Rachel Ray Isn't All That

Do any of you watch the Food Network? Rachel Ray has a segment on that show where she goes out on the town and makes a big deal about not spending more than $40 each day (http://www.foodnetwork.com/40-a-day/index.html). 

Well, Web left his wallet at home this morning by accident, and ended up hours from home with a car and a half tank of gas. No wallet, no cash, no credit cards... nothing. Could he make it?

9:30 AM: Web parks the ride at a 20 minute meter, steps out, and is relieved to see that there's still 8 minutes on the clock. He manages to coax an extra dime out of a lady walking by to get himself the full 20 minutes. This is followed by a quick stop at Noah's bagels for breakfast... 

The girl behind the counter remembers him from last weekend's visit. Web explains his "issue" and he gets his breakfast sandwich for free based on a promise to come back next week to pay the tab.

Total cost: $0

11:45 AM: Web sepnds the rest of the morning unpacking boxes and moving heavy stuff around the new crib. Around lunchtime, hungry, he rummages around the empty new fridge and finds himself some 4-day old Thai leftovers from Osha Thai in downtown SF.

Although it tastes a little stale and soggy after going in the microwave, it does the trick and he is able to continue on with his day.

Total cost: $0 (so far, so good!)

2:30 PM: Web races over to Atherton Appliance (http://www.athertonappliance.com/showroom.php), where he is scheduled for an appointment to review everything about washers and dryers that he never thought he'd need to know. 

What was even better about the store is that they serve all their customers cookies and gourmet coffees! Web chows down on a pile of chocolate chip cookies, sugar cookies, and also helps himself to an espresso and a cappuccino. Score!

Total cost: $0

5:45 PM: After a long day, Web cruises back home where Mom #2 (Jaime's mom) has got a whole home cooked meal ready for him and Jaime.

Total cost: $0

That's a wrap... see, it isn't that hard! Why does Rachel Ray get her own show just to do what Web did with ease?

Trip to Memphis, TN

We missed out on our Memphis road-trip recap. If you want to read about Beale Street, click here: http://jaimeandweb.blogspot.com/2008/12/we-got-blues.html

Shiba Inu Cam

Cute shibas! It makes us want to get another one.

Broadcasting Live with Ustream.TV

New Crib

We wanted to update our readers with some sneak peek pics of the new crib. We will be moving in around Thanksgiving.

Entering through the front door...


The kitchen...


LR/DR, aka "The Great Room"...




We'll be sure to post more pics once we get some furniture!

Vancouver

We went up for a long weekend in Vancouver to visit Jon. The weather was a bit cool, cloudy, and rainy when we landed, but we lucked out and ended up with great weather throughout the weekend. We did some touristy stuff like visiting Stanley Park, shopping on Robeson, and walking around Yaletown. We also took a day trip to the Sunshine coast to do some kayaking, but when we got there, we found out the kayaking tour company was shut down for the season. Instead, we found a cool trail to hike.

Jon, thanks for being a great host and showing us everything that was (and wasn't) in Frommers. We enjoyed the hiking, kayaking, chowing down, listening to Leona Lewis 100 times, and all of our encounters with crack heads, crack wings, and crack berries.

Cataract Falls

Took advantage of the great weather this past weekend and hiked Cataract Falls in Marin Country. It's one of the few trails in that area that allows dog, so we packed our bags with snacks and treats for all and were on our way. It's about a 3 mile hike round trip - we didn't get to see that many waterfalls, but there was still some beautiful scenery...

Adventure Race Results

On July 26, 2008, Team Huge (TH) went all out at the Ocean Blue Adventure Race in Half Moon Bay. Over the course of 2.5 - 3.5 grueling hours in the mid-day heat, TH exerted themselves and pushed each other to the limit. The final tally had us finishing in the following order:

1st place: Matt Cook / Jeff Liepman
2nd place: Scott Moorefield / Paul Schultz
3rd place: Jaime Chen / Victoria Arvizu
4th place: Curt Herberts / James Wu
5th place: Nicky Singh / Michael Tancer

Most importantly, we cheered, jeered, harassed and encouraged one another for weeks and months on end, as well as over the duration of the official race day, and in the end it all paid off as all of our team members crossed the finish line.

We tried to upload the video to the blog, but it's too big to post. Although Web couldn't race that day, he was there to cheer his teammates on and take some great action shots. Thanks for the pics, Web!

Victoria and I arrived early to sign in and set up for our race...


Looking over the map one more time before the start of the race...


A team pic at the starting line...


And we're off...first a run down to the beach and back...


Finishing our first leg of the run...and heading towards the kayaks...


We had the hardest time out on the water... damned inflatable kayaks!


After finishing dead last in the kayaks, we made a great recovery and finished the race in 3 hr. 30 min.


We ended up placing 4th/16th in the all female division. We rock!


Just a stroll in the park for the 1st place finishers of our group, Matty Cook and Jeff Liepman...


Jeff rockin' our TH t-shirt...


The front of our the t-shirt...


and the back...


It was a huge accomplishment to finish the race and we are looking forward to the next TH event. 5K run coming up in Sept and then maybe the Muddy Buddy race down in Los Angeles? More to come...

Race Day

After months of training, this Saturday is finally Race Day. Although it's only a beginner Adventure Race, I'm sure it'll still be extremely challenging.

2-3 miles kayaking
3-5 miles trail running
7-10 miles mountain biking

Pics to come...

We Got the Blues!

Back in May (yes, we're a bit behind on the blog), we realized we only had a few more weeks left in the South and were determined to make the most of it. 

We hopped in the car for a weekend road trip to Memphis, TN, to visit Beale Street, home of the blues, and Graceland, home of the King! More on the King some other time.

