What I do???

I guess I would say I do a lot of things. I like the outdoors a lot. I wish I could find a job related to my field somewhere in Colorado or even Nevada or Arizona. Michigan isn’t bad but you’re limited to what you can do around here due to weather and the time frame suitable to do what you want to do outdoors.

One thing I like doing a lot is building and accessorizing my Jeep. I'm never content with what I have on that machine so I always find ways to upgrade it or to change its look. If you click on some of these pictures, you can see what I’m talking about. I guess I could go into details on what I’ve done to the Jeep but I don’t think I’ll elaborate in this page. If you want to read about the upgrades see more off road pictures, just CLICK HERE.

Mountain biking is another one of those things I like doing. In fact, I actually invested in one of those fully suspended Cannondale mountain bikes. Pretty darn kewl and very much tiring when you’re really into it. It really does build your cardiovascular and build your thighs and upper body. I really do recommend a good helmet though(i.e. DOT approved). Trust me, if it wasn’t for my helmet, I wouldn’t be generating this page. Oh before I forget, expect scars and bruises.

In line skating is another hobby. Actually, it became more than just a hobby. We started off by buying the cheapest skates that could be used in both playgrounds and ice. We bought these skates called Kinetics. They were good and they lasted a while. In fact, I still have them but I can’t use them for in line skating anymore. I can only use them on ice because I broke the plastic chassis (the rails that hold the wheels) playing roller hockey.

Since I’m from the Detroit area, hockey became the sport to play or at least try to play during ’96 & ’97. I’m sure hockey enthusiast know Detroit is known as Hockeytown. This is due to the great hockey team we have, The Detroit Red Wings (Stanley Cup Champions 1997 and 1998). Anyways, my friends and I became hockey freaks and played roller hockey twice a week. Not much came about it but we did manage to join an indoor league and develop some kind of chemistry playing with each other and against an organized team.

During college, I’ve always dreamt of having a Jeep and actually pulling something with it. Something like a watercraft. I’ve always seen one of those jet ski/sea-doos/wave runners or what ever you want to call them being pulled by some kind of vehicle. I never rode one back then so it was always an interest to test ride a water machine.

One day, I happen to be driving around the Farmington area (Detroit suburbs) and saw a machine that I thought never existed in Michigan. The machine was a Hovercraft. It’s a machine that floated on top of any surface by ways of air. This machine had a huge fan in the back that provided it’s forward movement and also provided the cushion of air that lifted the machine 6-8 inches above ground. After several days of looking at it and doing some research on the hovercraft, I finally bought it.

The very next day, I took this machine to one of the local in-land lakes and ran it around the lake without creating a wake or a wave. It was loud, but it was fun. It ran about 35 to 45 mph on water depending on which direction the wind was going. One of its great features was the ability to hover around the parking lot and easily glide to the water without using a boat ramp. Another good feature was the way it could go thru tall grassy areas where boats could never go and to just park on a beach without getting your feet wet.

This machine attracted so much attention that I got invited to several city parades and also to be the fire fighter reserve. I guess the Pontiac/Waterford city fire department needed a machine like this to be part of their rescue team because of the numerous in-land lakes in those cities. The way it was explained to me was, every year they have 3 or 4 incidents where someone falls thru the ice playing or ice fishing. In any event, I didn’t accept any of the offers.

I did get rid of the machine and sold it back to the original owner. I didn’t want to do it but I thought it was best for my safety. To make the long story short, I almost killed myself by almost flipping it upside down. It was hard to control and it took a lot of experience to drive. I must say though, It was an awesome machine.

As a replacement for the hovercraft, I bought a Yamaha Wave Raider. It's a jet ski from hell. It's fast and you can kill yourself on it. Trust me I know. I got exposed to these machine when one of my friends, Tony, bought one. He took me for ride one day and I just fell in love with it. His machine was pretty fast during that time. It topped out about 45 mph in calm water which in my dictionary is fast. In fact, when I first rode on his machine, I was scared shit-less because I felt there was nothing between me and the water if I ever fell off the machine at 40 something mph. At that time I was content on being the passenger on this two seater machine.

