One of the few houses that I’ve always had my eyes on went on the market recently, however I didn’t get a good look until today while cycling through the neighborhood. 16131 Viewfield Rd., or otherwise known to me as ‘that green house off of hwy 9′

I’m not sure why I like it, please do not ask me to explain - I just do. Yes, my standard answer when it comes to all my strange knacks such as Kid Robot, various vinyl toys, and Taco Bell crispy tacos. Maybe it provokes grandeur? or an lost elegance? or maybe because it’s green (I’m not too fond green by the way), but I enjoy this house.

So obviously your next question is if I love it and if it’s for sale then will I be purchasing this said house? No. Not because I think the price is absurd, I actually think it’s quite reasonable - if you know this area, Monte Sereno, and lived in the Bay Area long enough to be numbed to real estate prices, but I just can’t afford that lofty $3MM they’re asking. Therefore it’s time to work harder…or start playing the lotto. Maybe that’s my problem, haven’t been playing that is.

Besides, I still want a place in Palo Alto. Yes that $2.1MM condo shocked me, however I guess it’s the quintessential trait of an optimist that I’m not giving up. Not as gung ho as before, but well…anyways…just taking my time. Like relationships, one can’t just rush head first into this stuff…especially if I plan on spending the next 5-10 years there.

But…Viewfield is beautiful, don’t you think? I sure do. Maybe when I win the lotto…

16131 Viewfield Road | Monte Sereno | Ca

-Wallace

This past Wednesday Zephan and I took two Club Sportiva cars out for a photoshoot - a Ford Shelby GT and a Lotus Elise. Zephan drove the Shelby and I took the Elise, sounds fun right? Well…an Elise in San Francisco traffic is comparable to bringing a swiss army knife to a gun fight. It’s small, tiny actually but very nimble and its quick acceleration definitely helped me navigate around the giants occupying the streets.

However by the end of morning I had enough of the Elise, I couldn’t wait to climb, yes climb, out of it for the last time. This car makes a wonderful track vehicle but completely impractical as a street vehicle, not sure how I even contemplated this as a daily driver.

The getting in and out of process is labor intensive and quite technical. Say good-bye to skirt wearing girlfriends, or any girlfriend at all - a member was telling me there was no way his wife would have gotten into that car, after being suckered once. Don’t get me wrong, the car is an absolute blast to drive, as Rick puts it - the go-karts of go-karts, however the irony being that it’s a street car, not a go-kart.

With this said I’d like to switch things up and roll out in something plush next time. The Maserati Quattroporte, or Bentley Continental GT, and if they acquire one - the Maserati GranTurismo would be a definite pick. Maybe for Opera night, for a few of these many holiday parties I’ll be attending, or really just for a weekend Napa getaway for the two of us.

-Wallace

Some time ago Rick (of LeMans Karting in Fremont) asked me if I’ve ever heard of ‘Club Sportiva’ - I told him I see them and their trailer at multiple motorsport events, but have never inquired on who or what they actually were. I thought they were just a bunch of old guys who loved classic cars, who got together regularly for drives out to nowhere, well…picnic at the beach, or wine tasting through Napa, that sort of thing.

What Rick mentioned next was a bit of a shock. He told me that he is thinking about buying them out.

And he did just that, he along with a small group of well heeled individuals bought out Club Sportiva, and I have come to learn that Club Sportiva is not just a bunch of old guys wearing ascots in their Jaguar E-Types but a Car Organization similar to Marquis Jets. Once you’re a member you have access to a wonderful garage of automobiles that not only enthusiasts would enjoy but the general public as well. We’re talking modern day cars such as the Lamborghini Gallardo, Ferrari F430, Bentley Continental GT, Maserati Quattroporte, Audi R8, and the list goes on.

Club Sportiva had a member’s only party this past Thursday and Sia, Shebani and myself were amongst the invited. Of course I took photos (as Crystal was sick at home), but what a fun filled evening. Met a few contacts, as well as ran into Matthew of Silicon Valley Auto Group who brought up none other then the James Bond Aston Martin DBS. Another 50 members and that DBS will be a Club Sportiva Car.

