GO BEARS!!!

Still in Eugene, OR. Sorry, no pictures this time. It's been a crazy 2 days here in Eugene. Let's see, here are some summaries:

0. The first night we went to Eugene City Brewing Company. It was kinda boring there. It was a trivia night and Andy's law school friends were all into it but we were feeling more rowdy, drunk crowd. So we took off to go to "Renny's" after stealing their hats. Now I have a memorabilia that will forever remind of Eugene. We were pretty drunk already by this point, Andy more so than I. In fact, Andy took me on a nice tour of Eugene on our walk to Renny's. Somehow we managed to completely get lost and walk for about an hour just to come back to the place where we started. Thanx Andy! See if I ever ask you for directions again. Anyways, Mills' other friends Sam and Casey to the rescue. They came down from Portland and they picked us up and we all headed to Renny's.

1. Renny's. Too much beer...I must have talked to almost everyone in that place. I met this huge dude and 2 of his friends (he must have been at least 6' 4" and 300lb.) who went by the name "Killer Bunny" who invited me to come deer hunting with them the next day. I would've been totally down except for the fact I had a football game to go to. My classic line from the night: "I'm gonna use being Asian to go talk to these people."

2. I went to one of the greatest college football games I've ever been to, and the fact that I was that token Cal fan in the entire student section full of Duck fans, it was extra fun to get rowdy and loud. You Cal fans would've been proud of me. In fact, it's a miracle I didn't get my ass kicked in the student section. I was extra loud, obnoxious, and annoying just to rub it in. GO BEARS! Dixon their mouths. They were selling these shirts that said "Dixon your mouth", I was yelling "You better change that to Dixon my mouth.", and I got one of the fans to take the shirt off and fold it away. Ha...sucker!

3. I've never eaten so many burritos within a period of 48 hours. I think every meal I've had here in Eugene except for two has been from this place called "Burrito Boy". I was surprisingly impressed with how good it was though. Every college needs one of those places: a 24-hour burrito joint.

Anyways, it's time to let my brain and liver recover from the last 2-day bender. It's been 2 solid days of straight up partying. I'm really starting to like Eugene. Well, what I know of Eugene is only right around the campus but this would've been a fun place to go to school. In fact, Eugene reminds me a lot of Berkeley except smaller with less diversity. Well it's time to leave Eugene and head to Portland. Andy has been a wonderful host here in Eugene and I owe him one even though he did take me on an hour long walk around Eugene on a rainy day. Thanx bro. Good bye Eugene. It's been good...

The saga continues...

September 28, 2007 pm

Current Location: In the William Knight Law Library at U of Orengon in Eugene, OR
Next Destination: Portland, OR
Miles driven: 596 miles

Oh man. So here I am in Eugene, OR and I already have a handful of stories to go along with my journey upto this point. Bertha has been acting up pretty much ever since we left the Bay Area. Well it's really my fault for overloading her electrical system with an 800W inverter through a cigarrette lighter socket. Anyways, long story short, her charging system wasn't working so the batteries weren't getting charged at all. So every time I drove, the batteires would drain and I would pull into these towns with no headlights, no signals to my transmission so it's stuck in the 4th gear. Pretty sketchy way to drive in the middle of the night. Anyways, I had to go through all kinds of testing and tinkering to finally have located the problem and fix it. For the first time since we left San Francisco, Bertha is back in a full stride as of yesterday. Oh, I also managed to overheat her twice already coming up here. Turns out the camper is the back is pretty damn heavy. Anyways, let's get to the juicy stories. So here are bits and pieces from the trip so far.

I was riding my bike around Ukiah, CA. I came across this thing. A Buddhist mecca: The City of Thousand Buddahs. That's right you heard me right. In the outskirt of Ukiah, there's a Buddhist University called the City of Thousand Buddahs. Kinda crazy. Of all places, I would've never expected to find a Buddhist university in Ukiah, CA. I went inside to check it out just to be greeted by a Chinese guy sporting a full-on Fu Man Chu style mustaches and goatee. It was awesome. I wish my facial hair would grow like that. I wanted to take a picture with him but he was busy. Anyways, this is actually a Buddhist K-12 and university. The inside is hella tranquil and there are a butt load of pea cocks walking around on campus. It once used to a mental institution but due to insufficient funding, they had to close their doors. That's when this Buddhist master bought the place and turned it into a University. They have grown rapidly since then and now they have campuses all over California including Long Beach, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Sacramento, and in Berkeley as well. In fact they have a post-graduate proram in Buddhist Studies affiliated with UC Berkeley. Anyways, this was definitely not the type of place you would find freshmen engaging in blackouts and random sexual escapades. In fact, check out the next picture. Here are the rules.