During that time frame, I spent a lot of time in the Southwestern region of the U.S. Most of my 1994 and 1995 summer were spent in Arizona, Nevada, and California. I used to travel a lot for the company I worked for developing and testing thermal components on cars and trucks. The company was one of the "big 3". I'd rather not say which one 'coz I'd rather not be criticized for the results which are out their in most of the vehicle on the road. Anyway, during these trips, we spent a lot of time in Lake Havasu, Arizona. Lake Havasu is the home or the actual London Bridge (remember the song you use to sing as a young child). Trust me, it is. That's another story to tell but not this time. Lake Havasu is on the Colorado river. The river separates California and Arizona. Since the Colorado river runs thru this city and the legendary London Bridge is here, this attracted a lot of Californian's and became a tourist place. With all that, Lake Havasu became the jet ski capital of the U.S.

Now, going back to my jet ski. Spending a lot of time on the Colorado river gave me some time to try out several different machines. After trying some of the bigger 3 seater machines and the stand up kind and the motorcycle kind, I felt the two seater was more of what I wanted. Unfortunately, during the times I was testing these machines, they didn't rent out the Yamaha Wave Raider because it was still too new and it was said to be the fastest machine in it's class and they didn't want the liability. When I came home from one of my trips in August of 1994, I decided to buy a Wave Raider. I'll still never forget that day when I purchased this craft.

I called Tony that same day and asked him if he wanted to go jet skiing after work. Not knowing that I was going to buy one that day, Tony told me to meet him at the lake at 2: p.m. and he will pick me up on the shore so we can play in the middle of the lake. I showed up at 1:30 and launched my jet ski on the water and started to look for Tony. When he first saw me coming, he didn't pay any attention to me until I pulled up next to him and surprised him.

As Tony and I toyed around doing some tricks and learning how to handle these machines, we started to race (oooohhhhhh). That's when I realized how fast this machine was. As Tony topped out around 45 mph, I kept going and going and going... I couldn't believe how fast my machine was going. I really didn't know how fast I was going until later on when I asked a speed boat to pace me and tell me how fast I was actually going. The boat driver basically said 57 mph. That was 3 years ago and I recently paced several watercraft equipped with a speed gauge and now my Yamaha is registering at 61 mph. I know it's not the fastest out there but it's fast enough to kill you or I should say, me.

This picture was taken with my little cousins wanting to go for a ride. Not much to say about this except, after this picture was taken, I took him for a fast ride and intentionally dumped him while I was doing 50 mph. He didn't hurt himself 'coz, as you can see, he's very well protected and insulated by his chuby-ness.

Life in the water is totally different from the life on land. You get to see places and things you never thought you'd see. But on the other hand, there are also places on land which are somewhat secluded and you'd never thought existed in Michigan. I'm speaking of the Sand Dunes in Mears, Michigan (3.5 hour west of Detroit). There are sand dunes in the northern lower peninsula in Michigan and there are sand dunes in northern Indiana. The only difference with those dune versus the dunes in Mears is, you can actually drive your vehicle in the dunes. This sand dunes is the only dunes in Michigan that allows 4X4 vehicles to play in. It's huge. It's a park that's all soft sand with hills and valleys and Lake Michigan. You can basically drive your vehicle in the water if you wanted too (not a god idea). This park is open to the public as long as you have an ORV sticker on your vehicle and a pole with an orange flag on top, 10 feet above the ground and is attached in front of your vehicle. This park is family oriented and you can park anywhere in the dunes and have a picnic. Just make sure you don't park in a valley where a vehicle can't see you.

Eventhough this park is open to the public, it does close it's gates depending on the volume of vehicle in the dunes. Also, keep in mind, just because a vehicle is a 4X4, this does not mean they can't get stuck. Just make sure you have someone to pull you out if you decide to try something risky.

This is a picture of a person who thought his Dodge Ram with a 6 inch lift and super huge tires were unstoppable. He buried his rear end so deep that you could see the water level on the back of the truck. No one there could help him since he was so deep in the water. Our group finally came along and I had to use my winch to pull him out slowly. His truck was so heavy and deep in the water that my Jeep was getting pulled in instead of him getting pulled out. We had to attach a tow rope between Don's Jeep and mine so I wouldn't get pulled in as much.

This park can be dangerous if you become careless or attempt a daredevil move. You must always pay attention to the vehicles near you because there is no right of way inside the park (except a couple of hills). If you do get stuck and there is nobody there that want to help you, there is always a ranger driving around that will call a tow truck for you ($170 a trip). I think I’d rather dig my vehicle out if I ever got stuck and nobody can help me.