Although the event was nothing short of fabulous we worked up an appitite, therefore I quickly made reservations at Salt House then we silently slid out the front door and over to oysters, poutine, and duck confit. A Grand Evening. See more pics on Flickr.

-Wallace

Patrick Ma, aka OtterX of Rocketworld and TAD Gear seems to be one of those guys that I can ramble on and on about nearly anything with. As Jonathan pointed out in our first meeting sometime last year we have parallel interests in everything from vinyl figures, Panerai watches, SyCip and Vanilla bicycles, and so on and so forth.

I finally got the time to shoot his beloved Vespa G.S. 160, believe it or not he had at one point 3 of these things lying around, but this was his baby. Patrick’s baby started off being shipped to the contus via parted out and boxed up in the most mind grabbing powder pink with bubbles paint job. You can tell Patrick quickly remedied this through with a fresh minty green paint job. Next it was time to figure out what needed to be fixed and what needed to be replaced, and what needed to be pimped.

It took quite some time but he finally sorted everything out. Those other 2 Vespas I mentioned were donors, they were pillaged for what Patrick needed then sold off when spent. After some time, a couple years if not few years I believe Patrick finally assembled something up to Rocketworld specs. To gauge cost - the little cylinder lock on the glove box of this thing ran $350, not to mention he had to scrounge Vespa graveyards all over Italy and the U.K. to find parts for his Vespa. Total build on this thing ran over $15k - more then his new Ducati. Some passions take on a life, and bank account, of their own and this is certainly one of them.

However it is gorgeous, and Patrick trying to look thug along a Vespa is just hilarious. Check out the rest of the shoot in my Flickr.

-Wallace

A couple weeks ago Zoli mentioned a fresh contraption by Griffin that strangely enough sounded like a phonograph - yes, as in Thomas Edision. So here we were at dinner in downtown Palo Alto in a time where even compact disc players were out dated by digital streamable formats and here is a Real Estate Tech Guru excited over something that merely amplifies what we know as ’sound.’

The very next day I did a little bit of googleing and found the Griffin Aircurve, and unlike most over-priced IPhone accessories this was in my personal opinion, well priced at $19.99. I quickly got down to the nearest Apple Store and they did not stock these yet, nor do I think they do now - therefore, never one to waste time, I ordered it directly from Griffin. To my benefit, there was no tax, and no shipping - nice! However the Aircurve was on back order and I would need to wait the better part of a week.

It finally arrived this past Tuesday and so far I’m loving it. This thing is great as a portable speaker, I love it as its so simple. No wires, no mess, and really nothing to break. It’s made of one huge piece of polycarbonate, okay actually 2 pieces but they’re bolted together by four polished torx screws. Select a tune, put it down, and walk away - it’s literally that simple. I figure this is great for overnight backpacking/camping trips, hotel stays, travel in general as well as NPR podcasts.

Now, before you run out and buy one I need to tell you that the IPhone itself doe not have the world’s best speaker, so expecting audiophile quality sound out of the Aircurve will result in massive disappointment. At $19.99 it’s a conversation piece, it’s more fun then anything else I’ve purchased from/for Apple but please be clear - they’re nothing close to a pair of B & W’s.

-Wallace

Do you ever wonder what happens to all those cached images in all those massive search engine browsers? Or just who tracks your website? I stumbled upon Archive.org or the ‘Wayback Machine’ they call it. I had a good laugh. Check it out - ADE on the Wayback Machine.

-Wallace

Quite a bit has happened since my last entry. Obama entered the history books as America’s first Black President and as far as the rest of the world is concerned California voted through Proposition 8. While Obama is busy fulfilling his Hope promise we’re riding the political coattails, until the world returns to normal a small group of us celebrated many things at Il Fornaio in Downtown Palo Alto. Michael had a small gathering to ‘catch up’ and notify everyone that he was en route to Italy for the following 3 months…as well as a small hoorah in obviously liberal Palo Alto.

