A Super Weekend

The novelty of not having a car is starting to wear thin. I was grounded at home for the majority of the weekend. I got a lot of work done on the car, unfortunately none of it helped to get it back on the road (still waiting for the replacement hose). It’s been a while since I’ve been able to tinker with the car and I guess I’ve missed it. Of course, that’s easy to say when nothing goes horribly wrong. It’s like when you break up with someone and look back on your relationship and the only things you can see are the good times, so you start to associate only positive experiences with the relationship. With the car, it’s easy to remember just bolting on a couple of parts and suddenly the handling or acceleration dramatically improves. It’s easy to forget about how it took 30 minutes to retrieve a dropped socket, how a third of the skin covering your knuckles is not spread around various parts of the engine, or how you were able to remove six of seven bolts holding some part of the engine together, only to round off the last one, easily doubling the estimated completion time of the project. But, somehow it all makes itself worthwhile when I get in the car and the engine comes to life, begging me to force copious amounts of air and fuel down its throat so it can shove me back in my seat as it propels me down the road. Ah, simple pleasures.

Speaking of simple pleasures, I don’t think San Diego could have asked for better weather for the weekend of the Super Bowl. Saturday and Sunday were positively amazing. Saturday afternoon, Michelle and I took some time out of our days to drive up the coast to Las Olas to enjoy the weather and have some tasty Mexican food. What more could you ask for in the middle of January? In the evening, I played a little ice hockey and then wound down at home. As I was doing so, Michelle finagled her way into the Maxim party downtown. She partied it up with the likes of Dennis Rodman, Carson Daly, Rick Fox, and Montel Williams (amongst others).

On Sunday, Al and I met up for our weekly bowling outing. After bowling, I went home to do a little more work on the car before the Super Bowl. By the time the game rolled around, I didn’t really feel like leaving the house, so Kevin and I just watched the game at home (which was just as well, because I didn’t really have the option of leaving). I tuned into the pre-game show in hopes of seeing Michelle. I think I may have caught a glimpse of her, but I’m not sure. I’ll have to review the tapes to confirm. Overall, I thought the game was pretty entertaining. I enjoyed watching the Raiders get walloped. As for the commercials, ever since the dot-com fallout I think they have seriously suffered. They just don’t seem to be as clever or exciting as they used to be.

After the game, Dana picked me up and the two of us went to our first floor hockey game of the season. It was a good game and it ended in a 2-2 tie.

Still carless Monday morning, Michael was kind enough to give me a lift to work. The day started off extremely busy due to the virus that was released over the weekend. None of our computers were hit, but some of the campus machines were, which in turn knocked out some of our services. After work, it was another night of bowling, although this week we weren’t quite as “on” as last week. We ended up winning one game out of four.

I just got back from dropping Michelle off at the airport (so that I could borrow her car). I stopped by my place on the way home and found my coolant hose sitting on the doorstep. So, it looks like I’ll be trying to get everything buttoned back up tonight and have the car on the road by morning.

Pimps and Hose

I found out why my car was overheating yesterday. I pulled into my driveway following a nail-biting ride home from work, during which my eyes were glued to the slowing rising temperature gauge needle. I got out of the car and popped the engine lid as a pool of coolant began to form under the rear of the car. I look around for a few seconds before I see the problem. It seems that one of my coolant lines now has a good size hole in it and is spraying coolant all over the engine bay. Mystery solved. So, now I’m without transportation for a few days while I wait for new parts to arrive from Toyota.

Fortunately, I don’t have too many places to go over the course of the next few days. Diem was kind enough to pick me up this morning on her way into work. The weekend shouldn’t be too bad; the only places I need to go are to hockey games on Saturday and Sunday. I should probably run over to the transportation office and update my bus sticker so that I can ride the bus for free. Or, better yet, I should just start riding my bike into work again…yeah right.

As for the weekend, I just have the two hockey games. On Sunday, there’s talk about doing a ski/snowboard trip. If that doesn’t happen, I hope to make it out to a Super Bowl party, provided I can find some means of getting there.

Have you noticed that every show on Fox is a reality series? What people really need to do is turn off the TV and live out their own reality series.

