The evidence of the Bay to Breakers madness
As Stephanie and I have continued our California journey together there have been many things happen along the way that I would call ‘crazy’ or ‘wild’ or even going as far as ‘pretty nuts’. However, there hasn’t been anything that has even come close to the madness that was the Bay to Breakers race in San Francisco that we joined in on a couple of weekends ago.
We saw crazy people, we saw people doing crazy things and of course, we saw naked people. The race was 12Ks of pure insanity and for some unknown reason I waited until now to create and post the masterpiece of a video that you can watch below or over here on YouTube.
Let me know what you think about the crazy day that we had in San Francisco and be sure to enter in your email in the subscription box that’s located at the top of the column to the right. It’s the best way to keep up with what we’re doing out here in California - you know you want to keep up with us!
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Well Hello there… I’m actually here too.
Hey guys… It’s steph.. the other half of hupandsteph. The phenomenon sweeping the palo alto’an hills 
Ok, so maybe we’re not a phenomenon, but we’re definitely doin something crazy out here that’s for sure! It’s been quite some time since I’ve posted, and I promise I’ve not let it slip beneath the cracks, i’ve just been rather busy, as you can imagine.
Since we moved here I landed a pretty sweet gig as a pre-school teacher at The Whistle Stop Pre-school in Palo Alto. I’ve been working there for almost a month, and I honestly love it. Who wouldn’t love spending all day finger painting and playing outside in a sand box. It’s a pretty cool excuse for work if you ask me! Oh, and did I mention that every single day I come home with a crazy story of something that a kiddo has done or said. They really do say the darndest things… I mean Bill Cosby made a show of it right?!?
Since I’ve missed a few weeks of posting on our blog, I couldn’t possibly have the time nor the space to fill you all in on our crazy adventures out here so I’ll just do a quick re-cap of our past Memorial Day weekend. Angie- Ryan’s sister came out to visit us.. and fun does not even begin to describe the time that we had while she was visiting. We took her out to see the ocean, and down to Santana Row the first night that she arrived and wow did we rock that place out!! Here’s the proof.
After dropping Angie off at the airport, the sun actually came out from it’s cave that it had been hiding in while she was here.. haha geeeez. Ryan and I decided to take advantage of the few hours of sunshine left on our looooong weekend and headed out to the dish to do some hiking. We really didn’t know what to expect but as per our typical Californian exploration, we were totally impressed. This place had a 3.5 mile loop that when up and down and up and down and up ect. through the foothills just outside of Stanford. It was an incredible hike and an incredible workout as well. I can’t wait to go back and try to run the thing… ugh haha I’ll let ya know how that goes as long as my lungs or quads don’t explode while I try to conquer those hills Of course we made a video of the hike… we wouldn’t let ya down!
Stephanie wears men’s underwear in public
Ever since this past Saturday when Stephanie and I went to Bay to Breakers in San Francisco I have been wondering how to possibly blog about it in a way that lets all of you know how amazing the event really was. Basically, it’s a 12K ‘race’ that goes through the middle of one of the craziest cities in the entire world. The race is for real and was actually won by a really, really fast Kenyan who could have beat us all in his sleep.
But, the race is just a small part of the crowd who comes out to experience Bay to Breakers - most come out to dress up, push floats, drink lots of alcohol and stumble the 12K (if they actually finish) through the streets of San Francisco. There are over 150,000 people who participate and I would have to guess that over 80% were of the drunk, stumbling kind. Stephanie and I spent all day in the madness and after taking in all of the sights, sounds and shots we both agree that it was most likely the most amazing day of both our lives.
If you need proof of the awesomeness, check out the Facebook pics over here. Consider yourself warned and please prepare yourself for the naked man that me and Stephanie both snapped a picture with. Yeah, I said naked.
Here are a couple pics that I wanted to Crank for all of you to enjoy below and go ahead and make your plans to come out for next year’s installment - we’ll definitely be there and you should, too.
Stephanie in men’s tidy whities and me in her running shorts. What a couple, eh?
Stephanie put the split in banana split. Awesome.
Abdo rocked out a nightie like no one’s business.
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Bikes rule the roads in Palo Alto
If you all think hard enough, I’m sure that all of you can remember the days when your only mode of efficient transportation to any place outside of your neighborhood was to hop on your bike and pedal your ass off. I mean, pedal your ass off ALL day long and not even care about it. We were young, we wanted freedom and it’s way better than having your mom drop you off.
