desertDJ’s Halo Halo

We traveled to three cities in four days!!! And we gotta alotta crazy stories along the way. So check it out. 

Saturday, May 27th – Sunday Morning, May 28th.
For those that don’t know, LA traffic sucks 24/7, there is no such thing as rush hour, they got slow hour, 2:00 AM – 5:00 AM.  Well after leaving our hotel around 7:30 AM, we didn’t get to Six Flags till 11:00.

Then we parked a mile away, no joke!  And once we got inside Six Flags the lines didnt stop. Here is your tip of the day: Never go to Six Flags on a holiday weekend. The longest line we waited in was for the new Tazu ride, about 4 hours, pretty cool ride though.  My favorite was “X”, I didn’t know your body could be spun in so many directions at once! Also the Superman ride gives you a rush like no other. 

From Six Flags our crew took off to Hollywood/Thai Town (this was after trying to find Roscoe’s Chicken N Waffle’s, apperently they arent open at midnight).  Anyway we found an awesome Thai food restraunt and had some good asain home cookin’.  We split back to our own ways from there but while in Hollywood we gotta call from Jenny’s brother that they got into an accident on the freeway going back to their hotel, but not just anywhere, East LA. They had towed the cars off the freeway into the neighborhood. This neighborhood is so bad that the highway patrol said he couldnt leave us there or we would not make it out alive from all the gangs. Well unfortunally our friends car was totaled:

 
Here was a photo from eariler in the day.

Thank God nobody was seriously hurt but the girl who caused it (she stopped in the middle of the freeway because she had a flat tire.) was arrested after a few DUI tests.  Anyway we didnt get to our hotel till 5:00 AM, and we had to get up at around 7:30, so we didnt get much sleep.

But nothing makes things better like Chicked and Waffles!  Afterwards we went to our New Apostolic Church in Pasadena for the retirement of one of the ministers, District Elder Johnson (one of the reasons we went on the trip in the first place!)

Well enough time was spent in LA, and after letting Jenny’s cuz take over the wheel so I can take a nap we had our next city to go to… Las Vegas.

 
Originally posted: July 14th, 2006

We traveled to three cities in four days!!! And we gotta alotta crazy stories along the way. So check it out. 

Friday, May 26th.
I love me a good road trip, and this was the ultimate Southwest road trip.  This was going to be my 2nd trip to San Diego, but it only took one to fall in love with that city. The windows went down as soon as we drove into the valley, something we can’t do here. We went to Balboa Park and checked out several mueseums, had lunch downtown and then went to the beach for the afternoon.  The beach sucked though because there was mounds of sea weed everywhere!

At night we watched the Suns loose at the bar in our hotel with some business guys and a chick from ASU, then we crused downtown for a while.  Next up… Los Angeles.

 
Originally posted: July 14th, 2006

Here are some photos that I took on Monday’s April 10th protest in Downtown Phoenix. I thought for such a historic day it would be cool to have some photos of it, if your wondering why I bothered to take photos.  Also read my thoughts at the end of the photos and comment what you think on the issue…

Winding through Washington and 3rd Ave.

Birds Eye view looking at Van Buren & 3rd Ave from the
24th floor of Chase Tower.

Rallying support for their cause.

The quote about freedom and growth is from John F. Kennedy.

Towards the end of the crowd.

What march isnt complete without the Ice Cream man,
one of many on the march route.

Not to be outdone, there were several anti-immigration protestors.
Although this guy had an evil smile on his face.

This aint all about Mexicans!
This was a group leading a march from Chinatown to Love Park in Philly.

This was along the march route.  Si, Se Puede (Yes, We Can) was what Chavez was known for saying, and it was the phrase of the marches across the country.

My favorite photo of all.  Washington Street jam packed for miles. Toward the end of the road you can see dome of the Arizona state capital.  The large white building in front left is the Superior Court Complex.

So my thoughts….
Im only putting this on here because so many people asked me when I was showing them the photos.  The illegal immigrants that are here right now are vital to our economy.  They do a lot of the jobs that we don’t want to do (construction, fast food, janitor…ect).  A lot of people made the arguement to me that they are taking away our jobs here. Well a majority (yes there are plently of exceptions) of the illegal immigrants dont have the jobs that the unemployeed are looking for.  Now does that mean let them all stay here for free? I support the idea of having them join a guest worker program, have them pay some type of fine and back taxes with the future possibility of citizenship. In addition, to keep the problem from continuing, we also need a more secure border, although I have no good idea for that problem.  And also a final note, this does affect me personally because I have lots of family from the Philippines who try to come over here for a better oppurtunity, even if just for working here for one year.  I know some family in the past have over extended their stay and were here illeagilly and I also don’t think it would be right to make it a felony to be here illegally.

