Stephanie and I got a professional portrait done. Well, as professional as JCPenny has to offer. Neither of us happy with it but it was the best of the photos they took. I think what I dislike the most is how un-natural we look.
Last January my friends, Albert and Jenny, got married up in Orange Country. They recently put up their wedding photos and I’m putting them up here.
Here are some pictures of me from my early 20s. Lifted from povert
For Thanksgiving Stephanie and I flew down to Las Cruces and spent it with my parents. While I was down there I got some good New Mexican food, play some tennis and got to meet my brother’s fiance, Sonia, and her two brother and her mom.
On the Saturday we were down there Stephanie and I drove up to Sante Fe and spent the night there. That was also a lot of fun. On Saturday we walked around the plaza and some art museums and on Sunday we walked down Canyon Road looking at the art galleries.
Finally, before we left we met with my friend Erin and her new fiance (seems like everyone I know is getting married). It was good seeing here again.
Last week Stephanie and I went to Chicago for our vacation. This is partially due to there being a livejournal meetup so we decided to combine this and sight seeing into one event.
We flew out last Wednesday. We were a little nervous because of the security warning and as a result left an extra hour early. There was no need for this so we got an extra hour of sitting around. We arrived in Chicago around 6pm, got our hotel and something to eat.
On Thursday we got up and headed out. We hopped on the “El”, the public transit train in Chicago that is amazingly efficient and got us everywhere we needed to be. We headed to Navy Pier and went on the Architecture Cruise, headed to a bar on top of the Hancock building, saw a street show and then met up with livejournal friends, Paul and Nancy, who took us to a nice Pizza restaurant. We then hung out at their place until 3 in the morning.
On Friday we got up around 10am, hopped back on the El and this time headed to the art museum. It was raining lightly and even though it was raining you wouldn’t get wet. I thought this was very cool. The art was neat and I liked the midevil Christian art where baby Jesus looked like a little man. We then headed to the livejournal party where met up with everyone then watched “40 Year Old Virgin.”
Saturday was livejournal day. We met up with livejournal people at a Mexican restaurant at 11. After lunch we killed time at the mall and then saw “Snakes on a Plane” which is a bad movie but a good experience. After that we headed to livejournal members house for another get together where we watched two horrible movies: “Old School” and “Wedding Crashers.” No one seemed to be enjoying Wedding Crashers so everyone left for karaoke. I had never done karaoke but decided I would and went up to sing “Under the Bridge.” I ended up having a lot of fun and ended up getting very drunk. We got back to the hotel around 2pm.
The next day I was a little shaky. We headed for the Field museum for King Tut and other exhibits. I don’t know what the big deal with King Tut is as it wasn’t any better then the other exhibits we saw on Africa and Evolution (yeah, dinos).
Monday we rented a car and headed out to Madison WI. It wasn’t a bad drive but I wasn’t use to toll roads so they messed me up. We went to meet up with Joe and had a good time getting lunch and drinking beer on campus.
Finally, Tuesday we flew back exhausted and I think it was a great vacation. Now it is time to plan for next year, as I want to go to Europe, probably England and possibly France. I have money saved and made an appointment to get my passport next Wednesday. w00t!
Last Friday Stephanie and I headed down to Cox Arena for the Sonic Youth/Pearl Jam concert. We got there about 30min before the concert and I picked up a Sonic Youth t-shirt.
The concert opened with Eddie Vedder coming out with a mandolin and playing a short song and then he announced Sonic Youth who I thought were great, even the noisy parts. Stephanie would not agree as she decided to get up and leave for a bit and pick up a Pearl Jam shirt she thought would look cute on her. SY only did songs from there new album “Rather Ripped.”
Pearl Jam came on soon after. By that time the arena was packed and they rocked the house with tons of songs and two encores. The great thing about the show is that Eddie Vedder use to live in San Diego so he knew a lot about the town and would name off suburbs with ease. He told a story about this teacher he had and how the proceeds from the concert tickets were going to a theater that he was building in his name up in Encinatas.
Later in the weekend I hung out with Tabitha who I hadn’t seen in years. She was a friend in Las Cruces who is a bigger anime dork than me. She came down to San Diego for a convention on how to teach The Constitution. On Sunday we hung out at the beach with a few of her coworkers and then went to the anime store where she bought 19 mangas. We then went to Misuwa which is a Japanese grocery store with a bunch of little Japanese mini-stores inside like a toy store (manga, anime, models), appliance store, book store, kitchen store, and a little restaurant were I got a rice ball and a taiyaki (sweet pastry shaped like a fish).
On Monday a bunch of us headed over to Niban Sushi restaurant that I frequent. I had dinner with my close friends Jonathan and Michelle and Tabitha along with her friends Veronica and Less came along. We even headed over to the gaming store afterwards but less refused to go in because he said it was too geek for him.
Not a whole lot going on. Last weekend we went to Knott’s Berry Farm. As a kid I remember seeing commercials for it and I knew I wanted to go. So, 20 years later I decided to satisfy that curiosity and Steph and I headed to Knott’s.
