I actually found a decent place to live w/ two bedrooms & a garage. I'ts pretty nice & the location is choice, right on the Mountain View-Palo Alto border. Most importantly, it's got a good coffee shop a few blocks down the main drag in either direction. Like I said. Choice. Life is Good, or it will be in June when I get moved in. It might take a while to get used to writing a rent check for $1850 for 600 sq ft, but that's what the market will bear at the moment.

As of right now, I'm still in a Hotel. Life is Cramped, but the riding is awesome.

The Mountain Biking Scene: So far the singlespeed has been relagated to Starbucks runs, although I've been told that the riding around Santa Cruz is good SS territory. The nearby stuff is more like Sherando or Douthat - big, steep, and fast, and really scenic. There's something about riding through huge redwoods that kind of puts things into perspective. You ARE the weakest link, if you know what I mean. I went riding this weekend at a place 30 min from me called Skegg's Point (look it up on mtbr.com). Insanely buffed trails, tons of elevation, and a bunch of good riders. It reminded me of Douthat with 50-100% more elevation & big, big redwoods. You ride down into the bottom of a huge ravine and you're surrounded by old growth redwoods. It looks prehistoric. Incredible stuff. The singletrack could be a little more technical, but it's fast and the climbs will bust your ass. I can't believe it's this close to me.

The local riding is big enough that I felt I needed a big bike, so I recently ordered a Santa Cruz Bullit, so I can have me a jumpin' & crashin' bike.

Just down the road from Skegg's is this biker hangout called Alice's Restuarant, where you can find a couple hundred bikes of all types on any given Sat or Sun. I saw so much cool stuff in one parking lot yesterday that I couldn't even focus. The Bay Area is full of the baaadest hardware going, both motorized and non. I feel right at home.

The WindSurfing Scene: Rio Vista is kind of like a launch-friendly Gorge. It has the same thermal effect, but is tidal, so it looks like the Gorge when the tide is ebbing (against the prevailing westerlies), but is flat during a flood. It doesn't run so hard that you can't keep upwind, but even if you do get swept, you can get out of the river without scaling a 100' cliff. I've sailed there a couple of weekends on a 4.6 & 5.3, and had big starboard ramps. Unfortunately, it rarely blows all day. It starts windy at sunrise, backs off around 11:00, then gets windy again around 3:00 and blows all night. Pretty cool as long as the tide cooperates.

Windsurfing on the San Francisco Bay seems a little overrated to me. The wind is inconsistent, the water's cold, the tides raise hell with water depth, and most launches have knee-deep muck close to shore. I'm going to try to keep an open mind, but so far I'm not impresssed. The ocean sailing is pretty damn good. I hit Waddel Creek last weekend and had a pretty good day. There's no shore break to speak of and the waves break for a loooong time. Prett sweet.

After one month in CA I'm already getting the feeling that I'm probably not going to be seen on the East Coast any time soon, which is pretty much the whole idea, I guess..

So far, this place is great, but give me a little time to find stuff I despise. After all, I just started exploring.

It's Good To Be King.