I like the last sentence in the Rule #2. "Therefore uneccessary socializing is discouraged." What a difference from Cal. In fact, my life at Cal was all about unnecessary socializing. I have a feeling I wouldn't make a good student here, not that I was a stellar student at Cal either but that's a whole different story...

I would make a good Buddah, dont' you think?

This is taken at the biggest movie theater in Eureka, CA. Just to give you an idea of how early this town closes down, the latest movie time is 6:45pm. 6:45pm, are you serious? Good thing bars still stay open till 2 here which leads me into the next story...

Here's a shot of Troy and Daniel inside their trailer home. So after dinner, I went out to this bar called Boiler room in Eureka, CA where a town billiard tournament was taking place. People in this town took their pool seriously. They had their special billiard gloves and all brought their own cue sticks. It was entertaining to watch them all get into it. Anyways, the bartender there, Jordan, used to live in the Bay Area. In fact, she used to work at Barclay's when they used to be in Jack London Square. Barclay's used to be where the Silkroad is now, right across the street form Everett and Jones, the place I got fired from after 2 weeks. Wow, I just had a major dejavu. Weird. Anyways, seeing how I used to bartend at E&J and we instantly had something in common and she bought me a drink. Well that one drink led to another then to another, before I knew I must have been 7 shots of whiskey deep. Well what does this all have to do with Troy and Daniel above, you ask? Well this is how it goes. So at the end of the night, I got started talking to Troy. Troy was this crazy ex-marine who was very well read (despite his appearance of being a crazy hunter with whom you would associate guns before books) and had ways with his words so we talked about books, races, politics, etc. Well at the end of the night, Troy invited me over to his place for a night cap which I gladly accepted not that I needed another drink or anything but I like hanging out with strangers. Their stories always fascinate and entertain me. Well so I ended up going back to his trailer home where his wife was asleep and his son Daniel was up playing Grand Theft Auto. I've never been inside of a trailer home before and as expected it was a small space but they had everything they needed in there. Long story short, I sat there drank beer, smoked joints (I don't even remember the last time I smoked a joint), watched Daniel play GTA, randomly saw his wife pop out to smoke a cigarette, ate one of the best sandwiches I've had in a long time (Troy's got some sandwich skills, let me tell ya), listened to Troy bitch about Daniel's laziness yet praise his artistic abilities (Daniel was an awesome painter though. I tried to get him to draw something on the side of my camper), play impromtu music with the sea shell and a bean pod shaker (that's what Troy and Daniel are holding in the picture), then walked home, well to my Bertha, with a pair of black leather mafia gloves Troy gave me for the the walk home (the foggy nights in Eureka are freezing by the way). Oh yeah, I completely forgot about it until the next morning, but Troy also pocketed me a roach and a nug for those emergencies. What a generous guy! Troy, if you ever make it down to Bay Area or wherever I end up, you are more than welcome to stay with me anytime. Needless to say I woke up the next morning with a vicious hangover and had to work on Bertha all day and drive to Cresecent City. But hey, it was all worth it. Thank you Troy and Daniel for a memorable night. I'll now forever have a fond memory of Eureka, CA.

Here's Bertha finally getting out of California. Very exciting! By the way, the drive from Crescent City, CA on Hwy 199 through Smith River NRA is absolutely gorgeous. I would love to go fishing and camping in that river some other time!

I'M TOO SEXY FOR SHIRT...TOO SEXY FOR MY SHIRT!!! Here I am in the locker room of U of O recreational center. So I had my first shower since I left Berkeley last night here in Eugene, OR. Against all my odds (not being a U of O student), I decided to take my chances anyway, and it paid off. The guy at the front (Thanx, Pat!) to let me go in for a quick shower. Man it felt so good to wash all that sweat, Bertha fluid, and filth off of me as you can tell by my shit-eating grin on my face. What happens after this shower is quite comical. By the way, U of O has a very nice rec center. Most definitely better than RSF at Cal.