Bad Car-ma

Yesterday could have definitely started out better. I was on my way in to the office with about 5 blocks to go. As I left a stoplight, I began to accelerate. Suddenly, the car dramatically lost all power. With the engine completely dead, I coasted over to the side of the road, cursing all the while. I got out of the car, opened the engine lid and had a look around. Nothing jumped out at me, until I looked at the wire running from my ignition coil to the distributor. Funny, I thought to myself, that wire’s not supposed to be in two pieces. The wire had literally blown itself into two separate entities! (Here’s a picture)

I knew Al probably hadn’t left for work yet, so I rang him up in hopes that he could pick me up. I lucked out and he said he could come get me in about 20 minutes. Perfect. I walked the last couple of blocks into the office so that I could tell my manager that I needed to take care of the car. He said it would be no problem. On my way back out of the office, one of the ladies from Staff Education frantically grabbed me and pulled me into the computer training lab. For whatever reason, none of the computers would log into the server and the class was going to start in a manner of minutes. Great timing. For fear that I was going to make Al wait in the parking lot, I sat down and tried to remedy the problem as quickly as I could. Not getting anywhere, I suggested a band-aid solution and told them I’d fix it later. Rushed out to the parking lot to find it empty. Crap, I hope Al didn’t get tired of waiting and leave. I called his house, just to make sure. Al was still there, but he was leaving immediately. With all of the traffic, it took him about 15 minutes to drive the mile and a half separating the two of us.

After he picked me up, we ran back to my place to pick up a spare wire and then back to the car to perform surgery and get it off the side of the road. Everything went smoothly and I was back in the office in no time.

My new snowboard boots showed up yesterday, which was great because I ordered them late last week. If you’re ever in the market for snow sports equipment, I highly recommend GearDirect.com. Their service was 2nd to none and I got an amazing deal on my boots.

Last night I joined a bunch of my hockey buddies at T.G.I.Fridays to celebrate Mark’s birthday. I’ve never ordered anything from the “Jack Daniel’s” portion of the menu, so last night I figured what the hell. The Jack Daniel’s chicken looked quite tasty on the menu, what with two large, plump chicken breasts glazed with Jack’s super sauce, a huge baked potato and half a plate of vegetables. What I received was one chicken breast, from what had to be the world’s most anorexic chicken, neatly divided in half and graced with a splash of marinade, a potato that even a starving Russian wouldn’t be envious of and a couple wilted heads of broccoli hidden under a slice or two of carrot. So much for that. After dinner, we went back to someone’s house for cake.

Today, I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu as I drove into work. Now, it seems that my car is plagued with an overheating problem, as the little red needle danced all over the gauge, pitting fear in my heart and wallet. I guess I know what I’ll be doing tonight.

Back to the Grind

Here I am, back in the office after another 3-day weekend. My cold has almost completely disappeared, so I’m feeling a lot better. Friday night, Michelle and I went to The Comedy Store in downtown La Jolla. It was a spur of the moment thing, so we totally lucked out when we ran into Bonnie’s boyfriend Ralph, who happened to be working there that night. He got us in the door as well as a round of drinks—very nice and very unexpected. The show was good. There were three comics that night. The first was a bit of a spaz, but the other two were quite funny. One improvement that I think they could stand to make is to lower the microphone volume a bit. It’s a fairly intimate venue, yet the mike is turned up to 11. I think my ears started bleeding when the comics yelled into the microphone.

After the show, I wanted to get to bed early since I still wasn’t feeling well, so I called it a night. On Saturday, I met up with Christine for lunch. I think it was the first time I’d seen her in at least six months. We had a nice lunch at P.F. Chang’s and got caught up on our recent histories. After lunch, I ran over to Toyota to pick up a couple small parts for my car. Let me tell you, as an enthusiast, I absolutely hate going to the parts department at the dealership. First of all, they staff the place with morons who are only able to get the correct part about 50% of the time. Second, the department itself is stocked to the gills with worthless junk, namely air fresheners, cheap looking clear taillight replacements, key chain fobs, license plate frames, every gimmicky snake oil ever produced, gear shift knobs, toy cars, and on and on. But yet, somehow they never seem to have any parts I need in stock; oh well, maybe if I drove a Camry.

