True or False: Tijuana is very dangerous

Tijuana is situated next to the world’s busiest border. There are 23 or 24 lanes going back to the U.S. and only six going to Mexico. Mexico does not have to worry about illegal immigrants or anything so it’s a breeze to get in. Going back to the U.S. on the other hand can take three hours even with the 23 or 24 lanes.

The world’s busiest border between San Diego and Tijuana

As a frequent visitor to Tijuana, I’ve seen crazy stuff down there a few years ago but it has gotten much better lately. I checked the U.S. Travel Advisory for Tijuana:

You should exercise caution in the northern state of Baja California, particularly at night. Targeted TCO assassinations continue to take place in Baja California. Turf battles between criminal groups proliferated and resulted in numerous assassinations in areas of Tijuana frequented by U.S. citizens. Shooting incidents, in which innocent bystanders have been injured, have occurred during daylight hours throughout the city. In one such incident, an U.S. citizen was shot and seriously wounded. According to the Government of Mexico, as of August 2011, the city’s murder rate was approximately 20 per 100,000. During 2011, 34 U.S. citizens were the victims of homicide in the state. In the majority of these cases, the killings appeared to be related to narcotics trafficking.

That is interesting considering San Bernardino’s murder rate is at 29 per 100,000 (compared to Tijuana’s 20 per 100,000) and people still have no qualms about visiting San Bernardino. [LINK]

I see 34 U.S. citizens were homicide victims in Tijuana which has a population of almost 2 million. It also pointed out the majority of murders were drug-related. Only one innocent American bystander was wounded, not killed, during a shooting incident.

I keep hearing about the murders down in Mexico but Tijuana is rarely mentioned. It’s almost always in Juárez or the infamous “narco ruta” (drug routes) from Monterrey to Juárez or to Matamoros. I can safely say things are much better in Tijuana. I love Tijuana, I know people there and they feel safer down there.

The cluttered hills of Tijuana, a sharp contrast to neighboring and orderly San Diego

Tijuana is relatively safe as long as I don’t ship cocaine in my car. They have never bothered me even when I was driving in a brand new Mercedes-Benz with Mexican plates (from Distrito Federal, not Baja California).

Yes, there is a Mercedes-Benz dealership in Tijuana, along with Audi and BMW

There are nice cars down in Tijuana, not rickety rust buckets we see on American television shows. In fact, the very first exotic Maybach I saw was down in Tijuana and it even had Mexican plates on it. These babies fetch for $500,000 or more.

Only once I got pulled over in my new Mexican-plated Mercedes-Benz because I didn’t know Avenida Revolución was now a one-way street (in the Zona Norte) while I was showing my friends the seedier parts of Tijuana and I missed the one way sign. I rarely visit El Centro de Tijuana (Downtown Tijuana) since I prefer the well-off Zona Rio shopping district or the affluent Lomas de Agua Caliente.

The police officer handed me a ticket and instructed me to go to police station on Calle 8a (8th Street). I went there and paid the fine of $66. She never asked for a bribe even though I asked her if I could make it easier by making it an “on-the-spot” fine which borders bribery. If I said quieres un mordida (would you like a bribe), she could have arrested me. I know they are now arresting Americans for saying that. Some still take mordidas (bribes) but the idea of getting arrested is stopping the bribes that were rampant back in the 1980′s.

Here’s an interesting article.

Monterrey proper has witnessed 489 murders in 2011, which gives it an annualized murder rate of 64.

Another region where murders have dropped is Baja California Norte, the Pacific border state that is home to Tijuana and Mexicali… is on pace for 696 murders this year. That would give Baja a murder rate of 22, comparable to the nationwide (Mexico) average. In 2010, in contrast, Baja California Norte was the site of close to 900 murders. Part of this drop may be due to what’s been called a “Pax Tijuana,” whereby two large criminal forces reach a business arrangement, thus reducing the competition and acts of bloodshed.

Tijuana is a large city and crime is always associated with large cities, but there are safe pockets in Tijuana. I know these areas. I could take you to the scenic Lomas de Agua Caliente where all the big houses are. It’s very safe there and there are upscale shops. I have never seen crime happen. Then again, I’ve never been robbed in Compton. You just have to be street smart.

