ANJ Motorsports

Back in January I had the pleasure to go out to the M.O.R.E season opener race with ANJ Motorsports and shoot some video. Below is a video I put together from the race.

Enjoy

It’s embarrassing for everyone

Dance hall music in Jamaica, that was the subject of the documentary, it makes sense you would send the whitest guy from Middle American to report on it. It began with a montage and a voice over, the images were moving, the music vibrant, the narrator almost passable. Then you see him, donning his Tommy Bahama shirt, khaki shorts, and Tiva sandals. He is a stereotypical, middle-aged, white tourist. A dance circle forms, he jumps in, off beat, out of rhythm, they laugh, he laughs too, they both know it’s absurd.

A few photos I took in Griffith Park

I went for a hike in Griffith Park today and I took some photos.

Enjoy.

You can’t be selfish when operating a deadly weapon

In the last couple days I have seen some interesting driving moves here in Los Angeles. While making my way home the other night I saw not just one, but two, people make left turns from the right lane. The first driver approached an intersection and realized they were getting ready to turn the wrong direction and promptly went left from the right lane. Later in that same drive the car in front of me, again in the right lane, started to slow, I assumed they were go to enter one of the many driveways along the road. This was not in fact the case, they proceeded to stop in the middle of the lane, put on their left turn signal and wait for traffic to clear so that they could then make a U-TURN from the right lane. This bad case of misjudgment was only compounded by the fact that they didn’t see the motorcycle coming up in the left lane. The u-turn was made, all the while the motorcycle was barreling down, luckily the motorcycle slowed just in time to avoid a messy disaster.

While driving through Griffith Park yesterday on the way to the driving range I again encountered a situation. The road going through this particular section of Griffith Park is a two-lane (one each direction) winding road. I came up behind a car that was going well below the 25 mph speed limit, I could tell that the woman appeared to be lost and wasn’t quit sure where she was headed. Seeing as the road was winding and there wasn’t a particularly safe place to go around her I proceeded to creep along behind her. Apparently feeling the pressure of me behind her, she promptly stopped her car in the middle of the lane, put on her flashers, and then waved at me to go around her. While this would have been a nice gesture, the location she chose was not ideal, she had stopped at the entrance to a blind corner and was now waving at me to go into an oncoming lane blindly. She continued to sit and wave and refused to move until I went around her, I did so very cautiously, and successfully made it around. As soon as I made it around she turned off her flashers and followed me the rest of the way to the golf course.

When driving in a car that can act as a deadly weapon you can’t be that self-involved, you have to think of the other people on the road. Too many people in this city are willing to inconvenience everyone else and at times put their lives in danger just to avoid making an extra turn.

Perfect practice makes perfect

When I was about 13 or 14 years old I started on a new baseball team, with a new coach, Dan Mora. On the first day of practice, after a bit of warm up, Dan called us all in and told us to take a knee. He then asked us, “what makes perfect?” We all responded, thinking this was an easy question, “practice makes perfect”, to which Dan answered, “wrong, take a lap”. After we finished a lap around the four baseball diamonds at the park, we once again took a knee and Dan asked, “what makes perfect?” This time we were all a lot less confident, but again answered, “practice makes perfect”, and again we were told we were wrong and to take a lap. A third time he asked, “what makes perfect”, and without a better answer we all hesitantly answered, “practice makes perfect”. I’m sure you know by now that was still the wrong answer. After finishing our third lap, we were all looking at each other with confused expressions on our faces and thinking, “what is wrong with this guy?” He then revealed to us that it is actually, “perfect practice makes perfect”, meaning that you can practice everyday, but if you practice bad habits, practice incorrectly, you will never be perfect, it is only with prefect practice that you will become perfect at something.

I was reminded of Dan today at the driving range as I sat back and took a quick break from practice. I watched the man next to me doing what he thought was practicing. He was just hitting one ball after the other, no pause in between, sometimes not even waiting to see where the ball actually landed. As you can imagine ever shot had the same result, hooking hard left, while he himself fell towards the tee off balance. Again and again he did this, going through and entire bucket of balls without a single adjustment or correction. As I watched him hacking away I thought, “if he only knew that the key is perfect practice, not just practice”, then I wanted to make him take a lap.


Sadly Dan Mora is no longer with us, he passed away several years ago, but that little bit of knowledge he gave me all those years ago has stuck with me, I will never forget it, or forget him.

Doing diet commercials makes you fat

“Hi, I’m (insert celebrity name here) and I lost 15 pounds on Jenny Craig”, and now they will gain 40 in the coming months. There seems to be a pattern of diet spokespersons gaining all of the weight back, if not more. My question is this, isn’t losing weight hard enough without putting the added pressure on your self of announcing to the world, “I’m losing weight, look at me”? Who wouldn't go on an eating binge at the thought of failing in front of the world? I know these companies pay a pretty penny to celebrities to be the face of their programs, and that has to be quite enticing, but that money isn’t going to stop you from ballooning back up. There is a laundry list of previous failures for you to learn from. I am all for people losing those extra pounds, getting in shape, and being healthy, just do it in the privacy of your own home, not on a sound stage in Culver City.

Photos from San Frisco

On my trip to San Fransisco last week I took about 400 pictures. Below are a few that I liked. Hope you enjoy.

As if the water had gone bad

Yesterday morning I filled a teapot full of water and made myself a cup of tea. Later that evening when I went to make myself another cup I saw that the teapot was still at least half full, now rather than just reheating the water I walked over to the sink and poured it out, as if the water had gone bad. In that moment as I thought, “you know what, this water has been sitting in this pot for almost 8 hours, it may have gone bad, better just pour it down the drain”, I felt more American than I ever have.

What’s even better is that I was going to boil the water so any bacteria, or other things I am apparently afraid of, would have been killed. It’s good to be an American.