'Well thanks for waiting this long to show yourself...'

Well I just got back from a six day vacation in San Diego yesterday. Had an excellent time while I was there. Most of the time there we just relaxed by the pool, but we took a little time out to drive around a bit and took some pictures which you can see here. We stayed at Matt's uncle's house in Rancho Sante Fe, which is just north of San Diego, and is a really high-dollar area as far as mortgage rates go. Matt and Ketti were watching it for him for a few weeks while he was on vacation in Europe with his family.

Going to watch Wall-E this morning with Daniel and Alicia and their kids. After that, hang out at Dennis, and sleep. No plans for the weekend just yet, but I should find out today if I have a date this weekend or not. It was Mike's birthday yesterday, so we'll probably celebrate that this weekend as well. Have no clue what to get him... Tami's birthday was on Tuesday, and I'll give her her gifts tomorrow.

It's Sam's last day at work tonight. I'm going to miss her quite a bit. She's been an awesome friend the last year or so since I transferred to conversions, and helped me get through some really rough times. She's going to be an elementary teacher, and I wish her all the best in her new career.

"I hope you're as happy as you 're pretending..."

So here's a proper blog entry about what I've been up to lately. Well I went to see Metallica a few weeks back with DJ and Dennis. We drove all the way down to Tucson to see them. Got tickets for only $35 each thanks to Tami. While there some chick wanted to sit on my shoulders. I honestly was skeptical if I was even strong enough to lift her. Not that she looked heavy at all, I was just unsure of my strength. It was actually surprisingly easy though, and she was up there for a good 15-20 minutes before I had to put her back down. Apparently she was flashing people, but of course, her being on my shoulders, I couldn't see shit. Then while getting in line on our way out, some chick backed into me with her PT Cruiser. Just a tiny scratch though. Mike says it can probably be buffed out. Took us 2 hours just to get out of the parking lot. I'd planned to go to work that night, but I would've been late, and LaDonna said to just take the night off.

For memorial day I went quadding up at Saguaro Lake with Daniel, Alicia, and some other people from work. Flipped my quad in the first 10 minutes of riding and scraped up my elbow pretty bad. It didn't hurt much though, and I got right back on and continued riding. Unfortunately I was out in the sun for about 8 hours or so that day, and no sun block, so my arms and knees got burned real bad. Add to that the 4 hours or so of riding around on a quad, and I could barely walk the next day. Still had crazy amounts of fun though. I'll have to remember sun-block and gloves next time. It'll make the whole experience quite a bit more enjoyable I'm sure.

Saw Indiana Jones. I read that a lot of people didn't like it because of the whole 'alien' thing, but I liked it anyways... granted, aliens aren't exactly what I would ever picture in Indiana Jones, but the movie as a whole is definitely worth seeing I think. Also saw the new Chronicles of Narnia movie, and liked that quite a bit as well. Seems like they did a better job of acting this time around.

Just signed up to take Spanish 101 at GCC in July tonight. $260. Hopefully it ends up being worth it. Thankfully it's only a month long, 3 hours a day, 4 days a week. I figure I need to start getting back into the idea of school and shit. Would've signed up for photography, but they won't have any classes until next semester. Also went to the eye doctor, and the cardiologist. Contacts should be here any day now, and I go back to the cardiologist for more tests on Friday. I need to sign up for a dentist appointment now as well.

'I could never be the one that you want, don't ask. Well, here's to living in the moment, cause it passed...'

So vacation's been great so far. The day after Mike and I arrived, we took a tour of Whidbey Island where I grew up, along with my brother and Sabrina. To get there we took the ferry to Clinton, then drove north through Clinton, stopping off to get Pete some baking powder for heart burn, and getting some hot chocolate at a drive-in coffee house. We then drove to Greenbank Farms so my brother could pick up some wine. When we got there, we noticed they had some kind of swap meet or something going on in one of the buildings. We went in to check it out, and while looking around I spotted a tiny violin on one of the vendors tables. I went and grabbed Pete to show him, and he found out it was only $25. That was a steal, and he thought it looked pretty cool, and Sabrina used to play violin when she was younger, so he decided to buy it.

We left the farm, and headed north to check out Fort Casey. We walked through there a while, with my brother and I talking a little bit about the fort, and taking a few pictures here and there. After Fort Casey we drove toward Oak Harbor, taking the back road around by West Beach, and passing the most recent house that our parents and us had lived in before we left Oak Harbor. Driving downtown we passed our church and the first apartments we'd lived in when we first moved there, which at the time my dad only paid a mere $80 a month for a three bedroom, two bathroom, two story apartment. Then we drove down Pioneer Road downtown and decided to stop in at Mi Pueblo for lunch. It was dark and empty inside on the first floor, and I almost thought they might actually be closed or something, but we walked upstairs and someone who looked like he was about to fall asleep at the table he was sitting at, jumped up and helped us. The food wasn't bad. Your basic Mexican restaurant stuff.

