Christmas in Cali

this year i am spending the break in california. i started by visiting my sister, shayla, her husband, jonathon, and their three girls, tiera, aleena, and sabella. i had such a good time hanging out w/ them in the beautiful california weather. here's a little slideshow documenting my time w/ them. enjoy.

mytube

some of you may not know that i've thrown together some slideshows/videos and posted them on youtube. they're really not too special but they might be worth checking out. feel free to go to my youtube page and view them: http://www.youtube.com/robchat2008.

motorcycle diary

as some of you may have heard, megan and i were in a little motorcycle accident on september 16th, just outside of richmond. here's a quick rundown of what happened. it was a beautiful, sunny sunday morning and since church doesn't start til 1:00 we decided to go for a morning ride. we were outside of richmond a few miles just cruising on a nice country road. it was sunny but a little cool so i decided to start heading back. there was a road off to the left so i turned on my blinker and slowed down to turn. since we were on just a two-lane road and there was an oncoming car i had to stop in our lane to wait for the oncoming car to pass and then it would be clear to go. just as the oncoming car was approaching and i was anticipating going, i glanced in my side view mirror only to see a car coming up behind us going way too fast. i knew we were going to be hit. i heard him lock up his tires for just a second then i heard the impact. suddenly, i was on my belly sliding headfirst on the road and i could feel megan still on my back. we slid for a while off to the right side of the road and then rolled through the dirt and landed in a ditch. we both had some pretty bad road rash and something was obviously wrong w/ my left knee since it kept slipping out of socket, so they loaded me up and took me to the emergency room. megan rode along. a later MRI showed that i had a completely torn MCL, which put me out of the richmond marathon i had been training for. megan's left foot was torn up pretty badly but luckily nothing was broken.
we're both doing much better now. i'm back running, surfing and cycling again. megan's foot has healed up nicely. the guy that hit us has accepted complete responsibility. he admitted to the cops that he was going 50mph and that he just wasn't paying attention. he was cited w/ reckless driving. while i enjoy riding a motorcycle, i realized that day that people just don't see you and what would otherwise be a small auto accident can be so much worse on a motorcycle. considering the circumstances, megan and i are so lucky to walk away w/ the injuries we had. with the motorcycle money his insurance company gave me i bought a new macbook, which is much safer.