Firenze

We began our southward journey shortly after our final breakfast at La Vignetta (our hotel on lake Como). Breakfast consisted of some delicious cocoa krispies-esque cereal as well as a marmalade croissant alongside a cup of Italiano ciocolatta, but that's beside the point. We got the car all packed up and we were on our way.

Hopped on the autostrada out of Cernobbio due south-ish where we would stay for a couple of hours. Soon after commencing upon the autostrada I busted out ye olde Gameboy Advance SP for some Pokémon Crystal domination. I started by capturing the red GYRADOS at the lake of rage and after that I adjourned to Mahogany Town to rid the town of Team Rockets presence. After quickly dispatching these Rockets I defeated Mahogany Towns gym leader and obtained the corresponding gym badge. Upon completion of these trivial bouts I initiated my journey to the small town of Blackthorn for some R&R before FLYing to Goldenrod to get the underground key from the Rocket member at the top of the radio tower.

Around the time I collected to key from the Rocket executive we were nearing our intended location in Firenze, so I saved and shut off the Gameman. We parked our vehicle in a piazza near our hotel and after some searching we were able to find our two star resort in what seemed like someone's apartment. We unloaded the car, got somewhat settled in our room and set off to see what we could see, but obviously not before stopping for a marvelous burrito/wrap at a nearby kebab shop STOP

Modena/Maranello

Day one in Modena:
GPS brought us to the wrong location initially, but that was eventually sorted out and we arrivened at our hotel at a reasonable hour. After settling in at the hotel we set out to explore the surrounding area and possibly find somewhere to eat. Returning from our walk, unsuccessful in finding a restaurant, we adjourned to the hotel restaurant where we enjoyed a rather splendid meal.

Day two:
Drove initially to the Lamborghini factory, only to be disappointed by the fact that it was closed until early January, much like Ducati. After this happened we ventured on to the Ferrari museum in Maranello, the larger of the two we visited. We spent plenty of time at this museum and took much pixurs of the Ferrari's through the generations, (check Facebook). Upon leaving the museum we were greeted by a woman wanting to know if we would like to drive a Ferrari, we contemplated this for a moment and came to the conclusion that we would very much like to. So we followed her back to their headquarters across the street where we filled out paperwork for driving a California, my father and I each for ten minutes. Dad drove first, with Juliann and I sitting in the back, we rounded the block and returned so I could hop in the front. Only mother and the instructor could fit when I drove since no one could fit behind me. We took off and I switched the car off automatic and turned the steering wheel dial to sport mode when the instructor wasn't looking. I can now say I know what 450hp in a Ferrari feels like.

Damiani Log

Just chillin at Damiani's, drinking the occasional cappuccino, eating croissants con crema, listening to the piano.  It is quite peaceful here, very laid back and no one seems to mind what you're doing.  Anyone can grab a slice of piano and no one asks them if they got permission or asks them to stop.

Everyone here seems to be an expert tennis player and when they they aren't on the court they are relaxing in the hot tub, sharing conversation.  We finally have a couple of rackets to play tennis with, albeit not our own rackets, they should still be able to get the job done until we are able to retrieve ours from Roma.

Hoping to have some church friends over this weekend for some maxin and relaxin, maybe some cards and definitely some hot tub.

This has been yore Captain,
Signing off

Light Refraction

A simple experiment demonstrating refraction of a laser beam through water.

The golden gate bridge as seen through tiny water droplets on a window.

" Refraction can be seen when looking into a bowl of water. Air has a refractive index of about 1.0003, and water has a refractive index of about 1.33. If a person looks at a straight object, such as a pencil or straw, which is placed at a slant, partially in the water, the object appears to bend at the water's surface. This is due to the bending of light rays as they move from the water to the air. Once the rays reach the eye, the eye traces them back as straight lines (lines of sight). The lines of sight (shown as dashed lines) intersect at a higher position than where the actual rays originated. This causes the pencil to appear higher and the water to appear shallower than it really is. The depth that the water appears to be when viewed from above is known as the apparent depth. This is an important consideration for spearfishing from the surface because it will make the target fish appear to be in a different place, and the fisher must aim lower to catch the fish." ~The very reliable source of Wikipedia ~

PokeBlog #2

 PokeBlog Entry #2
First ever, fully completed pokedex, Sinnoh's. After about 25 hours of total gameplay I finally conquered an entire pokedex and even obtained some very intriguing legendaries along the way.

 After the completion of my Sinnoh pokedex I went on to further train my EMPOLEON, the dominator of Sinnoh's elite 4 and champion. At this current point in time, CHARIZARD (my EMPOLEON) is at level 83, the highest I have ever attained on any Pokemon game.

In between Platinum gametimes I worked on my Ruby playthrough with my MIGHTYENA and SWAMPERT. I had finally defeated the Elite 4+1 the other day, so I decided to hunt down RAYQUAZA and after many soft-resets I caught it with one ULTRA BALL.

Since Rayquaza had been captured and I still had my MASTER BALL, I had decided to, for the first time ever, attempt the capture of a random encounter legendary. After a few minutes of trial and error, I managed to encounter and capture LATIOS, the only legendary in the game that I have never seen before.

