Chevy made this for me a while back so I thought I’d throw it up here cause I thought it was neat.

You know I really haven’t gotten into this whole World Poker Championships and Celebrity Poker crap that has been sweeping the nation lately. Watching people play cards is like watching bowling or golf. It’s just plain boring. I don’t care if it’s Dolly Parton with a queen of hearts hidden in her massive cleavage or Cheech Marin using his “funny” acting skills to bluff his opponent, the celebraties don’t make it any more interesting. I think it would be funny to walk in on somebody playing solitaire on their coffee table while watching one of those celebrity poker tournaments. That would be the personification of pathetic. You’d get to make fun of somebody for a long time if you caught them in that sort of compromising position. Of course, I’ve done much, much more pathetic things than that, I’m just lucky that nobody walked in on me while I was doing them. But that is neither here nor there. Back to my topic. Poker on TV is a fruitless waste when you can actually play poker.

And playing poker, as you may have guessed at this point, is what I did last night. I met the boys over at Uncle Squigley’s. A five dollar buy-in got me pizza, beer, and an evenings entertainment. We played Texas Hold ‘Em, Omaha, Chase The Bitch, Guts, Whores & Fours, 357, Stacks, Lowball, Juevos, Between The Sheets, and a few other games. I came out thirty bucks ahead, which is actually a pretty amazing feat for me. I’m an admittedly terrible poker player. Or at least that’s what I tell the people I’m playing. You see, like many things in life, it’s all about the bluff.

Homegrown fresh-from-the-garden peas

My mom has always had a garden. And from that garden, for every summer in my memory has come a bountiful harvest, or at least enough vegetables for a bunch of plentiful salads throughout the summer months. Lettuce (usually a few different types), carrots, green onions, tomatoes (of course), radishes, cucumbers, green beans, and my favorite: garden peas. As a child, I would sit on a towel at the swimming pool, scabby-kneed under the shade of a backyard tree, with my shirt off in the recliner chair and in my lap I an enormous bowl full of peas that I would devour the in an afternoon. Now of course, the peas have to be eaten fresh, uncooked, straight off the vine. Cooked pies are pretty much gross, in fact most cooked vegetables are pretty much gross. To this day, homegrown peas, fresh off the vine, remain one of my most treasured summertime snacks (right up there with frozen grapes). When I lived in Plat Park I grew my own, fairly successful, batch of pole peas. Last night I got myself a big ole bag of peas from my moms garden. My bag is much smaller because my brother, Pandy, and I, immediately started gorging on the yield and didn’t stop till we were half was through. We slowed down once we realized that my broth was going to be the winner of the “most peas per pod contest” with a grand nine peas. No to mention I was hoping this bag would last me through the weekend but I’m beginning to become doubtful.

I had a couple of wierd dreams last night. The first one involved me driving a car along a road that was so steep that it became inverted. It ended up tipping my car right over, where it dumped into outer space (apparently gravity works until you’re upside down in my dreams). In the other one, I purposefully, pealed one of my fingernails off painlessly (very similar tho the loosing teeth dream I’ve had a couple times before). Anybody care to try to interpret these?

Images from Crescent Bay, Laguna Beach, California

The next day was spent nearly entirely at the beach, laying in the sun, body surfing, boogey boarding, reading, sunning, tide pooling, and swimming. It’s amazing how much realxing at the ocean can actually wear you out. After about nine hours at the Crescent Bay beach we all started to get really hungry so we went and got sushi for dinner. The sushi bar had a fairly decent Sunday night reggae band playing. However, more enjoyable than the band were the throngs of women dancing. The beach boys weren’t lying about you California girls. And the japanese aren’t joking about there saki.

After waking on Monday, like on all the previous days, I again headed straight down to the beach. We then went out and got Mexican food and headed back to Crescent Bay Beach were we had a abbreviated version of yesterday before having to catch the plane home. It was a wonderful trip and I definately got my beach fix. Though I can’t wait to get back.

Click below for more pics taken of and around Laguna

Beach Legs, Laguna Beach, California

The next morning We all headed down to the beach for a couple of hours before the wedding.

