Hi Summer, it's good to see you again!

Now that Memorial Day has come and gone, summer is officially here. Saturday was a pretty relaxing day, I went to RIMAC with Michelle and then we drove over to Del Mar for some lunch. In the evening, I made the two of us dinner and we just stayed in and watch a movie (had to save our strength for Sunday).

Sunday, I spent the entire day at the beach with Michelle and her co-workers/friends. The weather was pretty gloomy for much of the morning, but the cloud cover burned off by noon and it was quite nice for the majority of the afternoon. There was a keg which was quickly emptied, but not before I was able to drink my fill of beer.

On Monday, Dave, Bill and I decided to leave San Diego and do a Vegas run. Bill and I left San Diego mid morning and drove up to Hemet to pick up Dave (he was there visiting his parents). From there, it was a relatively painless jaunt over to Sin City. Judging by the endless stream of stopped cars on the other side of the road, I think we all agreed that we were lucky we hadn’t decided to drive up earlier in the weekend. Once we were checked in at the Mirage, the three of us headed over to Sahara to do some gambling and wait for Chris to come in.

He arrived not long after, and the four of us went in search of a good steak dinner. Our first stop was Ruth’s Chris, just off the strip. We were told that it was open until 3:00AM, but found out otherwise after the cab dropped us off. Because it was Memorial Day, they were closed all day. Since the Palms casino was a block or so away and there wasn’t any chance of catching a cab in the nearly deserted parking lot that we found ourselves in, we started walking towards the casino with the hope that there would be a decent place to eat inside. Unfortunately for us, all of the eateries in the casino was closing when we arrived (isn’t this the city that never closes??). So, we caught another cab and headed over to the steakhouse in the Luxor. Well, it seems that the last seating over there was at 11:00, and by my watch it was 11:15, so we were out of luck there as well. As a last resort, we walked over to a Japanese restaurant in the same hotel. It seems they were closing soon too, but we were still able to get a table. In retrospect, we would have been better off if they’d just turned us away.

We were seated fairly quickly and it appeared that we were going to receive acceptable service. We ordered our drinks and perused the menu. Being as late as it was and seeing how they were already closing shop, I went with my instincts and opted not to order any sushi in favor of getting something that was well cooked. Dave and Bill were still intent on getting steaks, so they ended up ordering the only steak on the menu, The Teriyaki Special, or something like that. I ended up with salmon and Chris ordered a pork dish.

Our food arrived in a reasonable amount of time, but it was less than perfect. To say that everyone was satisfied with what they ordered would be a gross overstatement. Less than 5 minutes had passed after the food hit the table before the bill was dropped off. They were closing out the register and, as such, we had to pay right then and there. To ensure that we weren’t going to dilly-dally, the waitress stood over our shoulders and watched as we pulled out our wallets and tried to break down the bill. Suffice it to say, she wasn’t helping increase her tip.

We finally got out of the restaurant and caught a cab to The Beach. For the first time ever, we actually took advantage of all of the coupon books littering the back seat of the cab and found a couple that contained coupons for free drinks at the club.

As soon as we stepped inside the joint, I felt like I was back in Cancun. The club had a very similar atmosphere to the clubs down there. There was an ok crowd considering it was the Monday night after Memorial Day weekend. We picked up the first round of free drinks and kicked back for a bit. There was a universal feeling of illness amongst the group brought on by the questionable dinner we had ingested shortly before. As such, none of us were really able to enjoy our drinks. We tried to dance it off for a bit and that seemed to help somewhat. As the night wore on, we alternated between drinking, dancing and impending intestinal doom.

After a while, Dave came up to me and told me that he was interested in a brunette that was dancing, but needed me to take out her less than attractive blond friend. Being the good friend that I am, I agreed. He described the two girls, the brunette was wearing a flowery top and the blond was wearing a black top. I scanned the dance floor looking for two girls that matched their descriptions, until I happened upon two that were a perfect match. However, it seemed that both these girls were a little older and neither were much to look at. I pulled Dave over to confirm that, yes in fact, these were the correct girls. He assured me that they were. I shrugged, imagining that the tainted beef was playing games with his eyes, and went to work.

