Trigby's Rigamoroo

South America - Here we come!

2011-03-22T16:00:00.000-07:00

OK... So, it's been forever since I posted anything, but I'm so excited about our trip that I wanted to capture the details beforehand to share them with you... If you know of any hidden gems along our route, that we shouldn't miss, please let me know!

First, we're headed down to Rio De Janeiro on June 8th. We'll spend a fun-filled week seeing the Copacabana, watching those girls from Ipanema, checking out some favelas, doing the samba, the merengue and the cha-cha-cha and just generally soaking up the Brazilian atmosphere!

From there we'll be flying to Iguazo Falls for a couple of days. This series of 275 waterfalls is on the border of Brazil and Argentina.

Next we'll be flying to Lima, staying the night and then heading off to Cuzco in the Andes in Peru. (Cuzco is the historic capitol of Peru.)

We'll be hanging out in Cuzco for a couple of days to give us time to acclimate to the 11,400 ft altitude. Then we'll head off to a day in the Sacred Valley and we'll be spending the night in someplace called Ollantaytambo.

Now the real adventure begins! We head off on the Inca Trail. This is a 4 day hike through the mountains and old Inca villages that the Incas used before the Spanish arrived to get from place to place and that they used to ultimately get to Machu Picchu.

The trek is limited to 500 people a day, and you have to go with a group, to keep damage to the trail limited. I've never been on a hike that required porters to carry your belongings and apparently, even with the porters this is a grueling hike, but it should be an amazing experience. Each day we'll start hiking at 7am and end at 4-5pm and there are lots of up and and down hills. It will probably be the most "remote" civilization I will have ever seen.

After our time at Machu Picchu, we'll be flying to Puerto Maldanado, the entryway to the Amazon Basin. From there, they will be taking us via motorized canoe into the Amazon to our eco-lodge. (No electricity, but working toilets and kerosene lamps!) We'll spend a few days checking out the wildlife and meeting the natives.

Next we'll be flying to Lima, where we'll spend a quick night before heading to Curacao, where we'll spend a week decompressing from all of our adventures on a hut on a beach. (Or at least the closest thing we can find!)

I've always believed that every time I've gone to a new country, I've come home a changed person. I can't wait to be the Trigby that has experienced all this.

Moving on...

2010-10-07T18:03:00.000-07:00

In a few short days, I'll be leaving my fantastic SOMA loft to move to the Mission. Frankly, to an even more fabulous loft space with a beautiful deck, sky lights all over, on a quiet street with a great kitchen and tons of storage space! I can't wait!

It's been an interesting experience living down here. I can't really beat the commute, although it was hard to blame Muni for making me late to work when all I had to do was cross the street. It won't be the same living in the Mission. I'll miss the feeling of being on top of the world, and I'll miss my beautiful view, and I'll miss the Coke Sign. I will not be missing the homeless shelter around the corner, or all the broken glass from the car break-ins. I won't miss the steam cleaner coming by weekly at 4:30 AM, or having to go up & down stairs in the middle of the night to use the bathroom!

I've enjoyed my place, but I'm ready for my next new adventure! I think Eric & I will turn our new place into a really nice home. I look forward to lots of entertaining at home and a Winter full of excuses to not go anywhere, but just stay in. I also can't wait to explore the nooks and crannies of the new neighborhood! Watch this space for pictures coming soon!

7x7 Desserts - #2 -Alfajores from Sabores del Sur

2010-08-25T07:32:00.000-07:00

Our 2nd stop on our dessert tour was for Alfajores from Sabores del Sur. I never would have expected that one of the very best desserts would have been from the Alemany Farmer's Market! (Which has been operating in that spot since 1947!)

The Experience: We got up early on a Saturday morning to head down to the Alemany Farmer's Market. Once again, we had Muggs with us, but when we got to the Farmer's Market, they told us "no dogs allowed", so we had to make a quick dash for it while we left Muggs in the car. We raced through the market, searching everywhere before we came to the small coffee stand labeled "Sabores del Sur". I don't think either of us really expected that this unassuming coffee stand would have much in the way of desserts, but were we ever wrong. We bought our cookies and some coffee from the incredibly sweet owner and raced back to the car to enjoy our cookies back at home.

My Expectation: I really wasn't expecting much. I had already been to the best Mexican pastry shop EVER, in Dallas, so I was fairly sure these cookies wouldn't compare.

Evaluation: Occasionally a person eats something that is perfect. These cookies are that dessert. I'm fairly certain that if there is a heaven that it is made out of these cookies. The stuff in the middle is a carmel like filling, which looks like it's going to be thick and frosting-like, but it's light and airy and has the delicious taste of carmel. YUM. If you have no other reason to go, head down to this place and try these cookies. They are just that good.

Ranking:

#1 - Alfajores from Sabores del Sur

#2 - Lemon Cream Tart from Tartine Bakery

Eric's Thoughts: Here

7x7 Desserts - #1 - Lemon cream tart at Tartine Bakery

2010-08-24T10:00:00.000-07:00

So... It's taken me a little while to get the time to start posting these, so there will be a flood of reviews at first... but then they should settle into about once a week. First up, the Lemon Cream Tart at Tartine Bakery.

The Experience: We walk by Tartine all the time and Eric has a spiritual relationship with their morning buns, so I knew anything that we'd have here would be good. Of course, we had to wait in the line, that always seems to be wrapped around the building. We were walking Kathleen's dog, Muggs, so Eric had to wait outside with her while I went in and got the tarts to go. The picture shows the small tarts on the bottom and the big tart on the top. Obviously they are art, even before you eat them. They put my tarts in a tasteful little bakery box and we walked back to Eric's place to enjoy them.

My Expectation: I love anything lemon and anything creamy, so I was sold even before I tasted the tart. Eric isn't so wild about Lemony things, so he wasn't as excited as I was. (Plus, he has that crazed look in his eye for the aforementioned morning buns.)

Evaluation: Yes! They were heaven. If a lemon cream tart sounds like your "thing", then you'll have a hard time finding a better one on planet Earth. Simple. Straightforward. Delicious. Extremely creamy. Not overly sweet. Just enough crust to add a sweet crunch, but thin and light. Truly heavenly.

Ranking: Being that this is the first one. This one is currently, #1.

Eric's Thoughts: Here

7x7 - 50 Deserts in 50 Weeks

2010-08-24T08:00:00.000-07:00

View 50 Treats to Eat Before You Die in a larger map

About a month ago, I was perusing 7x7 magazine, and came across their list of, what they say are, the 50 best desserts in San Francisco. Taking this as a personal challenge, Eric & I decided to try one new dessert every week for the next 50 weeks, until we had tried them all! We decided to do them in order, so as to not pick out those that we liked best and skip the rest. Of course, Eric being the phenomenal photographer that he is, is capturing each one artistically.

Me being lucky to get the target of my photograph in the frame at all, is just using my iPhone to capture them. Still, they're so delicious looking that it isn't that rough to get a decent shot.

One other great thing about doing this particular set of quests is that not only will we try a lot of tasty treats, but we'll have the excuse to eat at a lot of amazing restaurants!

For each dessert, I'll be covering:

The Experience
What I expected from the dessert
What I thought of the dessert
My ranking of the desserts tried so far
A link to Eric's posting of the dessert (so you can see the pretty pictures & see what he said)

And... no, I will not be posting my current weight, waist size or need to purchase a new belt. Hopefully this will all just be further incentive to get my butt to the gym. For now... Let's start with the dessert!

Camping - Lassen Volcanic National Park

2010-08-12T18:34:00.001-07:00

For as long as I've lived in San Francisco, I have wanted to go camping in Lassen Volcanic National Park. It's in northern California, just east of Redding, which is about a 4 hour drive from SF, and it's got active volcanos (all four types!), open boiling pools of water and sulfurous gas coming out of the ground! I've seen most of California, but I hadn't been here, so I've been looking forward to going ever since Eric first told me that he'd take me many, many months ago!

It had been forever since I'd been car camping, but I loved it. On Saturday, we hiked up to the very top of Mount Lassen. You drive up to the parking lot which is at 8,500 feet, and then you hike the rest of the way up to 10,500 feet, up to the crater where Mount Lassen blew back in 1915. It was incredible! Pictures never capture the feeling of being up so high, but we did manage to hike to the very, very tippy top!