Look at the YouTube Videos on the very top of my blog. I have a video of my trip to Tijuana with a good friend a couple years ago.

Why I will always cherish April 30, 2012

This day was the first time I bought American. Tomorrow will be the two week anniversary of my marriage to a brand-new 2012 Ford F-150 Supercrew 4×4. I will list the pros and cons.

Pros:

Four-wheel-drive gets me everywhere
Very spacious interior
Plenty of storage space inside
Flashy color screen that tells me everything
- average gas mileage
- inclination (useful for 4-wheeling)
- Sirius radio (now I can get music in the desert)
Plenty of power (360 ponies under the hood)
Decent gas mileage – around 20 miles per gallon

Cons:

Harder to park in crowded areas
36 gallon tank

Of course, it being a four-door four-wheel-drive, I should have expected it to be hard to park in crowded areas. As for the 36-gallon tank, most people would put it under the “Pro” category. Wait until you get to a pump in Orange County, California, where it’s $4.50 a gallon. $155 total. It really stung even though I covered almost 700 miles over the past two weeks.

Maybe if I did baby steps instead… drive 350 miles then fill it up? That way, it will be a number I am more accustomed to since I used to drive a Mercedes-Benz with a puny 16-gallon tank.

Tomorrow Monday, I am off to a small trip with several buddies through a few ghost towns in the desert. Wednesday night is the bachelor party on a yacht and possibly a trip to Catalina Island. Then there’s the wedding Friday. Saturday is when I’m packing up small stuff for the move to Virginia. Then Saturday night is my last dinner with my friends. Sunday is when I get things done around here. Monday morning is when I’m off to the greener pastures. That’s only eight days. Wow.

One of the biggest reasons I bought that truck was to make it easier for me to move. I made sure everything would fit in the back and it is looking good so far. I will of course blog about my trip across the United States.

Once again, a groomsman at a wedding

I am exhausted from yesterday’s wedding where I was one of the groomsmen. By now, the newly ball-and-chained guy is off to Maui with his new wife. When I got home at around 5 in the afternoon, I barely had the energy left to barbecue for friends who came down to my place. By the grace of God, the propane tank was empty. Richie, you need to sleep.

Instead, we flocked over to Fred’s Mexican restaurant and partied all night. I have never had that much fun in years!

Then I remembered… I’m the best man in only five days from now. The bachelor party will be on a friend’s yacht in Dana Point and we’re still not quite sure where to take the boat. It probably would be much easier to leave it docked but some of us just might want to go to Catalina Island. I don’t even know yet nor do I want to know. I am still pooped.

After the wedding next weekend, I’m out of California for good the first thing Monday morning!

Bad hair days… vanity, style, or just unkempt

Yesterday, I picked up my tuxedo after the wedding rehearsal where I’m the groomsman. Today is the wedding. The salesman at the tuxedo place clearly had a toupee on his hair. Was he embarrassed? Does he really think people are actually fooled into believing he has hair?

Baldness does not run at all in my family. I don’t think anybody up to my great grandparents were bald. Graying is not too common either. My aunt and my mother have the same color as my hair. My mother’s hair is turning a little gray but my aunt does not have any or I may have missed it… or maybe she secretly dyes it. She’s not vain so I don’t think she dyes it anyway. My hair has more white than hers although I’m seven years younger.

There was a time when straight guys looked like girls, like Fabio

It was only ten years ago when everybody wanted a long flowing blonde hair just like the former supermodel Fabio. By the way, where the heck is he? The media had a field day when Fabio’s face rammed into a bird at 70 mph on an inaugural roller coaster ride and was bloodied. Maybe he was feeling a little embarrassed but he has since then disappeared. Donald Trump’s hair is roughly the same length but he likes to keep it meticulously coiffed. A little wind can prove embarrassing.

Would Fabio envy Donald Trump’s long flowing blonde hair? Highly unlikely.

It is amazing how some people go to great lengths to show they’re not going bald. Donald Trump has been going around trying to prove his hair is real. He’s let Fox’s Megyn Kelly and CNN’s Larry King feel his hair to prove it. That only tells me Trump is incredibly vain, perhaps more vain than Fabio.