I can honestly say that I haven’t consistently ridden a bike since back in the day when I was fifteen years old and had acne that even Proactiv would be scared of. Back in the day when I would dream about being behind the wheel of a new ride as I rode my bike to Drivers Ed each morning at 6am. Man, those were good times, but the days of peddling, peddling and peddling some more have been long gone up until I moved out here to Palo Alto. Now the bike is back and it’s back in a BIG way. Old people ride bikes, young people ride bikes, girls ride bikes, guys ride bikes and this one guy even rides one of these bikes and I have no idea why.
After becoming part of the biking community I came up with a few reasons of why so many people around here choose the bike as their main mode of transportation around town:
- It’s safe and very bike-friendly: There is a bike lane on EVERY road out here besides interstates. There’s even a Bike Boulevard that runs through the middle of the city and cars are only allowed to travel on a very small portion of it.
- Palo Alto is a VERY environmentally friendly place: It’s amazing how much people care about the environment out here on the West Coast. The only reason why I can think of why they’re so far ahead in the ‘going green’ game is that out here in California you have the most beautiful landscapes that you could ever imagine, which everyone loves and appreciates. When you have mountains, oceans, bays, amazing forests and everything else I think that you tend to want to protect it.
- Healthy and fit is the way to go: I rarely ever see anyone who is overweight out here in Palo Alto and I still have yet to eat any fast food at all. The amount of health-conscience people out here is amazing, which explains why people don’t mind taking the bike to work, etc. My landlord rides his bike 30 minutes away to work every single day and doesn’t think twice about doing it. Amazing.
Anyways, as you can plainly see, the bike definitely rules the road here in Palo Alto and even I ride the Brown Beast (my loaned bike) about two miles to work each morning, which I have totally grown to enjoy over the past few weeks or so. It gets you moving, it’s always amazing outside and burning a few calories in the a.m. never hurts, right?
I will try my best to give you updates on all of our biking adventures and I’ll keep trying to add a few photos like the ones below as well. Enjoy!
UPDATE: I was just reading the Palo Alto website and it appears that we are only one of four cities who have been designated with a ‘Gold Level’ designation. Sweet!
In May 2003, Palo Alto was designated a Bicycle Friendly Community by the League of American Bicyclists. This three-year designation ranks Palo Alto with only three other “Gold Level” communities (Portland OR, Corvallis, OR and Boulder, CO). The award is only presented to communities with remarkable commitments to bicycling. The League cited Palo Alto’s strong commitment to education efforts and model policies in their commendation.
Stephanie cruisin’ on a beautiful day
The beautiful Brown Beast
Me and Stephanie trying to ride the Brown Beast at the same time….very, very tricky
This way seemed to work better…but, still very tricky and very, very dangerous
Abdo has his bike up in a tree, but not real sure why
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links for 2008-05-09
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We all love fun stuff…especially when it’s cheap!
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Well, this seems about right
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links for 2008-05-06
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Nine Inch Nails likes to give away albums.
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Heading to the mountains on the coast
What do you do on a Saturday afternoon in Palo Alto, CA when you have some time to hang out? Well, you drive over the mountains and go hang at the beach, silly. Duh. Check out our video from when we went and checked out San Gregorio Beach that’s located just over the Santa Cruz Mountains. Awesomeness.
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Celebrating Cinco de Mayo at AOL?
Beer, chess, beer pong and hanging out at the AOL building. Just another day in Palo Alto I guess. Me, Stephanie and some of my newest homies and co-workers headed over to the AOL building tonight to celebrate Cinco de Mayo with some chess and some cerveza (that’s beer for all of you non-Spanish speaking folks). Here are some pics that thought deserved some time to shine in this bloggy-blog. Be sure to click the Crank Buttons in the bottom right and of the pics to see what I added to each one. Believe me, each one has a story of it’s own.
Also, be sure to check out the video that I created for the event at the bottom of the post or over here on YouTube.
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links for 2008-05-03
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Anyone interested in some swing, goth dancing?
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Getting physical in the morning
I have officially finished off the week with yet another morning workout. Amazing. You know, I have always wanted to do the whole morning workout thing, even when I was back in Indianapolis, but now I have officially dedicated myself to the cause and I feel so much better because of it. It’s not always fun getting out of the bed at 6:00am, but by the time I hit the gym and especially when I’m done I feel a million times better about doing it. My gym of choice here in Cali is 24 Hour Fitness in San Carlos, which is only about a 10 minute drive away. It’s actually closer than the gym that I used to frequent back in Indy.
I’m so freakin’ happy that I’m starting to get into a routine that makes me feel awesome throughout the day, lets me hang out after work and that is all around a better way to get my workout in. But, don’t take my word for it - here’s an article that points out a few benefits of gettin’ a little physical in the a.m. - enjoy!
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