Alex

Does anyone use this anymore?

2009-11-03T03:55:26Z

I don't know!

Hmm, I haven't updated in a long time, but here goes.

Yep, ran out of steam, cya LJ!

Burning Man

2009-09-18T05:42:19Z

Burning Man was great. I will post more when the pics come out. Just had to note that to myself before I forget.

Perhaps I will update this...

2009-08-23T05:30:52Z

Some other time

Update

2009-05-30T18:44:38Z

Okay, so I figured if I don't write something now, I will probably never write anything, and I did promise to try really hard to update my LJ more often.

So last Friday, I went and saw Nine Inch Nails and Jane's Addiction at Shoreline. Nine Inch Nails is a band that I used to like a long time ago, still do now, and that I've always wanted to see live at least once. Just before this tour Trent Reznor announced that this would be the last tour/album from NIN for awhile, so I figured now might be the last chance to do just that. Anyways, NIN was pretty great, they played a lot of songs that I didn't know as well as some that I didn't. I'm kind of sad that I missed the light show from the last tour, which was the best thing ever as I heard it. Jane's Addiction was cool, I didn't really know what to expect, but their singer was just as weird as you would think. Also, I think he was either incredibly high or drunk, because he kept greeting us as "San Francisco" and was talking about Bill Graham. I think he thought he was in the Bill Graham Civic Center.

Umm, and then I worked a lot for the rest of the week. So now I guess I'm all caught up on LJ!

Oh yeah, I also installed a bunch of lights in my room, which is nice, I think it's starting to become somewhat livable now. I'm excited.

ielenchi @ 2009-05-20T00:24:00

2009-05-20T07:23:23Z

I think it might be fun to run in the Bay to Breakers next year. Just a thought. For some reason I can't wait for the weekend. I really like my new toothbrush. Umm, yeah, that's all I thought about today. But at least I'm blogging about it right??

Hello, this is me trying to update LJ on a more consistent basis

2009-05-18T05:29:32Z

More updates from Alex!

Actually, there really isn't a whole lot to write about. I just keep saying that I want to update livejournal more frequently so here I am...updating.

Currently I'm at my parents house. Doing laundry, eating steak, and waiting until 7:30 so that we can go to the theatre and to see Star Trek. I'm at my parents house about once a week, if not more. Part of the reason is that I want to do laundry without spending a handful or quarters and eat good homecooked food. I guess the other part is that I made up my mind a little while ago that I want to have a better relationship with my family.

For starters, I guess should say that I have never really had a bad relationship with my family. Strained sometimes, maybe a lot of the time, but never bad. I guess my parents have kind of resigned that I am sort of the black sheep of the family, and I am resigned to accepting that title, but I think all in all we try to make the best of it.

Anyways, I came to this conclusion for a number of reasons. I think one of the main ones is genuine curiosity. From what relatively little I know about my grandparents, they seemed to have accomplished so much in their lives and I don't want to miss out on finding out about what my parents have done. As an example, yesterday I found out that my mom apparently synthesized street drugs in a drug screening lab at one point. A kind of random but nonetheless interesting fact.

Another reason is that I've been doing a lot of thinking about what I kind of person I want to be when I grow up. I think that having a closer relationship with my family can only serve to help me in my relationship with others, especially if I ever decide to have a family of my own.

I guess there's also the idea that they won't always be around forever, and I don't want to look back an regret not spending any more time with them while I had the chance.

That's it for tonight Sorry if this wasn't very interesting and just another really long Alex post. I'll get better about that as I start to write more often.

To clarify on that last post

2009-05-14T08:42:39Z

The previous post is what has been stored as a half finished draft by livejournal for the last 2 months. At this point it's kind of moot to try and finish it, since things are different (for the better) right now , but I kind of felt that it was an important to post what I felt in that moment even if it is just a mish mash of thoughts and words.

I figured the very least I could do is give you an up to date post. I really should post more often. I need to go to bed soon so I'll also try and make it quick.

First off, I bought a new bed! This is completely awesome for a variety of reasons, but mostly because it is a queen sized by wedged into 10 x 12 room. I like it a lot, but I need to buy sheets and pillows for it. Oh yeah, I also painted my room, so instead of being a soul sucking blood red it is now a a light age textured peachy color. That's an improvement right?

