Surfin' and chillin'

a bar story

2009-12-04T06:51:08Z

random bar story from my recent trip to michigan. i'm in the side track bar in depotown when i hear what sounds like a quarter fall on the ground and roll a bit then hit metal. i look over and see a man at a table across the room looking down at the spot of the noise in moderate earnest. next i hear the first "no way". shortly followed by another "no wayyyy". it wasn't a quarter. it was his wedding ring! ha. it's fallen through a foot square old fashioned floor grate. mind you this is an old bar and that is an old bar drain. after some unfortunate realization for said ring loser and some attention from the wait staff, they manage to pry up the grate. this is where the picture happens. it's the fellow reaching down the hole only to realize it's deeper than he hopefully imagined. it was pretty hilarious and tragic as well. i've paid my bill at this point, so i'm proceeding to leave at which time a waitress is shining a flashlight down the drain. and oh the site of that hole. it must have been about 20 years of collective dust and the knowing that the ring passed through a good chuck of it. ohhh crap. here's hope you found that ring, bar guy. cheers.

bye

2009-11-30T01:29:43Z

hardest bit of life i've had to deliver that our wondeful Lucy died one night before we got back from vacatione. she was such a special little cat. rescued by her owner when she was a mere kitten from the advancing cornering of a large canine. tenderly loved and cared for, Lucy was a true shy cat. small and sleek, completely black. she was adorable curled up on the the bed or when she'd be chasing her tail. she was just starting to accept me as a second human to her one true owner too. she lived 8 beautiful years and will be remembered fonded by many that knew her. bon voyage Lucy, may all your new adventures be free of worry and filled with the love you showed us.

beacons in the house

2009-11-08T23:07:32Z

had a pretty stellar surf session with slovak today. it's really hard to sit and watch football when there's beautiful stuff like this going on. plus, my nfl teams stinks, so i really have no reason to watch. it was a pretty intimidating paddle out. we aimed directly for the middle of this picture but after getting pushed south by the undertow and kinda paddling through a set (bad timing) we ended up way left. as big as the waves were they were actually kind of gentle. it was such big, long period swell it made the waves themselves wider, which in turn slows them down and make them "mushy". which is better when you have a big one homing in on you. the duck unders, albeit wild, were not it the scary range. meaning we were able to stay out for over 2 hours. it was pure bliss.

hola

2009-10-30T05:20:42Z

got a new addition to the house hold and it's not a baby. well at least not yet anyway. this is hermes. he's a gecko that found his way into the land of cubicles. so now he's gonna live in a plastic box on my dresser for a while. no you can't get out either!

a proper dog walk

2009-10-28T06:17:09Z

take dog to country

find some proper country-fied stuff. yes ducks are country.

get dog wet and dirty

wash dog! awww poor guy :(

who wants a house?

2009-10-26T03:06:02Z

on a lark, i accepted an invitation from work to help build a house for habitat for humanity in oceanside. as most people would know i don't have much aptitude for carpentry or construction but i still thought i couldn't do much worse than not being there at all.

about 10 people showed up from the company of roughly 2000 local employees. a bunch of lazy bums i tell ya. anyhow they missed getting to saw this kitchen up and laying some (cement?) board on top of those counters to then lay tile over later.

i accepted the job of electrician as i know at least something about this as i have some electrician friends. my buddy tad kept me imformed via text when i hit a snag. all in all i did pretty well. i managed to get this outlet wired up pretty well. one of the harder parts is actually jamming it back in the little receptacle box.

most of the people that showed up just wanted to play with concrete. it looked like fun but i was busy with the sockets.

mostly i like doing stuff like this because i am curious and like to take advantage of opportunities. it was neat to learn that they were not just building one house for a needy family, but 20! the one in this picture is the one i worked on but the whole row is volunteer made. they have 5 built with families already in them, 4 more almost finished and 2 that were getting close. they then had 2 foundations laid for the start of the last 9. it was also cool to learn about the process of "sweat equity" and talk with a couple kids working off hours for their mom that was buying a house. all in all a good time and one i would probably do again.