Larry King confirms Trump’s hair is indeed genuine.

There are people who do not trim their nose hairs. I used to trim mine but I found it easier to simply pluck them out instead. It was only recently when I was influenced by some of my friends. I’m not vain but I also don’t want nose hair sticking out of my nose. I seem to see more nose hairs sticking out in Europe than America.

Some poor old sap who fell victim to my camera’s awesome zoom

Some folks go overboard by dying it or doing weird stuff. We had horrible looking mullets back in the 1980′s and I am truly grateful I never had one. Imagine looking at the old pictures and explaining to the future generation why you look like a dork. “Because looking like a dork was cool.” I’ve seen people do really stupid stuff with their hair and I’m amazed they still have their jobs.

Worker with horrible haircut collecting tickets at the Eiffel Tower in Paris

I once dreamed that I was bald. It was the College Professor kind of bald where it’s only the top part. I didn’t panic when I looked at my mirror. In fact, I sort of liked the fact I looked like somebody intelligent and got excited over it. I sure do get weird dreams.

That was nice… then comes the bad part

Today, I was in my office and I was told payroll had made a mistake on my paychecks over the past year. “We underpaid you the whole time so we owe you $22,000.”

Mistake or not, I will still correct them. “No, I wasn’t overpaid, I’m sure of that.”

The accountant was adamant, “I went over everything. Here’s the check.”

Not one to argue with a qualified accountant, I gleefully accepted the check. $22,000. Yee haw! All possibilities came to mind, a trip to Vegas, renovating my kitchen, or putting big bad-ass tires on my new truck.

Then I woke up. Dammit, it was a dream! Whoever did this to me, that was mean.

The weird part of waking up was the familiar smell of bacon wafting in my room. That got me wondering… first I hallucinate by sight, now I am hallucinating by smell! I looked at my bathroom to see if the reddish light has returned but the room was too bright for it to show. I stayed in my bed for a while to see if the bacon smell would go away but it got stronger. Then I could smell coffee… Now I’m 100% sure there is the presence of bacon cooking and coffee brewing in my place.

Spooky!

I walked over to the living room and saw that my friend had let herself in. She was eating… eggs and bacon and had started the coffee machine. She has never come in my place that early but offered a good explanation, “Richie, I read your blog about the clean desk and I just had to see with my own eyes to see if it wasn’t photoshopped.” It was nice of her to buy eggs and bacon for me so I let her stay around a bit longer. My once-clean kitchen was a little messy so I spent some time cleaning it. Hmph.

Last night was the bachelor party for an old friend who I went to Europe with a couple years ago. I’ve known him since I was seven years old. That’d make him my 4th longest friend. We went to the Wood Ranch restaurant in Cerritos. Obviously not as wild as going to Vegas in a limousine nor was it wild as doing it with a stripper in a seedy club. I had tri-tip and bacon-wrapped chicken and enjoyed it immensely. No incriminating photos, sorry if you’re disappointed. He has a really cool fiancée and they will definitely have a long and prosperous marriage. I’m very proud of them, they deserve each other!

Below is the YouTube video of the European trip with my old friend… feel free to press the play button!

Why I did not buy a Chevrolet Avalanche

When I showed my best friend my new Ford F-150 last week, he was quick to point out, “Your muffler doesn’t look sturdy.” That’s jealousy speaking and I forgive him. Besides, how could he tell if the muffler looks sturdy? Is it supposed to be simply aluminum or coated in gold with diamonds encrusted in it? Or maybe he possesses a unique ability to tell the reliability of the muffler just by looking at it.

I’ve taken the time off of cleaning up my place to look up statistics and it is not looking good for my best friend’s Chevrolet Avalanche. He also told me he is a regular reader of my blog so I am going to really enjoy this. You listening, buddy? Here you go.

U.S. News Rankings and Reviews show:

No. 1 – Ford F-150 <- my baby
No. 2 – Dodge Ram 1500
No. 3 – GMC Sierra 1500
No. 4 – Chevrolet Silverado 1500
No. 5 – Toyota Tundra
No. 6 – Chevrolet Avalanche <- my best friend's favorite

And the last one, a No. 10, is awarded to Nissan Titan. It is not too surprising. [LINK]

Finally, a new subject for me to blog about…

Drum roll… a clean desk!

