Oka-chan

I met Mr. Okamura of Yashio Factory through my boss when I first came to Japan. He is pretty good friends with my boss and comes out to the shop from time to time. Since I moved back, when ever he comes to the US, he gives me a call and I take him around to where ever he needs to go. I really don’t mind at all because he is pretty funny and fun to hangout with.

He has been coming out here reguarly this year for a Drift School event that D’s corporation puts on. Basically teach the basics of how to drift. Some of my buddies show up for it and most everyone there is pretty cool so its not too bad to spend the day in the sun.

This time around, he was on a tight schedule so we ended up just going to dinner. We had Shabu Shabu in Gardena. At dinner he saw that they had a ramen restaurant down the street. He jokingly said, lets go after we eat… It wasn’t a joke.  After we finished dinner. We went back to the hotel to rest for 30min and headed straight to the ramen restaurant.

This is what a ramen desert looks like. I knew I was in for trouble so I only ordered a half ramen and split his side dishes with him. All in all, he was satisfied and I was ready to blow.  Sometimes its really rough being a employee of a Japanese company. Props to the kids that waited an hour outside of Shin Sen Gumi Shabu Shabu to get autographs.

Muscle Blow

So I was trying to explain to my boss about what had happen with my arm and figured it would easier to show with pictures. Most people have never head of this injury and honestly I didn’t know about it until it happened to one of the guys at the gym.

I have what is called a pectoral tear. It usually happens to body builders that lift heavy or athletes. 50% of all cases come from body builders. John Cena just suffered this injury that will put him out for 6 – 8 months. The only way to fix it is through surgery. I don’t know the extent of the tear yet, and I won’t know until I get a MRI. Right now it feels like there is something missing at my armpit.  The tendon that is usually there feels like its gone. I still can’t really raise my arm and can’t reach backwards.

You can see how bad it is bruised. The bruising is supposed to subside in a couple of weeks and I should get limited mobility back. The only thing is that I will only get 40-45% of my strength back and my chest will be asymmetrical.  The trade off is that if I get surgery, I get 90-95% back and my chest will be symmetrical again. But I won’t be able to raise my arm for about a 6-8 weeks and have to go to 6 months of rehab.

コンビニ

In Japan, convenience stores(konbini) are everywhere. In the most remote back woods towns, you will find one. But its no where like an American 7-11.  They are really clean, have all sorts of things, and the food is damn good.  When I was still living in Japan, there was a 7-11 across the street from my apartment. I used to eat here all the time. My usual routine was to get dropped off there after work, buy food, go back to my apartment and enjoy dinner. I ate there so much, I knew the schedule of what they would have on what days. Honestly I never really got sick of it. Nothing to do? I go there and check out magazines. Hungry or thirsty? It was like my own personal refrigerator. I would have probably starved with out that place. So you can see, I have a special place in my heart for konbini.

Recently Family Mart has made a push in America under the name Famima! They opened one up pretty close to my house, but I never got a chance to check it out. I finally went there to see if it really stood up to the standard of Japanese konbini.  I bought what I would have usually ate if I was in Japan, Onigiri.  Basically its a rice ball, but a staple when it comes to konbini food. The scale is 5 better than Japan, 4 Japan par, 3 soso, 2 I can live without it, 1 shit is gross. Here is my review:

Tuna Onigiri (3 out of 5): I thought that it was pretty small. There wasn’t enough rice and even less filling. The flavor of the nori was just off for some reason. Same with the rice, just not quite right. But it was pretty good. I would eat it again if I was really hungry and in the mood.

Konbu Onigiri (3 out of 5): The konbu was actually marginally better than the tuna. Again same thing with the rice and nori. There was a decent amount of filling in it. About Japan standard.

Italian Pasta Salad (4 out of 5): I thought this was pretty tasty. Especially since the dressing in Japan is wack. Especially at Family Mart. The vegetables and pasta was fresh and not at all soggy.

Service (4 out of 5): As soon as I walked in, I was greeted. Every employee that saw me also greeted me. They even asked if I needed help finding something. I was really impressed. This is definitely up to Japan par.