Way down below us, you can see the snow in August, so that gives you a sense of how high up we were!

I downloaded a cool app into my iPhone that not only tracked our entire hike, but allowed me to take pictures along the way. Here's a link to our Hike! The satellite image was taken when the mountain was completely covered in snow. It wasn't quite that bad when we hiked it. Still, it was a grueling climb and we were thrilled when we made it to the top.

To get to the very, very top, you had to follow this trail:

If you're thinking, "What trail?", you'd be right. The last bit was a little insane, but the hike back down was total relief.

That night we made dinner and crashed. There were a million stars out, so we just sat and talked and laughed and watched the night sky and listened to the sound of the woods and the other campers. It was an incredibly peaceful evening.

I thought we'd take another hike on Sunday, but we were both worn out, so we just walked around Lake Manzanita, which was really beautiful, and then drove home.

Being unplugged from all media sources and input was a really wonderful break and left me totally refreshed by the time Monday rolled around. I need to remember that and go camping again soon! Thanks Eric!

PDC - Day 3a - Coba!

2010-06-24T06:23:00.000-07:00

The next day we got up early, rented a jeep to head into the jungle!

You really do feel like you are in the middle of nowhere, after a few hours of driving through this:

We did eventually come across Coba. This was an ancient Mayan city that was founded around 100 AD and abandoned about the time the Spanish showed up, with the hey day really being about 800 AD. Due to the jungle, you don't really realize how large the site is. We checked out some of the buildings at the entrance, which included a small pyramid and a ball-court.

There was no shortage of flora and fauna:

Then after walking for about 45 minutes through the jungle (think hot & humid), we came across the large pyramid in Coba, Nohoch Mul.

We didn't come all this way to not climb up to the top, but once you're up there, you realize there really is nothing around you but jungle!

Once we climbed up and down that pyramid, good sense got the best of us and we decided to rent a bicycle taxi to take us to the last site and back to the entrance. Our final stop at Coba was to see the stelea (big carved stone tablet) that predicts that the end of this phase of the Mayan calendar in 2012! There are a lot of these stelea all over the place here, but this one particular stelea explains the Mayan creation myth and seems to say that this phase will be over in just a couple of years. Here it is:

As you can see, unfortunately, because these stones are all made of limestone, they basically melt in the rain, so there isn't much left to check out and the details are pretty sketchy. In case you're worried that the end really is near, it won't be because the Mayans predicted it. Apparently the Mayan's thought there would be 9 cycles of existence, and this only predicts then end of the 7th cycle. So... after a bike ride back to our car, we headed back into the jungle, but that will be a story for a little later...

PDC - Day 2 - XPLOR

2010-06-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

I'd better get this darn trip documented, before I forget all about what happened...! Our 2nd day in Mexico, Eric's parents had bought us tickets to XPLOR, an adventury sort of amusement park in the middle of the jungle about 10 minutes south of PDC. First they give you little helmets with chips embedded in them so that every time you get near a camera it automatically takes a picture of you. Like this one, when we were in the "heart" of XPLOR:

This was the center starting point, from here there are all kinds of different adventures to go on. The first was driving the little off-road cars around a track which ran about 5 miles. It was very narrow, so there was very little "freedom", but still it was fun driving down into tunnels, over suspension bridges and up steep hillsides in the jungle!

Next was the zip-lining. I had never done any zip-lining before, and sailing WAY above the jungle, hanging from a cable was incredible! Unfortunately, you are SO high up that they don't really take pictures of you way up there. Eric was a little freaked out, and a lot freaked out when we got to the tallest one which was 45 meters tall, but he jumped like a trooper especially when he realized it would be at least an hour walk back thru the jungle if he didn't!

There's a video, but it will have to be posted later.

Finally we did some underground swimming and rafting in caves full of stalactites. It was awesome!

PDC - Day 1 - Beach Day!

2010-06-11T11:33:00.001-07:00

To kick our tropical holiday off right, I planned for our first day to be strictly a beach day. We started with breakfast at the hotel, where Eric got introduced to Mexican pastries. I'm not sure why it is, but all baked goods in Mexico have a bit of a mealy texture to them (maybe it's the humidity?) , so Eric was not exactly in love with the "bread".

In any case, we doused ourselves with sunscreen and went to the beach club that was recommended by the hotel, which was called Kool. The place had a very friendly vibe and although they played throbbing techno all day, it was a dream sitting on the beach and trying to decide whether to have another beverage or go dip into the aqua blue water. They even had a pool!

I had been afraid because every weather report had predicted thunderstorms for our entire trip, but although it rained for 2 minutes when we first arrived at the beach, that was the only significant storm we got. The clouds then left off to the horizon and we had a beautiful day.

Eric took this opportunity to try out the waterproof camera case that his brother and Gracie had got him for his birthday!

Unfortunately, I had forgotten that we were below the tropic of cancer... and that I should have been reapplying sunscreen on an hourly basis. :(

So... even though I stayed under a palapa all day, my legs were exposed, and I guess I missed a spot with the sunscreen. My right leg was burnt about as badly as I have been burnt in at least a decade.

But, honestly... it was worth it.

That evening, we walked the few blocks to the Walmart. Yes, Walmart.

And we stopped by the Mega Mart grocery story, where we were told by security to stop taking pictures in the store! Here is Eric posing with some Sponch!, but just as the security guard comes around the corner!

Finally we tried the Lebanese restaurant for dinner, Maktub. Yes, they indeed have Lebanese food in Playa, but of course all Lebanese food is compared to his mom's and of course when the bar is that high, it rarely lives up. Still it was tasty!

Day 1, a complete success.

Surprise! Playa Del Carmen

2010-06-10T08:00:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've blogged, but I definitely wanted to get down the memories of our trip to Mexico... so, here goes!

A few months ago, I suggested to Eric that he let me take him away for Memorial Day weekend. I figured a surprise trip away would be the perfect birthday gift! After doing some research, I decided that we'd head to Playa Del Carmen! I'd never been and Eric had never been anywhere in Mexico, but I knew that he liked sunny beaches and warm crystal clear blue water, so PDC seemed perfect! Plus it was a great jumping off spot for exploring ruins and snorkeling! So... I talked him into taking a week instead of a weekend, but still didn't tell him where we were going!

Unfortunately, as we got within a week of heading away, Eric developed a horrible infection in one of his teeth that required a root canal. Once that crisis passed, on the last morning before we left I noticed that my passport had expired, but after an emergency trip to the passport office, which was (miraculously) able to get me a new passport, on Saturday morning we were on the plane and flying away! We traveled all day and touched down in Cancun in the late afternoon. From there the driver met us and drove us the hour south to Playa Del Carmen. We checked into our hotel, where as it turns out we had a private little suite with our own private sun bathing patio. We were a block off Quinta, the main pedestrian walkway, and 2 blocks from the beach.

Of course, the first thing we did was march ourselves down to the beach.

Once we'd scoped the beach out, we wandered up Quinta Ave. looking for a place to eat. It was Saturday night, so the place was bustling. It was an interesting mix of low-grade tourism (t-shirt shops, shot glasses and wresting masks), mid-range stuff (artisan handicrafts, housewares) and high-end designers. All packed together in a mishmash - which really had the effect of making it comfortable.

After grabbing some Mexican food and spending a couple of hours exploring, we decided to head to bed on the early side to get a bright and early start at the beach the next morning! We were both in such a great mood, being on vacation, and it made me so happy to see Eric so bliss-ed out!

The Flu Hits

2010-02-26T06:53:00.000-08:00

Last weekend we celebrated the birthdays of two close friends - Darren (big 4-0) & Andy (31)! Unfortunately, sometime during that weekend I came across someone who unwittingly shared with me some of the flu virus that they'd been incubating. I've been healthy all Winter, so I'm not complaining, although this flu was a strong one. It left me on the couch watching TV for 3 days solid. Not moving. Not leaving. Not even with enough energy or concentration to read the news.

Fortunately, Kathleen and Eric were both sweet enough to bring me care packages and I was taken care of and on day 3 I started to recover.

What did I spend all that time watching? Heroes - the whole first season. (Thanks Netflix on Demand). Wow. That was a good show! OK, a little corny, but I like archetypes, and stories about the confusing swirl of emotions and motivations that make good and evil hard to clearly define except at the extremes. Plus, it's just fun SciFi...