Subjects I’ve covered so far in my blog were: politics, humor, news, travel, internet scams, and just yesterday, ghosts or the paranormal, a term coined in the 1920′s. Para is Latin for outside or beyond and the light in the bathroom definitely falls under that category, hence paranormal. If it happens again tonight, I am sleeping in my truck. I wish I didn’t move back in my old place.

In fact, the mysterious light in the bathroom made a good incentive for me to clean up my place since I would have all the lights on and the red light cannot make its presence known. It’s 2:20 in the morning right now and I am absolutely exhausted.

Consequently, I now have a clean desk.

Those who know me well will attest to my messy desk. Over the past roughly ten years, I’ve let all sorts of papers accumulate on my desk. I should have taken a before picture but it may get flagged as obscene. The messy desk was the reason why I allowed a few people in my room. Three to be exact and that was over the past ten years. You know who you are and I profusely apologize for the eyesore. Kevin, Donny, and Sheila. I also appreciate you guys for not taking pictures of my desk. That means a lot to me.

Fret not for I have just cleaned my desk. A grueling eight-hour job I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. My back’s sore from all that picking up, sorting out which gets shredded and which gets in the trash. Oh, the dust… aieeee, whenever something got picked up, dust would fly everywhere. Now I have the sniffles.

Will the red light return to my bathroom tonight? Will he or she be pleased with my sacrifice… a clean desk?

I wasn’t kidding, I did clean up my desk!

Trying to explain a strange light in my bathroom

It happened the same night I went back to my place a week ago. Then it happened again last night. My bed is about 15 feet away from the master bathroom and the door is always open.

The first time it happened, I had woken up in the middle of the night and saw a faint reddish-orange light coming in from the bathroom. The light was strong enough for me to see my towel hanging from the shower rail. I did not turn on any other lights so my pupils were definitely at its optimum. I got up from my bed, the light went away and I could no longer see the towel.

But… there are no windows in the bathroom.

Last night, it occurred a few times. In fact, I could barely sleep. The first time was around 12:30 a.m. and I had finished watching a Netflix movie on my cellphone. After turning off the cellphone screen and all the lights, I faced my bathroom door that was open. I dozed off for roughly 15 or 20 minutes then woke up again. The light was stronger this time as if there was a candle inside the bathroom. It was not flickering, the light was consistent and I could see inside the bathroom. The light was reddish this time.

Startled, I got up and the light went away quickly. It went back to pitch black. I am absolutely positive there is no other light anywhere in my bedroom. I do have a bluish light coming from the monitor that lets me know it is on standby but there is no other place where red light is coming out.

I had one heck of a hard time trying to go back to sleep and I probably managed to do that about two hours later at around 2:50 a.m. After a brief doze for perhaps ten minutes, I opened my eyes again to see the bathroom was lit again.

I am a rational person. Thinking it could be some electricity left in the only light bulb, I took out the bathroom’s only source of light thinking that would work. That approach made me sleep much better because I knew there was simply no way there would be light in the room.

Going back to sleep was easier. Of course, I was dead tired and fell asleep a bit later. I woke up and there was light again.

I spent the last few hours of the night sleeping in my truck. I’ve never been this scared and I could not find a rational explanation.

My bathroom during the daytime

Business based on sympathy… brilliant

A couple days ago, I blogged about my former barber confronting me with questions about the new barber. Actually, cheating on my former barber with a new barber named Jorge who was much quicker and got my sides even for only $5 more. I still felt… dirty.

A while back, I parked in front of a Cuban restaurant with a “C” sanitary rating (a notch above getting shut down) while the others nearby all had “A” ratings. Mouse poop? Cockroach? I do not know nor do I want to know but a forlorn woman was inside looking at me. How could I say no to this? I felt compelled to come in and order chuletas empanizadas which by the way was muy delicioso.

That’s why I hate going to pet stores. Who in the right mind can say no to soft brown puppy eyes staring at you with the tail constantly wagging? That is downright manipulative. And it sucks for the fish nearby because they cannot compete with the much cuter puppies.