First stop: A trip to top-rated Charles Vergos' Rendezvous BBQ. Their BBQ was a bit different from your usual fare; they covered the ribs in a dusting of peppercorn-like powder (you can see the light dusting of the powder on the ribs in the pic below). 

Although it wasn't the way we generally like our BBQ, it was still pretty damned good.

After loading up on our good 'ol Southern BBQ, we headed downtown for a walk down Beale Street. There was lots of action on the streets: street performers, street hustlers, and just generally good people watching.

This crew was hilarious. They posted a graffiti-like towel as a backdrop, and people were lining up to take their pictures in front of the "art"! The best part was that these entrepreneurs had the entire set-up... you paid for your picture in front of their "art", and then they'd connect their cameras to portable printers and instantly print you a copy! Ghetto fabulous!

The next stop: BB King's to take in some live blues, courtesy of Blind Mississippi Morris. What an amazing experience. Although we'd never really gotten into the blues before, he did an amazing job and we were toe tapping and singing along in no time. 

While taking in the performance, we somehow just missed a massive rainstorm. We stepped out of the club, and Beale Street was looking beautiful at night after a quick shower...

Wild Wilderness Safari... Arkansas style!

Instead of taking a return trip to a S. African safari, we decided to do a safari... in Arkansas!

En route to the Gentry Zoo, we took a brief detour through downtown Gentry.

This place was poppin'! Um... not really. For a Saturday afternoon, we were trying to figure out where everyone was.

... as you can see, it wasn't exactly difficult to find street parking.

We also passed some pretty interesting (read: scary) hotels. This one reminded us a bit of the Bates Motel...

... that's five-star right there!

We finally made it to the Gentry Zoo sometime in the middle of the afternoon. It was beautiful, and sunny, and the animals were out and about!

These zebras were the opposite of shy... they came right up to our car windows...

... probably because all the people riding through were throwing bread out of the windows.

This little fella was more than happy with his "score". He sat in the middle of the gravel road chomping on his bread, oblivious to the cars that were passing mere inches away from him!

This pig got up close and personal with yours truly, not knowing that we all had bacon for brunch (yum!)...

These goats believe that the grass really is greener on the other side...

Jaime had some fun with some friendly 'Roos (shout to Web's sister, Roo!)...

This tiger seemed bored by all the fuss...


Other dudes spent their time munchin' away on cabbage and lettuce heads...

All in all, it was a fun day at the zoo.

On our way home, we decided to hit up Mama Dean's Soul Food Kitchen for some more fried chicken and good 'ol Southern cookin'!

Unfortunately, Mama Dean needs to work on her "signage". We passed by her restaurant at least 3-4 times on the same road...

... as you can see, Mama Dean never replaced the old sign, Mr. Burger, with her sign! The little placard behind the pick-up was Mama Dean's sign... kind of hard to see when you're driving along the main road in the middle of nowhere!

We finally found our way and helped ourselves to some super-yummy fried chicken, good mashed "pots", ribs and chicken fried steak.

Towards the end of our meal, we were graced by Mama Dean herself and she was kind enough to take a picture with Web, despite the fact that he was sporting his yankee gear: black v-neck and pink polo. She knew right away that "y'all not from around here"!

Eureka Springs, AR

We decided to take a little road trip to Eureka Springs, in NW Arkansas. Eureka Springs is a Victorian resort village with a distinctly European flavor. Interestingly, it's the only city in N. America where none of the intersections meet at a right angle!

Back in the 1800s, Europeans and local settlers used to come to Eureka Springs because of the supposed 'healing powers' of the spring waters. Today, people come to Eureka for the spas, neat little boutique stores, and eclectic mix of people and lifestyles.

As we parked in one of the local lots, we figured we were in for an interesting time...


The city has a very unique mix of characters. There were very obviously gay locals, super-friendly artists and hippies, and a bunch of homeless people just chillin' out in this small town in the middle of nowhere.... it was a neat group of people.

The locals pointed out to us the fact that bikers (read: Harley riders) always ride through their little town on the weekends...


Eureka Springs was a neat little mix of small, trendy stores with lots of hand-crafted goodies made by the locals. As you can see, the Harleys were everywhere.


The European influence and Victorian architecture was seen throughout the little town, for both the little shops as well as the homes in the local neighborhoods.


They weren't kidding when they said that none of the roads meet at right angles! Here's a shot of a spa/hotel that has been a "Eureka Springs place of interest" since the 1800s!


For a second there, we thought we were back in Rio de Janeiro! Eureka Springs, oddly enough, is home to the Christ of the Ozarks, erected in 1966 as part of a planned religious theme park!


It was interesting that Eureka had such a religious flavor, as it is one of the most gay-friendly cities in the South; there are four annual Diversity weekends hosted by the city!

We saw a bunch of cute little stores on our drive out to Eureka. The names of the stores were cracking us up!

Here's a nice spot, Road Dawgs, to get your authentic leather biker apparel...


Shout to Web's boy Ant Guido... Fat Guido's is a popular pit stop for BBQ...


On the way back to Fayetteville, we stopped by the Thorncrown Chapel, built in 1980.

As many of you know, we are pretty big fans of Frank Lloyd Wright. This chapel was built in homage to him. Note the use of symmetrical patterns and abundant natural lighting throughout the building...


The chapel is situated on the side of one of the mountains overlooking the valleys beneath the Ozarks, in the midst of the trees. It was beautiful inside and out.


The chapel was selected for the 2006 "Twenty-Five Year Award" by the American Institute of Architects, recognizing structures that have had significant influence on the profession. We sat inside, made a donation, and enjoyed the peace and serenity that comes with being close with God.