After eating we went up the street to a house we'd lived in for a number of years which we refer to as 'The Big White House'. The house is well over a hundred years old. I think it was probably one of our favorite places to live just because it was kind of unique. We have a lot of good memories of living there. The compost bins my dad built were still in the back yard, though the apple tree looked like it had been recently trimmed back. We left Oak Harbor and went by Christian's Auto and Metal Recycling, where my brother and I had both worked at one point, though at different times. We drove by the Naval Base, then turned around and headed to Deception Pass.

When we got to the bridge, Sabrina stayed near the parking lot as she's afraid of heights, while Mike, Pete, and myself walked out on to the bridge and over to Canoe Island which is between the two bridges of Deception Pass. On our way across the bridge, Pete noticed a giant splash in the water below, and thought someone had just jumped off the bridge. Turns out there as actually a number of Sea Lions swimming directly below the bridge, and one had jumped out of the water and cause the splash. At first we thought they were seals, but they were much too large. After watching them for a bit, Pete decided to turn back and stay with Sabrina, while Mike and I walked down on to the Island. We took a few pictures and tried to get a better look at the Sea Lions, but we couldn't really see them from the angle we were at. We headed back to the car, and drove over the bridge to Fidalgo Island, and on to Mount Erie. When we got to the top, it was much too cloudy for a good view of Puget Sound. We took a few pictures anyways though. Finally the tour was over, and we headed back to Seattle via the I-5 freeway over the mainland.

The next day Mike, Peter, and myself headed to the Cascade Mountain range, while Sabrina stayed in Bellvue to pack and do some cleaning. We drove up to a campground that we used to camp at frequently called Colonial Creek Campground, which is next to Ross Lake. The campground had changed quite a bit since I'd last been there, but most of it was exactly the same as it had been for decades. We left and drove up to Washington Pass to check out the snow. None of us had brought any boots or anything so we couldn't really go in it. That was the end of the trip though, and we headed back to Seattle.

The next morning I got a phone call early in the morning from my parents. My dad said that they were out of power because it had started snowing the day before around noon, and hadn't stopped since. At the time of the phone call they were up to six inches, with no sign of stopping. This is pretty much exactly what my brother and I had hoped for, minus the lack of electricity of course. Still, I wasn't that worried, as we had at least a nine hour drive to their house in Hamilton, Montana, and we weren't even planning on leaving Seattle for another three hours or so. My dad recommended I get chains for the rental, so while everyone was still sleeping, I drove to Les Schwab and picked some up, making sure I'd be able to return them if they were never used. Filled the car up with gas, and went back to Pete's house. We packed up the car, hit up McDonalds for breakfast, and were on the road by 9:30am. The mountain passes were all clear, so the chains stayed in their bag. Only a couple miles from Hamilton there was a bad accident and we had to turn around and take a different, much slower route. We stopped in at Hamilton to pick up some things for my mom at the store, and made it to their house by 9:30pm MST, so all in all, an 11 hour trip.

When we got to my parents, the power was still out, and it stayed out all until the next morning when finally it came back on. The rest of the week went well. Most of the time we stayed inside, with temperatures constantly dropping, at one point even hitting 0 degrees Fahrenheit during the night. To keep entertained we watched movies, TV series on DVD, played video games, and even did some snowboarding on the hill next to the house. Thanksgiving came and my Uncle Jim and Aunt Gidget came to have dinner with us. That Saturday we took a tour of my dad's new workplace at GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) in Hamilton. Finally on Sunday it was time to head back to Seattle. The trip back didn't seem to take quite as long, I think only 9 or 10 hours. The passes were a little more icy than they were the first time through, but there was still no need for the chains, and I returned them the next day before taking the rental back. Speaking of the rental, we'd tried to get a discount on it by going through our friend Justin, who works as a concierge at a local hotel, but when I returned the rental, it apparently didn't get applied, and it ended up costing me nearly $500 for 10 days. Still, that's pretty much what I'd expected to pay going into it, so no big deal.

It's now been about 5 days since we got back. Much of the time has been spent at my brother's house playing Guitar Hero 3 and Assassin's Creed, though I did manage to go out to see Beowulf 3D at the local IMAX along with Clarence and his girlfriend Niessa, which was pretty interesting. Monday before Mike went back to Phoenix, we went downtown and walked around Pike Place Market, and later that night when Sabrina was driving me home, we got into a car accident when her car was rear-ended. Thankfully nobody was hurt, and the girl that hit us actually stopped, and had insurance. Also ended up playing pool at a dive bar up the street called Piper's a couple times. This weekend I'll be heading to Sabrina's parent's house while Pete is introduced to them. They're having enchiladas apparently, so I'm really looking forward to it :P Sabrina and I went Christmas shopping today. I didn't buy anything, just came along to get out of the house and keep her company.

