Are Food Trucks Struggling in O.C.?

Earlier this month L.A. lost the Fresser's Deli Truck and now it appears to be Orange County's turn. Fast Food Maven announces the early passing of Brooklyn Boy's Deli truck, reporting that chef Marc Gabriel will slam on the breaks to work back in a conventional restaurant in his hometown of Temecula. With prices nearly double the cost of a Kogi burrito and a possible communication breakdown on Twitter, Brooklyn Boy might have missed the whole point of food trucks providing reliable, cheap eats. But the owner of Piaggio-On-Wheels agrees with Gabriel that it's harder than most people think to attract a fan base to food trucks, especially in O.C.

Coli Piaggio relates that, "People think they can start a truck and it will be Kogi overnight...This (running a truck) is a whole other animal.” And apparently so is O.C., where the trend of street-eating has failed to catch on like it did in L.A., even if a few specific trucks have devotees willing to wait in line or travel to Irvine for a favorite dish. For his part, Gabriel contends that he was making money and is working to get his Sloppy Moe into retail stores, though no explanation for the closure is given short of a long drive to O.C. and the fact that local residents there "still aren’t getting it."

This closure in O.C. and previous ones in L.A. make us less curious about O.C.'s eating habits as it does about the entire nature of the truckin' trend. Wasn't it Kogi's innovative recipes that really kicked this thing off much more than the prescense of wheeled restaurants? Isn't the supposed "food truck trend" really just the aftermath of this one truck's popularity, or as the O.C. Register calls it, a "Kogi-Craze?"

Thank God for Little Girls and Tow Trucks

If I've said it once, I've said it a million times. My family doesn't do a dern thing without drama. Not a thing. You wouldn't expect the birth of the newest little beauty in our family to be any different now would you?

This latest bit of excitement began last Tuesday night. I spent Tuesday recovering from our ER experience the night before. I talked with my sister who was really bummed out that she couldn't be induced that day and she had taken my almost 2 year old nephew grocery shopping in hopes that she would aggravate herself into labor. :) My mom, brother and I had already made plans to leave out Wednesday afternoon so we could spend a little time with Jenny before she was induced on Friday. I had scheduled a follow-up dr.'s appointment for Kate at 8:00 Wednesday morning so I would be sure to be done and ready to hit the road.

While I was making supper that night I got news that Jenny was having regular contractions and she was going to wait until they laid Luke down for bed, then head to the hospital. That still gave me a few hours and I knew that even then, there was always the chance they would send her back home. After supper I headed to the Dollar General and my Mom called saying it was official, they were keeping her at the hospital. My Mom works on a dinner cruise that goes out in the bay and she was at work prepping for dinner that night. She couldn't decide if she should go ahead and work or not. She told me to call Phil. Everybody in Dollar General heard all about our plans that night. We decided my Mom should just work and we would leave out when she was done. She decided she was just heading home! So, I went home, took a bath, got dressed, finished packing and we headed to my Mom's. We loaded all of our stuff into her and car and cranked it up. It made the most horrible sound you have ever heard. So, we got out, unloaded and reloaded into Phil's car. We were finally heading out.

After stopping at a rest area that was more like a mini camping vacation, we were determined not to stop until we got to the hospital. Jenny was sending regular texts to keep us updated and things were moving along. Unfortunately, about an hour and a half into our trip, we weren't. My Mom was on the phone and Phil was saying something about a light coming on and the next thing I knew we were pulled over on the side of I-10, broke down. At 1:30 am. We were on the phone with Josh trying to get long distance mechanic advice. My Mom was looking at an Avon catalog. I got out to investigate. If you've read my blog for very long you know that I have some experience with broke down cars. My specialty is blowing up engines.

Phil was on my phone talking to Josh and I decided to check things out. Nothing looked blown up and there was no green stuff leaking. I knew that was good. Unfortunately, that was the only good news. After that we spent an hour in the dark waiting on a tow truck that we had no idea where to tell it to take us. My Mom kept saying she wished somebody would stop to help us, but I kept thinking, "NO! Please don't let anybody stop!" Because seriously, people who stop at 2:00 in the morning are more likely to kill you than to help you. Am I right, here???

