World of Ong

Below the Ocean and Above the Clouds

2008-04-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Once again, I must play a game of catch up. So much has been happening lately, I haven't had time to let all you folks know what has been going on. So, I will try my best to give you the run-down.

Diver Down!

Yes, the past few months I have been quite the avid diver - diving every weekend and as much as possible. I have enrolled in the Technical Deep Diving Course coupled along with my Rescue Diver course - I think. There is too much reading and studying I must complete before December. December you ask? What's so important about December? Well, I finally put money down for the trip to Micronesia Truk Lagoon. Yes, I am halfway there. Saw-weet!

I also purchased a new underwater camera which you can see the photos and videos on the side. I have been exploring the Washington Coast and inlets where I saw my very first Pacific Northern Giant Octopus, Wolf eel and tons of sea life. Very cool! Also, playing with the new gear I will be using in December. I just hit a whole new level with diving.My goal now is to hit 100 dives within the year. I am a few months shy of my goal, but I will persist. I now have a reliable dive buddy, I have the gear, and I get free air. It's all good.

The Bi-Annual Whistler Trip - Telus Festival 2008

And then there was our 5th trip to the Telus Festival. Oh what another adventure my friends. The skiing was epic! The snow - epic! The drinking - epic!

70+ F degrees and the mountain had tons of snow. My face is still crispy, flaky and red from the rays. I am feeling great! As usual all I can give you are little teasers of the escapades my comrade and I went through:

The three day excursion consisted of 3 bomb explosions in the night that rattled the whole building, a shattered glass lobby door, coconuts, a very large knife, 2 foot chocolate bar, booze, Ron Jeremy, beer, mass blood loss, vomit, a disappearing-re-appearing fire extinguisher that mysteriously shows up, waking up with bloody hands, a door battle with teeny-bopper pot heads, more booze, naked men sliding on ice, a ride on a Bic razor, smoky bacon cheese, methane gas, tons of food, a hotel room with an unintentional reenactment of a scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, sexy women, Fondue, swag, yellow snow, broken legs, and a maid named Steve. Fag.

All I can say it was once again another memorable trip.

More to come...

There will be many more adventures this year, it will be the death of credit cards, but there will be more adventures - no matter how inane they may be.

Until then, keep your head up, smile, enjoy life and don't let the recession bring you down. As Mr. Rourke said, "Smiles everyone, smiles. Welcome to Fantasy Island!" But this ain't fantasy.

Phoenix Punks, Buddha and Apple Pie

2008-02-11T23:03:00.000-08:00

…And not necessarily in that order.

Well I have done it! During the Winter Holiday season I participated for the first time, EVER, in my family's traditional apple pie contest. I WON! Notice the fancy trophy.

Let me give you a little background on this whole ordeal. I heard of the news in August that I would be taking the place of my Dad. So, never baked in my life I set on a new journey. 4 Weeks of research, cross-referencing recipes, talking with local bakers and the Pike Place Market produce stand guys; I finally came with a personal recipe.

In order to compete with my fellow family members I had a lot of catching up to do since this competition has been going on since 1989. 19 Years. Wow. So I set a goal of a pie a month until the competition. September, October, November, December. 4 Pies. When questioned about my newly found pie making skills, I just replied, "I must become one with the pie." I must add that during this, I shown off some pictures to the competitors. And that's when the gauntlets were thrown down. Let the competition begin.

All pies I took to my work place and had our Quality Assurance team test them. 14 people tested, wrote up bugs and I corrected. It was a feat. Finally mastering my technique or little of what was there.

December competition finally comes around and let the smack talking begin. Oh it was all there - name slinging, evil stares and even sabotage. But I prevailed - winning over the hearts of the 6 judge panel and surviving a really drunken night. I now have bragging rights and the beloved trophy for one whole year. Hooray for me!

That's only part of the story. Part, you say? Yes, this was the Holiday season and I have more to share - Bleeding fingers, Rampant Punk Rockers, Rock Stars, a hazy "wa-wa" night. Oh yes my friends, much more.

So let's try to fill the gaps. Prior to my trip back to Arizona, I got to squeeze in a day of diving with a new Dive buddy. Went out to Edmonds Underwater Park and swam in the gnarliest of swells. The currents were outrageous, the swim tiring, but the adventure high. Here we saw a 4 foot long Lingcod (picture included - that bucket is actually one of those huge 5 gallon drums), someone threw a perfectly good Bayliner Boat away, and there were some scary moments. I was swimming next to this sunken Tugboat, where the along the hull was a huge rusted rip going down the length of the ship. Swimming happily along, all of a sudden the top half of the ship comes falling 4 feet down. I freak and scatter to the side trying to miss half of this ship, but in reality it was just the underwater current lifting and dropping the top half between 4 and 10 feet. I sucked in a good 1000 lbs of air at that moment. It was a good trip all in all. Cold and good. But what is always best is the beer afterwards.

Now let's fast forward to the Holidays. I came down with a really nasty cold during the whole trip. The plane was uneventful, just me trying to drink my cold away. Almost worked. But then again, I kept a constant drunk the whole time I was down there. (Middle of February and I still feel it.)

I stayed with my cousin this round, since my parent place was taken by my brothers family. But I was lucky. They had the Rock Star Wii going on. In order to beat my nephews, I just HAD to practice. I beat the game on easy and my fingers were bruised, bleeding and I had the grin the size of Texas. I was ready to Kick Ass! And I did. Now you know its going to be a crazy Holidays when you don't get to bed until 4 am and then your cousin's husband wakes you up at 7am holding a cold beer to your head. That was pretty much my holiday. Deep fried turkey, tons of other foods and apple pie.

During my stay in Phoenix I received an email from a long lost friend of mine claiming there is a Punk Rock Reunion of my youth. It has been 20 years since I've seen these people. My have we all changed. It was a blast re-connecting with everyone again. Sad thing though is this is only a fraction of our group. The rest is either dead or spread out across the country. Maybe next time.

Then my buddy and I head out on the town. He took the liberty of driving and presenting me with items of the past. Re-enacting a particular night that happened back in the 80's, but this time around, I was the victim instead of him. It was payback. I had a helluva time that night. (Thanks man if you are reading this!)

I also had some family time as well of course. My mother and childhood friend went out for some German beers, then after while my mom and his wife went shopping, we would just crack jokes and snicker 10 feet behind them. I felt all giddy like a school girl.

Then of course my Uncle takes me out. We end up at the local Biker/Country Dive bar. The door you see to the right is the actual bar. He does this whenever I get 15 minutes of downtime from all the rest of the family. It was all good.

Finally I come back home to Seattle. A nice few weeks to detoxify and I squeeze in another dive. This time, with the same buddy as last, head to Alki Beach at Cove 2. We drop down to 107 feet in 45F degree water. We find Buddha tucked away in the ibeams. My buddy motions to head up since he is feeling Nitrogen Narcosis kick in and we swim back to shallower depths. It was actually really fun, since I finally had a chance to relax and just explore all the nooks and crannies.

Now it is February, and I am thoroughly relaxed. I just got my SCUBA gear back from its annual servicing and ready to go again. The last few days I have scrounging for statements for my taxes and now I am done. Hooray!

Oh almost forgot, 2 weeks ago I had another one of Jon's Crazy Ass Nights. Somehow, after work, I decided to go to a local bar - Free Drinks! And at some fuzzy point in time I end up at some Private club. It all gets fuzzy doesn't it? Anyhoo, luckily I catch the midnight bus home and cower the rest of the week. I have to be vague on this since it was kind of a splotchy night.

I will leave you with that. As usual, take life by the pigtails and donkey punch the hell out of if! Or maybe a "One Eyed Pirate", you decide. Enjoy!

3 Countries, 2 Weeks - and a Whole Lotta Catch-up!

2007-11-26T18:42:00.000-08:00

Eeesh! Wow it has been a while. Well my friends, I have a lot to for you! It's been 4 months since my last entry…. And where do I begin?

August was fairly tame; I can barely remember it now so let's move onto October. Ah yes, as was last year, this is the start of the 3 months of hell. Holidays, parties, yada, yada, etc., etc… you get the picture.

In the beginning, I took on a new challenge. I decided to participate in one of those beer drinking clubs. So, in 3 weeks I drank 40 beers; thus, becoming a proud member of the Beer Hunters Club. So, if you are ever in the neighborhood of the Duchess Bar and Grill, somewhere on a bronze plaque on the wall is my name - for eternity. HA! Also, I got a new white baseball cap that says I am in. I guess its sort of like the golden jacket of golf - but this is to beer.

Halloween was a blast. Sort of a last minute party and costume deal. The kind of partying where I didn't get home until the next day only wearing pantyhose on my head, lipstick still smudged across my face, in man knickers and a lacy shirt. Along with the realization that all of my belongings and personal effects where scattered around King County Washington. Car in Capitol Hill, wallet in Greenwood, car keys in Ballard, me in University District, and my integrity - well, not on this planet. After a 4 hour scavenger hunt - I finally become whole.

Early November, I participated in a new startup scuba group. This was a fun time, 5 of us headed out to Alki Beach in Seattle in search for an overturned tugboat. My navigation skills were a little rusty and we missed it by 5 degrees. But I got to see a lot of dead things, such as a dead harbor seal and a bunch of dead octopus. Plus, I made a bunch of new diving buddies which rocks! (pics are on the upper right)

A week later, I FINALLY got to head out for a vacation. 3 countries in 2 weeks. Not too shabby.

First stop, Puerto Vallarta. Waking up at 4am getting a ride to the airport and leaving at 6am. 4 Vodka 7's already in my gullet. Flight was delayed by a dog. Yes a dog. Now there were 2 things I can blame on a dog. Met some really wonderful people on the plane - in fact so wonderful, we drank the plane dry of all the vodka. It was a great flight. You can see how fun it was in the picture.

Puerto Vallarta was a blast except for all the usual family turmoil. Did a little zip lining in the Jungle Canopy, a little scuba diving, a little beach time and relaxing on the beach. Even was there during the Mexican Independence day. Lots of margaritas, lotion and sweat. Personally, I will never head back there - at least at the place I was staying. It was pretty much the 51st state of America. Obese, oiled up white tourists running around everywhere! Just could not get into it. Only Mexicans I saw where waiting on us - I can get that in Arizona, thank you. Although, there was Mariana the Canopy tour guide I fell in love with instantly. Oh, and Manuel! Our waiter… he kept the margaritas pouring. He waited on me for 6 days straight. With all the crazy tips I gave him, I could of bought himself a nice 72" plasma screen.

Met some really wonderful people while scuba diving. Although visibility below was only at 10 - 20 feet, it was fun nonetheless - with all the underwater thermal currents it was really interesting from going from hot ocean water to cold. Saw a sea turtle, lobster, Green Moray Eel, and a variation of puffer fish. The flow and ebb was crazy considering we were only at 25-40 feet deep.

End of Vallarta and I then proceed to the airport to buy 2 bottles of tequila, 2 cartons of cigarettes - sit down at an airport bar and drink a lot of margaritas, smoking cigarettes and watching Mexican T.V. with 30 Pesos to my name.

Finally arrive in Seattle, only to head to my bedroom, unpack my summer luggage and re-pack with the ski gear, to wake up at 6am and head to Whistler Canada for the opening ski season.

Whistler was another drunken haze as usual. Snow wasn't as epic as last year, but it was nice snow. It reminded me of Rocky Mountain skiing - sun was out, hard pack with a little slush on top. It brought back memories. Once again, I wont expand too much on this trip because - What happens in Whistler will stay there.

Now I sit in my library in Seattle, writing this to you in detox. Scuba gear is finally washed up, dives are logged, ski gear put away, clothes washed and drinking a nice beer. Only 3 more weeks till I head out again for the Christmas holidays to Phoenix. Also, I will see if I can get some more local dives in within the 3 weeks here, but first I have to change my scuba rig to fit my dry-suit and my tanks.

Until next time mi amigos, la vida viva y tiene diversion!

Soggy and Stinky is What I am

2007-07-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ha ha! I finally got my butt out of the house for some good clean sweaty fun. I decided to re-experience the Spider Meadow / Spider Gap hike. This time though, instead of stopping at the Meadow - I went all the way up. Almost even to Lyman Lake. To top this all off, I did it solo. Yes, solo. You heard me.

So, after a brief planning during the prior week, I grabbed some hearty goodness freeze-dried food, streamlined my pack and headed out. Leaving the house around 9am, a 2 hour road trip to the forest service road, another hour of craggy dirty roads I finally meet my 3,500 foot elevation Phelps Creek trailhead.

Noon, I check the logbook to see who has made it in so far - 22 people. Shit. I might not have a camping spot, so, I decide to speed hike. After 2 hours pass, 5 miles in and passing 4 large groups of people I make it to the Meadow. After searching for a spot in the Meadow, everything is taken and I head up in full gear to the Gap. Only to see 2 more groups ahead of me. Dammit.

Luckily they are stopped at the Phelps creek crossing. All of them are on the side of the creek, removing shoes to make the journey through the waist high water. I say screw it and jump right in. As I cross, I hear one of the folks, "Ah yes, the ol' boot method!", three miles up the side of the mountain and another 3000 foot climb, I start to fade. And just now I am trying to find the closest thing to a campsite. Luckily, no one is around and I grab it. Not to mention the soggy foot that I had from the little dip that I took back in the crossing.

I set up camp, replenish my water source, set my bear wires and cook some excellent gaseous beef stroganoff with a chocolate mousse for dessert. Then crash hard. Wake up a few hours later, to explore and then to battle the mosquitoes. Luckily, my ultra toxic and concentrated Jungle Juice deterred them mostly, but those little bastards ended up all on my shirt. I still have a line of bites across my forehead where the bandana stopped and the skin began.

During the night, I heard a few raindrops. Not too shabby. Wake up at 7am, and wander around in a circle for a little bit trying to dodge all the skeeters. I decide to blow off breakfast and try to beat the mad rush of cars at the trailhead. As I am breaking down camp, STORM CLOUD!!! I get beaten down with water. Quickly donning my rain gear, I gather my gear, jam my tent into its stuff sack (I think I packed along 5 pounds of mud as well), threw on my soggy socks from the day before knowing that I will have to cross that creek again. Throw my pack on my back and head back down the mountain.

Arriving at the creek, I replenish my water supply again and cross the creek, this time only plunging only one side of my body into the creek instead of the lower half of me. Not too bad.Cruising through the Meadow I decide now is the time to snap a few pictures and keep on trucking out. 3 hours later from camp, I finally arrive back to my car.

It was a great trip. One thing I found that I like is that when you get to the top of the mountain, and you pull out that first cigarette - Heaven. Knowing you have accomplished something and you can relax with that nice nicotine buzz. It's Marlboro Country.

Now, I am in the middle of the decontamination process. And yes, I did pack out a pint of mud. At least according to what I swept up on my balcony. Not to mention, my chocolate mousse dribbled out of my garbage bag and into the bottom of my pack. Ick. Thats going to be fun to clean.

My Top Ten Musical Muses

2007-07-06T17:55:00.000-07:00

"But this one goes to eleven..." I know, so I lied to tie you in. This is actually my Top Eleven Musical Muses. I just couldnt leave anyone out. So here they are, not in any particular order, but these 11 ladies I have been listening to a lot lately. So last night, I thought I would try something and actually share them with you.

Imogen Heap (Frou Frou) I give you Imogen Heap. A British electronica artist. Lately I have been hooked on her and have been listening quite a bit to her. I give you two videos, 1) when she went solo and 2)with her older band Frou Frou. This music usually is my soundtrack while I run the 6 miles every day. Keeps the blood pumping and yet her voice is so soothing.
Angie Hart (Frente!) Ah yes! The cute Aussie from the 90's band Frente! Listening to her just makes me feel really really happy. Especially when the headphones are on and walking down a small neighborhood. She usually just brings a smile to my face.
Liz Phair And then there was Liz. The original psychosematic sister from Chicago. I dont even know where to begin with this one. To start, there was a little history with her and I. All I can say is she is a great travel companion on the iPod. Good Traveling music and sing alongs.
Suzanne Vega The legendary New Yorker folk singer. Simply amazing voice. Watching her live, she has the studio perferct voice. Her music for some reason always reminds me of walking through Rome or Spain. Just the imagery in my head is enough to enjoy.
Carla Bruni Former Italian model turned singer. Her voice is just plain sultry. Everytime I hear here, is usually when I am drunk in the passenger seat on my way home from the bar. Its a very soothing voice. She was made popular from all the tech geeks sitting in their network pods. Oh yeah, they are all hot and heavy for her.
April March Cute little rockabilly french girl. I wish I could of found the tunes that actually inspired me to listen to her, but this video was all I could muster. Has that groovy late 60's and early 70's feel definately.
Nina Perrson (The Cardigans) Blond Swedish femme fatale. The cardigans have a great assortment of music ranging from loungey, sit back and drink a martini - or "Hell yeah, let's get this party started!" kind of mood. Either way, good tunes to drink to either for martinis or just vodka and sodas.
Sarah Harmer Canadian singer that recently turned to blue-grass. Her earlier non blue grass roots was just city livin' kind of music. Certain tones and sounds that make your innards move. They moved mine.
Kathleen Edwards Another Canadian indie-country singer. I first heard her on an airpline radio station on my way back from Atlanta, Georgia. I dont, maybe its her rough voice or just the lyrics. But I like!
Beth Orton British folk singer. Great tunes to sleep to. And maybe go hiking to. There are some electronica tunes she does that just plain gets me in a very relaxed mood before I pass out in my drunken state.
Astrud Gilberto Legendary. Thats all I can say. Except, legendary with me, with a martini in hand. Grooving around the condo silently getting sloshed. Its all good.

I know I had short descriptions on all these. All day at work I had words and descriptions flowing out of me. But as soon as I got to the computer, I lost them all. Hopefully all this music will speak for itself.

Tri Monthly Update

2007-06-17T21:13:00.000-07:00

I have been a horrible blogger lately. I admit it, yes, I suck. But, I do have some reasons, although you probably won’t believe them, and just say I am making them up. Sue me. I have tons to catch up to and I physically chained myself to this computer chair so I can write it all out.

Last time we spoke it was April, well a lot has happened since then. TELUS Ski Festival in Whistler, I had a birthday, I became a gimp, I was drunk a lot, I lost weight, Summer Solstice party, drank some more, a few art walks, started to run again, gardened, and got sun burnt.

Let’s start off in Whistler. It was the usual trip, end of the skiing season. The snow was excellent; our accommodations were the BEST this round. We had a very large loft this time, very roomy. There were some white outs at times to make the runs featureless but nonetheless it was a good time. We drank, ate, and tried to commit the 7 deadly sins of course. Steven Marley (Bob Marley’s son) played a huge show which was fantastic. Everything was going well, until some folks cut me off and I bailed on the mountain. The next morning my shoulder began to hurt. 1 month later, I am at the doctor getting an MRI scan only to find out I now have a torn ligament in my shoulder. What really sucks about this, is I asked for some pain meds, but all I got was, “It will heal during the summer” then got booted out the door. Not even a prescription for a massage therapy. LAME! I meet the doctor again next month; I will push for the massage therapy again. So am now incapacitated with limited arm movement. Meaning, the house remodel is on hiatus.

Birthday rolls around and I celebrate in the usual tradition – dressed up in a vintage tux, sitting alone in a swank dive bar, a great oxymoron if I say so, drinking to my hearts content for the whole birthday week. I finally bought myself a hip flask, and when the drinks were weak-well, I would cure that problem. One mishap throughout the whole week – on the actual birthday, late at night, after the bars kicked me out, I drove down to the edge of the pier. I sat in a fisherman’s chair and drank steadily from my flask. Relaxing, watching the moon sparkle on the ocean waves, in a vintage tux no less, I pull out my flask, feeling the debit card on the verge of my pinky. A heavy wind kicks up, grabs the debit card and off it goes. As I see this platinum blur fly off the pier and land in the water. I watch my debit card slowly sinks to the bottom of the sea. Yes, I lost my debit card to the sea, and I have a fear that Poseidon/Neptune is down there charging up my card on useless Little Mermaid videos for his own sick pleasures. Hopefully I cancelled the card in time. It must have been a sign to stop the madness. Eventually, things became normal again.

Finally, the first days of summer roll around. Nice hot weather and boy am I prepared for it. Come on Ra or Odin, bring on your worst, I am waiting for the heat. I recently bought an air-conditioning unit for the condo. In addition to my arsenal of anti heat, I also have the pool and margaritas, although I was mocked my first day at poolside. The gods were not happy. In my rush to put on my SPF 2 sunscreen, I missed a few spots. I now have tiger stripes across my chest. All in all though, it was a tolerable hot day that day, and I am waiting for more to come.

As a birthday resolution, I decided to take up jogging again. The reason being fit was to get into shape, lose some weight, and to look damn sexy in my wet suit when I am in the Archipelagos. So I have been on my disciplined regime to lose weight and get fit. It seems that all I do now is wake up, work, run, eat, sleep… for the last six weeks. I am up to 5 miles a day now and glad to say I dropped 40 pounds. I have 30 more to go. The rate I am going, I am losing roughly 10 pounds a week – and that is healthy loss at that. I am eating right, burning 1000 calories each session. Only thing… I am in sooo much pain. Hopefully when I reach my target I can loosen up the training.

