Surf contest

So in another long string of firsts that I have experienced while being on the island, I had the opportunity to take in a professional surf contest this past weekend. It was being held at Domes Beach in Rincon and I knew something big was going on as soon as I had to stop and park my car almost 1/2 a mile away from the beach it was so packed. At the beach there was gigantic crowd and great atmosphere. Lots of families, food, drink and good times.

The only disappointment was the small size of the waves... it was literally about knee to thigh high most of the weekend (1-2 feet). This makes it very tough on the surfers since it is very hard to generate enough speed to do high powered manuevers on waves like that, and they are also so weak that you can only do maybe one or two tricks on a wave at best - hmmm, sounds a lot like surfing in South Carolina or Florida doesn't it??? oh, but at least these Puerto Rican waves don't close out as often!! Anyhow, every now and then (like every 30-40 minutes) a slightly larger sized set, about waist to stomach high, would roll in, and whoever was fortunate enough to catch it would then remind you why these guys are so good. Whoever caught those rare waves would always win their heat and get a big score since they would be able to pull off many more moves on the longer faster ride. A lot of the surfers really looked like they were in the same skill category, but serendipity would determine who got the better waves and ultimately who would win. The other trend I noticed was that younger and lighter surfers tended to do better in the weak surf, as they didn't require as much speed or power to be able to carve and maneuver on the waves.

As for the atmosphere, everyone seemed in a festive mood. Probably didn't hurt that the contest was sponsored by Corona Extra beer and all kinds of libations were freely flowing on the beach, from spiked coconuts, pineapples with their cores removed and filled with rum, all brands of beers and home made concoctions. Right next to me, there was a friendly young family who I started chatting with. They had come from across the island to support one of their local surfers and they began to thrust a beer into my hand each time they dug into their cooler. Gotta love the hospitality! On my other side, there was this tired (old) drunk local who I watched progress - or should I say "regress" - through all the known stages of inebriation. First he was very loud and cheery, often yelling out "Viva Puerto Ricoooo!!", but then he became a little more exhausted and somber, in fact for about 15 minutes he was weeping like a child as he wistfully muttered something about "Mariaaaaaa!"... check out the attached YouTube clip on the bottom to sample a little bit of his audio...

So back to the contest, in the final it was a young kid named Eric Torres vs. one of the local pros from here in Rincon - Darren Muschett. The heat was very close, but it was evident that Darren's local knowledge gave him the edge as he knew exactly where to wait to catch the best waves. Also, having a ton of his friends and family hooting and hollering as he rode the waves definitely didn't hurt his cause either. It was his first contest win as a Pro and definitely not a bad way to pocket $4000.

Every time I've come down to PR I've always seen him out surfing in Rincon and I have to admit that I love watching him surf. While there are always plenty of other really good surfers out in the water, riding the same kinds of waves, it seems like he just moves at vastly greater speed than the rest of them. Not to mention the radical moves this guy can pull off when the surf is big... which reminds of another one of the cool things I like about surfing - you get to be in the water right next to the pros!!! I mean in what other sport do you get to be right next to the pros? You can't just go down to your neighbourhood basketball court and jump into a pickup game where LeBron James is playing, right? Or step on to the training pitch at Milanello and play alongside Kaka and Alexandre Pato! But when surfing, you can be right next to them in the lineup and watch these guys do all kinds of amazing stuff... Carlos knows what I'm talking about, as I guarantee you we will both never forget the amazing 360 degree air Darren pulled off right next to us at Maria's while we were both just trying to stay alive among the 12-15 ft waves!!


Leif Engstrom, a goofyfoot like me (goofy means you put your right leg forward as opposed to your left) catches one of the better waves of the contest while a barge steams past in the background


Darren Muschett enjoys the thrill of victory.. as well as the putrid taste of getting doused by nasty Mexican beer!!!


Here's a quick video clip from the contest... the drunk guy next to me starts doing a strange kind of moaning karaoke along to Paul van Dyk's timeless trance classic "Time of our Lives"

Secure the Borders!!

