It's Aliiiive!!!

My blog, that is. It hasn't died. Not without a fight.

I've been very busy lately, what can I say? I go through phases; sometimes I'm hyper creative, other times I'm more into my social life, and still others I am on fitness kicks. Whatever the case, I'm always trying to be active. These days I've been hiking nearly everyday of the week (weekends don't count), which has monopolized my time. Traveling is also a favorite pastime, and although I feel like everyone says that... I really mean it.

So this past Memorial Day weekend I went traveling with my honey, John. For those of you who haven't met him:

The doctors still haven't figured out what's wrong with him... but they're working diligently to determine the source of the problem and they feel confident that, in time, they will find a cure.

We arrived in Cambria late on Friday night and stayed in the most adorable little B&B all weekend. The Bridge Street Inn was incredibly charming, complete with the sweetest Burmese Mountain Dog/teddy bear, Max. All the other travelers who were staying there were friendly and interesting, with plenty of exciting experiences and knowledgeable tips to go around.

On Saturday we had grand plans of going on a hike and visiting some hot springs, but wouldn't you know it, the highway you must take to the hot springs leads straight through Paso Robles wine country... and we never made it out. But that was fine too. So we spent Saturday visiting 4 or 5 wineries before swaggering back to the B&B where John made us dinner.

On Sunday we got to know our vacation base town a little better by walking around and checking out all the local shops. Cambria has plenty of little (and big) antique shops, gardens & galleries to get lost in. We grabbed a beer and caught a performance by the local band of middle aged hippies, Rough House. In the evening we went on a tour of the Hearst Castle. It was amazing, obviously. Afterwards we watched the sun set over ocean (which I took an extensive photo journal of) and went out to a fabulous dinner.

On Monday we headed up to Big Sur for a hike. This leg of the trip really made an impression on me. The scenery was absolutely beautiful and I'm so happy we made it happen (since we had discussed a hike everyday but didn't get around to it until the end of the trip). God, the views were amazing and the hills looked like ones you'd see on a tropical island. On our way back to Cambria we stopped at a resort that had a good vista and noticed that the band playing on the restaurant patio was none other than our old pals, Rough House. On our way out of town we hit up two more wineries, ate dinner in San Luis Obispo, and drove through the Dutch town of Solvang before heading home.

Oh, by the way: I took 400 pictures during this trip - I know, it's pretty ridiculous. Regardless, you can view them here.

I wish my baby had deep pockets, so we could run around, spending all her money, and painting up the town.

Warning: this post is just a long play-by-play of my vacation weekend. May cause disinterest or confusion.

What a wonderfully fantastic weekend. On Thursday evening Josh and I boarded a plane together for the first time, headed to one of my favorite places: Colorado. I have intensely missed Colorado since I moved back to Los Angeles over a year and a half ago. Luckily, I still have several close friends who have either remained in Boulder or moved to Denver or Frisco. Earlier this past summer, my group of 6 sistas from college had a four day reunion weekend, in honor of Megan & Emily's birthdays. It was then that I vowed to return to Colorado once a year to visit my college town or spend some time in the mountains... "going home" I call it, since I grew far fonder of that environment and way of life during the 4+ years I lived there, than I am now of LA.

Well, this year I got lucky and made it back to Colorful Colorado for a second time within 4 months (I can't believe my girls' reunion was almost four months ago! Oh how time flies). The occasion - as if I need one - was The Great American Beer Festival. Now, I love beer. And I'm not saying that as a drunk. I'm saying it as a person who loves the taste, variety, and process, and as the girlfriend of a man who brews his own beer. So as I was saying, I love beer, and I love Colorado. However, I attended the festival in 2005 when I still lived there, and I don't know that I would have made the trek back to CO (mostly due to cost) solely for the festival and if I didn't have Josh eagerly chomping at the bit to keep a tally of all the new beers he could be trying. So we went for it.

Kelly picked us up from the airport at 11pm, after a long day of nannying that started at 8am. Needless to say, she was a bit too exhausted to hit the town. Instead she offered to drop us off downtown (Pearl Street) so I could show Josh some of my old stomping grounds. I was the one driving home from the airport, in fear that Kelly might fall asleep at the wheel, and it required no thought to decide where I should drop us off: The Mountain Sun. I've blogged about The Mountain Sun before and anyone who knows me from Boulder knows about my obsession with this pub and brewery (like I said, I love beer). In fact, I've talked about this place so much that, aside from the beer festival, this was what Josh was most excited to visit. He commented on how it's interesting that after hearing about it so much, he had a very particular rendering of what it should look like in his mind, though it turned out to be very different from what he had pictured.

