t properly dressed for the club so we just went to the seats, made some crazy bets and watched our horses win. It was a fun, calm, and relaxing few days and hopefully a good end to Ashley’s summer.

-Carson