Saturday, January 3, 2009

The Fillmore

Down at the Fillmore last night. After hanging with my friends Correne and Dave and grabbing a few beers at Zeitgeist, we went down to Fillmore st. Had a blast laughing my ass off with the shit correne kept coming up with. First band was pretty cool. Huge dude singing.

This band, for sure, was the one that stole the show. Streelight Manifesto!!! Can't say enough good things about them. They had the entire crowd jumping up and down, the floor was undulating (yes, big word, but I looked it up ha!) and their horn section absolutely rocked. They didn't slow down one bit either. Gonna have to find their cd soon.

Reel Big Fish put on a good show, but honestly after the last band they really had some big shoes to fill, and I can't honestly say that they did it. Good nonetheless.


Off to dinner at the St. Regis Hotel. Some friends invited me, since they know the chef that owns the Ame restaurant. :) Actually they are a couple chefs from Napa, and I always jump at the opportunity to eat with them.

Truth be told, I haven't spoken to my friend in 2 years. It's good to take stock, and make ammends no matter what. Looking forward to dinner and some wine.

Nice run today, 4 miles...36 min. Tomorrow, I'll be running an 8mile. I'll be sure to time myself and see how I do.

Wondering if I should go for the 30k race or not. Thoughts?

Friday, January 2, 2009

Reel Big Fish

Going to The Fillmore tonight, to see Reel Big Fish! Actually kinda excited as all I hear is they are high energy and a great show. And I always love going to see shows at the Fillmore. Very historic site. I also heard...:D....that they're sold out. Sweet!! Correne, Dave and Bryan are also going. I roped Correne and Dave in, but seems Bryan was going on his own and we just happened to find out.

Think I'll head down for some PBR's at Zeitgeist and then pre-show dinner.

I'll see if I can get some crappy phone pictures, as per usual.

New Years.....

..well, it was a good one. Would have preferred something different, but was great nonetheless.

Went out with a big group of my co-workers...and I survived. hahaha, actually, had good time downtown SF and rang in the NY in style. Up till 6am, passed out, woke up in time to ask for late check out at my hotel, and stumbled to the truck about 2pm, then home for more sleep before having to go to work. bleh.

Home now and time for some good medicinally induced sleep. ;)

Happy New Year to everyone. Hope it's better than last year, cause I could use a good "do over".

Tuesday, December 30, 2008

brisk run.

4 mile run today. Leisurely. under 40 minutes.

weight: 221lbs

Felt really good. Fast and not too tired. will up miles as I'm putting in an 8 miler this week.

Thinking of a 30k race in a few weeks. We'll see.

On another note, after the long weekend in Reno, and checking some things out, I figured I could use a challenge for the year, and something to plan and look forward too, personally.

so......I'm going to hike the Tahoe Rim Trail, which circumnavigates Lake Tahoe, peaking at Mt. Rose Summit. While not a 14er (fu brownie haha) it's 150 miles total, and I'll plan max 15 days, min 10 days. Hiking, camping and seeing what I can do.

late spring or early summer.

Sick ass jumps!!!!

HAHAHA, well...not so sick...and not so much "jumps" :D

Anyway, I told Chris to go down a ways and prep the video on the camera...and wait for something spectacular. :D
Here are a couple videos that we took of me on the snowboard. For the record, it's been 2 years, since I board...I'm just saying. What I love about snowboarding is the learning curve is so fast.

You're doing it wrong!!!!


You're doing it wrong......AGAIN!!!!!!

Finally, something right!



well, I can't usually get videos loaded directly to blogger...so I just put them on youtube.com. enjoy.

I think it's time I go snowboarding outside of Tahoe too. Got an invite to Salt Lake City, Utah. :D

Squaw Valley USA - check

So Saturday I clicked off something on my list. I've always wanted to snowboard at Squaw Valley USA, which was home to the 1960 Winter Olympics. There is some history here, right inside the Lake Tahoe region. I've actually hiked up the mountains at Squaw in the summer, a few years back when the Iguanas H3 came through and held a hash weekend at South Lake Tahoe. heh. Exxcess happened to be there too. One of the best Iguana Hashes ever. I managed to lay trail with Two Guys Fcking straight up the mountain at Heavenly...along the gondola path. 3,000 ft elevation change (from 5,900 ft to almost 9k feet elevation), was hungover, no sleep, carrying an alice pack with a 12 pack of Tecate, with 2.9 mile distance, just in the climb. We then made them run another 5 miles down the mountain. :D but that is another story for another time. It was awesome.

Anyway, I've always wanted to go here and snow board. Chris said they had night boarding, so we decided to make it up around 4pm and kill two birds with one stone. hours are 4pm to 9pm. Bought some tickets ($22.00) after standing in line forever. Called my buddy Alan, who is an instructor up here, and he met us, with beer in hand after he was done with work. hahaha perfect.

