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January 5, 2005 - ALIAS!! ALIAS!! ALIAS!! Ok, I know I haven't had anything new in a while, but the holidaze are over now so soon, soon I promise. I only have time to make this one very important annoucement...Alias returns to TV tonight!!! Yes, that's right, tonight, not Sunday. After a long break from season 3 they've moved the show to Wednesday at 9pm (a special 2-hour season premiere) right after Lost (another excellent show). Finish dinner early, tuck the kiddies into bed, and get ready for a great new season. Don't call me between 8pm and 11pm, I won't be answering the phone. January 12, 2005 - Attack of the Pineapple Express I know, it sounds like some weird children's TV show. San Diego has been besieged by water in the form of a tropical current from Hawai'i. Thankfully, our roof and windows have held up better this time around than during the previous storm. Being a homeowner is a blessing and a curse. Aside from the rain, life has been pretty busy for me. December was a blur, as it always seems to be. I start off after Thanksgiving thinking that this time around, December won't be nearly as hectic as it was the year before. I start getting excited about Christmas and my birthday. And then…BLAM…December hits me like a ton of pineapples. December 4th was the OB Christmas Parade. My hula halâu put together an amazing float. We all gathered at one house early on Saturday morning to build the float, sew costumes for the following weekend's Ho'ike and get in some extra practice. The Dads did most of the float (thanks Dads!) while we practiced and sewed and hid from the rain. The parade was a lot of fun and our float was beautiful! We had palm trees and lights, flowers and grass skirts (on the truck, not us - we were bundled in turtlenecks and beanies). Unfortunately, our generator ran out of gas just over half-way through the parade route - too much practicing while waiting for our spot in line. So we had to sing sans music and lights for the last bit of the parade. We headed back to the house after we finished the parade route and just as the sky began to open up. We quickly dismantled the float and then piled inside for hot cocoa. The next Saturday was our Ho'ike (recital). We had been practicing and sewing nonstop it seemed for weeks. We were excited and nervous (at least I was). The costumes were great, everyone did so well and it managed not to rain on us! We performed the handful of dances that we know and then in true Hawaiian style had a huge potluck that lasted into the evening and onto the American Angler where we had the best seats for the Parade of Lights on San Diego Bay. Other than some spilt hot cocoa and a brief visit from the water police (we were too close to the parade route), it was a great ending to a great day. We celebrated Clarke's birthday in early December by hosting an OB Pub Crawl. From Pac Shores to Tony's, Winston's, AZ Club and finally to Gen & Lisa's house (on Cape May - the BEST street in Ocean Beach), we had a great time roaming all over OB. And suddenly, it was the middle of December! Work was very busy as I was trying to get the data cleaned up to send off to the project manager on the east coast by the 15th (which always ends up being the 16th or 17th). Not everything got completed on time (in fact, I'm still working on it!), but I had a good excuse this year. For almost two months I was doing two people's jobs as well as holding interviews, so thankfully I was given some leeway on finishing the data processing. Christmas arrived quickly (as it always does!). We celebrated early in the week with Dad and Karen, attended Christmas Eve at Art and Kimberly's and then hosted Christmas morning at our place (fifteen people in our living room is quite a feat!). Then on the 26th Clarke and I blew out of town on a week-long road trip up the coast. We meandered our way to Carpinteria the first night. Instead of the usual four hours, it took us closer to seven due to several detours and side streets. It was so nice to have no plans to plan, no reservations to make, nothing hurry us along as we made our way North. We stopped in Carpinteria and visited some of my family (Thanks, Aunt Kay for letting us camp on your floor!) then headed out the next morning. After a brief detour to Solvang (not much to do in the rain) we were shortly in Paso Robles for wine tasting. We wanted to try some new wineries and visit some of our favorites from our last trip up here. We started at Turley and found our favorite wine from the area (Pesenti gold label Zin '98) on sale by the case, so we bought one (case, that is). (Sadly, we found out when we got home a week later that the corks had gone bad on most if not all of the bottles. :( We're trying to resurrect the last few bottles.) Our second stop was our favorite winery from our last trip to the area - Zin Alley. Frank has a small winery and is a third-generation vintner. The port we had previously from Zin Alley was absolutely wonderful and this year was just as rewarding. We love wine tasting with Frank, he's a great guy to talk to and the people that find him (he's not on any wine map) are always fun to talk with. We even had drinks with the producer of Law & Order (of course, we didn't know that until after he had left). After a few samples of their zins, ports and an after-dinner wine made by Frank's son - delicate, fruity and sweet (the wine, not the son) - we retreated to the car for a carb picnic to sober us up. Despite our original thoughts on trying new wineries, we decided instead to head to Cambria and find a place to spend the night. We happened upon a hostel on one of the side streets in Cambria - Bayside Inn. We spent the evening relaxing in the common room and chatting with other visitors, including two girls from Switzerland. The next morning we began by heading north on Highway 1, knowing that there was a very good chance we'd get turned around before making it to Monterey. We paid a brief visit to the elephant seals in San Simeon, waved hi as we passed the Hearst Castle and made it about halfway up Highway 1 along the Big Sur coastline before being turned around due to mudslides (did I mention that it rained the entire week we were on vacation?). So we backtracked down Highway 1, through Cambria, across 