I have been to a few art walks in Ballard. The usual there, getting hopped up on wine and cheese and getting my “spiritual cards” read and what not. Gallivanting around town as usual, and enjoying the scenery. I have met some wonderful people along the way and hope to meet more. People are life.

Yesterday was the Summer Solstice in Fremont. I biked there (14 miles total) and it was an excellent day. Getting there around 11am, heading to the bar patio and drinking, what appears on the receipt, 10 vodka-sevens. It was a good day. Party after that, but on the way made some kids day. They were selling home made cookies on the corner for 50 cents a piece. I told them I would buy 20 of them, but they couldn’t hold the order… So I just bought what they wanted me to (8 cookies) and distributed them at the party. I only had one, and to tell you the truth, they could of sold them for 1 dollar they were so good.

So, I think I caught up with everything for now. I might not get back to the blog thing for a while, but here are a few things that are coming up: I am heading to a designers seminar this week, meeting the co-father of XML (I know I am an uber-dork), I am saving up for the Archipelagos which will happen in fall for some diving with the hammer head sharks. I am going to try and squeeze in a few camping/hiking trips this summer, hopefully that will not affect my shoulder. Oh yeah, I hope the shoulder will heal as well. Pretty much I have to be on the low down for a while so I can afford the dive trip. It is a 5 star dive ship I will be aboard, but it will be worth it in the end. Maybe, I will re-finance the house and start on the kitchen this summer, and I am sure there are tons of little adventures that I will have in between. Hopefully you folks are satisfied with this blog entry until next time – Live the Life!

The TSA Took Away My Nitro Glycerin!

2007-04-01T23:06:00.000-07:00

Just recently, my work sent me on a fool's errand to Denver and Detroit for a week. I had them book an early flight so that I may hang out with my college buddies that all moved there. It was one crazy roller coaster of a time for those days. There is a lot to write about so let's start.

In the middle of the working day, I head to the airport, donning the corporate outfit, 3 hours early before the plane lifts off. A $100 dollar tab at the bar later my flight finally boards. Now, you say $100 dollars? I say yes, for this has to be kick start of the bad craziness with my fellow college peers in Denver.

Two and half hours later, with 2 bottles of airline vodka shoved in my shirt pocket I finally arrive in Denver. Friends are waiting at the baggage claim. While waiting, I down those two bottles, grab the luggage, and head out.

Staggering out of the terminal and into an enormous Ford Pickup truck, my friends hand me a beer. Let the games begin. Rad Craziness.

We get to my friends house and drink until 4 in the morning, catching up on old times. Then the 8 inch kitchen knives come out. After disarming, I snatch the blade and tuck it safely away in my suit pocket. A little later, blood is pouring from my finger. Not from the blade, but from me trying to open up a beer bottle with a lighter. I realized I'm not the best at that skill. Just as the grass is green, water is wet, and I was drunk.

Next morning, dry mouth, fuzzy mind, and blood on my shirt I throw on my boots and we decide to go hiking in the Rockies. Driving up, we pass through Golden Colorado. And what is in Golden you ask? Why, the Coors Brewery of course. Now the question in our head is either free beer or hiking? Well that was an easy answer - free beer! So we blow the hiking bit and decide to do the 50 minute brewery tour hike. At the end we have our libations in time for St. Patrick's Day to arrive.

After the beers, we got lost in the Miners College and happened upon a howitzer in front of the music building. An undecided venture, we then took un-scheduled howitzer tour by ourselves by crossing the campus to find all the various cannons. After our short little history bit, we decide to finally go to the mountains. Not much at this point, just the house of a Woody Allen movie, buffalo, dinosaur tracks, and racing speedway.

On our way back to the bar we are suppose to meet for St. Patty's day, we stop off for some margaritas. All the while, the driver screaming, "Don't worry 'bout me driving, I'm from Arizona, and I'm on narcotics!" A welcoming thought. We show up at Illegal Pete's in a suburb of Colorado, where another college friend is singing on stage. After a few sets of Tenacious D covers, lots of beer, and a girl with a fantastic body (but unbelievable high squeaky voice) our St. Patty night comes to the end. Only to realize, Colorado does not serve booze in stores after midnight.

We head home to the Hippie's house, and we find a 2 year old bottle of absinthe in the back of his cupboard. 5 hours later, in a lofty kind of fuzzy, I fix the Hippie's blog fixed in my scattered brained state, everyone is passed out and we are watching the last episodes of Saddam Hussein being hung - from all angles.

Waking up at the crack of noon, we then try to please the Right wing fanatic and head to the Denver gun show. Hopping in his truck with no passenger seat, sitting on a military box full of ammo, while the hippie is in the back holding on to dear life, we head to the show. Now there was a scene. Knowing at some point in time, in that warehouse, a gun, from somebody, was being pointed directly at the hippie. It brought a smile to my face.

There are so many details I left out on this story, but I just noticed that this is quite lengthy so I will try to hurry up and finish.

All in all, they drop me off at my hotel; I go to work, then off to Detroit. Nothing there, except all I can say is that you can buy a lot of food for cheap! Now I know why Detroit is the fattest city in America.

As usual folks…. Enjoy life, and don't let the hippies bring you down.

A Very Spanish Holidays

2007-03-26T23:03:00.000-07:00

I know, I know. I have been a horrible blogger. I haven't updated this thing in ages. So I am actually forcing myself to write this. In fact, this is a wonderful procrastination tactic when I don't want to do work at home.

So, in order for easier reading, I am breaking apart the 3 month write up into different sections. So, you, my humble readers can slag off at work and quickly read before your boss looks over your shoulders. Smart, ain't I?

Let's start with the end of the holidays. The trip to San Diego was a blast. The whole time was dealt with drinking margaritas and dancing flamenco, samba, rumba, meringue, you name it. We danced it. Oh it was like sweet monkey love. The thing is, a beautiful flamenco dancer was adopted into our family over the holidays. She taught us many moves. The kids absolutely loved it. I know I did. Oh, and Miss Flamenco Dancer? I promise, I will paint you your painting. I just need some time to get my studio ready.

The holidays also included going to my Dad's Doctor, whose house overlooked the ocean. And yes… his house also included margaritas.

But it wasn't all just fun and margaritas. We went to the beach and saved 4 little star fishes. I was humbled. So my nephew and I had to pose for the Tiger Crazy Monkey Claw attack move. Also, being the cold weather person that I am, I had to jump into the ocean. It positively, absolutely a must. It is sort of like a parallel to that cliche, "Why do we climb a mountain? because it's there!" Well, same thing with the ocean, "Why do I jump into the ocean.... it's there!" Oh and it was refreshing.

2 Month Catch Up - Including ANNUAL WHISTLER TRIP!

2006-12-05T20:39:00.000-08:00

The Monthly Catch Up!

October
Let's see… Oh yes, October - that was that Halloween month. Although I was battling a fierce cold, I was dragged out of my condo by friends, while rushing to put on my makeshift costume. I was "The Shanghai Kid with a Vengeance." Since it was a while ago, it now is such a blur. Anyhoo, there were a few more parties of the sorts, B-Days, Ballard Art Walks, and just your general lolly gagging around town. Nothing too much that comes to mind.

But what I really came to talk to you about was the Annual Whistler Trip 2006! Weee!

Whistler II: Thanksgiving Weekend 2006
So my cohort and I finally arrive at Whistler. The snow started to come down by the time we got passed Squammish. With the NWA blaring on the mp3 player we knew it was going to be a good trip.

A quick stop at the liquor store and off to our usual digs. That weekend, Whistler had its best snow since 1994. Completely amazing. Top of the mountain was -22 Celsius (-8 F). My sideburns actually had icicles running off them. It was rad man! So to capture the event, like last time, I create yet a longer movie of our escapades. Since Youtube only has a 10 minute limit for the free account, I had to separate the movie into 2 parts. It pretty much just speaks for itself. And as usual, what happened in Whistler - stays in Whistler.

Except this shout out to Tara: Tara! I would have taken you up on your offer, but I was just way too thrashed. Maybe I will see you next time! If you are still there, you crazy Ontarian Diamond. Shine on!

Now we come to December.

Busy with the remodel, as usual, but I have recently joined some figure drawing classes to get me in the mood to paint again. A break from the regular house painting. Totally cool. I am so psyched of these classes, I had to go out and buy a bunch of art supplies. Here are my first few sketches.

As for now, my mind is blown from all the creative junk. The creation of the movies, the figure drawing and of course trying to find the words for this blog.

The month ahead, I will be off traveling to Phoenix then to San Diego for a little surfing. I will try to post before hand, but if not Happy Winter Solstice and a Merry New Year!

Flashback Dialogues: The New Saint, circa 1995

2006-10-24T00:02:00.000-07:00

My first year in Seattle, I was on the verge of being homeless. Being a muralist in Seattle at the time, the only place that I could find cheap to live was in an artist commune. Five collective artists renting out a 2000 square foot warehouse in the middle of the SoDo District with a show gallery in the foyer. The loft consisted of two painters, two writers and a pianist who had to build our rooms. We had church pews for a dining set, airline seats for our lounge and a swing that was attached from our 25 foot ceiling. We set up the swing from a broken down office chair, and if you got high enough, it would shoot through our 12 foot windows and you can basically float above 1st avenue. Every Sunday we had to endure the opera, La Boheme, while the writer tapped away at his vintage typewriter. After so many Sundays, the rest of us would head to Torrefazione for our morning coffee, then to Elliot Bay Books for a little reading. We had a resident homeless guy that slept outside of our service elevator which was the entrance to our suite.

We also had a wet behind the ears, token Asian guy. The female writer took it upon herself to mold this kid into a metro sexual effeminate male. He was the heir to the maker in China of those cheap crappy sunglasses you buy at 7-Eleven for 6 bucks. My drinking buddy, the couch surfer at the time, and I usually stole him away and took him to his first of many strip clubs and brought him home drunk more than half the time. The female writer did not appreciate what we did to him that much. But we showed him the life. He personally thanked us later with a box of cheap sunglasses when he arrived back in China.

The floor below was occupied by an S&M shop that created whips and other naughty toys. Every once in a while, you can hear a whip crack and a sudden scream right after. The floor had cracks between the boards, and every once in a while, I would come home to all my loft mates sprawled out on the floor with eyes to the cracks watching the whipping or lashing of a women, a short scream, then immediately after, you could hear a guy say "That works!"

Above was a personal trainer. Every other Wednesday, we could hear the aerobics go up and down our ceiling, and shortly after, the squeals and panting of the women that the trainer had seduced afterwards.

Down the hall, we had a thespian that would dress up in the Italian clown outfit, donning the top hat, full body polka dotted suit and the Venetian character's Zanni mask. He would live above the refrigerator while his roommate would sleep on the pedestal in the middle of the room. He never spoke a word.

All the while, next door, Bill Nye the science guy had his studio. Walking by, we would always see his moss covered van and some kind of flashy lights within his window. Every once in a blue moon the Promise Keepers would hold meetings in the King Dome directly across the street from us.

For extra cash and to pay the bills, I bartended at the Art Bar located in down town Seattle. The things I would see. The Fetish shows, the after hour rave parties, 24x7 partying, VIP rooms, free booze, backstage access, midnight shopping at the S&M shop, celebrities, fashion models, strippers, free cover to any venue, penthouse parties, private suites at the Key Arena, and stealing AC/DC's beer while they played. The type of partying where you didn't want to stop or else you would feel the guilt trip for the weeks to come. We were kings and queens of Seattle.

The painting shown above shows how ashamed, if there was a god, he would be with the state of the world in its condition at that time. Maybe it was just our mindset at that time that seemed out of place. In the background, you can see the long lost forgotten god of my past. Agog, the god that helped me through my college years and its debauchery, the god that let me live through all the cliff diving experiences, the lost idol that helped me through all the torments of youth.

Flashback Dialogues: Viva Liberation, circa 1993

2006-10-12T20:13:00.000-07:00

Ah yes, the university years once again. This piece is still a mystery to me. Let me give you a little background of where I was at during this time.

My 3rd year in college I used to live in this mad house. It was off the beaten track and we had plenty of roommates and a barnyard kind of scene. 5 dogs and 3 cats that always used to play chase throughout the whole house. I wanted a couple chickens to chase the cats just to add to the mix. I never did get any. This is the house where we had the infamous nude parties, which entailed drinking, body painting and all other forms of artful expression.

One day after a day of class, I arrived at my home. Only to find the door wide open and in direct line of the doorway was our piano, and on that piano sat my good friend Perry. Butt naked playing and singing "Imagine" by John Lennon on the piano, with a half full fifth of Vodka for the entire world to see passing by. I walk past, shaking my head, and into the kitchen. Where my three other roommates are, with glazed over eyes of crazy men. They are apparently cooking something. I ask and they reply with eyes wide open and an evil smile, "Hash brownies, man!" Meanwhile, in the garage, the catholic school girl and her gothic entourage are raving it up with a huge pile of crystal methamphetamine. I put my hands in the air with defeat and head back to my room, passing the Hippie's room, I look in, and he is drumming slowly on his djembe drum chanting "Schumbi… Schumbi… Schumbi." Earlier that day, his dog "spoke" to him, and the name he was chanting was what the dog said that he wanted to be named. I turn direction and entered my room - the so called opium den. With its colorful tapestries hanging from walls and ceiling, fish netting holding shells and odd trinkets, the custom made hookah chair in the corner and the psychedelic cloth prints on the wall laced with phosphorous for when the black light kicked on.

Here in my snuggly little fabricated womb I found solstice and I went on a quest for that dreaded "L" word. Yes, love. So I asked one of the female roommates about how to find a woman. She said, "You are not an asshole. Women love assholes and you are just not one of them."

With this new enlightenment, I head to a party later that night with two fifths of tequila and my new costume of "assholiness". That night, I was slapped 33 times. Apparently I played the part of the "Too much of an asshole." Giving up, I partake in the finishing off both bottles of tequila. Around 2am, my bottles are empty and I am little out of my mind, I decide to call it a night and go home.

I remember getting to my truck, then looking at the keys in my hand, then looking back at my truck, looking at the keys, the truck. I do this a few times then just laugh out loud and throw my keys at my truck. I decide to walk home since I was in no state of driving. It's a good four mile walk.

Walking down a barely lit back road in the middle of a Flagstaff forest, I happen upon a Volkswagen Bug's hubcap. At this point I thought it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I snatched it up and shoved it underneath my shirt. Now walking in the middle of the road on the yellow line, this is the first time ever that I can remember that I lost motor skills. My legs gave out beneath me and I am now lying in the middle of the road upon the yellow line. Staring at the stars, I just say "Wow. What the hell just happened?" Pick myself up and continue walking.

When I was a boy, I always heard of horror stories of the local Apache Indians of how if you crossed into their reservation, you had a good chance of being stabbed. I later found out this was just a scare tactic so that I wouldn't run off without my family.

Walking again now with the hubcap under my shirt thinking to myself, "Oh yeah, I am well protected! Somebody please try to stab me! I can survive!" This was apparently the crazy tequila talking. Behind me, I see headlights coming down the road. I walk to the side and stick out my thumb, getting tired of walking. An old '78 Ford pickup passes by and stops for me. I jump into the cab. The Navajo inside asks, "Where ya headed?" I tell him, and he says he can drop me a block off of my destination.

Now sitting in the cab, hubcap in place, I am repeatedly thinking over and over again, come on, stab me. Stab me! I ask the man his name. He says "Nick." I think to myself that that isn't a very Native American name. After that, we get along gloriously.

Without incident he drops me off a block from my home, I thank him for the ride and I press on. Now thinking on the way home, "I am going to rape Perry". Perry always plays that "gay" card with me at other times. You know, the straight man's game of trying to test your best friend's manhood? Blowing kisses, fondling my chest, the works. So I decide to turn the tables on him.

I walk into the house and jump on him. He hits the floor and I am on top trying to rip his shirt off. To this day, he still believes that I was trying to sodomize him. After much wrestling and maniacal laughter, I see London. London was this creepy chick that used to hang around our home. She was this gorgeous half Cherokee, half German girl with these gigantic glasses but her mind wasn't always there. When I see her standing over us, I release my grip from Perry's shirt collar and he falls to the ground. I grab London and throw her over my shoulder and make for my bedroom.

The next morning after London left, on my drafting table, I noticed a sketch of what you see here. I don't even remember sketching this thing. I later water colored in the rest, but I believe it was a commentary about love and relationships. Not to mention the stings of the 33 slaps.

Flashback Dialogues: Los Dios de Muertos, circa 1992/93

2006-10-02T22:21:00.000-07:00

UPDATE:

Okay, so the owner of this painting viewed this blog and was in shock of the really horrible photograph I took 12 years ago. (Lets face it, I didnt take Photography that early). So, the owner snapped a shot from his digital camera and sent the file to me - to you. He wanted you folks to see all the color and glory that now dons his wall. Thanks Lono.

WARNING: REALLY LONG - I TRIED TO CONDENSE - BUT HEY, WHAT CAN YOU DO?

During this part of my life it was all about Mexico. Attending so many Mexican cultural functions in Phoenix one can only go so far. So I had the opportunity to hitch a ride with an eccentric NYU English professor to Guaymas Mexico, where she worked at the University teaching English. It was quite the experience to remember. So let's begin.

After a drunken spell and some self loathing due to missing a date with a beautiful girl, my next door neighbor pulls me out of my house in Phoenix. He bandages my fist to clot the blood that, somehow, the stereo, wall, doors and other things around my room sliced it open with fury. He carries me to his truck, and drives out of town towards the girl that is now beckoning me.

The next day, I am dropped off at a Frank Lloyd Wright house where Dr. Elaine Rice meets me. I am to help her and drive to Guaymas Mexico where she now resides with her five Shih Tzu's. She drives a Dodge Omni.

I remember it was a humid day in August and we stop at the store to buy 150 dollars worth of dog food. The monsoon season was upon us and the rains came pouring down. The rain was so bad that at one point our windshield wipers were useless. I was driving blind for a good 15 minutes just hoping the road was straight.

We arrive in Green Valley Arizona and take quarter at a friend's home of the good doctor. Jebediah Horner - who seems to be a burnt out old beatnik, but I later found out that he used to be some famous director on the Broadway circuit. He was a welcoming man and I learned a lot.

The next day, we cross over into Mexico beyond the Free Trade Zone, while being held up at the last border crossing. At this time the doctor speaks to me of Mexican revolution and how they will soon attack America. Being green at this, I feel the hairs on the back of my neck rise as the Mexican military comes up to my side of the door wielding his automatic rifle. 4 hours of detainment we finally are let go and we are shakily on our way. As we drive I see all the burnt out freight containers atop of derailed train beds. Within these containers, families are living and staring at us as we drive passing. I can still see their haunting eyes staring at me.

6 hours later we arrive in San Carlos. Driving in a bogged down Omni through jagged dirt roads we pass feral dogs running along side, a Federali station and finally her home. The doctor points me to my small room which actually is for the dogs. Yes, I am literally living in the doghouse with 5 Shih Tzus. I grab my external frame pack and try to make it as comfy as possible.

During my stay here, I met a crazy man. Gerhard, a schizophrenic German artist who was exiled to Mexico for some reason or other, who lived off of carving wooden fish and selling them to the tourists on the other side of the mountain. Thank god for him. He brought the casks of wine and all three of us would talk of revolution till the wee hours of morning while the bull frogs hopped at our feet.

During my stint, the Doctor gave me some Spanish flash cards so I can brush up on my language skills. I helped her out at the University as her Teachers assistant - which in turn, the students usually took my out for drinks later on and showed me the Mexican nightlife. Ahh… the women I wooed that night, dancing away to salsa music while the moon showered diamond's sparkle on the ocean from the view from the bar.

At the end of my stay, Hurricane Andrew came rolling through. I remember I was on top of Dr. Rice's roof with my black and white camera snapping away. The winds were picking up like crazy. I remember I enjoyed this since the humidity was killing me. The gusts of wind were welcoming. I finally head in late at night. I fall asleep. Two or three hours later complete chaos. Dogs barking, someone screaming, I am jolted away only to realize that smoke is crawling along the ceiling. There was about 3 feet of clear air, so I drop to my knees and open the door. The kitchen is ablaze - fire spewing out of the electrical box and Dr. Rice in mid throw of a bucket of water. I think, oh god - electrocution. Luckily it didn't happen.

Lightning struck the ground, traveled through the wires and caught her house on fire. From here on out we had no electricity. I slept my last few days out on the hammock along with the frogs.

After a week or so, my time was finally up. I had to catch a train back to the states. This is where I meet Salvador. At first he seems to be homeless, but he ends up giving me 2-40 ounce beers for my travels. He cries on my shoulder. Telling me of stories of past week, were banditos robbed the train, and his brother was shot and killed.

My train arrives, and I am on my way. I can hear Salvador screaming my name "Jonathan!" I look back and there he is with both arms up and waving. I scream back "Salvador!" This goes on for a while until he becomes a speck in my train window. After a 10 hour train ride riding on nerves I finally arrive back at the US/Mexican border. After an unnerving taxi ride which ended up on sidewalks and through the border I am finally in the US - only to lose my ID after I bought the tickets for the grey hound bus. Border patrol comes on, and I am looking Spanish as ever. Dark tan, curly black hair I have to think quick, donning a surfer accent I explain to the patrol my situation. They laugh it off.