It was an early and very fun evening of wine, appetizers and story telling - I mean everyone in this area seems to want to meet a venture capitalist, and usually for whatever half thought out, but backwards get rich quick scheme they’ve conjured up one drunk happy hour. However meeting venture capitalists in the confidence of friendship and fellowship harbor some of my most entertaining business related evenings. This was no exception - a very entertaining evening wrapped up with an excellent orecchetti at Vero Ristorante.

The next day I picked Michael up and shuttled him down to San Jose BMW where he picked up his previously wrecked Vespa. He was side swiped earlier in the year while he was riding his Vespa downtown…the one and only time hear about him actually riding that thing, and I guess only an Italian could pull off the canary yellow with matching helmet and gloves. That evening, since Crystal was out of town for one of her friend’s birthday’s Sunny and I drove up into the City to celebrate Jonathan’s 29th birthday at Le Colonial . Happy Birthday Jon! Without getting into details, it was an rather entertaining evening. Let’s just say Sunny was addicted to Mandarin & Tonics, Alycia started to croak around 2am and my efforts to avoid the ticketmaid were unsuccessful. Them and their damn trikes. I know they’re it’s an unthankful line of work, but at this point…I’m sick of them. They should learn how to flip burgers, I mean…it did well for Harry Snyder.

I finally got home sometime between 3:30am and 4am only to be up and awake again by 7:30am. We had a busy day ahead of us with DSF-USA. We sold out all 3 sessions offered on Sunday, which was great because it injected us with some much needed motivation. The last couple of months our efforts were focused on prepping and pulling off the NCAC BBQ, it’s nice to pull back and focus back on Driving Safety Foundation.

A slew of characters showed up including Derek Mau of CarReview.com, Doug Ellsworth of Ellsworth Automotive, and Barespeed.com - not to mention visits from Mountain View Fire Department and Mountain View Police. It was a successful re-entry into DSF. More pictures on my flickr.

As DSF wrapped up I finally got to see Crystal again, and for that moment my life returned to ‘normal’ or at least what’s considered normal to us. I guess it was a sense of relief, I could laugh again, and eventually collapsed due to overall exhaustion. It’s been a long and restless weekend, on one hand I was glad it was over - on the other I wished I had more time to myself. Hopefully we’ll have more ‘alone’ time next weekend. It’s been a crazy past few weekend.

-Wallace

If you followed the SF Bay Area forecast for the past few days you would realize why I was a bit more then hesitant on cycling 100k yesterday. Rain, Rain and more Rain was what the forecast predicted, although Sunday was spotted showers and the tapering of last week’s storm. Still, if it wasn’t for Lisa and Cely telling us, “Hey, we’re going rain or shine!” I would have happily backed out. So it was small group of us (Lisa, Mo, Marcely, Andie, Doug, Sam, Tru and I) that braved the elements, and headed up to Lodi, Ca.

Most of us arrived in Lodi late Saturday evening then grabbed dinner at a local eatery that I failed to find the name of. All I know was that it is located in Woodbridge, Ca, a door down from Uncorked Wine Bar and they had escartgo on the menu of all things, along with a cajun rubbed, blackened prime rib that was awfully delicious. We retreated after and prepped for Sunday’s big ride - fingers crossed for spotted showers and some sun.

This year just happened to be the 10th annual Giro D’Vino, hosted by the Delto Velo Cycling Club, a 100 kilometer bike tour that loops through Lodi’s rapidly expanding wine valley. Instead of the usual water stops, we had wine tastings at a variety of wineries along the route.

As you can see from the photos the weather was better then any of us had imagined. Saturday’s storm must have tapered off somewhere in the early morning as we woke up to clear skies and sunshine. We arrived at Woodbridge Winery somewhere around 8:30am and geared up, registered and began promptly at 9am. My suspensions of Lodi were confirmed, this ride had an elevation change of somewhere between 0 ‘ and 50 ‘ - meaning…even at 100 kilo, this was going to be cake.