Saturday night held little excitement as well, as I once again decided to go to bed early in an effort to speed up my recovery.

Sunday morning, Al and I met up at the bowling alley to get a few quick games in. He was in the zone and bowled his way to a 220. After bowling, I went home to take care of some things around the house. Later in the afternoon, my parents came into town. Michelle and I met up with them at the mall, did a little shopping, and then the four of us went out to dinner. My parents have become obsessed with Zen 5 sushi in Pacific Beach, so that’s where we ended up.

Monday was a relaxing day; I spent the morning helping Michelle with some business school work. In the afternoon, I ran some errands and waxed my snowboard. In the evening I had bowling. To sum up the night’s bowling: total domination. All five of us were on fire, and we ended up winning all 4 games by a sizeable margin. In fact, we had the highest series score (total pins from the 3 bowled games) in the league for the entire year (by 100 pins, no less). I was even able to up my average by 3 pins (which is pretty significant considering it’s calculated over 20 weeks).

Today’s been pretty quiet, all things considered. My boss had his baby on Friday—a healthy baby boy! Nothing planned tonight, but I may try to change my oil if I feel up to it.

Soy un perdedor

The theme for the first half of the week has been “loser.” Lost both hockey games over the weekend and got spanked at bowling on Monday night. I started feeling like I was coming down with something on Monday night. By Tuesday, I was pretty sure that I was going to be sick. Wednesday was miserable. I went into work for a couple hours and spent the rest of the day at home. I had no choice about coming into the office today or tomorrow, because my boss is out having his second child.

Over the weekend, Michelle, Al and I checked out the ski and snowboard show at the Del Mar Fairgrounds. There was a fair amount of stuff available, but none of us found anything worth buying. I’m really glad that we didn’t have to pay an entrance fee (although the $7 parking fee was payment enough).

Things have been pretty busy around here lately. Next week should be no different (especially since I’m the only one in the office).

For those interested in reading another blog, NYC Dave has put his life’s tales on the Internet.

Bill updated his page as well.

The rest of my break was really enjoyable as well. I was able to spend a lot of time with Dave, which was nice because I probably won’t see him again for quite awhile.

A few days before New Year’s Eve, the night’s options were looking somewhat bleak and it seemed that everybody was looking for something to do. Kevin had already invited a few of his friends over, so I decided to put out the word and co-host a New Year’s Eve party at our place. I spent the majority of the day picking up supplies and cleaning the house. I met up with Manu around lunchtime and the two of us grabbed a quick bite and played catch-up. As evening fell, the festivities began around dinnertime, when a small group of us did a little sake bombing to accompany our sushi dinner. The rest of the night was a lot of fun (from what I remember). The appletini’s seemed to be the biggest hit with the ladies (I’ll have to remember that for future parties).

Due to the excessive indulgence of the previous night, New Year’s Day was pretty much a write-off. I was back at work for the next two days, although with virtually no one else in the office, there were extremely quiet days. Over the past weekend, I made not one, but two separate trips to Hemet. The first was on Saturday to celebrate my mother’s birthday. The four of us (my parents and Alexis) drove out to Palm Springs to have dinner at a steakhouse that also featured “smoking” martinis (martinis with dry ice). Since we finished dinner relatively early, I opted to drive back to San Diego that night.

24 hours later, I found myself back in Hemet, this time accompanied by Al, his sister and Bill. The four of us and Dave had decided to do a last minute snowboard trip to Snow Summit and were going to stay the night in Hemet in an effort to shorten the drive in the morning. We arrived at the slopes just after they opened and the parking lot was already filling up. Fortunately, this wasn’t indicative of the number of people actually on the slopes. The lift lines were extremely short, and for the most part, we had the place to ourselves. The snow was hard (as usual) and there was a fair amount of wind blowing. The air temperature was pretty cold and they were making snow all day (which closed a few runs). All in all, I had a great time. By the end of the day, I felt like I was nearly at the point I had left off last year.

On Wednesday, I had my first hockey game in over 3 weeks. Needless to say, I was sucking wind for most of the game. At one point, an opponent came by and pulled my skates out from under me as he passed. My body entered the air like a limp ragamuffin. When gravity took over again, I landed on the ice headfirst. I remember lying on the ice, truly amazed that I was still conscious. I got up after a bit and continued to play out the remainder of the game, still questioning whether or not I was okay.