Umm, last weekend I took 2 days off from work and drove down to LA to visit my friends. I wanted to see them all before they all graduated and moved far, far away and for the most part I think I got almost all of them. On the first night I took my friend Angela out to eat at Black Angus in Ventura. I was actually pretty surprised as I had never been there before. Ribeye steak with sweet potato fries is the greatest. I got into Westwood at about 10pm and I met up with my old roommate Rogelio and we went out for drinks at Brewco. When I got to the Casa de Bonitas, I finally gave out xmas gifts. Five months really isn't that late when you really think about it. All of this while I was drunk. Not really sure how that happened... Anyways, note to self: Girls love chocolate and wine.

Friday, relaxed and hung out on campus. Went to a pot luck at night and then we all went to Spring Sing '09! That was really fun. They moved the show into Pauley, which seems to hold a lot more people than the tennis center, and that seemed like a pretty good move. For the most part I think it was a lot better than last year (although last year was good), although I have to admit I was a little bit disappointed about some of the awards at the end. The Taiko drum groups never seem to win anything, and they're probably one of my favorite acts. I guess the thing is that Taiko might not fit a proper award category since it is Spring "Sing" and it might be a bit of a stretch.

Umm, I'm going to stop writing now since I've already spent 30 minutes writing this entry and it's getting late. If you're wondering, the reason why this is appearing in the middle of my post is because I decided to go to bed in the middle of editing this post. To wrap things up, I had a lot of fun and I already miss all of my friend down in LA. Hopefully I'll see them in June!

Saturday night Liz and I made Girl Scout thin mints from a recipe from topsecretrecipes.com. It worked out pretty well, and by the 3rd set of cookings I think we had some decent thin mint clones. Couple notes for next time. More butter in the chocolate mint coating to help liquify it, bake the cookies a little longer than 10 mins to make them more crisp, add a lot more peppermint oil than the recipe requires and keep the chocolate very hot while dipping. I'm not sure if I'll actually make them again since it was more of a fun project than anything, but we'll see. People seemed to like them so that's always encouraging. I think my next cooking project will either the chicken strips or fish and chips, or maybe both at the same time.

Sunday - Tracked down my friend Lynn and caught a late brunch. I guess technically a late brunch is really just a normal lunch. Whichever. I had a really good chicken panini sandwich, went grocery shopping in 3 different stores, and then hung out at her place. I'm glad that I got a chance to see her since I almost wasn't able to catch her.

Today at the monthly production meeting I got awarded Villager of the Month, which is kind of like an employee of the month deal. I got a Shamwow and a day of PDO.... And a really massive trophy. Excellent. Oh yeah, and it's almost for certain that I will be spending 11 days in December in Peru, visiting Machu Pichu among other places.

Hmm, what else. Oh yeah, kind of thinking about getting laser eye surgery. Not really sure though. I guess I can afford it but it's still expensive enough that i need to give it some thought.

ielenchi @ 2009-05-14T00:59:00

2009-05-14T07:58:30Z

Hmm, so I guess to follow up on my last post. My dad got laid off from his job the other week. He had been working as a electrical engineer at the same place since before I was born, for the last 35 years. I guess I'm not really sure what to think, a mixture worried and pissed about it.

I guess to give the back story a little bit. my dad was actually planning on retiring in September. He had been making those plans for awhile, even before the recession hit and as far as I know was still going to stick with that plan regardless. When he got laid off, he was given enough severance to basically offset that. His company doesn't give pensions, so I guess financially, I think he got the equivalent of 6 months vacation. Supposedly part of the Obama stimulus plan might pay for a portion of his health insurance, but that isn't really for sure yet. I guess if he wanted to, I think technically he can file for unemployment, although I'm not sure if he wants to do that.

I guess what bothers me the most is the whole principle of the thing. I know how I would feel if I that happened to me. I think that my dad probably wouldn't have minded working those 6 months and then retiring and getting his little plaque. I know that getitng laid off can mess with your head. My dad says that he's okay, but I don't really know for real. I hope that he's fine and happy with it, but I guess I don't really know my dad that well.

ielenchi @ 2009-03-15T11:42:00

2009-03-15T18:44:29Z

My dad called me yesterday to tell me that he got laid off from the company that he has worked at for 35 years last week.