So Thursday night was pretty mellow. After the Mountain Sun we met up with Jeff, who now lives with Kelly, and hit my favorite bar, The Pearl Street Pub & Cellar (aka "The Pub"), and then The Sundown Saloon ("The Downer"). Friday was really the best day. It was beautiful out - luckily, because it was rainy and cold Saturday and Sunday. So Josh and I borrowed Kelly's sweet ride, the Red Dragon X675 scooter, and I gave him a tour of Boulder. For lunch I showed him the deliciousness that is The Smelly Deli. Based on its nickname, one can gather that people's opinion of this eatery is not positive across the board. But man do they make a fantastic gyro. We walked all throughout campus and I showed him the Anthropology building (because coincidentally enough, he was an Anth major in college also) and old framed pictures of the campus around the turn of the century (obviously, not the most recent turn). Then we headed to Chautauqua Park, where we went on a walk-hike and found a shady lookout area to lay around in (I know, you're throwing up a little in your mouth right now). But wait! That's not all.... we then went to the Boulder Creek for a peaceful stroll, before it got too cold and we had to head to Happy Hour to meet some friends.

Just a note: I really wanted to have amazing pictures to show form this trip, from my new low-mileage camera, but, well... I'm a dumbass and kept forgetting to bring it with me. I can't tell you how many picturesque settings I wanted to capture of our day in real nature - sometimes I forget what it looks like, living here in LA. But twenty minutes into each walk or hike I realized that I left it in the scooter. And at night, well at night I apparently forgot that I even owned a nice new camera and that it was just an arm's length away, in my purse. Boo. I got about 6 pictures from the beer fest, and they're basically multiples of the same thing. :( Hopefully soon I'll get used to being the proud owner of this mystical device called "digital camera".

Friday night we got Happy Hour at Centro, where Jeff works. Can't beat $2 rum & cokes and delicious fresh discounted tacos. Our dinner destination was Hapa, where Kelly clued me into Momokawa Pearl Sake, which is by far the best sake I have ever tried. We ran into an old friend, Courtney, who works at Hapa and we caught up for a bit. From there, we met up with Jon and Scott at The Pub. I was very pleased that they not only made the trek from Denver to hang out with me in Boulder even though they knew I would see them the next night, not only did they actually take the bus to get there, but I only had to apply a minor amount of pressure to get them to come into town. I was expecting to have to beg, plead, threaten, and then guilt trip them into it, but no. Fancy that - made my night! So Friday night's sequence was actually a lot like Thursday's... after Josh and I kicked Jon and Scott's asses in pool and then cleaned up the blood soaked floor with the rags of their pride, we headed to The Downer, where I really think Jon and Josh bonded; you know you can breathe a sigh of relief when your boyfriend goes to the bathroom and your best guy friends use that time to give the thumbs-up seal of approval to "the BF" (were Jon's exact words). Lastly, we hit up The Attic, for the latest last call in town.

Saturday was basically a day of preparation for the beer festival. Josh and I had a great time, as was to be expected. We probably tried around a hundred beers (yeah, I did the math). Given the number of brewers that presented, I easily could have spent those hundred 1oz shots on beers I've never tried. But ya know what? I just love Colorado's micro brews so much that I had to survey all those old favorites that I can't get around here. But I wouldn't call that a waste by any means. One thing the brewers do at The Great American Beer Festival is try to get attendees to sport namesake fake tattoos. The reps ask the girls if they can apply tatts to their chests or upper butts. Although a brewery tattoo applied to the chest by an overweight middle aged guy named Budd wreaks of class, I decided to forgo that offer. Instead, I warmed up to an upper arm application. I'm still sporting flaky remnants of my Newport Beach Brewing Company tattoo, which I made the exception for since they have a beer called "Balboa Brown" and that's where my dad lives (plus all their beers were really yummy). My second fake tattoo was a sneak attack from one of my all time favorite breweries, Boulder Beer Company. I was just standing there enjoying some Planet Porter when I felt a smack on my shoulder and a stream of cool liquid trickling down my arm. I was completely taken off guard but the tatt had been sealed before I even had a chance to react.

After the festival ended Josh and I met up with Scott and Jon who were watching their two home teams, The Indians and The Red Sox respectively, duke it out. I have absolutely no recollection of who won. After attempting to play pool and failing miserably, the four of us then proceeded to bar hop around Denver. The bars we went to were surprisingly empty - strange for a Saturday night I would think. I must say that I most enjoyed the semi-wet and cold adventures that occurred en route to each bar on the streets of Denver. Thanks for good times, fellas.

