Riding a Vespa is a pure joy! Now when I say pure, I mean genuine. You ride around and you feel this sense of freedom and ease.

But to get there, there’s a few things to make sure you got under control.

Driving: are you in control of your 2 wheels? Do you feel like you can react in case of an emergency with confidence and control? (Boy I sound like an infomercial!) My answer: YES (at 90%)…10% being somebody throwing themselves under the wheels or a major oil puddle or a completely unexpected strong gust of wind while turning….what can you do?

Warmth: wearing the appropriate clothing is definitely key! Man it can get cold!!! So if you stick your hand out the window and say “Hmm, I would wear a jacket”, then on a Vespa, you need your warm motorcycle jacket with an extra core layer, heavy gloves that are able to tuck in your jacket sleeves, a scarf around your neck, but also chin/mouth (possibly nose) and socks! Yes, socks. I have a pair of shoes which don’t require socks,well, I’ve learned. Bonus: wind/waterproof pants. Yep, jeans don’t always cut it.

Weather: Ok, the obvious would be rain = dangerous. Yes, it is, as we all know especially after a long period of sunshine, things get slippery. But around here (SF), the beast to look after is the WIND.
Wind in the city is OK. It can make you cold, with occasional gusts, but definitely handleable. But when you start crossing bridges, that’s when it gets tricky. There’s nothing to protect you from the wind coming from the great open air. Only a few bridge polls where, after getting some experience, you know that right before and right after the poll are bigger than normal gusts.

After some heavy wind analysis, I have decided that riding with winds more than 25 knots becomes stressful and dangerous. Under that, it’s just annoying. What are knots? Well, I’m not sure I want to elaborate too much, but in relationship with mph, 1 knots = 1.15077945 mph. So, a 25 KT wind is actually air traveling at 28.8 mph, which is strong enough. According to the disaster center wind scale, 25-31 mph winds are a “strong breeze [where] large branches [are] in motion; telephone wires whistle; umbrellas [are] used with difficulty”. Yeah. Strong enough by me! Comfort zone? Probably 0-20 KT (0-23 mph).

I discovered a few tools to know what’s going on, weather wise.
The National Weather website has some pretty cool stuff like these 2 pages:
The coastal water forecast
And their environmental buoy and coastal report (updated every 3 hours)… I like this one because it shows the Golgen Gate Bridge wind strength.

And I just discovered another cool tool, which is a motorcycle chill calculator. It basically compiles the wind strength with the air temperature, and give you the temperature you’ll really feel! For example, on a 65 F day with a 25 mph wind, you’ll really feel 52 F. Now am I supposed to add the speed I’m riding at? I wonder…

Alright, enough analyzing. THIS is why you should learn how to ride a scooter before you go in the street!

I’ve been listening to Manu Chao ever since senior year in high school. Yep, it’s been 10 years! And of course, with manu Chao comes the rockin’ Mano Negra.
For those of you who don’t know him, he’s a tri-lingual singer (Spanish, French and English) with his own reggae inspired sound and peace messages. He’s got very stick-in-your-head lyrics, like “me gustan los aviones, me gustas tu”, or “I’m the king of Bongo baby, I’m the king of Bongo Bong”, or “welcome to Tijuana, tequila, sexo, marijuana” (not sure this song is originally from him), or again, “je ne t’aime plus, mon amour, je ne t’aime plus, tous les jours” or…(I could go on forever!). Check out this very cool article about him.

And so finally we went to see him live last night at the Bill Graham Civic Center Auditorium. Yey!
But it didn’t start too good…

We decided to be up front and center in the pit to see Manu as close as possible…hmm bad judgment! Yes, we were squished. The amount of personal space and air got smaller and smaller as we approached the beginning of the concert. Hmm…I started to feel tingling in my hands, feet, then legs and felt my heartbeat rise dramatically causing a cold sweat. My friend Julie looks at me saying: “you look really pale!”. Yeah, I wasn’t feeling so good. I finally got to snake my way through all the way up front where I could breathe fresh air. I feel better. But as the band gets up on stage, people gather around even tighter. The tingling and sweat starts again.
They play the 1st notes and my heart booms. That’s it. I gotta get out of here. I look back at my friends quickly miming signs that I’m getting out before I fall. I get the attention of a security guard who pulls me right over the barrier in no time (looking back at the events, it was the funnest part!). I am escorted to the side and feel like I can breathe and move again. I just had the time to catch my breath and shed a few tears of pressure release that I see muscling his way out of the crowd, Justin coming to wrap me in his comforting arms. Deep breath. Justin’s here, all is well now. I’m so lucky!!

Still shook up, we make our way to the very back where there’s a wall we could lean against. 5 minutes later, I get a call from Julie, not really hearing her well, but understanding that they got out too. We find them and they said they ended up getting pulled out from the crowd over the barrier, just like me, because it was completely overwhelming!

