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The last week has been riddled with computer and internet frustrations attempting to transfer nearly 10G of footage and photos from our trip to FISE contest to Angie across the miles before her next trip started. Our days looked like this in between my work shifts and dealings with plumbing disaster and a super delayed landlord response.
Waiting for the files to transfer gave me the opportunity to review my lease and research my tenant rights here in the state of Texas. I learned several things that a lot of us get lazy with when it comes to moving into a new place. In order to cover your ass, make sure no MATTER what! That you take photos or film the condition of your apt or house when you move in. This will help you get all our part of your deposit back.
In addition, in the event that you have a plumbing emergency like we encountered, with no timely response from the landlord, most cases you have the right to “repair and deduct” from your rent. Our situation was a little more complicated because a third party automatically deducts a set amount of rent from my account every month. What a mess!!
I called 311 and the city came out to make sure it wasn’t their sewer lines causing the back up and ended up digging up the driveway in the middle of the night to access their pipes.
A plumber came out via the landlord and although he barely spoke English (bless his heart) he somehow cleared the lines. He told us that we were not the cause of the backup and that it must be tree roots but he couldn’t say for sure. Well then the landlord called him and then called us back to let us know that he told him that he pulled a “foreign object” out of the line that was not organic.
So after using all of our bath towels to keep the poopy water overflowing from toilet andbath tub from reaching our bedrooms we now discover that according to our lease, “foreign object” means the tenant pays for plumbing repair.
FML!! Thankfully the landlord offered to pay for plumber (but Throwing a curve ball at us after the plumber told us it was tree roots (due to landlord negligence)..basically I had a feeling he would find a way to turn it on us) my next lesson learned, see the Invoice IN WRITING and get a copy for YOUR records!!
So instead of having a cleaning service come in to sanitize our house we were forced to nuke the bathroom and hallway ourselves. Ughh!!! It was bad!! Texas Tenant is a good website to help you understand your rights.
EEEWWW!!! Anyway
I am on my way to the Walnut Creek pumptrack with girl Dani and Brittany and Adrianne’s bro Johnny maz.
It’s been a week of plumbing and computer stress ha!! The computer stress will be well worth the wait I hope it looks as though our edit will be going up sometime today!! So excited!!
I’ll post the link when it’s up I would just keep checking Yeah Zine
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Miami Heat beat Celtics in tonights playoff game, our bathtub and toilet overflowed with some sort of refuse that smells horrid and the landlord hasn’t responded to any of our messages for help, and the city is here digging up our driveway in the middle of the night to make sure it’s not their pipe causing our house disaster. I’ve finally gotten 2G worth of files transferred to Angie for FISE edit in the meantime borrowing some neighboring internet signal. Woo!!! Anyone else read this in the news? YIKES!! I guess things aren’t as bad over here in Austin after all. ha!
Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: 360BS, Angie Marino, Barcelona, Bea Ibanez, Fairdale Bikes, FISE, Jessica Ausec, Odyssey, Radio Bikes, Texas Toast, Yeah Zine
While we were in Barcelona, Jessica and I made our way to this single speed BMX/fixie shop and saw our new friend Jaume who came with Bea Ibanez (1st place FISE). The name of the shop is 360 BS and this is the link to their blog which covers their trip to FISE
He also hooked us up with some sweet plastic pedals from 
(muchísimo gracias!)
here we are out front of the shop with Jaume..
Bea, from Barcelona has a rad photo up on the Radio Bikes site doing a no-footed can over the spine, and kills it, mostly riding trails. Jaume sent me this pic of her and I at FISE..
Click here for the details on the Odyssey site 🙂
Someone want to plant me a money tree in the yard so I don’t have to work any more? hahaha
seriously…
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FISE in Montpellier May 16-20th, 2012!
Here is a side view of the BMX course built on top of scaffolding in the middle of a terminator 2 style ditch in the center of the city. I’ll get some more pics today of the rest of the canal and big air events. This is only day 1, so the crowd hasn’t even really arrived yet.
We attempted some practice but there were a few hundred people between all of the ams girls and pro’s trying to muscle out a few runs together. Road rage to the max!
There are so many events happening at this event, here is just the registration form alone..
In addition to Montpellier being taken over by FISE, the world championship of gymnastics is happening here as well! This city is packed! “C’est fous!”
P.S. I miss my French Fries friends, Gervais, David, John, Franck, and Marie Meuret, I don’t think I’ll be able to see them this trip unfortunately. Marie said she may be able to make the trip here on Sunday for ladies finals, but just know I am thinking of you homies! Sorry won’t be able to visit Bordeaux this trip 😦
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After a long day of traveling on the bus from Barcelona, we made it to Montpellier bus station. Our pick up wasn’t there, so we took a tram aka the “TAM” to the central train station where we waited a few hours but thankfully ran into two homies from the USA, AJ Anaya and Dustin (not sure his last name) who were able to message their guy to pick us up as well. PHEW!! Small awesome world of BMX to the rescue!
Here’s a few photos from the bus, this guy in front of me was super nice to let me stow my bag on the floor next to him since the seat was empty, but after awhile, I realized the “toll” was his grimy bare ass feet got to rest on it most of the trip. Eeew!
I also wanted to share this write up on the Tender Trap our friend Darryl Nau‘s new bar got in the NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/03/fashion/tender-trap-williamsburg-brooklyn.html?smid=pl-share Pretty awesome, I can’t wait to visit this place next time I go home to NY! Go Darryl Go!