The tow truck finally arrived and sure enough, the guy looked like a serial killer. My Mom asked me later if I got a picture of him and I told her that he did not seem up for a photo shoot, know what I mean? While we watched the car being loaded on the trailor do you know what came wandering by? A POSSUM! I'm telling you, I am like the queen of the rodent population. Can't go anywhere without them. We loaded up in the tow truck and all I could think was, "How many times will I ride in tow trucks with serial killer look alikes in my life?" Thankfully, he was a nice guy and he took us to drop the car off at an auto place and waited for us to reload all of our stuff into his truck so he could drop us off at a hotel up the road. We were delirious by that point. When we got to the desk the guy asked how many nights we needed the room and Phil told him just one.I then jokingly said "Or an hour or so." The guy gave me quite a look and I started to explain that I was with my Mom and brother, but then I decided that would probably just sound even stranger. I just let it go and went to find the vending machine.

It was when I climbed into the bed with my Reese's Cup that the whole night made sense. There, on the wrapper, it said, "You can win $2 Million instantly". "This is it!" I exclaimed. "This is why all of this happened. So we would end up at this hotel and I would get this Reese's Cup!"

Here I am moments before opening my prize...

And here I am after reading "Sorry, you are not a winner". I was trying to make a really sad face, but I was so unbelievably, deliriously silly by this point. It was much funnier at 3 in the morning. I promise.

Luckily, my last few weeks of not being able to sleep before 2 am really paid off this night. I didn't even think I would go to sleep at all, but I finally did. For a few hours. :) We got up a little before 7:00 and we were able to get a hold of Jenny's best friend, Jenn, who luckily lives in Tally where we were passing our time. She came and picked Phil up and took him to the car place where the damage was told. Nothing can start a day off worse than a quote from a mechanic. We started looking at renting a car, but there were no places that would let us just rent the car for the day. Finally, we just decided to have the car fixed and wait the estimated 3 hours. While we enjoyed our continental breakfast we got the news that Baby Lyla had made her entrance into the world.

Soon, we got this pic on our phones. So, I had to have my first pic with Lyla. :)

After our wait at the hotel that included monopolizing the lobby's computer, obssesive texting, and obnoxious yelling "She looks like me! She looks like me!" Jenn came back to taxi us back to the car place. Hallelujah!

Not everybody gets to hang out in places like this on their road trips....

FINALLY, we were on the road. For real. We stopped by Burger King for lunch and it just happened to be the BK Josh and I used to drive across town to eat at when I was pregnant with Sarah because I HAD to have whopper jr's. Had to. Come to think of it, most of my memories of Tally are the places I broke down and the places I ate because of pregnancy cravings. What a full circle moment. :)

All was well until we got into the town the hospital was at and we got stopped by a train! And not just any train. One of those trains that kept stopping, backing up, going forward, backing up, you know they kind that make you want to scream ugly words out the car window. I mean, not that preacher's wives ever want to do that.....Anyway, I had joked for the last few weeks about catching the Midnight Train to Georgia. After watching this train I decided it was better to take the broke down car!!!!!

Our 3 and a half hour trip turned into an almost 24 hour mini-vacay. Okay, maybe that is not the right word. :) But, when we got to the hospital, it was all SOOO worth it!

If I look like I only got 3 hours of sleep and I slept in my clothes, well.....yeah. :) My sister who was in labor for hours and had just given birth, looked awesome though!

After loving on my new favorite niece Phil and I headed to Jenny's house to pick up the big brother for his first meeting with little Miss.

Jenny had told me about this, a binder she had prepared with Luke's schedule and all other important info. She seemed to think I might be a little offended by it, but I thought it was the greatest thing ever! I totally crack up at how funny life is. Growing up Jenny was the wild child, party girl. I was the church going honor student. We are SOO different as Mom's than I thought we would be. She is super organized, scheduled and has it all together. I'm, well.....y'all read my blog. Y'all know what I'm like. :)

After supper and a bath it was time for the first meeting!

