Irv’s Journal

Out of convenience, and to promote company, we invited the group to spend the night on Friday.  This worked out for Eugene and Joanne, since they were going to see some houses in Corona in the morning.  Craig had other plans, and Darren had to work on Saturday, so they both headed home.

Esther and I had been interested in trying out the lunch buffet at the little Indian restaurant we’ve been going to, and it sounded like a good idea to Eugene and Joanne.  Results - good.  Although they didn’t necessarily have our usual favorites, the choices for lunch were quite good.  Unfortunately, we had a bit too much to eat and had to recover for a while at the house.

Sufficiently rested up, we headed down to the annual beach party/bonfire.  What we didn’t know was that Gin was a bit late to the beach and couldn’t secure a fire pit.  He asked around and found an extra pit next to an extremely large group of people.  In the spirit of the last post, the summary in highlight fashion:

Highlights

• The beach!
• Bonfire
• Roasted Marshmallows
• Hanging out with the friends

Lowlights

• Chemical burgers
• Chemical bonfire
• The Large NA (Read: NARCOTICS ANONYMOUS) meeting next to us
• Inner Fire pit (since the wind blows inland, we were a bit smoked out)

Basically Gin managed to secure us a pit from a bunch of NA members, who, by the looks of it were having a recovery meeting.  But man was the beach packed.  Basically every single pit from the pier all the way as far as I could see was taken.  Anyway, somehow people managed to forget that when you’re using match light charcoal, you’re supposed to let all those chemicals burn off…. hmm yeah my burger tasted extra “smoky” for some reason.

Jennifer managed to get us free firewood from someone at her work.  Unfortunately, it was treated pine, AKA construction 2×4s.  Not sure what the safety precautions on burning chemically treated wood is, but I’m pretty sure it can’t be too good for you.  Not that it stopped most of us from roasting marshmallows anyway.

Since the beach closes so early (at 10pm), and people weren’t hungry, we headed out to Guppy Tea House to enjoy some shaved ice and general Asian drinks.  Funny, though that when we did get there, almost everyone ended up ordering food!  I am proud to say that with 10 people in tow, we FINALLY managed to finish the large shaved ice at Guppy! (It’s listed as serving 4 people!)

On Sunday, we all slept in.  I was telling Darren about this movie I had just bought that had Tony Jaa all over the boxart, even though he was only in the movie for about 5 minutes in a bit part.  To heal the wounds from that debacle, and since we had ordered pizza, I put in The Protector (Tom Yum Goong) to watch a little, but whoops we ended up watching the whole movie.  Afterward, we spent the rest of the afternoon on Elefunk, a cute little puzzle game that I had downloaded from the Playstation Store.

We headed down to the Spectrum for dinner, and just to get out of the house.  Going up the toll road in the xB with a load of people is…quite the adventure.  It definitely brought back the bad memories of trying to get up the hill on the road to Vegas - not fun.  Needless to say, we made it.  The food at Maki Maki was good as usual, albeit pricier than I remembered.

Another weekend gone…

Since I had never been to the OC Fair, Esther and I convinced Eugene, Joanne, Craig, and Darren to come by on Friday after work to check it out.  Of course after work being quite variable (10am, Craig?), we just decided to meet up at the house and carpool on down to the fair.

Darren was the last to arrive, since he can’t exactly get off early or work different hours.  He dragged himself through traffic and got to the house around 8.  After changing and whatnot, we piled into Eugene’s car and headed on down.

Who knew the fair was so popular?  The freeway was still backed up near the exit at 9pm!  Luckily, we made it without any issues and proceeded to enjoy the fabulous (and unhealthy) world of fair food!

Highlights

• Grilled stuffed Chilis
• Funnel cake
• Fried Twinkie
• Giant Corndog
• Australian Battered Potatoes

Lowlights

• Fried Oreos
• Mass of chili cheese fries
• Fried Pop Tart

Besides the massive amounts of food (which we shared, thankfully), we played a bunch of carnival games and rode the people mover.  By then, it was closing time so we ended our Friday night adventure.

Yeah, the 5.4 quake was centered about 5 or so miles from the house.  I’ll have to check everything out when I get home to make sure there’s no suspicious leaking and whatnot.

Pretty funny though.  I guess growing up in Southern California, I’m a bit used to it, but we have some newer people here at work that are from the east coast, their reactions were quite interesting.

So indeed it is wedding season.  Two weddings, two weekends in a row, two mini-road trips.

Highlights:

• Flew Virgin America for the first time.  Interesting layout in their plane.  Seatbacks are white hard plastic, the seat material is black leather, and the lighting is provided by purple neons (vs the standard white lighting in the ceiling).  Pluses: everyone gets their own TV screens.  Minuses: Delayed due to waiting for a flight crew that was flying in on another flight (WTF, talk about tight scheduling!), everyone gets their own TV screens.  Why?  I got airsick (a little bit) for the first time in a long time.  As you frequent flyers might already know, the ride tends to get bumpy during landings.  They do not switch off the screens at any time during the flight, so if you are sensitive to motion, don’t watch the screens during takeoff/landing!
• Charles Schulz Museum.  Yeah, one of the wedding trips was to Santa Rosa (Sonoma County), which happened to be where Charles Schulz spent the last three plus decades of his life.  This museum is a cozy little place where his art (Peanuts strips) is featured.  It really details his life and how the idea for his Peanuts comic came about.
• Santa Barbara.  The roadtrip up to Santa Barbara was definitely a fun little trek.  Admond and Cristina had a really fun wedding, the sights along the drive were scenic as usual.