The funny thing is... I'm not sure if it was the fever, or watching Heroes, or maybe just the several days alone with a quiet mind, but whatever it was I feel a renewed energy to take on the challenges that life throws at me and a renewed sense of my own ability to influence my own life. It feels so good being healthy again, it almost makes it worth being sick!

Valentine's 2010

2010-02-15T11:01:00.000-08:00

This year Valentine's Day seem to start the day before. On Saturday Eric & I were out to lunch with some friends and dropped in a little boutique chocolate shop and bought a box of tasty little "foodie" chocolates. Then we went home enjoyed the chocolates and watched Julie & Julia, which was a great romantic night at home movie!

On Sunday we went our separate ways to run some last minute Valentine's Day errands. When Eric returned home he had some of these amazing cupcakes.

After devouring them, I tried to give a Eric a little at home spa day, but that didn't work out as well as I'd planned. (I had the whole thing worked out to be at my place, and it just didn't work out the same at his place. I didn't have the cucumber water or the relaxing music... oh well.)

After that we hopped in the car and Eric started driving towards downtown to some mysterious destination. He parked and as he took the two pillows out of the trunk of the car, I knew where we were headed. He was taking me to the annual pillow fight at Justin Herman plaza.

Here it is before it gets going:

And here it is in full swing:

After about 15 minutes of beating on people with pillows, and getting beat on, which is more fun than it might initially sound... We headed off to dinner. I took Eric to Saha, which bills itself as "Arabic Fusion" cuisine. Dinner was a prix fixe menu, but everything was delicious and we did the wine pairing, which was also fantastic, although we were both so hungry that we pretty much inhaled our food. Still the setting was romantic and I bet we'll go back.

After dinner we went to the final surprise of the evening... First a little background: Eric and I have fairly different tastes in music. I love the music Eric listens to, but it tends to be very whitebread. Before Eric I'd never really listened to Radiohead or Imogen Heap or Keane or Regina Spektor. (Now I can't imagine living without them.) On the flip side, although I really like quite a wide-range of music, if you put a black woman in front of a microphone you can almost guarantee I'm going to like it, but none of Eric's music could ever be called soul music or R&B or funk. So, when we ended up at Yoshi's to see Leela James, who I hadn't even heard of, I had no idea what I was in for. The funny thing is, that neither did Eric, it was just a shot in the dark to try to give me something that I'd like, but it turned out to be perfect.

It was Valentine's Day, so everyone there was dressed to impress. I felt a little too casual, but then again there was something kind of nice to see the black people dressed up like they were royalty and everyone else there looking like they were just kinda plain.

Once inside the the venue was actually fairly intimate and the show was just incredible. Leela was the perfect combo of old school R&B and neo soul. I loved it. Everyone seemed to eat the music right up, and even Eric had a great time!

Without a doubt, that was the best Valentine's EVER! Thanks, Tarek!

20 Years

2010-01-29T10:14:00.000-08:00

For all practical purposes, you could say that I have spent all of my adult life in San Francisco. I fell in love with this city the very first time I visited with my parents back when I was a teen. They had said that if I could drive their stick shift car from Los Angeles to San Francisco and back for a weekend then I'd be ready to drive. I remember sitting in St. Mary's suffering through mass and watching Sutro tower appear out of the fog. I didn't know what it was. It looked like a huge spaceship in the sky and I thought I was having a hallucination!

From there it was just a matter of time. Even the earthquake happening just before I moved up could not detour me. This may sound ridiculous, but I remember watching "The Little Mermaid" in December of '89 and thinking it's time to stop putting my dreams on hold and time for me to just do it. Within 45 days I had moved. It was hard leaving family and friends behind. Honestly, I loved Los Angeles. In some ways there are still things I miss about it. It's a big city in a way that San Francisco will never be, but ultimately my heart was here.

Granted, I did a short sojourn in Seattle for a couple of years, but I wasn't that crazy about the emerald city. Unfortunately, sometimes you have to lose something you love to realize how much you loved it. After 2 years (to the day) I moved back. I said that the next time I'd move out of SF would be when they took my dead body to Colma, but that's just silly since I want to be cremated and put in the bay. I'm never leaving. Or, if I do, I'll be back. This is my home.

20 years ago today, my friend Chauntelle helped me move up, which was a real favor because my first apartment was a 4th floor walkup. We got up on a Saturday, packed everything I owned into a cargo van, drove it up here, and then carried everything up 4 flights of stairs. All in one day. (I don't think I ever really thanked her enough.) We had Chinese food that night for dinner and then collapsed. On Sunday we got up early and went downtown, which was of course, deserted. As we walked down Market street and I marveled at the fact that I actually lived here now, quite unexpectedly, a homeless man jumped out from behind a bus shelter, and screamed right in my face "GET OUT OF HERE! ". I just laughed and took that as my official city welcome.

There have been all kinds of crazy adventures over these 20 years. The one thing I can say for sure is that it hasn't been boring. I don't know what will happen next, in fact if anything the one thing that I've come to expect is the totally unexpected. Thank you San Francisco. I love you with all my heart.

Let there be snow!

2010-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

This past weekend, Eric & I took our first trip of 2010, which I guess makes it our first trip of the decade. We went skiing up at Tahoe.

The week at work had been a rough one, so I was really looking forward to getting away. I had invited some friends over for dinner, but ended up not having any time to cook, so they arrived and we ordered food. We had drinks and played games. It was an extremely fun night, as you can see by the spontaneous dancing that took place:

On Saturday morning, we arose, got ourselves ready, borrowed a friend's 4-wheel-drive and headed towards the mountains. Once up in Tahoe, we found our hotel, which was a small cute place called Secrets Inn. It was a couple of blocks from county line and Heavenly, where we were planning on skiing. The only real problem was that once we arrived, there was no manager, and when we tried to call the "emergency" number on the door we had to leave a message. While we waited a woman who was staying there came by and said, "Good luck! Some other people were waiting quite a while yesterday to check out". Another couple of guys came by who wanted to stay there, but communication with them was dodgy at best; I think their bloodshot eyes gave away the reason behind their inability to make full sentences. In any case, we headed toward the casino and were almost there when the hotel called and said our door was unlocked and that the key was inside. We got back, and sure enough it was. Very strange! In any case, the room was quite nice. We unpacked and then headed out for some Sushi, which we found via Yelp. We started at a place Eric had stayed at before, but ended up getting up from our table and leaving because the place just didn't seem quite right. We ended up at a really great sushi place, which had some crazy sushi, such as sushi with sundried tomato in it!

Saturday we were up early and out the door! After a quick ride up the mountain, only to find we had to get skis at the base, and a ride back down to get the skis and another ride up, we were ready!

We skied our little hearts out. It had been a few years, but before long I was racing down hills with abandon. It was tough, and a workout, but it felt great and was really fun.

As the day wore on, the storm moved in and by lunch time it was fully snowing and getting darker and darker. There was supposed to be a storm coming in that would last several days. We were off the slopes by 4 and headed back to the hotel, sore and smiling.

For the evening's entertainment, we went to the casinos for a while, but neither of us seemed especially lucky, so we grabbed a pizza and ran into someone I use to work with. Such a small world! Then we headed back to the room to enjoy the jacuzzi and listen to music. It was overall the best day I've had in a long time!

The next morning when we wanted to head home, we sat waiting in traffic to leave. I took this picture:

After waiting 3 hours and moving less than a mile, we headed back to town and checked into a hotel for the night and got a fresh start this morning. It was a great plan because we didn't get stuck at all today, although with the bad weather, it still took us quite a while to get home.

I'm happy to be home, but that was a really wonderful weekend away. Thanks, Eric!

XXS Cute

2009-12-17T11:04:00.000-08:00

OK... So I guess Eric & I will be having a "No THIS is cuter.." contest this holiday season. His whistling puppy was very, very cute, but I think this is even cuter:

SO CUTE!

Enjoy Coca Cola!

2009-12-12T14:55:00.001-08:00

Enjoy Coca Cola
Originally uploaded by JaBB

When I first moved into my new place, one of the small details that got me excited was that I could see the Coca Cola sign out my window. I loved the retro-glow of the old lights as it Vegas-ed it up. Turns out, there had been some kind of Coca Cola sign on that spot for 75 years! Every day at 5:30 the lights would come on and the sign would sparkle, hawking the tasty chemically corn syrupy corporatey goodness!

