Party like its 1999

July 2, 2009
So it's always my goal to give my little weekly update on a Monday but somehow it always seems to happen way later in the week.  Better late than never I guess. The weather is finally hot and I love it.  Summer is the best of the seasons.  I signed up to the meetup.com sloshball group and we met last Saturday to play in Menlo Park.  For those that don't know sloshball is usually the mixing of drinking beer and softball, but in this case it was kickball.  The people that showed up were a pretty fun group and it was overall good times.  Sunday was beautiful so I took a drive through the mountains to the beach for most of the day and then had dinner and some beers with Jon.  I am getting very excited for the 4th which is not only one of my favorite holidays is also going to be a vacation.  I'm heading to Lake Shasta with about 20 others for wakeboarding, houseboating, and lounging.  Hopefully I will have some interesting pictures next week.

OC Weekend Update

June 25, 2009
I headed down to the OC for Christie Koss's wedding on Friday.  Despite all those who might have doubted it was possible, she met her husband Patrick hanging out at the Goat.  It worked out pretty nicely on Friday with Alex picking me up at the airport and heading over to Cal Beach for some sushi and beers.  We met up later with Timmy, Corrine, Brian, JC and Betty at the Goat for some Newport reminiscing. Saturday morning wasn't too slow going and I fancied up to head to the wedding.  The weather was looking like rain but good luck kept it dry.  It was great hanging out with OC friends that I haven't seen in a while.  Kenji's birthday party was Saturday night so I met up later with Ross, Brian Drieland, and a few other of Kenji's friends to help celebrate. It worked as nicely that Sunday was Father's Day.  My sister drove up from San Diego and we took my Pop's out in Newport to have a great lunch and hang out for the day.  I took the late flight home to wrap up a quick weekend.

Active Weekend

June 16, 2009
I got a last minute phone call from Lauren (aka Bean) last Thursday. She was on a Caltrain pub crawl that took her from Sunnyvale to San Francisco with a stop in Palo Alto (that's where I fit in). So I went over to visit and got invited by her boyfriend, Adam, to go mountain biking and surfing in Santa Cruz on Saturday.  Although it was against my normal priority of sleeping in late I made it happen because I have been feeling lazy.  Mountain biking was fun with some great downhills and not too many gnarly uphills.   I had heard that the locals can be jerks while surfing in Santa Cruz and I found one.  It was very crowded at the break. I dropped into a wave and was riding along when some guy grabbed my board from behind and pushed me off the wave.  After the wave he started yelling and tried to get in my face.  Now in theory it was his wave since he caught it first but to push somebody off a wave and threaten them is just being an ass.  I wasn't worth letting it bother me so we surfed for a few more hours before calling it a day.  The weather was clear on Sunday so Conrad invited me to go for a flight around the Bay Area.  We flew from Palo Alto to Santa Cruz and turned up the coast to San Francisco.  We crossed over the Golden Gate bridge, Alcatraz, and then turned south directly over downtown San Francisco.  It was an awesome flight and I took some really cool pictures.

Just Been Busy

June 4, 2009
It has been a busy few weeks with a long weekend trip to San Diego and the OC for my sisters graduation and a friends trip to Vegas.  I do enjoy the feeling of working half days on Fridays and having short work weeks.  It reminds me of my lazy unemployed days.  My sisters graduation was about as fun as a graduation can be.  The ceremony was long and boring per usual but I was there to show my support.  We had a great lunch with friends and family after the ceremony in Little Italy.  My sister gave an emotional speech as only she can with the flagrant use of the word vagina.  The weather was great and I had some time to kill so I took my Pop's to the glider port above Blacks Beach.  I somehow convinced him that it was a good idea to hike down to the beach and for a 75 year old he was a champ.  This past weekend I flew into Vegas Friday afternoon and met my sister, JC, Betty, and Brian in the airport.  I had found a great deal at the Encore on one end of the strip and everyone else stayed at Mandalay Bay on the other end.  The distance sucked but our room at the Encore was beautiful!  It is probably the nicest hotel room that I have stayed.  The service on the other hand left a lot to be desired (i.e. delivering the roll away bed at 3am only 12 hours after it was requested.)  Unfortunately, Friday night I just wasn't feeling that well so I called it a night around midnight when Timmy, Corrine, and Ross showed up from their drive.  I rallied for awesome hanging by the pool the next day and going out that night (which ended up a lot different than I had imagined.) Overall good times and staying busy.

Memorial Day Already?

May 22, 2009
Where has this year gone? My little sister, Stephanie, is graduating this weekend from nursing school so off I go to Orange County and San Diego.  It's going to be a busy couple of weeks with OC this weekend and Vegas next weekend.  Vacation sounds nice with work kicking my butt and putting in some late nights.  Overall goodness though and I am excited to see all the OC folks!