Yesterday my dad called and said my mom was going in for open heart surgery today, which took us all by surprise. Apparently she hadn't been feeling well, and her temperature had risen to 105, and heart was beating very fast. The doctors discovered a hole in her heart, with an infection nearby, which had spread into her blood. The surgery was successful, and they replaced one of the valves in her heart. She'll have to be on IV antibiotics for the next six weeks.

That's all for now, other than Niickiey text messaged me a couple times. Once the night I first arrived in Seattle, wishing me a fun vacation and happy Thanksgiving, and another on Thanksgiving, saying Happy Thanksgiving. I didn't reply to either, as much as I was tempted to. At first I was angry, then the same old thoughts of wanting answers came up, but I ignored them as best I could. If she wants to talk, she can apologize first, then I'll think about it; but honestly, that's not likely to happen.

Pictures of the vacation so far can be viewed here.

'There's truth in your lies, doubt in your faith, all I've got's what you didn't take...'

So this weekend I slept a lot, played a lot of video games; namely Oblivion for PS3, and FF: Tactics for the PSP; went to the Arizona State Fair with friends, watched a lot of American football, and unfortunately, did not work any overtime.

I also got my car back yesterday. The repair work looked fantastic. The back left side of my car looks brand new. They even fixed my driver's side door, which had been catching on the sill whenever you opened it, and had become incredibly annoying. Unfortunately, in repairing the side panel, they'd somehow caused the seatbelt not to retract all the way.. so I've basically traded one annoyance for another; but the door was more annoying I think... It also seems that the weatherstripping has ripped off slightly from around the drivers side window, and what used to be a slightly audible hiss, is now much louder. Need to try and find out if that's easily repairable.

My PS3 Hard Drive extender finally came in, I think 3 weeks after ordering, which is a little ridiculous. I dropped by Fry's Electronics and grabbed a 500GB SATA drive to use with it, and an SATA-to-eSATA cable. Using my Nextar external enclosure, I attached it to my PS3 after removing the 60GB 2.5" drive, and putting in the extender. 500GB PS3 FTW!

Also ended up buying the new slim PSP. It's crazy lighter than my old one, to the point where it feels like one of those cell phone displays that don't actually have anything inside them. Still, should be much easier to hold for long periods of time. Haven't tried TV-Out yet. I was going to trade the old PSP in for credit toward it, but it seems to be missing the serial # sticker, so I'm going to try and get rid of it on eBay or Craig's list. Seems like I can get around $100 or more for it if I can find all the accessories, etc, which is great, considering EB Games/Gamestop was going to give me $50-60.

Picked up Oblivion:GOTY. Traded in my 2 month old Oblivion that I paid full retail for ($60). They were going to give me a mere $9 for it! Thankfully the clerk said he'd give me $15 cash. Brand new the original game is now only $30, so 50% is a pretty decent deal, so I guess I can't complain. They're reselling them for $26.99 used.

Oh yes, and there are pictures from the fair. While there, there was an older lady who wanted to ride the ferris wheel, but they wouldn't let her because the rules are you must ride with another person. I was just sitting on a bench waiting for my friends to finish riding, so she asks me to ride with her. So we go up there and they tell her there are no tickets left on her card. Turns out she bought an 8 ticket card ($4), and already had ridden one ride. Well she thought each ride was a single ticket, but they're actually multiple tickets, usually 4 or 5. They told her she didn't have enough left on the card and she started getting upset, so Dennis let us use his card.

Pictures

'Don't want to reach for me do you, I mean nothing to you, the little things get in the way...'

So things didn't go quite as bad as I'd predicted in the last entry, but they weren't perfect either...

So on Friday, she gave me a call from work, and wanted to know if I wanted to have lunch at 1pm, and take her to the bank to cash her check. Then she TM'd me again and said nevermind, the store had bought them lunch, but she got off at 4, so if I wanted to pick her up and have dinner we could do that.

So I pick her up, and to my surprise, her hair is 'not' bleached blonde. You have no idea how glad I was, LOL. All she did was get red and blonde highlights. She said she really was going to bleach it, but that the hairdresser she went to wouldn't do it because they'd have to use so much bleach that it'd end up frying her hair or something.

So we go cash her check, go back to her work so she can pay for some stuff she had on hold, then went to dinner. She'd never been to The Cheesecake Factory, which is one of my favorite restaurants, mostly because it seems really fancy, without costing 'that' much more than your standard sit-down restaurant. The food is good to, and the cheesecake is excellent. Anyways, so have dinner, and save enough room to split a Tres Leches flavored cheesecake, which was awesome. Now before dinner, she'd told me she had to be back at her house by 7 to do laundry, which I wasn't too happy to hear, as I was going to ask if she wanted to go to my place and watch Knocked Up, which we'd rented a couple days earlier. But during dinner, she text messages me, asking if I want to see if there's anything playing at the movie theater.