It reminded me of the time when the Yugoslavian-made Yugo cars were introduced back in 1986…

One of the few remaining Yugos

The starting price was a mere $3,990, making it the cheapest car in the United States. It was also crappy and I heard of many Yugo jokes like “It comes with a rear window defroster so you can warm your hands while pushing it to the mechanic.” The jokes didn’t stop people from flocking over to dealerships and buying them. Nobody bought it because it was crappy and they felt bad.

In fact, the advertisement below was what got me in the Ford dealership in the first place.

The very reason I bought the new Ford F-150

The F-150 didn’t jump up and down, wagging its tail. I didn’t buy it because it had puppy eyes. I bought it because it was cheap. Since I was a high school dropout and obviously not a college graduate, the discount totaled $9,750 since I didn’t qualify for the $500 College Grad discount. If the Ford salesman looked through the window with his sad puppy eyes and pouted, I sure would have gotten the hell out.

Depending on what I’m selling, I think one of the keys to a successful business is making the customer feel guilty. If an 18-year-old female employee in Starbucks bawled her eyes out after getting berated by a customer, most people will side with the 18-year-old even if she was incompetent.

Cheating with another barber… and got busted

Minding my own business dining in a restaurant sporting a haircut from last week, I ran into my former barber. I don’t know how barbers can tell but… they can tell. “Richie, you just had a haircut.“

To me, his question sounded more like, “Okay, who is the slut?“

In my defense, my former barber had a glass eye and seemed to have a problem with depth perception. He also could not manage to get both of my sides even. I don’t know why but I had him cut my hair for nearly five years. Last week, I decided to spend $5 more to get both of my sides even so I got a new barber named Jorge.

As a kid, one of the neighbors was named Jorge but everybody called him George since Jorge is a Spanish word for it. I was the only kid on the block who pronounced it correctly.. Hor Hay. Maybe it’s the Spanish blood in me but I also know how to pronounce Oaxaca correctly. Wahaca. Bet you didn’t know that. :)

Anyhow, it seemed my former barber was trying to confront me with the incriminating evidence, a fresh haircut. “You dirty little slut.”

I told him, “Your salon was closed that day so I went to the nearest one. I had to get a haircut that day because I had a job interview to attend to.”

I think he accepted my explanation. I felt a little bad for cheating on him though. I will let him cut my hair the next time. For $5 less, my sides won’t be even.

Currently accepting applications for a best friend

I have yet to find somebody who is like me. Average height, chubby… ahem, okay… fat, humorous, and witty. Oh, and not only laugh at the dirty jokes but be good at telling dirty jokes too. Gosh, I love dirty jokes. Consequently, it’s not easy keeping my blog G-rated.

For some odd reason, all of my close friends are tall, thin and they only listen to my dirty jokes and never tell me any. My best friend is 6 foot and 2 inch and he told me last night I was 5 foot and 9 inch. I vehemently objected to his blatant accusation and insisted I was 5 foot and 10 inch. I had not an iota of doubt I was correct.

I just measured myself…

Dammit… I am short

According to Wikipedia, the average human height in the United States is 5 foot and 10 inch. [LINK]. That means… I… am… short.

Very much to my smoldering disdain, my best friend was correct. After the many years of blind denial, I have finally come to terms with the fact I am short. Yes, world, you heard it right here, Richie is short. I have made fun of short people my entire life. My God, I must have looked like a real jackass. My 3rd grade teacher who pulled me out of the classroom to call me a jackass was correct and I have to give her credit for opening my eyes.

According to Wikipedia on Dwarfism, A typical defining characteristic of dwarfism is an adult height of less than 147 cm (4 ft 10 in). If my mother ever found out she is indeed a dwarf, she will be absolutely devastated since she has always insisted she was merely short. My grandmother was definitely a dwarf according to Wikipedia and so was my beloved Spanish-speaking blue-eyed great-grandmother.

By the way I decided to keep my best friend for now so I regret to inform you I am no longer accepting applications. If you have already submitted an application, it will be kept in file for a period of 6 months and I will contact you if a position becomes available. I just need to accept the fact my best friend and I will never have anything in common. He is never going to be short, he is never going to be fat, and he is never going to tell me a dirty joke for the rest of his life, but I love that guy.