So now you know what I think, comment what you think!
Thanks, Eric.
PS – Check my videos page and check out “A Day of Action” for a clip from the march.

Originally Posted: April 10th, 2006

“To go to the snow”

That was my response to the insurance agent when asked what was the purpose of the trip.  She laughed but being from Arizona, we don’t get to see snow that much, unlike you East coast people who complain so much about it.  So why was I talking to an insurance agent about my trip to the snow?  No I don’t have a buddy who works for Allstate, I got to an accident. But how? And why was I going up 89A in a snowstorm? To go to the snow of course!

Well seeing how much snow Flagstaff and up north was gettin, I had to get in on that action.  Since Reachhane had to work all week so we were stuck in town for Spring Break I thought it would be cool to go up north to the snow since we didn’t get any snow all year. So we left early Sunday morning (we got up at 5:00, you all were still sleeping at that point). When picking up one of our friends in Laveen we even had seen some snow on South Mountain! It didn’t take to long to see it everywhere.

The Sign for Sunset Point

Sunset Point

By the time we got to Sunset Point, it was hard to imagine that it is March and just a week ago we haven’t had rain for over 140 days.  It was snowing, all the mountains were white, the huge saguaro cactus had dustings of snow on it., signs saying “Phoenix – 30 Miles” covered in snow. It’s something that I won’t soon forget.  After playing around on our first of many quick stops we headed further up I-17. Next stop, Sedona.

The four of us

I never used to be much of a photographer, but ever since I started really getting to photography, I always wanted to take photos of Sedona and Grand Canyon with snow.  Grand Canyon might be a bit more challenging but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity to cut though Sedona.  The views were defiantly worth it.  Seeing the Red Rock contrasted with the white snow, and forever preserved on digital pictures. Awesome! After several stops for photos we continued on toward our final destination of Flagstaff.  Things were going great aside from the mountain tops started disappearing.  After one final stop at Rainbow Trout Farm to take photos of Oak Creek, we started hitting heavy snow and un unplowed road.

Snow on the Red Rock

Oak Creek Canyon at Rainbow Trout Farm
 

The truck I slid into

At that point believe me the thought had crossed my mind to turn around and head back, but I was constantly reassured after seeing car after car that made it down out of the mountain, so I figure if those cars made it down, I can make it up.  The road started getting so bad I wasn’t driving any faster than 25 miles an hour.  I thought I don’t care if it takes an hour to get up this road, I don’t feel like turning back and Ill get a few more awesome photos. Then we came up to a curve and I seen about 6-7 cars that were on the side of the road.  I thought, “OK they must have all hit each other”, but the snow and road conditions were so bad that it was time to head back.  But these guys were waving me to go though and I was too close to turn around where I was at so I was going to pass this mess, turn around and head back down.

As I slowly turned the curve (like 2-3 MPH) I stopped going forward and started sliding toward my left and a bright red truck.  Doing everything in my power I tried to prevent hitting that car but in slow motion I hit the side of his truck, jamming his bumper into my new 05 Lancer Lucky no one was hurt, just our cars.  When I got out I realized no wonder I got into an accident.  I could slide from one side of the road to the other with one step, like a huge ice rink.  I ran to the road where those guys were waiving me on and started stopping any more cars to come though.  I don’t need any more damage to my poor car!  Luckily someone had cell phone service and called for help and although I had a big dent (and 2 small ones) that’s what insurance was for, plus I knew that what the risk was for taking that windy mountain road in the snow.

A Close up of the Damage

The Snow Plow that hit the Jeep

Just then a snow plow came cursing around the corner. Yeah, we can get out of here, he’ll clear the road and we’ll just drive back down. Not much longer after I thought that than this giant yellow snow plow also started sliding and right into a Jeep where its owner was standing.  He narrowly escaped death and got out of the way just in time before it slammed into his Jeep, but not without injury.  He ended up with a deep cut on his nose that required a trip to the emergency room.

So here we are, with it being dead quiet and we all began wondering how we would ever get off this mountain.  Not too long after a fire truck and DPS officer came up.  Although it looked bad, we started pushing are cars off each other and one by one, after some of that black rock from the snow plow started melting the snow we got out of there.  Now aside from my $500 deductible I now have to pay to get my car fixed, the trip, I’m happy to report, ended up with a happy story.  We got the heck outta Sedona, and with some advise from the DPS officer (I-17 couldn’t have been much better), headed back south on I-17.  After some quick phone calls our next stop was Prescott. 

 
Pushin out the cars

                We ended up in downtown Prescott in front of the court house where there was plenty of snow.  1 snowman, 5 snowball fights and one ball of ice to my bro’s butt later we ended up having an awesome time.  Don’t believe me? Check out these pictures and leave comments!!

Originally posted March 28th, 2006