Visits

Its been two weekends and if I don't get down *something* now its never going to happen. Lets go with chronological order.

The weekend before last we had an huge amount of visitors. Scott & Shusta came up and stayed at Scott's house, Caro, Rob, Jillian, & Nicole stayed at my house, and Kris & David stayed up in SF (though David crashed on my floor one night). That is a whole lot of people! I managed to see everybody, but it was pretty crazy trying to do so!

A few highlights:
* Top-roping with Shusta & Scott for a long time on Saturday morning. It was awesome except for the part where they I did poorly enough on my belay test that I only got a day pass and will have to retake it. Two observations here. First, they have a bunch of strange differences that I'm not used to that tripped me up (like a double-overhand saftey knot that they claim is necessary :-P). Two, if I did poorly enough that you want me to re-take the test WHY LET ME BELAY FOR A WHOLE DAY IN THE FIRST PLACE! *ahem*. After that little boondoggle we had an awesome time, and I even got up a crazy 5.10d, which is a new record for me (and I haven't top-roped in well over a year!).
* Little star in the city with Kris, Ben, Sketchy, Morgan, and Ben's friend Kyle. Pizza was, unsurprisingly delicious. Conversation highlight:
Me [to Ben]: I'm really not that sorry to have missed out on watching a speedo contest
Kyle [to Ben]: Wait... is he not gay?
[Minutes later, after having established that I am indeed not gay]
Kyle [whispering to Ben]: Which ear is it [my earring] supposed to go in...?
I need to figure out what makes guys hit on my and change it to get girls to hit on me instead.... :-P
* Meeting up with Caro et. al. as they were walking out of where they had dinner, being offered pot gingerbread cookies on the way to Coit Tower, and the view from Coit Tower at sunset
* It was Pride weekend, and we went to the parade on Sunday. Quite epic, even though I missed most of the leather (sub?)parade while I was getting a piece of pizza
* Caro brought Morgan and me Pattys!

So, *excellent* weekend. As always, I love visitors! This means *you*. Come on out and visit ^_^.

The major event of the week was a mountain biking trip before work with my coworker Adam. We hit the trail by 6:15AM, had a great time biking in the peaceful morning air, and I was proud of how well I held up on the trail despite barely ever having mountain biked before. Then, on the way back down a wide dirt road I took a corner too fast and completely wiped out on the gravel, which kindly *ate* my right elbow. This is still healing, and I really should come up with a better story about it before it is gone...

*This* weekend I road tripped down to LA and stayed with Scott in Irvine (Greg was also visiting, which helped motivate the trip). This post is starting to get long, so I'm again going to do highlights:
* Drove down with Morgan, and didn't stop on the drive to eat. Just went strait to Pattys and had the best burrito I've ever had there (Chicken & Rice w/ everything on it). I just need to do the chili rellenos next time and it will be perfect.
* Hung out with Greg, Scott, and Shusta. Caught up on old times, listened to a bunch of Michael Jackson, wandered around a beach and failed to find a cave, and went to Red Robin in Fashon Island (despite a nearly apoplectic Shusta)
* "The Core" drinking game. For those not familiar, the movie is about saving the earth from being fried by solar winds after its core stops spinning. It is as bad as it sounds. The game is simple: drink when there is bad science. We had to slow down a bit after the first half hour because we were going through beers too fast. My favorite line: "We don't have enough room to land!" "Its OK, I've calculated L over D max". I highly recommend the movie, but only with energetic company, a sense of humor, and a copious amount of alcohol.
* We spent the 4th joking about American excesses, admiring Greg's flag pants, eating at China Gate, and enjoying the Claremont fireworks and company of amazing friends ^_^. I spent most of the later evening hanging out in south courtyard and Scott's apartment chatting ^_^.
* Sunday involved watching the last part of Die Hard 4 (I haven't seen the first part, but it was on TV and apparently it isn't really necessary to see the first bit) and watching Bruce Willis "Badass all over the place". I've only seen the first Die Hard before, and now I want to see the rest of them. Choice quote from the main characters daughter, as she and the fairly nerdy computer guy are being led away to a van by bad guys and he is scared, "Take a moment to dig deep and find a bigger pair of balls because you're going to need them." Priceless.
* Also, did Mongolian BBQ and watched Greg eat what was simply an absurd amount of food.
* Finished off the weekend by having an almost pleasant drive home (traffic over the 152 :-P) and polishing off the last two episodes of Chuck.

I also realized this weekend that I need to decide sometime in the next few months if I'm going to go to graduate school in '10 or '11.... This frightens me, and along with general worrying about having stagnated and being sad was a slight damper on the weekend.

Man... that seems a bummer note to end this post on.... Maybe I should take a boat ride.