Weeeee! let the games begin!!

Chillin at the De Seversky mansion, Westbury, NY


(Written a little late, Nov 15, 09, man i'm slow on the blog now.)
The games began. It was a pretty cool wedding. All spiffy n well done. It was a little busy with the camera work n what not. The timing was a little off, but lets say that they didn't start without me showing up. It felt like i was in an old Volkswagen commercial, except i was in a bucket PT cruiser. Even the GPS was conspiring to slow me down to my destinations. Unfortunately, Fluffielady missed both the previous as well as today's ceremony.. =( silly mini-toast!
I liked the officiant's speech, it was academic yet pretty smooth. The band played contemporary live music, which was pretty good. Even Capt'n D's parents boogied about a little. The munchkin handled it pretty well, mostly, we were one of the first to leave though.
The mansion is pretty impressive, alot of marble, in the columns, in the floors. We got to roam around a bunch of it's rooms, i liked the reading room with the fake wall passage. Partyparty!
Now whenever i have time to write, we've headed off to roam the northeast.

Labels: Crew, vacation

 (Written on Oct 11, 2009)
Bah, it's raining! We get our rental car a PT cruiser, and stroll around Long Island. Jones Beach to Long Beach to Coney Island. But when we reach Coney Island, it starts to pour.. Lovely, we're about 2 hours early to the evening wedding.. The drivers are pretty intense, some speed, some cut people each other off. Alot of the roads are marked 55, but that doesn't seem to matter. The good thing is that there are alot of strange mergings, but drivers know to slow down, or change lanes when seeing other vehicles merging.

The games begin on the multi-part wedding.  Part 1, involved out of town guests and family. It was small but pretty good. Afterwards it got a bit late and we had to take to-go from a bar and grill called Buckley's.. We didn't get back to our hotel till 11;30, then eat our to-go.. yum!

Labels: Crew, vacation

Righty-o there buffy, we're ready for a wintry stroll. 
(Written on Oct 11, 2009)

Picked up some diapers and little last minute shopping for the wedding. Hung out at Wantagh n chilled for a bit..
We get our hotel, the executive inn at woodbury, ny.. It's a pretty decent motor lodge / woodsy looking place, with mon-fri breakfast omelets, and 'light dinner' appetizers mostly. Too bad we can only partake in one omelet.  But they have continental breakfast with the typical soft and fluffy bagels, muffins, cereal, yogurt, pancake maker etc. it was not bad.
We ate dinner at the Laguna Grille, It's tex-mex, except it doesn't have tacos. No matter, it was pretty good. While feeding the little one a jalapeno bit may have gotten into the chicken bits of my nachos. He had a grand old time with the spicys. At first we were wondering whats going on, but we finally figured out it had to be a spicy..

Labels: Crew, vacation

Tad's steakhouse?? 34th and 7th ave. i saw two of dems!
(Written on Oct 10, 2009)

Hanging out at Wantagh, NY, It's a mellow little place. Nice and quaint. It was our only available day to visit Manhattan, which is a one hour train ride on the LIRR. Pop out of Penn station and we visited Times square, The childrens playground at Central Park and then met up with the cousin at Brooklyn. We ate at SuperFine and hung out at the pad. The little one liked chasing the kitties around the loft. Time flew and luckily the wedding grrl was picking up a buddy from New Zeland from JFK and had time and space to get the three of us. Woot!

Labels: Crew, vacation

(Written on Oct 10, 2009)

Wake up 6am. The adventure begins, we're heading to the east coast.
Dad came by and gave us a ride for the 9am (pacific) flight with a 6pm (eastern) landing. We get to the airport and it was pretty light, with not much trouble going through the checkpoints.
The flight was fast, five and a half hours in the air with the munchkin was decent. He slept during the taxi'ing to takeoff and on the decent of landing. He was quite busy and wanting to play quite a bit. We had the luck of having an empty seat of our 3 seat set. After the plane ride both of us were exhausted. Luckily our ride was there and we were whisked off into long island.

Labels: Crew, vacation

Yesterday:
Mini-Toast Posses up with the crew 2.0 at J's Festivus party. Chillin with Jasmine and Jivas, he was mostly awake and hung out till late.

The past 4 days Fluffielady has been on her working spree and did quite well. Not bad, since someone has to work.. heh.