I sidled over and started dancing in their vicinity. I made eye contact with the blond and started to move in. Before I knew what was happening, she ushered her friend over in my direction and jumped ship. Now, I was stuck out there all by myself, dancing with the girl who I assumed that Dave was interested in. Although, strangely enough, Dave was no where to be seen. Not wanting to be too rude, I continued to dance with the brunette. Well, I danced; she seemed to be twisting and spastically jerking her body, much like Elaine on Seinfeld. Minutes later, Dave walked within a couple feet of us. I assumed he was coming in to save me, but then it appeared that he was going to continue right past us. In an act of desperation, I reached out for his arm, grabbed and started talking to him. It was then that I was informed that I had started dancing with the wrong girls. Figures. With the newfound information in hand, I quickly bid adieu to the brunette and got the hell out of there.

We stayed at the club for another hour or so and then took off for the strip to do some more gambling. We ended up back at the Sahara and finished off our night there.

The next morning, we all got up and grabbed some breakfast at the buffet in the Mirage. Then we hit the tables for the last time, and Bill and Chris both ended up doing quite well. And so ended another trip to Vegas. Dave, Bill and I dropped Chris off at the airport and made our way back home. Bill and I finally rolled into San Diego around 11:30 that night.

Smart Ads

I just noticed this morning (and seems that Al noticed it too) that Blogger is using some sort of "smart banner" at the top of the page. It must do some sort of search for key words in the blog and then display an appropriate banner. e.g. I have a couple references to bowling in my blog, so the banner is showing ads for bowling balls. Diem has references to travel in Europe on her page and her ads reflect that. Dave has law school ads and "Raymond" has references to people named Raymond. Sneaky.

Weekend Update

As anticipated, the weekend was jammed-packed. Friday night, I was so wiped out from the work week that I ended up falling asleep on the couch around 10:30. Saturday morning, I ran some errands and took care of some things around the house. In the afternoon, Michelle and I did some shopping at Fashion Valley and then had dinner at a little sushi bar in a hotel in Mission Valley.

In the evening, I headed over to Bill’s to meet up with Dave (who had just flown in), Bill, Todd and a few other people. After a little preliminary drinking, we all headed downtown to celebrate Bill’s birthday. Originally, the plan was to go to E-Street Alley, but there was a special event going on, so there was no way we were getting in. Instead, we went over to the Yard House for some beers. Since it was Bill’s birthday, we ordered him up a full yard of beer, while the rest of us stuck with more civil portions. Before last call could sneak up on us, we headed downstairs into the “Underground” club. Everyone had a great time dancing and watching other people make spectacles of themselves. The end of the night came all too quickly at that point and we were forced to return to the streets. Lucky for us, Dana happened to be heading home about the same time and he was kind enough to pick us all up. Well, that is, all of us except for Todd, who instead decided to remove his shirt and run home.

Sunday morning, I got up and did some work on the car so that Garrett and I could start tuning it. We did most of the tuning out on the 52, but decided to head back when there seemed to be an inordinate number of cops around. Right now, everything is set up pretty conservatively, and we got most of the midrange tuned to our liking. I managed to blow out my cigarette lighter fuse trying to plug the laptop into it (we were using the laptop to reprogram the car’s computer and the battery died, requiring and alternative source of power). This had the unfortunately consequence of also taking my clock and radio with it. This has certainly made driving much more boring over the last couple of days. I also never realized how often I check the time when I’m driving (probably because I’m always running late).

Following our speed exploits on the freeway, I took off for a floor hockey game down in Mission Valley. We got our asses handed to us ten times over. The final score was 7-0, assuredly eliminating us from the play-offs.

From hockey, I drove straight over to Bill’s to shower up before heading out for his birthday dinner. We went downtown to Bandar to eat. As always, the food was excellent. To finish off the night, Bill, Dave and I went to shoot some pool down the street.