Imagine my horror when what initially looked like a "repair" turned into a "dismantle". The next thing I know... I looked over and the entire sign was gone. Gone! After 75 years.

Fortunately, the Google reassured me that it was only being taken down due to the amount of power it consumed and that it would be replaced by the end of the month with an LED, 80% more energy efficient, replacement. Shwew! I'll miss the old sign, but I refuse to judge before seeing the new one. Maybe it'll be even better!

I'm going to go have a Coke!

My First Few Days

2009-11-11T21:29:00.001-08:00

So... I have moved. I still have a few last items to clear out of the old apartment storage, but for all intents and purposes, I am relocated to South of Market!

Moving Day was a little intense. The night before, my very last night in the Castro, ended up having a very bittersweet feeling about it. I couldn't help but feel that after living in the Castro for the majority of my adult life, something important was changing. Not in a bad way. Just in a significant way. Honestly, I couldn't help but feel a little unanchored, but sometimes the best changes in life come from not being tied to the past.

On moving day, I woke up with an entirely different attitude. I felt like something new and exciting was starting and that there were all kinds of possibilities ahead of me. The movers came, and started taking all my belongings away. Moving everything that I owned... out. My new place has very little storage space, so I've really had to consider what I'm taking with me, and pare down. This has meant saying goodbye to a lot of things that I'd held onto for a long time, but in the end I think this is good for me. So... everything that was too precious to part with got loaded up and moved to my new loft. That afternoon, several friends stopped by to check out the new digs. It was heartwarming to have folks drop in a preview my new home.

On Saturday, after a day of moving chores, I decided to take a run around the neighborhood. No doubt, my first of many. I left and ran past the ballpark, down the waterfront to the Ferry Building and then up Market through downtown to 4th and back home. It was a great to be outside and really made me feel immersed in my new neighborhood. I've always loved downtown and running through it and seeing all the people enjoying it felt great.

On Sunday, I got up early and walked to the Safeway, which is a block away, to pick up some breakfast for Boom and me. It was early on a Sunday, but there were a lot of people out walking their dogs. It seems like this neighborhood is quite popular with dog people. Because it's mostly condos and lofts, and they pretty much all allow pets, many, many people are dog owners. How long will it take for me to get one, I wonder...?

We spent the day looking for furniture and by the time we had a late lunch I was fairly discouraged. I was exhausted from the move and hadn't found anything that I really liked. Little did I know I was about to run into an interior designer who had worked for a firm that had closed down, so she had taken a job at Crate And Barrel. Before I knew it I had found several items that I was looking for, and they were all going to work well together. They get delivered this Friday, so watch for pictures!

More of my adventures in my new pad later. For now, I'm going to hit the sheets. I'll add that unlike my last apartment which was endlessly noisy the new place is dead silent. I can't help but love it!

A new home?

2009-10-15T17:16:00.001-07:00

View Larger Map

So... Today I have finally found a place to move. (I hope.) I have been looking for about a year now, sometimes intensely, sometimes half-heartedly. It's been easy to stay where I was because it gave me a sense of stability and convenience, but now I'm moving. If this new place doesn't pan out, then I'll find something else, but I will be moved by the time the year is over.

The place that I applied for today is a modern loft building. Not especially fancy, but the space that I looked at is the top corner unit, so it's got lots of light and is large for a loft space. The high ceilings give it a sense of openness and it's a block from work! They'll let me have a dog if I decide that I want one, and there was something about it that just felt comfortable.

The bad news is that it's near CalTrain, which means that although there are stores and restaurants nearby I will be fairly far removed from friends and the places that I usually socialize, which means it'll be more of an effort to get out and to have people over, so I'll just have to leverage Eric's place in the Mission for dining and socializing options.

This place isn't a forever home, but it's definitely great for now and honestly it'll be good to be in a new space... I find out on Tuesday. Keep your fingers crossed!

Fun weekend - Theatre & King Tut

2009-10-11T19:38:00.000-07:00

Recently, as I've taken on a fairly intense project at work, it seems that I need more time relaxing during off hours. I was afraid that this weekend was going to be go, go, go, and as much fun as that sounded, I was afraid that I was going to miss just laying low. Fortunately, everything worked out.

On Friday after work, I raced home to get a work out in before Eric and I headed to the theatre. It was American Conservatory Theater's opening show of the season, Brief Encounter. I've been a subscriber to ACT for a while now, and they usually try to start the season with a bang, so I was really looking forward to it. Also with accolades like this from the Chronicle, my expectations were pretty high:

"Every so often a theater piece comes to town that is so brilliantly conceived and executed, so entertaining on every level, that you want everyone you love or even like just a bit to see it. Brief Encounter . . . is that kind of experience."

This particular show was based on the movie from the 40's, which was based on a play from the 30's by Noel Coward. The show was imported from London and was silly fun. Lots of romance and singing and special effects. Almost every scene had a movie running in the background and occasionally the actors would jump through the screen and end up on it as if they'd gone from real life to film. It was the kind of show where you just have to put your reservations aside and just go with the craziness.

Saturday Eric's cold went from bad to worse, so we ended up spending most of the day around the house, which was unfortunate because he didn't feel well, but I was as happy as could be to just hang out at home.

Today was brunch with Savita at Dosa and then off to see King Tut! I had seen the King Tut exhibit when it had come around before as a very young kid. I remembered being amazed at the coffin and funeral mask, and I still have some mementos that I picked up from back then. This was a fun exhibit, but it wasn't quite up to the standards of what had come before. I guess they won't let those old pieces out of Egypt any more. Honestly, I don't blame them. Still, I had hoped for more.

Here comes the fresh week with lots more work, plus we'll be seeing Wallace Shawn speak and dinner with friends. Should be a full week!

Musical Tuesday

2009-10-06T17:58:00.000-07:00

This is just fun. Unless you don't like the Black Eyed Peas. :)

(Hattip to Bartolicious.)

Sleepy in Seattle

2009-09-15T06:00:00.000-07:00

The not-quite-a-surprise weekend to Seattle was a hit! It didn't go at all as I had planned, but it worked out perfectly.

About 13 years ago, I moved to Seattle from San Francisco, and I lived there for 2 years. Exactly 2 years. To the day. I have always said that I felt like Seattle was a great town to visit, but too small a city for me to really enjoy living in. The good news is that since we were just going for a visit, it was easy for me to know lots of interesting spots to hang out and great restaurants to eat at, the bad news was that it was supposed to rain the whole time, I was going to have a tough time showing off much of it. Then again, that is part of the whole Seattle experience.

Last Friday, I had Eric meet me at the airport, we checked our bag and flew away, which was the usual pleasure on Virgin America. We landed amidst dark clouds, but quickly got into our rental car, and although it was rainy it was quite warm, so not uncomfortable. We checked into our hotel room on the 36th floor with a nice view of downtown Seattle.

The room was nice enough that even if we stayed in all weekend, it would still be enjoyable. After getting our bearings we went to Capitol hill to walk around and had some tasty Mexican food for dinner.

On Saturday morning, we got up and out fairly early (9:30ish) and without Eric having any idea as to where we were headed, we hopped on the monorail and sped to the Space Needle, where after the mandatory picture taking, we shot up to the top for a tasty brunch, while spinning around looking down on the city.

It was a great spot to give him a sense of the city, and it spins about once every 45 minutes, so we ate an extremely tasty brunch while looking down on the city, which our charming waitress popping in every once in a while to give us some fun Seattle trivia. We spent the rest of the day touring around. We went to the Chittenden Locks and Fish Ladder, Fremont (where I had lived), the Troll Under the Bridge, Gasworks Park, The U district for my favorite grilled feta sandwiches at the Continental, then off to Volunteer Park for a walk around. After all of that home for a nap and then out for a nice dinner at a restaurant called "Crow". It wasn't great food, but it was great company.

The next morning we spent a little time at the hotel gym, where unfortunately, Eric broke his iPhone. It was especially sad because he was having such a good time taking pictures with it, and turning them into polaroids.

So, first we went to brunch at the Coastal Kitchen, which is still phenomenal. Then off to the Apple Store to see if they could get the phone fixed up.