The world’s oldest murder victim.. Oetzi

Oetzi (in German, his name is spelled Ötzi) is the world’s oldest body that’s remarkably well preserved. His well-preserved body was found frozen in the Alps twenty years ago with an arrow sticking in his back. With the arrow, we can safely conclude he currently holds the dubious honor of being the world’s oldest murder victim found. Recently, we learned he had brown eyes and he was also infertile according to his DNA. This is what he looked like:

Modern technology shows what Oetzi looked like 5,300 years ago

There’s also another interesting phenomenon.. known as the Bog People. [WIKIPEDIA]. I remember reading an article about a man in Ireland gathering peat (dense putty-like material used for fuel). He came across a body inside the dense peat and thought it was a recent murder victim since it was so well preserved. Thanks to our radiocarbon dating techniques, we learned the body was more than a thousand years old.

A bog is where peat is grown. As new peat accumulates on the top, the older material underneath begins to decay and release humic acid which has a pH level similar to vinegar, allowing the peat to conserve human bodies the same way fruit is preserved by pickling. Peat bogs that lack drainage are highly acidic and devoid of oxygen, effectively preventing microorganisms from decomposing the body, hence the well-preserved bodies.

The body of a woman formerly embedded in peat for more than 1,200

If you want your dead body prodded and poked by scientists a thousand years later, there are a few peats in Florida you can jump in.

Planning a long overdue four-wheeling trip

It was a trip I planned to make when I owned an Isuzu Trooper 4×4 many years ago. That would be almost a decade ago. Back in them old days, it was hard to find information about ghost towns scattered all over California given the lack of sophistication in the internet.

I e-mailed my old friend today to see if he was interested in a four-wheeling trip. He recently bought a used 1976 Suburban 4×4 through an auction and he has been working on it nonstop for the past month. As of now, it has a rebuilt engine, new transmission, new brakes, new air compressor, and a few other things. I still think he’s crazy for buying that rust bucket for a bit over $2,000 then spending another $5,000 on it but it’s his dream car. The upholstery is half done.

He e-mailed me back, “Richie, I realized I moved to California in 1992. That makes it 20 years since we’ve known each other. That’s a just cause for celebration!”

We used to be best friends but we drifted apart a couple years ago after he moved to Santa Monica. Since then, I had a different best friend but I always felt I was in the middle during the frequent spats between him and his girlfriend. Now, I try to avoid him whenever he wants me over his place by “being somewhere else and busy.” Clearly I need to choose my friends more carefully, I don’t need people like that in my life.

I am really excited about the trip through the desert. It is a good thing we have the GPS technology and I’m now downloading high-resolution satellite images of all the ghost towns throughout California. We’ve been going through Google Earth like crazy lately, trying to find all the best spots for my 4×4.

There’s only three more weeks before the big move to Virginia. My next three weekends are full, spending time with my great friends before I embark on a long trek across the United States to my new home, Virginia. The last wedding is May 12th so the move will be the weekend after. My stuff is already packed up and sitting in my friend’s garage. I know I am going to miss my friends here. It’s tough.

I realize I probably won’t want to buy a house when I’m over there. I have been staying in my friend’s house for the past couple months and I realize my hands are full! But the 4×4 probably wouldn’t have fit in my garage at my old condominium anyway. Decisions, decisions, decisions…

I bought a new car… this time, it’s American!

It’s American which says a lot. Since I got my driver’s license, I’ve bought three new German cars, three new Japanese cars, and perhaps five used cars in my entire life, and not one single American car.

1979 Volkswagen Rabbit – used
1980 Toyota Corolla – used
1985 Audi 4000S – used
1986 Audi 4000S – used
1991 Isuzu Trooper – used
1995 Isuzu Trooper Limited 4×4 – new
1999 Subaru Legacy L – new
2000 Volkswagen Passat – new
2001 Isuzu Trooper LS 4×4 – new
2005 Audi A4 1.8T – new
2008 Mercedes-Benz C300 – new

Shame on me for not driving an American car my entire life.