I was about to text her back when I asked myself why we were even text messaging when she was sitting across from me, lol. So I said yeah, we could see what was playing. Anyways, we drove by the theater but nothing real interesting was playing immediately, so I ask her if she wants to watch Knocked Up, and she says yes. So we do that, but weren't able to quite finish it before I had to take her home so that I'd have enough time to pick up my friend I carpool with, and head to work.

Now before this all had happened I was really stressing out about the trip, and whether she even wanted to go, etc; but the day went so well I told myself that I'd been stressing out for nothing, as usual. So, I go to work, sit through 8 hours of boredom, head home, pack, shower, and call her at 7:30 to make sure she's awake. I stop by Starbucks on the way there to get us some Frappuchinos, and then pick her up, and we're on the road by 8:30.

The drive there isn't too bad. Most of the time we're cruising along at 70-90mph. We get to Sedona about 10, and walk around some shops for a bit, then go to a mexican restaurant I like called Oaxaca and have lunch. After that we walk around 'more' shops (she's female after all...) and then head up to Slide Rock, which is a park with a river that runs over giant areas of flat rock. People swim in it... but I wouldn't recommend it... lots of algae, etc; and COLD. We hike around there for a bit, take pictures, etc, then head back to Sedona. We stopped at an art exhibit place and walked around there for a while, bought some fancy chocolate, and went through some 'new age' psychic shop; then headed over to the Inn to check in.

We get to the room, which is exactly like the pictures on the internet say it is. It has a King size post bed, with mini-fridge, microwave, couches, and the premiere feature, a jacuzzi right next to the bed, which makes the room $50 more a night than the regular King size room. We decide to take a nap, cause we both are running on a couple hours of sleep, so we end up sleeping until about 7:30. This ends up the first time I'm actually able to sleep with her in the bed, by the way, but I'm almost certain its because all previous times I was holding her; this time I didn't. So we get up and we're both kind of hungry so we go to an Italian place just a block up the street that she likes and have calzones, which were really good, then go back to the Inn.

She decides to take a shower, and while she does, I make an attempt to be romantic. I run over to the grocery store that's right behind the Inn and buy a dozen tea candles, a lighter, and a bottle of shampoo, because the Inn only provided us with a single tiny bottle, which she had proudly claimed. I run back to the Inn, but she's already out of the shower, however, she walks outside to talk on the phone, so while she's out, I fill up the Jacuzzi, pour in some shampoo to create bubbles, and place lit candles all around it. Yeah, it's probably cheezy, but I figured she could at least appreciate the effort, lol. Besides, might as well make use of it since we're paying for it.

So she comes back in, sees what I've done, and instantly starts talking about how I'm not going to make her get in there. Why? I ask... thinking she just wants to play 'hard to get', or something like that. Supposedly it's because she "doesn't like baths". Bullshit, I tell her... She was bragging about how the Inn had a jacuzzi outside (she didn't know about the one in the room) before we got there, and I've known her to take baths before. She says she only takes baths when she shaves her legs, and the Jacuzzi outside is a 'real one', while the one in the room is more like a giant bathtub with jets, because you have to fill it up with water first... I argue with her, but she's not changing her mind at all, and I'm becoming very annoyed. So I roll over and lay on my side of the bed for quite some time, then get up and put out all the candles, and pretend to go to sleep, but I couldn't even if I wanted to, so much shit was running through my head...

Finally, some time later, I get up and ask her if she even wants to be here, or even wants to be with me, and she says yes, and asks what's wrong, and I talk about how I feel like she's trying to push me away sometimes, and about how a lot of the times that we've made plans, they always seem to get cut short or canceled. She comes up with reasons/excuses for all of these. I lay back down and she wants me to hold her, so I try and push things aside for now to attempt to make the best of the rest of the trip.

I think some of it still remained the next day though... breakfast went ok, but we didn't talk much on the way back to Phoenix. When we did, things seemed fine, but I'm used to her talking a lot. I didn't help things by driving a little aggressively when we were almost back to the city. People were going 25-30mph around a long downhill winding section of the highway, and not much angers me more than slow drivers, so as soon as I had openings, I'd drop gears and gun it past them, doing 80-90. She didn't say anything at the time, but later as we were in traffic, exiting to the freeway, I tried to hold her hand, and she wouldn't let me, stating that she wasn't happy with the way I was driving.

Eventually I did get her to hold my hand though. I dropped her off at her house, and things seemed to be relatively normal, however, I text messaged her about 4 or 5 hours later, asking if she ever made her appointment that she was supposed to go to when we got back. No reply. I TM'd her an hour later asking if she was mad at me still; no reply. Her birthday is tomorrow. Last time she was mad at me, she didn't talk to me until the next day, and then things were ok again. Hopefully that will be the case here as well.