They couldn't really see us until the evening, so we took a diversion to Pike's Market, which was a fun couple of hours spent wandering and people watching. (If you look carefully, you can see the fish in mid-flight!)

From there, we went back to the Apple Store, and they repaired the phone on the spot, within minutes. Then we were off to some sushi in Fremont, and after some delectable chocolates, we saw the view from Kerry Park and then back to the room, where we called it an evening due to the heavy rain. I'd wanted to go to Bumbershoot, but it was just not meant to be. In any case, we had a really fun evening.

Finally on Monday, it was time to come home. We went to the Science Fiction museum, which honestly was a bit of disappointment. I liked it more the first time I saw it. I'm not sure why. Then after realizing that we were going to be too late for the Underground Tour, we went back to Pike's for more fun wandering (including some "mariachi" mac & cheese which was clearly delivered straight from heaven), and eventually to the airport and home. The final surprise of the trip was that to get the flight I wanted, I had to fly us home first class, so we had a really great ride home.

The Secret Is Out

2009-09-04T17:48:00.000-07:00

This morning, Eric and I were racing to get ready. We both had to get to work, but our paths were completely different.

From the minute I'd woken up my thoughts were racing with the list of things that I still needed to take care of for our secret weekend away. Eric knew we were going somewhere, but he didn't know where. I was silently obsessing over making dinner reservations for Friday night, a few last minute items that I needed to ensure that I packed, and what were we going to do if it did indeed rain the whole trip, as was the most recent forecast. I hadn't had coffee and I still needed to rush to get ready and get home before I headed to the office.

Eric on the other hand was trying to pack his bags for the weekend before he raced off to BART to get to work. He couldn't take his car due to the bay bridge closure tonight, so both of us were not following our usual routines.

While I was lost in my own thoughts, Eric asks me, "Are you going to take your backpack?". Suddenly I was lost. Was I going to take my backpack to work? I didn't have my backpack with me. Was I going to take my backpack on the trip? Why would he care about that? So then I blurted out "To Seattle?". I immediately realized what I'd done. We stared at each other for a few seconds in silence. Eric looking at me with an expression that said, "Is there some way I can politely ignore what you just said?" and mine saying, "Is there some way that I can say what I just said in reverse to make it go back in my mouth?". Then suddenly I just burst out laughing uncontrollably and he ran over to hug me and join me in the laugh. I'm just horrible keeping secrets from him. Oh well. At least now he can spend the next 36 hours looking forward to seeing the Emerald City. There are still a lot of surprises ahead of him. I can't wait!

Hand in Marriage

2009-08-30T17:11:00.001-07:00

I like this one...

The City I Love

2009-08-20T17:08:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday Eric and I took a walk from his flat to the top of the Bernal Heights hill. It was an enjoyable end to a wonderful weekend. Sometimes the simple things in life can bring just as much joy as anything else. I love the view from here. (The original shot is VERY large and you can make out lots of details!)

Tricky Tricky Eyeballs

2009-08-20T11:32:00.000-07:00

Something more interesting than this will be coming before long, but in the meantime, this image is crazy. It looks like the boxes are in a spiral, but if you trace them with your mouse you'll see they are really in concentric circles. Things like this remind me to just laugh at people who think they're always right.

Uncomprehensible

2009-08-12T18:37:00.000-07:00

I love when some aspect of life helps remind me of universal perspective. It's one of the reasons that I love astronomy. There is something deeply spiritual about it.

Surprise!

2009-08-10T15:08:00.000-07:00

This past weekend I had one of the best surprises of my entire life.

I had been bugging Eric for several months now about taking at trip with me to Los Angeles. We'd gone down several months ago for a friend's birthday. Since then I've wanted to take another trip down. Every time I'd mention it, he'd get a mad screwed up look on his face and he'd tell me to drop the subject. Finally, he told me that we were going to take a surprise trip down there and that he'd be in charge of everything. Periodically I'd ask about it, but more just to poke at him than anything else. I was totally charmed at letting him take over. Little did I know what I was in for...

I should say that lately life has been pretty crazy. There's been a lot to be frustrated at, but for whatever reason, this past week was just great. A week ahead of our scheduled trip to L.A. Eric took me to the airport to pick up his friend who was visiting for the weekend. He'd asked if I could leave the weekend open because he didn't know what his friend was going to want to do, so I had left the weekend completely free of plans. He also told me that his friend wanted to go to a speakeasy on Friday night, so I should make sure to bring my I.D. with me when we went to pick her up. Totally clueless, I did. He also told me that I needed to meet him at BART, which I did without question, and even when his friend Fonzie mentioned that he had other plans that night, rather than hang out with his friend visiting from London, I didn't question it. I guess I just trust him -- hook, line and sinker. Fool.

Well, when I first arrived at BART I noticed that I needed to go to the bathroom. I was thinking, "Dammit, I'm going to have to get over the Bay Bridge, to the airport, and back to the city before I'm going to be able to go.". Well, such is life. We drove along, sat is some bad traffic, and by the time we got to the airport, I was squirming. I raced out of the car while Eric and Fonzie made some kind of comments about texting the friend we were picking up. I failed to notice that they'd pulled up to departures rather than arrivals. I raced to the bathroom, and when I came back, Eric was there and Fonzie and the car were gone. I asked where Fonzie went and Eric said, "He's gone." I said, "Yeah, right.". I still didn't get it. Then Eric looked down at the bags that were sitting there and he put some Disney music on his iPhone and he told me that we were going down to L.A.. I was completely stunned. More stunned than I have been, maybe ever. I was so surprised. I had absolutely no idea that this was coming. It took me several minutes before I could even speak. Honestly, I felt like crying, but I was just too shocked. I'm so used to planning everything or at least keeping an eye on what's going on. This time I hadn't had a clue. Honestly, it was a little alarming that I could be so completely hoodwinked!

As much as I love Disneyland, I've never had anyone surprise me by taking me there. Ever. It was a trip that I will never forget. I already felt like it was some kind of strange magic that lead me to be dating Eric, but frankly, I don't know how I could have asked for something more perfect. More on the trip to Disneyland shortly, but don't worry, I'll be getting my revenge on him. I'm taking him on a surprise trip for Labor Day. I won't be able to match Disneyland, but I'm sure we'll have some fun!

Happiness

2009-08-07T09:53:00.000-07:00

Last week I signed up for a study to track my happiness. It's part of some student's doctoral research at Harvard. They send me a txt message several times a day and ask me to rate how happy I am at that very moment, and then ask me some questions about what I'm doing, my sleep patterns, my exercise over the last day, etc. . When the whole thing is over, they're going to send me a report as to what factors seem to make me more happy.

I'm not sure if it's that I've been doing this study that has caused me to be focused on actively rating my own happiness several times a day, or if this has just been a good week, but I sure have been happy! Every time I go rate myself on that little sliding scale, I always find that I'm between 6 and 9. Or maybe it's just that this week has been somewhat uneventful after several really difficult weeks. In any case, I'm not complaining!

I want a puppy!

2009-07-27T09:59:00.001-07:00

Lately, as I'm considering moving, I have been somewhat limited because I'd like to move into a place where I could have a dog. This would mean that I'd have to make several other fairly substantial trade-offs, and I'm just struggling with is it worth it, and can I really live the kind of lifestyle that will be fair the the pup. On the other hand, when I look at picture like this, I just melt.

This week!

2009-07-24T11:43:00.000-07:00

So, this week wasn't very much fun. From start to finish it seemed like a variety of issues were causing stress both for me in my life as well as the people around me. Here's to this weekend turning things around!

It felt a little like this:

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 11 - Mar.6

2009-07-18T08:35:00.000-07:00

And you thought I'd stopped blogging about my big Thailand trip. No. I will get it done. (And all the way through Hawaii even.)

Our next day in Chiang Mai... We'd just explored the historic district downtown the day before, and we'd been toying with the idea of heading to Myanmar. The only trips we could find there seemed to be a 4 hour bus ride to the border, where you'd get off the bus, walk across the border, shop and get back on the bus for the 4 hour ride home. That didn't sound like fun. So, instead, we decided to rent a car. It was a little insane because the traffic laws, things like stopping at red lights, seemed to be more suggestions than actual laws that anyone followed. Also, driving was on the left, similar to the British systems, and I'd never driven on the left, still I figured I was up to the task. What's the worst that could happen, right? OK, 25 years in Thai prison, but still we were not going to be deterred. The Thai countryside was waiting to be seen!