Crescent Bay, Laguna Beach, California

Husband & Wife, Laguna Beach Califonia

Rooftop Reception, Laguna Beach Califonia

The wedding was beautiful. One of the best locations for a wedding I’ve been to. Of course, I’m a sucker for the beach and have never been to a beach wedding before, so it was all kinds of new and exciting. The bride and groom wrote their own vows and the ceremony was casual, short, and sweet. The reception was held on the on the rooftop of the nearby beach hotel La Casa Del Camino and was tons of fun. Everyone was having such a good time that the entire wedding party had to be kicked off the roof and later kicked off the hotel grounds. We almost didn’t get a chance to throw our shreded coconut (remember, beach theme) at the bride and groom. After the reception I joined the majority of the wedding party at the Sandpiper, a hole in the wall bar down the block. After whooping it up at the bar for a while, I joined a bunch of friends down at the beach for a night capper.

Palm Trees, Laguna Beach, California

I had a great vacation last week in Laguna Beach California. It was a relaxing, long, four day weekend that consisted mainly of a wedding, parties, and lying on the beach.

It actually Started on Thursday evening after taking off from work a little bit early. Sabrina picked me up and we headed out to pasquinins where I ate a pizza and we split a couple of pitchers of sangria. Afterward she helped me pack for my trip and we had a great conversation about everything along with a couple more drinks.

Getting up at six in da mo’nin’ was made difficult by the previous nights gin and juice. It also caused me to fail packing my swimsuit (which I keep in the trunk of my car because you never know when you’re going to get the chance for a dip). This did not end up being a problem as Laguna happens to be filled to the brim with stores that sell bright yellow speedos in my size. After arriving in Laguna we checked into our hotel (Capri Laguna Inn has great rates and ocean views but is a bit run down) and headed straight to the 1,000 steps beach. We then walked around town and settled on shrimp and calamari tacos for lunch. Afterward, I drove a few people to another beach for the wedding rehearsal. While everyone else packed into the limo for the rehearsal dinner I went back into town, spent fifteen minutes swimming in the ocean, watched the sunset, did some exploring along the rocks, and then found my mom and we went out for chicken bbq pizza. I know I’ve got a good vacation going when it starts with having pizza two nights in a row. After dinner I met up with a bunch of friends on the rooftop of La Casa Del Comina and we partied till late into the night.

Hello all my sweet, beautiful, babies. Mmmmmwah. It’s good to be back. I’m very much on the tired side of things today. I was out late last night you see. It all started when I went to my brothers house to pick up my camera that I left it in Pandy’s beach bag while I was away in Laguna (another post, hopefully later, with pics). While there, Pandy invited me out to the Blue Mule to see The Mercury Project with her next-door neighbor.

I’d been to the venue once before about five years ago for St. Paddy’s day, back when it was Brandons Blues Bar. It’s OK. The sound quality is pretty good if not a little too loud. Tonight they were having the “Coors Original New Sound Throw Down”. An amazingly distasteful name for a contest that could only have been picked out by some clueless marketing executive at our Colorado pride and joy - the Coors Brewing Company. The bands in the contest included, in the order they appeared:
The Mercury Project: was the band we came to see. Sort of like a slower 311 with much less rapping. They had about seven dudes on stage, which made for a full sound. They got most of the people in the bar up dancing and every boogied a little harder when they did a Billie Jean cover for their encore. Mercury Project won the contest and a whopping $250 dollars.
The Trailer Park Playboys: produced poorly put together rockabilly. Either the playing was really sloppy or I just wasn’t into it. I’m afraid it was both. They might be able to pull it off at the Esquire or something but they just didn’t have what it took last night.
On Second Thought: have a pretty good name around town but for me were completely unremarkable. I was admittedly on my third beer by then and spending more time flirting than listening.
Blister 66: were a lot of fun, they drew in a great crowd. The lead sing was hilarious and extremely enthusiastic. It wasn’t superconcentrated concert rapture but they put on a good show and it was a great way to end the night though.

But the best part of the show was talking with the cute blond that sat at the table next to me. Because the show was so loud, holding a conversation meant speaking directly into each others ear. At first this meant knocking noses, bumping heads and lots of giggles when we would simultaneously lean forward with something to say. We eventually just ended up keeping our cheeks pressed against each other. Not a bad way to spend an evening.

Remember a while back when I got flowers. They were the best gift I’ve received all year. They lasted a long time too, a little over three weeks. But now there gone so I’m glad I took some pictures of them to show you. Plus, now the sweetheart who sent them to me can see why I thought they were so fucking spectacular.

This is for me. Ok? It’s not for you. You can read it, but remember, I’m the one it was intended for. And it’s not that I don’t like you. I care about you. Lots. Maybe even more than I should at this point. But this one is for me. All of it. It has to be.