Labels: childrens, Crew

Yesterday, 11 peoples (including me) pumped off 15000 rounds of 68 caliber jello balls, at each other of course, for my buddy Altons Bachelor Party. Sunol Paintball was alright. It has 3 speedball style fields, from small, where you can shoot to the other end, to medium, maybe 150yards at most. With such short fields comes quick games and quick teamwork. My brother and i were in our usual advantage camo, which had little advantage since it's a wide open field with white gooey'd walls and giant wire spools. We had a good time, everybody got pumped fairly well.
My favorite was one episode of capture the flag. It's situated in the middle of the map, take it and bring it home. We lost the first time, so we devised a brilliant plan. I go gearless and weaponless, sprint to the flag, grab it, and run back. That episode was over in 30seconds. When the other team got into their tactical positions, they heard 'game over'. Thats how you capture a flag.
Sunol Paintball offers pick up games and they're fairly nice doods, it needs more variety of games and fields. 9am-3pm


After that, headed to Alameda to the Sushi House. This place is pretty cool, ultra value for the quailty. You get a load of good food for what you paid. I had a Chirashi Bowl ($17), Various Sashimi on a bed of Sushi rice. My brother had the deluxe version ($24), it came with even more wierdo rawness.. They were prety tasty and crazy filling. The Bachelor had a Bento Box ($17), which i called more like a bento tray or bento crate! That'll fill 2 peoples tummies. The only dissapointment that i saw was this guys order a roll called Hella Hot, but hella hot it was not. =( A handfull of Wasabi Peas can outdo hella hot.
Wedding is next week, doodoo!

Today:

- Checked out the two paintball marks on my right arm, it's not bad, not that welty looking.
- Moved the router from the kiddo's room to the garage. That involved installing another phone line, and banging nails into the walls to mount the dsl modem, router and surge protector.
- Cleaned my paintball gear + gun, and decided to do a minor trigger job on it, man once i learned how to do it once, it's like what else can i grind?
- Went to staples (turn in some ink cartridges for 3$, target for a heater, curtain rod, babies R' us for some vitamins. funfunfun!
- Replaced stupid cheap wooden curtain rod broke in the boys room. Its screwed together by a bolt, once it breaks, you can't put it back unless you used glue or something.

beh, back to work.. ugh..

Labels: Crew, Gun Stuff, house, shooting sportz

Love was felt in the air.
Thanks to all those who came to gather. Especially those who came from vast distances.
Sorry to all who couldn't make it, it was a pretty cool possee up.

And now i've got a whole lotta pork buns and egg custards for breakfast! And if i could only get a name..

Labels: Crew, familia, Fresno Crew, house

Quite a busy day today.

7:15am: Woke up to get ready for the NCAPOA pistol match.
8:30-10:15am: I did alright, screwed up a little on the hard sections. Some shots hitting low and out of the 2-point ring. Bah! The last two sequences were the hardest, single handed shooting with reloading and in a short time. Float home and changed to then float to:

11:30am:

Hanging in a suit, at the USS Hornet at the Alameda Naval Base.

It was a JROTC reunion with peoples from the class of 1935 to 2012. Wow 2012, talk about nooblets. Theres some history in this luncheon though. Saw some peoples, it was kinda cool, a little long, but kinda cool.

6:30pm-9pm: some of the crew came over and decorated the house.. Theres gonna be a party happening tommorrows! woowoo!

Labels: Crew, hanging, shooting sportz

(Posted on Monday, July 28)
Level Of Difficulty at Work: 0.2 out of 10
Time During Lunch: None

Hung out with Capt'N D and his ladyfriend Christine. Capt'N D tried his hand at guitar hero DS, but it's a handfull. It was cool, chilled till 11pm. I had to cut it short, my wakeup time was 5:15am tommorrow. White water rafting time!

----------------
Now playing: Sungha Jung - Tears In Heaven
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Crew

Recycled a mass amount of motor oils and car batteries. Goodbye Optima battery.. While fluffielady did her jewelry thing.

Got ready to roll at Octavius' Baptism. It was fun and good times. We weren't done after the reception till after 7pm!

Labels: Crew, Maintainence

3000 months!