LJ POST

2009-02-02T10:01:12Z

Hi Livejournal. Like always I've been meaning to post in you but never seem to have time. Tonight is not really an exception since it is 2 AM and I do have work tomorrow, but one of my goals for the weekend was to at least start writing in my blog again.

A few days ago I found out that I may have misplaced my labret piercing jewelry, having needed to swap it out for a retainer for work. I figured that this weekend I would head up sometime and buy a decent quality piece to make up for it. Didn't really have time for it on Saturday since that was the day that my family was celebrating Chinese New Year, and I didn't really have time for it on Sunday, what with the Super Bowl and all, but somehow I managed to fit it in. I convinced Chris to go too, and we decided to go to Staircase in Santa Cruz before we went to the big Super Bowl party.

It also helped that Saturday had gorgeous weather and I really wanted to get out of the apt. I also secretly wanted Chris to get his reverse PA again, but that was a secrety not so secret. Anyways, back to the story.

When we got there, Chris wanted to ask some tattoo questions because he was interested in getting his Capcom tattoo on the back of his neck. I think he figured that setting up an appointment could take weeks or months, but surprisingly they said they could do it right then. So yeah, the reverse PA plans turned into a tattoo, but I think it was a worthy trade. I won't really get into it since I'm sure Chris will post something.

So somewhere between Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning I managed to convince myself that I needed some more piercings. I had actually given them a lot of thought, but wasn't quite sure that I could pull them off. I'll give the short summary since I really need some sleep.

-Got to the store, asked if I could get the piercings, and told my piercing Katrina that I was thinking about eventually stretching them
-Trina said that I didn't have to waste time waiting to stretch a piercing, because she had some 8 gauge needles that could do it right then and there.
-Piercing was pretty straight forward. THe most painful part wasn't the initial entry penetration, but rather the exit puncture. I swear there was an audible pop even though there wasn't any cartilage in the area.
-Actually getting the jewelry in was a bit uncomfortable.
-I didn't actually get the jewelry I originally came for because it was such a simple piece
-I'm really happy with the way my new stuff turned out
-the end, goodnight.

Ok, I would write more but I really have to go to sleep now. Night livejournal!

ielenchi @ 2008-10-14T20:03:00

2008-10-15T04:13:03Z

So this weekend I woke up early Saturday morning to head down to Los Angeles. The plan was to try and surprise my friend Liz for her birthday, albeit two days late. I wasn't quite sure that would be happening however as my old roommate the night before had posted something to the effect of 'OH MY GOD HOW COME YOU DID'T TELL US THAT YOU WERE COMING TO LOS ANGELES' on my facebook wall. I was kind of sad that my original totally badass present to her didn't quite work out as planned, so I ended up getting her a cupcake book instead.

Some stuff happened in the hour or two between these two paragraphs, but this entry is getting way too long.

The venue that Automatic Drawing was playing at was the Viper Room. The Viper Room kind of surprised me because I had expected something a little bigger and fancier from what I had heard, but it turned out to be a small intimate venue not unlike the Pound in Hunter's Point. Advantage goes to the Viper Room since walking out the door takes you right to Sunset whereas walking out the door at the Pound could get you shot if you took a wrong turn.

Anyways, Automatic Drawing turned out to be really good. Liz's friend Drew had a really good stage presence and was able to touch the crowd pretty well. The rest of the band, while not quite as engaging, was eclectic enough I think to make things more interesting. As far as sound goes, I would say the vocals were akin to Death Cab/Postal Service with a hint of Irish Punkiness. See 'Captain and the Sea' if you want to hear what I'm talking about. The first couple songs I wasn't so sure about, but once they got into it things really took off. There were at least 3, maybe 4 songs that I could easily imagine hitting 105.3's regular playlist and at least for me that says a lot.

The next band on stage was United by Sound. I thought they put on a pretty kick ass live show, although I'm still not sold on them. Little bit of reggae/hip hop and some other improv music styles. The singer had a really smokey sexy voice, but yeah, I guess it's just too far away from what I normally listen to for me to have a solid opinion. Like I said though, great live show. I'd link their myspace but their live stuff has a completely different sound, so I'm not too sure what's up with that. Oh well, I guess it couldn't hurt. Oh yeah, I'm told that all the band members were total hotties, except for Eugene Levi.