Is he the cutest big brother or what??

My beautiful sister and her precious babies. I never knew I could love any other kids as much as I love my own!!!

I am so thankful I got to be a part of this amazing moment and I would have taken 85 tow trucks to get there!!!!!!!

Spring Break Over; Trucks Are Back

By Nick Bromberg | Senior Correspondent
RacinToday.com

Kansas City, Kan. – You can forgive yourself if you’ve forgotten about the Camping World Truck Series. After all, it’s only been a month since the last race at Nashville.

“I’d rather be racing…I’m tired of doing honey-dos for my wife,” defending series champion Ron Hornaday Jr. said. “I’m tired of cutting trees down, painting garage doors, doing that stuff. If I race, I can pay somebody to do that and not have to do that. I just enjoy racing, I worked all my life to race and get an opportunity to do it.”

However, Mike Skinner, who won last year’s race at Kansas Speedway, the site of Sunday’s race, says that he enjoyed the break, but understands that the length of the break may not be the greatest thing for the series’ visibility.

“That’s a really, really valid question and I would have to say for the series it’s probably a little bit too long of a break,” Skinner said.

“I would rather see less break, run every other week, get your 25 weeks in or whatever and maybe stop our season – our season is the same length as the Cup season – do we really need to wrap our championship in Homestead in November? Or do we maybe need to be down in September or October?”

And because the Cup Series is in Richmond this weekend, this is the first race of the season that Kyle Busch will not be in and the second that Kevin Harvick will not race in. When asked about Harvick and Busch, Hornaday was surprised that Busch wasn’t flying in for the race on Sunday but said that the lack of Cup drivers didn’t make the race any different.

“They’re beatable, that’s what they’re there for. That just makes us turn up our wick more,” Hornaday said.

Skinner agreed that Cup drivers provide a great challenge, especially for young drivers in the series, but also said that he feels the series needs to build its own identity away from NASCAR’s top two series.

“The Cup Series has its own identity. Let these other series, even if we have to shorten the field up to 25 or 30 cars… if we have to do that to make the show right, then do it. In my opinion, and I’m just one person, I would much rather see us have much less companion races. We do need a handful of companion races because if you have a young driver coming up, say we have a Landon Cassill or someone else coming up, he needs to run against Kevin Harvick so we can see how he can do. But not every other race,” Skinner said.

Recently, Kevin Harvick Inc. has been the identity of the Truck Series, as Hornaday and Harvick have won 11 of the last 29 races. Todd Bodine, the 2006 CWTS champion, attributes that to coilbinding, a setup that utilizes soft front springs and stiff rear springs.

“The biggest thing in the setups is the advent of coil binding. Back when we ran so well every week on these mile and a halfs we were probably the only guys that were almost coil binding. We weren’t quite doing it but we were right there and everyone else hadn’t caught on and once they started doing that on the Cup side and everyone figured it out, obviously it trickles down to what we’re doing. The biggest thing that I think changed that was when they went from having a valence on the front of the trucks to just having a true splitter, then the coil binding became a necessity an, you know, that took our advantage away,” Bodine said.

“That kind of happened in the middle of ‘06, right in the middle of our championship run and we really got behind almost half a season because we couldn’t change the things that we were doing that put us in a position to win the championship. We couldn’t do those things when guys who where fifth and sixth and fourth, even, they all started doing it and learning it and figuring it out.”

Hornaday agreed.

“Well I was very surprised to see Todd come in here… usually we started to have a war finally five years ago against Toyota with Chevrolet. They have more horsepower, we have more horsepower, and they got better bodies, we got better bodies. When Todd was winning that championship we had to go do our homework and we figured out how to beat them. It took a lot of people to do that and Todd Berrier (currently Jeff Burton’s crew chief in the Sprint Cup series) was probably one of the pluses that helped KHI. It took a while,” Hornaday said.

