Irv’s Journal

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.   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.

In the process of installing an image gallery here on the page. Went ahead and uploaded a few random pictures from the wedding to try out.

Check the handy My Photos page in case you’re interested, and let me know what you think.

Still need to fix the irvsphotography website so that I can upload some of my own favorite pictures.

Another quick weekend.  Where does the time go?

Friday

• Short work week this week, so I changed my xB’s oil and cleaned the air filter.  Then made a run to Fry’s to pick up some electronic parts for my entertainment center cooling project.
• Picked up an arcade controller for the PS3 so I can play some occasional Street Fighter.  Might add modding this controller to my to-do list on a lower priority.
• Put up the remaining kitchen window screens.

Saturday

• Since we got up early, Esther and I took our jeans to the tailor for some alterations.
• Darren and Craig came by so we spent some time chit chatting and playing Street Fighter while waiting around for dinner with Amie and Andy who finally decided to come out of hiding and hang out with us.

Sunday

• Continued working on the entertainment center cooling project.
• Had some people over and watched the Lakers game.  Quite a disappointment.

And here we are again.

I sometimes wonder how people get things off their to-do lists. By the time you get home from work, think about and deal with dinner, and count the time it takes you to get ready for bed, you have what, 2-3 hours left? To-do list type projects generally take somewhere along that much time, or who knows, even longer?

Then, on weekends, there are usually places to go and things already planned out, so then, where does the to-do list time come from? I’m not quite sure.

Things to do in the near future:

• fix upstairs leaky toilet (which btw is a lot more work than you would expect, since this stupid company basically requires you to remove the whole tank in order to change one small rubber seal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
• finish installing kitchen curtains. These shouldn’t take too long.
• Clear out third car garage so the xB has a home.  Yeah, the homeowner left us with quite some work there.  At the moment it’s got some stuff left to be demolished, and it’s somewhat become our recyclable storage area.  Being that I would like to have some sort of garage workshop eventually, I’m not quite sure what we’re going to do for space.
• Clear out and repair storage shed.  I love it when people move out and just abandon all their broken down lawn crap in the storage shed.  No, I don’t want your rusted out wheel barrow with broken handles.  Yes, I would appreciate it if you dumped your empty pool supply containers.  Not to mention the lock on the back door is rusted shut.  I definitely want to get all that crap out of there and do a good weather sealing job on it, and replace that crappy rusted latch.  I kind of wonder if there is anything hiding on the other side of that door…  Maybe we just have to move all that crap to the garage and call for a special trash pick up.
• Paint pink room. Not sure if one coat of primer will cover that monstrosity up or if it will take two or more.
• Paint two maroon bathrooms. Same problem as previous bullet.
• Re-caulk master and downstairs shower. Not too bad, the worst part about this is getting rid of the old stuff first.
• Ventilation of the entertainment center cubby holes. I noticed the modern electronics + enclosed cubby style entertainment centers = overheated and dead electronics. I have never heard my PS3 fan blow as loudly as it has been since it’s been in the cubby. I have even removed all the shelves from the area and the front door. The fan is still blowing more than when the unit had been sitting out.
• Get landscape lighting (front and rear) working. This one might need an electrician, since the rear ones technically work, but blow the breaker all the time. The front ones don’t seem to work at all due to some sketchy wiring jobs that the previous homeowner did. I’m pretty sure that a lot of the garage wiring stuff is not even near code. Hopefully it won’t cost too much to get everything done right and brought back to code…

I guess that’s it… on that note, has anyone taken apart a Mansfield toilet before?