Spent the night on the couch after watching Kiss Kiss Bang Bang. I was originally planning on leaving relatively early, like just after lunch or something, but that didn't really work out so well. It really didn't occur to me until I got to Los Angeles that the amount of time that I would be staying there was only slightly longer than the time it took to drive there and back. Anyways, I ended up making chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast for everyone. They didn't turn out half bad, considering I had never made pancakes before. I also decided to make some artichokes from a recipe that I found on the internet about a week earlier. I didn't really expect them to take about 3 hours to cook and prepare, but whatever. I think they turned out alright, although next time I think I'll be a lot more liberal with the chicken stock and the salt.

Hmm, what else.. Met Ashley's parents who were really cool and I got a chance to talk to her dad for a bit. Watched Yevi spontaneously zonk out on the couch on multiple occasions. Got lots of awesome Liz hugs. Got squished by a couple Alex hugs. Avoided paying 15-20 dollars for a dragon fruit thanks to Ellen. Hmm, then I went home!

The trip home was pretty uneventful except for that one epiphany and the enormous police escort guarding a mystery giant white cube strapped to a truck at 1 am in the morning, blocking the whole 4 lane road, and using signal changers to prevent people from getting within 50 yards.

In conclusion

2008-10-15T02:50:31Z

Okay so you may have noticed the large number of posts spewing out of this account. Basically they were all backlogged in the form of word docs that I wrote in the week after we got back. Some of them are not as complete as I would like, but I kind of figured at this point it would be better to just get them out and post them rather than sit and nitpick for the next six months. Plus I promised not to write another lj post until I got them out, so yeah here they are!

I think the most obvious thing that got left out was the section about the Hoh Rain Forest, which was probably one of the highlights of the trip. I figured that because we literally took hundreds of pictures of the area and it was a mostly visual experience, I would let the pictures speak for themselves.

Anyways, despite what it may have looked like from some of the descriptions, I had a great time on this trip. Probably one of the cooler things about it is that Chris and I never really got sick of each other, despite being in close quarters for over a week solid. I remember specifically when we were sitting in our car at our campsite in Honeyman Dunes. We had just got there and found that our designated site had literally become a lake in the steady rain. The sunlight was starting to fade really fast, and it would have been so easy to just give up and sleep in the car at night. But no, Chris and I toughed it out, set up the tent in the dark with the freezing rain at our backs and I'm glad we did. There were a few moments like that, but I think both Chris and I were able to take something that inherently sucks (like sleeping in a puddle, or walking around in the freezing cold) and turn it into something really fun.

Okay, now I guess I can start writing about current events or whatever now.

Oh yeah, special entry for Ravi coming up next, make sure you're logged in if you want to see it!

Reno

2008-10-15T02:38:28Z

Erm, Reno sucked. Every hotel was booked because of the long weekend. We almost snagged a motel room but this old guy ran in front of us and snagged the last room. We gambled a little bit, and of coarse lost all our money. We decided to look for a room outside the city a little bit, but nope, everything was booked solid and besides that, expensive as hell. At that point, we were pretty frustrated since it was late at night, we were exhausted from a 12 hr drive, and we said fuck it we're going home after seeing that the Bay Area was only 3.5 hrs away.

-The end

Salt Lake City

2008-10-15T02:35:43Z

We got to Salt Lake City pretty late. Almost ran into a couch on the freeway. Chris peed a lot. We were looking out for motels, but after getting turned away from the first couple, we saw a sign that said there was a 5 or 10k run in SLC, so that must the reason for that

Eventually, we saw a pretty sleezy motel that still had its vacancy sign on. We parked, and found that. An old Korean man met us at the window, and after a little bit of confusion, we snagged a room. I’m not sure if it was because he was Korean and didn’t speak English, or just old, or the fact that we woke him up at 2 am, but he was really hard to understand. Anyways, 45 bucks for a night was pretty good, the shower alone was probably worth it.

The next morning we walked around downtown for a little bit. I guess the thing that stands out about Salt Lake City is the fact that it is completely dead. You could literally look down 2 city blocks in the middle of downtown during the weekend “busy” time and not see a soul. The barista at starbucks confirmed that this was typical and that this was pretty much as busy as it got. Lots of closed down stores, surrounding by towering developments. Something about a billion dollar downtown revitalization project or something.

Just before we left we stopped by at the big temple. We actually just had to use the bathroom, but I guess as a result we accidently got to see a bit of SLC’s biggest draw. In retrospect we probably should have visited the temple first since there was quite a lot to see, but oh well.