Sunday we had high hopes for going to a museum, but when that rainy morning arrived all we could think of was getting some greasy grub in our bellies and vegging out on Kelly's couch back in Boulder, before our evening flight (which we almost missed and ended up sprinting through DIA "Home Alone" style to catch the slowly closing doors). Now Josh is completely in love with Colorado and keeps suggesting a move to either Denver or Boulder. Although I love it there too, if I am moving to another state, I kind of want to move t somewhere I haven't lived before. Discussion of Portland has taken place, but who know what will happen.

Alright, there's my LONG recap of my weekend trip to Colorado. In light of the gloom outside, I hope you're having a warm and cozy day!

Vegas, Baby!

Through an unexpected turn of events, I found myself in Las Vegas this past weekend. On Friday night, while sitting on our couches watching TV and trying to gain motivation to go spend too much money at some bar we kind of like, Emily casually asked, "hey, you want to go to Vegas this weekend?"

"Wellllll. I'm not really in the financial position to go to Vegas."

"We'll have a free hotel room..."

"Count me in!"

So, in the spirit of sin, we determined what time we'd leave, what risque outfits we would pack (which, aside from showing a little extra leg sass, weren't very risque at all), and just how late we'd be able to stay out that night in order to wake up early enough to hit the road (though of course we did not abide by our own guidelines and didn't actually leave LA until 2pm).

Naturally, Vegas was an exciting weekend getaway. All in all - and not counting what I spent on drinks - I only lost $10 from gambling, though I got two free drinks while playing, so I'd say I hedged my bets well. Emily wasn't so keen on losing $70 at the Roulette table - which by the way, I had never played before and is my new favorite Vegas game. Heda, lucky girl, was the big winner of this trip, being that she had a 50 Cent sighting in the hallways of The Hard Rock and she won $130 at the Roulette table! I was really hoping I'd be so lucky and my trip would end up paying for itself, but alas...

Probably to be considered one of Saturday night's highlights (and I hope this doesn't make our night sound really lame, but I'm sure it will... even though it wasn't) was a poor sap who was too drunk to realize what a - pardon my french - duechebag he sounded like in trying to pick up on each and every girl in our group. He introduced himself to us all, individually, like this: "I'm so-and-so, I own Sharkey's restaurant, I'm sure you know of Sharkey's, I have a ticket to the VMAs tomorrow night, Are you going to come with me?" says the 25 year old, all in one sentence, I kid you not. We didn't feel so bad laughing at the situation, given that he was such a - as I mentioned before - duechebag. After his introduction and the expected eye rolling that ensued on my part, he said he's from LA too, he went to USC. I noted that my parents both went to USC - poor move. From that moment on, for the rest of the night morning he proceeded to shout "FIGHT ON!!" with his fingers in the air every time I wasn't paying attention to him... which was constantly.

But honestly, we had a fun weekend excursion. The car ride home was a bit rough for me and Emily, for a reason that I just feel horrible relaying/writing about, so I won't. It was traumatic and like nothing I've ever had to experience before... I hope that I never do again.

Yikes, this post got awfully dark for Vegas. I'm in a dark mood right now, so you know, that happens. Anyway... adios.

Activities Worth Mentioning

Well hello there. It’s been called to my attention that I haven’t written much this month. I’ve started a few different entries but something always comes up and I don’t have time to finish them. So I’m going to see if I have enough time to squeeze one out right now.

The past week has been jam packed with activities. Be it a Dodger game, a night with grandparents, staffing a work related event, moving furniture, attending a show at the Hollywood Bowl, jet-setting to San Francisco for the weekend, or seeing THE BEASTIE BOYS (what what!) at The Greek AND The Wiltern, I just can’t seem to get a quiet night of relaxation at home. Oh woe is me!

Yes, the past eight days have consisted of all those activities, and more. Where do I start? How about I work backwards in time. So, yeah, I saw The Beastie Boys last night in concert at The Greek Theatre, ya know, no big deal. So like, they were amazing and it was probably one of the best few concerts I’ve ever been to, if not THE best, (shrug) but whatevs… in all seriousness though: WOW. I’ve been ardently listening to these B Boys since I was about eleven years old (“be true to yourself and you will never fall” was my eighth grade yearbook graduation quote), and yet I had never seen them live. Last night was exactly what I was hoping for, but so much more than I expected. They played more or less the entire Ill Communication album, which is definitely my favorite album, the one that first got me interested in their music, in fact – the one I was hoping they would play plenty of songs from. The stage was absolutely magnificent: a dozen or two rounded tyriangular, asymmetrical, different sized screens loosely hung in a wave shape over the stage, shining different lights and patterns throughout the show; the raised instrument section of the stage (including two full drum sets, other forms of percussion, and keyboards) had bright, color changing lining underneath it, which illuminated the whole stage – during funky jams they set the color to a mellow orangey-red and during high energy rhymes it alternated bright whites, yellows, blues, reds, greenss etc.; Mix Master Mike’s turntable setup had strobe lights posted on both outside table corners; they were all dressed in suh-weet getups, reminiscent of 1940s speakeasy-goers. The whole act was very classy, even when singing “No Sleep ‘til Brooklyn”. Overall, the show had a very funky, lounge-like feel, due to the new instrumental album the are promoting, called The Mix Up.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m going to see them again tonight at The Wiltern, for their all-instrumental “Gala Event” show, for which audience members are expected to dress to the nines? Oh, I did? Well anyway, I’m doing that too.