We got up that morning, still spooked by the hazy white sky with the large orange disk of the sun and the smell that everything was burning down around us. Literally, it smelled like constant burning, and we'd soon find out why...

We went and rented our car, a block from the hotel, and got on the road. We headed north, out of town. Within 20 minutes the city had fallen behind us and we were trying to find our turn off the highway towards the Mae Sa Valley. The driving wasn't so bad, it was sort of an "every car for himself" sort of affair, but nothing unmanageable.

Eventually we found our turn-off, and then before long a turn-off for a waterfall. We took it and after a bit, we came to a park that we had entirely to ourselves. We paid the small fee and parked and walked into the park to see the falls. Things were quite dry and after a short walk we made it to the falls. They weren't the most stunning falls in the world, but still it was nice to be out in the countryside and away from the chaos of the city.

And, I have to say, by this time my little friend was becoming my little mascot for the rest of the trip:

After the short visit to the falls, we hopped back in the car and headed back to the main road, stopping along the way at a little stand for some strange stale snacks.

Once back on the road, our next stop was the Mae Rim Orchid and Butterfly Farm. I was a little disappointed that the largest orchid and smallest orchid plants weren't in bloom, but still the orchids on display were quite lovely.

We kept driving and ran across the Mae Sa Falls, which were pretty, but we were looking forward to seeing the Elephants, so after a obligatory "pictutre of ourselves at the falls" and seeing the cooked whole ducks at the tourist stands, we moved along.

The next stop was one of the highlights of the entire trip. I really can't overstate how much fun it was seeing the Maesa Elephant Camp. We stopped at this particular camp because the guidebooks said that this was a place were the elephants were generally well treated. These huge animals really were gentle giants. They had so much strength and power, yet were so graceful.

When we first arrived, they sold us sugarcane and banana bundles to feel to the elephants. We started with a 30 minute elephant ride through the hills.

We sat in the little cart that was strapped onto the elephants back, and our "driver" sat on the elephant's head. The ride included going down very steep hills and into the water, but the elephant was as friendly and sweet as you could imagine.

Here are some shots of us on our elephant walk:

Once off the elephant, we wandered around the facilities and saw an elephant getting bathed. He seemed so happy to have someone taking care of him!

Next we saw elephants painting. This farm seemed to have extensive painting facilities. They would just hand the elephants a brush with paint on it, and the elephant would paint away, quite happily. Then they'd take the brush and re-dip and the elephant would just keep going!

These animals were just so darn sweet. It was hard not to fall in love with them.

We went into a little elephant museum and I snuck this hat off a display for a quick picture. With my fascination with Ganesh, how could I not?

Finally, just as we were headed out, a guy called over to us, and had Eric sit on this elephant's knee. I think this was the dessert on the whole elephant farm experience.

From here, we drove through the rest of the loop of the Mae Sa Valley although it was fairly uneventful except for the burning. We hit a few patches where wild fires were burning. No one keeping track of them or making any attempt at putting them out. Apparently, when they want to farm, they just burn down patches of forested land, which is why the entire area is filled with smoke. I have no idea how they keep houses from burning down and who knows how much wildlife is destroyed. It can't be good for the environment, still it is what it is. Tons of wild burning. We continued to see this far to the South as well.

Once off the loop road, we found the Doi Suthep-Pui National Park and climbed up to the Wat Phra That Doi Suthep, which is a temple that was established in 1383 and is one of the most sacred temples in the North. It's 306 steps up to the temple.

From this temple, amidst the smoke and haze, you can see Chiang Mai far below.

After a tour of the temple we headed back down into Chiang Mai and found the one Burmese restaurant that I could find on the Internet. I figured that being a few hours from Burma that there would be more options, but still I was happy to even have found one. I parked, and after scraping a car that had a woman in it (I thought she was going to kill me.) we ate at the restaurant. It was definitely a whole in the wall, and I think the whole meal was $5, but still, the Tea Leaf Salad was quite delicious!

Meltdown

2009-07-13T11:00:00.000-07:00

Lately, I've been having to deal with someone who has anger management issues. Like a lot of problems, when I don't have the problem myself, it can be a little frustrating when dealing with someone who does have the problem. Still, it's important to not let someone else freaking out make me freak out, especially when in a professional environment.

This video reminded me of all of that. If you do watch it, it's worth waiting for the end.

Narcissist

2009-07-08T14:27:00.001-07:00

The Beatles

2009-07-02T18:00:00.000-07:00

When all the broken hearted people in the world agree,
There will be an answer. Let it be.

Sometimes when I'm talking about music, people wonder how I can like soul music so much and still say that The Beatles are likely my all time favorite band. I think it's because the Beatles music really did cross beyond cultural lines. I remember driving in Mexico as a kid and hearing Beatles songs being sung in Spanish. Their music has a classic quality about it.

Even at the end, The Beatles still had it. Of course, part of the magic of their talent was that they were such incredible song writers that many people rerecorded their songs with great success.

I think their music still stands the test of time. This version takes a little while to warm up, but once it does, watch out!

Recursive Pixelated Mario

2009-06-30T07:00:00.000-07:00

Rarely do I see video game inspired art that I really like, but I do like this one.

Where in the world...?

2009-06-29T13:00:00.000-07:00

This September I'm going to have a week of unexpected adventure. The only real question is... Where should this adventure take me?

I have several options on the list, and am open to considering more:

Stay home - it's Folsom Street Fair week, so I could just stay in San Francisco and enjoy the festivities with friends.
London - I have several friends in London who have been asking me to visit for years, and I haven't been there in quite a while, so it would be easy to spend a week there.
Mexico City - Much less jet lag than London, and I haven't been since I was a very young kid. It would be an adventure to visit alone, but I'd have to bone up on my Spanish!
Hawaii - I've already been once this year, but it would be a good excuse to take my grandmother to visit my folks, which would be a good deed.
Greece - I've been all over Europe and to Turkey, but I've never been to Greece, although I think I want to save this one for a trip with Eric.
??? - I'll have to see what other choices I can come up with... Any ideas?

Pringles Ad

2009-06-26T15:16:00.000-07:00

I really didn't think I'd ever post an Internet ad, but I have to say that I thought this one was pretty clever. I don't know that it will get me to buy Pringles, but still, I did like it!

Take me to the ad.

(Sorry, I couldn't figure out how to embed it on here.)

Now THAT'S entertainment!

2009-06-22T16:54:00.001-07:00

This weekend was truly an eclectic collection of entertainment. Friday night Eric and I went to see Moon, an interesting sci-fi thriller about a man who's working alone on the moon for 3 years. It's almost time to come home and he starts going nuts, or is he? Frankly it wasn't as good as I'd hoped, but it was still quite enjoyable.

Next on Saturday afternoon, we went with about a dozen friends to see drag queens perform a few episodes of the Golden Girls. I'm having a hard time coming up with words for this one, other than to say it was quite bizarre. The performers were a little out of their element, but it was still a fun show. We ended up going out with friends afterwards. (This weekend was also the 15th anniversary of two of my best friends, Tom & Darren.)

Sunday, a little worn out from the festivities the evening before, we still went and saw a friend perform in a Flamenco dance recital. That weekend had a little bit of everything.

Nom Nom Nom

2009-06-18T05:45:00.000-07:00

Sometimes one is just hungry.

Hey, it's only $134 Billion!

2009-06-17T08:25:00.001-07:00

I love the Internet. The bounty of information is really unfathomable and I continue to be amazed anew as to what is possible when you share information.

Then again, I'm frequently saddened at what people will believe based on an email story. Some people seem to think that just because they read it on their computer monitor that it somehow must be true. Where is the reason and skepticism? Conversely, on occasion there are some nuggets that are just so juicy that they slip right by people. I totally get off on this kind of thing. Of course just like anything you read on the Internet, who knows what the truth really is...