Boise

2008-10-15T01:56:37Z

Boise sucks, its scary and dark and there’s nothing there at all. Yelp was right. ‘No local flavor’ whatsoever. Plus, according to my friend Ellen there’s lots of skinheads there. It wasn’t all bad though, we did stop at IHOP and met a crazy waiter.

Yeah, Boise doesn't even need an ljcut.

Seattle

2008-10-15T01:55:55Z

At night we took a walk to gas works park which was really cool. We didn’t stay too long there. Originally I thought it might be fun if we camped there.
Nicole and Patrick made us some curry, with these green tomato danishes for dessert. That was pretty badass.
The next morning Patrick had to go to work , and Nicole took us to this café that is located under a church. The thing about it is that it relies completely upon donations, so that you can pretty much chose to pay as much as you want. When I first heard about it, I kind of expected one of those kind home set ups in a church basement, so I was a little surprised when it turned out to be a really nice place, kind of like a fancy starbucks with a daycare center.
After a bit of wandering around, we made it eventually made it around to Pike Place Market. We stopped by the famous flying fish market but to be honest it was a bit underwhelming. I was kind of expecting them to be chucking 5 lb fish across the room but instead they were just lobbing little wrapped packets of fish like 10 feet. Maybe they were just tired that day, who knows?
We ended up deciding to stay another night. We figured that Boise probably would not have too much and that we could skip it if we needed to. I got to know Nicole a little bit better which was cool

Portland, Technically a repost

2008-10-15T01:49:51Z

Our first stop in Portland was the Paramount hotel. Why did we stop there? Because Kurt works there! It was awesome, Chris and I walked into the lobby and he went right up to Kurt and asked him some touristy question. Kurt kind of starred and scrunched up his eyes, for what must have been a good 5 seconds or so before his eyes lit up with genuine surprise.

I guess that my memory of Portland is either really hazy, or a lot has changed. We first went to Pioneer Square, where I remembered a packed square filled with live music and the works. When we got there, there was basically just an empty stage and a coffee shop in the corner. After not really finding anything of note other than a visitor center, we decided to head to the next place on our list of things to do.

We crossed the river at Burnside Bridge, trying to find Burnside Skatepark. It wasn’t all that hard, but it was a bit of a walk. In truth it was really disappointing because it seems like they had just painted over all of the cool graffiti. There were probably around 15 skaters there, and I felt kind of awkward just being a poser and watching from the side, so we spent about 2 minutes there if that. I was actually pretty sad because I had really wanted to see it again and show Chris, but now it looked kind of crappy and a total let down.

So yeah, at this point I was pretty bummed out, because nothing in Portland seemed to be the way I remember it, and I was kind of questioning the decision to stop here at all.

We looked around for a place to eat, and settled on a restaurant named Pizza Schmizza. Chris asked if they had any unique or signature dishes, and the girl told us that they had ‘Alligator Pie’ completely with alligator sausage so of course we had to order that. I can’t really say exactly what alligator tastes like, because it basically tastes like chewy spicy sausage. Still, it was a unique experience and pretty tasty.

As we were walking around the city looking for something to do, we passed by this cool looking bar called the Living Room. We walked further down the block, we noticed a bunch of movie posters for new indie movies on the walls, and realized that we were next to a movie theatre. Having some time to burn before Kurt got off work, we decided to see a movie. As it turns out, the bar and the theatre were one and the same. Even better, movies were only 5 dollars each, although this was balanced out with 10 dollar drinks. Inside was about 6 really intimate theatres, each with a good sized screen and about 20 very nice seats and tables. The waitress delivered our drinks directly to us in the theatre. I could totally imagine myself doing something like that on a regular basis. I felt like a total indie 20 something hipster, and it was great. We ended up seeing the movie Kabluey, which really reminds me about how much I like indie film.

After the movie, we milled around in some of Portlands urban green squares/parks and then we met up with Kurt. We went up to the bluff and hung out there sipiping champagne. As we sat on the bluff I started to get really nostalgic as I watched the same train tracks. The same tracks curved around the bluff at all the way around U of P, just a few miles north of where we were. Apparently Momoko is doing some pretty awesome things and biking all around the world which is totally cool. I’m definitely happy for her.