a goodly update

2009-10-20T04:53:48Z

look at magnificent fish! he is really turning the corner as a fun "pet" to own. doesn't hide and act quite as anti-social as he used to. as i mention in the flickr description, he is almost 4 years old. i think that is a pretty decent age for a fish although i recently heard on the news about a fish in new york that is 40. i think with a bigger tank i could get this guy to at least 10. he certainly still loves to eat. he was also up for a little photo session. so now you get to see my solo fish is all his glory. fish ownership is pretty cool. you should get one.

argggh i can't believe how much bad luck i'm having with surfboards. last week a fin breaks off the "spider" shortboard. i had already shelved this blue shortboard until i got the damage you can see in the tail fixed. now i'm having to ride it that way. i dropped the other board off at joe ropers [+] and as the technician is inspecting it there is all this other wear and tear damage. so it looks like i'll be out 90 bucks to get that fixed then i will dropping off the board pictured here, probably another 30 bucks. i was thinking of buying a new board too. i really need something but oh well. i'll stick it out with these two for a while longer. surf has been good to. a foot OH last week. i witnessed something i've never seen before when a ripper out at grandview literally ollied 3 feet into the air over another surfer paddling over the wave. it was freaking crazy.

do you blackberry?

2009-10-04T16:11:55Z

as my panasonic point and shoot is on it's last legs, i've be using the new blackberry curve cameraphone pretty extensively. here are some of the results.

summer surf update

2009-09-16T06:10:11Z

the surf has been pretty good. went out in del mar yesterday after work. the water is still very warm. possibly the warmest its been all summer. funny thing is, the weather has finally turned chillier over the last few days. the weather in general in san diego is so strange. one minute it's summer and one day later it's fall. Colors changing and all. And when i say colors, i mean shades of brown. so anyway, the surf was fun. nice big set waves out of the north. the water at sunset was a beautiful purple/gray/blue color. saw a huge fish jump. the last wave of the day i killed it and was still making turns practically onshore. have also still been hitting la jolla at lunch. it has been completely nuts for the past two months in regards to tourists. i've been having to park half illegally many times. the Fit is wonderful at this. it almost fits in the tightest spots. luckily i have yet to get a ticket even though i've been hugging many red curbs. things changed this week however. got down to the beach on monday and the tourists are gone! it was a fantastic sight to behold. bright sun shining day and just a sprinkling of people on the beach and absolutely no surfing learners. don't get me wrong i don't have a problem with noobs, especially at a place like la jolla shores (and considering everyone has to learn sometime) but it is still great they are gone. unfortunately this NW swell was walling and dumping right on the beach. quick, steep drops. had a freaky moment when i exited a smaller wave, popped up to grab my board and the stupid thing is still flying through the air. worse still, the tip is starting to fall towards my face. i did a quick dodge and the board did miss me, it was still a quirky close call.

this picture is from earlier in the summer at a different la jolla break that i hadn't surfed before. it's a weird wave that breaks just offshore over a piece of reef. it's not your run of the mill wave and i had to handle it really cautiously. that is me paddling out.

the chicken cooped is design is hatched.

2009-08-03T01:23:25Z

here is my (second) rough draft chicken coop design. it's based off scrap wood that was in the garage already. that wood consisted of two 10 foot twobyfours and several bookshelf type pieces of wood that all conincided with 36 inches pretty nicely. i already have a section of chicken wire from a local yard sale that is roughly 3ft by 7ft. my idea is that the front section will be completely twobyfours and chicken wire as an outdoor area and then a box in the back for the chickens to roost. no current plan for a nesting box as i'm not 100percent sure i want eggs. it will rest on the ground until i find a need to raise it up. you'll notice two small doors, the one on the left for the chickens to move between the roosting box and the pecking area and the door on the right for human access to slide a bin or sheet in and out below the roost for the pooping. if my calculations, and amount of scrap wood, are correct, all i need to actually buy is 36 more feet of twobyfours. i'm also attempting to do this all with just regular non-powered saw. as i don't own many power tools yet.

mushroom cap pale ale

2009-07-23T02:52:24Z

sweeeet, the beer tastes like beer and acts like beer and well it looks like beer too. foamy delicious beer that made in my home. hooray for beer!