I'm still not 100% that the trip was worth the money... I wish we'd gone to more places to take pictures, or done some more hiking or something. I definitely wasn't happy about paying $50 extra for a room with a jacuzzi we didn't even use, but unfortunately, that was all that was available just about anywhere in Sedona that weekend. Finally, I'm not happy at all about having to leave by 10am to make sure I got her home by 12 for her appointment. It almost seems like it would've been better to just drive home the night before, and sleep in a better hotel in Phoenix for cheaper, or even sleep at my place for free.

Pictures here.

'I see your picture, I smell your skin, on the empty pillow next to mine...'

The last couple weekends have been excellent. The weekend before last I went out with some friends Saturday night to celebrate a co-workers (Shawn) birthday. He'd rented a limo to take everyone to the club and we were there until about midnight when we drove to Mill Ave., which is kind of the hotspot of downtown Tempe where the streets are lined with bars, restaurants, and shops. We were going to go to a place called The Cherry Lounge, but just as we were about to get in, Shawn, who'd had a little to drink that night, walked directly into a pole, and the bouncers wouldn't let us into the bar. After going to another bar we headed home. The next day my friend Ian flew in from California to watch the Seahawks/Cardinals game. I'd bought tickets for Ian, Dennis, and myself, and Ian brought an extra Seahawks jersey for me to wear. In the end the Cardinals won by a single field goal in the last 5 seconds of the game.

This last Saturday was my 26th birthday, and Stacy decided to invite a bunch of my friends to have dinner at a Japanese restaurant in Scottsdale called Benihana. The restaurant has you sit around a table which is also a giant skillet, where the chef cooks your food right in front of you, while also providing entertainment in the process through tricks, jokes, etc. There were 11 of us at a single table, and we barely fit. Most of the menu included seafood, which overall I'm not a fan of, but I still ended up eating some sushi and shrimp.

Daniel and Alicia ended up buying me one of the 'mugs' that were available for purchase. The mug is white, and in the shape of a crouching ninja (pic here). Your supposed to pour liquid in through a hole in his back, and drink through a straw placed in the sword scabbard hole at the top of his shoulder. Other gifts include tickets to see Static-X from DJ & Melissa, tickets to see Chevelle from Tami, cologne from Dennis & Nicole, some shirts and a gift card to F.Y.E. from Angi, and Stacy ended up paying for dinner for both myself and Niickiey, which was considerably generous of her, especially considering that the food at Benihana is by no means low priced, and the fact that she'd already given me DVDs of Resident Evil 1&2 the weekend before (which also contained a movie ticket to see #3).

Pictures from Benihana

Pictures from the Seahawks vs. Cardinals game

'I'm holding on a rope, got me ten feet off the ground...'

Wow, these entries are getting few and far between. Well I've been doing really well the last couple weeks. Money's starting to trickle back into the bank thanks to a month and a half of working without a day off, until this last weekend, where I was mere hours away from losing my virginity when I decided not to go (completely) through with it, and instead to wait until I was sure I had a meaningful relationship with someone, whether it ends up being the girl I'm seeing now, or someone else later on down the road. More than one person has criticized me for making this decision but I think when it comes down to it, it's the right one for me.

But enough about that. Last Saturday I went to Dennis' youngest son's 7th birthday party. Had a great time swimming, eating pizza, and hanging out. Then on Sunday I went to the zoo with Stacy, and her friend Ally ended up coming as well, to my surprise. I never wrote about Ally, but she was at Stacy's birthday party last June, and long story short, she was quite attractive and I mentioned to Stacy later on that she should hook us up.

So anyways, when I heard she was coming I was pretty excited about it, but things didn't quite turn out the way I would've liked at all. To me, the day turned out fairly horrible as far as making an impression. I was tired from having worked the previous night; it was hot and humid as hell, even at 8:00 in the morning; I barely said a word the entire time we were walking around the zoo; and a lot of little things, that, to my constantly over-analyzing mind, just made the day seem to get worse as time went by. After we'd left the zoo, I was riding back with Stacy and told her all of this and she said she thought things went just fine, and they probably were, I just tend to stress out too much sometimes.

Here are the pics. Many of them didn't turn out as well as I'd like. I think this is mostly because I only brought my short lens, and most of the animals were a good distance away.

Got my vacation approved for this holiday season. I'll be flying up to Washington on November 16th, along with Mike who finally decided to come up with me. We'll be staying a couple days at my brothers, then the three of us will rent a car and drive to Montana on the 19th for Thanksgiving with my parents and other family members. Then we'll head back to Seattle on the 25th, and Mike will fly back to Phoenix the next day. I'm going to stay for another two weeks to celebrate my brother's 24th birthday on the 5th, and fly back to Phoenix on the 10th. All in all it comes down to 3.5 weeks of vacation, which is the longest I'll have been out of Arizona since I moved here 7 years ago, so I'm really looking forward to it because I hate this f'ing state.