Monday, Brian was back in the office, so things went pretty smoothly. I was able to meet up with Dave and Bill for lunch at Flame Broiler. After work, it was off to bowling as usual. While we were bowling, I got to talking to one of the guys on the other team. He was 85, and a retired air force colonel. He was telling me that he’d flown in 3 wars while he was in the service and then flew on Air Force One. He serviced both LBJ and Nixon. He retired about 29 years ago and moved out to La Jolla. Very interesting man to talk to. It looks like this season is going to be a little more difficult for us because the rules give us a much smaller handicap. So, it requires that we all bowl at the top of our game every week.

Help me clean off these fan blades

Ugh, I can’t wait for this damn week to be over. Brian was out all week in training, so naturally the fan is pretty clogged up from stuff hitting it. The weekend should take care of all my hardships. Dave is flying into town from New York for a couple of weeks, so it will be great to spend some time with him. Garrett and Julie are coming into town for a wedding. On Sunday, Garrett and I are going to do some tuning on my car and close in on 300hp. I have a couple games as well on Sunday, so that will be a good venue to release the week’s frustrations.

Sunday is also Bill’s birthday (Happy early Birthday, Bill!) so we will be celebrating at some point.

Congrats to Bonnie on her engagement!

Also, one of my hockey buddies made the front page of the Union Tribune. Some of us had a bit of fun with his picture and Photoshop.

At least I’m not stuck in traffic

I am writing today’s entry stranded in my office at the mercy of SDG&E. About 2:30 this morning, a crane fell over and knocked out power as well as forcing the closure of much of the 5/805 freeways. It took me 45 minutes to get to work this morning, but I had it easy compared to some people. There is one guy in the office that spent six hours trying to make his way in from North County! Now, I have to sit here and wait to see if they are going to turn off the power again so I can shut down all of our servers.

I forgot to mention the most interesting part of Monday’s bowling in the last post. On the team that we were bowling against, there was a mother daughter combo. The mother was pretty elderly, but she was an accomplished bowler in her youth. At this point in her life, her vision was really bad. So bad, that she couldn’t see the pins at all. She would line herself up using the dots on the boards as her guide and then simply throw the ball by feel. After each throw, she had no idea how many pins were still standing or which pins were left. So, someone would tell her the numbers of the remaining pins and then she would throw her second ball. The amazing thing was that she actually did fairly well. Nothing quite as humbling as being beaten by a woman who can’t even see the pins.

Q: Why is a blond like a computer?

A: Because you don't appreciate either one until they go down on you.

As always, the weekend came and left far too quickly. Friday night, I got a call from Chris saying he wanted to come down and go clubbing. So he, Michelle, and I went downtown to the W to meet up with a few of Michelle’s friends. All in all, we had a lot of fun, although the bar wasn’t as crowded as the last time I was there. On Saturday, I had to come into work to shut down all the servers and other equipment. When I was done with that, I stopped by the driving range at Torrey Pines to meet up with Bill and Todd. Bill was leaving to head home for mother’s day and Todd and I went back to my place before heading down to Pacific Beach for the block party.

It took us forever to get into PB. At one point we even turned around because it looked completely hopeless. But, we persevered and finally found a way in. Lucky for us, Michelle parked her car on the street so that we could use the spot in front of her complex. This alone saved Todd and me from massive headaches. The block party was okay, although very crowded. It was really hard to find anyone because all of the cellular circuits were completely overloaded. We grabbed a beer at Typhoon Saloon and then walked over to a house party to meet up with Michelle. We finally found her and her friends and then we all walked around together. All I have to say is that all the girls in PB friggin’ look exactly the same. Blond hair, fake bake tan, some sort of stringy tank top that fails to conceal the beer belly spilling out over the elastic of their one-size-too-small board shorts and some sort of stupid footwear that prevents any sort of fluid mobility.

After the block party, I had a game over in Mira Mesa. Our bench was pretty thin, so we ended up losing. After the game, Brian and I came back to the office to power up all of the equipment that I had shut down that morning. Everything seemed to be going ok until we tried to power up one of the servers. When it fired up, one of the drives crapped out. So, once we had all the other machines started up, we went about trying to find a spare drive. Long story short, I ended up leaving around 11:30 and Brian stayed around a bit longer, continuing to try to locate another drive.