Double shame on me for taking $184,000 out of the U.S. economy over the past decade while selfishly buying new foreign cars.

Triple shame on me for not doing research and learning that American cars are getting much better.

Today was a life-changing experience for me walking in a Ford dealership. Not once in my entire life did I consider buying American until I went four-wheeling with a few friends. One had a Land Rover and the other had a two-year-old Ford F150 4×4. If it wasn’t for a brief ride in the Ford F150 4×4, I might have bought the Land Rover. In fact, I had intended to buy a Mercedes-Benz ML350 until my friend talked me out of it. I drove around in it a bit and was very impressed.

The front of the new 2012 Ford F-150 Supercrew with 4×4

The side of the new 2012 Ford F-150… see the “4×4″ on it

Ford has put a lot of thought into the interior and now there’s space!

The dashboard, it looks really huge

I drove it back and forth from San Clemente to Lake Forest and back.. 21.3 mpg!

The EPA sticker showed the gas mileage of 15 for city and 19 for highway. Going to Lake Forest, I got 23 mpg and hit traffic on the way back to San Clemente. Overall, it got an admirable 21.3 mpg after driving roughly 50% stop and go with 50% going 65 mph on the highway. Not bad for a 360-horsepower 5.0 litre V8 motor that can propel the massive beast to 65 mph within 7.3 seconds.

The best part is that it has 36 gallons in the tank. If I can get around 23 mpg on the highway, that means an impressive 828 miles before the tank gets empty.

Language misunderstandings can be funny

The Irish police spent some time hunting down this bad guy named Prawo Jazdy who had many different addresses in Poland and accumulated over 50 moving violations during his stay in Ireland. The character in question presented this driver’s license which clearly had Prawo Jazdy as the name.

Prawo Jazdy’s identification card

Unfortunately, this evil menacing Prawo Jazdy being hunted down actually never existed as a human being since Prawo Jazdy was Polish for Driver’s License.

A few years ago, an Englishman was given the job to create a sign that said, “No entry for heavy goods vehicles. Residential site only.” along with a Welsh translation at the bottom. He sent an e-mail to a native Welsh speaker requesting a translation and received a quick reply, “Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu.” The sign was eventually erected.

That’s how strange Welsh looks to English-speakers like us

That confused a lot of Welsh speakers since “Nid wyf yn y swyddfa ar hyn o bryd. Anfonwch unrhyw waith i’w gyfieithu” really meant, “I am not in the office at the moment. Please send any work to be translated.”

Buying a new car today

When my friend was much younger, he discovered a ball with Babe Ruth’s signature in his mother’s house. His mother said it was authentic but my friend noticed the signature on the ball was a little too fresh. She said, “Oh, yes, I had to write over it because the original signature was starting to fade.” Ouch but nevertheless funny.

I have decided to go ahead with the Ford F-150 pickup truck, not the Mercedes-Benz ML350. The $10,500 discount is enticing enough. The one I’m looking at has four doors and four wheel drive. It will be the first time I’ve owned an American car. It will also be the first time I owned a car with eight cylinders. It will also be the most powerful I’ve owned with 360 horses under the hood. It can hit 60 mph within 7.2 seconds. Too bad the engine is not in a sports car, I’d go crazy.

My last four wheel drive was a 2001 Isuzu Trooper with a 215-hp V-6 engine that yielded horrible gas mileage. The sticker on the window displayed 14 city and 17 highway but I was lucky to get 13.5 out of it. That was going 55 mph all the way to Palm Springs and back without stopping. My Audi A4 1.8T on the other hand got 21 city and 30 highway but I was consistently able to get 38 mpg out of it.

I’m going to the dealership right now. I can’t wait!

It has been a while since I camped

Right now, I’m somewhere between Lake Elsinore and San Juan Capistrano off of the Ortega Highway. My phone did not have reception for the past four hours but now that I have reception, I am posting this. Instead of bringing my own tent, I going to sleep in the car instead.

Tonight, I’m going to eat Army-issue spaghetti made more than ten years ago. He’s giving away all of his survival kits before they expire next month. It’ll be quite a feast.

