Holding down the fort. October 21, 2007

After dozens of pushed back dates, the trial officially began this last Monday. (For those in the dark about what trial, ask me personally, I think I could get in trouble talking about it too much before the verdict). Jessica’s parents have been going everyday this last week for the jury selection, which sounds like a HUGE hunk of bullshit, stewing in more liquid bullshit, in a cauldron, not surprisingly made of hardened bullshit. Jess and I have been taking care of the house, the dogs, and cooking meals every night for the family. We have really been honing our skills and cooking recipes from every cookbook we can get our hands on. Stews, pot pies, cakes, pastas, calzones, Mousakas, and MANY more. We are also training for the 10k city race coming up next Sunday by running every day (burning off those pot pie calories). My goal is to run the whole race without stopping once. So far we’ve been doing great, and the dogs are fun to bring along, though Remus is OLD and Kiwi a spazzoid! We’ve also been doing some gardening here and there making the yard look nice, and planting herbs and succulents.

Took a great trip down to Santa Cruz on Wednesday for Patrick’s 21st B-day where we met with all of our friends down there. We ate a great lunch at Sitar (great Indian food) with Jess, Jessie, Mike, Patrick, Jennie, and later Matt. Visited Conor at the old house on California St, then met up with Patrick and Jenny again to head down to our ol’ watering hole 99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall where Patrick finally drank legally for the first time! We met up with a bunch more friends, including JOE MULGREW our Kiwi friend from summer at Kennolyn, and Matt, Joe and I reminisced about the good ol’ days at camp. The night was great bar-hopping and Patrick got really sick, which I suppose you are supposed to do on your 21st or something. Next morning we met Jessie and Mike again at their place in Felton and ate at La Bruschetta’s; a great Italian place! Now we are back in Lafayette just holding down the fort.

This coming Wednesday jury selection comes to an end and the trial begins. We plan to attend like a full time job every day 9am-5pm for however long it takes (up to 2 1/2 weeks). It is not something we are looking forward to, but the WORST part is I could cause a miss-trial if I call those assholes on their heaping piles of bullshit (I know I’ll want to throw my shoes at this defense attorney, he’s already on my nerves and all I’ve heard are the stories). We aren’t allowed to show any emotion in court or we could get kicked out. (Jessie’s parents have told us some great stories of having to hold their tongues from laughing at some of these jurors trying to get out of duty!)  I will however bring a notebook to write everything down in so I’ll have a a play by play of the mess when it’s all over. Anyway I just hope it all goes well and this guy won’t be able to hurt anyone else’s lives after this.

In the off time we’ve been reading a lot and pulling everything together for our up coming trip, although it’s difficult without set dates of when this trial will officially end (up to 8 weeks after jurors make their verdict until the judge decides jail time).   After the verdict we plan to visit friends and family more north in Seattle, Oregon, Washington, etc. Then I’ll come down to Newport for Thanksgiving, and hopefully depart for Oceania by Dec. Until then we’re just getting by doing what we’re doing.

DMB, Disneyland, La Brea, San Diego and more! October 21, 2007

Dave Matthews Band concert at Shoreline Amphitheater on Saturday, September 29, 2007. We all met up at the house for some pizza making and beer drinking to get the evening started….the drunken shrimp pizza was my favorite (tequila soaked shrimp, mmm), but they were all amazing! Then off to the concert, but managed to miss the opening bands but made it just in time for the main event, we also had the amazing luck of sitting next to an old lady who made a big fuss because we were smoking next to her; thats what the ‘family zone’ is for granny! (Dave’s edit: She’s referring to Marijuana; cigarettes are just gross!) We were caught a bit off guard by this, but we did not let her ruin our good time! DMB played almost a two hour set with a three song encore… amazing as their concerts always are…before heading home we stopped at Nations for a late night snack (Dave’s edit: Nations; on par if not better than In-N-Out), but came upon a whole mess of cops and a broken door to the restaurant….but we still got our food, it was definitely questionable for a few minutes though…close call! All in all it was an amazing night and so glad we could all get together for one more DMB concert.

On the 2nd of October Dave and I booked a last minute plane ticket for Long Beach with good old Jet Blue on the 3rd. We hung out in Newport Beach for a couple of days visiting family and friends and then headed down to San Diego for the weekend. Friday night we went ‘clubbing’ in downtown with Katy and her roommates, to “On Broadway”, got in for free being the V.I.P.’s that we are, saw some go go dancers with “But her” faces and what appeared to be a manically depressed DJ playing bad techno…the 80’s room was the best, as they always are. Stayed the night with Katy, the best host ever, and went to breakfast at a place in Pacific Beach called…something….a number…. it was quite tasty whatever it was called. We then made our way back up to Rancho Santa Fe for Kristen’s going away party. She’s moving from San Diego all the way to Orange County! The food was great and the an open bar made for quite the lovely evening and a cool jazz band with an awesome sax player named Ernie… We then headed back up to Newport and went to L.A. for half a day and explored the La Brea Tar pits, where we saw some crazy skeletons of giant land sloths and saber tooth tigers! We had some tapas and sangria with Nick and Jen at Cha Cha Cha and a tasty ice cream sandwich at Didi Riese in Westwood, mmmmm.