46 through Paso Robles onto the 101 and up to Monterey. I spent most of my birthday in the car, but the view of the Big Sur Coast that we did get to see was amazing!! Dinner in Monterey was at a great restaurant, we highly recommend to everyone - Massaro & Santos on the Coast Guard Pier. We met up with friends for a visit to the Monterey Bay Aquarium and a walk down Cannery Row the next afternoon. We played in the rain and got to watch some wild seals and sea otters. We awoke New Year's Eve in Monterey, repacked the car in the rain for the umpteenth time and headed south. We had no idea where we were going to spend New Years so we just kept on driving. Finally, we decided to camp at El Refugio, just north of Santa Barbara. Despite the fact that it had stopped raining, the weather that we'd been enjoying all week had hit El Refugio pretty hard and the entire campground was flooded. So we headed a few exits south to El Capitan only to find it closed due to weather (concern over falling trees more than flooding since it's on higher ground). We made one last attempt to camp and made our way to Carpinteria State Beach where we were able to get a campsite (read: double-wide parking spot with dirt nearby) amongst the RVs. We made a great end of the year dinner from the last of our road trip goodies, cuddled up to the campfire and rang in the New Year with kava direct from Fiji (thanks Celso!). It didn't rain all night and the stars were beautiful - but that also means that it was unbelievably cold. We awoke the next morning to dolphins heading north just outside the breaking waves. What a great way to start the New Year! We packed up the tent and blazed a quick trail home leaving just enough time to unpack and relax before heading back to work. Now, obviously, we're getting along into January and work is again keeping both of us plenty busy. We've been doing some freelance web design on the side and I've even created a website for our halâu! I hope everyone is enjoying the New Year and isn't being flooded out of their homes (it got awfully close to us yesterday). Pictures coming soon! Promise! January 20, 2005 - Not One Damn Dime Day! Since our religious leaders will not speak out against the war in Iraq, since our political leaders don't have the moral courage to oppose it, Inauguration Day, Thursday, January 20th, 2005 is "Not One Damn Dime Day" in America. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" those who oppose what is happening in our name in Iraq can speak up with a 24-hour national boycott of all forms of consumer spending. During "Not One Damn Dime Day" please don't spend money. Not one damn dime for gasoline. Not one damn dime for necessities or for impulse purchases. Not one damn dime for nothing for 24 hours. On "Not One Damn Dime Day," please boycott Wal-Mart, Kmart, and Target... Please don't go to the mall or the local convenience store. Please don't buy any fast food (or any groceries at all for that matter). For 24 hours, please do what you can to shut the retail economy down. The object is simple. Remind the people in power that the war in Iraq is immoral and illegal; that they are responsible for starting it and that it is their responsibility to stop it. "Not One Damn Dime Day" is to remind them, too, that they work for the people of the United States of America, not for the international corporations and K Street lobbyists who represent the corporations and funnel cash into American politics. "Not One Damn Dime Day" is about supporting the troops. Now 1,200 brave young Americans and (some estimate) 100,000 Iraqis have died. The politicians owe our troops a plan - a way to come home. There's no rally to attend. No marching to do. No left or right wing agenda to rant about. On "Not One Damn Dime Day" you take action by doing nothing. You open your mouth by keeping your wallet closed. For 24 hours, nothing gets spent, not one damn dime, to remind our religious leaders and our politicians of their moral responsibility to end the war in Iraq and give America back to the people. Please share this email with as many people as possible Commercial speech must not be the only free speech in America! May 2, 2005 - Finally...Update from Camp! Whew! I made it out of San Diego and up the mountain safely. Clearly, I've been busy lately as my poor site hasn't been touched since January. I guess I'll try to fill in the last few months or so of my life. Umm…work mostly. Spent some time in the backyard planting new roses in an attempt to block our yard from the freeway. The city decided it's time to remove the non-native plants from the slough and the city land runs right up onto our fence so away went the catcti and other plants left over from the previous owner (who shouldn't have been planting in the slough anyways, but whatever). It made our postcard sized yard look huge, but very exposed to the world. So we played hookey from work and planted two new climbing roses (Cecil and Bruner) and a bright orange rose bush (Jenny, in honor of our friend and neighbor who passed away in January). We did a fair amount of freelance work on websites and such…always learning! And of course, the night before I left for camp, we went to the opening show of U2's Vertigo Tour. The concert was AMAZING!!! I had heard that U2 put on quite a show, but WOW. It was so much fun. Read the first installment of the 2005 letters from the Gila. Here's my latest update from camp. Hopefully I'll find some time soon to add new pictures. May 30, 2005 - TiVo, Bikes, Monsoons I guess I'll start this with a promise to add pictures to my website soon, but camp life is keeping me plenty busy. I'm hoping to revamp the gallery layout a bit, but it seems like such a big undertaking that I keep putting it off and opt for an early bedtime or some good reading. So, soon, hopefully. There are plenty of pictures from the last two years at camp to look at, and honestly, a lot of it is the same. So, without further ado, the latest update from camp is ready for your reading enjoyment! June 26, 2005 - Oh Baby! Ok, I'll be honest. No more promises of photo updates to this site, it'll happen when it'll happen. :) But, I can promise a new update from camp, right now. Baby owls, baby wolves and other camp stories, ready and waiting for you. Go here for the latest news from camp. |