Layout/ Cleanliness (4 out of 5): Seeing as I came in late night, the employees were busy stocking the shelves and cleaning up. The store was really clean and didn’t look like your average liquor store. I think they can use some POP on the walls to bring in more life to the drab walls. But the store is new and I am sure that will come with time.

Overall (3.8/5): You can’t expect the food to be exactly like in Japan. But the store is great. I think based upon the service alone I would come back and shop here. I would have bought a desert, but the portion was pretty big for one person. Maybe if I go with someone else I will try it next time.

Pop goes my armpit

I on the mat today taking a no-gi class. Nothing out of the ordinary. When it came time to roll, I had to roll with some idiot that I knew was going to be trouble from the beginning. Dude was your average muscle idiot. From the beginning of the class, the guy was way too eager. At the same time, it was apparent that he didn’t have a clue what he was doing. I don’t know if he was really there to learn jiu jitsu or so that he can tell his douche bag buddies that he does it.

Anyways, as soon as we start, the idiot goes wild. I stop him and told him to take it easy. His response was “Are you a beginner”? I just let it go and kept rolling. Well the fucker tries to muscle my arm in some arm bar attempt. Before I know it, I have a possible pectoral tear and laying face down on the mat in agony. His reaction? He chuckles, responding with “I don’t know what happened, we were just going nuts…” No man, you were going nuts.

I know that it was just an accident, but who laughs when they injure someone who is supposed to help them train. I mean, if I accidentally graze someone, I stop and ask them if they are alright. This faggot stands there and laughs while I am yelling in pain. Really classy. In no way is this reflective of the school I train at or, as a matter of fact, any other school I have ever been to. But every school has the douche bag newbie that has something to prove.

Now here I am in an arm sling and possibly out for the next 3-6 months. All because some dude’s ego.

Bushmaster ACR

When I first saw it, I fell in love with the Bushmaster M17S bullpup.  Compact and well balanced, plus it just looks tough. But I was bummed to find out that they discontinued production as of 2 years ago. That and that I will never own it as long as I live in California. But after reading a couple of blogs, I found that its not all its cracked up to be. Being that the action is behind the trigger, the gas and expended shell is released by your head. Still though, its pretty dope looking and accepts a standard M14 mag.

My newly revived love for firearms got me to reading and I found the Magpul Masada. Bushmaster has licensed and taken over production under the name Bushmaster ACR(Adaptive Combat Rifle).  Magpul has basically taken the best attributes from Armalite, HK and FNH to build a totally new weapon system. It also carries a hefty price to reflect it at 1,500USD. If they come out with a California compliant version, and I get some extra dough, it might be something to consider investing in.

All Shot Up

9 years ago, I was working at Dynamic Autosports. Y2k was coming and California decided to ban “Assault Rifles.”  They said it was alright for you to own a firearm that you can hide in your pants, but one that was bigger than your leg, that one is illegal. Well a couple of guys we knew started to buy all the ones that they could 1. thought they would ever want and 2. could afford.  The thought was that you better buy it now while they let you because you will probably never be able to own it again.  Mind you I was 20 years old at the time and had no real use for an AR-15.  I really couldn’t afford it, but it was too convincing. Plus if shit went down during Y2K I didn’t want to be one of those people with no way to fend for myself.

So I pulled the trigger(no pun intended… well maybe a little) and bought myself a Bushmaster lower reciever with an ASA bull barrel upper receiver. I also made sure to buy a couple 30 round magazines as the state of California decided to ban those too.  Man I am glad I did back then.  Shooting this thing is fun as hell. After recently buying a red dot sight. Shooting this thing is even better!  I never really thought too much of being able to use 30rnd mags until the guy in the lane next to me was oogling that we could shoot more than 10rnds at a time.

Thanks Ed, Aric, Weland and Mike for convincing a dumbass kid to invest in unecessary crap.