We woke up bright and early the next morning for Disneyland, the happiest place on earth! For a Tuesday in September it was very busy, but we managed to survive but weren’t able to get on the famed Finding Nemo ride because it was swamped with kids- 2 hour wait time! We did manage to ride Space Mountain three times and see ASIMO, the robot Honda designed, that can walk up and down stairs, run 4mph (top that Christina!) and play soccer! I never did see Mickey, we went through his house, but the line to see would have taken an hour easily, probably closer to 2, so I decided I would rather ride Space Mountain again, totally worth it… The last thing we did on our way out of the park was the Jungle Cruise (they added vicious piranhas) and the Tiki Room, because they are classic and amazingly cheesy, the essence of Disneyland really.

For even MORE pictures of these groundbreaking events, go to:

http://ucsc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2104761&l=dfb99&id=6700706

Yosemite. October 1, 2007

This last week was spent in Yosemite National Park. We drove up Monday in Jessie’s car with me Jess and Christina. The trip was easy. We got to our campsite right in the heart of Yosemite Valley called upper pines. We set up our tent and cooked a great chicken apple sausage and leftover red cabbage. Went to sleep early to wake up the next morning and conquer HALF DOME!!!

Tuesday we got up at 5am and made quick sausage and eggs, then began our LONG trek up to half dome; you know what they say: “a journey of 8.6 miles up a giant mountain begins with a single step!” The way up was beautiful and fun and got to see two extremely beautiful waterfalls; Vernal and Nevada

Most of the way is really rocky, and legs quickly get sore climbing up huge carved steps. The absolute hardest part didn’t come until the end. The switchbacks were insane, and once they were done we had to climb the 50 degree angle back face of the dome. Worst was it was all walking on rock polished by glacier, nearly no footing; we had to hold onto steel cables going up. Thank Jesse for bringing gloves for us!!!

The top was, needless to say, gorgeous! We quickly ate our lunch packed the night before and took a nap which lasted a lot longer than it should have. Once awake we spent time exploring what felt like the moon. Christina and I made an awesome rock cathedral for people to enjoy as they reached the top. We scooted on our stomachs right up to the cliffs edge, then pretty quickly thereafter scooted back out of fear and slight vertigo!

Coming down was tricky at first on the cables again and the switchbacks…and then the legs started to hurt. Ankles, thighs, knees, feet, you name it we were getting sore…and only 8 more miles to the bottom!!! About halfway down I just didn’t think we could make it, but kept on trekking, until in the last 3 miles the sun started setting and we still had tons of treacherous terrain to descend. We didn’t think it would come to this, though me must have lost track of time, good thing we brought headlamps. The last mile was grueling and our legs felt like jelly, shaking and hurting more than I have ever felt, but we made it in one (or three) piece(s)!

Back at the camp site as we sat and prepared a simple canned soup dinner on the camping stove our next doors neighbors in the RV were BBQing outside when a black bear came just a couple feet from where they sat. They shooed it away and it took off, but their dog wasn’t on a leash and ran after the bear. The owner yelled and yelled for the dog to come back, but it chased right after the bear. He managed to get his dog back without it’s head getting sliced off by bear claws, but it was a close call! After seeing that incident; all my fear of bears melted away, and I started to view them more like big giant squirrels that COULD rip your face off if they wanted too. (I talked to a park ranger a few days later and he said that there has not even been ONE fatality from a black bear attacking California; I love back bears)!

Wednesday Christina had to leave for Berkeley because of work. We got her to the bus via car because none of us could walk if our lives depended on it! (To be fair Christina was in better shape than both of us so she wasn’t TOO bad off). We spent the rest of the day just hanging out around Yosemite village, seeing what was to be seen, and with each painful step we took we un-stiffened our legs just a little bit more. That night we drove 30min to a hiking spot that goes to Sentinel dome. That was an easy, flat hike of a measly mile, ha ha ha! (It still hurt like hell, but by this time I had a nice trusty walking stick I had procured from the Hal Dome hike). From this vantage point all of Yosemite valley could be seen, as well as half dome, and we got some stunning photos with Jessie’s new camera! We met a really cool group of school teachers who gave us some free food and we stayed until the sun set and the glorious full moon rose!

Thursday was more hiking through the woods and through Yosemite village. We started off the morning however eating at the Awahnee lodge; some very ritzy lodge which was not worth the large bill, but it was good food. We cooked some better food on our dinky camp stove, namely because Jess packed way more good food than we needed.  We hiked a path through Mirror lake, which is at this time of year more like Mirror sand pit, but it was still beautiful, serene, and relaxing. Back at the campsite we met our two new Israeli neighbors whom we played a card game with and shared some beers. They were really nice and we may meet up with them this next week as they continue their trip to SF. Dinner that night was Hobo stew (foil stew at Kennolyn). I don’t think I made it as well as at Kennolyn during the outpost nights, just because it didn’t cook the same on the stove. Normally it is done by wrapping the ingredients (celery, carrot, potato, onion, tomato sauce, garlic, tobasco, salt and pepper) tightly inside tin foil and putting it deep in the fire for some time. Nevertheless it was still tasty, and an overall great evening.

Finally Friday rolled on top of us, and we packed up all our gear and new trusty walking sticks into the car.  We drove about an hour out to Miraposa grove which houses some absolutely GIANT sequoias! We took tons of great pictures and saw some of the most amazing trees I have ever laid eyes on. these things have a larger volume than any other living being! The grove was also untouched by loggers because sequoias fragment when they fall and aren’t efficient to use as wood! They really are a perfect tree. The bright red is Tinnin which the tree produces to make it pest, and fire resistant. I was very impressed by all the science info on these behemoths.

The trip home was again easy and now we are back in Lafayette.

For more pictures go to: http://ucsc.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2102176&l=48036&id=6700706

Dave.