We probably enjoyed ourselves more so then any other group on the tour. As with every tour there’s that group that wants to place first - individual and tandem, then there’s the few who’s just rude, warning people to stay out of their way and slower traffic should be on the right. Although I’m fortunate enough not to have run into any of these, the funniest I heard through our group was a tandem team who couldn’t get in sync, but the captain was barking at everyone - watch out, get out of our way, and then to his stroker - get in sync! stop pushing me! etc. What an awful way to spend a relaxed Sunday afternoon. Either way, as Doug said we were intent on getting our registration fee’s worth…which meant we were drinking our way to the finish line.

Sam sure took that to heart, he stopped at every winery he could get away with and fully partook his share and then some. I think he enjoyed more wines then the rest of us - some of us were looking for wines comparable to napa, but those who knew Lodi realized that although Lodi has some fantastic wines the majority of the wines we were going to taste were going to be fermented grape juice at best - and much of the Italian inspired wineries that was what we got. Out of those, I enjoyed Vino Con Brio by far.

I’m not sure how many registered for this event but it sure seemed like a whole lot at the beginning, easily a few hundred. The peloton, or I would realize later just our short section, really shortened after lunch at Vino Con Brio. We never figured out if that A Group just moved that fast - if they did they must have blown by a few wineries, where we attempted to stop at every one that met our path, but we assumed the more likelier of the two scenarios - they took the 50k route post lunch. Out of the wineries on the 100k path, I enjoyed our tasting at a small tasting room in Vino Piazza the best, a winery called ‘Watts‘ which had excellent representations of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc and as expected a zinfandel.

With just about 15 miles left on our tour we stopped at Chocoholics where we refilled on sweets, and once again vino. At this point Marcely had enough and wanted to skip our final tasting at Heritage Oaks and take a short cut to Woodbridge. Sam, Tru and I had a different idea and encouraged the group to stick to the route and finish the ride as planned, the short cut would have only saved 2 miles…and what is 2 miles when one has already done 60?

As with any distance event the last few miles are the ones that test you, and as we neared the end of our tour the rolling hills that I jokingly said were highway over passes materialized and although generally it’s something we’d mash through the mileage and wine tasting had obviously taken a toll. Our group spread out to the distance of about 3 miles (my estimate anyways). Lisa and Mo at the break away followed by Doug and Sam. I waited for Cely and Tru as they were the last leg of our small contingent but when Cely showed up she was shocked that Tru was no where near her, Tru bonk’d during the final 10 miles and was a good distance behind Cely now…so Cely was talking to herself that entire time. haha.

A light sprinkling came, and we all decided to blow by Heritage Oak, as none of us wanted to ride in a rain shower…especially considering our luck with the forecast this day. Tru, although off her sugar high was also anxious to get to the finish line. The SAG car rolled past us asking if we were the last of the cyclists, I told him that I was told there were a couple groups behind us…at least that’s what the SAG group at Chocoholics told us. Then as we pedaled more, at a steady 10 mph or so those groups passed us. The same Subaru SAG vehicle pulled up along side us 3 miles from the finish line and jokingly told me, “Well…you’re the last two now!”

Although I’ve never had the honor of coming in first in any tour or crit, I can now proudly say, Thanks to Tru, I’ve come in dead last. The view was great in last place, one reason being that there was no where else to place but higher up the chain from there.

Thanks guys for pushing all of us to come out. I know I had a whole lot of fun, and although I’m not sure if I want to do Lodi again next year…but I definitely want to do another event in the near future!

-Wallace

PS. If you’re looking for a new glove I highly recommend Castelli’s new Rosso Corsa glove.

After going through everything from the popular Pearl Izumi’s, Descante and even the sworn by Woodside Cyclists, Assos. I’ve never felt a more comfortable glove then the Castelli. Thanks to those on Road Bike Review for recommending this glove. Although largely flamboyant and attention seeking the glove works - snug, comfortable and instinctive. Let’s just hope I can get more then the usual 1000 or so miles out of this pair.