Pokémans!

Bagon was obtained a couple weeks ago and was soon evolved into Salamence, even with a level 51 Salamence I am still not powerful enough to defeat the elite-4. I grew weary of grinding in Ruby so I borrowed a ds lite and Platinum from a new neighbor, my team currently consists of a lvl 55 Empoleon and some hm slaves, plus my Porygon of insignificant lvl. Yesterday I obtained surf and defog, I can now venture out onto the high seas for my quest for hm-strength. Stay tuned for more pointless pokémans updates.

Stairventure

This was the beginning of our Stairventure last week. Originally we began our jouney seeking the motorbike shop at the bottom of the, when we happened upon this ridiculous set of stairs.

 More stairs, leading under a road.

 The first landing we encountered on our adventure up the mountain of Posillipo.

This set of stairs was discovered shortly after we had seemingly completed the task set before us.

Almost at the summit we discovered this private tennis.

 This was the beginning of our descent into madness (The Underground City).

 This was an ancient bathroom. After abandoning this place they also took the toilets.

This wasn't even the smallest of corridors we had to pass. Most of these passageways were designed for water flow, not people.

This is probably the smallest waterway we encountered. It was around 5' tall by 2' wide.

Epic Bikes I

 Not quite sure what it is or who makes it but it's pretty baller, Street Magic stickers, red grips, disc brakes, oh yes.

 100% street legal as well, you'll never see something as awesome as this street champ in the states.

 This would be the more modern looking and super-motoed out XR650L but here it is called the FMX-650. It has two mufflers thereby equalling more power obviously, why they wouldn't have put the 650r motor in it I don't know but either way its still a pretty kewl bike.

MX des Nations

MXD was in Belgium this year and we figured that since we are so nearby it would be a mistake not to go.  The trip started with another unpleasant trip to the airport where we were herded and crammed onto a 737 with no assigned seating.  Luckily the flight was only 2 hrs so it was at least somewhat bearable.  Just remember it is worth it to spend the extra money and not fly Ryanair.

We arrived at the Eindhoven airport where it was immediately noticeable that it was a much more organized and calm country.  Upon leaving the terminal in search of a rental car or taxi we walked through parking lot with a lot of money in it, Porsches, Audi's, Beamers and other assorted expensive, foreign cars.  We ended up just getting a taxi van to take us to our hotel because all the rentals were booked solid until MXD was over.

Saturday dad and I headed out to the track on foot (it was only a klick away), and when we arrived it was a little chilly and cloudy.  We missed most of practice but were still able to watch qualifiers but those didn't start until after it torrentially down poured on us and we were forced into a tent with a crowd of hundreds of other people.  Whilst in the tent I found some Brits near the center of the pavilion and we got to talking, real characters these guys, ended up handing me a beer which would later be stolen by mine father.  The rain eventually ceased and we went back to spectating, but before leaving the tent we found some other Brits with the most ridiculous chainsaw noisemakers probably known to man that they proceeded to start and run inside the tent(pictures to follow on Facebook).

As far as actual racing Antonio Cairoli won every moto he raced in, even qualifiers.  Americas team this year consisted of Dungey in Mx1, Baggett in Mx2 and Barcia in Mx3.  Barcia looked strong in qualifiers but ended up having issues in the final motos, Baggett rode really well and got us our best points but the compounded totals of our other riders wasn't enough to beat the Belgians or Germans.  Unfortunately for our other team, Italia, one of our riders crashed out, so all of Cairoli's victories ended up not counting in the end.

All in all a great time in Belgium, reminded us a lot of home, a little brisk and lots of foliage.  Almost forgot about the chainsaw dances, I'll try and post the video we took at a later time.

Dailies II

 This was our first of three mighty steeds for the touring of Italy, the humble Hyundai Ix-20.

 This image speaks for itself, and yes that is a beamer.

 A Renault Megane 5-door, not as stylish as the 3-door version but cool none-the-less. It's one of the more common daily vehicles seen around downtown Napoli.

 The most purchased vehicle in all of Napoli, the moped. There are many many different brands and models of these, such as Peugot, Kymco, Honda and of course Vespa. I don't have a picture of one but Honda makes a step-through that's modeled after a sport bike, it's the "I don't like actual performance from sport bikes but I want to look like I do," scooter.

 Here's a Yamaha that I haven't seen anywhere in the states, not sure of the alpha numeric designation but it seemed like something we should get a picture of.

 Trans-Alps are everywhere, you'll never see one in the states but overhere they seems to be the go to adventure bikes.

Thought it was a Mini? Nope, a Dacia. They were jealous so they decided to thieve the front end design from the old Coopers.

 SSANG YONG, pinnacle of japanese offroading technology.

 Nothing compares to its beauty and functionality.

Its aerodynamics allow for maximum downforce at high speeds through rough conditions.

Dailies

Most of the common cars here are vehicles most people haven't even heard of, such as the VW Polo, Fiat Punto (Very popular), SEAT Ibiza, Peugeot 206, 207, 306 and 307. The only supercar I've seen thus far however, is an Audi R8 4.2. Looking forward to more uncommon sights here.