I arrive in downtown Phoenix. Right next to the night club, where the girl I started the story with hangs out at. I poke my head into the door and there she is.

Full Circle.

After a few weeks of detox and back in Flagstaff at the University I get some studio time to paint an oil panel painting - 'Los Dios de Meurtos". This currently resides in Colorado in a private residence.

A Rare Opportunity: Top of the World!

2006-10-01T22:03:00.000-07:00

Last Thursday, I had the rare opportunity to eat lunch atop of The Paramount Theater (A picture from the outside), a venue that hosted such famous artist as Elvis Costello, DEVO, and Bill Clinton. My fellow co-worker invited me and another to this exciting little excursion. We grabbed our teriyaki sandwiches from 2nd and Pike and headed over to meet his friend. After dealing with a manual control elevator, a few narrow stair wells and a treacherous climb up some old fire escape ladder to the top we arrive to the top of the world. I have to admit, it was kind of hard at first to climb in a pair of Italian leather dress shoes, but we managed.

As this was a great photo op, we grabbed out cameras and snapped away. My co-worker got a hold of this fantastic panorama of us sitting down and enjoying the view. Since flickr.com doesn't allow large images, the panorama was reduced highly, but I can assure you that the original image is breathtaking.

…And now for something completely different - my catch up monologue of the last week or so.

Last weekend was Freemont's Oktoberfest. Ah yes, the days of fall and drinking are coming alive. All too well. The start of the drinking season is about to begin. And we started off in the usual escapades. Put it this way, I personally started to drink around 10am at my house while playing with a miter saw and pneumatic nail gun. Power tools and booze is always a fun combination. I head to Freemont and wait for my friends at the George and Dragon. 4 Vodkas. Then meander to the festival. I can't count the beers at this point. Then off to Taiku for our Yohimbe drinks. It was quite a nice night.

That is all for now. LIFE - LIVE IT!

Flashback Dialogues: Father Sun, circa 1992

2006-09-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

I just recently found this scratch board piece that was part of the Epiphany show along side of the 'De-Evolution' piece. As you can see, I loved the sun. Raised in Phoenix I thought I would hate the heat for the rest of my life, hence I moved northbound to Flagstaff. Here is a story that might explain my train of thought at the time and where my mind was focused.

I used to live in the dormitories, the highest building in Flagstaff - 8 whopping stories. I lived on the 7th. Odd what a university does, it bonds people together in a brotherhood of sorts - a brotherhood of alcohol.

During the time of this scratchboard piece, our brotherhood heard of a toga party in Tucson - approximately 230 miles away. Yearning for the heat we decide to head down there. Gathering bed sheets and odd pieces of cloth we head south. They decide that I am a driver. So we all cram into my blue 1984 Chevy Cavalier. There was another truck that carried others. I can't remember how many of us where on the road trip but best guess will be at 10.

On the way down, my car decides to have a tantrum. So luckily, my parent's house was on the way. We swap cars out for a 1980 blue Chevy long bed pickup truck. Don't ask me the deal about the blue Chevy's that run in the family - just coincidence.

After some time we finally arrive in Tucson. We head to a liquor store and I pick up a fifth of tequila (This was my usual way fare at the time). We then don our togas. Funny thing about a few of our togas - they were bright red. That didn't matter though. So now my brotherhood and I head to this party looking almost like Hare Krishna's, except for the bald head. I remember at one point I was standing on adobe wall while staring off into the desert. Fifth in hand, drinking out of the bottle, all of a sudden I go into some kind of crazy dance. Dance of the liquor? Maybe. But it was joyous dance.

Also this point in time, I pierced one of my nipples at that time (Three days prior to the trip). The only thing I can remember of that night was that damn nipple ring snagging on the toga and tearing out. Luckily the end of the bottle of tequila saved me.

Next thing I remember, waking up in the back of the blue Chevy pickup, cradled in the spare tire. I stand. I am not in Tucson anymore. We are 45 miles north heading our way back to Flagstaff. Suddenly I notice I am only in my boxer shorts at the time. From what I gather later on, the toga flew off somewhere on the mad dash away from Tucson.

Looking around, squinting my eyes from the brightness of the sun, to get my bearings, I notice am in a parking lot. 3 Rows over, in the other tuck that accompanied us on this trip - there was one of my friends in the same predicament. Both standing now, in a busy parking lot only in our boxer shorts we stare at each other in disbelief. We started cracking up hysterically. I look behind me and notice the Burger King. All of our friends are already inside eating and waving to us through the window.

After a putting some clothes on, a burger and some fries, I feel up to par and continue our journey northbound. It was one of those road trips. On that day, I realized the sun was good and I knew that I was in good hands. Friends, sunshine and a good road trip make for a warm feeling.

Flashback Dialogues: De-Evolution, @1992

2006-09-19T20:54:00.003-07:00

Sorry about this one… no humor to be had here.

Living in Flagstaff Arizona I used to always hit the local coffee houses for a cup of java and to people watch. Heck, I still do - the people watching. As I was doing this, I was noticing a change in society - maybe for the worst. Maybe I was just too naïve to just pick up on it at the time and it always was there, but I finally noticed. Due to my post-teenage angst, I really started to hate people. Maybe it was that what I saw was a primitive set back. I would see couples walking by, and whenever another male would leer at the taken female, the coupled male would beat his chest like a crazy ape protecting his territory. Animalistic needs taking over the so called 'civility of humans' through primal emotions.

Watching all this, I thought to myself, "My god, I used to hear stories about a generation that had tact and pleasantries. A society built on the foundation of good will towards men and women, where honesty and kindliness ruled the land." I saw none of this. I saw jealous rage, greed mongers and outright zealots nay saying and pointing fingers. As if I saw the degradation of society turning backwards in time, starting with the Inquisition of free thinkers, and recessing into the Paleolithic period of Cro-Magnon man beating down others while protecting his property.

So with a knife and scratch board in hand, I started to scratch away and thus the piece 'De-Evolution' was created. It wasn't a man evolving, but the exact opposite - a man trying to struggle away from his ultimate fate, aiming for the Sun for his freedom, while being chomped down from the evolutionary chain, where his ultimate demise is to eventually be swallowed by the primordial ooze that once started life.

After completing this work, it was submitted into a judged art show where I eventually had my own solo gallery opening among other pieces of mine, and it was then published in a literary magazine, Epiphany, that was distributed all throughout Oregon. It was my first published piece of work.

Flashback Dialogues: Prologue

2006-09-19T19:54:00.001-07:00

So, I just decided to have a little side project here on the 'WOO'. Every once in a while when I get into stories, I sometimes say, "But that is another story for another time." Well, I thought it would be good to finally write some of these things down.

I am not sure if you faithful readers out there know it, but I am a painter as well. No? Well I am. No I'm not a commercial painter….nor do I paint monkeys - hey - that actually might be kind of cool. Anyway, I actually have a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from a University. Wow! I still can't believe I got edumicated.

Along my journey, I have dabbled in a few paintings. I haven't painted for a while since I lost some studio space, so I figured this would be a good time to post my past paintings, sketches, illustrations etc. etc. and I could tell the story behind the image… or at least tell how the picture came to be. In a way, it will be like VH1's "Story Tellers" but about paintings and stuff.

I will try to at least try to write a story once a week… but I am not guaranteeing anything. Besides, I have to find time to hack those dead hookers apart and hide the pieces. ;o)

So watch out for the 'Flashback' dialogues.

Another Day in the Life of Juanito El Bandito: Part II

2006-09-14T00:45:00.000-07:00

Okay, back to being sober and I can continue with this entry.

Last I left you; we were heading from the massage parlor to a communal print house. I love hanging out at this place. They have litho printing presses, intaglio studios and a bunch of artists' studios all through out the building. We hang here for quite a while going to all 3 floors while chatting to each individual artist. All in all it was a great time.

Dirt, Wind and I get hungry and after much debate we finally just say "Denny's". On our way there, I get side tracked and lose the two elements. I head into a 7-eleven for a pack of smokes and low and behold - I see an imitation Barbie doll for 4 bucks. I had to get it. I don't know if it was the vodka talking or the bright lights of 7-eleven.

So now I am walking down the street with a pseudo-Barbie doll in my back pocket - and I finally arrive into Denny's where Dirt and Wind are waiting for me. I pass the pseudo-Barbie to Wind and we have a joyous greasy meal. At the end of the meal we pay the check and we show the pseudo-Barbie to the clerk. Big bald dude that looks like a biker grabs the pseudo-Barbie and slams it the floor behind the counter. All elements and I were on the floor rolling in laughter. It was the Apex of our evening.

The next day occurs. After I grabbed the truck - I headed to the city dump and flung huge glass pains into the air. I was proud to say I was the loudest guy there. Between the window panes and the fake marble for the shower - it was shatter city.

I went the lumber store again, and bought all my molding for the framing of the doors. That was a pain. I sliced up my arms pretty good too, while carting all the wood from truck to condo. After that, I then drive to my brother's in-laws to pick up my new leather couches. I am so happy about this. I now have the living room livable.

After that is done, now I have to race time to meet up with the Elements for our friend's art opening. The Elements, meanwhile, were trying to set up a blind date for me. I am an hour late. I miss the opportunity. So the Elements and I sit down and drink a beer before going to the café in which the art resides.

Moment I walk in, I see children cuddling their entrails. This is the artwork my friend does. Actually pretty good illustrations, I was actually impressed due to the amount of swag that usually clogs the galleries. Out of nowhere I hear this voice,

"Cookie?"

"Why yes", I reply.

"I cooked them myself", says the artist.

So here I am eating wonderful cookies and admiring entrails. It was a good day.

That's all I can remember of the weekend, but today something fun happened. Dirt and I decided to do lunch at some highly talked about deli. I guess they make their own meat. The place was called Salumi's. There was a half hour line and the sandwiches were amazing. I would highly suggest it, if you had the time. But the fun part was, not only did I buy a sandwich, but I also bought salami. So here I am walking down the street with a big cheese eating grin on my face with a pound of salami in my pocket.

I will leave you with that image to ponder on. Until then… have some salami, wont you?

Another Day in the Life of Juanito El Bandito: Part I

2006-09-13T00:28:00.000-07:00

So I was eating a cookie and watching children cuddle their entrails. Yes, this is what I did last weekend.

To start this story, let's begin from the beginning… or shall I say the end. I am drunk typing right now relying on this Microsoft Word to help me with spelling and grammar. Drunk you say? But of course… what's new. It started with the cleaning of the condo and ended up with a bottle of wine while listening to my "Girly Tunes" play list on the computer. So in my stupor, I decided to write about my past weekend. Nothing much, just the usual as the blog title explains.

So let's get this thing started.

Friday… hmm… get home and pass out at 5:30pm and don't wake up till the next morning. So can't say much about that day. All I know was that I was really tired due to the past weekend of SCUBA, lack of sleep, and amoxicillin for my ear infection.

Saturday, I wake up refreshed and cheery eyed - ready to conquer the world so to speak. First things first, I need to send off my SCUBA tanks to get their annual visual inspections (VIPs) and off I go to pick a truck from my brother. I need the truck for the items I need to do that are rolling through my head. Head to my brothers house and pick up the vehicle. This is no ordinary vehicle; it's the exact duplicate of the truck from 'Back to the Future - Parts I & III' minus the roll bar and KC lights. I need to make a trip to the city dump which includes my … wait just a minute… that was Sunday.

What the hell happened to Saturday?

(A long moment of thought occurs here)

Screw it, I can't remember. So Sunday, my brother and I head to my house and grab some random stuff to take to the dump, along with his stuff already loaded in the truck. He leaves and I have a whale of time of throwing…

Wait a minute… I remember going to Dunn Lumber to look at wood on Saturday. A HA! Now I remember, after checking out the wood at the lumber store, I call my good friends (I will use Elements to name these folks now) - Dirt and Wind. Just by chance, it happens to be the Ballard Art Walk. I accompany them to view all the local artist work.

First things in order - I need a drink. So after I meet up with Dirt and Wind, we head to Hazelwood's and check out the photographs from the Midwest and East Berlin. I grab a vodka tonic. I see my favorite girl there and she is having an art opening on Sunday. Sweet! Not much here, but since I haven't eatin' anything, the vodka takes over. I head next door to the tattoo parlor and start yapping it up with the artist. No sir, didn't like their style. I pass.

Next bar was a new one… something about Hardware or something. I cant remember the name, the drinks were weak, but they had a good deck.

Then I think we went to a massage parlor where they served us free wine and food. I just had the wine. Taking it in, I sit down and relax. Not much to see here kids - move along.

Last part of art walk, we head to ….

Did I mention I was drunk right now? I tend to ramble, don't I? I swear I can a write a 200 page novelette about a one hour excursion. Sort of like Robert Jordan (inside joke for us uber geeks).

GEEZ… I just realized the time… I need to get to bed for work tomorrow.

This will have to continue tomorrow…(9/13)

90mph to Underwater Shark Dreams

2006-09-05T19:51:00.000-07:00

After the traffic jams and road rage, I was screaming through the U.S. / Canadian Border with a fully loaded car, racing down Highway 1, around the city of Vancouver, at 90 miles per hour taking curves at 80. Every bump I take shoots sparks out of the bottom of my carriage. I finally arrive at the Horseshoe Basin Ferry terminal. Cutting across 7 lanes I aim straight for the toll booth. The lady waves me down and yells, "You're the last one! Go! Go! Go!" The credit card flies back into the air and into my hand. I race towards the ferry bottoming out every time I hit one of those god damned speed bumps. Damn those speed bumps, they keep slowing me down. I hop the Ferry and take the very last spot. I made the 8:25.

Hello folks! Nice story above, eh? It was all true, well, except for the sparks flying out. Oh and actually, I gave the credit card first to the lady - she threw after she swiped. That was just the start of my Labor Day weekend.

But before I get to that, I got "Lots of essplainin' to do…" Why I haven't written as much as have in the past? First things first, as you already know, I am officially moved into my house. It took an extra month to get internet back up due to obvious family emergencies as mentioned a blog back. I have been very busy with the move. I started phase one of the renovations, and I am 80% done. I re-wired the whole darn place and replaced every outlet, switch and thermostat with new Decorum and went all digital. I even have timers now in the bathrooms. The painting is done in the main rooms and I have already chosen my molding and started to paint small amounts of it. So, that is where I am today. The molding hopefully gets done next week or 2 weeks. I can't decide. I am having too much fun.

So let's start with my diving story. After my eventful day of arriving at Porpoise Bay Charters, the next day, we wake up early and grab a quick breakfast. I scramble to load all my gear into the skiff. We head out to the Agamemnon Channel. Suit up. I get Bob the angry diver, as I call him, for my dive partner. He wants to go deep (130 ft or more) on the first plunge. I nod and say okay. By the time I get to the 119 ft, I start to 'narc' out. Nitrogen Narcosis. First time that's ever happened to me. Things get all dizzy and my lips start to go numb. Imagine drinking 8 martinis. Well, that's how I felt. I alert Bob and tell him I'm heading up a few more feet to get out of the craziness. He was well below me at this point. After my head comes to normalize at 60 feet we spent a good deal looking for stuff. I had this great shell but it was so brittle in broke in my hands.

The next dive we do is Stag wall. We drop to 80 feet and just hang out with the drift, nothing too spectacular on this dive.

The last dive of the day we head to Saginaw Rock. This was the place where I played with the baby seals last time. No seals this time. We drop and suddenly get caught in all the kelp. Forests of kelp. Visibility was horrible until we dropped down to 45 feet. After tinkering around the pinnacle, Bob waves his light at me; I turn, and see him doing the universal sign language of 'SHARK!' Yup, that's right. A blue shark came to visit us, he was roughly 4 feet swimming below me. I let him pass. He was a smaller shark that was roughly around 3 ½ feet long. I gulped a bunch of air. Totally cool! After that, we keep playing around and next thing Bob alerts me to, is this Giant Nudibranch. At first I thought just to be another anemone, but he picks it up and makes it float. It starts to toss and turn, righting itself up. It was a really interesting animal.

We finally return back to shore for a 2 hour nap and a good prime rib dinner with beers. Let me tell you about my dive group. Every time I hang out with these guys, I am always the little man on the totem pole. They all consist of dive directors and instructors. So here I am getting badgered left and right. I was even their 'ice boy' for their drinks a night or so. They were there to do technical diving, getting down to 200ft depth. It was insane the equipment that they had to carry - 4 Tanks of all different types of gasses. One day I will match up with them….. one day.

2nd day we wake up to some great Eggs Benedict, then off to our last two dives. I now partner up with a couple. First dive, we head out to Stag Wall again and drop down to 107 ft. pretty much, I was searching for some sea urchin shells this time around. I found 3, but they ended up getting crushed in my pocket. I was kind of bummed about that.

Second dive, we headed out to the HMCS Chaudiere. We sit back to let the deep divers take there break, then all of a sudden hordes of seals come swimming by. There were at least 8 groups of 5 swimming around us. It was a really cool site to see. This is a 400 ft Canadian Navy Destroyer escort. I have been here before, so I take lead and head down to 100 feet, playing around the gun turrets. This is the first time I got to explore this ship wreck. I had a chance to look into the main deck and explore all around the outside of the ship. Attached to the side of the ship was this giant Lions Mane Jellyfish. This thing had tentacles of at least 20 feet long and had roughly a 3 foot wide body. It was kind of spooky; it reminded me of those sentinels from The Matrix. I felt really comfortable with this dive.

After heading back, we then pack up and say our goodbyes. We head out to the ferry and I make it back to my home, only to do a pit stop and drink with an old friend of mine. I arrive at 2 in the morning to my brand new spanking bed and dream away all the dreams. It was a good Labor Day weekend.

This was a long one… I know. But hey, I haven't written in a while.

Enjoy as usual folks!

Papa's Boy

2006-08-18T15:18:00.000-07:00

I have been always known to be a "Daddy's Boy". Always tagging alongside my father wherever he went. Whether it was underneath the hood of the old Ford LTD II or on a road trip to various hospitals in northern Arizona for business. He taught us many things which included carpentry, tiling and electical, albeit I think thats why I am afraid of electricity now a days. He always had a project around the house that kept us busy. And we learned quite a bit.

He was a quiet man. In my teens, I would always try to get him to talk about his past. A few nights I would always pour him a glass of his favorite scotch while I poured myself a glass of vodka and we would talk about his past in the wee hours of the morning while watching old James Dean movies on the television.

He even gave me the father/son talk one time in Mexico - The 3 most important things in life. The tradition was, I had to have a friend along so he had a good audience. I will never forget those. There were also the times where you knew he was human. Usually after those incidents, he would say, "Don't tell your mother about this".

Later on, he developed cancer and I could see the tides turning. My brothers and I were now taking care of him. During that time, he still kept his sense of humor although you could barely understand him with his mumbling, but he would always crack jokes and always talked with his eyes. Either flirting with the nurses or rolling his eyes - there was always humor behind them.

August 1, 2006 at 3:57 AM, my dad died. You will be missed, Pop.

Wooo! Tripping the Light Fantastic!

2006-07-10T18:24:00.000-07:00

I just love that phrase! "Trip the light fantastic." Had to throw it in here because I really do need to use it more often. Although this entry has nothing to do with it, but it really wants me to want to.

But what I would like to tell you about was my last Saturday. So. Friday night I am just packing my boxes minding my own for my big move, and I decide I have enough of that and head to a bar for some libations. Well, let me tell you friend, I actually had 2 bottles of libations while I was packing my boxes. I just needed to get out for some fresh air. So I head to Hatties to chat it up with the waitresses that know me oh so well.

Next think you know, my friend Hat (I will use inanimate objects for naming today), calls me up and asks me what I am up to. I tell him and he eventually trods over to where I am at but with his new friend - who will be known as Glove. Well, I think Hat and Glove are dating now and they ask me to do something with them on Saturday. I say sure, then they tell me that Glove's friend, Book, is actually showing up. Alright, no problem.

The following day, Hat and Glove pick me up around noon, we then pick up Book and head for Agua Verde Mexican restaurant. When we arrive, the restaurant indoors is closed down and it is take out food only. Also, take out beer and margaritas. We grab our food and margaritas and head around back towards the canal and drink and eat. After a few margaritas and much beer, we finally head to our destination of canoeing. On the way, we pick up some limes and 3 six packs of beer. Book and I grab a canoe, the beer and limes. Hat and Glove are in another. Now, I think Hat and Glove got Book and I together for their entertainment.

Hat and Glove are fairly in shape living a healthy lifestyle, while Book and I are ... well..... not so healthy living. After we paddle across the canal, Book and I crack our beers, light up our cigarettes, pull out the beef jerky and enjoy the relaxing day that will shine upon us. We constantly hear Hat and Glove laughing at us, since we are paddling with beer and oar in one hand and in the other our cigarette while chewing on the beef jerky hangin out of our mouth. Hat and Glove told us later they secretly visioned this the night before. Damn them! It was planned from the beginning.

All in all Book and I had an excellent time. She is a chatty bird. We had great conversation while paddling throughout the UW Arboretum. We spoke of the great crazy authors: Bukowski, Thompson and Dorsey among others. I even found out that Book is a diver. It was a beautiful day and everything was all in the right.