After getting squared away, we took the obligatory photos with the name in the back before going out and absolutely bansaiing down the mountain. I realized a little later that it's been 2 years since I was on the board. WAYYYY to long. And well worth getting back on it. Chris and I ready to go.
The only downside to night boarding on a weekend, was the large amount of people. half of them are just going to the top of the mountain to get dinner. Anyway, one gondola is running, and it only takes 86 people. so they pile you in like cattle into a waiting area, then they move you onto a giant elevator, then it goes to the second floor, then you pile out to a waiting area, as the gondola arrives, and unloads, you pile in and it takes about 10 min to the top of the mountain. Kind of lengthy and we were cooling off in the process. We grabbed some shots at the top.
Alan and myself.
We took the smaller lifts at the top, so as to not have to come down the mountain right away.

After making our run, and feeling good about it. We realized we'd missed the gondola, so Chris ran to the car for our beer, and Alan ran to the instructors locker room for his beer. haha so then we stood in line while everyone else envied us as we pounded beer before getting to the top of the mountain.
One last shot at the top.
We decided to go about half way down, and Alan said to pick a spot, and we'd pull over and finish the other beers. He managed to carry quite a few. Well, after attempting some sick ass jumps in front of the video camera, and failing miserably...hahahaha, he waited for us with beer on ice. :D
After brushing off the excess snow off myself, from eating it face first....(hence the helmet) we finished up the rest of the beers, sitting on the side of the mountain overlooking the valley lights below that are Squaw Valley USA. Very cool.

Two crappy shots I took with my phone camera. But that is the village below.This one is a little better. A little closer to the bottom. :)

Enjoy. I can't wait to get back up there to do some more snow boarding. Might head up a few days earlier than my sisters reception and go ride.

Snow shoeing....

Day after Xmas was a lazy day. Got up to some ham and eggs that the old carbon based maternal unit was making. Sipped on the coffee and we tried to figure what we'd do today. I got a hold of some old hasher friends of mine from the east bay, that now live in South Lake Tahoe. Exxcess and Lycktonite. Known them for quite some time.

After a leisurely morning, I was itching to get outside, and since they had been shoveling snow all day, they figured, snowboarding was out, but might be up for some snow shoeing. We decided to meet at the Mt. Rose ski resort bar at 2:30, after they opted out of any exercise. hahaha

so Chris and I headed up to the meadows.
Here is a photo of Chris and Eryka's new place. It was definitely a white Xmas.

I hate to say it, but Chris has turned me on to this new bud light (red beer), which comes with clamato juice. Which is my choice over tomato juice. Downed this on the way up to the meadows. Way I see it, alcohol in the blood stream tends to thin the blood, therefore allowing the easier transportation of Oxygen throughout the body. :D Well, that's my theory and I'm sticking to it. Oh, and some new socks...as I'll be snowshoeing in my runners.
Hwy 431 up towards Mt. Rose Highway. Lot of douchebags without a clue as to how to drive in the snow and ice. oh well.
Chris out on the trails. Most were packed down a bit, so not to hard, but we decided to forge our own trails, so we were trekking through powder, sinking about 2-3 ft. Not bad, but a really good workout.
We managed to go out for about 1:15 and loop back around and got some killer views. Unfortunately the cold must have been draining the camera battery a lot faster, cause my camera died while on trail. boooo.
Just a few shots in the meadows.
Self portrait.
After we snowshoed, we still had to get back down to the ski resort. Met up with Exxcess and Lycktonite and had a few beers, as we caught up over a few hours. :)

Exxcess is a very cool dude. Descendant of Gunnar Kassen (who was the final dog sledder to take antibiotics to the town of Nome, Ak. back 1925) An event made even more famous many years later by the Iditarod race, which carries many of the same traditions of that event. While some controversy exists over who should deserve credit, I figure all the mushers that drove their dogs through the night relaying the medicine should be given credit for stopping the outbreak of Cholera in that town. Either way, Exxcess is top notch and I've hashed with him all over.
After we bugged out, we went back to Reno and decided sushi would be the fare of the evening. :D And in Reno, it's always "all you can eat sushi". While it might not sound very appealing...it's a gambling town, so they make sure that most places (you just have to know where to go) have the best food around. This smaller sushi restaurant was excellent. and at $21.00 each, Chris and I made about $140.00 worth of damage in sushi. hahahaha oy, I was full, and definitely the most I've eaten in quite a while at one sitting.
This also helped: "Free Sake"
yep, you heard it right...you also get free sake with your "all you can eat" sushi.


After dinner, we went over to Scrupples Bar to catch up with my sis and down a few beers, before heading back to the house. All in all a pretty cool day. Got to see some friends, and also snow shoed.

Also took care of some stuff that was pending, and hopefully today would be the last day of having to deal with any of it. In a good way. sigh.

Monday, December 29, 2008

Xmas weekend!

What a long weekend. Lots of good fun, and pics to come. Just uploading now. Off to work, and then will post tomorrow. Hope everyone is having a great time this holiday season.

cheers