So we are awake now in Montpellier, our bikes are built, and it’s time to go register for the contest and explore FISE! If you haven’t already checked out this website and the little web teaser video they have on the home page, do it now! haha this is going to be crazy!
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Last night in Barcelona we stayed out riding until almost 3am so much for getting some rest haha! This morning we checked out of our hostile and have been pedaling around until our bus to France in an hour. Here is one thing I love about Europe:
This was an adventure in it’s own with all of these bags pedaling through traffic ha! Here we go to the bus station!
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Hey Jess, screw the map, there is a sweet azz wall ride RIGHT behind you!
I am really excited to be back here in BCN, I haven’t been here since 2005 when I came to visit Stacey Mulligan while she was studying abroad! She took me all over town, so much looks familiar but definitely miss you as a tour guide Stace!!
Aside from dodging crazy scooters, taxis and buses, so far so good! Jessica Ausec, Angie Marino and I are pedaling around Barcelona for the next 17 hours. It’s beautiful weather but cooling down fast. Made it back to the hostile to grab a hoodie and post this quick little update. I have €39 left for one week after my bus fare to FisE in France. We leave tomorrow. Haha “are you gonna eat that?” may be my new motto for the next week ha! Headin back out to the streets!
This statue of Christopher Columbus pointing towards the “New World” actually has him pointing in the WRONG direction ha ha so naturally we had to call “dude” out ha
To be continued…
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Happy mothers day to all of you moms out there!!
Once again Dave Krone and Twinkie have came and gone from Austin this time for awhile, guess they are snowbird official status. Back to Philly they go! Gonna miss you two!
Right now I am on an airplane in Atlanta with Jess Ausec and Angie Marino! We are flying to Barcelona and taking a bus to FISE BMX contest in france.
Flying corn and some tweaker BMX girls:
The flying corn made my day, haha
Last night got to see thee Louisiana metal band Eyehategod at the 29th street Ballroom in Austin. My ears are still ringing it was proper loud and awesome as usual! Here are a few iphone pics I shot.
I will post more as our trip continues as long as I can still find free wi-fi 😜💃 Barcelona here we come!
These last few days have been awesome! Rob D was back in town shooting some photos so I racked my brain for some spots And things I wanted to shoot. Motivation to send in the last few clips for my part in Chickflick BMX the deadline was a week ago hopefully these last few clips will make it the cut!
It has been a trip lurking on the east side of Austin rediscovering Bob Scerbo’s waxed up spots over the years of coming down here haha. No one else that i know of seems to venture over to this part of the hood with wax haha, Thanks dog!
Waxy peg aftermath:
Sidenote, I am also way excited about purchasing some hub Guards for my profile hub set, this means more carefree grinding all day!
Woohoo! 
Aha!
Got a little scuffed up at that one spot I didn’t realize my bandaid was flapping in the wind until we pulled up to some coffee spot and I saw the look on some gals face staring at my leg, oops!
Yesterday however was a fun day, robs last night in town, thankfully the sun stayed out all day and we were able to get a bunch of stuff done. After the day ended, we met up with our friend Aimee Mac to see her perform live at “frank”
And Dave Krone has not only graced us with his and Twinkie’s presence but also with the best house guest peace offering:
Here is Twinkie dealing with BMX life
The rain is good for filling up the swim spots and helping Texas wild flowers bloom
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When it’s still 92+ degrees after 8pm at the beginning of May, I believe it’s a safe bet to say we have skipped Spring and Summer has officially arrived in Austin.
Issue 5 of Yeah Zine is Due out in June and has been in the works since the Fall. Brace yourselves hehe
This weekend was super busy. Friend Rob got to town Saturday afternoon, it not only was cinco de mayo, and Kentucky derby but also the pecan street festival (aka 6th st becomes a huge street fair for 48hrs).
I ended up attending Stoney’s friends wedding congratulions Roy and Mary
Yup, I wore a dress.
Then my friend from the UK, Ian aka “Kag” is driving across the USA from California to NY and had arrived in Austin for his first time. Aussie Adam
Was feeling coordinated enough to come out for his first pedal around town we hit up housepark (a scorcher!) and then Barton Springs. Fun times!
The first part of Sunday while the dudes were at housepark was pretty sweet, I made some Veggie kabobs And stopped by Ruben Castillo’s birthday party. Ruben is a BMX legend and so naturally most of his homies in attendance were too haha! It was pretty awesome to hear is dad share stories from back in the day when him and Rubens mom would work concession stand at the AFA contests. The one I remember most was why they call Pete Augustin, “disgustin Augustin!” haha apparently that guy Mooned Rdoggs mom and dad and from then on disgustin Augustin stuck ha
Anyway Rdoggs lady Kdogg hosted a nice party For him and his closest friends and also it was his cousin franks birthday. Here’s the cake:
Piñata!
To end the night we pedaled around downtown and heard Social Distortion playing live at Stubbs BBQ. Aussie Adam and Rob hid their bikes in the bushes out back hopped a fence to the venue and tried to act casual haha but it wasn’t Long until at least 16 dudes escorted them out Hahahaha so funny!
So just killin time we all pedaled to top of parking garage across the street the music was so loud it was like we were watching it live. Got our own bicycle parking spot
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our view
A fun weekend indeed! Great to see a bunch of friends and ride bikes and have good weather. Woohoo!
thrillerburrito 