Matt Fong’s Blog

After three unsuccessful days of attempting to paragliding, we finally completed our introduction class. The private class is only suppose to take a single day but a lack of proper wind and ridiculously hot south bay summer temperatures made the first two days ugly. The lessons were given in the hills of Milpitas overlooking San Jose in a park frequented by many paragliders and hang gliders. The lessons only covered basic takeoffs and landings, much of which are similar to skydiving, but the class only guaranteed a basic flight from a 30-50 foot mountain. Essentially, there was way too much work (walking up and down the hill carrying the parachute, opening the parachute, and packing the parachute) for the amount of joy I received out of the final 30 second flight. In contrast to learning to skydive, we had already completed two individual jumps by the end of the first of 3 training sessions. Wally, our instructor however did give us each a free tandem Paraglide from the top of the 1600ft mountain. This was the most enjoyable part of the 3 days of instruction but that?s not saying much. Paragliding canopies are purposefully made to be large, slow, and difficult to make sharp turns on! Anyway, you get my point.

Also in the spirit of remaining active and shedding these pounds, I took a bike ride up to Tiburon across the Golden Gate Bridge from my house in the Richmond District of San Francisco. The day was perfect and the view just the same. At first I was worried about the hill climb on the return ride but it turned out not to be a problem. Apparently (my friend claims it?s because of terrorism) they close the west facing pedestrian (although I think only bicyclists use it) sidewalk of the bridge until 3:30pm on weekdays. So if you want to bike across the bridge before 3:30 on a weekday, you?d better get used to swerving between dumb tourists on the eastern facing side of the bridge. As if terrorists only strike on weekdays before 3:30.

There?s a Giants baseball game at SBC Park this Thursday against the Colorado Rockies. The Giants are bringing awareness to children with learning disabilities/dyslexia and my old middle school (that specializes in teaching children with dyslexia) purchased a bunch of tickets. You should come out and support a good cause, plus I?ll be there. Go Giants.

I hopped in my car and drove back to the Bay Area last week. It was a long drive but it?s good to be home. Not much has been happening?I?ve just been hanging out.

In my endless pursuit to find something to do, we went to a hookah lounge on Height and checked out the hookah. Actually it was the first time I?ve been to one of these lounges and it was cool. I haven?t seen any of these places in the Northwest but I?m sure it?ll catch on. HookahCulture.com has a complete list of hookah lounges near you.

I also started this paragliding class. So far, I?m not too satisfied with the class and my future with this activity will probably be short lived. A friend was taking the class and convinced me to take it with him. I?ve skydived several times, (almost a 100) so I?ve had a significant amount of canopy time. Overall paragliding is like skydiving except extremely slow and lacking any adrenaline (the sole reason I find skydiving enjoyable). The ram air parachutes are twice the size of a typical skydiving rig and likewise are twice as heavy to carry around. We haven?t been allowed to do anything besides practice takeoffs, but we?ll see how the next day goes.

Not much has been happening but I did see the movie The Village. I won?t spoil it for you but it has a unique twist for a scary movie. Go see it?of the movies I?ve seen this summer, this is defiantly one of the better ones. Stupid yes, but I was getting tired of your typical superhero movies anyway.

Indeed there is so much to do during the summer (sarcasm), I?ve started swimming again. Today, I?m going to try 100?s on the 1:40. We?ll see how it goes.

Tacoma?s Proctor District has a bar called the North End. 50 cent Busch on Thursdays! Surprisingly despite living no more than 6 blocks from this bar for over 4 years, I?ve never heard of it till this summer. The $20 bills the ATM dispenses is looking rough.