I’ve been swamped with work lately. Which isn’t so bad but it means I’ve been working from 7:30 to 7:30 the past couple of days. It’s trying but worth it knowing that I have a short vacation coming up soon. As a result, I haven’t been up to much all week.

My weekend however was pleasant. On Friday I got bored at around 11:00 and went to the hippy bar for a couple games of pool. On Saturday I did a deep clean of my apartment. This included mopping the hard wood floors, cleaning the toilet and making my vacuum cleaner explode. Later Saturday I went over to Leber’s for a cookout. We all ended up having a lot to drink and staying up till almost 5:00 am. As a result, I stayed the night over there. We all slept in real late and Leber made crepes for breakfast. Delish. We then went to go see Troy at the theatres. It wasn’t all that great. I wouldn’t waste your money on it unless you’re sure you can sit in the back row and take advantage of all those Brad Pitt fantasies you’re gonna have (Ok that one was for you. But seriously, everything else is for me). I spent the rest of Sunday taking a short walk and trying to figure out what I was going to eat for dinner. The movie nachos didn’t last as long as I had hoped.

I work downtown, on the 35th floor of a taller building. We just got an alarm to move away from exterior windows and torward the interior of the building due to tornados. I’ve been working here for seven years and have never heard such a warning. Crazy weather. Good thing I’m sitting here protected by my high walled cube.

Don’t try to follow this.

Last night my dad invited me out for dinner. So I picked up pandy and my brother and headed out my fathers way. The reason he invited us out was because we had relatives in town. Anymore these days, I really only consider “true family” those with whom I share blood or those brought into the immediate nuclear family through marriage. I have a small family to start out with but a handful of divorces have expanded it exponentially. Anyway, the only blood relative there besides my father, was my cousin’s son, the boy we came to visit. But also in attendance was my cousin’s wife, the mother of my cousin’s son. In addition, her father was in attendance. That would be my cousin’s father-in-law. But that’s not all, he is also my cousin’s step-father, and grandfather to the boy we came to visit. See, I have no cousins on my mother’s side. My cousin is the son of my father’s brother. But my uncle divorced the woman I consider to be my aunt, that is the mother of my cousin and the grandmother of the boy we had come to visit. About ten years ago she remarried. The man she married was the father to the mother of the son who was the boy we came to visit. But he wasn’t at the time, because the boy is only now four years old. At the time he was the man who married my aunt at the wedding where my brother, my parents, and I all got drunk, packed up a bunch of food from the reception and convinced about a third of the wedding into leaving town and going fishing instead of dancing at the reception. He managed to mention this event twice during dinner last night. My brother and I stayed silent as my dad quickly acknowledge the event. Good times. The bride’s son, my cousin, became smitten with the grooms daughter, they in turn married and had my first cousin once removed, or the boy we came to visit.

God it was nice having a three-day weekend. This time around it’s not the three day weekend that I treasure so much as the four-day workweek that follows it. I kicked off my long weekend early and left work at 1:00. I went to meet Sabrina at Pasquini’s. We split an early supper consisting of portabella mushroom pizza, pitchers of sangria and good conversation. Afterwards I headed home for a nap and a recharge before meeting Leber and the crew out for drinks at the uptown. To finish off a long day, I went and had a night capper at the hippy bar.

I slept in on Saturday and spent much of the morning napping. In the afternoon I went CD shopping and picked up a birthday present for A.P. That evening I went to A.P.’s surprise birthday party. It was a great time. I had been to maybe only two surprise birthday parties before then (one of them being mine) and they’re tons of fun. The building anticipation and excitement in the minutes before the party’s recipient arrives is wonderful. And it’s all the tension is released in a giant smile once they figure out what is going on. Well, that’s what happened in A.P.’s case anyway.

I slept in on again on Sunday because, naturally, that is what I do on weekends. And although I spent an hour or so doing laundry, I spent most of the morning trying to burn a CD. Every time it got to about the 5th song my stupid computer would peter out and I wouldn’t be able to get the CD made. I wasted about 4 hours and just as many black disks and still never got the fucker working. In the evening I headed over to Lebers for another cookout. Another wonderful evening huddled around the chiminia drinking mai tais and eating burgers and hot dogs.

I slept in again on Monday (are you beginning to see a trend) and spent what little was left of the morning cleaning my bathroom, a chore I hate more than any next to doing the dishes. In the evening I headed over to my moms house for a steak and potato weekend wind-down.

I guess I could have just said work, drink, pizza, drink, sleep, chore, bbq, drink, sleep, chore, bbq, drink, sleep chore, bqq, sleep.