Sunday morning, I got up early to meet my dad for breakfast. We decided to go to Le Peep since it would be close and quick. It looks like all is well with the universe again, as they seem to have reemployed attractive women (it was looking a bit bleak for a while there). That was always the highlight of Le Peep when we were in school; for some strange reason, it was as though all these modeling school dropouts up and decided to become waitresses there. Made it hard to have a bad meal at that place. After breakfast, Todd and I drove up to Carmel Valley to meet up with Spare. From there, the three of us drove over to San Marcos to play a round of golf. We decided to only get one cart (for Spare and his cooler) and Todd and I were going to walk. I opted to put my bag on the cart as well, but continued to walk the course. As we were getting ready to tee off on the 10th hole, the course Marshall stopped us and made a big deal about how if my clubs were on the cart then I had to pay for the cart. Talk about nit-picky. I handed over the cart fee with the stipulation that I would never play at that course again. I continued to walk the rest of the course out of principal.

Following our round, Todd and I hung out for a bit and then parted ways. He had a wedding to go to and I had a floor hockey game. The game went ok; we ended up losing with 3 seconds to go. But, I had a pretty good game; I had two goals, one of which was called off. After the game, I went over to Michelle’s to spend some time with her.

Al and I started up our summer league bowling. He had a great night. I, on the other hand, was too tired to really focus and I ended up just doing okay.

Don't forget about Mom this weekend

Plans for the weekend: Tonight I’m heading downtown with Michelle and a few of her friends. We’re planning on going to the W. Tomorrow, I have to come into work for a few hours because they’re turning off the power to the entire block and I need to shut down everything that plugs into the wall as well as move a few servers around.

After taking care of all that, I hope to get down to PB for the block party. Most other years I’m not able to go because it always falls on Mother’s Day weekend and I’m usually in Hemet. This year, my mom is in Rhode Island, so I’ll be down here for the whole weekend. Following the block party, I have a game at 7:30. I’ll probably call it a night after that.

Sunday, I’m having breakfast with my dad bright and early. Then, Spare, Lucas, Todd and I are going to play a round of golf up in San Marcos. After golf, it’s another hockey game, and that, is how the weekend is done.

Juggle my balls

Check out this juggling routine.

Objects that appear in mirror are losing

No posts for a while; no reason other than I’ve been really busy lately. The weekend before last, Michelle was in Chicago for admit day at Northwestern. The experience was beyond overwhelming, but I think she came away with some good information/feelings about the school. I was busy for the majority of the weekend. I had considered going up to Vegas on Friday for a national MR2 meet, but Brian took the day off, so I had to come in to the office. On Saturday, Bill, Todd, Kevin and I played a round of golf at Singing Hills. I shot the worse game since I’ve started playing. After golf, we grabbed a bite to eat and then went our separate ways. I had a game that night, so I didn’t really do much else.

Sunday was Christine’s birthday, so I met up with her and some of her friends down in Pacific Beach at Nick’s. The weather was gorgeous and we all had a good time.

The parts for my car finally came in last Tuesday, so I was really anxious for the weekend to arrive so that I could get them installed. So anxious, in fact, that I took Friday off. Unfortunately, much of Friday was wasted due to stupidity and having to run around to a couple extra places to get parts. I had the displeasure of dealing with the most incompetent salesperson, ever, at NAPA. I literally went in for about 18 or so nuts and bolts and it took me well over an hour and a half! And, to top it off, I left with less than half of those nuts and bolts! There used to be a guy named Fred who worked there, but I haven’t seen him the last few times I’ve been in. He used to be the best guy they had working there; always really nice and helpful, efficient, and willing to help me with my odd-ball requests. Now I can’t even get nuts and bolts. Oh well, I probably won’t be going back there any time soon (unless I have a couple hours to kill).

I ended up getting about 4 or 5 hours worth of work done on Friday. Basically, enough to make the car completely undriveable (seats ripped out, engine computer unplugged, interior torn apart, wires everywhere, in short, a mess). Saturday was more of the same, but I made a lot of progress. By Sunday, I had everything finished up by about 1:00 in the afternoon. The car is fast. I still need to fix a couple little things and then do some tuning, but when I’m done, I should be putting down about 300 hp to the rear wheels, which will be well into supercar territory. Then, the car will be scary fast.