Two more weddings to go (so far?) this year.  If I remember correctly that will bring the number for this year to eight(?) including my own!

Darren, Joanne, Eugene, and Craig had made plans with us for Saturday ahead of time, so they spent the night after the barbecue.

I got up around 8:30 (Not happily, considering we probably got to bed close to 4) just before the gardeners arrived to do their thing.  I found Craig already sitting on his bed with the door open, so we headed downstairs…to find Darren sleeping on the couch.  Apparently some combination of the air matress and his previous late night trip to the gym did not mix, so he couldn’t get too comfortable and decided to move down to our cushier couch sometime during the night.  Of course we woke him up, and next thing you know, Ninja Gaiden was being played while we waited for the others to get up.

Eventually, we made our way to Old Towne Orange, where we had brunch at The Filling Station.  This is an interesting cafe, in that it is a converted OLD gas station.  I had the chorizo and eggs, but whoa, the French Toast was made with Hawaiian sweet bread!  Nice.  The food was good, but the best part was that Darren couldn’t finish his omelette.  Not that there was so much food, but because he was so tired!

After lunch, we made our way back to the house to lounge around, since we were all pretty drained from the late night/early morning.  Craig and Darren took naps, Joanne and Eugene watched TV, and Esther and I jumped in the spa.  I must say it was really nice to have a relaxing Saturday.  Seems like most of our weekends are packed with activities.

Sometime around 6 or 7, we headed out to Mugaboka, the all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ place we had introduced the group to for my birthday this year.  The food was good as usual, but the drive is rather far now that we live in Anaheim.  We’ve got to find something closer sometime soon.

Properly stuffed, we met up with Miyoshi on the way home at Guppy House and proceeded to end the night with some more Ninja Gaiden action.  Whee!

Independence Day.  Nowadays, it’s just an excuse for people to get together for barbecues and fireworks, right?

In that spirit, Esther and I decided to open up the house and have people over for a 4th of July barbecue.  We got up rather early and had a whirlwind of housecleaning in preparation.  I fired up our grill and let all the crap on it get nice and ashy before going after it with the brush.  Meanwhile, Esther took care of the inside of the house.

Sometime after 1, Craig became the first arrival.  On the guise of helping out, he came early (I suspect part of the real reason was to get himself a better parking spot, since he was going to spend the night) and did a quick stop by the store on the way over.  By that time, we were just finishing up the preparations so I fired up the PS3 and FINALLY beat GTA4 (Woohoo, now time to go back and do the other story arch).

After the prescribed 2pm start time, people started arriving.  Gin and Ana brought over a ton of drink mixes, hotdogs, and buns.  Darren, Joanne, and Eugene showed soon after, with massive amounts of beer and some marinated chicken wings.  As is the case with typical potluck style barbecues, the flood of food basically began flowing at that point.

People were trickling in at a steady pace now, so I fired the grill back up and began cooking.  The real life of the party (AKA Rock Band) arrived with Dre, so the fun really began.  Anne, being the resident filipino of the party, took over the mic and sang a bunch of songs (well, on top of the fact that the majority of the other people around didn’t want to sing).  I must say, I’ve never had my TV speakers up loud enough to feel the vibrations on the couch…until Rock Band.  I escaped some of the noise by hanging out with the non-gamers in the other room, or outside by the spa/grill, so all in all it wasn’t too bad.

As it approached sunset, the crowd thinned out to head to other parties, or fireworks events, but Esther and I decided to stay in to avoid the crowds.  Since fireworks (of all kinds) are outlawed in Anaheim, we had talked about heading out to the local public show, but when the time came, most of the remaining guests weren’t too enthusiastic about heading out into the crowds to see it.  It was also feeding time again so I did some more grilling in the dark.

Most of the guests were gone, so we switched out Dre’s Xbox for Craig’s and let Darren hack away at Ninja Gaiden II.  Next thing you know it was 2am and time to hit the sack.  Maybe Ninja Gaiden was a bad idea after all…

Dang, I don’t think I’ve ever seen so many people pulled over in one day.  That $20 fine turns into 80 or 90 really quick with fees and taxes!

BTW did you hear the news guy riding along in the cop car interviewing people who had just gotten cell phone tickets?  Funny excuses…

Sunday

Everyone pretty much agreed to sleep in and meet in the lobby at 10ish.  Having gotten checked out, we hit the road back to downtown La Jolla for brunch at George’s at the Cove, a cozy restaurant bar with terrace seating.  After some misunderstanding regarding the reservation time, we took a bunch of pictures and got seated for lunch.  I had the seared ahi tuna on soba noodles, which was definitely a nice change from the heavy foods I’d been eating all weekend.