I’m really glad that we went to Portland. I felt a lot better about things, especially since the last time I had been there was on such a bad note. I think it was important for me to go especially since I just graduated from UCLA, so maybe in a way it helped to heal the wounds from that time.

Another thing that is worth noting that it seems that Portland has tons and tons of young people. Oh yeah, for a few hours military helicopters kept buzzing by the city at super low altitudes, and landing on certain buildings. This would happen at like 5 minute intervals. Apparently the military was practicing how to evacuate high rise buildings or some such.

Hmm

2008-09-15T21:23:48Z

On sunday I went to hang out with my friend Lynn in San Francisco. She's one of my UCLA friends but she was up here visiting for the weekend so we decided to do the lunch thing. Anyways, she was staying with her friend who grew up in the Presidio. I guess I didn't really realize it before, but that part of the Presidio was really really ritzy. Maybe only a few blocks away from the Lucas Arts campus and the Palace of fine arts. Whenever I think of the Presidio I always just think of the army buildings or the places next to the Bay.

We ate lunch was at The Boulange, some bakery cafe type deal. I had a smoked salmon sandwich and a fruit danish. Decent food if a bit pricey compared to the quality, but I guess what you paying for is mostly location, which I guess was right in the heart of the Presidio.

I had a dream about my UCLA friends the other day and we were at a party, and when I woke up I was all sad.

On my way back, I passed a pretty interesting scene unravelling on 19th ave. On the other side of the street were 2 police cruisers blockading the whole side. Police officers were crouched behind their open car doors with their guns drawn. About 20 ft in front of them was a car with its drivers side door open, and a black guy sitting in the seat.

Ok, I promise that my next posts will be the follow ups to our road trip. Most of the posts have been written, I just need to take the time and create a flickr account to host the pictures.

TV time out

2008-09-07T09:40:21Z

We actually went to more than just 2 places, I've just been waiting to get all of the pictures together to try and make a more complete set of postings. I'll get back on it in a day or two, though as it is there's still about 5 or 6 pages of writing backlogged that just needs to be c/p'd into lj from word.

Anyways, today I officially moved out from LA for real. Spent the morning with some last minute goodbyes and moving my bed over to a friends apartment. After that I finished up 3 hours of packing that I probably should have done the night before. I drove up on 101 even though it added an hour or two to the trip just because I-5 is so incredibly boring. It kind of occurred to me that I have probably personally driven on every major roadway in california from top to bottom. Random.

Tonight I'll be staying at my parents house, and tomorrow I'll be sorting out all my stuff and deciding which things I can pack away in storage and which things i will bring with me. Oh yeah, Chris is going to be putting me up in his apt for awhile, so yeah..

I'm really glad that I came back to Los Angeles to finish moving up rather than go home early. I spent pretty much the whole time hanging out with my friends, some of whom had been gone for most of the summer, it at was great. I'm not sure quite how, but I think I totally lucked out when I got to UCLA. I miss them already, but I guess that just means I need to visit LA more often!

Oh yeah, so there's actually a couple songs out there in radio world that have given me a little faith that the music scene is still alive.

Wild Internacional - One Day as a Lion

Zach still has it, though I'm kind of curious about what's going on with RATM, and I hope their next album, if there is one, isn't just about how much they hate Bush.

Placebo - Pure Morning

This is actually cheating, because its actually a few years old, but I heard it on 105.3 today, so that counts as new-ish. I just find the lyrics to be ridiculous, plus it's Placebo who have yet to let me down.

Florence(Honeyman) and Corvallis

2008-09-01T09:32:48Z

We drove further up north, occasionally stopping at some beaches to get some pictures of the coastline. We stopped at a few beaches for rest breaks and pictures. On the path down to the sea, there was tons of blackberry bushes, and we got a handful or two of those.

Honeyman Park was really cool. We were driving in a pine forest, and all of the sudden there are genuine sand dunes in the middle of the forest. The park ranger at the booth was a really cute girl and she answered all of my really dumb questions. To be honest I don't really know what I was expecting out of a campground, but a concrete driveway next to a 15 x 15 patch of dirt with a fire pit really wasn't it. Silly me

Maybe an hour or so before we got to the camp site, it started raining. We managed to put up the tent on a semi dry area of our campsite, but it took awhile before we could get the rain cover on so our air mattress was floating on a layer of water inside the tent. Dinner was a couple of calzones that we had purchased from a nearby gas station. It was nice though because we got to have a warm shower at the camp sites bathrooms which was unexpected.

