Sculpture Cycles

A couple weeks ago my roommate Marcus had a bike show in LA. He has a company called Sculpture Cycles that builds custom Harleys. I figured it would be a good way to celebrate my birthday on the beach, so I went along. My buddy Dave also came along, and a friend of Marcus's named Mandy came to help with the show.

We left at 6:30 AM on a Friday morning. We were in a big Ford F-250, hauling a big trailer in the back holding 3 big bikes and 1 big frame. It was about a 6 hour drive. The show was actually being held in Long Beach, right on the water, and we got there in the early afternoon. It took us a couple hours to set up the booth. Marcus has some "easy up" tents which took us about 20 minutes to put up. We later saw some other guy do it in about 20 seconds. The booth was 10 x 20, just big enough to hold everything.

Me on Steroids!"

Marcus has his own frame, that he designed, called the "Steroid Frame." I screwed on a couple of plates on the wheels of the display frame that he had there, so I could officially call myself a bike builder. Dave helped out with
a little spray painting. The rest of the show we talked up our professional bike building skills.

Me: So, how long have you been the head of painting at Sculpture Cycles?
Dave: Pretty much as long as I've been working here at Sculpture Cycles.

After we got everything set up, we zipped up the booth and headed to our hotel, the Holiday Inn. Then we headed to the beach for a little bit. Dave and I tried out his skimboard. Our skimboard skills were somewhat akin to our bike building skills, but it was fun.

That night Dave and I drove around looking for something to do. We had heard there was a big singles activity, but we couldn't find it, so we finally ended up at In 'N' Out Burger. I saw a guy with a couple of girls at a table outside...

Me: "I bet those guys are Mormons."
Dave: "You think?"
Me: "I dare you to go ask them if they're Mormons."
Dave: "Shut up... all right." (Walks over to their table.)
Dave: "I was wondering if you could settle a question for me. My friend over there thinks you guys are Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Why??"
Dave: "I guess you look like Mormons."
Them: "What??" "Naaaahhhh!!" "Get out!!"
Dave: "OK... thanks anyway."

That was our entertainment for the evening.

On Saturday morning we finished setting up the booth, and prepared for people to come by. We all had our Sculpture Cycles T-shirts on, and I picked up some of the relevant info about the bikes so I could act like I knew what I was talking about.

Passer-by: "This is some pretty trick stuff!"
Me: "Yeah, this is the steriod frame, we designed it ourselves. The back wheel is a 360, it's the biggest wheel currently available on the market. We've got a 120 inch merch engine in there. The price starts at 48K, and you can go up to about 80K depending on what options you want. This particular bike goes for 68K. The stretch is 4 inches..." (etc.)

I sold one T-shirt for $20, but no bikes.

After working the booth for a few hours, we walked around and checked out the other booths. There were a lot of really intense bikes.













Then Dave and I headed back to the beach. First we stopped off and Dave bought a boogie board. The waves were big and we had a fun time trying to catch them.

That night we went to a "VIP party" on the Queen Mary, a former cruise ship now serving as a hotel right close to where the bike show was being held. After 10 minutes of the loud party, Dave, Mandy and I headed out to explore the ship. Marcus stayed to schmooze with bike vendors, or something. The ship was pretty cool, and it was nice to be right there on the ocean.

Sunday was my birthday, but I didn't really do anything official to celebrate. We went back to the show for a couple of hours, then Dave and I went to church, at the Eldorado ward. After church we went back for the end of the show. The show winners were announced in the various classes. Unfortunately, they switched locations for entering bikes in the show, and so our Franken-Buell didn't get entered. It likely would have won the Sportster class. The winning bike for best-of-show was a crazy looking over-the-top cowboy themed chopper, which I didn't get a picture of unfortunately.

After the winners were all announced, the show was pretty much over, and we spent a couple more hours tearing down the booth, and loading up the bikes. We had dinner at Red Brick Pizza and some ice cream from Coldstone. We went back to the hotel and relaxed in the hottub.

Monday we slept in, then went to see one of Marcus's suppliers, called American Suspension. The owner, a guy named Vince, who Mandy said looked like an older version of Fabio, gave us the tour. They have a pretty big operation there, where they build the motorcylce front ends. I ran some rough numbers and figured out that they are probably a 10 to 20 million a year company.

As we were driving away I saw a house-for-sale sign in a yard, so I called up to check the price. It was a paltry 700K for a 1300 square foot house in about a 20 year old neighborhood. Maybe Phoenix isn't as expensive as I thought...

After the tour we all went to the beach and tried some more boogie-boarding. The sea was angry that day, my friends, like an old man trying to send back soup at a deli... so we (or at least I) got pretty beaten up by the waves. But it was still fun. And we of course did some obligatory frisbee tossing for a little bit.

After the beach we headed home. I drove for a couple hours. Not very fun, too big of a rig. But I got used to it after a while. We got home around 1 AM.

As we left the show on Sunday, the guy selling sunglasses at the booth next door, Tim, said, "Hope to see you at the next show." So I guess I'm going to have to go to Sturgis!