Writer's thought: "whew, this is longer than I imagined it would be"

Anyhoo, I can go on and on about the water sports we had. But I won't. We finally head out to let "The Dog Who Pees a Lot" out of Glove's house. Here, Hat and I had a little incident with the dog that involved us washing our mouths out and sterilizing with Tequila.

After a nice dinner, a crazy buzz and a slushie in hand the night ends. I will close for now. Since I think I am dragging this out wayyy too much.

Until then..... You know what to do.

Milestone: The Turning of a Leaf....

2006-06-28T19:29:00.000-07:00

Rushing out of my apartment for work this morning, I stumble across a packet that was lying at the doorstep. I stop and pick it up. I shake it. Jingling.

Yes. I just recieved the keys to my new place. After two grueling weeks of waiting for escrow I am an official homeowner. Now the fun begins. I have pulled together two teams for the next month or so. 1st team: moving guys. Although I am 3/4 packed up here, I believe the move should take less than 2 hours - but I won't count on it. 2nd Team - Interior decorators. I have a seamstress for the curtains, the Tommy Bahama marketing director giving me free reign of the home furnishings catalogue, with these two I will also have color assistance for the whole place, a molding person for the minor remodel and a pair of dry wallers for just in case... It will be a fun month. Not to mention, I also get to take inventory and go shopping for new furnishings!

So in fair warning, some of the images posted in this blog might not show up due to my server being moved. I have started a new Flickr account and slowly am migrating images towards that. It's a slow process.

As for now though, I will try and write you guys as soon as possible but for now I have a gaggle of keys in my pocket, trying different doors and I will be exploring the new neighborhood. Ohh.. the new mis-adventures I will have.

Until then, enjoy!

Summer Has Come and Where Are My Pants?

2006-06-18T22:36:00.000-07:00

Once again, Summer Solstice is here again. A time for sunshine, celebration, biking and naked people all over the street! Yes, Freemont had its annual Summer Solstice Parade and for the first time, I actually was at the start of it instead of passed out on the floor in my flat.

I wake up early on Saturday and grab my bike and head to Ballard to meet with my friend. Little do I know, I have a slow-fast leak in my back tire. After multiple stops and maniacal pumping of the back tire we finally arrive at our destination of Freemont. Only to realize in the frenzy of leaving my apartment - I forgot to bring my bike lock for Pepe my trust worthy bike.

On a whim, I decide to just prop up my bike against a chain link fence hoping for the best of people not to steal my bike. We then leave our steeds and search for a good view of the parade we are about to encounter. The streets are covered with meandering people with the mix of children running aloof with chalk in their hands drawing colorful pictures all along the closed off street.

We pass the George and Dragon Pub where there is a massive horde of people watching the USA vs. Italy soccer game and there is much cheering and joyousness.

We finally find a place to stand and watch the start of the parade. First the 200+ nude bicyclist stride out all in a fury riding in circles and flaunting what they have got. Then the parade master comes by on stilts and starts off the carnival of floats. It was very nice outside, after a few floats we decide to head to a bar and try to grab seats before any of the masses overcome each bar.

We end up at Dad Watsons on the balcony and the drinking begins. During this time, I go out front to smoke a cigarette and I get Tea-bagged. No, you dirty little monkies - I get a tea bag stamp on my wrist. I thought it was a brilliant idea. After much vodka and food 4 hours later, there happens to be a penthouse party above the bar. We crash it. It was a great view, and there were all kinds of women playing the game. It was a party for the beautiful people. So we steal there beer and grab our bikes and off to the next gathering of friends up the hill a ways.

Retrieving our bikes we head out and finally arrive at our barbecue we intended originally. My friend offers me some tools that I may fix my bike and we eat a nice barbecue along with playing a street match of badminton. Good times and good friends. After a few hours of sweating we decide to leave and call it a night.

On the way back to Ballard, we decide on a whim to have a night cap at the local tavern - The Lock and Keel. More drinking insues and next thing you know - the bartendar is riding away with my bike! Laughing all the way down the street. After his little jaunt he finally returns and give me a free drink. If you ever go to the Lock and Keel, harrass Mike for me will ya?

Then off to Hatties Hat where we chat with our other bartendar friends and a new gal named Tracy who has these cute dreads. Finally my night ends here. Biking back to my car then safely home I crash on the couch knowing that this will be one of my last drinking adventures. For the time are a changing with me.

Recently I just purchased a condo. Hopefully I will be moved in and living the settled in life. Until then, keep your chins up, enjoy the sun, and experience your life to the fullest!

Isle de Utila & Roatan Honduras

2006-05-21T15:54:00.000-07:00

After a week of editing videos, a nasty ear infection and my body finally normalized from the travel and the SCUBA diving, I now can update this little bloggy thingy of mine.

Lets start off with my vacation - Isle de Utila, Honduras. A week had passed since the the Whistler skiing trip and I finally jumped on the plane on Friday midnight with my dive group of thirteen. 4 hours to Housten Texas, only to find out they are having Tornados touching down throughout the airfield. We circle for 2 hours, when suddenly the pilot announces that we are almost out of gas. Quick trip to Austin Texas. After filling we stay on the tarmac for 2 more hours before we get the okay to head to Housten.

Missing our flight to San Pedro, Honduras - we take a little side vacation at the airport Marriot. This was relaxing, just sitting by poolside and meeting new friends in the Marriot Hotel bar. This whole night has a story of its own which I will not go into at this time. Great surf and turf meal, too!

Next morning, we finally jump on the plane and head out to San Pedro. Since we missed our flight the prior day, we were informed that our small little island flight does not fly on Sunday(which is the day we are at now), and our travel agency arranged a private flight to the island. It took some finagling, but after a island hop and a small sweaty aircraft we finally arrive at the bustling Utilan airport. Mind you, this is not any ordinary airport - but grand airport consisting of four poles and a corrugated metal roof.

Eleven of our group jump in the back of a truck fixed with wooden stools, and two of us, including me, had to stand on the bumper of our luggage truck. Holding on for dear life and ducking from the occasional power line whipping by - we arrive at our destination. The Utila Aggressor. A 100 foot yacht with 14 cabins, 3 decks, bar, jacuzzi, entertainment area and SCUBA area.

From here on out, it was simply amazing. A true vacation. As soon as we boarded the ship, all it was was eating, diving, sleeping and resting. Our team consisted of 4 police officers, a cancer surgeon, the owner of a car dealership with his friend, 2 IT guys and the wives of two police officers and surgeon. Amazing people all in all.

The diving was unbelievable and clear despite a few mishaps of the ship crew. I wont go into the details of all the dives but you can read this on the ship's Captain log I have archived here.

I will just give some highlights of my trip. We dove a few shipwrecks, and this was my first time for penetration of a wreck. I went into the captains quarters and throughout the holding areas of each freighter ship. I made a personal new deep dive record of 121 feet as I was swimming through some caverns which was totally intense. The walls jutted up at least 100 feet up above me. This whole time I was training for my Masters in SCUBA. All I have left, is just the Rescue Diver certificate before I can go on.

Abe, one of our dive guides was luring some fish out with food and he was struck in the middle of a fish frenzy which a grouper and snapper bit his hands.

After much photos and videos I compiled a little montage of above water and below water. Granted, that Eddy the ship captain took the video footage of underwater. Just click on the play buttons in the middle of the screens to the right to view these. They run around 6-8 minutes.

I really cant put most of into words, so I will let the videos try to explain.

The last day, we did some site seeing throughout Utila where I bought some t-shirts and drank a few Salva Vidas. Due to a generator being out for the island, there was no air conditioning around. Also, since no electricity - there were armed guards weilding AK-47s, M-4 assualt rifles and a plethora of other heavy duty weapons guarding the banks. At this point I got a chance to do some artistic photos of all the small elements of the island. It was very relaxing.

That night, we went out for dinner at the Laguna Resort, an island off of Utila. It was very warm, and we had a great dinner. I played with one of the ship crew, Nestor, a game of pool and we headed back to the ship. While waiting for our water taxi, we spyed 14 Eagle Rays. It was a beautiful site to see as they floated effortlessly beneath the dock.

The next day, we head out towards our faithful airplane and journey homeward back to San Pedro, Housten then Seattle. Another mis-hap happens along the way when we arrive to San Pedro. A local behind me was getting out of the plane, and the airplane door suddenly slams on his head. We race back to prop the door up again and at first he seems to be okay. So we go about our business until I notice that he is leaning on his knees - then removes his baseball cap. Blood pours out onto the tarmac. I yell, "MEDICO!" Something I have never seen before, but just heard about begins to happen. The surgeon in our group all of a sudden says, "Stand back! I am doctor!" and immediately assist the man. Within 5 minutes, the Honduran medical staff appear and have the man within the airport tending his needs. It was quite a site to see.

The rest of the trip was un-eventful until I got home in Seattle, where I attended a house party that night and polishing off 6 bottles of vodka with my friends. This actually helped my sea legs quite a bit.

The weeks following ended up with an ear infection and tons of anti-biotics to cure this. Which leaves me here. Finally healed and willing to type all of this for you guys.

I will end it at this point and as usual. Live life to the most and be happy for Pepe's Sake!

Another stretch of debauchery

2006-04-18T22:35:00.000-07:00

Once again, I have been lacking on the updates of this blog. So, It will be a lengthy one.

Hmm.. where did I leave you last? Oh, I remember. It was a cool breezy mid March night following the craziness of St. Patricks day.

Two weekends after, my compadre and I just went to the regular holes to fill up on the drink of the gods. Not much too interesting, but we did meet our good friends Rachel and Julia for a late night dinner. They ended up paying for some reason - next thing ya know - we owe them a meal. Next morning, we decide to hit the Brazilian churrascaria steakhouse. Oh boy, all you can eat meat. I havent done that in a while. The fillet mignon was outstanding.

The following week rolls by, and we get good and toasty on the Friday night. The next day, we are beckoned by the ladies for a fancy dinner at The Pink Door. I have always heard of this elusive restaurant. In fact, I even found it once while I was lost - never to find it again. Maybe the fact, that there are no signs to this establishment, but its only marking is - yes, you guessed it! a pink door. And that is kind of hard to find considering I am colorblind lush that can't see in the dark anyway.

So I throw on my porkpie hat and coat and get picked up to head to the restaurant. Unaware of what I was to encounter, it turns out that they had a Burlesque show that night. We enter through the back door, only to find the scantly cladded ladies swinging above us. It reminded me of Circus Circus in Vegas, minus the children running around half asleep and in a zombie daze at 4 am trying to hunt down their strung out parent who cant take their eyes off of the one armed bandit. Back to the story, there was a 45 minute wait. We head across the alley way towards Kell's Irish pub and polish off a few drinks, in time for dinner to roll by.

After our meal, where the portions are about as big as a hockey puck (but the presentation was amazing!) and as expensive as a doctors 4th wife's wedding ring - I picked up the bill and now the ladies owe US dinner.

I think we are making this a new dinner thing. But the stakes keep on upping themselves. Which will be scary in a few weeks.

The next day, my cohort and I decide to grab some lunch at the Red Door (I just noticed that there is a trend here). Once again, I make the brilliant idea of saying, "Hey, we have never been to the Tin Hat Tavern before, lets go!" So, the spur of the moment we are racing towards the underbelly of Ballard. The area that has not been ostracized by the up and coming hipsters. Turns out that the bars arent open at noon on a Sunday, but luckily next door at another Irish pub "Molly Maquires" was open.

I will have to admit, I fell in love with Molly Maguires. The moment we walked in, it was a narrow little bar. Old timey wood floors with an impressive back bar. We take a seat and notice in one of the back booths - 3 men with instruments. They all of a sudden start to play little irish folk songs. The 2 violins dancing along with the flute. It reminded me of those stories you hear about bars in the old Irish country, where all the local neighbors kick back and enjoy themselves. Not too loud, but nice enough to enjoy a pint or a game of billiards.

Four hours pass and quite a few pints.... We did the one thing we did not want to happend on a Sunday afternoon - get drunk. With our minds fuzzy and our heads full of happy little leprechauns dancing we decided to mosey towards our original destination - The Tin Hat.

Now, you have to give kudos to a bar when the female bartendar is reading her subscription of Playboy behind the bar and passing it around to the patrons. Turns out we have friends in common from way back when I used to sling drinks back at the Art Bar. It was the place where local addicts and artists discussed theories and philosophy.

After much discussion of Bukowski, Tolstoy and Dostoyevsky along with much drinking, we decide to part with our new friends and cook up a great steak! After getting lost in the Safeway, then safely making it home, Rachel appears for the grilling and we all settle in to watch a movie.

The following Thursday, I meet with my future SCUBA team at the Dive Directors house, for our briefing for Honduras. I am the youngest tyke in that group. I have a good feeling I will have a hell of a time.

This catches us up to last weekend. Old drinky boy and I, planned a trip to Whistler for the Telus Ski/Snowbard festival. It was simply amazing. This time around though, we thought to not over do it like we usually do for Thanksgiving. No fancy meals, keep the drinking on the down low and just ski. Well, we accomplished only one of those goals - no fancy meals.

Why is it that people always associate skiing with drinking and partying? Well, we associated like there was no tomorrow. We found a new spot to hang out, albeit, the waitress kept on hitting me - it was a fun time. The snow was simply amazing for April. Nightclub after nightclub and not to mention the skiing. After much footage of skiing and pain we ended up with some good video. Well, enough to make small video which I bring to you, my fellow readers. Just click on the play button in the small little screen and you can see my masterpiece. Only took me an hour to make. As for the last Whistler entry, what happens in Whistler will never leave. But some quick highlights for you:

I feel so sorry for the maid
What happend to my lovely Dawn?
Why does everyone in here look like Ricky Martin
The maid just gave me the evilest look?!?
Is this Neil Sedaka?
At least there wasnt blood this time
Really? Monday is going to be Swedish Bikini Skiing? damn.
...and gotta love those boneless pork niblets

It is quite late, while I write this. I must get sleep to try and fix this cold I am harvesting. As for the next few weeks, a lot is happening. I have my massage to work out the kinks and I have to get ready for Honduras. So, I am keeping low on the radar this week - except maybe for a nice dinner with the ladies.

Until then, LIVE!

A Reign of Kisses in the Wake of the Smarm

2006-03-18T21:52:00.000-08:00

It's been a long time since my last post. Then again, nothing much has really happened in the past few months. But last night was St. Patricks day. Ah yes, the drinking festivities once again. Before we dive into that subject, lets see if I can do a catch up story of what I have been doing lately.

Yes, it's true. I am in the market for buying a house. Last week was pretty busy. I met with my agent and we went to the Metropolitan Bar & Grill for some oysters, shrimp and sliders. After discussion, I decide that I will be officially looking as of April 4th. The following day, went to Chinatown for some great food and my sister in law's birthday. Then the next day - BUFFALO WING DAY! Ah yes, a night of sweating and writhering in the bed from the after effects of the atomic wings.

Another thing I have been doing is getting ready for the Honduras trip. Just bought my wetsuit and put money down for a underwater casing unit for my camera. Which is really getting me aggrevated at this moment. I bought this thing on ebay, and they have not sent it to me yet... after 20 days! Next week I will dispute it through the channels. I still have 1 more month to clear this up before I go.

Now on to the St. Patty's night. It started off great. On my way home from work I dropped by my local neighborhood, family run, market to purchase 2 bottles of Don Ramon. I have no clue what kind of wine this is since its written all in Spanish. But its a good red wine. I would recommend it to anyone. Get home and drink one of the bottles.

I then get some text messages on my telly that I am to meet with some folks at the nearby Irish pub called Mulleady's Irish Pub & Restaurant. So I get dressed and gather my things and head out the door.

Upon my arrival, I meet up with my drinking buddy, and we enter inside. The bar was packed. Dashing for the beer lady, I grab myself a Harp's and jet down to find the people who beckoned us. Lo and behold after 15 minutes of fighting the crowds we finally find our friends in the corner. The band that was playing was severely drunk. They could not play for longer than 2 minutes. They then started to play cover tunes with substitions of words. "Brown Eyed Beer" was a favorite along with "My Scrotum" - a nice tribute to Cheech Marin, all in the melody of Irish music.

Then the Jagermeister shot girl dropped by. This is when things got a little blurry. Now dawning a necklace, some flashy light, some press on tatoos - I was ready. Ready for what, I have no clue. But I was.

Suddenly a group of American Sign Language (ASL) folk walk into the door and hang out next to us. Weird thing was, I knew some of these cats. Back in the day when I bartended, I used to host the ASL open mic night. I was suprised they actually remember me. It was all great fun.

After quite a few more drinks, we decide to head to Ballard to hit our usual romps. There was actually a wait and a line in front of the Lock and Keel. So we blew that off and headed to Hattie's Hat.

After my drinking buddy was oggling this hideous looking goth girl, I decided it was time to leave to fix his beer goggles. I drag him out and we head out to Denny's for late night grease.

That pretty much ends our night on the town. I will close for now, and until then... Enjoy life, won't ya?

The 3 Week Summary

2006-01-30T22:49:00.000-08:00

View from my balcony

A few weeks ago, I was hanging out on my balcony and a storm was brewing. I figured I would snap off a few pictures of the cargo ship in the harbor. The sky was amazing with the rain coming down.

Melodramatic scene at the bar

The next weekend my drinking pal and I headed to the new booming area of Georgetown. Ended up at a bar called the '9 Pound Hammer'. There we ran into some friends of ours where we drank and had a great time sitting next to the women's bathroom while chatting it up with everyone in line.

Georgetown actually is quite a nice little nook of Seattle. When we arrived, artists were projecting old b-movies on the sides of industrial building, old style 60's honda motorcycles lined the street and it had a touch of that remodeled industrial look. This of course was at night, so my perception might of been off.

The week after that, a friend's friend came to visit us from Arizona. She was a wild card as you can see from the following pictures. We took her out to Ballard for some good herbal drinks. At this moment, it turns into a paparazzi moment. Everyone, and I mean everyone pulls out their camera and starts snapping away. The flashes going off gave that strobe light effect. A raver would of been happy - or at least grooving to the righteous tunes and zoning out in the trance of blinky lights.

Drinking with the women

The next day, we head to a friends house party. There were 3 birthdays and they were serving all sorts of fruity drinks. The age group was a little younger than us - those damn Gen Y'ers. So we decided to hang out on the front porch. At this moment in time, our friend from Arizona whips out the skoal bandits. They start to jam 3 pouches at a time - it became a old west movie, but with toe headed women drooling out the brown sticky. It was a sight to see. So I naturally had to partake. No sooner than we realize, there was a eliptical treadmill on the porch. Who wouldnt want to jump on that thing a go, with a mouth full of chew and a drink full of fruity stuff.

This of course was after a friend of mine drops her keys, drivers license, debit card and a slew of other things down the toilet. She never did retrieve her debit card. I am guessing some baby alligator is running around buying back his parents that were once sold as cowboy boots and a bag. Maybe her little baby brother that was fashioned as a belt as well.

I have wonderful pictures of the chew - but I "Pinky sweared" that I wouldn't show them. Now what the heck is that all about. Those are the pictures that make the internet fun, aren't they?

Superbowl Sunday....

Time for Superboal XL. What a rip off. We (Seattle) were hosed! Biased opinions, jinxes across the board, news casters after us. We were doomed from the start. So instead, I will talk about my really great barbecue I had during the game. It was kind of a weird scene. I have never been to a Superbowl party where females dominated the party. There was just my drinking buddy and I - and 5 women. We had a great time. I had tons of barbecued meat to be served, 4 racks of ribs, chili dogs, hamburgers the works... I created 2 kinds of ribs - wet and dry ribs. I believe the dry ribs stole the show. In the future I will attempt them again, but with more flavor.

After we lost and everyone went home, my crazy Norwegian neighbors come by and invite me up for some crab and wine. Now you have to realized, I am just stuffed at this point. So, a little tipsy and trying to be a good guest - I start hammering into the crab. Apparently I was doing it all wrong, so I was getting schooled the whole night about the process of cracking open crab. At the end, I did manage to achieve the 3 crack snap method. I now can eat and mangle crab like a hardened Viking Warrior.

Now, I sit here trying to rest. What will the future bring. Until then... keep yer head clear and enjoy!

Finally... the age old question answered!

2006-01-23T23:21:00.000-08:00

Yes. Finally the age old question for a color blind person such as myself. I get so many people pointing to things asking me "what color is that?" or "What color is that?"

Recently at work, I found a cool little plugin for my photo editor that adjusts the color of images to a color blind view. Along with a online color picker that shows the true color (along with a label) so that I can grab the right kinds of greens, I compared 2 images side by side and adjusted the color blind filter to one. Tuning it to the point to where the images look identical for me. This also involved setting the gamma settings and the types of color blindness. Most of the time it was a Deuteranope type of color blindess that affected me (2 colors), whereas sometimes the Protanope (1 color) was needed. Not sure exactly sure what that meant - I'm affected by both?

Example #1


Control Image - Non-Colorblind	What I see.

Example #2


Control Image	What I see.

Welcome to the World of Ong!

Ahhh, the relaxing Sunday and I dont even have hockey skates.