Oh yeah, I tried to light a leaf on fire using the magnesium fire striker that I had bought from REI. Yeah, total failure. Bear Grylls made it look so easy too!

After we got up we packed up and headed to Corvallis, where my friend Stacy lives. Stacy is pretty much the only person I still keep in contact with from my days at the University of Portland, so I was pretty excited to be able to see her fo the first time in about 5 years and to have Chris meet her. We reached Corvallis in record time, skipping Eugene to meet up with Stacy on her lunch break.

Seeing her after all this time was really weird. I actually haven’t really talked to her in a year or two, but yeah, it actually felt a little bit awkward since we have been out of contact for so long. Still, it was really awesome to see her, and she seems to be doing really well for herself. We got lunch at Quizno’s where her housemate works as manager, and that was pretty cool.

After we ate and said goodbye, we went off on a house hunting mission. If you look on youtube maybe you will find it. Rent in Corvallis is also crazy cheap. Yep.

Arcata

2008-09-01T09:30:54Z

Our first overnight stop of the trip was Arcata California. Located on the coast, at the very northern edge of California, it is the home of Humboldt state. Going up the coast was a really good idea, as the drive turned out to be gorgeous. I didn’t realize it before, but I had never been up 101 past Marin County, so it was all new to me.

On our way to Arcata, we stopped over in the town of Hopland, home of the Red Tail Ale Brewery. It was a weird mix of historic fancy country club type atmosphere with migrant workers walking around the street. Nothing was really open so we didn’t spend too much time there. One thing of note is that I believe we took notice of our first Subway of the trip in this town.

We stopped for dinner at a pizza place near Eureka, and got some yummy pizza. It was kind of interesting because there were a couple homeless people walking around, and one of them walked into the restaurant. There was some kind of altercation and according to Chris the homeless guy got slapped either by a worker or one of the restaurant patrons. All I heard was yelling but yeah, interesting times.

When searching for a place to sleep, we first tried to get a room at one of Arcata’s motels. Even though it was 1 am in the morning, the motel operator wanted to charge us 80 dollars for a stay that would last less than 6 hrs, so we declined. After driving around for a little bit, we ended up parking by an empty lot behind a motor home/converted city bus to catch a nights sleep. I can say for sure that it was probably one of the most uncomfortable nights in my life, as my car’s leg space was too small for me to lie down, and my seat couldn’t recline into a comfortable position due to all the stuff in the back seat. Added to that was the buzzing mosquito/fly that was buzzing around my head all night. I think I probably got about 4 hours of restless sleep that night.

Arcata seems like it would be an interesting place to live for a year or two. It really reminded me of a really spread out Santa Cruz, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen more dreadlocks in one place before. We stopped at the local coop for some organic figs and strawberries which were yummy, but yeah, lots of hippies and hippy stores.

Oh, another dream

2008-08-23T09:56:38Z

I'm in a canyon, with towering sandstone walls on either side of me. The canyon is just opening up into a large flat desert plain, which something tells me is the Black Rock Desert. It is daytime, but the sky is dark with storm clouds. In the middle of the plain is a huge dust storm, but instead of being afraid, I am strangely drawn towards it. Water begins to flow at the bottom of the canyon, steadily growing stronger. All of the sudden rain pours from the sky and lightning flashes..

Oh yeah, something about mermaid girls too. Haha, yeah, I have no idea.

Itinerary

2008-08-23T09:51:55Z

List of our overnight locations:

Arcata ->
Honeyman ->
Portland ->
Olympic National Park, Hoh Camp ->
Seattle ->
Boise ->
Salt Lake City ->
Reno ->
Home!

I imagine its possible that we might stay an extra day either in Olympic or Seattle, and then just turn some of the later stops into rest breaks. So yeah, if we don't arrive back in the Bay Area Sunday or Monday, you know the drill, send out the hounds to find us!

Did it for the lulz

2008-08-22T03:15:34Z

Metallica's new radio single has the lyrics 'Love is a four letter word'..

Wow...

My magic 8-ball tells me that they will blame piracy and file sharing for poor album sales.

ielenchi @ 2008-08-19T21:51:00

2008-08-20T04:56:27Z

Travis where are you? I need to discuss the wonderful mayhem that is to be undertaken