Speaking of dangerous, this is Don's Jeep after he thought he could "airborne" his Jeep (which he did, about 5 feet in the air) and land and continue down the hill. As you can see, that's not what happened. He got airborne and landed with his front end first and buried his front bumper. The Jeep's rear end decided not to land and keep going instead which caused him to flip and land on the rear roll bar and then rolled sideways until it finally stopped. Don had four people in his Jeep when this happened and surprisingly enough, nobody got hurt.

The second picture is me and my Jeep trying to tow Don's Jeep off the hill before someone else lands on it.

The Jeep experienced extensive amount of damages to the body, the roll bars, the windshield and one tire. Needless to say, after we change the tire, Don drove it for 3 hours until we got pulled over by the police in Lansing and made Don get a tow truck..

There are other places beside the sand dunes where you can drive your SUV's or 4X4's. My friends and I found a place in St. Helen, Michigan where there are trails designed for SUV's and 4X4's. These trails are part of the state forest so you would still need to have an ORV sticker on your vehicle. These trail run for many miles and provide some great scenery. There are maps for these trails which can be acquired from the Chamber of Commerce. We never found the map to be clear so we use them just as a starting point. We never know where we'll end up. In most cases, we just set up camp wherever their is an open space to park all the Jeeps. Just make sure you don't set up camp on the trail itself. There are people out there that off road during the night.

Some of these trails require some knowledge of off-roading. There are some steep hills that are just wide enough for a Jeep. In some cases, some Jeep don't make it up these hills and they have to drive back down to the bottom, backwards, in which case is somewhat dangerous.

This is a picture of Bob's Jeep as some of us try to prevent it from tipping to its side. Bob was one of the unfortunate who didn't make it to the top of the steep winding hill and drove down the hill backwards. He thought he could stop halfway down and start climbing again. Bob accidentally backed his Jeep in an uneven ground which placed his Jeep in a very dangerous situation. We did manage to get his Jeep back on the trail by attaching a winch and pulling him forward until he is back on even ground.

This is another picture of Bob's Jeep as he tries to cross a water hole. This was actually a good section of the trails. The water hole was about 3 feet deep and on the other side was a steep climb on loose sand. Bob actually had to reverse back into the water hole to prevent getting stuck on the other end. By the way, the person on the top left is not relieving himself.

This is a picture of Mike's Jeep as we stopped and looked for a way to turn around from a dead end trail. He didn't think he could make it back up the hill backwards.

This is my Jeep as it climbs around a bend with a damaged wheel after hitting a stump on the side of the hill. This was also a nice part of the trails because this section was dirt, sand, roots, rocks, stumps and trees which wraps around a hill. Not picture is the slanted tree which would easily rip off the top of the Jeep if you weren't slow and careful. Richard would be the person to tell more about this tree after ripping off and relocating his bike carrier on his Explorer.

These are several pictures of my Jeep and Lowell’s S10 as we try to cross this water hole. There is a safer and dryer route but we wanted to know how far we can go before we can’t go anymore.

Lowell did get his truck stuck in the water. I had to pull him out because he was afraid to start it back up ‘coz his air intake was too close to the water. No he did not get any water in his engine but he got a lot of water inside his truck.

This is picture was taken after we found our way out from the trails. The Jeeps were clean when we started. That didn't last.

This set of pictures were taken from the Outer Banks of North Carolina. May and I drove out there for Easter and played in the water for a day. Yes, that’s salt water.

Most of my friends own a Jeep and a couple own some sort of 4X4. We've been venturing in these forests and dunes for the last 4 years. I'm glad to say that no one has ever gotten hurt or killed from our group while off-roading. After off -roading is another story which will not be mentioned in this page.

Last and far from the least, snowboarding. This sport has to be one of the most demanding sport for your legs. You basically surf down a snow/ice covered mountain/hill until your legs give in or you plant your face on the sometimes hard snow or ice surface.

I've been boarding for 4 years now and I've been skiing 7 years prior to learning how much more fun boarding is. People say that boarding is harder and some say skiing is harder. Let me tell you something. They are totally different. Skiing allows you to move your legs around and point each one at different directions. In boarding, forget it. If you try to execute the same principal from skiing to boarding, I'll guarantee you'll feel the outcome the next morning when you wake up.

This is a picture of myself and Adrian having second thoughts about going down this particular run. This was at Northstar ski resort near Lake Tahoe.

This was taken on the way to Squaw Valley ski resort.

I hope this page gave you a better understanding of what I do when time permits and the weather cooperates..

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