After lunch and a bunch more pictures, most of the group headed off to Carlsbad Outlets for some shopping goodness.  I hadn’t planned on spending too much, but ended up being the big shopper of the trip, with three Polo shirts, two Lacoste shirts, and a new pair of Stan Smiths:

After countless hours, I think the majority of the shoppers came away with something.  Lo and behold, it was nearly dinner time.  We agreed to meet at Lucille’s in Lake Forest since it was on the way home, and the feast was on yet again.

Boy am I tired…

Saturday

We had planned to get together around 9:00 in the hotel lobby before caravaning to The Original Pancake House for our pre-kayaking meal.  Surprisingly, a large majority of the group hadn’t been there, so they were a bit surprised by the portion sizes.  We were able to convince a few members of the group to try out the famous Apple Pancake (think 8″ upside-down cake with apples, cinnamon, and sugar).  I ordered my usual Dutch Baby and talked it up to the point where Warren wanted to try it also.  Check out the pictures:

Sufficiently stuffed, we loaded up and headed out to La Jolla Shores, where we had a 1:00 group kayaking tour scheduled.  After experiencing a few mishaps on the way out, we paddled around the area and got to see Mt. Soledad, the La Jolla Shores caves (which a few pairs ventured into), Dr. Seuss’ house, and some other random sites.

Afterward, we met back up at the hotel pool, where we exchanged salt water griminess for a coating of rather cloudy chlorinated pool water.  On top of that someone had brought a few shampoo containers from their room and emptied them into the spa.  I still got in, but it was quite a bit sudsy.

We hit the rooms to clean up, then headed out to an early dinner at C-Level, which is a pretty trendy restaurant really close to the airport.  I guess a bunch of us were hungry or something from skipping lunch and actually getting some exercise, so about half the table split the Lobster & Truffle Mac & Cheese as an appetizer. WOW.  My main course was bacon-wrapped scallops with a sort of miso/soy-ish glaze which was GREAT.  Of course to start, Esther and I shared a huge bowl of Lobster Bisque, which I also thoroughly enjoyed.

After dinner was a repeat performance at Extraordinary Desserts.  This time I was much happier because they had my Shangri-la cake in stock.  Unfortunately the tea was pretty horribly overbrewed and I was too full to finish my dessert.

Everyone was pretty pooped by this point, so we all split off and headed back to sleep.

So, we just got back from a weekender to La Jolla/San Diego.  The purported reason for the trip was to go kayaking off the La Jolla Shores.  The real reason? FOOD!

Friday

I adjusted my schedule so that I would have Friday off.  One purpose was for this trip.  Another was to have 3 four-day weeks in a row

Unfortunately as most of my readers know, it’s really hard to have a Friday off without doing some important errands - like going to the dentist. :P  Of course, I got the usual stern talking-to regarding my flossing (or lack thereof) habits, but all in all the visit went by without any issues.

I went home and collected Esther (who had decided to work most of the day), and headed off to lunch.  After we got back, I hit a major lull and fell asleep upstairs while Esther went back to work (er, I was supposed to be packing).  That was going pretty well until Craig called to announce that he would be over in about 10-15 minutes.  I jumped up and started throwing all my weekend gear into my bag, and for the most part was able to finish by the time he arrived! Woohoo!

Craig and I screwed around with the Wii store and Playstation store, then I showed him the dreaded Grand Theft Auto IV mission I’ve been stuck on for the past few weeks, and next thing you know Esther was done packing so we hit the road.

Of course being Friday afternoon at 3:30, the 91 was JAM PACKED.  It took us a good while to get to the 15 and even then we hit a few snags here and there.  Of course Esther wasn’t making it any easier on us since she was talking about our upcoming gluttony the whole time and making both Craig and I hungry!

Next thing you know, we were hitting the light traffic inbound to San Diego.  We got to the hotel and managed to get checked in as Joanne, Eugene, and Darren arrived.  After settling into the rooms for a while, we headed out for our first eating adventure: El Cotixan aka El Coti.  I think this place is pretty much known by every UCSD student (Esther and Jennifer had both been raving about it since forever ago).  I think of it along the lines of a typical Mexican food joint (think Alberto’s, but a little more run down… or if you’re familiar with the OC joints, Alvaro’s or Alerto’s is pretty similar).  The food was excellent.  Basically everyone ordered enough food for two people and we managed to stuff ourselves with burritos, rolled tacos, carne asada fries, nachos, and your typical selection of horchata/pina/jamaica/tamarindo drinks (the only one missing was orange bang!).  We also played a little game of “who wants these nachos” with a huge plate of nachos that Craig had bought for sharing.  Whenever more of the group arrived, they got stuck with this plate.  I think by the end of dinner we had probably eaten about 1/4 of the order… yeah.

After all this pain and suffering (and enjoyment), we stuck by the schedule and headed out to Little Italy for some desserty goodness at:

Yum.  Everyone pretty much got their own thing and we mostly tasted each other’s pickings.  The combination of the sugar rush, general Friday evening tiredness, and the group atmosphere led to some weird and wacky pictures being taken.

Phew.  End of the night.