Now I know there are a lot of voices back in the US calling for the government to do more to secure our borders and stop the overwhelming influx of illegal immigrants entering our country. Well, I think those concerned citizens shouldn't be losing any more sleep as I can attest first-hand that our border with the Dominican Republic is being well patrolled! Allow me to set the scene:

It was Thursday morning, the night immediately after the amazing Lunar Eclipse of Wednesday, Feb 20th. Actually, I didn't even know that an eclipse was going to occur, but luckily my landlord Eloy came and knocked on my door and ushered me outside. It was absolutely spectacular, way better than any solar eclipse since you could actually look very clearly at the whole event as it happened. I had seen other lunar eclipses before but this one was particularly striking in how bright the moon originally was, and then how truly blood-red it turned. If I was living in the Middle Ages, I would have definitely gone ape$%^& too at the sight of something like that!

Anyways, back to the morning after, I woke up on Thursday and went out to the front yard and saw a helicopter just hovering over one spot in the bay. It was a red US Coast Guard chopper and it was sitting right on top of some type of boat. There were a couple of Puerto Ricans who had pulled their cars over to survey the scene as well... I started chatting with one of them and he told me that he suspected it was a boat from the Dominican Republic either carrying refugees or smuggling drugs. Apparently it is a rather frequent occurrence around here and these guys didn't seem to sympathetic to the boaters' plight. "I'm not racist or anything, but they're bad people!!!" one local explained to me. After about a half hour, the boat turned back to head west again and started travelling towards the horizon as the chopper now flew back to its base in Aguadilla, surely in need of some refuelling too. But just as the boat was about to drop out of sight, it doubles back and starts heading towards Puerto Rico again. And sure enough, the helicopter returns and intercepts it. This time, the chopper is accompanied by a second helicopter as well and after hovering above the boat for another 45 minutes or so, the boat finally follows them towards Aguadilla. The locals here tell me that they will most likely be arrested and thrown in jail now, before ultimately being deported again.

For the pictures, I suggest downloading them and using magnify/zoom to see the most details.. again, I apologize that my camera doesn't have a better zoom lens. All pics were taken from my front yard.


Here you can see the chopper hovering extremely low above the boat with Desecheo Island in the background.


Now there's two helicopters keeping an eye on our Dominican friends.

Politics of the Caribbean

Election excitement is in the air!!! Yes, the buzz of the upcoming election is definitely electric down here in Puerto Rico. I haven't exactly been caught up in the fever yet though, and must declare that at this point I am still undecided. But I can tell you who I am definitely not voting for: Berty! Yeah, I'm pretty sure that's the incumbent mayor of Aguada right now and his stupid campaign van has annoyed me quite a bit so far. Following the general guideline of music or noise coming from cars in Puerto Rico, this van is also annoying. I guess I should be happy that it's not blasting Reggaeton like 98% of the other cars driving around.

NOTE: if you are not familiar with Reggaeton, it is sort of like a Spanish HipHop, that has the distinctive characteristic of always using the EXACT same beat in every song. Feel free to download or listen to about 10 seconds of any song by Daddy Yankee or Don Omar, or remember that song Gasolina or "Are you Ready??".. well yeah, when you've heard 10 seconds of that, just imagine that exact same song being played for hours on end.

But back to Berty, he and a bunch of other candidates running for Alcalde (mayor) or Senador (if you need a translation for that you're too dumb to be reading my blog so please just log onto PerezHilton.com right now) have these cars, trucks, and vans that drive around, sometimes with big pictures of the electoral hopefuls and usually some Salsa type of music playing with songs that are customized to the candidate. Saying crap like "4 more years", "___ brings progress!" or sometimes just "___ is gonna win, ___ is gonna win".. Now, I haven't seen cars driving around with huge speakers on top of them since the Blues Brothers movie when they are announcing their big final concert at the Palace Ballroom, but these speakers are really loud and clear and you can hear them from a ways away. Just check out the incredible volume my tiny little camera picked up from the van in the video above!

In other non-political news I am very happy to report that I have been able to get back into the water. On Tuesday, I purchased a bodyboard at SurfTown in Rincon, a Custom-X 40" board along with some fins and some sockfins with tethers that help ensure that your fins still stay attached to your leg if one of them gets pulled off by a big wave. I tried out the gear later that afternoon and was pleasantly surprised at how much fun it was to be back in the water and catching waves. I didn't have to do any overhead paddling - the main source of my shoulder aggravation. And the waves weren't too big so I didn't have to duckdive (submerge under oncoming waves). On Wednesday, the waves did get a bit bigger so it was little more challenging and my legs were a bit sore after that session. And again today I went out for a leisurely session. While I am new at bodyboarding, one of the things I do like about it is the fact that I am lot more fearless in catching waves. I guess psychologically you don't fear the spill as much when you're already lying down as opposed to standing up where you feel more vulnerable. I do still need to work a lot on my technique though, specifically digging my rail into the wave to traverse down the line on it. With a surfboard, it seemed easier since I was accustomed to it, and since the fins underneath the board help you move down the wave more... bodyboard has no fins underneath it so you really have to lean with your body to stick the side of the board into the open face of the wave... enough waveriding mechanics, yawn.. let's look at some pictures!