My favorite story most recently is about the two Japanese nationals who were found trying to carry $134 Billion (that's with a B) worth of US Treasury Bonds from Italy into Switzerland in a hidden compartment in a briefcase. Are the bonds real? Who are these guys? Why is the U.S. media so quiet on the subject? If they really are trying to pass off such a large amount of U.S. debt, how could they possibly hope to do it with no one noticing? $134B isn't exactly spare change. That's the kind of cash only governments deal in.

Looking at my favorite chart of who has how much US debt, you can see that as of April, only 6 countries in the world even have at least $134B worth of treasury bonds. Maybe they are counterfeits and these guys are nut jobs? Maybe it's a major shake-up of our economic system? It'll be interesting to see where this story goes.

Psychology 101 - Defense Mechanisms

2009-06-09T11:43:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, I finally sat down to my most recent copy of The Atlantic and read an article entitled What Makes Us Happy?. It's about a 72-year long study of 268 men's lives, starting back in the late 1930s, trying to holistically uncover what makes for a happy life; what are the key ingredients to keep a person satisfied and at the end feeling like they wouldn't change a thing. I know you can't find all the answers to life in one article, but I love this kind of stuff. It helps me get a different perspective on my own life, and this study certainly has had me doing some soul searching.

I'm not going to go into every detail of the article because if you're interested you can read it, but I will say that it got me thinking about my life in a way that I hadn't in quite a while -- both in terms of the decisions I'm making as well as it terms of how my gray matter works.

It had plenty of psychological insights, but one in particular had to do with how people's mental defense mechanisms can be explained. I've heard the term "defense mechanisms" bandied about my whole life, but if I learned about them in college psychology, I'd long since forgotten the material. This was a great refresher and lead to me to do further reading on the subject.

Basically, when something uncomfortable happens (anxiety or trauma) you start to develop psychic energy that needs to be released. (stress, tension, etc.) Your rational mind may attempt to come up with some logical resolution, which it may or may not be able to do. (Turns out, spending too much time on rational solutions is it's own mental defense mechanism. There should be a healthy balance. Defense mechanisms are your friend.)

If you don't come up with a rational solution, then your brain resorts to some defense mechanism to cope. These defense mechanisms are basically our brain deluding ourselves into believing we're dealing with a problem that we can't figure out how to really deal with.

The defense mechanisms themselves come in 4 levels, from "healthy" to "bonkers". (OK, 'bonkers" is my own term.) Actually, there's not meant to be any judgment on the levels, they are actually based on how much they help (level 4) or hurt (level 1) your relationships with the world around you. Even level 1 isn't meant to imply really nuts.

So... Let's say you just found out some really bad news... your spouse is sleeping with your best friend or you have to have major surgery or they've decided to take away some project at work that you really liked. Whatever it is, it's some bad situation that you can't figure out a way to rationalize away comfortably... you'll likely turn to one of the methods below, but watch out! The further down the list you go, the more trouble you're likely to get into! (I couldn't help but think about a recent difficulty that I'd gone through and to try to identify how I had dealt with it, but watch out. It's like potato chips. Once I started, I had a hard time stopping.)

Level 4: Healthy and Constructive

Using the pain/discomfort to motivate you to help others out. [Altruism]
Redirect the pain/discomfort into something constructive. ( I believe this is my "go to" defense mechanism.) Note, that this isn't doing something to "forget" the problem, but rather using the effort to work through the feelings. [Sublimation]
Finding non-hostile aspects to laugh at regarding the situation. (Hostile humor is further down the list.) [Humor]
Focus on something positive that can come out of the difficulties. [Meaning generation]

Level 3: Neurotic

Attempting to simply forget the nastiness. (Like Scarlet O'Haras: "I can't think about that right now. If I do, I'll go crazy. I'll think about that tomorrow.") Some people use drinking to help with this one. (Who typed that last sentence and who are these "Some people" anyway?) [Repression]
When you focus on only the rational side of a problem and pretty much ignore/suppress your emotions. (Let's put all our feelings in a little box and hide them in the basement.) [Intellectualization]
Severely reverse the emotions that are brought up, to the point that you actually strongly feel the opposite of how the situation originally made you feel. [Reaction formation]
Pretending that something is not how it really is, but without losing track of the fact that you're pretending. (If you lose track of the fact that you're pretending, then you're headed further down the list.) [Fantasy defense]

Level 2: Starting to act more than kinda crazy

Inappropriately blaming or scapegoating. Here you falsely attribute something to someone else or the outside world in general. (I just knew that it was that person I already hated's fault!) [Defensive (nondelusional) projection]
Physical symptoms are taken on to cope. [Somatization]
Finding indirect ways to act out while maintaining a veneer of unintended action. (Personally, when I see this one in others, it makes me kinda crazy.) [Passive Aggression]

Leve1 1: Bonkers - actual loss of reality - not truly crazy, but certainly dysfunctional

Refusing to believe in something that is clearly true. [Denial]
Starting to believe in motives or forces that are clearly non-existent. [Delusional Projection]

Isn't the psyche amazing?!

As I have been thinking of how I've dealt with stress and difficulties in my life, I find this list just fascinating and it certainly gives me guidance as to where I want to head from here.

Class dismissed! Be safe out there kids.

If I ever have a kid...

2009-06-04T15:15:00.000-07:00

Should I ever be so lucky as to have a child, I am DEFINITELY getting him or her one of these!

Now you know why everyone always tells me that I'd make a great dad...

Music Video Wednesday

2009-06-03T07:47:00.000-07:00

OK - I admit that this song is a flashback, but for some reason this morning I woke up in the mood for it. I've always liked this version better than the original.

Dallas - That was a great trip, y'all!

2009-06-02T11:15:00.001-07:00

On Saturday morning, Eric and I packed it up and made an early start to the airport to head to Dallas. The trip started off a little rough, between having to wake up early because the car had been locked in a parking structure the night before and getting to the airport and finding out that they had downgraded to a smaller plane and that we might not all fit, there were some frustrations, but once that was done, it was an uneventful flight to Dallas.

Once there, we made our way to the curb, where we were greeted by Eric's brother and sister-in-law. They were about as sweet as two people could be. I didn't really know what to expect, but they made me feel immediately comfortable. We went back to their place, dropped the bags off, and hooked up with Eric's parents, who were also very, very warm. We all headed to some drinks (delicious margaritas!) and Tex-Mex where I learned that people in Texas really do say, "Y'All"!

From there, we headed to the movie, which was awesome and still made me cry twice, even though it was my 4th viewing. That movie is just that good.

The next day, was action packed. We got up and headed to the Dallas Arboretum, which was really beautiful. Ramez and Gracie had prepared a delicious assortment of cheeses and fruits and it was about 90 degrees, but quite comfortable in the shade! We all ate, while Eric fed the squirrels.

There was a bunch of fun family news to share, since they hadn't all been together for a while, and lots of talk of their up and coming trip to Lebanon.

After the park, we went and saw the new house that they are moving into, which was a very sweet 50's house in a beautiful neighborhood. It actually amazed me how much I really enjoyed Dallas, and how many cute neighborhoods the city has. After a full tour of the new home, we got some frozen yogurt and then went and took a walk around downtown. Dallas has some very interesting architecture.

From there, we walked down to the Grassy Knoll, where JFK was shot. It was really something to see a place that I recognized instantly, even though I'd never been there. There were no shortage of conspiracy theorists, giving their version of the story, and honestly, they did make some good points. (Why if he was shot from behind did his head have a small hole in the front and a very large hole in the back. Why are all the records locked up until 2039? etc.)

After a brief tour of that, we took Eric's parents back to the airport because they had to fly away home, and then, as coincidence would have it, Eric's sister-in-law's sister and mom were in town for a flamenco workshop (how do I know so many people into flamenco?), and they were staying at a very nice skyscraper hotel, so we went and played in the pool on the roof of the hotel, with them. It was fun just relaxing and playing water volleyball with Eric & his brother for a few hours.

From there, we headed to dinner, and then to drinks at a place called the Old Monk, where some friends of Eric's from the way-back machine, joined us. It was a little loud for us all to talk together, but we had a really fun evening of it and as with the whole trip, I got to meet a few more friends who Eric has known for a long, long time.

The next day we toured some different neighborhoods to get a sense of what Dallas is like, and they really do have some beautiful homes in neighborhoods that really are oddly reminiscent of nice neighborhoods in Los Angeles. There is no public transportation to speak of in Dallas, but other than that, with the outdoor cafes, varieties of restaurants, and friendly people, it was easy to see why people would want to live there.