No plans for this weekend just yet other than a Diamondbacks game, which I'm still not even 100% sure I'll be attending. Probably be signing up to work the weekend again.

'There's a hole in me, that I can't fill, no matter how hard I try...'

Pictures!

'Our hopes and expectations, black holes and revelations...'

Just got back yesterday from a four day trip to California, or, more specifically, Disneyland. My best friend and his girlfriend were going, and had asked if I wanted to come along for a few days. I hadn't been to Disneyland in like 8 years, for my sister's 18th birthday, so I was pretty excited. Plus, I don't get to hang out with them enough, so it'd be good to spend a few days hanging out.

They were going to stay until Friday, but I was going to only stay for a couple days, and leave Wednesday in time to make it back for work that night. I didn't have any paid time-off anymore, so not only was the trip going to cost quite a bit for the hotel, tickets, gas, and of course, food, but I'd be losing money not working for a couple days as well. So we decided to take separate cars, but drive together. I technically could've taken a plane back, but I love driving, even if it's by myself, for six straight hours of nothing but desert.

So anyways, I won't write down every detail of the vacation. We all had a great time though. I've never walked so much in my entire life, and I used to walk everywhere before I had a car. My legs were completely shot after two days of walking through Disneyland, Downtown Disney, California Adventure, and to and from the hotel, not to mention walking along the beach, and around the shops, etc. We went on a lot of rides, much more than I went on the last time I was there, including Space Mountain, Splash Mountain, Pirates of the Caribbean, the Haunted House, the Matterhorn, Indiana Jones, California Screamin', and lots more. I was a little wary of riding the roller coasters (of which most of the rides are), but once I rode them at least once, it was a lot easier, and I ended up enjoying them quite a bit.

We stayed at the Anaheim Hilton and Towers hotel, which was pretty nice, especially for the low $89 a night price. They even accidentally threw in a free mini-fridge as well, but I didn't end up using it because I was never at the hotel other than to sleep.

The only bad part about the trip was that there were three of us, which meant on rides that only sat two people per seat, I was by myself, which wasn't very fun at all. I already knew that would happen, but it didn't ruin the vacation or anything.

So now I'm back in Phoenix, and frantically trying to balance my finances, and who's going to get what for Christmas, and if they're even going to get it by Christmas, or if they're going to have to wait until I get more money. Mostly I'm focusing on getting everyone here in Phoenix their gifts by Christmas, and I've done surprisingly better than I thought I was going to do (which doesn't really mean much). I still have quite a few gifts to think of and buy though, and that will probably all be done today, or this weekend, which I actually took off for once, not only because of the holiday, but because Stacy wanted to hang out one night, so I promised her I would.

So, now for the pictures! Some of these turned out really well, and I can tell I'm getting more used to using my camera and it's different settings, particularly the aperture and shutter speed settings.

As always, you can view them with comments here.

'This problems gonna last, more than the weekend...'

I've been back from vacation a few days now, so it's probably about time I put up the pictures. Had a great time up in the Northwest visiting friends and family, but its good to be back home again.

Click on any of the images below to enlarge them in a new window.

The same images, with descriptions can be found here.

'And the riot be the rhyme of the unheard...'

Well, it's been an incredibly long time since I made an entry, and I'm really not going to go over all that's happened in the last month and a half, but I'll let you in on a few things that have been happening lately, and will be happening in the near future.

To start off, I haven't taken many pictures lately, as much as I've meant to. When there are opportunities to take them, I've either forgot my camera, forgot the battery, or forgot the flash card to store the pictures on. I do have a couple pictures to put up though, one taken with my cell phone, and the other by DJ's girlfriend Melissa, as well as a handful from the Halloween costume contest at work.

The first one is a picture of DJ and Melissa's son Nathaniel, as well as Daniel and Alicia's daughter Niya. This was taken at the company picnic which took place near the end of last month, and ended up being a lot more fun than I originally expected.



The second is a picture of DJ, myself, and Daniel at the Arizona State Fair, also at the end of last month.



This is when I forgot my battery, which really sucked, because there were a lot of things to take pictures of. I could've used my phone I suppose, as it's a 1.3mp sensor, but the quality of the image compared to a dedicated camera is still crap, and seeing as we were there in the evening, most of the images would've turned out horribly anyways with the lack of a flash. The fair wasn't bad, but not excellent either. I tried some deep fried cheesecake, which wasn't worth the $5 it cost, and a normal piece of cheesecake would've been better I think. Daniel loves the stuff though. Rode a couple of rides, eventually getting a little motion sickness.