Wednesday Feb 13th was a solid day at Domes beach in Rincon, waves were a good 2-3 feet overhead.


And when a macking wave like this one pushes through, a mad scramble ensues as half the people try and jockey to try and catch it while the other half just try to get the hell out of the way!!!


Somebody call Hans Blix and tell him to head down to Puerto Rico ASAP as this is some hard evidence on new weapons of mass destruction being kept here.. namely my new bodyboard and fins!!!!


And oh yeah had to put in another picture of the sunset.. at least this time with some surfing!

Soccer balls, whales and cocks

So this past Tuesday I finally got a chance to check out the local soccer scene in Rincon. I remember seeing some people playing here at the community sports complex while driving by on my previous visit back in November so I took my boots with me and drove on down. I got there around 7 PM and there were tons of people walking around the track, which was encouraging to me until I thought about all the other people across the island who were probably stuck in Burger King drive thru windows at the same time. Inside the track there were a couple of youth teams practicing. I did spot one guy who looked like an adult with a Barcelona jersey on who was lacing up his shoes. Turns out his name is Angelo and he is a Cuban who has been living in Miami Beach for the past 16 years working as a photographer. He tells me that more adults should be coming out later so we just shoot the breeze and kick a ball back and forth to warm up. Turns out, he also decided to move down to Rincon for a while, a year in his case, after becoming burnt out on Miami, the scene, the drugs, etc... he's actually 44 years old and although he seems a little out of shape I could tell from the way he could use both feet and the technique he had that he knew how to play. He went on to tell me that when he was growing up in Cuba, soccer was his sport - apparently under Castro, sports are very highly encouraged and developed and every high school student has to have at least one or two sports in which they specialize. What's also interesting about Angelo is how he came to South Florida - by raft! He came back in 1991 and told me that the journey took almost 5 days. Wow.

Anyways, at around 8PM some more adults show up, and they are an interesting crew ranging in age from mid 20's to early 40's so I felt like I was right in the median. There were about 10 of us when we began to play and the people were from all over: Colombia, Peru, Argentina, Mexico even a Dominican, but I am pretty sure there was not a single Puerto Rican playing!!! Was it like that for you too Jean-Claude when you played over here in San Juan? I imagine so. It was fun playing with the guys and they all seemed friendly and reminded me to come out when they play on Tues/Thur nights as well as on Sunday when they play out at the old Ramey Air Force base in Aguadilla (site of the current Aguadilla airport). Unfortunately, my shoulder was killing me after the soccer game, which was much to my chagrin. I already had decided to give up the surfing for a while, so I figured soccer would use my legs and not cause any further shoulder pain.. but I was wrong, I guess the fast running motion caused a lot of friction up there as well, so I'm going to have to put the soccer on hold as well. Gulp.

Although facing the fact that I couldn't do any of my two favourite recreational activities, I figured I should galvanize my efforts to rest and rehabilitate my shoulder. I've done a lot of stretching, icing and ibuprofen over the last week and the improvement has been significant. I am optimistic that I'll be back in the water within 2 weeks, if not earlier granted I get a bodyboard!

Speaking of the water, it's hard to stay away and even though there is almost no swell filling into the Northwest coast here I decided to drive up to Aguadilla to check out some of the breaks which are right off the North coast. I went to beaches called Crashboat and Wilderness. At Wilderness a.k.a. Wildo, there is just a dirt road and parking area, and lots of trees and high cliffs that rise above you. I sat down and surveyed the small clean waves coming in. And then off in the distance, I noticed large splashes of water occurring in a somewhat regular pattern. As I looked again, I realized that it was a whale out there! It's hard for me to gauge large distances across water, but I'd guess it was about a mile offshore but the amount of spray it produced when jumping out of the water was impressive. About every 20 seconds or so, this whale would rise out of the water, lift both fins horizontally and then splash down with a backside belly flop. I had never seen a whale before in my life, so it was pretty mesmerizing. I was very astonished by both the creature's size and playfulness.