Buying new cars – always look at the resale

Today, I test drove a Ford F150 SuperCrew (meaning four full doors) truck with a large $10,500 discount, knocking the price from $40,000 to $29,500. It is a 4×4 and nicely equipped. Last week, my friend bought a new Mercedes-Benz ML350 and I was rather smitten so I stopped by the Mercedes-Benz dealership after visiting Ford. Due to the high demand, there was no discount on the ML350 so the price tag was a hefty $55,000. The difference between the two was $25,500.

$55,000 for the Mercedes-Benz ML350 (no discount)
$29,500 for the Ford F150 4×4 (after discount)

Inside the Ford F150 4×4 pickup

Before buying a car, I like to look into resale so I checked the trade-in values using a hypothetical 50,000 miles on both the 2008 Mercedes-Benz ML350 and 2008 Ford F150 4×4. Four years later, these vehicles would be worth:

$24,927 for the Mercedes-Benz ML350
$19,241 for the Ford F150 4×4

So driving for four years then selling them will cost me:

$27,073 for the Mercedes-Benz ML350
$10,259 for the Ford F150 4×4

So it’s $19,814 cheaper for the Ford F150 after four years. Hard to imagine the Benz lost almost half of its value. Then I looked into gas mileage:

17 city / 22 highway for the Mercedes-Benz ML350
14 city / 19 highway for the Ford F150 4×4

Let’s say I will drive 15,000 miles in the city and 35,000 on the highway with gas costing $4.00 a gallon for the Ford F150 and $4.20 a gallon for the Benz ML350 since it requires premium… gas for the Ford F150 would cost $1,266 more so Ford’s $19,814 advantage has shrunk to $18,548.

Hmm, Ford it is. It’ll be the very first American car I’ve owned my entire life. Even as a teenager, I never bought a used American car. I have never owned a single American car and it’s high time I showed my patriotism. Of course, I waited until Detroit finally churned out decent cars!

A bacon hotdog, a friend, traveling, and Egypt

Last night, I visited a restaurant where my friend works as a manager. I don’t name names on my blog so I’ll just call her Beatrice. Yeah, she’ll like that, ha ha. I met her about two years ago at a wedding and we kept bumping into each other at various events.

Seeing that there was a chili dog in the menu, I asked Beatrice if I could have a bacon-wrapped hotdog instead. After all, it would be easier to make compared to a chili hotdog but she informed me the chef would not make me one. Although Beatrice was the manager, the chef owned a part of the restaurant so she was outranked. Undaunted, I went to the kitchen and negotiated with the chef along with a $10 bribe and became the proud recipient of a freshly-made bacon-wrapped hotdog. Expensive but worth it!

Beatrice was at my barbecue party last week and couldn’t get over the fact I’ve never been to San Francisco despite having lived in California my entire life (except for that one year in New York) but have been to London more than 50 times. My passport has had pages added in twice and there’s no space left for more stamps. There are over 120 stamps over the past ten years, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Australia, Japan, Germany, France, Spain, and about 10 more countries.

My expired passport that has been everywhere except San Francisco

Last week, I gave Beatrice the link to my blog and videos of my trips around the world [LINK]. My personal favorite was the one to Turkey, Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia doesn’t hand out tourist visas but I was there for business so I was allowed to enter.

Anyhow, Beatrice approached me and was impressed with the videos. Funny, she hated my guts three months ago when we argued over Egypt and my mocking the so-called “democracy” taking place. I told her the Islamists would take over and put it back to the stone ages. It would also jeopardize the fragile peace between Israel and Egypt. She scoffed at the notion… until she read they’re now going to allow husbands to hump their dead wives up to six hours after death, women can do the same (stick a toothpick in it?), minimum age of marriage lowered to 14, and women lose their right to jobs and education [LINK]. That elicited a very rare mea culpa from her. I am not going to lie… that made my day!

Anyhow, we talked about Europe and it looks like we’ll be flying over there in June. She’s only been all over Asia and South America but never to Europe. I’ll be a great tour guide.

Making a monkey go crazy….

The monkey on the left makes his displeasure known after seeing his buddy getting all the yummy grapes while he’s stuck with crappy cucumbers.