So I met this really nice married couple, Cody and Melissa, as I was leaving the locker room. I was in a good mood last night as I just had my first shower since Berkeley, Bertha is finally fully functional, and was definitely in a mood to go out and have a drink or two and hang out with the locals. I asked them what they recommend a guy does in Eugene if he's in town for 2 days. I was expecting them to tell me what bars to go to, where to go to see all the young people, etc. Well they recommended me to hike a hill in Southern Eugene where you can see the whole town from the top. That's cool. I like hiking. I like nature. So maybe that's not so much into bars and drinking but that's cool. Who am I to judge, right? Well we got started talking and I was telling them about my veg oil trip and before I know, they invited me over to their friend's place for ice cream and dessert and I gladly accepted. It's not exactly beer, but who doesn't like ice cream? On top of that, I was gonna get a chance to hang out with a bunch of locals. I was all for it. So we walked over to their friend's place. I walk in and there's a lot more people than I thought. There must have been at least 15 people there all sitting around in a circle. One guy had a bongo, and another had a drum that I don't know the name of, and Cody had brough his guitar, so I thought to myself, being a music lover that I am, "cool, they are gonna jam out". Jam out they did, alright, they jammed some serious warship songs. And let me tell you, these people got into it. Some were dancing, for one song they all stood up, they were raising their hands....it was a real deal. Some of the songs they were singing were rocking, I do have to admit, but I just felt so out of place and found the whole situation just so humorous. Here I was, a complete agnostic, borderline atheist, sitting in a Christian circle rocking out to warship songs hanging out with people who use joke words like "praiderobics" and "praiselleluia". Hey Cody and Melissa, if you are reading this, I'm not mocking you guys at all, in fact I give all of you guys props for being good Christians and inviting a random stranger to an intimate circle of faith and being so very hospitable. You guys are good people. You are all alright in my book. I just found it funny that my night turned out to just about 180 degrees different from what I was expecting. Hey maybe it's a sign. Maybe God is trying to tell me something. Here I was trying to go out party and drink, instead I found myself in the middle of a Christian rock out circle. Anyways, another story for the book. By the way, Cody and Melissa, you guys ever need a place to stay wherever I happen to be, my doors or my truck is wide open for you guys.

Anyways, that's about the jist of the trip so far. I'm meeting up with Mills' friends from high school tonight here in Eugene, OR. I have a feeling tonight is gonna be a little different from last night. The bears are playing the ducks here tomorrow. (GO BEARS!) I would love to go to the game but it's sold out. I just might have to watch it at a bar or I might just end up driving to Portland. In my original schedule, I was supposed to be in Portland by today. But I would love to be the opposing fan in a bar full of duck fans. We'll see... Now I have to go collect some grease...I'm burning through the WVO a lot quicker than I had expected or hoped. I hope to fully re-stock my grease by the time I leave Portland. Oh by the way, every restaurant outside of the Bay Area uses the liquid shortening to fry their foods. It's terrible. One because I can't use shortening in my truck. Two because it's bad for your health as well. You wonder why Americans are so fat and have a lot of heart problems. Alright singing out from Eugene, OR....stay tuned.

The adventure begins...

9/23/07 11am

Current Location: Berkeley, CA
Destination: Sacramento, CA
Miles driven: 0

FINALLY!!! Big Bertha (that's my truck, in case you haven't caught on) is ready and we are hitting the road! She and I have been through a lot last couple of weeks getting ready for the trip. Just to give y'all an idea of how massive she is, I have included a pic of her next to Tommy's honda. She is a lot of woman...let me tell ya. Well, wish us luck and I'll keep you all updated on our adventure and mishaps through this blog.


That's about 115 gallons of waste vegetable oil (WVO from now on) in the cab section of Big Bertha. She's carrying a lot of junk in her trunk and still running strong. What a woman!

That's the inside of my home for the next 3 months. It's a bit hard to see but it's got everything I need. A queen size bed, stove, oven, fridge, wall heater, shower, shitter, table, couch that folds out to another bed. It's a 1967 El Dorado camper...OLD SCHOOL BABY! Everything works and is in a great shape except for ONE small leak that happens to be right over my bed. Of course...it HAS TO BE right over my head. Pretty easy fix though. It would be no fun if everything was perfect...










That's me filling up Bertha's tank with WVO last night. My back tank is full of biodiesel which is also made from WVO. Not a single drop of petroleum based fuel in Bertha. She's big, she's tough, she's a hippie....I DIG IT! No more global warming, no more dependency on oil, no contribution to $26 billion/month petroleum-related trade deficit, no more reason for atrocities like Gulf war and Iraq war, and recycling of waste material. God, I'm such a fuckin' hippie.


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