These are the pictures from the costume contest at my work. At first I didn't want to dress up, but then a couple days before Halloween I actually kind of got excited about it, but by that time it was too late to find what I wanted, which was either a Jack Skellington costume (Nightmare Before Christmas) or Captain Jack (of Pirates of the Carriban). The second picture is of my friends Alicia and Angi. I took their picture separate from the group because they had the most unique costumes in my opinion, although the "Cereal Killer" costume was pretty unique as well.



So those are all the pictures I have. Other than that, I've just been working non-stop since my birthday. I've meant to use the extra cash to buy a new exhaust and short-ram intake for my car, but I think that might have to end up waiting until next year, as I ended up spending about $250 fixing some bad belts and pulleys in my engine, and I've also recently made plans to go to Disneyland with Mike & Tiffany during the week before Christmas. That's not to mention my vacation coming up next week to Washington/Montana for Thanksgiving, or various birthdays, the PlayStation 3 (providing I can get one), and of course, Christmas.

'so fall into my eyes, and fall into my lies...'

Well, I had another good weekend. They seem to be happening quite often actually... that's kind of odd. Anyways, Saturday was DJ's party. There wasn't too many people there, but I remember DJ saying he was only inviting a handful of people this time. Just to hang out at his house, eat pizza and cheesecake (yumm), etc. Sunday I hung out with Mike and Tiffany. Went to Arrowhead Mall and walked around a bit, then dropped my car off at her parents, and headed over to Chili's for dinner. They've got pretty decent food there.

After that we drove to downtown Tempe, which is where ASU is at, and all many of the bars and clubs, etc. We were going to a club called Margarita Rocks, but it wasn't open for another 20 minutes or so, so we went next door to The Tavern, and they had a few drinks, and we talked for a while until the other club opened up. It was pretty dead for a little while, but picked up soon enough. An older hispanic lady tried to get me to dance because she thought I looked bored, but I wasn't going for it. Not enough alcohol or self-esteem for that type of thing (probably doesn't help that I don't drink, heh). Lots of great looking women at the club, which makes sense, seeing as ASU's practically across the street. Left there not long after midnight, picked up my car, and went to bed.

The next day I headed up north to check out some landmarks in Arizona that I haven't been to yet. I drove up to a place called Tonto Natural Bridge, which is essentially a short, but very tall cave that goes through a cliff, forming a natural bridge. Hiked around there for a while, then drove up to Winslow to check out the Homolovi Ruins. I thought they'd be more well preserved than they turned out to be, but it was interesting just the same. Got stopped by a Park Ranger while up there, cause I forgot to put my pass in the window. After that, I drove back to Phoenix, and over to Dennis' house. Watched "Firewall", then went home and to sleep.

Got up early today to go to work. I'm working days this week to get additional training at work. I hate driving in traffic. It's so different than driving at night, where there are little to no accidents, and the freeways just move along without any problems at all. Coming home was even worse. Took me an hour or more, when it normally takes 20-25 minutes.

Anyways, here are some pics from the weekend. The dogs are from Tiffany's parents house, the middle one being Tiffany's dog Rowdy. The rest are from the Tonto Natural Bridge, and the Homolovi ruins.

'To put my arms in fragile hands!'

Well, the trip is over, and all is back to normal. The rest of the pics from the trip are below.

Sunday I'll be going to yet another Arizona Diamondbacks game. Lynn got more tickets through work, so she invited myself, DJ, and his g/f Mellisa to come along.

Other than that, don't really have many plans until August, which is coming up soon. Oh yeah; I forgot to mention that I forgot to pay my rent before I went on vacation, and now I don't have enough money to until this weekend, so I'll be owing an extra $125 or so in addition to the $450 I normally pay. Oh well.

Pictures from the trip.

'Listen to the boulevard, listen to the fallin rain...'

I bought a scanner the other day so I could scan old photographs onto my computer. Sent a few to some friends at work, and decided to upload them here as well.


This is me when I was around 3 years old or so, living in a trailer in Fairbanks, Alaska.




I was probably about 10 or 11 in this pic. My brother is on the left. Taken in the Cascade Mountains of Washington State.




This is me when I was around 12 years old. It was taken at the Stanley Stamm Summer Camp the first year I went there. I continued to go there for three more years, at which point I was too old to attend as a normal camper.




The same camp, but two years later. Some girls I was friends with put rubber bands in my hair.




A bunch of old friends, and some current ones as well (and me of course). This was taken at the apartment I lived in about three years ago.




Taken probably sometime around 2002, from left to right is Dennis, Mike, myself, and Dennis' oldest son, Dylan. This was taken in one of those little picture booths you see at malls, Wal-mart, and arcades, that take a bunch of pics and print the out on a little strip.