Which brings us to today, Sunday! I have to be honest, I was looking forward to Sunday all week, especially after being so athletically incapacitated for its duration. You see on Sunday, I was going to get my first taste of what the Puerto Ricans call the "Deporte de Caballeros" = The Sport of Gentlemen, and here in Puerto Rico I could do so without fear of criminal prosecution!!! So I headed down to the Gallera Guanina, the neighbourhood Cockfighting Coliseum which is conveniently located just a few blocks from my apartment. I arrived around 2:30PM, about a half hour before the fights started but I wasn't anxious since it gave me more time to soak up the ambience. The place was already buzzing with activity. Mostly, it was older crusty looking men who were chatting among themselves, while pointing at the fight board and looking at the numbered cages where the roosters were kept. There were also younger people there, a lot of kids or grandkids I assume. One sign that caught my attention inside read: "No hable palabras obcenas, hay damas en la gallera." - "Don't use obscene language, there are ladies in the building." And the sign wasn't lying, there was ONE young mother in the building tending to her baby up in the top row of the bleachers. There seemed to be a lot of pride exhibited by the Galleros for their sport, as many of them wore large gold necklaces which had silhouettes of fighting birds, or they wore hats that said "Cock fight" or had belt buckles with roosters on them, etc..

Although the fighting had not yet begun, there was considerable activity in the Armadero/Armory where the Galleros/Cockfighters were prepping their birds. Behind glass, you could see how they would take their bird, have one person, usually a younger kid hold it, while the Gallero uses some pliers to snip off one of the claws. This claw was the one located up higher on the leg in the back region, and here they would affix with tape, rope and glue an artificial claw which looked like a sharpened piece of plastic. Finally the first fight was ready to start. People took their places in the arena, and the prefight environment becomes rather chaotic. Both birds are brought into the arena in sacks, from which they are weighed, they are then removed from the bags and prepped by neutral attendees. And at this time there is a lot of yelling as fans and Galleros place their bets on which bird they think will win. But it's very unregulated and unofficial as no one seems to be recording who is betting on what, it's just guys pointing at each other and nodding. So the birds are placed into holding cells which are then lifted and the fight begins!

To me it just looks like a flurry of feathers as they jump up and ruffle their claws together... this goes on for about 30 seconds and by then it seems like one bird takes the upper hand, jumping higher and pouncing more often than the other. And at this point both birds still look like they are in good condition. But now the bird who has the upperhand seems to start doing a lot more pecking with its beak, mostly aiming at its adversary's long neck. Once one of the birds stops resisting and just lays on the ground, the judge declares the fight over and the Galleros come into the ring and reclaim their birds, the losing bird usually a little bloody while missing a few chunks from its neck and probably much closer to becoming part of someone's next meal of Arroz con pollo.

At this time, a young kid comes out into the arena and picks up some stray feathers and performs some perfunctory cleaning with a sponge and disinfectant. The bettors now come over to each other and settle their scores. I am always kinda shocked when I see people pull wads of cash out of their pockets, especially in such an unluxurious setting. I would imagine that disagreements and skirmishes would be somewhat common at this time as well. So I stuck around for 3 more fights and realized that it is always pretty much the same and I really wasn't getting into it that much. The owners of the birds get very animated though while their birds are fighting; yelling and clapping and making strange animal noises too. Them and the bettors have a lot at stake I suppose, but I don't. In retrospect, I didn't find it super unpleasant but definitely nothing I care to watch again either. The only similar event I have been to I would say is a bullfight in Sevilla. Now while there is way more pageantry, human skill and elegance on display in a bullfight, it is also much more bloody and gorey.


Sorry about the poor quality of the cockfighting pics, seems my battery was running low. Prepping the arena for the next bout.


The birds in action.


A convoy of about 20 cop cars passed me in Aguadilla so I took a picture. Cop cars down here always drive around with their lights on, which initially made paranoid types like me shudder in anticipation of getting yet another ticket!! Wonder what these guys were up to though, on their way to stop an armed robbery? I think it's more likely they were giving J. Lo an escort to an emergency evening visit to her hairdresser.

And the top pic, yeah, it's another sunset, I know, this time taken from a rest area on an Aguadilla cliff.