2006-01-15T23:20:00.000-08:00

12 Bellevue
by Kathleen Edwards

I'm not gonna lie
Not gonna make up my mind tonight
I'm not gonna pretend
I cleared out of town so I could clear my head

I'm not gonna smile
All the shit that's happened is gonna take a while
I don't want to be your friend
Just take off your clothes and get into my bed

And the press is after you
Jumping over fences just to see who's cool
And now I stand accused
I put a hole in your heart
Then I fed it to you

I'm not gonna think
About all the shit you want me to think
I'm not gonna say
Who I spent my time with yesterday

I'm not gonna choose
In the end either way I still lose
I'm not gonna wait
I was thinking about drinking my way through the day

And the press is after you
Jumping over fences just to see who's cool
And now I stand accused
I put a hole in your heart
Then I fed it to you

I figured I'd post the song that I have been listening to for the past 2 weeks now. Since its been going through my head, might as well share.

So the new year has been good so far. Since the beginning of the new year I have just been relaxing and taking it easy.

The weekdays have been the usual - working and just trying to catch up on sleep. Seattle has been through its 27th day of measurable rain. If we hit 33 we will break the record. I started to run again, but the rain makes it kinda of hard - just trying to find that window of when the rain lightly pours.

The first week I ran an average of 3 miles every other day, until my last day which I ran 5 miles to Ballard and back. Last weekend, I worked for Microsoft. Game testing for 16 hours - 2 days of straight gaming for 8 hours. It was fun! I picked up 4 pieces of software for the computer.

This weekend, I had my first drink of the year - one Yohito and a glass of cabernet. The next day my friends and I headed up to Crystal Mountain to do a little ski session. It was a blast, although at one point it was a white out.

I will keep this entry fairly short. Since today is Sunday - the first day of the year that I actually got to sleep in. My body is aching from all the mogul pounding and carving through thick and deep snow. Off to do my Sunday chores.

The Games are finally ended. Thank FSM!

2006-01-03T23:20:00.000-08:00

The Brothers' Grimm...

Good Ol' Cosmos.

Kings for a day.

The drink that did me in New Years Eve

What the drink did to me. Sums up the whole night.

Introduction
This will be the final entry for the "Games" series. It is a continuation of a more coherant story other than the last blog entered. For I am now sober and conscious to say the least. The mutton is finally gone (it was beginning to turn), the rad craziness has left, the house is clean, along with myself, and I'm feeling back to my old self. I will try to recap what I remember of these past few weeks. Although there might be a lot more to the story behind these, but this is the little I remember.

Festivous
What can I say, the usual family turmoil as you may have guessed from the last blog entry. But I survived it. The madness was indeed in full swing. The constant drinking, eating and living the 7 deadly sins. The dinners where amazing, we had Russian King crab that had the legs the size of a human arm. I literally had to use a knife and fork to cut into the meat. We bought a whole lamb and ate whole damn thing - in a way it was a good sacrifice. The dinners were somewhat international. We had the Norwegians, South Africans, Chinese, Germans - the whole lot. In fact, I believe I might be going on an African Safari soon in the Serengeti. The South Africans run a Safari agency, and I might take my parental units on that. The plan is in the making, the wheels are grinding. But no time soon.

Speaking of travel plans, I also just bought a trip to Honduras. Somewhere in the midst of all this craziness, I bought a plane trip, a boat charter, room and lodging, food and drink on some remote island off of Honduras called Utila. A week long scuba excursion. We will see if I will survive that.

New Years Eve
It all started so innocent. Maybe just a little glass of champagne, some cheer, and a nice somber sleep later on. But the way things go... that didn't happen.

I show up at my drinking buddy's flat (yes, "Francis-co"), immediately the "blood of Jesus" is poured. From there, we march off to the Peoples Pub where the evil begins. I head to the bathroom, and upon my return I see a shot of tequila on the bar. Now this was no ordinary shot. Oh no. The bartendar was on a mission to getting everyone loaded. He pulls off the pour spout on the bottle and free pours a good 3 second count. He was doing this all night! Usually, I can handle this - but for some reason, I had to break my one "shot" down into 3 consecutive shots. There is a picture to the right. Check out the proportion compared to the pint glass. After a few more 1/2 Litre beers, I head again to the bathroom, and only upon my return, my faithful "friend" gave my seat away to a female. She was cute, but dangerous. I let her have the seat, as I needed to stand despite my swaying. It gets blurry there for a minute, then we decide to head out to the next bar before the new year rolls in.

Let me tell you a story about "Francisco." He has this way of attracting women. I have heard that he carries the aura of a movie star or porn star or something, but as we were walking down to the next bar, some woman jumps on him and starts kissing him. Screaming "I love you, I love you, I love you!" I thought he knew this woman, but apparently not. She then jumps on me after that. We decide to walk the other way after all this hub bub. We head to Hatties hat for some more drinks. I really cant remember most of the details here, but I have some slightly odd video of just our voices during the new year.

We head to the Lock and Keel after this, and more drinks of course. I guess I was snapping pictures like crazy and just today, I found a picture on my camera that epitomizes the whole night. It is located to the bottom right. Afer this shot, I believe my camera actually interprets what my pupils see.

Day After
Waking up really hung over, I throw my scuba gear into the car trunk and race towards Mukilteo to meet my dive partners. Just so happens, that they take me on my deepest dive EVER! 105 feet with zero visibility. One thing for sure, it's not peaches and cream when you are hung over, nor smart. But it was the first day of my redemption and the start of a new year.

The Wind down
The next day, was a day of warm and fuzzy feelings. Not to mention the softness of the sheets and the groovy way it feels when your feet swish back and forth under the covers. This day was the day I finally accomplished my laundry. Sick of being commando for the past few days, I finally had a pair of fresh socks, under garments and a grin the size of Texas. All ending in watching a movie and shaving my beard off in preparation for work the following day.

Back to normal
After a week and a half of holiday - the work day begins, and I feel like a million bucks. Threw my headphones on to some groovy tunes, and delved into the wonderous world of design and code. Now I sit here, in front of the 'puter and write these stories of mine. Nice mood lighting in the background - a little red, a little blue and a little yellow. Fire crackling in the background, and some easy listening permeates the air.

2005's Life Changing Events

Drinking 2 bottles of absinthe in a room above a 400 year old tavern as Picasso paints Guernica in the background, fondling original Marc Chagall paintings, while the church bells were ringing at 6am in a small village in Germany.
Diving the shipwreck of the Canadian battleship Chaudierre, and barrel rolling with seals.
Whistler trip, Thanksgiving weekend!

Future
I am glad that this year is over. Over all it was a really historical year, despite it being a bad historical year. Hopefully though, 2006 will bring in new memories and experiences, and I will enjoy telling the stories that I tend to get caught up in.

Until then..... be good, be safe and be happy. You know I will be. :o)

-J

End of days

2005-12-29T23:19:00.000-08:00

End of days.

So the year of 2005 is finally ending. And the party is winding down to one final blast.
The new years eve party. Last time I left you I was in the blur of drunken haze and shame.
Yes, I, your faithful little protagonist is still at it. But worse. My body is in shambles.
Looking at myself in the mirror for the past few days, I havent taken a shower since christmas,
living like a barbarian, eating mutton that I made from my new christmas crock pot. I have not been to work
in a while, thus drinking to match the barbarian lifestyle. Seriously, you are still asking yourself, "Mutton?"
True, yes, I have been cooking a sort of a lamb stew with potatoes and have been eating that for the past week or so.
Skin is slightly shiny from all the grease, there is a film on my teeth like there is no tomorrow, in fact, I just looked at myself
in the mirror, and my teeth are pretty gnarly. There is black everywhere. Hair is crazy like the the photograph
from the uni-bomber. Havent shaved in a few weeks either. I am in a fine condition. Not to mention, I am writing most of this
blog in a drunken stupor.

Out of the 4 weeks that I have not written you, i have found one new idea. The CURE to family stress. And I will
tell you this:
3 shots of Cuervo
2 Fat Tire Beers
(All within 10 minutes)

That cures, the first stage of anger caused by family. From there, its all free form.

I really dont know what day it is today, but I think work is coming up soon. Hopefully that will will end these
demons surrounding me. And Oh boy, how I would love to take those demons and pull them down with me. For every drink
they have handed me, I shall buy 2 for them.

Enough of my ranting, I will close, and hopefully when I am more coherant, I can give you more details of the past few weeks.

-j

A damper on the games...

2005-12-12T23:19:00.000-08:00

Lets see. Where did I leave you last time? hmm? Oh yeah, I was just about to start the holiday party season.

Last week was a night to forget due to the amounts of liqour. My company had their annual holiday party. After a fifth of vodka later I end up stealing the table's center piece and hang out with all the executive officers. Thank the gods, I still had a job the following Monday. Tell you the truth, I won't expand too much on this - since I really can't remember what happened.

But what I can tell you, was the following Sunday - I did a really great Dive in Mukilteo. First time for me to go swimming, when there is snow on the ground. It was actually warmer in the water than outside. Water was 51 degrees while the outside temperature was 30 degrees. It was a really nice dive.

Somewhere in the midst of all this, I think I got talked into going to Honduras over my birthday. So I will keep you posted on that.

One of the saddest days in history for me
Recently, Washington passed the most strictest smoking ban in the nation. Not only you cannot smoke in any public place, but you can't smoke 25 feet from any doorway, window, air vent, or anything public. Which leaves the smokers area in the middle of the street. So I decide to quit smoking. I am ready for this fight - to cure my oral fixations, I bought over 800 Tootsie pops, 2 bags of beef jerky and a bag of straws. Strangely enough - I believe I am doing quite well. A little head achey, a little tense. I find my self fidgeting a lot more with the pacing. My thought wanders - you know, the usual steps of kicking the addiction.

The Surreal Weekend
Now the test comes up - trying to maintain my no-smoking plan while hitting the newly dubbed bar scene. So I head out into creation to my regular stomping grounds. Things start off pretty normal, despite the fact that the bars a little less populated now a days. After my first Yohito we head to Hattie's Hat - this is where things start to get weird...

My Co-pilot and I walk in and notice that all seats are empty, which is strange, and decide to step up to the bar and order a drink. I turn around and notice a threesome. One very horny female along with two foreign guys. Now, this doesnt seem odd - but these two guys looked as if they came straight out of the movie Y tu Mama Tambien. I can't really place where they were from, but I over heard they spoke French and Arabic. Now that wasn't the strange part. The Odd part was - one was carrying a Templar Knight's Helmet under his arm constantly. I decided to let that go. Then, the jukebox kicks in and starts to play old southern christian bluegrass tunes. I'm tellin ya, the type of bluegrass where people start speaking in tongues and handling snakes. Kinda creepy. Then a horde of old hippies walk in. I kid you not - 3 of them looked exactly like David Crosby. Ranting something about religion.

At this point in time, I am just keeping my head low and my eyes focused on the mirror behind the bar. Not to mention the tattoo on the arch of the bartendars back. I had to keep my urge of smoking down, you realize.

All of a sudden, a horde of Santa Clauses flash mob the bar. I would say there were probably around 80 of them running around, drunk and very loud. Not the typical Ho Ho Ho Santa - these Santas where the epitamy of bad Santa. And I mean the drunk, smells like beef and cheese Santa. The Dan Akroyd Santa from Trading places. The the Tommy Lee Santa from Bad Santa. All rolled into a horde of 80. For some reason they were blaring Kidd Rock on a small music box that was distorting like crazy. Actually we heard them coming down the street.

This is what happens when bars become no smoking.

So now is the break down of myself. I need a cigarette after this. The only place to smoke indoors is the indian reservation. My co-pilot and I, race towards Tulalip casino which was roughly 40 miles away and waste tons of money gambling. What the hell were we thinking?

Now I sit, cowering in the corner, holding my pillow, hiding out with my achey body, head and my twitchyness. Going crazy - Only had 1 cigarette today. How long will I hold out?

Damn those games... DAMN THEM!!!

2005-11-30T23:18:00.000-08:00

One month down and I have bags, the size of a pitbulls un-neutered gonads, under my eyes. So bad, that the work folk has actually mentioned something about it the other day.

Red Elvises
Becca came into town. We started off right with a bottle of tequila then heading off into the night to see the Red Elvises. It was a great show! Many drinks were poured, along with being spilled. The show was sold out and the crowd was poppin'. Tons of groovy Russian rockabilly and tons of dancing. It was a good night.

Chicago
The morning after Becca left back home, I was packed and out the door for Chicago for business. I really like Chicago, despite that it is so freaking flat. First night, we all went out for teppin-yaki. Drinking with some of the high ups, the cook decides to fling some shrimp my way. Completely missing my mouth and splattering the right side of my suit. Yikes, more dry cleaning bills on the way.

These business trips are becoming quite the bad habit for me. Usually eating wayy to much food and drinking quite a lot. I believe I have gained some weight since I have been on the road. I will have to cure that soon - before it gets out of hand. Of course, when you are invited to a party, by one of the execs, you have to go. And when they buy you drinks... you get the picture. All in all it was a great time and the people I met were wonderful.

Craziness in the Emerald City
I dont talk about work too much, but this was just too weird to pass up. All I can say was I was working happily until an incident occurred that involves the cube next to me, a person the age of an elf, a dolphin that is going to take over the world, the police and handcuffs. 'nuff said.

Birthdays
Also, I would like to give a shout out to some people who recently had birthdays. HAPPY B-DAY BECCA! and HAPPY B-DAY DRUNK GUY! Speaking of Drunk Guy (my drinking partner - we shall call him "Francisco" from here on out) his dinner was a meatfest. Ended up going to the Matador to start off with some ribs and buffalo wings. Then started with the steaks and filet mignon. A hella lot of food. Becca, like that nasty Czechoslovakian joke - "Your Czech is in the male." HA!

Living like a Viking!
Yes, it is true. I am totally living like a viking now. I have 2 cured legs of lamb hanging in my kitchen. In fact, that has been my staple of food for the last month. Every now and then, I will grab my knife and hack off a piece of meat for dinner. Mmmm. Mmm. Mm. Salty lamby goodness. The Norwegian name is actually called pinnekjøtt (Spekemat - Recipe found here). All I need now is my mead and a conical helmut with horns, and I will be ready to conquer the new world - Canada.

Whistler, Canada - Thanksgiving 2005
Speaking of Canada... I recently just spent my bacchanalian Thanksgiving in another country. We did some skiing! It all started crazy. Our ("Francisco" and I) road trip was accompanied by the exotic sounds of Martin Denny and 1930's french parlor music with a mix of 1970's punk rock just to kick it up a bit - BAM!

All I can say, is thank the FSM that there were no broken kitchen tables this time(caused by me), nor any complaints(caused by me) happening this round. It was all good liqoured up fun.

Whistler, in a way, is like Las Vegas. What happens there stays there. So I will give you some random words and fragment sentences that can sum up our trip without giving too much away:

"My god is that blood?", steak!, lobster!, "This water is a lot yellower than the other", "God damn French woman!", "Thank you Dawn!", Deep Powder, Legs burn, feet are worse than a Chinese foot binding, *giggle giggle* - to the Swedish girl - DONT HIT ME!, ribs!, Chicken!, "Hooker at 5am", "That wasn't you, was it? Ewww!", "Damn that French woman","Sweet!", 2 foot chocolate bar

And there is your summary.

More to come...
Here is the line up of things to come:

3 Holiday Parties
House warming party
Scuba sessions
More skiing
Family time
Festivous - for the rest of us
New Years

Until then, keep yer chin up and dont let the gods' teeth be brittle in your presence.

The Games are in Full Swing!

2005-10-30T23:18:00.000-08:00

Los Angeles 2005



Halloween 2005

So the drinking continues... Last place I left you I was heading to Los Angeles. Lets start from there.

October 26-28
Los Angeles was a great time. When we arrived, my company notifies us that we arrived the day they have their annual Halloween party. The company rented one of those British double decker buses. Loaded both decks with 2 huge beer coolers. We all load up in the bus, and load up ourselves. We hit the road and drive down to Long Beach. Where, the company rented out Gameworks for the night - so what that entails is open bar (all drinks were free) along with free gaming on anything including the bowling alley. I cant tell you how many vodka 7's I had along with all the Cuervo shots that we had. The next day was not pretty.

Also, another cool little fact that I found out, was that our company is 2 blocks from West Coast Custom. That is the place where they air "Pimp My Ride" on MTV. So every lunch break we drove by to see what they were doing. The only thing I saw was a blue suburban up on the blocks. It was pretty cool.

October 28
After a delayed flight in from Los Angeles, I arrive back home at 9pm. Where my drinking buddy calls me and invites me out to drinks down in Ballard. I arrive shortly and order some really damn spicy hot wings. Which were excellent by the way. I decide to play a game of pool afterwards.

I end up beating the kid on the table, and he wants to keep on playing. After awhile this punk starts to look up to me. He starts buying me drinks. Many many drinks. I keep playing and keep running the table. Then the big boys came in. A group of 40 - 50 year old men, pool shark looking types, sign up for the board. They ask for doubles, and so I grab the punk that I was playing earlier. So, these old guys - hardcore let me tell you. The kind where I actually had to maintain my drunk to focus on the game. I lose the first round, but luckily my name is up next for some reason. After that, we just keep wining. After we beat the old guys, they had a troupe of other pool players. Next thing you know, I cant leave the table because they all want a piece of me. I am so hammered at this point and just want to go home. So I tell one of the guys Im leaving after the game, I throw the game and lose on purpose. How can things get so out of hand?

October 29
Wake up a little fuzzy from the night before. So I have to gather a costume for a Halloween party at the Tractor Tavern. I cant think of anything original so I just grab the marching band uniform from last week, grab an extra pimp outfit for my drinking buddy, and I am out the door to my friends house to get dressed.

We meet up with our friends at Hatties Hat and down a few drinks and proceed to stand in line at the Tractor. The Dudley Manlove was playing. I never heard of them, but the girls we were with loved them for some apparent reason. At one point, one of the women we were with gets really trashed. The type of trashed to where if you were in a 4 feet distance from her, your drink would somehow end up on the floor. Luckily for me, that did not happen. As for my friend, he lost 5 drinks to that. The place was packed! As you can see I was a little loopy myself. As you can tell from the pictures to the right. The greatest pic is... check out me totally eyeing that chicks breasts. Bad Jon! BAD BAD BAD.

So after stumbling around, and Daylight Saving time kicks in so we hang out till 3am at the bar, we decide to grab a Dantes Hot Dog and head home. I immediately crash on my friends couch. Leaving the hilarious handle bar mustache imprint on his couch. It was rad. Until I realized I left my debit card at the bar. Grrrr.

There are more pics on the way from that night, I will post later.

October 30
Next morning, we meet the girls again and head out the Highlife for breakfast. This sounds almost like last weekend, doesnt it? Anyway, after we part ways, my friend and I do a little shopping then I buy a 22 dollar steak at the market. 1.65lbs of pure porterhouse goodness. Mmm Mmm Mmm. So for dinner, grilled up the steaks, made some mashed potatoes and gravy, baked beans and caeser salad. I meal fit for kings. Belly full, we b-line to the bar pick up our debit cards and this is where I sit now, typing to you.

In upcoming events, I have a brother coming into town, along with Becca. Then off to Chicago next week. I will update when all that is over with. I will leave with that for you to chew on....

In a drunken stupor, I will sign off. Yours hammerdly - Jon

Let the games BEGIN!!!

2005-10-24T23:17:00.000-07:00

Let the 2 1/2 months of drinking begin! Yes, as of October 21st - this will kick off a hurricane of drinking, debauchery and pure chaos. Lets begin this saga with last weekend. I will pipe it out.

Friday October 21st
My Seattle drinking buddy got back from his Florida vacation so we decided to tie one on for family stress relief. We head to the usual holes in Ballard. Lock and Keel then Hatties Hat. And boy... did we relieve a lot of stress. It got to the point after our Dante's Hot Dog we went back to his house. I decide just to sit on the couch. Literally, 3 seconds later, I am officially comatose. One of those comatose where you wake up at 3 in the morning not knowing where the hell you are. After I realize this - I decide to sleep it off. Since I have a big day the next day.

Saturday October 22nd
I wake up around 8 or 9 - I really can't remember and head down to the Highlife for breakfast - have a huge meal then I have to split to head to my nieces 4th birthday party.

After a short jaunt to my house to take a quick shower. I race to my brothers house. Okay... okay... its a kids party you say to yourself. Thats the more reason to pound the liquor. What usually happens at these little shin-digs is I usually stay in the backyard smoking my cigarettes then all the old grandfathers and dads come out to join me, while the wives are inside taking care of the little rugrats. Also, forgot to mention, my brother usually has a fully stocked bar - complete with beer taps. So after drinking quite a few home brews, and seeing how many kids I can get to do crazy stuff - I begin to get rid of the hair of the dog and back to tipsy town. Next thing you know, the hard liquor starts to pour, and my brother pulls out the gas-compression hammer. After destroying a few planks of wood, a table, maybe a dog in the process 5pm rolls around and I must leave.

I promised a friend of mine that I would hook up her wireless internet for her next door neighbor and herself. When I get there, I demand 3 beers for the loss of drunkeness, I must regain, from the drive there. After I set them up, I find out that her neighbor plays guitar and she serenades me. Quite a beautiful tune as a matter of fact. 6:30 rolls by and I have to jet out the door to my next party.