A Tragic Day (Pronounced in a high pitched voice like in Babe The Pig)

For many years, I have had an infinite number of email addresses. For the domain names that I manage, I have generally used a "catch-all" email address, meaning that any email that wasn't assigned to someone else would go to me. Certain people have had fun with this and used email addresses such as NateIsTheCoolestManAlive@lc.com or NateMustDie@lc.com.

However, those happy times are behind us now. Due to the ever increasing flood of spam, I can no longer handle all the email that goes into the catch-all's net. I do have a good spam filter, but spammers send to hundreds and thousands of made up email addresses (e.g. 1@lc.com, 2@lc.com, 3@lc.com, etc.) in the hopes of guessing valid ones. With the catch-all in place, all of them go to me. So even if only .1% of spams are getting through, it's still too many to deal with.

This was a tough decision to make, because I've been haphazardly making up and using different random email addresses here and there over the years, such as amazon.com@lc.com. This allowed me to see who was selling my info, and it was also just a nice convenience. Now a lot of those emails will no longer get through. But unfortunately that is a price that has to be paid to cut down on all the stinking spam.

I know you were probably on the verge of sending an email address to NateShouldRunForPresident@lc.com or possibly IDesperatelyWantToGoOnADateWithNate@lc.com, but it was not to be. To quote Milli Vanilli, "It's a tragedy for me to see, the dream is over."

Serious About Making a Contribution

This guy will attend 180 baseball games at 180 different ballparks, over the course of 175 days. He's visiting every major or minor league park in the country. He's doing it to raise money for cancer research.

That's a lot of baseball... and a lot of driving! I hope he reaches his goals.

Super Z

This past Wednesday night I went to see Superman Returns with my almost-4-year-old nephew Z.

First we loaded up his cool Spiderman backpack with candy and bottled water, so we wouldn't have to shell out big cash at the theater. (Don't want security to get suspicious. Mr. Pibb and Red Vines equals Crazy Delicious...)

As we were leaving my little niece Caz kept repeating something, and Kim interpreted it as "I want to go with you." So we had a heart wrenching little scene where we had to desert my sweet baby. But she's not quite old enough for a movie.

As expected, the theater wasn't very crowded on a Wednesday night; we climbed to the top of the stadium seating and sat in the middle of the row. The previews started, and Z got a little confused with the plot. He kept asking me "What's happening?" and I told him "Just another commercial for a different movie."

Finally, after about 20 million previews, the studio plug, the producer plug, the sound system demonstration, the turn-off-your-cell-phone ad, etc., etc., the movie started. Z did pretty well for about half the movie, but then he started getting antsy. I think he was just bored since he didn't understand the plot enough to know what was going on. I tried to explain what was happening but I must not have been very effective.

After we ate all the candy and he didn't have anything else to do, he said the dreaded words... "I have to go potty." So we climbed over everyone and ran to the bathroom. I kicked over some poor guy's popcorn on the way out. After we got back Z was good for a few more minutes, but then he got bored again. "I want some popcorn." So we climbed over everyone again and went and bought some popcorn. Then five minutes after we got back... "I have to go potty."

At that point I gave up on the movie, so after visiting the potty again we played a few video games and then headed out. AMC was kind enough to give me a free pass so I could come back and see the end sometime.

We walked by Cold Stone on the way out, so we decided to get some ice cream. Z chose Reeces for his "mix in," but then after we got it he decided he didn't like it. That was OK because I didn't mind finishing it off. We tried again and this time he chose "the blue one" which was cotton candy. We took it to go, and he ended up not wanting that one either when we got home, but Hyrum and Kim pitched in and finished it off.

In the future I think I'll stick with Pixar movies for kids under age 5, but it was fun times nonetheless.

Why?

My niece is going through a cute phase where she asks "Why?" whenever you say anything. Apparently she got it from my nephew, although I don't remember him doing it.

So a conversation might go something like this:

Caz: "What's that?"
Me: "A tie."
"Why?"
"Because I went to church."
"Why?"
"Because it's Sunday."
"Why?"
"Because it's the first day of the week."
"Why?"
"Because of the Romans or the Gregorians, I'm not sure."
[ponders...]
"Are you busy?"
"No."
"Daddy's busy."
"I see. Are you busy?"
"No, I'm Caz."

This guy traded a Red Paperclip for a house.

This guy started with a red paper clip and kept trading up till he got a house. Looks like he's moving to Kipling, Saskatchewan. Hmm... maybe I don't want a house THAT badly, eh?

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No More TV

I get on a weird cycle of TV watching lately, where I don't watch any TV for a couple of weeks, then I come home late on a Friday or Saturday and sit down to watch a few minutes, but then it turns into a few hours, and after multiple infomercials and Elimidate episodes, I end up sleeping in till noon the next day and throwing off my schedule for the entire next week. So then I vow to stop watching TV "for good," only to repeat the same sequence a few weeks later.

I figured the best way to overcome this habit is to go public with my plans to quit. So as of today, July 2, 2006, I am committing to no longer watch any TV, (except possibly for pre-planned social situations such as major sporting events).

By telling the world, I'm hoping it'll make it more difficult to slip back into the Carleton Sheets cycle. Your job is to keep me honest, so next time you see me, feel free to follow up!