We ended up going upstairs where there were actually seats and space. OK, the view was from the very side of the stage, but we had room to dance. We could finally start appreciating the music!

It ended up being really awesome! The energy was great and the band was surprisingly very professional. Why surprisingly? Well, you’d think that a bunch of topless guys (most of the band) playing reggae like tunes and praising the benefits of marijuana could be off (behavior wise) time to time. But nope, even stoned, they were very together.

Manu especially owned the stage and the crowd. He dealt with a couple (if not 3) of guys making there way on stage to hug him and make a fool of themselves. One of which got completely naked jumping around and giving Manu naked hugs…Yuk!! But Manu was very nice and calm about it. He hugged back, shook hands and asked the security guards not to act right away. By “embracing” their annoying presence, he actually minimalized the potentially very theatrical consequences. Bravo Manu!

All in all, this concert was awesome! I got to see an artist I’ve been a long term fan of and I got to learn more about my limits. Priceless.

Just for fun, here’s the “Me Gustas Tu” music video (with very poor lip syncing)

Justin and I decided to buy a scooter (or more precisely a Vespa) right after he sold his car. That’s maybe…3 weeks ago. We were so excited that that same week, we decided to go through the DMV written test to get our permits, in order to legally be able to ride a scooter in the event we got one really soon. Yeah, well finding a scooter, figuring out which model we want, etc…takes time and lots, no I mean LOTS of thinking.

At 1st, we were almost going to get a Vespa GTS250 new, at Vespa SF because the people were so nice there, the Vespas were so shiny and we felt very excited. But then, we realized we would park it on the street, which would wear it a bit (weather, possible cars bumping into it, etc) so we decided to look for a used one. But hmm…not very many 250’s were on the Craigslist market.

Thinking about it we were wondering if we really needed a 250cc. We could probably get away with a 150cc just fine. But things we needed to consider were things like going uphill on an SF street… would the 150cc be enough power for 2 people on it? Would we get blown off Golden Gate bridge? Is there enough butt space for both of our nicely “cushioned” booties to fit comfortably? Would it be fast/powerful/comfortable enough to ride together up to Sonoma county?

Anyways, to cut the story a bit shorter…we realized we’re such independant individuals that we’ll probably want to ride solo and go where ever we please, when we please!!! Hmm…that changed the equation. We’re now talking about 2 Vespas. Therefore less load on each…we’re probably good with LX150s. And so right before we left for our motorcycle (aka scooter) training course in Santa Rosa this weekend (Justin’s post), I spotted a VERY cute blue 2006 LX150 available on craigslist, in excellent condition for a pretty good price. Heck yeah! So, a few emails later and kabaaam!…the magic is done.

Indeed, as of tonight, we present to you our brand “new” freakin’ sexy blue Vespa!
Oh! My! God! I can’t believe it, it’s true. It has 0 scratches, 836 miles on the odometer, it came with 2 cool white helmets (the perfect sizes for Justin and I), a cover that’s never been unfolded before and a Vespa key chain. Woohoo!

Are you ready for some blue Vespa porn? (well…maybe that sounds too dirty…let’s just say… mind blowing eye candy…how’s that? Yeah that sounds too conservative…whatever, just enjoy!)

A view from a bottom angle…Mmmm!

And who’s that newly very Hot babe? That’s me baby!

A little Justin play on mirrors…yep, that’s me you can see! What an artist!

Ok, here’s the “with the helmet” shot…not bad after all.

Oh shiny tires and chrome…take me places!

And on the road I go… riding it home was easy, smooth, comfy and it felt grrreeeaatt!

Now it’s Justin’s turn to find one…beware, he may have a lead. DUN Dun dun….

Here’s a little video I have uploaded to JumpCut, an online video sharing site that allows you to edit your videos too!!!

It’s an excerpt of a dance piece I choreographed in 2006 for TorSion Dance Co. at the Dance Center in Santa Rosa, CA. The dancers are teenagers and the music is by Philip Glass. This was performed at Fort Mason in San Francisco during the Vision Series Festival.

Hhaaa…memories…

link

I have created this little animated gif from pictures my Mom took of Deborah and I in Corsica (France) rehearsing a contemporary duet later performed in the workshop show. (I’m the one in red and black) I have an awesome memory of this little duet and it’s good to get to see the movement again without having videotaped it!!!!

It will play every 15 seconds…so be patient! You’ll see it again, don’t worry.

The technical side? It was created with Macromedia Fireworks, it has 25 frames spaced out with 40/100 seconds, a 15 second pause and it loops forever. It’s 10 seconds long (actually 25 seconds with the pause in the middle).