To my surprise I had actually been to the general area because right next door is Medevil Time where they have a show of jousting and knights fighting but we didn’t have time for such distractions, we were on a mission and that mission was Knott’s.
Knott’s, overall, was disappointing especially when compared to Disneyland. Might have been our timing but the waits on average were about 10-15min longer, the people were scarier and there were a lot more kids. Disneyland had the charm of Japanese tourists, Knotts has loud and annoying kids.
We even got the joy of going on a horse carriage ride with the religous right. They only had 6 kids. Needless to say I have no desire to go back even though some of the rides were fun.
In other news last night I took home a George W. Bush standy that came from work. I put George in the doorway and left a not on him and left to go game. It ended up scareing the crap out of Stephanie. So, we had GWB stay the night and of course in the morning was time for photo op.
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Things have been pretty slow as of late. For memorial day Steph’s dad and his wife came down and we went to the baseball game. It was way too hot and I forgot to put on suntan lotion so I had to cover up the best way I could (I’m the hooded one).
In other new I’ve been playing in a tennis tournament. It is basically the group I normally play with which is about 20-30 people and we all signed up to compete in a ladder. It cost us each $15 and the winner walks home with a gift certificate. So far I have lost all three of my games. A lot of it is nerves as I become an emotional wreck when playing these matches. After the third match I started to get use to it. The rest of it is just playing poorly and having lot of unforced errors.
The D&D for kids has been crazy as usual. It is fun but their is no consistancy at all. Each time it seems to drastically change. It slowly built up to 8-9 players, more than I could handle and just in time I got some help running the game. Soon after I get the help 3 of the players disappear so my helper has nothing to do.
I ended up returning to Vegas. My Friday night gaming group thought it would be a great idea to go to Vegas and roleplay there. At first I was indifferent toward it and eventually did not want to go. However, I was convinced otherwise and before I knew was driving to Vegas at 5:00 Friday afternoon.
We arrived at 11:30 and it took forever to check in to the Riviera. We then headed out and ended up at “Treasure Island.” We found a lounge, ordered some drinks, pulled out Changeling: The Dreaming and proceeded to roleplay, drink, and smoke until 3:30 in the morning.
Next day we headed out around 11am and headed over to the Aladdin for the breakfast buffet but it had already switched over to lunch so we ate at a restaurant. We then went to see the Matt King Magic show but Matt wasn’t there and we saw his backup who was very funny. Got some drinks and a massage at the Aladdin.
We returned to our hotels and then headed over to the Hilton for the “Star Trek Experience.” This was the coolest themed event I had ever been to and I really got sucked into it. We also got dinner at Quark’s Bar and talked to a Pharangi and a Klingon.
After that we took a taxi down to Fremont street and then returned to watch the Billagio Water Show. After an exhausting we walked back to the Riviera, got a quick drink and went to bed.
Next morning we got the buffet at our hotel, stopped by the General Gamblers Store and then headed home. Overall this trip was more fun then the last for a number of reason. Things that bothered me about Vegas before weren’t bothering me this time. We had a plan and were with someone who had a good idea of what to do. The Star Trek Experience was awesome.
This last weekend Stephanie and I headed up to Solvang which is a little Dutch communty about 30 miles north/east of Santa Barbera. It took us about 4.5 hours to get there and we arrived around 12:30. It was raining when we got there so we grabbed some lunch then decided to drive around and see what was available and then checked into the hotel.
Luckily, soon after it had stopped raining so we head out and looked in a few shops. Soon after we found a winery that was offering wine tasting. I decided to go in and it was $5 to taste 5 wines. Both Stephanie and I did and enjoyed it. The winery told us they had a sister winery just down the street and we could taste there wines for half price. We stopped at a chocolate place and Stephanie got was apparently the better than sex white chocalate peanut butter barrel.
After that we got to the second winery and tried five more wines. The thing about this wine tasting was that we were drinking the wine instead of spitting it out or pooring the rest out. We hit two more wineries drinking 11 or 12 more wines, walked out with 3 bottles of wine, 6 wine glasses and drunk off our asses.
We headed back to the hotel and dropped off the wine and went out to dinner where we each had another glass of wine. After that we went to a bar and stayed out until 11 drinking more wine. We were completely wasted. We went back to the hotel and passed out.
The next morning resulted in the worse hang over I ever head. A migrain set in along with plenty of puking and shaking. At around 8:30 I was able to hold down water and excedrin, 9:30 I was able to hold down apple juice, and by 10:30 I was able to hold down solids so we got some breakfast. Funny enough Stephanie had as much to drink as I have (I rarely see her drink) and though she didn’t feel great she was definatly better of than me. We left at 11:30. The problem was that I drove my new car because I had all the entertainment (CD player, satellite radio, ipod hookup) but Stephanie was use to driving a standard.
Me next to the burro
Stephanie next to the bear
Me and Erin