Racing now downtown to pick up my North Pulaski High School, Arkansas, marching band outfit. Let me give you a little background on how this came to be...

A few friends of mine were sitting around, watching a football game one day - drinking. One of them wonders if you can buy any marching band costumes on ebay for Halloween. So they look it up - and lo and behold, they found a full set of marching band uniforms. 100 of them. In the stupor they were in - they decided to snatch them all up for 150 bucks.

Now back to my journey. For 10 bucks, gets you a costume. I pay my 10, get dressed at a shop downtown, then head into the nearest bar with all 99 other people. We march for at least 1 mile. Drinking on the way, taking up the whole sidewalk. I was in the front with the "Harmonica Section". There were drums, saxaphones, slide trombones, trumpets, flutes, recorders, kazoos, harmonicas and even a banjo! We were making noise like there was no tomorrow. Marching down 2nd Avenue chanting "NORTH - PULASKI - NORTH NORTH PULASKI!" As I heard it, we even had a following of onlookers marching behind us. It was quite a seen. I dont know how many people got us on their cell phone cameras.

One bad thing about this though... I guess USC played WU that day and USC won. Just by chance, our marching band colors were the same colors as USC. A lot of people actually believed we were the USC Marching band.

We finally get to our destination - The Collins Pub. Now you gotta understand that when we arrived, there were only 3 people sitting at the bar. We totally flash mobbed the bar. You should of seen the look of the bartendar's face when we marched in. When people asked who we were, our stories were so organic - they just seemed to change constantly. From being a high school band from Arkansas, all with fake ID's, to the USC band. At one point, I heard this rattling in my hat. So I shake my hat and out of nowhere an eye-patch falls out. Now I'm not sure if you read the article of mine about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, but I take this as a sign that he does exists. Because I was now touched by his noodley appendage. You can read it here. After many many drinks, and a few shots of Jagermeister we finally move on to Chinatown for drunken karaoke.

This point, things started to get a little chaotic so bare with me, because I can't remember that much. All I remember was we finally took the marching band to the middle of the street and we marched down Chinatown. Passing a police officer writing out a ticket to some poor bastard - the officer's jaw completely dropped and both he and the suspect were just frozen staring at us. It was classic. We then flash mob Bush Gardens and had some drinks and did a little karaoke.

At this point, I have to leave early. I have a dive the next morning. So I hop in a cab with some friends and head back to the car. By the way, I was good and sobered up a little bit. So we drop off my friends at their car, right as my cab driver turns the corner - the cab next to us gets into an accident. My cab driver stops. We are now in the middle of an intersection blocking 4 ways of traffic. People honking at us - telling us to get out the way you bastards and all sorts of nice things. All the while I realize that the bastard cab driver never dropped my meter so its racking up. KILL! So I yell at him for a while because he still want to charge me the full price. Pay the dickhead, no tip mind you, then walk down the street to my car and back safely home.

Sunday October 23rd
Wake up at 8am, quite hung over. Throw all my scuba gear in the car and race towards the Edmonds Ferry Terminal. The dive was quite nice, although, I forgot to bring my fleece jumpsuit( that goes under my drysuit), gloves and my mind was all kind of fuzzy. The dive was amazing. Cool things to see. I was struggling with my air regulater, only realizing later, that I had it set to pre-dive settings rather than dive settings. That explains the cramps and the lack of oxygen intake on that dive.

After the dive, I realize I haven't eating anything since my nieces birthday. I b-line to McDonalds - I had to block out that "Super Size Me" movie out of my mind and brave it. It was one of the best damn burgers I had since that last burger. After that, I head back to my brother's house and paint a mural for 7 hours.

This will conclude my weekend of craziness... as my next agenda, I am heading to LA Wednesday then its HALLOWEEN!!! I will keep you posted my faithful constituants.

In Booze and glory, -J

ALIVE!

2005-10-03T23:17:00.000-07:00

Yes. Folks, I am alive. This is just a check in. I am officially relaxing from all the hub bub. Until things start to happen again Oct. 22.

Just relaxing......

Until Then.... let the sun shine on your back and never let that chicken bring you down.

New Model Army Show

2005-09-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

I went to see a New Model Army play on Tuesday (9/20/2005) at the Tractor Tavern. And it was a Blast! The band rocked! I rocked! the city of Liliput ROCKED! that just rocks.

Tickets were only 15 bucks, which aint too shabby - since it brings back teenage memories. This concert, I guess, is the first time in 8 years since they toured as the complete band of the eighties. I felt honored.

It was really quite nice... Since there were only 75 people at the show. Very small venue. A mixture of the new goth and older punks that became suits.

I get there kinda early, around 8:45, show starts at 9:00. I start to drink a beer. Manny's Ale. First band plays and they were actually pretty decent.

6 Beers later... an old friend of mine, that I havent seen in 4 years, shows up and we catch up on old times. (break into song of "Memories").

New Model Army starts around 11pm and they were dead on. Perfect...perfect show. I took quite a bit of snap shots, and even got some video footage of them playing "51st State" and "The Green and the Grey". Pretty much out of the whole 2 1/2 hour set they only played 6 of their new songs. It totally ROCKED! If you want to see the videos just email me and I will give you a link. The reason being - one video is 99MB and the other is 60MB - You need total bandwidth to watch them. Plus, I dont have streaming - so you would have to save them first to your machine.

10 beers later, the show finally ends. And I leave with 2 bumper stickers to put on my scuba tanks, and a CD.

My friend is a complete fanatic... The band let her have the playlist along with a poster at the end of the show - which was really cool of them.

The next morning... I felt those 10 beers like I have never felt before. Getting to bed around 2am and waking up at 5:30 is not paradise. I woke up still drunk - to alleviate this - I crank the shower handle all the way to cold. That jolted me. But pretty much at work I was useless. But that was okay, since that day involved a lot of documenting data from my travels last week.

I look back at it now..... yeah, I would do it all over again.

This week in Jon

2005-09-18T23:15:00.000-07:00

Time for the update.... again.

It has been quite a busy week once more. No time to update the blog. Sorry. But I will inform you of what has been going on.

Last weekend, my buddy and I were suppose to go hiking, but somehow he wussed out because of the rain. So we ended up buying English Mead and getting hammered. This was a first for your faithful protagonist. Never had mead before, so we decided to give it the ol' Viking heave ho and see what the headaches were all about. And let me tell you. The headaches came and went. Still have a bottle left in the fridge.

That Sunday, I had to prepare my week long journey with a throbbing headache, and this was after walking into a bar with a nurse,child psychologist and a stripper. Sounds like a bad joke, doesnt it?

Monday, bright and early 4am - I had to wake up and grab a cab to the airport - Off on my way to Atlanta, Georgia for business.

Donning a full suit with french cufflings is not the way to go in the 95 degree weather of Georgia. But it was company policy so I literally had to sweat it out. It was a great visit for the 2 1/2 days. 13 hour work day and another 3 hours of drinking. I had so much great food. This included Georgian Barbecue, Thai and a great family style Italian dinner. The folks are really kind in Georgia. Although as I listened to my waitress at the barbecue joint - I wondered if she will become the next Britany Spears.

Hop on a plane and head for Dallas, Texas. Check into the Hilton and immediately pound drinks. Muggy as hell and 92 degrees. Full wool suit. What the hell was I thinking.

More 13 hour days and tons of steak dinners, lunches and breakfasts. I swear I gained at least 20 pounds on this trip. Kicked back in the Hotel bar and yapped a bit with a CPA who owned 14 Burger Kings. Hey.. He bought me a few drinks - it was all good.

2 1/2 days later - I hop on the plane and back home finally. My head was swirling from work and travel... and steak... and booze. All of a sudden - I get a IM on my cell - "SPIDER GAP! SAT"

I guess no rest for the weary. Around 10pm my flight arrives, I head home - pass out. Wake up - pack my frame pack and my buddy shows up at 10am.

We head out and decide to bail on the first hike since it would take 3 hours to get to. So we head south to plan B - Mount Ranier. On the way we notice there is Popeye's Chicken on the way. Of course we had to stop and eat.

We stop to pick up some Beef Jerky, power bars and a bottle of wine then head to the trail head of Sheep Lake in the Mt. Ranier national forest.

The hike wasnt too bad. 3 miles in with a slight incline. It was fairly cold out - which wasnt that bad. Until.... We realized we forgot our rainfly for my tent (Pepe's Hideout). Okay.. so it will be a little rougher than we expected. That night was a cold cold ass night. Tons of snot, chilled to the bones and stiff fingers. Not to mention, I think there were some kind of cult camping a little ways down from us. They were awfully strange people.

Next Morning - Everything was frosted over. From the Spoon we accidently left out to my Tent. It was a mess. I feel as if I might be coming down with something now. Oh well.. At least Pepe's Hideout blocked the wind.

We decide to head up the mountain about 2 miles up with a 2000 ft elevation gain. It was a great Hike. So we get to the Sourdough Gap at the summit. Inspired by a Nickle Creek song, I climbed up to the highest rock, and shook fists at the sky - while screaming "Others have excuses, I have my reasons why!"

After the climb down, we head home and hit Fat Burger. Mmmm mmm tastey. Now.. I am going through the camping detox ritual of airing out bags, tents and what nots.

During this trip - we discussed of our next crazy adventure. It is now set in stone for the Whistler Canada trip for Thanksgiving. Hotel and tickets are to be bought tomorrow.

Until next time....

Warning - Fairly Long Blog - Game of Catch-up!

2005-09-07T23:14:00.000-07:00

Okay. Time to play a little catch up on my blog.

I will give the run down of what has happened in the last few weeks, along with a preview of what is to come. Been wayyy to busy. sheesh.

Becca Partie Deux, non? Huh huh huh...

2 weeks ago, Rebecca came up to visit. We had a blast. Since this time did not involve 96 hours of drinking. We actually attempted to be productive in a tourist way.

As soon as she arrived, I took her on the local tour of the city (via my way home from work). This included riding the monorail and bus system. I figured everyone has to ride the monorail. I met her at Gordon Biersch, and we had a drink, then after, took her through the mall circuit into the bus tunnel. Showing all the ways to walk in Seattle without hitting the street.From there we jumped on the monorail and headed to the Seattle Center (Space Needle) and walked through the vast park and entertainment area. It was a warm day. From there, we hopped on my local bus and headed to my house and finally walked through the green belt.

At this time I realized I was suppose to attend a going away party for a friend of mine. So we head out to a bar in the Central District and drink. Once again, the tequila shots start flying around. As we bid farewell to one of our fine friends. Bon Voyage Kristina!

The next day, we headed to the Bavarian town of Leavenworth. Had some great Jager Schnitzel and beer. Then toured around a little looking at all the funny German gadgets and trinkets.

Sunday, we just take it easy and relax. Becca was jonesing for one of those Yohitos that I turned her on to.. so we headed to Ballard. Running into the Ballard Farmers Market, we make our way around and accomplish our goal. We decide to hit the beach, but on our way there, I turn her on to a new fun store to play in. Archie Mcphee's. Tons of fun toys. That she had to buy stuff in. good stuff.

From there, we finally hit Golden Garden park. Which is the beach. It was really nice out, so we strolled on the beach and had fun.

On our way back, we decide to hit the Ballard Locks and check out the gardens. That was pretty fun. We even saw some boater get yelled at by all the yachtsters. I guess the boater was an idiot.

Scuba Trip - Sechelt, British Columbia Canada

So just last weekend, I finally got to do my big SCUBA diving trip in Sechelt Canada. It was a blast! Kind of an adventure as well.

All starts off with my Instructor offering a name of a guy who I can car pool with up to Canada - So I take him up on that offer. I leave my house around 4:00am to make it up to Marysville and meet Jeff. Now, you gotta picture the most back country, country bumpkin possible. Young punk, with 5 o'clock shadow, baseball cap just barely resting on the top of his greasy, hat head hair doo. He was a chatter box the whole way. Then all of a sudden he asks me if I like music, I say sure - He pops in the Christian Rock music. ... ... ... 3 .... hours ..... of .... Christian ....... rock music. This was after the fact when he started talking about his guns. This point, I was going to drown my Instructor when I arrived there. Also, the boy had some sort of surgery - to where he had to stop every pit stop to go to the wash room. Made the trip longer.

Other than that, I was constantly holding on the "Oh Jesus" handle in his truck - since is was a maniacal driver... He would swerve into oncoming traffic every turn. So, you got to believe me when I say the Ferry in Canada was very, very very relieving.

Now, on to the diving. First dive, I dove my deep dive test - got to 100 feet. This dive was so sweet! Due to the fact we dove a 399 foot Military Destroy shipwreck named the HMCS Chaudier. By the way, the place I stayed was at Porpoise Bay Charters - If you ever get the chance to stay there - its a wonderful place.

Second dive, pretty much kicked around the shipwreck some more and went around the stern - Lots of sea critters - and I got to bat around a baby jelly fish during my safety stop. It was Just pretty much intense - I really cant describe it, but the fact that I felt really really small.

Third dive, We headed out to a place called Stag Wall a drift dive. Here This whole time, I was just trying to get used to my Dry Suit. But Stag wall was also amazing, I hit around 77 feet but below me, was a drop off of around 1000 feet. I was just staring into the abyss in awe.

Image courtesy of Jeff Hagglund

After the dives we all cram into the hot tub and drink lots of vodka, Cal and Anna (our hosts) Cook some steak up - good night.

Next day, Dive number four - We head out to a place called Carlson Point. Pretty much just checked out all the crazy little sea animals - and I was training for My Nitrox training. So just getting used to the new air mixture.

Dive Five, we head to another place called the Pinnacle - a rock that is jutting out of the ocean. We see 3 baby seals resting on the rock. As soon as we dive in 2 seals dive in after us, while the 3rd was resting on the rock. My Dive buddy swims up to that one (3 feet away) and snaps some pics. Too bad they didnt come out. After descending, we join up with the other seals and play with them for a bit. Doing Barrel roles and playing chase. They were kinda fun.

All in all, it was an excellent trip. There is so much more to say... but I already have written a butt load. So if you ever see me. Just ask me about it and I will tell some more stuff. If you want to see the Pics... you can visit them at this link ( http://www.jonong.com/photos/20050903/index.html)

I will close for now, since Next week I am heading to Atlanta Georgia and Dallas Texas for work.I will try to keep all of you guys posted.

Cheers!

Jons Crazy Ass 96 Hour Pub Crawl With guests....

2005-08-15T23:14:00.000-07:00

Becca and Jeff Wooping it up in Front of Hattie's Hat eating dogs from Dante's

So.. I haven't written due to the fact I had house guests this week. Welcome to Seattle Becca and Jeff! Both fromdifferent parts of the country. Becca, you would know as Rebecca from this mySpace place...

Jeff was to arrive Thursday and Becca to Arrive Friday. So let us start our little story on Thursday - this is my blog you know....

Chucklehead!
-Most used word of the 96 hour pub crawl

War Room - Thursday: Jeff arrives and we meet with his friends for cocktails. Kinda interesting - I am now drinking with the guy who Designs the Pokemon Trading Cards. He buys us a few shots of Cuervo and I retaliate with my Cuervo shots - next thing you know... we are all in hell - I must wake up in morning for work and teaching class next day.
NightLite - Friday: After heinous day of work - Becca arrives. Jeff meets up and we all meet downtown and head straight to my old stomping grounds for a quick 3 drinks. After going down memory lane with the bouncer that kicked me out 10 years prior.
Peoples Pub - After a short jaunt to my house for a quick clothes change - then proceed to Ballard. To the German pub - test drive some German beers. HackenFlappersmackenKuggelHopf.... or some name like that. The bartendar usually knows what I am talking about.
Taiku/Fu Kun Wu - Late Dinner Snack - Some crazy good beef tenders and hallucinagenic Yohitos. Just to tie some on with my faithful drinking buddy from Seattle. After a few more oolong-tinis we leave. For - you guessed it - MORE BOOZE!
George & the Dragon - Enter Freemont District. Place is crowded and packed. Drink some English beer - Oh hell I cant remember how many at this point.
Brouwers - We proceed onto next bar....Too Crowded.... fuck it - we move on.
Dubliner - then to the next bar.....Cover Charge...screw that I aint paying for that garbage....we press on.
Dad Watsons - We lost my buddy from Seattle somewhere in the process... and admired the Statue of that Russian Guy Lenin. We drink some more at this bar - all the while some dude ranting behind us. Personally he was getting postal on his friends ass... we laugh it off and head out the door to pass out.
Ozzie's - Saturday Breakfast/Lunch - Oh.. around sometime around 11 or 12 - lets just say sometime... we head to Queen Anne for steak and eggs, and Club Sandwich and Hoagie and to tie one on to get rid of our hangovers -- god bless the Bloody Mary!
Gasworks Park - Need to walk of that last Bloody Mary and need some kind of Photo ops for Becca to show the "Fam" - to show she at least accomplished somekind of tourist thing. Oh yeah, we make fun of hippies.
Pike Place Market - A destination for tourists to see... we sorta enter the market... but then said we did and just ended up wanting a drink.
The Athenian - God Dammit! there is a line... I barge through like the local I am and quickly acquire a seat. Few cocktails makes us all happy. Oh yeah... Hot as hell at this point in time... Becca and Jeff - Both from the "Deep South"(heh,heh - Little Nicky) even think its wayy to hot.
Kell's - Now sorta staggering - trying to find the car, but end up in an Irish pub to tie some more on before we head out for the real drinking. Bartendar is really cool and passes some freebies our ways.... sure, like thats what we really need at this point in time. We rant about how Seattle is becoming a no smoking place...KILL!
Chinooks's - Dinner - Race down to Magnolia and meet up with buddy from Seattle. While waiting for seating we all hit the... you guess it - BAR. Have a great meal of mussels,clams,oysters,fish,steak you name it we had it. Some god damn little bird was hiding in the bush behind me chirping his freakin head off... I couldnt handle it - so Becca gets up and does a Jackie Chan round house kick into the bushes where the bird resides. Now we have whole restaraunt staring at us. Oh, did I mention that my buddy from Seattle had a dream about all this? (Due to those hallucinagenic drinks) but instead of a chirpy little bird - it was a fat balding parrot that was following him. After meal we head to Ballard again.
Connor Byrne's - Cover Charge - We say screw it an press on to next bar.
Lock and Keel - This is were things get really messy. Mucho mucho drinking at this time.
Tractor Tavern - Cover Charge - Nah.. too expensive - but good music
Portalis - Checking Wine List - Didnt really drink here... but just admired all the wine from different countries.
Hattie's Hat - Pit stop - because, you know all this walking is making us thirsty... and sober. Grab a few stiff drink there and head on out the door. Gotta keep moving.
Thaiku/Fu Kun Wu - Quick Snack - We decided to hit this again, because I think in secret we all wanted to re-live my friends Balding, small winged, fat parrot drink. This point in time - the bar is just roasting and we are all sweating like pigs. Hence more drinks!
Peoples Pub - Too Crowded - Lets get going on.... This point we are all kinda lost... dont know where exactly where to go...
Sunset Tavern - Cover Charge - We look here first... but decide against it.
The Matador - Too Crowded - Then here... Jeff needs to use the latrine.... say screw it after that. All the while - some crazy black man starts to yap our ears off about something random - I cant quite remember.
Old Peculiar - We finally decide to finalize our night at the Old Peculiar. Where what appears to be a hammered old man that comes talking to us. Now this guy looks like my Old friend of mine - Glen...(who is also on this myspace..) I provided a pic. Turns out he is in the band... and drinking coke. Anyhoo - More booze. and more booze. We get hungry.
Dante's Inferno Hot Dogs - Since Becca never experienced Dante's Inferno Hot dogs, we had to take her there, plus this is a good buffer to soak up all the alcohol. I provided a picture of that too. Jeff loves that damn hot dog sooo much he gets 2. I just sway a little and eat with Pride. It was a good night.
High Life - Sunday Breakfast - After I take Becca to airport - to make a flight onward - We eat some breakfast and some more hair of the dog. This will conlude our little 96 hour journey through the depths of hell. For at this point - I head home and pass out for 6 hours. Only to wake up and cook a huge barbecue.

My Fingers are now bleeding from typing - So I hope you are happy. I will close with that note. For I must adjust back to my normal life and try to live a clean and healthier lifestyle. sh'yeah right. Like that will ever happen. I did manage to squeeze in a 3 mile jog today.

Your faithful drunkard,
Jon

Weekend stuff that happened.

2005-08-02T23:13:00.000-07:00

Lets see.... what happened this weekend... hmm... hard to remember already.

Well, Friday pretty much just kicked back and relaxed. But somehow ended up in the middle of some Lawyers party at some bar.

Saturday (Day of Festivals) - First off, went to the scuba fair and spend way too much cash. For the cash I spent... I could of bought 2 motorcycles. Dammit. Well all in good fun. After some buyers remorse, I headed to the Sea Food Festival in Ballard. Where I got good and drunk. Met up with some friends, had a steak, watched a band, then passed out.

Sunday I tried to relax. But my Blasted neighbors got me drunk. A bottle of wine here, a bottle of wine there, some beer. Just cant seem to get rest.