brew thru

2009-07-21T05:06:32Z

it's been a brew filled couple weeks around the hygeia household. here's a little video roommate bob shot with his iphone. it's kinda funny because this is our very first time brewing and we're a little unsure of exactly what we're doing. can you tell? well i hope not. this beer(classic pale ale) that you're watching us make is going to be ready to drink in 2 days time from me writing this journal. we are all very excited. after the boil finishes (what we're doing in this video) the beer goes into a fermenter (a 5 gallon bucket) for 8 days then we bottled it. as we were bottling it, we all took a quick nip and it tasted like pretty good beer. so our hopes are high.

i'm still dealing with selling my old civic. basically it kinda comes down to getting it to pass smog and how much annoyance i'm willing to deal with. as a method of improving my smog chances, i've dumped in additive to the fuel and the directions to make it work is to burn the full tank of gas. to that end, i was out burning some miles on the freeway last night. it was like a farewell to the old ride. while i was out on the 78 near escondido, a black 05 civic si hatch and a white integra gsr came tearing past and i shed a little tear for my civic tuner that never became. i love my new fit, but as much as it is a phenomenal car and great for surfing, it is not a speedster. i can deal tho. hopefully i pass smog this weekend and sell this dang car. you'll have to wait and see.

ok also i failed my first microsoft certification exam. i actually studied relatively hard for it and learned the software pretty well. i watched almost 8 hours of cbt nuggets. the one thing i didn't do was use a practice exam. well i still thought i had a good shot. but alas, i got a 570 and needed a 700 to pass. it is probably penance for scoring a perfect 1000 on the vista test (boy was that easy!). normally i would refrain from bitching on here, but one thing i did not know about MS testing was if you fail, you fail. thank you for your money and come again. for some reason i thought they would let me test again for free. no dice. that doesn't seem very nice but this is microsoft we're talking about. so whatever, that's 125 dollars i shant need again. i can't just leave it at that though. i've already signed up for the test again this wednesday. practice test and more studying is done. i should be cool.

school is good. i'm taking tennis because it is required to have two sports classes. luckily it's the perfect time of year for tennis and the class is really fun. i'm getting pretty good already. in more pertinent school news, i've picked my major... Earth Science. always one of my favorite classes and the fact that i've already completed chemistry makes my progress much easier. i've signed up for US history next semester (another core req) and it will be really rad because my friend ben will be taking the class with me. we're friends and community college buddies! and how easy will us history be, i mean pleeeease. gimme a break. but i will be a good student and do the work and hopefully (i damn well better) get an A. next semester though i will actually take at least one hard class.

more pictures on flickr of course. i got a new blackberry. i held out for a lonnnng time on that old blackberry. but after almost 3 years it was simply behaving really wacky and had to go. my new blackberry curve is the hotness and has a camera phone. so expect bunches of phone picks and twitter updates. bye!

get outside

2009-06-30T05:40:46Z

had a weekend of exploring around the neighborhood, surfing some tasty waves and cleaning out the garage. who would of known i could be so productive?

brain dump

2009-06-24T04:58:18Z

i have not updated in a while. life has been reeeeeally busy. i'm working harder at the office then ever. i have an awesome girlfriend. i'm taking classes at miramar to finally get my associates. still surfing. not running, it's like sometimes you have to simplify your life and quitting running was what i need to do right now. i started an herb garden and have been regularly eating from it. finally brewed beer! that was a blast. it should be ready in a couple weeks, i'll let you know how it turns out. i have been struggling to update any social internet service. facebook and twitter are blurring the lines on where i should post. i have to go study now. not for school but for new software at work. expecting to take another microsoft certification test in the next few weeks then another one after that. having a new car makes life easier. i'm finally ready to sell my old one. i cleaned it up last friday. it' looks pretty good. i'm still eating burritos (duh). i'm thinking about starting another fish tank. a big one with lots of plants. i've put off my dream of chickens for now. i have video of llamas from peru that i've yet to upload. they had llamas at the san diego zoo, i wanted to feed them banana peels. they like banana peels. anyway, a couple more pics here and more on flickr as well. cheers!