“When I went to Nashville and wrecked our Nationwide car trying to qualify with coil bound and we changed it all over and we ran good in the race. It takes an act to learn how to drive these things. I was fortunate enough, just like Todd said, I got started early because Kevin made us drive it that way. I didn’t like it but he made us drive it that way and once you learn it, it’s a lot of fun.”

KHI has also had stable sponsorships over the past few seasons, something that Bodine’s team, Germain Racing, has struggled to find.

“It’s tough when you don’t have the money. This year, the truck we’re running here, it’s actually its second race but it’s the first new truck that we’ve had since the beginning of 07 because of our funding situation and that makes it tough to keep up with Ron and everything they do at KHI because they have new trucks every other week because Kevin is able to cycle them out and sell them off and that keeps Ron in great equipment and that makes them hard to beat,” Bodine said.

Accessible Nitrogen Gas Dispenser For Cars and Light Trucks

With the increasing prices of petroleum based fuels – most notably gasoline, the motoring public is looking for ways to improve the fuel efficiency of their cars. Different aftermarket products are easily available to them and the use of which can dramatically increase their car’s fuel efficiency. For those who are planning to buy cars, they may opt for alternative fuel powered vehicles or a hybrid electric vehicle like the Toyota Prius.

A car’s wide array of components plays roles in the fuel efficiency of a vehicle just like the Volvo S40 parts that determine how an S40 performs. One of the parts in the wide array of vehicle components that can contribute to better fuel economy is the tires although the fact is commonly overlooked except by a knowledgeable few.

While the fact that the tires play a major role in the fuel efficiency of a car is always overlooked, the US Energy Department stated that by having under inflated tires, we lose as much as two million gallons of gasoline everyday. The most commonly used gas to inflate a car’s tire is oxygen. The use of ordinary gas can lead to faster diffusion which will result to an under inflated tire. The answer to this predicament is the use of nitrogen. Since nitrogen diffuses slower than oxygen and is more abundant, the gas is a logical solution to the problem.

TireLast System, a company located in Lafayette, Colorado, capitalized on this and developed their UltraAir nitrogen. The UltraAir nitrogen gas is a compressed gas devoid of oxygen and moisture.

The use of UltraAir results to lesser diffusion and therefore reduces the incidences of under inflated tires. The use of UltraAir is so successful that the company received requests for a self-service nitrogen tire filling station. The company is, of course, glad to oblige. This is evident in their development of an UltraAir Nitrogen Vending Machine which is card operated for use by car and light truck owners.

The vending machine will be featuring a smart card that users can use to pay for the amount of nitrogen gas consumed as well as for the microprocessor which controls the tire filling capability of the machine. The vending machines will employ a VendiPay prepaid card which will be available in stores soon. The availability of such machines allows car owners to fill their tires and pay for them easily and relatively inexpensively. The machines will be manufactured in Colorado and will soon be available for the eagerly waiting motoring public.

Aside from the fact that nitrogen diffuses slower than oxygen, the UltraAir Nitrogen is also devoid of moisture. The presence of moist air inside a car’s tire is a reason for some tire blowouts. The effect of moist air inside a tire is it weakens the tire’s internal steel belts. Therefore, using UltraAir that is devoid of any moisture, motorists are less prone to having tire blowouts which can be a very inconvenient predicament. The use of UltraAir will not only lead to longer diffusion of the tires but also protect the internal steel belts of the tires.

The use of nitrogen on car tires as a pressurizing agent would definitely decrease the number of vehicles out in the road today with under inflated tires. It has been estimated that 30 to 50 percent of all vehicles currently being employed has at least on tire which is under inflated. With this in mind and the fact that a tire’s condition affects the fuel efficiency of a car, the use of nitrogen in tires will surely be welcomed.

Why do short guys drive big trucks and tall guys drive small sport cars?

For years people have always sterotyped short men. For their "package size" usually claim it is small cuz their hands are small. And for some it is true. But short guys driving in big cars…I’ve actually seen this a lot!!
Why? To make themselves look bigger? Lol.
Also, I’ve seen men who have little man syndrom…or short man syndrom or complex…I wonder if this is part of it.

I’m probably pissing off a lot of men who are considred short by society standards right now.