I found this Gas Mileage Calculator, on Edmunds.com, where it compares how long it takes if you replace your old car with a more efficient one. So since i don't use Delilah as much (Less than 100 miles a month) and if i do go for say a brand new prius. The time it takes for me to save enough fuel with the Prius to overtake Delilah, it'll be 252.9 years! I think because i don't drive much, it the formula doesn't work for me. Somehow Delilah is pretty efficient(?!) alot of other cars either aren't gas worthy to gain a benefit. Even the Smart car, Delilah comes out equal. So maybe Delilah will be my only car, ever?
My coworker on the other used to drive an Explorer from Oakley to SF (and then some, ~2500 miles a month!) and purchased a Camry Hybrid. The Calculator states he'll overtake the cost by 5.5 years. He says the gas he paid for the explorer is equal to the loan payment of his camry. And this was when gas was under 4$! Pretty cool..

In other news, i signed up for Facebook, another social site here we go!

Labels: Crew, Delilah

Jivas gets jumped into the Catholic gang


The Jivas Familia
Today was a mellow day, roamed around with the crew for a bit. Went to St. Patricks Church in downtown SF for a little water dousing for the young one.


Before the madness started i went to town.
20-pic stitch 360 degree view, sorry its overexposed. =\ I liked the part within the baptism that the priest started to give a historic tour of the building. Destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, rebuilt by 1913 with Italian Marble and some other fancy granite. Makes me wanna take pics of the columns n what not.
After we scooted off to Burlingame for reception at the Sherman. Its a nifty place, good food, atmosphere. Our only problem is that you feel drunk even though you've never had a drink. Its because the ship lists 10 degrees port.
Here i meet a fellow scotch bartender and we converse. So i try:
-Aberlour 12 year: Surprisingly not bad, smooth and sweet in the end.
I decided to get another glass for Roz, but they ran out so i get a substitution.
-Lagavulin 16 year: Its like Aberlour with more body, a bit smokey but not overwhelming, and sweet.

That event lasted from 11am till 4pm.

The knocked out crew knows whats up.. Let me join in on this naptime.

But no rest for the wicked, the gang afterwards met up in south city for some korean bbq n hung out a little at our place. Good times good times..

Labels: Crew, drank, Panoramic

Fluffielady and i awaken early to the bastard heat that still lingered with us overnight, man this insulation is good, too good. Soo good that we slept downstairs where its cooler.
We headed out to high tea time at Tranquilitea near oceana. We surveyed the scene for a future baby shower, and with that came a scone and some Rooibos Tea, quite tasty, but blazing hot tea in a hot morning doesn't work out right.
After high tea, we marched over to Foster City for some Red Egg n Ginger, for Jasmine! I don't take as much photos of peoples anymore, i need to do so without overdoing it.


Roz n Jivs, childrenfolk!
It was cool, food was yummie, met some pplz, eat some eats.


Got home and saw this. Kinda weird with the jetsteam going into infinity. Fluffielady thinks da plane went down, i doubt it.

Labels: childrens, Crew, house, Panoramic

Yesterday finished finishing the rest of the wine rack, it looks decent for a sponge brush that i only had.

Today was foggy overcast at the haus but at Frontierland Park it was clear and sunny.

View of the Fog trying to creep in from the south (devils slide), the fog was creeping from all sides. The sun held off the fog for the whole duration that we were there, pretty cool. We get to the park at 10:30 and the 4 bbq pits in the main area were taken. dratz. There are two other spots which are for paid group bbq and then we remembered the two by the side of the park. Its kinda secluded but it was cool for us.
I thought i took a bit of pics, but i guess i didn't. We need some group pics, its been a while..



It was quite an impressive armada of baby carriers. Kiddie madness is arriving!

We hang out till past 4pm, get home and Fluffielady presents me with a gift that she hopes works out:

Oban 14 year, the Green Label is from Roz, who drank a bit of my other green label. Thanks for the replacement! The oban is pretty tasty, smooth, rich smokey flavors in the middle and a bit sweet in the end. Not bad, i likes!