Pretty much I have been spending my time reading up on all the scuba gear that I bought. Probably the coolest things I got, where my computer and scuba knive. I had that knife strapped to my leg and running around like James Bond. it was sweeet.

The weather here has been quite warm. just running around in my underwear.

Other than that... pretty boring. So I will cut short since you folks are.. blah blah ... murmer...blah blah blah...mumble.. blah blah blah (HEY! are you paying attention?!)

Mid week update

2005-07-28T23:13:00.000-07:00

So.. trying to recouperate from last weekend. Muscles are almost healed. Bee holes are almost closed up.

It was an un-eventful week. Although, I am ramping up for this weekend. More stuff to get me into trouble. Saturday, I have to attend a scuba fair. Finally going to buy my dry suit, BCD, tanks, regulator, computer and some sea monkeys. After that, I have the oppurtunity to go to a art show. 40 bucks a head will get me in with the DJ's, booze, food and an art auction. I might head out with a friend - but that all depends upon her. Since a rock went careening through one of her car windows.

Right now, just kicking back, having a brew and listening to some kind of Beck/Beethoven mix running on the Digital Jukebox.

So lengthen this blog entry, I have been meaning to throw this out there for the past 2 weeks or so. So here it goes:

Things I must work into daily conversation:

1."I hear ya cluckin' Big Chicken'
2."I was touched by his noodley appendage"
3."Ginormous"
4."Dont touch that, its got wings!"
5."I told you not to touch that... it had wings"
6."Tell that blasted monkey to get out of the wine cellar"
7."I'm not gonna snog it, hey, Lets get Mikey, He'll snog anything."

And there ya have it. Some key phrases I must work into daily conversation, albeit at work or in personal life. I will have said these phrases within the next 2 week period.

More to come...

Happy Camping! or Hell?

2005-07-24T23:12:00.000-07:00

Camper Jon - at the start of Rachel Lake

Hiking through the land of Pixies

Cool refreshing pit stop

Gaining altitude

Yes.. that is sweat on my shirt

Oooooo....

Ahhhhh....

Saturday night at base camp.

I just got home from a really fun camping trip. Why don't I talk about it?...

Friday

After work Friday, my co-worker and I had to race on the bus to my house to finalize the rest of my packing. You know - packing the food and meat, and more meat. Afterward, we head out on our long hard journey. Off to Kachess Lake in Snoqualmie Pass. The drive to the camp site was crazy - averaging 80mph and weaving in and out of cars throughout numerous tunnels. 68 miles later... we arrive.

Let the pain begin. As soon as I unpack my car, I get bitten twice - twice I tell you by the same damn bee. Hurt like hell, I tell you what. The little bastard's stinger was jammed in my arm, and no matter how hard we tried - no tweezer, no fire would of gotten rid of that stinger. So we decided to leave it in my arm.

Now.. the stinging is still persisting I naturally had to get drunk to kill the pain - I slammed 3 beers and decided to put up my ginormous tent. I bought this 8 man tent that has 4 rooms. I absolutely loved it. Although it took me 3 hours to put it up - and this was at night.. also I guess I was drunk... and my arm and leg looked like Popeye's since the bee stings where inflaming them. It was really cool.

4 hours later - tent is finally up and cinched down.. along with my Cafe bistro style dining set, Coleman chandelier, twin bed cot with all the fixins, cubby area with couch and side table. Now thats what I call "Old Man Camping".

Friday night were only 5 people kicking back - 8 beers later. I finally pass out - the tent had won.

Saturday

Waking up kinda groggy - it was great to wake up to bacon, eggs, and hashbrowns. I love car camping food. After breakfast my fellow camp mates leave to check out the local lake, while I wait for my buddy to head up to the camp site.

Friend arrives, and we decide to take a "short and sweet" little day hike.

Let the hell begin. Driving around we decide to stop at this one trail head called "Rachel Lake trail". It started off nice... but in the end it was hell. Almost 9 miles roundtrip, the last mile was known as the "Mile from Hell!" (Yes, the exclamation point was actually included in the name). This is where the 2000ft elevation gain all happened. There were times where we were literally scaling a cliff side. That really sucked. So what was suppose to be a short and sweet hike turned out into a eco-challenge type thing. All in all, we did make it - the lake was spectacular. On a humerous but sad note - and odd thing popped up. There was this drowned chimpunk in the water - his body float lifeless and his arms, legs and tail just dangled in the water - exactly like a human. Personally, I think he was pushed.

4 hours later, a constant drip of sweat falling from my hat brim, saddle soars from the boxer shorts and severe pain - we finally make it down the mountain into the car. It was hell, yet rewarding.(pfft.. what am I saying. rewarding - the hell was more)

We drive back to camp, I barely could walk at this point. Since the saddle sores where constantly stinging - I was walking like a bow legged cowboy for the rest of the duration of the trip. It was great to get back to base camp. This time the group shows up - all 16 folks are now present.

"You screw too much!"
-quote of the trip

Lots of steak going around - along with the booze. I take five to rest and decide to lay down on my couch inside my tent. I pass out. I eventually make it back to my cot.

Sunday

I am now back from the trip - havent unpacked my car even. But we hear there is a Popeye's chicken somewhere in Washington. I think I will go hunt that down now.

Weekend round up!

2005-07-18T23:12:00.000-07:00

      Wine - the start of all Evil


      The Drunk Grab!!


      The Bacchus Take Down!!


      The counter recover.


      The [A B] ↑ ← ↓ → → Super Combo Move!

OH boy... another weekend flying by. More booze and the skinny monkey once cloud my brain again.

Went to a barbecue this weekend. Odd thing though - was there was no barbecue. Except this small little hibachi rusted out on the deck. But the booze was plentiful. Really fun night - talking to a bunch of architects.

Then the drunk fight starts up. yes yes... as usual my buddy over does it. And I bet you that he will wake up with bruises and scrapes all over him, all the while he will wake up the next day wondering what the hell happened that night. This time, I have pictures to prove it. heh heh.

Pretty much besides all the craziness... It was a humb-drumb weekend. Sunday, went golfing - but after the 4th hole we decided to give up due to each hole was a waiting line of about 1 hour. Which was kinda lame. So after 4 hours of waiting on the 5th hole... said the hell with it and decided to pack it up.

I am full of energy now. Since I finally got paid and could buy food for my fridge. Actually having a full stomach helps out with that. Plus it can curb those pestering hallucinations.

Today though - its a recovery day. Just trying to get business and personal things back in order. You know the usual junk - bills, dishes, garbage day, hiding the corpses of the... woops, almost let that one slip.

Sorry dont have much to say this round - but I have been way busy with the job and all. Especially Cleaning out the hydrochloric acid out of my bath tub. Damn - once again almost let it out. It was to... polish.... my rock collection, yeah, thats it.

Asta luego for now - I am off to Corsica! until then. Ciao, or whatever they say in Corsica!

Random Thoughts... with Captain Inferno

2005-07-14T23:11:00.000-07:00

Here is my mid-week blog update:

Nothing much has been going on so I will do the random thoughts portion of this blog (brought to you by NicoBeer - the only Nicotine infused beer!)

While I was running yesterday, I had my headphones blaring, listening to Klezmer music. I came to this one section where a line of people had one foot resting on a log behind them and they were hopping on the other foot. They were totally moving to my music on the headphones.
I was walking down the street on my way home from work, singing "There's a hole in my bucket" (you know the one, dear Liza, dear Liza) and I had a huge epiphany:

1,2,3 is not the same as 2,1,3........ or is it?

Brilliant, ain't it?

Next time I am at the deli and they ask for my name, I am going to use "Captain Inferno!"

Today, my co-workers computer screen went plaid - or as someone simply replied, "Thats what the Matrix would look like if they had color monitors".

I was taking this scientology test... and found out that I am the equivalent to tome cruise.

My 4th attempt at being a mathematical genius:

pi < [ 42 / 4 ] * 0.333[3.56 ( 56 / 2.33 - ( 9 * 23 ) ) ] == SquabbleGarden

is a true statement.

"l;askdjfklqjdl;fjkal;sglkasdgjlasdkl;'jjkasd;jklfkl;jasl;dgjk" <-- My teenage angst coming out

All I need is a midget and a hang glider - and I would be good to go.

That is all for now... Im sure there are more things that are at the apex of my brain... but I dont want to climb that high.

Weekend of Sobriety

2005-07-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

So, I havent posted in a while. So what. I just didnt feel like it okay? You wanna do something about it? pfft.

This week has been pretty much a blur. Really. I cant remember a damn thing about it. I was either sleeping or cursing the mail man - he never mailed my rent check. bastard.

So this weekend, my friend and I are trying to keep a sober weekend. I found out something about myself - Im a bitter sobriast. Last Night.... absolutely nothing. Today. Tried to golf but there was an hour wait so we decided to blow it off. Then headed to a dinner with a bunch of South Africans. Pretty fun. We had crown roast ribs. very very good. Then after the dinner I left and headed to some party downtown. A military surgeons house. This place was huge. And the gold diggers - they were every where. Simply amazing how many hussies you can pack into a balcony. Well the balcony was the size of my apartment... but no less - tons of hussies. So here I sit, just kicking back and relaxing. Checking out my new lights I strung up on my balcony. Kinda festive... but not. Since Im not drunk. grrrr.

Tomorrow I have to scout out a camping site for the 22nd. Heading towards a place called Kachess Lake. We will see.

Oh yeah. out of food here. my last 2 day food intake consisted of 2 cans of baked beans. Eatin out of the can with a wooden spoon. Nothing beats cold beans out of a can. Makes me feel like the Marlboro man. All I need now is a horse in the background and the smell of manure. And I sure do feel gassy. So, manure smell is accomplished. Think I have been week due to lack of food. But those ribs sure hit the spot - they will last me the rest of the week I hope.

I will just stop typing since Im babbling on.

Joke I heard this week:

A guy and girl are going out. The girl suddenly says to the guy, "I wanna break up with you." Guy says "Why?" Girl says, "Because your are a pedophiliac" He says, "Thats a big word coming from a 12 year old"

I gots my Cert! and ready to Rock!

2005-07-05T23:08:00.000-07:00

Mukilteo dive spot

Yours truly with a cheesy smile.

ATTACK! That blasted crab I battled with

Squid eggs.

Wiley squid

Returning to the water for another dive

Yes, I am now officially certified for open water. Sweet.

It was a busy day yesterday. Woke up and had a hearty breakfast, then headed to Mukilteo for some diving. This time we dove 60 feet, not as many crabs as yesterday. But got to play with a pretty cool squid. He shot ink at us quite a few times. Then Terry attached him to my mask. Pretty interesting stuff.

I found out that Terry, my instructor, was the same instructor that teaches Seattle's SWAT team. Totally cool.

The thing that totally sucked though - is that the camera I used was totally lame. And there were tons of parrellex problems. So.. thats the reason half of the pics are not in frame. For instance, the 2nd - if you look closesly, you'll see a crab leg in left corner. That was the shot after we wrestled with the crab and I had him by the hind legs. The picture below - is the crab attacking us. The fourth picture are squid eggs. They were lined on the roots of a felled tree. At first, I only saw the base - thinking it was no big deal. Then, I look up - the squid eggs went up at least 20 feet across the span of the tree roots. Kind of awe struck at that moment. Fifth picture, is the squid we played around with. I thought ink would be black, but apparently the ink was the same color as his skin. Sixth picture - was me after I refilled my tank and headed back into the water.

After I got certified, we all sat around a table at the bar and just hung out. Now I am deciding to drop 2k on scuba gear when the Scuba Festival happens at the end of the month. Going for the advanced class. Which will involve dry suit, wreck diving, night diving, nitrox and sea cliff exploration.

So after I got home, I waxed the car, painted the floor of my deck, then had a small little celebration party for my cert and having a new deck. After the booze ran out, headed out to Freemont and threw back a few German Beers. (Franzislich - was the beer I think.) Then went to Ballard and ate dinner at Hatty's Hat. Got this really cool free calendar. Pretty much shows local nude artists hanging out at every bar that I have drank at. Brings back nostalgic memories of me running down 2nd avenue downtown buck naked trying to make it back to the artists loft. After that, went home and passed up.

Tonight, I am heading to my friends house to barbecue. His manager is having a rooftop party on the building. Laura(the manager) is a really sweet girl. Crazy. but sweet. So going to buy some steaks, some beer and all the fixin's. Then watch all of Seattle's Fireworks atop of the 5th floor/rooftop. I must keep it clean tonight though. Since it is back to the grind.

I will close for now. I just realized I have a slice going down my index finger and its killing me to type this much. every keystroke is painful.. arg.

Scuba - Doobah - Doo!

2005-07-02T23:08:00.000-07:00

Finally, after 1 year, I started 1/2 of my scuba training. It was sweet! I arrived in Mukiteo this morning around 8am (1 hour drive from my home) and got suited up. It turns out it is only my instructor and I. Sweet. One on ones rock. Although his wife was there training these very cute girls - they went off on their own. So, Terry (my instructor) and I just got ready and headed up the beach to do our first dive. Just to play around and check things out. Saw a lot of cool things! 3 foot fish eyeballing me, tons of sea anenomes, squid eggs, tons of dungeoness crab, lots of flounders and whole bunch of other sea critters. We took a lot of pictures underwater too - hopefully those will get developed later this week. I am heading out again tomorrow. But this time, Im going to kill 2 birds with one stone. Finish my training - and go crabbing. Yup, just got my crabbing license today. So I will be hunting for crab tomorrow. They are everywhere. In fact this big sucker of a crab - Terry had me wrestle him. I finally grabbed him by the hind legs and we got a picture of that too. But tomorrow, that bastard will be for eatin. MmmmMm.

Posted are some pics from my digital camera. I just liked my head shot for some reason to throw that in. But the other pic was of Terry and I.

On the way home, I had to head back to scuba shop to fill my tanks again - there I ran into those girls again. sweet. Maybe tomorrow we will all hang out and celebrate our certification.

Well, I am dead tired. I need rest for tomorrows dive.

until part 2......

Rant: About my faith....

2005-06-30T23:07:00.000-07:00

Lets see.. Since the topic all around me today was about faith....

I'll tell you a little something about mine - I have none.

A little bit about my thoughts -why you ask? because this blog is about me. Yup, "Just Jonny" (and you have to use Jazz Hands when saying that)

Yes I am a devout Atheist and proud supporter for the American Atheist. True, I was baptized and confirmed lutheran against my will. Theres really nothing you can do to prevent baptism when you are 2 years old. As for the confirmation part - I had the choice of either attending 4 years of bible study or be denied food and shelter. But I figured what the hell. Since I have no belief it will just be 4 years of seeing how much I can piss the pastor off. Yup - that was the fun part.

I have personally done that quest to find the meaning of life and searching for the higher being - all to the fact of finding none (except, I did find the meaning of life, finally). I have attended numerous archaelogical debates, as well as taken many many classes. Went to the extent of going on a Hopi vision quest - only to find my spirit animal was a squirrel. I have traveled on shamanic journeys to different worlds of my making. I explored different faiths such as Buddhism, Krishna, Hinduism, Taoism, Bahai, Wicca, Satanism, paganism and even the followed the Church of the Subgenius.(Hell there are too many to list) Even tried to follow Kerouc's On the Road as a religion. At the end this all amounted to something - Nothing.

Okay, so the reason for all this ranting was due to a website I recieved in a email I got this morning which I found quite hilarious. It all revolves around that Kansas incident where they are trying to pass a law to teach Intelligent Design in the science classes. So, an acquintance of my friend decided to write a letter to the Kansas School board. He even built a site for this purpose. I highly suggest you read the whole letter and everything he has linked. Its quite simply amazing. and totally funny. I hope it passes

[SPOILER] - All I know is that I fear and love the Flying Spaghetti Monster, for he will reach out with Noodly Appendage and bless me or even destroy me. Let the mountains be mountains, the trees be trees, and the midgets be midgets.

Chickens in the News...Simply amazing

2005-06-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

Simply amazing... remember that story about the chickens earlier - The barracks that went up in smoke in Washington State?.... Well, it happened again - but this time in the New York Division..... Must be moving their chemical plants there -- more weapons testing I presume.
from:
http://cbsnewyork.com/topstories/topstoriesny_story_180093257.html

17,000 Chickens Die In Fire

An Orange County Poultry Barn Caught On Fire Around Midnight Killing Several Thousand Chickens

Jun 29, 2005 10:17 am US/Eastern
NEW YORK (CBS) An Orange County poultry barn caught on fire around midnight killing 17,000 chickens. The fire took place at ACE Farm in Woodbury.

There were over 80,000 chickens in the area where the fire started and 150,000 chickens total on the premises.

The major problem firefighters faced in putting out the fire was that there was no hydrant area to draw from, so they had to bring their own water source.

Farm owner, Tyler Etzel, was set to retire soon. "For me, I'm getting out anyway," said Etzel, "but for my nephew and my son it's going to be a disaster. I mean all of the records were in here."

This isn't the first time that the barn has caught on fire. The same building was destroyed in 1937 and had to be rebuilt. It appears that they may have to rebuild the barn in this case as well.

(© MMV, CBS Broadcasting Inc., All Rights Reserved.)

Redemption at last.....

2005-06-29T23:06:00.000-07:00

"Old pirates, yes, they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I
From the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation
Triumphantly. "
-Joe Strummer & the Mescaleros

After 5 hours of meditation, one shamanic journey, 2 loads of laundrey and 168 dollars later, I finally have undone the horrors that I created in the past weekend. Although that Navajo curse still hangs closely over my head. That will never go away.

Yes, things are looking up. I just got note from my scuba instructor - I AM DIVING THIS WEEKEND!!!! FINALLY! I will post pics of that after it happens.

I just watched "Batman Begins" I dont want to give out any spoilers - but I was laughing all the way. All due to a website I remembered from a long long time ago. You can see that site here: (http://www.realultimatepower.net/ninja/scripts.htm) I highly suggest reading the movie scripts.

Strange thing happens as I was walking back from the movie theater.. Suddenly my friend Frank and I were swarmed by 7 cats.... 7 - can you imagine... well only if you are that crazy cat lady that lives down the street. It was quite frightening.

I will close on that note.

Chickens in the News - Way to train our boys for combat.....

2005-06-29T23:05:00.000-07:00

Yes... the folks in brussels know.. they are getting ready for the revolution...

Tue Jun 28,10:43 AM ET

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - Belgium plans to stop Boy Scouts from slaughtering chickens and other small animals at summer camp, despite Scout leaders' defense of the practice as a lesson in wilderness survival.

The Health Ministry said in a statement issued Monday that one Scout group had refused to stop teaching its lads how to carry out the bloody task even after complaints from parents.

"These kids have to be taught how to kill an animal in order to feed themselves," the ministry quoted one of the group's respresentatives as saying.

However, the ministry took the view that the Scouts learned nothing from using animals in this way.

Weekend summary

2005-06-28T23:04:00.000-07:00

Okay guys. Sorry for that last depressing fairy tale. I will now proceed to tell of my ventures this weekend.

So as I mentioned before about that guy.... That night, I walk down to the Gas station to see if anyone has heard anything about it. Apparently That dude was stabbed. Once across the arm, another across the legs, and then a severe thrashing across the face and also beatin. I guess the guy who did it, was arrested, While the guy at my feet eventually went to hospital. That clears that story up.

So... I head down to friends house and kick, back - then get called by some women and they want me to bowl with them. So I head to the bowling alley - meet up with them. Apparently they all have dates - and they just wanted me there for their entertainment. So I dash myself to the bar and end up talking to a parapalegic for 3 hours. I still dont have a clue to what he was talking about. Then around 3 in morning - Head off to chinese food.

Next day. Friend freaking drags... I mean literally drags me out of the house to attend this "Baby Shower"..... just great..... We were pretty much the only 2 guys there. except the husband and a gay guy. dammit. But the woman who was hosting the party had me come for a reason. She had the "Penis Painting" she wanted to give to me. Now folks, I cannot recall any conversation about this "Penis Painting" but she was really into giving it to me. So here I am walking down a boat dock (The party was located on a houseboat) with this oil painting of a man with this flacid penis. what the hell did I do to deserve this.

Sunday... Chinese Buffet, I paint the deck, and head to bar for friends bday. Very tame day today.

Thats it.

good bye.

Small little fairy tale.

2005-06-27T23:04:00.000-07:00

Some time ago, in a land not too far away from here there once lived this Lizard. Now this lizard just kept his own business and just wanted to have fun.
Mr. Lizard would sometimes hang out at the watering hole. Now, the watering hole was a place for all the cute little bunnies to meet. Now since Mr. Lizard was not a bunny - Lizard got a thrashing.... from.... every.... single.... bunny. So in a frenzy Mr. Lizard turns to the local fish in the pond asking to confide. Mr. Fish gladly accepts and offers him his special water. Well.. after a few glasses of special water, Mr. Lizard ends up in a state of dimensia, gets in his magic car and swerves and breaks things unintentionally. Well, the next morning Mr. Lizard has a huge guilt complex. Was it the water? or was it his mind that was bothering him. So for the next few days.... Mr. Lizard hangs low and hides away under his branch.

Morals of the story: Lizards and Bunnies dont mix. Dont take advice from a talking fish. whatever you do... dont get in a magic car while hopped up on that water. and the Lizard will be alone for the rest of his dying days.