Plane Etiquette

Coming back from San Jose, what ever could go wrong, did.  The flight was delayed and I had to sit next to some fat idiot, that decided to snore the duration of the flight from San Jose to Long Beach.  I wanted to get up and chop him in the throat.  Sounds pretty extreme, but for all the time I spend in airplanes, I have developed certain criterias to feeling comfortable.  With that being said, there are couple key things are really piss me off when I am flying.

1. Delays: This can’t really be helped. If the plane is broken then what can you do. But its still annoying to have to wait.  What is even more annoying is the idiots who incessantly ask when will we get to board the plane. Hey douche bag, don’t you think they would have let you boarded by now if they could?

2. Bad service: This can really be applied to anything.  But  when you are stuck in a 3′x2.5′ area inside a tube for an extended period of time, the agony of bad service is exponentially magnified. I don’t know what those old bags(cabin attendant) on domestic airlines in the US came up with the idea that because of seniority, they have the right to treat you like you are supposed to sit in the back of the bus.  Don’t like your job, QUIT. Better yet, can them.

3. Kids: Don’t get me wrong. Its not like I hate all kids. Shit, I wouldn’t mind having some of my own one day. But seriously, if you can’t control them fuckers, don’t bring them on to an airplane. Especially to be stuck on a flight where there is no where to hide from them crying and pissing everyone off. I don’t know which one needs to disciplined. The little bastard crying or the dumb fuck parent sitting idley by letting the kids yell at the top of his lugs.

4. Fat fucks: Dude, if you are that big of a dude, figure out a way that you don’t encroach onto other people’s area. I mean seriously, you got to know that half your fucking arm is on top of me. If you are sitting in the window seat, basically expect to be locked in until Fat Bastard decides to get up.  On top of that you can generally expect lardos to snore pretty loud. I really wouldn’t be bummed if they gave an open seat to a fat ass dude.  I would much rather sit next to an old lady than some fat fuck.

Elbow hockey. Fat Dude 1 – Me 0.

FD

I set my norcal trip to include going to Formula Drift.  Since I wasn’t working with a team for this year, I didn’t have to attend any events. So I didn’t. But since I was already in the neighborhood, I figured I would go check it out. I went out there with Dave, his kid and his kid’s buddy.

I ran into lots of friends I haven’t seen in a long time. Coming out to the event when you don’t work anymore is like going back to your hometown.  People see you and ask you where you have been and what you are up to. I just tried to keep it short. We hung out with Eddie for a little while but didn’t stay for competition as we had to get back to San Jose.

My old team.

Bolsa’s finest.

Good luck to all the homies at the next stop in Irwindale.

San Jose

It was a while since I visited norcal and Dave had been asking me to come up. I figured I could get some stories out of the trip, so I booked a ticket through Jetblue and came up for the week.(really cheap by the way) As with everything I do since I quit drinking, it was pretty uneventful. I am not saying it was a waste of time, just nothing really exciting. The most exciting thing that went down was the police raid on the room adjacent to mine at the wonderful Motel 6 of Fremont. Its been a while since I had to stay in a scummy hotel.  But they had WiFi and HBO, so it wasn’t really all that bad.

I ended up not getting a photo shoot at Blox.  They are in the process of moving to a building triple the size of the one they are in now. I did however, get some great stories about the beginnings of Blox and info on new parts they are coming out with.  As soon as they get settled in, I will be making a trek back up to our exotic neighbor to the north.  Sorry Phil, I will make it a point to come up to the city next time.

Its amazing how they can find anything in this chaos, but everything is accounted for.

At least this section is some what organized.

Again more stuff. On the contrary the new place will be OSHA, ISO and Feng Shui compliant.

Mission

I put off putting my tranny back together for a couple months now. My excuse was that I couldn’t figure out where 1 washer went.  Therefore, I didn’t want to seal the case up.  Well I now figured out where the that single washer goes(only exists on B18C transmission by the way) but I have yet to figure out how to get it to shift.  The shift changing mechanism has been kicking my ass.  Going to take a break from working on it and figure it out once I get back from San Jose.