More pictures from Texas

Here are some more pictures from Texas. These were taken over the weekend. I rented an SUV, and we drove down to Space Center Houston on Saturday, and then drove down to an island/city called Galveston on Sunday. There's a place called Moody Gardens there that we visited, that has contained ecosystems inside of 10 story pyramids. One of them was a rainforest ecosystem, that had plants and animals from four different types of rainforests. The other was an Aquarium, that had plants and animals from four different oceans. It was a lot more interesting than the aquarium we'd visited earlier in the week. Quite a bit bigger, with quite a bit more to see.

Pictures 2

'You see my wrist, I know your pain...'

Only a couple days until I leave for Houston. It seems I'll be working in the afternoon/evening, from 3-11pm, which is pretty nice, because I don't have to worry about getting up early and rushing to work. Apparently their job site is a lot smaller than the one here in Phoenix, and there might not even be any supervisors for my position there, and if so, then I'll have to call back here to Phoenix just to get help, so that should be interesting.

Christmas was fun. I went to Church on Christmas Eve with Mike and Tiffany, for a candlelight service. Christmas day I spent the morning at Dennis house, opening presents and eating breakfast, etc. Then just after noon I went to Mike and Tiffany's house and opened presents with them and Tiffany's family. We went to her grandparents for dinner, which was really good. They had the standard Christmas dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes, veggies, cranberry sauce, etc; but they also had chicken and dumplings, which I haven't had in years, and it was extremely good stuff. For desert they had three different kinds of cheesecake, and ice cream.

For gifts this year I got a Linkin Park hoodie, and a Boondock Saints t-shirt from Dennis; a Tool hoodie from DJ, a Fantastic Four DVD from Stacy, Mario Kart DS from Dennis' parents, Battlefield 2: Special Ops from Issac (which I exchanged for Battlefield 2, since Special Ops is just the expansion, and I didn't yet own the game), a Bentley BMW Owners Manual from my parents, a $25 AMC Movie Theater gift card from Tami, and a Bible from Angie (she hasn't yet given it to me though). Mike still hasn't given me his gift yet. I asked for a watch, but I don't think he want's to spend that kind of money, which is fine with me, but that's all I could think of at the time. Not sure what he's going to get me though, and I don't think he does either, which is why it's taking so long.

Gifts I bought for other people include a Creative Zen Nano Plus 1GB MP3 player, and an Atari Flashback 2.0 game system for Mike; a 512MB PC2700 SO-DIMM RAM card, two Denver Broncos hats, and a Denver Broncos magnetic dart set for Dennis; a Kodak CD40 digital camera for Stacy; a $50 Hollister gift certificate for Tiffany; Age of Empires III for Ron; a Makita 18V Drill and Flashlight set for my Dad; pearl earrings for my Mom; a Motorolla Bluetooth headset for my brother; Bubble Bobble GBA for Issac; a "Chocolatte" hot cocoa maker for Dennis' mom; an ASU zip-up hoodie for Dennis' dad; Gilmore Girls Season One for Nicole; a Reggie Bush jersey for DJ; a shirt, remote control car, and Power Rangers SPD toys for both Dylan and Dennis Jr.; a musical walker for Marisa (Dennis' daughter); and the same walker, a blanket, and some car window shades for Anna (Stacy's daughter).

Bought myself a gift today to; an Olympus E300 8mp DSLR digital camera kit. Got a pretty good deal on it for buying it at a retail store to. It came with two lenses, one for close shots, and one for shots that are farther away. I was looking at a couple other cameras as well, but Fry's Electronics happened to have this one on sale for quite a bit less than the others, and I wanted it before I leave for Houston, which ruled out ordering something online. I told Dennis about it on the phone and he gave me a bunch of shit for being interested in photography and spending so much on a camera, so I gave him shit for buying an $1800 washer and dryer set, and he tried to blame that on his wife. He mentioned that I could've built a new computer, but the computer I plan on building is going to cost around $1500. This camera should last me for years though, and it'll never really have to be upgraded. I'll probably still end up building a new computer around February anyways, as long as I don't owe too much in taxes to the IRS since I've been claiming exempt for six months or more.

Played a bit of Battlefield 2. Seems like a decent game. My computer's still a bit slow in running it though, even with the GeForce 6600GT I just put in it. This of course is due to the old ass processor and slow RAM in my PC. A 266FSB only goes so far... I can still play at 1024x768, but only with all the details set to low. Mario Kart DS is awesome though. I already beat the Classic cup, and about half of the other one, both on 50cc. Seems pretty damn easy to play, but then, it's only the 50cc races, so I'm sure the 100 and 150cc will be quite a bit harder. Looking forward to unlocking more characters and cars though, which is definitely a nice feature that wasn't in the SNES and N64 versions (never played the GCN version). This is one of the few games I bought my DS for, and I'm definitely not disappointed.

Well, that's all for now. I'll post again from Houston, hopefully with some pics from my new camera!