The End.

Premature weekend update -- things are already starting crazy....

2005-06-24T23:03:00.000-07:00

What the hell is the deal!!!
This week just seems to get stranger and stranger.

Heres the skinny. (Well maybe the Fatty)
So, I wake up this morning looking forward to a GREAT Friday! I do the usual, smoke my morning cigarette, take shower, get dressed leave the house.

So I make it down to the bus stop. Just standing there minding my own. When all of a sudden I notice this helicopter hovering over me. It eases in from the distance, and stops right above me. Hmmm.. I think to myself. Interesting. Then all of sudden, 2 police cars pass by, slowing down, turning on lights make a U-turn to my side of the street. and slowly pass by. Eyeing me. I actually made eye contact with both cops driving. So anyhow as soon as they pass me, they turn down the road adjacent to me. There is guy walking down the street - the police step on the accelerator and cut the guy walking off - in the 'V' formation. So, I decide to turn around and mind my own business - staring at the clock across the street - 6:46am. Then, curiously I turn around and spy the 2 police cars taking off. Strange thing.... the guy that was walking completely disappears. No, Not in either police car... and no, not anywhere on the road. Hmm.... I wonder to myself. Oh well... I think to myself.

So...after waiting another 30 seconds or so. At least 5 more police cars pass by. Now things are appearing fairly strange. Helicopter still in air.

This is when things get scary. I hear the gravel crunching behind me. I hear some mumbled words towards me - So I turn around. Completely different guy. Looks crazy and homeless. I had to squint to get a good look at him as he was walking up to me. Something about using a cell phone or something. As he came forward, I noticed that his jaw was dislodged from his skull, with a huge tumor like piece of flesh hanging from his jaw line. There was blood pouring down out of 3 gashes in his skull, not to mention all the blood coming out of his mouth.
    "Do you have a cell phone, I need medical attention?"
    "Sorry sir, I dont carry one - Oh my god, what the hell happened to you?"
    "Aahahhahahrrg, It hurts so bad - arrrrrrg"
At this point, the man collapses at my feet screaming. I am looking all over the place for some help. So I tell him just to lie there and keep calm. For I see my bus coming down the road - and I will notify the bus driver to call the police or ambulance or whatever....

So while he is writhing on the ground in pain and screaming Im getting antsy. Bus slows down, bus door opens - I ask my bus driver to call in an ambulance. Bus driver points out his windshield - I turn my head - 3 police cars come speeding in, jumping the curb (almost on collision with my bus) - then police jump out and.... I walk in the bus. Oblivious. Forget to pay my bus fair. As I walk down the bus - hear idle conversation -
    "He's just tired.", then giggling.
I look out the window and notice Police finally helping man.

Strange.

Oh yeah, bus takes off.... about a block down, there are 4 more police cars along with an ambulance blocking off a road underneath the Magnolia bridge. I just wonder to myself at this point.....wonder about what? I dont know....

Headphones and MP3 player turn on.

Now.. I am sitting at home drinking my bottle of wine. Waiting for the craziness to begin..... supposedly 3 parties to hit sometime this weekend.

I will keep you posted folks....

weird ass day.

Blog... blog blog blog blogblogblog......blog

2005-06-23T23:02:00.000-07:00

Well... the blue tailed pygmies are swirling again. They look exactly like the gurrumpfopotumus when he is in a tizzy.

Damn the media. Damn the Flogging Choracos.

I was on t.v. today. Some freakin newscaster pulled me aside and wondered how I felt if the world where going to end today. First asking me - "What is the worst disaster that can happen in Seattle" -
    I said "Thermo-nuclear war".
    He then asked if I was prepared for a situation like that.
    I told him "HELL YEAH!"
    He then proceeded to ask me what kind of survival kit I own in case of this disaster.
    I told him flat out "A lawn chair, and 2 bottles of Cuervo" - Thats all ya need when there is no where to run.

Babbling news people. pfft.

thats all I want to say today.

Blog Duty Neglect... Time to catch up.

2005-06-20T23:01:00.000-07:00

Hoo boy... where to begin.. I havent paid my blog any attention so this might be a long one.

Where do I start.

So, I think last week was fairly bland... Pretty much I was unconscious for quite a bit. Dont know why. Must be coming down with something.

Thursday
So my friend took me out to dinner. We had some Fondue. Very Nice. Had a little way too much to drink as well. Damn they made some stiff martinis. Also I think I ate wayyyy too much. Since my friend was a vegetarian - she had me eat all the meat portions. So it was a full Dinner with lobster, 2 types of steak, shrimp, salmon and all other sorts of goodies.

So we started off with the Cheese fondue and I had a Roast Duck Salad. Then came the Meat Fondue - along with a bottle of wine. Then desert - we ate the oh so delicious Milk chocolate fondue. Yup - I am officially Fondued out.

Friday
Decide to have a business after drink with my co-workers. Found a really really cool new bar downtown. It sits on the 5th floor of a skyscraper - the terrace had a great view of the Puget sound. not to mention the 3.99 long islands. Drank way too much there. Then ended up with some friends of a friend and took them to the NiteLight - The place where that movie "Dog Fight" was filmed. Crazy thing... Ran into the very first bouncer that bounced me out almost 10 years ago. He was rad. Then ran into some old friends from the old bar.. and yet commenced drinking more. Caught a cab home and then passed out.

Saturday
Was suppose to meet my friends at the Summer Solstice Festival - But I had to take my car to emissions - then just felt really really tired. never made it.

Sunday
Comotose on couch......still - thought I came down with mono at one point. But the only thing I've been kissing now a days is my hand.

Monday
Work was interesting. Now feeling quite rested.
Strangest thing happens. So... I can barely remember Friday night.. right... and I was wearing my suit from work... Since my dry cleaner didnt have my shirts ready this week.. I had to wear the same shirt from Friday... When I get to work.. Turns out there is lip stick smudged all over my shoulder and collar. Damn.. that was the first time that ever happened to me....hmm.. If Only I can remember these nights.

Another strange thing happens today...
So I was eating down at Westlake center, when a horde of FBI agents came screaming by in their under cover cars... BMW, Yukons, Paddy Wagons and the Mobile Police HQ bus. I guess there was a guy down the street at the courthouse waving a grenade around. So they shot him dead. pretty interesting. Here is the story.
Now... Im just settling in, trying to get back on track again.. Ran my 4 miles at Myrtle Edwards park. Now drinking my glass of wine. You know... cholesterol reasons.

Thats it for now... or until something better comes along.

Chickens in the news....

2005-06-19T23:00:00.000-07:00

Yet another article posted...
http://www.bangladesh-web.com/news/view.php?hidDate=2005-06-19&hidType=LOC&hidRecord=0000000000000000049055

Two with dead chicken held by RAB

Saturday June 18 2005 09:23:42 AM BDT

Rapid Action Battalion (RAB) in a raid at the city’s Kaptan Bazar held two men along with 26 dead chicken yesterday.

The arrested, identified as Swapan Kazi and Selim, confessed that they have been supplying dead chickens to different hotels in the city for a long time.

The elite force conducted the raid on a tip off that a section of dishonest traders was selling dead chickens at cheap prices to the hotels and restaurants in the city.

Legal measures have been taken in this connection.

The Independent / UNB, DHAKA

Sorry you guys got nabbed... You were brave men fighting against the chicken mafia. We need more Freedom fighters like you. You will be missed.

In Other news....
Thats just great... The Chicken Mafia just succeeded in the creation of Rooster Type-B.
http://townsvillebulletin.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,7034,15649132%255E14787,00.html

Chickens in the news (06/13/2005)

2005-06-13T23:00:00.000-07:00

Just found out some more information about the Chicken Mafia. Here is a news article posted in the Seattle Times (Discussion following):

Thousands of chickens die in fire
The Associated Press

YELM - About 17,000 chickens were killed in a weekend fire that leveled a barn at a poultry farm here.

The blaze started at about 4 p.m. Saturday in a barn at Draper Valley Farms, said Chief Rita Hutcheson of the Southeast Thurston County fire district.

The barn was about the size of a football field, and the fire started in the middle, making it nearly impossible to stop, Hutcheson said. The wooden barn had a sawdust floor and was heated with propane, Hutcheson said.

Firefighters were able to save four surrounding barns, about 30 feet apart.

Firefighters from Rainier, Lacey, Tenino, McLane and East Olympia were called in to fight the blaze, she said.

The cause of the fire remained under investigation.

So... To me... this is a basic cover up of the Chicken Mafia. First of all... I will just say the plain truth, and then will explain.

This fire was caused by the Chicken Mafia while performing Biological and Neutron testing of one of their newest secret weapons. Something went terribly bad and they accidently destroyed the 179th Brigand's base of the Chicken Elite. Good job fellas. Makin my job of the revolution a lot easier for me.

Crazy? Crazy you ask yourself? I kid you not. Now people have known that I have been revealing to the public the mastermind evilness of the Chicken Mafia for the past 13 Years - when I originally encountered them in Flagstaff Arizona.

This so called "Barn" that happens to be the size of a football field just goes up in flames... still under investigation. Now, if you ever saw the pictures of the barn, which I have.... This was no typical barn. It was more of a military compound made with steel enforced cinder blocks that would be able to sustain a one ton bomb. I have heard the 179th Brigand was in that area, but was unsure. Yes.. The chickens had to cover their tracks... by just throwing the people off saying "heated by propane" Now... They say that was the cause of the problem... just noting it to throw people off. When in reality it is still "under investigation" . Who is taking these investigation is still unknown. Most likely the Chicken Run CIA.

This is all I can relay to you folks at this time... For I am fear of my life right now. If I reveal anymore...pretty sure this blog will go away and I cannot broadcast my findings anymore.

So...ahem.... LONG LIVE THE CHICKENS!

Women, Herbs, Art and Wine Weekend.

2005-06-12T22:59:00.000-07:00

So... another fun weekend. I am proud of myself. I limited my drinkintake.

Friday
So.. after work I was suppose to go with a friend to a fondue restaruant.But, before we headed out, other friends called up and wanted to meetfor happy hour drink. Cool. So we make the reservations for 9:15pm and set out for a bar in the Freemont District. Meet up with 3 more women... I'm the only guy now there. Getting weird looks from all the other men at the bar.To the right is a picture of us. Had a wonderful time drinking. 9:15 rolls byand we decide to push reservations to 10:15. Deep conversation now. 10:15 comesand goes. Screw it, we will plan another day. So around midnight, get a phonecall from another friend. I am to meet them at a bar in Ballard. So I say my goodbyes and head to Ballard. No one shows up. I end up getting into a live show where there is this cute girl playing fiddle on the bar. Hit the nextbar and head home. Very very fun night.

Saturday
I plan on heading to the Ballard Art Walk. But before this, my buddy and I Hit the computer stores... You know guys stuff. Then he relates to me thata friend of ours has her birthday. We are to meet at a bar @5:30. Cool. So after the shopping is done, I head to this asian bar/apothocary namedFuk Un Woo. Very cool place. They serve drinks with Yohimbemashed into the drink. It is suppose to be some crazy aphrodisiac, and islabele a small hallucinagen. After only one of these, it was a great experience.After this I decide to grab a Oolong tea infused Vodka martini. I think I Found myself a new drink. It was damn good.

Mohito with Yohimbe

Oolong tea infused Vodka Martini

So, now kinda typsy. I head off to Ballard artwalk. First stop - a spa that was showingsome artwork. I head in grab 2 glasses of wine and look at the art. While looking around,found out that they are giving free massages and all sorts of aroma therapy stuff. I decide to get a massage. In the process of waiting, I run into one of the Art Gallery owners I know. Now, I have been slowly making my back into the Art world again. I haventdone the art scene in almost 11 years now, but I have slowly getting back. It was kindof a booster for me this round. When you have a gallery owner hold you and say, "You better not be showing at another gallery. I want you at ours again." That just made myday. After I told him that I'm in the middle of a new series we start talking about myGermany Expedition I took in January to get inspired. Talking of the time when I wassitting in a room above a 17th century tavern drinking numerous bottles of absinthe, whilethe church bells rang at 6am and I was contemplating the Marc Chagalls that were lyingbefore me. After this, the gallery owner and I made a pact - the next time I get another bottle, we will drink.

Moving forward... I head to a printing press gallery/studio. Inquire about prices there. Ithink I will be taking printing classes again. It should be fun. My friends finally catchup with me and we head to the Sloop Tavern for 32oz beers. The night is getting a little fuzzy but fun. After those, we head to an irish pub and end the night with Vodka and tequilashots.

Sunday
Whats with all the freaking birthdays.... Brothers birthday today. Drinking more at his house.That leads me up to here. I need sleep to be bright and fresh for work tomorrow.

I might of left some parts out... but If I remember anything I will probably post them. Sleepy time.

Since its slow 'round here - My thoughts....

2005-06-08T22:58:00.000-07:00

I haven't posted in a day or so because nothing interesting has really happened.
So I decided to just write about some thoughts I have been having.

1. Did you ever notice that after 2 days from your hangover, when you are lying in bed - its the most comfortable feeling - EVER! I know when I'm in bed and the headache, stomach and muscle pains are gone - I love to just swish my feet in the blankets. swish. swish swish. Its the softest thing I have ever felt. Also, the body temperature is just perfect! Its usually the best feeling I ever have.

2. I was watching a documentary about the life of Shane MacGowan. And the only thing I can think of is... boy, am I sure glad I have teeth. That man is more funnier than Ozzy. Hell, he is the Ozzy of Ireland. But still drunk. I especially love his laugh. You know - it takes years of drinking and fighting to get that kind of laugh.

3. Was especially broke yesterday, and I was hungry. Had nothing in the fridge except a few scraps. So I concocted a new recipe. I will call it "Its Food"
    Here is the recipe:
        1lb of ground meat
        half jar of minced garlic
        Soy Sauce
        Oyster Sauce
        Rice
    Directions:
        Cook the rice. Mix the rest up and cook it. After rice is done and meat
       is browned - put meat on rice. Voila.... and there ya go... Its food.

4. Stupid. Stupid. Stupid. That was just a random thought I had.

5. Damn Linksys. My wireless router just died on me. The power doesnt work anymore on it. Do you ever not trust you power outlet? I sure didnt. Thats why I spent half a day looking around my house for other outlets to see if my router would work - it didn't.

6. Interesting study that I just performed. Did you know that when you compare 2 things that are similar - a person always chooses the 2nd? incredible.

7. Been thinking about the Chicken Mafia again. I mean thinking about them A LOT lately. I just read an article about how the English are under complete control by them. Silly rabbits. Chix are for kids.

8. Words that I have been hearing a lot lately.
        "Ginormous" - love that word. love it. love it love it. It just sings!
        "Snarky" - Now what the hell is that s'pose to mean?! I mean really. It
                      sounds like that freakin annoying pet cat on Thundercats
                      cartoon. If you guys dont remember that. It was an 80's
                      cartoon with this little piece of shit cat that would always
                      scream "SNARF". In fact I think his name was Snarf.
                      Pompous little rodent - and annoying too. Did I mention that?

9. Ooooooh.   I forgot. Read a great article about Midget Bull fighters in Mexico. That is a definate must to see in a life time. If you think Im kidding... Check out yahoo news and do a search for Midget Toreros. sweet. Midgets hitting bulls on the head with plastic honking hammers tends to make me giggle a little. I will leave it on that thought.

Well, thats enough rambling for now. Must get some sleep.

De-groooovy.

Another pseudo odd day...

2005-06-06T22:57:00.000-07:00

Today started pretty good. I played around with a new java search engine. I have been installing 17 engines in the last 6 months - trying to find the best one. The one I want - they charge 300 bucks for licensing. But there could be a way around that.

Went to lunch - and lo' and behold... I get caught up in Vice Presidents Dick "Head" Cheney's entourage. Man. He had a full army of police around him. I was like 10 ft away from his car when he passed. Personally.... when I saw him in the car he was leaning to the left - as if he was passing some extreme gas. But that could be just me. I should of looked up - wanted to see if I could spot any snipers. That would of been hella cool.

This is now my 2nd Vice President that I have seen in this town. I just cant seem to shake them.

After a nice time at work, I decided to go jogging at Green Lake this round. I will never do that again. Place is congested by slow people and the run was only 2.8 miles. Ran it in 27 minutes. I think I will resort back to Myrtle Edwards, since I am in it for the endurance.

Other than that... nothing too exciting. Now its time to clean house from my weekend exploits.

Ciao for now kids!

Weekend Shenanigans...

2005-06-05T22:57:00.000-07:00

So.. Here is a little update of what went down this weekend.

Friday:
Pretty much passed out from the week of work.

Saturday:
Wake up @ 9am. Drink 2 beers, then crack a bottle of wine. Finish the bottle of wine, go to store and pick up 6 pack of beer. My Norweigan neighbor comes over, and we drink some of his boxed wine. We then decide to play 9 holes of golf. You can tell at this point I am a little inebriated. We proceed to play golf.
Contents in Golf bag:
8 beers, 2 balls, full set of clubs

After eight beers and 14 missing balls that ended up in the train yard somewhere, We meet this old codger and drink more with him...

Time: 4:30pm
I have to make a party at 4pm. So... neighbor and I race to the store, buy a 12 pack of beer, and we part ways. I am off to barbecue.

12 pack gone. 3 cases of beer gone, bottle of gin gone. I get a left hook from some girl at the party... what the hell was that about. Lucky for me I got easy brunt of that stick.. My friend had his head bashed constantly into the wall by the same woman.

Later, very drunk - I hear there is a wet t-shirt contest down the road. I walk down and enjoy the festivities... Then head back to barbecue party. Things get a little fuzzy around this point.

...wake up on my couch somehow at 5am.

Sunday:
Chinese Buffet and a shit load of scars and scratches (how in the hell did this happen?)

Well... that was my weekend. Time to start all over again.

Seattle Artwalk and such......

2005-06-02T22:56:00.000-07:00

Whew, today was pretty painful at work. 9am - 4pm worth of meetings, training, and focus groups. Almost killed me. Cant remember exactly what I did there.

On the brighter side, I took a nice bike ride after work and headed downtown to Pioneer Square, then to Sodo District for the Seattle Art Walk. So... My faithful bike Pepe (picture included) Notice the bike helmet and smokes. tee hee! Also took some random shots while I was down there... There is a shot of Pioneer square, underground tunnel I ventured into, the Occidental square where I kicked back and watched all the cute little artist girlies, and Myrtle Edwards Park - the place where I run and it was on my way home.
Enjoy!

Pepe, my faithful bike
Pioneer Square	Underground Art Gallery
Occidental Park	Myrtle Edwards Park

Flash Images of Seattle today

2005-05-31T22:53:00.000-07:00

Things I saw today which either struck me as odd or made me laugh outloud.

Homeless man on a bike doing a "Shooter McGavin" and "In the Hole" hand gestures towards a restaurant window. While no one in the restaurant was paying any attention to him.
Every time a pretty girl would walk by, my bus driver would honk, stick his head out the window and yell out cat calls to them.
Gigantic statue of Buddha being carted around in the back of a small Toyota Pickup.
A fairly large black man on the corner donning a Valkyrie wig screaming out, "WOO!... YEAH!... WOO!... YEAH!...." over and over and over again.
Very vivid and emotional clouds today

The above list were the things I saw today. Quite amusing. Damn I love homeless people.. They always cheer me up in some way or another.

Well.. Work was good. I had to interview a new employee today. That was fun, being its my first time interviewing somebody. I feel kinda bad, I think the test I gave him was too hard. Other than that... Things are still going well. Just picked up another project. Should be fun.

After work, I ran 4 miles. The usual, which was the top of Myrtle Edwards park all the way to Pier 65.(Good 10 minute mile) Running along the beach always feels pretty good. Especially the sky today. The clouds were very amazing. Cant explain them.

Then I got a mail from my Dive master. He told me he would be in the shop today. So I raced down to Safeway to grab a bottle of wine (I owe him a bottle from the last dive) and went to the dive shop. Low and behold he was not there... I think he meant yesterday. Oh well. I will catch him tomorrow. We are planning a dive for the 18th and 19th. Cross your fingers!

Well its time for bed time now. I have 3 usability tests to run tomorrow and need all the sleep I can get.

So what is this blog stuff anyhow?

2005-05-31T22:51:00.000-07:00

Alrighty.... First time ever blogging. Well.. except for that time when the Chicken Mafia was after me and I had to leave a breadcrumb for the revolutionaries to find me.

Lets see.... What I did today..... Work was pleasant. I ran 2 Usability tests today at work on some new prototype software. That went over well. Fixed a few bugs for the system. It poured all day. So I decided to do a little bike ride for some fun and excercise. Basically rode from Queen Anne to Ballard to Freemont District. Then smoked around halfway. Contemplated about finishing up any of my 4 paintings staring at me... then decided against it. That purple Giraffe just would not stop nagging. Grrr.

Barbecued a really tasty dinner tonight. It was chicken. (In your Beak you crazy Chicken Mafia!) Then sat down and watched Bullshit! Some rants about how college is bogus or something like that. Wasnt paying attention to the fact that the devil was looking in my window again today. Once again he gave me the same ol' story.. yada yada yada.