Superbowl and Profound Thoughts

So on Sunday I decided to go and watch the Superbowl with a bunch of ex-Pats, no not former Patriot fans but people who are originally from the US, most of whom are tourists or some of whom are temporary (like me) or long term transplants to Puerto Rico. I went down to Rincon, ex-Pat central and watched the game at the Tamboo bar which is right on the beach. The game was ok and I really didn't come into it pulling for one team or the other, but early on I casually shifted to a Pro NY mentality - since when I am a neutral observer I usually root for the underdog. Well, I wasn't alone since a ton of of the American surfers and ex-Pats down here seem to come from the NY area. And, then you throw in the fact that probably 95% of all Puerto Ricans have either lived in the NY area or at least have relatives there, you had a very strong go NY vibe going. One downer for me was the fact that the Fox Puerto Rico channel showed almost none of the big SuperBowl commercials which have become just about as important as the game recently. Instead it was cheap little local commercials for Used Car dealerships and banks, pretty lame.

Back in the barrio, I finally met my neighbour, who is renting out a 2 BR apt on the ground floor next to me. Her name is Maria and she is actually from Sweden, working for some kind of non-profit organization down here for a while. She has several cats, including the aforepictured kitten who I now know is named "Sweetie". She seemed very friendly and she told me that she is ethnically German so we actually got to speak some Deutsch together.

Well, the pain in my shoulder / rotator cuff is still quite prevalent. As difficult as the choice is, I have decided to take a couple of days off from surfing, which I last did on Saturday. The overhead paddling and pushdown for duckdiving motions are pretty intense even when you are at full strength, so doing these with injured body parts is very difficult and after feeling so sore afterwards I was convinced that this couldn't be helping the healing process. So after talking to several health care professionals back in the States who I am lucky enough to call good friends, I have decided to hit the inflammation hard with a steady dose of NSAIDs ie Motrin, continue doing my restrengthening exercises and icings, and give that shoulder some rest. It's not easy to see such nice waves go by and not just jump all over them, but I gotta be patient and mercifully enough, the surf in Rincon has really tapered off recently and should be quiet for the next few days anyway.

So I've also been lucky enough to have time to contemplate some profound thoughts such as.. "to boogie or not to boogie".. Now I know, that to some of you who are trivializing your lives with minor concerns such as jobs, bills, significant others and kids it may seem that this question is not as important as it truly is... you see, as a surfer you feel as though you have reached the top of the evolutionary ladder, standing up and riding the waves from a prominent stature. Now when you see a boogey or body boarder lying on his stomach, you literally and figuratively look down on them like we would a prehistoric cromagnon walking around on all fours. But this devolution would actually serve a purpose, since bodyboarding is both quite similar yet importantly different than stand up surfing.

You see, on a surfboard, the only way you can propel yourself through the water is by paddling which uses your arms and shoulders. Bodyboarders, however, wear fins on their feet and kicking is the main method of propulsion through the water. So this would allow me to still get out there in the water, catch some sweet waves, while also giving my shoulder more time to heal without stressing it out too much. I think I am comfortable enough in my "surfual orientation" to know that I am just experimenting with this and that I am not crossing over to the otherside... the other good thing is that back in the US, bodyboarders are very rare and castigated from the rest of the surfing society... but here, bodyboarding is really the surfing vehicle of choice for the locals, and there are lots of them out there. So who knows, this could my opportunity to blend in better with the locals, without having to grow and trim a beard the width of a pencil or having to listen to 6 hours of Reggaeton everyday.


Well, I'm sure I'll eventually get over the beauty of the sunsets here, but it hasn't happened yet. These two pictures are of the beach right below my apartment. The first view is to the left or west towards Rincon and the sunset.



The second view is to the right and towards the east and one can see the city of Aguadilla in the distance.

Getting settled in the Barrio

First of all, due to popular demand I have changed my blog colors to a bright new happy background from the former black industrial/goth theme I had before. Not too much new going on here, but I did want to post a few more pics. This morning I finally made it out to do some surfing. I hit Marias beach in Rincon which is on the west coast and was still getting a little bit of leftover swell and wasn't too blown out by the steady Northeasterly tradewinds. I have been having quite a bit of pain due to a rotator cuff injury I sustained, so although the waves were a bit smaller than the first couple days here ie about chest to shoulder high, I was still a bit trepidacious going in there. The paddle out wasnt too bad, but duckdiving - the technique used to go underneath oncoming waves, requires a pushup kind of motion which proved somewhat painful. I was able to catch a few decent rides though, nothing epic, but at least a good taste of the riches Puerto Rico has to offer. I was a bit sore afterwards but am optimistic and hopeful that my rotator cuff will continue to heal. To further that healing, I abstained from going out for an afternoon session.