If Running Was Easy it Would Be Called Your Mom

May 17, 2009
I am in love with warm weather.  This weekend was beautiful and full of random awesome stuff.  Saturday was amazing. It started out hanging out with Jon and Rachel by their pool enjoying the sun.  Kareem moved to a new place in Palo Alto and had a housewarming party later in the day.  I checked out his place and met his friends in town from SLO.  We moved on to the bars and randomly found some of the people that I met during the pub crawl a few weeks back.  We started playing and incredibly competitive game of flip cut that severely sped up our rate of consumption.  The full effect was not realized until waking up early on Sunday to go to San Francisco for Bay to Breakers.  I had heard really good things about the event which starts out in the morning as running race across the city.  For the rest of the day it is a parade of drunken and dressed up (or naked) debauchery.  I headed into the city with Kareem and his friends and was amazed at how totally awesome San Franciscans can be.  There were thousands of people, alcohol and drunk people everywhere, and lots of good times.  I was also impressed that there wasn't anybody starting fights or breaking things to ruin the vibe.  I slept most of the way back on the train very content with a solid weekend.

Napa and the week

May 15, 2009
Last weekend the infamous Davie ("once you go Davie it's all gravy") invited me up to his house in Napa for a bbq party.  Davie is one of the Vacaville bunch that I know through Jon.  I drove up Saturday and hung out with the friends with babies during the day and the friends without babies that night.  I decided much later that night that I was the one too many in the hot tub when somebody decided that they didn't need swim trunks.  Last night was a bummer as the Ducks lost to the Red Wings in the Stanley Cup playoffs.  I was stoked that they got as far as they did and it was a nice perk that they beat the Sharks.  Other than that it work is going well and my ceramics class is rocking.

Wine-O

May 6, 2009
I finally got around to getting taking my FAA written exam for my private pilot license.  I still need to do the hours of actual flying but I am one step closer to my pilots license.  After taking the test I met up with Anson and his girlfriend Caren to do some indoor climbing at a huge climbing gym in Sunnyvale.  We did alright for not being climbers but my grip was not in shape for all that holding on.  Mikey moved into a new house in Mountain View so I headed over to check it out.  The house is completely random with all sorts of sheds and less than building code attachments to the house.  My favorite part of the house is the huge backyard with a bunch of fruit trees.  I ate my fill of oranges right off the tree.  The thank you BBQ for the volunteer wine thing I did for Conrad's step-mom was on Sunday.  I grabbed a ride with Mikey and we picked up Conrad at the airport on the way.  The event was hosted at the Toasted Head winery and I had my fill of the good red stuff. 

Just barely May

May 1, 2009
It's late, really late actually. I should be asleep already but I am not.  It is that strange part of the night when the next day sneaks up on you but still feels more like the old day.  I have been forced to start thinking about what the near future will bring. My job is cranking along and seems to be going well but I am still a "temporary" employee so there is uncertainty on the horizon.  My current roommate, Conrad, is getting ready for a trip to socal to the welcoming weekend for the USC MBA program. He will be moving down at the end of the summer to start school. Before then I need to find a new living situation.  The time I have spent living in northern California has been good times but my heart is still in the south.  I am excited to get to see a good amount of my socal friends in Vegas at the end of May.  I don't really like thinking about the future too much because there is so much uncertainty.  I would be more uncomfortable with the sentiment except it seems like everyone I know is in the same boat.  It seems like the one foot in front of the other is the status quo.  If anyone get any revelations please let me know. Otherwise I will confide in the rather comprehensive article on wikipedia, "The meaning of Life."

Go Ducks

April 30, 2009
My cheering was a little bit quieter than usual as the Ducks took on the San Jose Sharks in the first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.  That is because instead of being surrounded by fellow Ducks fans typical in the OC I am deep in Sharks territory.  I did get to do my share of cheering though as the Ducks eliminated the Sharks in game 6.  It is strange being the only guy in the bar rooting for the other team.  I have been keeping busy during the week with the ceramics class that I signed up for at the local junior college.  I love taking classes.  It is one of the few things that I have decided to try and do the rest of my life.  Never stop taking classes and learning new things. I am not very good at making pots just yet but I have seen steady improvement over my first attempts.  Now all I need is for the good weather to come back!

Warm Weather and Pub Golf

April 22, 2009
I have really been enjoying the warm weather that we have had lately. It makes me think of beach cruising the Newport boardwalk in the summertime.  I was worried that I was getting used to the colder weather.  Luckily that is not the case and my shorts wearing happiness can be shared.  Our landlord is pretty sucky and hasn't been taking care of our house.  He is supposed to send a gardener to take care of the yard but it had been months.  Conrad and I started deducting money off of the rent in hopes that he would get the hint. We don't appreciate being the neighborhood eyesore.  After not hearing anything back from him (typical) we took matters into our own hands. We bought yard tools and attacked our jungle that resembled a yard.  On Saturday night I had arranged a pub golf in Palo Alto.  I got the idea from some friends down south and amazing pictures of their sucess. It is basically a pub crawl where you keep score and has a golf theme.  We got a decent size group together and made it to 8 of the 9 bars (holes) attemped.  I would tell you who won but I lost my scorecard and judging by the pictures everyone was a winner.
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