Whew, I’m already out of figurative breath, and I haven’t even started talking about the weekend. On Friday night Karen, Emily and I set out for San Francisco, for a weekend of fun in honor of Sam’s birthday. A weekend of fun indeed. I really don’t know that I could have had a better time. Naturally, after going out to dinner that night, we set out on the town. I don’t know the name of the first bar we went to, but it was nice until it got over crowded. At that point we headed to one of Sam’s favorite bars called “The Red Room”. The name says it all: everything, everywhere you look, is red. They even have wall partitions made of bottles that reflect red everywhere (perhaps the bottles themselves are red, I don’t know). I definitely liked the layout there. Of course, when you’re on vacation, no night simply ends when you hear the shouts of “last call!” and realize the lights are fading back on, making your red room appear not so red after all. So we went to an apartment that had pretty cool graffiti covering the inside walls, which made for some unique photographs.

Saturday might have been my favorite day of all. For his birthday, Sam wanted to play softball. I was pumped about it as soon as I heard. I love softball but stopped playing after eighth grade because I was never very good; despite having a decent arm, I was always pretty much a benchwarmer. Regardless, I’ve always loved to play catch and I guess I just really like games in general. Anyway, we spent the whole afternoon outside, in the sun, being merry. It was grand and I’d really like to make a habit of it… outdoor game-playing, that is. After getting cleaned up we started the evening by convening for “Happy Hour” (read: 10pm) at Sam’s. The first bar we headed out to was so interesting. It was actually an art gallery that throws themed parties every week. This weekend the theme was croquet, or garden party, or something of that nature. The entire floor was covered in plush grass – I couldn’t resist walking around barefoot. Plus, there was an upstairs loft area that we had to our group of about 15 people for a good hour, so it made for our own little private party. The second place we went to was also interesting in its own rite (I hope I remember the story correctly): back in the day, Miles Davis opened this cool little jazz bar and I guess it was quite the musical destination for awhile. It closed and remained closed for about twenty years, and only recently reopened with the new name “222”. The DJ in the back had us all getting groovy, dancing our little hearts out until, yet again, it was time for them to kick us out for closing.

Sunday consisted of lying around in Washington Park all day, from which my face incurred a nasty red sunburn unlike one I’ve had in years. But it was relaxing and totally enjoyable to just lounge around on a grassy knoll all afternoon with a handful of good friends. All in all, it was fantastic to hang out with old friends all weekend, in addition to meeting and making new ones. Great people, awesome city, what more could I ask for?

That’s all the energy I have to write about things in the past. So, there you go.

Camping in the Sierras

So here is documentation of my recent camping experience. Minutes after we arrived we headed to the pond for some swimming and games (that pond was a life saver since it was so hot up there). In fact, we spent most of our time playing games. All different kinds of games: card games, dominoes, horse shoes, four square (on the dock in the middle of the pond - if you missed the ball you were most likely diving into the water to get it, an added element of fun), swings, etc. Josh even took me for a ride on the back of one of the motorcycles they had at the campsite. We also did a lot of relaxing.








Next was our day trip to a lake (Mammoth Lake, I think Marissa said?). We drove to the trail head and then there was a short hike o reach the lake. There are stones of all different sizes at the lake, all throughout, and it's pretty shallow, so you could basically rock hop across the entire thing. It was very cool.







On our way back we stopped at a meadow that has a few 'abandoned' shacks dispersed throughout. But actually, someone had obviously taken up residence in them, because they had insulated the insides with tarp and left behind cans of soups and shotgun shells - notice the bullet holes in the metal chimney - scary. But I did enjoy admiring the beautiful scenery.



I missed out on the second mini-lake excursion. Bummer. But here's the highlight of it:



Yep, me chopping wood:



A last view of the local meadow:

THE END!