----------------
Now playing: Kyle Landry - Canon v7
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Crew, drank, Panoramic

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 0.25 out of 10
Time During Lunch: Medium

Yesterday was kinda fun.
Got some groceries, got another algae eater, hopefully this one is cootie free. We noticed that the many feeder fish tanks were devoid of fishies. Dropped off the fish and groceries. So the aftermath of fish medicine n what not, a few others perished and we're back to 5 fishes. ugh. Our largest fish this bright golden one, looks all battle-scarred. Hes a trooper!
Onward to Pauls haus for a kiddie possee up. Kiddies a plenty! I had some practice with Octavius, hes so mellow. Pat,pat, pass the bebe!
For dindins we headed to K's and i had a hit of Mizu No Shriabe Ginjo Sake (Translation: Melody of Water), it was on the list of drinks to imbibe. It's pretty good for a sake, clear, watery looking. Its quite smooth thats not dry and has a slightly thicker than water feel. It feels flowery like a hint of rose or lavender first hits you. The best thing is that it does taste like water until it hits you like a Night Train. Good stuff good stuff. The sake, not the night train..

Our neighborhood cat is doing well, hes on antibiotics and after a few days of that yummy pink stuff, he can put some weight on his leg. Neato.

Labels: childrens, Crew, drank

Todays gonna be quite a visual posting.

Waking up at 6am, i ventured to the north side of the city to walk along for the March Of Dimes for babies, a 6mile jaunt. Fluffielady ventured the opposite direction to Half Moon Bay. I arrive at 7:20am and nobodys is there, So i call Sherwin and he tells me the walk begins at 9am, registration at 8.. dood. So what to do, i roam for a little, then realizing that i'm probably gonna walk in this direction anyhow, i did what i've been doing lately, taking Panoramics.


23 Picture Panoramic taken by the boat docks near Fort Mason, the picture woulda extended to the left a bit more but somehow i missed a section of houses. doh!
Eventually we meet up and i meet a few of his extended familia, they all seem to be a nice bunch. The only problem is when we meet, the walk has began, and we were the last group. The planned walk goes westward toward fort point, under the golden gate bridge and then up the hill towards old letterman hospital (which isn't there anymore) to the palace of fine arts and back to Fort Mason. Our plan was to 'follow the masses'.


And the masses are off, hey wait for us! Its not easy following the masses when we're 1)last to start, 2)not going at speed, and 3)our possee was displaced everywhere.


7 Pic Stitch, First stop was passing the Presidio Entrance, and onto the beachway, a photo op.

Then we reach this bridge and by this time we've gained some distance. This whole area has been newly redone as a wetlands restoration, which is kinda neat to see the seagulls and streams. And with that a whole lotta doggies, runners, bicyclists, etc.


How long did we wait? I got this 33 Picture stitch AND i took other pics with Sherwins camera. It was ok, we were 1/4 of the way there. Wee!


We reach the Warming Hut, which we didn't need any kind of warming at all. So we hang out, or at least i do (The warming hut is the building way behind me). At this point theres a turn-around, but technically the course goes all the way to fort point. And at this turn-around were people handing out water (Checkpoint #3), we continue on.


A 16 Pic Stitch taken on a pier by the Warming Hut

We finally reach Fort Point and start the return course. By the time we reached Checkpoint #3, theres nobody, only cups on the floor with water and dust in them. Lovely, also 'following the crowd' isn't possible since they were long gone, so instead of following the route, we just walked back the way we came. We got back to Fort Mason and were the last of the folk to eat. Halfway through eating, it seemed like EVERYBODY just bailed. So we hung out, and the familia took a few packs of leftover food. It was like that..


One last 4-pic stitch photo, of the sunset. Todays weather was beautiful and warm. I moto'd to the walk with Jogging pants, a t-shirt and my blue technical jacket, and was fine (sorta) at 6:45am.

----------------
Now playing: Rufus Wainwright - Moulin Rouge
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Crew, Panoramic, sunset at home

I slept better this day but i was awoken still by the horns of the trains in the switching yard at 4am and at 7am. The second set of blasts was ok, since i was aiming of waking at 7:30am. We check out and it's time to bounce from Reno! Upon leaving the holiday inn (just yelped it), there was someone being questioned and identified by the local fuzz. Lovely, is it never too early to check for warrants eh?

So where did i decide to go for a little half day of skiing? I decided for some Boreal Action. Yea, i never wanted to go back, but i didn't want to spend too much and i kinda wanted to see what they've done with all their terrain madness.

Location: Boreal 44$ full price, ack!
Type of Snow: Hard, bad, sucked
Tons of people at the resort: Not much, which is scary for a weekend!
007 Action?: Oh heck no.
Weather condition: Cloudy in 256-shades of grey, windy, with some snow floating uphill.
Gear Used: Jacket, Fleece Shirt, Fake Burberry Scarf to cover my face..
Road condition: Sucked, traffic at 2pm? On and off till reaching home.