So here's a picture of the balcony of the house where I am staying, where my landlords Eloy and Gladys live above me. My pad is right where the window A/C unit is and the front door is behind those palm-esque foliage.


This is the new ride, if I was staying longer I would consider painting it bright Yellow to help blend in with the locals.



This is the tiny little kitty that lives on the property here too, he's really cute. I think my thumb may be almost as big as his head.

First blog entry, ever!!

Can you believe it? I am so technically unhip it is ridiculous.. as if not owning any gaming consoles, no I-phone, not even a proper I-pod isnt bad enough, at least now I can say I've got a blog... and if this is anything close to how some friends describe Twitter, then one can surmise that I now have an actual life too!

So lets see whats been going on lately... for those of you tuning in late let me get you caught up. I just arrived in Puerto Rico early Thursday morning at around 4AM. Why JetBlue only has one flight from Orlando to Aguadilla that arrives at that time is still a mystery to me. My big board bag, which is about 8 ft long to hold both my 7'6" and 6'6" board didnt fit in the rental car, so luckily I unpacked my soft racks from my suitcase (thanks J. Kelley - and no, hes not related R. Kelly!) and drove from the airport down to my new digs, in Aguada / Guaniquilla / Carrizales... does anyone know which barrio this neighbourhood belongs to? Well the closest place on Google maps is Guaniquilla so it must be that. My landlord Eloy woke up and opened up the efficiency apartment I will be living in for the next few months... when I visited this place back around Thanksgiving, I don't think I truly realized how close to the beach my bedroom window is, it is literally 30 yards away!!! And on the night of my arrival there was a big N/NW swell hitting... I couldn't believe how loud the crashing waves were, talk about white noise... I crashed pretty quickly though, but woke up around 10:30 AM.

I went into Rincon to look for some used cars a friend had mentioned and also stopped off at a few of the breaks... Marias on the West Coast had the best conditions and biggest crowd (+3 ft overhead), and Tres Palmas was breaking too, with quite a few kamikazes out in that lineup as well. But I would not be tasting the water today (mercifully)... My mission was to find a used car to buy and I looked at this old SUV that an ex-pat was selling, but it didn't have paperwork ie Title, Registration, etc. so I didn't feel like pursuing that... so Plan B was to drive down some roads and look for the 'CVD' sign which signifies "Se vende" / For Sale. In Puerto Rico, it literally seems like every third car is for sale, and the ones which aren't are probably still very negotiable... I called the number on one of the cars and the guy on the other end explained to me that he wasn't selling a car, which got me to pondering how someone could put a car out by the side of the road for sale and then put the wrong number on it... mystifying indeed. I then went up to Aguadilla and checked out some used car lots... comforting to see that sleazy car salesmen are universal presence, but here all the guys look like either Don Omar, Daddy Yankee, Fat Joe or an amalgamation of those guys. "Que busques, Papi?" they would ask, and when I described a cheap $1500 car they either pointed me out to some total piece, or some other guy told me that he knew a friend who had Mitsubishi Mirage that would fit the bill, but that he couldn't contact him for another 2 hours... Sketch city, right?

Anyways, I luckily found this pretty good looking car on the side of the road. The owner was this cool old guy Luis A. Ventura, and he introduced himself that way too, and I was in awe. Aventura translates to "adventure" so to me this guy's name was about as cool as something like "Johnny Danger" or "Max Power". Very friendly crunchy guy though who is an artesan who makes jewelry out of Bamboo. So back to the car, it's a 96 Kia Sephia 4 door automatic transmission, with only 65k miles, but a little bit of body damage, small dents here and there and a long area where someone keyed it, but the interior and motor looked good. And it's got some small custom rims, essential for when I try to resell it!!

So, cutting to the chase, we agree on a price of $1700, and the next morning, Thursday, we go and transfer the title and registration. So I got me a sweet ride! And as a bonus, it fits both of my surfboards when you fold the backseats down. Pretty sweet... well there have been other adventures around here, but I need to post some pictures and get some sleep.

Quick guide to the pics: most are pics of my efficiency both from the inside and the outside, including a picture of the door to my domain, balcony where the landlords live above, a view of the beach from my front yard, and the typical daily sunset from the front yard as well... more pics on the way...