This weekend should be a good one. Tonight, I’m planning on heading down to Pacific Beach for happy hour with an old college buddy, Kevin McGinnis. Tomorrow, Al, Michelle and I are going to head over to the Del Mar Fairgrounds for a ski and snowboard show. I’m going to try to find some new boots and possibly a new snowboard. In the evening, I have a hockey game. On Sunday, I plan on relaxing for most of the day, followed by another hockey game in the evening.

Out with the old, in with the new

Another year has passed and so begins 2003. The last couple of weeks of 2002 were great, namely because I wasn’t working. Because of the way the holidays were arranged, I decided to take everything from the 23rd to the 2nd off, a winter break of sorts.

I drove up to Hemet on Christmas Eve; the traffic proved to be horrendous and the drive took nearly 2 and a half hours. We don’t have too many traditions in my family, but one of them takes place on Christmas Eve. Every year, my family and my 2 uncles and their families meet up at my grandmother’s house for a traditional Italian seafood dinner. In years past, the menu has been much more extensive, but this year’s mainstays were lobster, shrimp and codfish.

As I get older, Christmas seems to be less and less magical. This year, it almost felt as if it were just another day; kind of sad, really. The Christmas day activities were held at my parents place. My mother hosted an open house style party, with people coming by throughout the day.

On the 26th, I drove back to San Diego to meet up with Kevin and then the two of us drove back to LA to meet up with a bunch of his and Michelle’s college friends (all of the people from last years ski trip). We arrived in LA around 3:00 and met up with everyone at LADave’s parents’ house. It was great to see everybody again and I got to meet a couple new people, including LADave’s new lady friend and another one of the group’s good college friends. Before dinner, we stopped off at Sears to take some family-style portraits of the group. Then, it was off to Buca di Beppo for dinner.

On the way back from dinner, Michelle, LADave and I stopped off at some guy’s house who happened to have a bunch of snowboard stuff for sale. When we pulled up to the house, there were already a few cars parked out front. We got out of the car and started walking towards the house. As we got closer, a couple of teenage boys walked out of a gate on the side of the house. LADave asked them where “Mark” was. The boys said that he was out back in the studio. The three of us made our way into the back yard by way of a long dark corridor along side the house, where we were greeted by two very large (and, fortunately, friendly) dogs. The yard was littered with randomness, including a half-pipe. At the end of the yard was what appeared to be a stand along garage. Loud, indiscernible music emanated from the building. Walking through the open doorway, we found ourselves sharing a very small space with a full size Coke machine, more random paraphernalia and two closed doors. Not really knowing what to do at this point, we all stood there for a second, taking everything in. Then, one of the doors opened and some guy came out, gave us a quick look over and continued walking, not uttering so much as a sound. About 30 seconds later, another guy came out of the same door and gave us the same sort of welcome.

Soon after, the music stopped and the other door opened and out came Mark. He was a larger white guy with dreadlocks sprouting about his head. His eyes were as red as hot embers and his consciousness seemed to be stuck in slow motion. LADave introduced us and made mention of the snowboard equipment. This triggered some sort of temporary cognition and we were led out of the back yard, to a garage that sat perpendicular to the front of the house. Lining the walls of the garage were a quartet of long steel rods, from which hung a couple hundred small white children’s dresses. The floor was completely eclipsed with various articles of clothing, a couple snowboards and, at our feet, at least 30 pairs of snowboard boots. As Michelle and I stood by, LADave tried on a couple pairs of boots before deciding on a nice set of black boots. The boots probably retailed for about $300, but, under these special conditions, they only lightened the wallet by $30.

We rejoined the group back at LADave’s parent’s place and had some cake to celebrate Mike’s graduation from business school. With time rapidly being lost to the night, Kevin and I decided that we needed to hit the road in order to make it back to San Diego at a reasonable time.

Dave Lee came out from New York for the holidays, and to celebrate his return, we had a “Guy’s Night” on Friday (the 27th) night. We grilled up some steaks, shared woeful women stories over a few beers and watched a few episodes of Jackass.

…to be continued…