The Wonderful World of Motorcycling

some of you guys will remember my previous motorcycle, the Honda Magna VF750C. it was one sweet piece of machinery!! its V-4 748cc engine was smooth and powerful; able to pass up any cars on the freeway with a simple flick of the wrist. best of all, it was cool!   

i remember the commercial for the magna: it starts with a doberman roaming the dark back alleys in the middle of the night. the doberman was lean and mean, and nobody dared to get in its way. lesser creatures fear its mere presence. but as he turns the corner, there stands a big, buff, and tough honda magna staring it in the eyes. the magna was even meaner than the doberman! realizing that he was no longer the big shot on the block, the doberman had to cower away like the little puppy he seemed like compared to the magna!!

that was one cool commercial. you had to see it!

anyway, here are a few pictures to enjoy. big thanks to emmanuel and elijah who helped me post these pics!

The Wonderful World of Rancho Alisal
i moved out of my tustin ranch apartment sometime in mid-march.  just last month i received a letter from the apartment management saying that i owe them $104!! i presume it's for cleaning up the apartment after i left.  the lease and state law state that the landlord must notify the tenant within 3 weeks of moving out of the disposition of security deposit.  so needless to say, i'm pissed that they're trying to collect this money from me now!!    oh, they claim that they sent the notice, but i've never received anything from them. 

another IAC apartment complex played the same trick on my old roommate; sending him a bill almost 11 months after he moved out, to try to get him to pay additional fees. but he wrote them a couple letters basically telling to kiss off, so they did...after a while. 

so i wrote them a letter basically telling them to kiss off! (in semi-nice way, of course).  then they sent me a second past due notice! not even acknowledging my complaint in the letter. they even threatened to send me to collection and legal action!! can you believe the nerve of those @#$%*$!!  and the amount due is more than the original $104, without any explaination!!! so i wrote them a second letter using stronger language and telling to really kiss off this time!!

i'm planning to file a formal complaint against Rancho Alisal Apartments with the Better Business Bureau. the BBB has an online form to fill out, and it seems pretty easy. so i'm planning to do that in the next day or two. 

does anybody have any experience filing a complaint with the BBB? or any similar experiences with apartment management?

The Wonderful World of Planning
Here's a great idea of what to do if your neighbors really tick you off!!  stink them to high heaven!! Think of all the wonderful things you can do if you studied the zoning code in your city!

PACE, Fla. - When neighbors raised a stink over Scott Teston's request to change his property's zoning from agriculture to business, he responded with a bigger one — he put 17 pigs in his yard.

Scott LaCoste moved his nearby construction company Monday because of the stench. Mary Preston wants to sell her home, but potential buyers flee when they get a whiff.

Santa Rosa County officials say the pigs are legal because the neighborhood is zoned agricultural.

"I had raised some hogs. I know how bad it was," Teston said. "I knew it was going to get nasty."

Linda Brown, whose yard is next to the pig pen, said the swine have attracted rats and flies, and slop overflows onto her property and a neighbor's retention pond when it rains.

"God as my witness, that was his plan: to stink us out," Brown said. "It will literally take your breath away."

Teston, owner of Pace Plumbing, said he initially sought rezoning in November for a day care center, but neighbors complained about traffic and stormwater runoff.

The county's planning board offered a compromise — restricted commercial zoning that would permit a day care center but not most other businesses. Teston said he turned down that idea in case the day care center didn't work out and withdrew his request.

Teston also must put up with the stench because he lives on the property with his wife and two young sons. He has listed it for sale or lease but may renew the rezoning request because some neighbors now are willing to drop their objections.

"If it doesn't go through this time," he said, "I'll just put about 500 head of hogs out there."

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don't let your waste go to waste

i don't understand the fascination with poop, i just know it's funny   here's a new way to treat human excrements that's funny and environmentally friendly!!

Museum Considers Excrement Power

Thu Jul 15, 9:33 AM ET Oddly Enough - Yahoo!

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Science Museum says it is considering a radical way of paying its hefty energy bills -- using visitors' excrement.

The central London museum said it was considering taking the waste from its 14 toilet blocks and converting it into electricity.

"With free admission it would be a great way for visitors to give something back to the museum and help keep the overheads down," said the museum's head Jon Tucker. "We have almost 3 million visitors each year and have huge electricity bills."

The museum said the plan would be to siphon off waste from the toilets, store it and then either burn it as fuel in a mini-power station or turn it into electricity using a microbial fuel cell.

The power produced from the excrement of 100,000 visitors could produce enough to power 500 light bulbs, while also breaking down harmful organic matter, it said.

1/509th INF (ABN)  

i spent the better part of my four-year hitch in the army with the 1st Battalion 509th Infantry at Fort Polk, LA.  my unit was the permanent in-house bad guys; we were the opposing forces (OPFOR) for all units that trained at the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC). http://www.jrtc-polk.army.mil/

i found an article about the 1/509th that worth a reading.
http://www.military.com/NewsContent/0,13319,FL_army_070604,00.html

it's a long article, but very interesting. it's called "The Army's Most Hated Unit", i suspect they hated us because we always killed them mercilessly!!  
AIRBORNE! ALL THE WAY!!