After a few runs, they had a very beginner area with 2 boxes pretty much level with the runs and a midget jump. The next park area had hops to kinked rails and boxes. What kinda progression is that? Also they were on these jumps on rolling mounds, where you speed up heading into it, then by the time you reach the jump your speed goes to zero. Theres a baby half pipe but was too wide to get speed on, i got some exp on it but its not the same. The only good thing was there was no line at the accelerator whatsoever. At the nooblet runs had a few crowds. After sitting on those old slow lifts, you ponder the meaning of life as it slowly moves uphill. I head to the leftmost area and had a few flashbacks of the crew going skiing and seeing how short these runs are compared to when we were beginners tumbling all over. Good times good times.
Around 12:30pm i decided it was over headed to Auburn for some tacos. Yep, i happen to see a tiny sign 'Maria's Mexican Tacos'. I tried them out and it was pretty good. So now i have a good taco spot as well as a burger joint to go if i'm in the auburn area.

I get home and hear some sad and disturbing news. An old old school friend of mine Eddie calls me up and leaves one of those 'call me, somethings happened' message. I call and find out that his brother Philip passed away from a shooting, probably a gang initiation style deal. It was on the news. He's the one described as the one brought to the hospital in critical condition from the excelsior district. He's my brothers age, you hear this stuff happening all the time around the bay area. And it's usually thug on thug or bad neighborhood antics, but for normal people in a sorta decent neighborhood, that sucks. They're quite a christian family as well. I hope they find this dood, and do things i can't mention here.

----------------
Now playing: Toshiro Masuda - Loneliness
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Boardmeeting, Crew

Homewood, in Blue, Green, White. Whats not to like?

Level Of Difficulty at Work: 0.35 out of 10
Time During Lunch: Nada

i gotta go back to high school!
After work Capt'N D and i went back to the old school to meet up with Maj. And with an added bonus a young fellow named Matt Cohen now works there! He instantly recognized me, which is wierd, i was in camouflage with all that hair, yet people can still see through it.. hmmz Matt is married to a Jenny Van that some of us remember.

We venture to the Irish Cultural Center near the zoo (i never knew) for some drinks. Is that odd? to drink with your high school teacher? Maybe thats a good thing. We drink and chat it up talking about the good old days, or if anyone has seen anyone etc.
I had a 3 small shots of various items.
Bushmills Irish Whiskey - I liked it alot, pretty smooth, not harsh, not too bold or strong.
Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey - It didn't have much flavor, or not as bold, kinda simple. It was ok
And finally Jameson Irish Whiskey - This was somewhere in between the other two. Not Bad.
The bartender was wondering whats up with my selection, but hey, i'm at an Irish Cultural center and it's got all the st. paddy stuff going. So do what the romans do, except my 3 other compadres had Guinness's.

Anyhow, we get back and the place has changed, i've been back a few times and yea the 50 ft. indoor range now sells food where the bullet traps are but hey, they do what they do. Theres computers and what not, but the thing i didn't notice until Matt showed us was a few lockers that Andy Huey and myself tagged with one of them old school label makers with a ratcheting mechanism. I had such quotes as 'It's easy, just hit the middle,' and esoteric ones like 'naked without pockets.' Those were the days. Man talk about flashbacks. I need to get my camera and take some pics!

----------------
Now playing: Jacqueline du Pre - Bach Suite for Solo Cello No 1 in G major
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Crew, drank

Dream: Ahh this time i remembered what i dreamt today as well as yesterday. Both were work related. And as my rule goes, when you start dreaming of work, it's time to take a vacation. Which i am, sunday.. Board meeting anyone?

Today i took a hike from work 'cuz 1) that whole rule with dreaming of work = byebye and 2) Capt'n D is visiting with his new Ladyfriend Christine. Shes a nice Brooklyn lady ready to challenge Capt'n D. We ran around SF, landing at places like Fort Point, Joseph Schmidt, Ze Castro, and Palace of Fine Arts. Too bad shes only here for a very short while, she seems like a good mellow gal. Hope to see her again in the future.

This must be the best use for Etch-a-Sketch ever!

----------------
Now playing: Yukhi Kuramoto - Second Romance
via FoxyTunes

Labels: Crew, dream