beer!

oh, i volunteered through my work in partnership with the USO to stuff bags of goodies for soliders overseas. it was a fun, i enjoy drinking the company kool-aid.

work work work

2009-06-09T14:31:29Z

seems peruvians don't bother with heavy machinery that much. looking at this pic you'll see they mastered the bucketline. i think they were only doing cosmetic work making this stream look neat.

i've put up even more pictures. a bunch are friends only. so if you're reading this and still not my buddy on flickr, now's the time.

lego is really authentic

2009-06-07T19:17:15Z

used the free passes from when my sister and family were here. all in all legoland is the not good. kids are murderously out of control. no beer either. plus parking is still 12 dollars or if ur a local yocal such as myself then u wood know which corporate plaza to park behind and hoff it down the crazy twisting lego street.

building a massive whole foods community storefront compound.

vngolego

machu picchu is go!

2009-06-03T03:32:21Z

i (heart) tourists in floppy hats :)

proof that peruvians are awesome (crazy)

2009-05-27T06:37:12Z

this was our cab driver heading back to mira flores from downtown (san francisco inglesia). it's a pretty long ride and the streets are mostly oneway and tiny. needless to say this guy just tore around. the first indication that something was amiss with this particular cabbie was the fact he turned the radio way up when took off. it was something mildy rock/folksy. he then proceeded to cut other cars off (which is perfectly acceptable in peru), yell profusely at a cop directing traffic away from a closed street, then proceed to floor it with utmost urgency when the way cleared. he was more than happy to pose for my exiting the cab picture.

little known to most folk but the incans are still building the "ruins"

plus a bunch more pictures on my Flickr Peru Set. And soon to come Machu Picchu...

do u bbq?

2009-05-27T05:36:51Z

we did some serious grilling over the weekend. oysters for sure.

oh man, where to start.

2009-05-20T07:28:43Z

i know one thing, i take a lot of pictures. it comes natural. focusing on taking a picture helps me remember the moment in greater detail whether the picture comes out well or not.

keep a look out

2009-05-20T06:58:34Z

i think the characters of peru were trying to tell me something

like where's the cheese?

miraflores

2009-05-19T03:09:44Z

hey compatriots! i'm back from peru. fricking peru in SOUTH AMERICA. yea that is a long way from socal. what a great great place. while there for the first 6 days, i stayed in this phenomenal apartment that had kickass views of the ocean and a neat perspective on Peru's city and road planning. which i think are quite rad. quite.

lima is well known for the coastal fog and if you were not so sure it was true, now you know. also... sunsets? youbetcha!

hello from lima

2009-05-09T19:21:33Z

hola amigos, mi llamo chris. i'm updating from sims apartment here in beautiful miraflores, lima, peru. the weather is currently in the high sixties and it's cloudy but there is a nice ocean breeze. the weather and much of the city is very similar to san diego. it is the day of the wedding. we had a nice lunch with the groom in which there was a local television crew recording us eat the meal. it seems paul and pam are rolling quite high society over here and they are filming the wedding. it will be interesting to see how things go. it's been a whirlwind couple days here. we've seen local peruvian dancers perform a dinner show, taking a night time bus tour, danced, had a great meal in a nice restaurant on the pier over the ocean. the waves have looked fantastic but i haven't had the time or bother to surf. i still may go yet. we're gonna go for a walk down to the cliffs now. see ya.

pay the rent

2009-05-05T07:47:19Z

like a final burrito, the california sunset is a final goodbye before i leave for another season south of the equator.

should i stay or should i go (2)

2009-05-05T04:32:30Z

well i had grand intentions of surfing some dynamite 3 to 5 footers on the beach directly on the peruvian coast. however this surf model from magicseaweed is saying quite a nasty swell is headed that way. hmmm indeed. from the research i've been doing via the internet irl stuff (rmates gf) the coast in lima is pretty similar to ocean beach/point loma/san diego. like yea, my confidence was high i could rip. we'll see. might be able to hit it on the backside of the trip. we'll see, either way, viva peru! see you later!