We made a quick stop by Freebirds for lunch, which is a burrito place that really was pretty spectactular. I've been to a LOT of burrito places in my day, but I've never seen so many choices of what to put in my burrito, ever. (If you're headed there, I suggest not skipping the roasted garlic.) Once there, we headed to the airport, and had an uneventful flight home.

Once back home, we took BART back into the city and then when we switched to Muni, the Muni train took forever, and then once on it, it sat their for 15 minutes because of mechinical difficulties, so we went upstairs and took a cab the rest of the way. Thanks for the great service, Muni!

Even with that ending the whole trip was wonderful. It was really great meeting all of Eric's family and friends, and I can't wait to go back to Dallas again!

Up, Up and Away! (To Dallas)

2009-05-29T07:41:00.000-07:00

Today is the big day that Up is finally released to theaters. Run, don't walk, to go see it. You'll be glad that you did!

After a little screening party this evening, the boyfriend and I are going to Dallas to see it with his family tomorrow. I've never been to Texas, outside the airports, so it should be a fun trip. Plus, it is always interesting meeting the family of people that you care about. I find it gives me a whole new perspective on who they are.

Then again, I do already have some idea of what life is like in Dallas.

Let's have music!

2009-05-27T07:00:00.001-07:00

So... I realize that the Internet is going to totally change how I listen to music, but I'm not sure how this can be legal.

http://listen.grooveshark.com

Still. I'm not complaining.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 10 - Mar. 5

2009-05-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

For our first day in Chiang Mai we planned on seeing the historic district. As we awoke, we could smell burning. As it turns out, this was going to be a constant in Chiang Mai. The sun in the sky was a redish orange disk and the sky itself was a smokey white hazy fog that never went away. As it turns out, the reason that the skies are permanently smoke filled is because they are constantly burning away brush in all of the hills around to clear the ground to plant, but this seems to be done with total disregard to the effect on the air quality.

In any case, once up, we had breakfast at the hotel and the guy at the front desk asked if we wanted to upgrade our room and for only $10 a night we said yes! Here is our upgraded room:

Once in our new room, we packed up for the day and walked the 10 minutes to the center of town. On our way, we stumbled across a food market.

This market had piles of all kinds of food - spices, meat, vegetables. There didn't seem to be anything in the way of refrigeration and there was a large pool of live fish, each fish about a foot long. Two women were pulling fish out of the tub, beating them, skinning and gutting them and then repeating. There were piles of meat "cooking" in the sun. There was a spare pig foot on a table, looking abandoned. It was a cacophony of food most of which was radically different than any grocery store back home..

Once we got an eyeful of the market, we continued ahead and on to the first Wat of our tour. Wat Chiang Ma. This Wat had a stone slab from 1581, which refers to the cities founding, which was in 1296.

Every Wat has water dragons leading to the entrance to the Wat, called Naga. Some are plain and some are insanely ornate, with cut glass and multiple heads.

And, here is the Buddha from this Wat.

From here, we walked a few blocks to The Three Kings Monument and we got a kick out of posing like the kings.

Right behind the kings monument was the Chiang Mai City Arts & Cultural Center. We paid the money and whipped threw the place in about 45 minutes. There were a few interesting displays and they had a good model of the city surrounded by the mountains, which gave us a good idea of the layout of the city, but all things considered the museum wasn't all that exciting.

From there we grabbed some lunch and then headed to Wat Phan Tao. This temple is made completely of teak and was one of the more spirual places that we saw along our walk.

Inside nearly every wat, is a series of Buddha's each representing a different aspect of his enlightenment and they also seem to have some relationship to the day of the week, but ultimately it's another way to ask for a donation.

Once done here, we headed right next door to Wat Chedi Luang. This is a huge semi-restored Wat, which was originally built in 1441. No one really knows what the spire looked like, so they never replaced it, but still this Wat was so large that it was aweinspring and we spent quite a while absorbing the environment and watching the gaggles of monks running around taking care of their duties.

It was at the gift shop at this Wat that I picked up a new little friend. He's hollow with something inside of him, but I don't know what. He's supposed to keep me lucky and help with virility. We shall see.

Finally from here, we walked a good ways to Wat Phra Singh. This is the most popular Wat in town, and certainly was the most crowded. We toured this Wat, but we were starting to get a little Wat'ed out.

From here we hopped on a TukTuk, (our first and only Tuk Turk ride) and sped home.

We dropped by the Internet Cafe for a bit, and then headed back to the room to prep for dinner. As it turned out, our friend Kassia's ex-boyfriend Andrew was in Chiang Mai that evening, so we arranged to have dinner together. We had some cocktails and a nice dinner, and it was interesting getting to know Andrew. Because we hadn't really had anyone else to talk to for 10 days, we talked his ear off. After dinner, we headed back to the room for a night of sleep. Tomorrow we planned on getting out of town and seeing the surrounding environment!

New Camera

2009-05-24T11:23:00.000-07:00

Once again, I managed to lose my latest digital camera. Well, who could be surprised, it was all of 6 months old. ACK! I am amazed that digital cameras don't come with the ability to have my name and phone number on the screen when I turn it on. People have returned my lost wallet, surely some people would return my camera.

Anyway... I ended up having to buy a new one, and of course the model that I had purchased previously was discontinued, so I had to buy the new Canon SD990 IS. Mine isn't cherry red like this one, but this is basically it:

HD Movies, huge screen, 12 Megapixels. I'm in heaven. I'll be taking some pictures and posting, so stay tuned...

The Golden Rule

2009-05-24T11:18:00.000-07:00

I'm reminded of the Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would do unto yourself.

Enjoy the weekend!

I was a precocious kid

2009-05-20T07:58:00.000-07:00

Back when I was about 12 I use to baby sit for spare money. I also got an allowance and even started a little kool-aid stand on Topanga Canyon Highway for extra cash. (I kid you not.)

At the time I was spending a lot of time with two brothers, Mick & Chris (11 and 9). Their mom and my mom were friends, so we inevitably spent a lot of time together. At the time my parents were pretty wild and their mom was even wilder, so I'd tell my parents that I was staying the night at their house and then the three of us were all pretty much free to do whatever we wanted. I think our parents thought we lived in the middle of nowhere, so what trouble could we really get into?

One Summer Saturday, when I was getting bored playing asteroids on the Atari, I had the bright idea that the three of us should pool our money and go to Knott's Berry Farm for the day. When we got all of our funds together, and after some calculating and planning, I realized that we had just enough.

The park was about 50 miles from our house, completely on the other side of Los Angeles, but that was alright, I had a plan. The way I figured it. We could hitch hike out of Topanga (there were no buses in the canyon at the time and it was 5 mile trek). Once in the San Fernando valley, we could catch a bus, to another bus to get to downtown L.A.. From there, we could catch another bus, to Knott's Berry Farm. By my calculations, we'd be able to afford to get in, we'd have a couple dollars each to spend while we were there, and still be able to afford the buses back home at the end of the day.

Somehow I convinced them. I guess I was older and wiser. So, that morning we headed out. Three boys had no problem getting a ride down into the valley; all worked well. Once there we were quickly on the bus, and onto the next bus, which I hadn't realized was going to be a "freeway" bus, which meant that it cost a dollar more each. Uh oh. Eating into our spending money. That was alright.

Once downtown, it was a little scary at the bus station, but we all had each other, so we found our bus, and rode to Knott's. We had a blast all day, riding the rides and enjoying the beautiful sunny day at the park, even if we had little or nothing to spend. Finally as it got dark, I realized that it was time to make our way back home.

We got on the bus to downtown, but once we arrived downtown, everything seemed so different. We went and waited at the bus stop, but it was in front of a dirty theater, so there were various creepy types coming and going, and buses kept coming, but none of them were ours. Finally I got on one and asked, and the driver told me that the bus we were expecting stopped running much earlier. I asked for help, and the driver told me to catch a different bus to Hollywood and from there we could catch the bus to the valley, but that we needed to be on that bus by midnight because that was when the last bus ran that route.

We caught the bus to Hollywood, and manged to get on the last bus to the valley. Finally when we arrived at our last stop, around 1:00 AM, we managed to hitchhike back home. No one noticed that we were gone, and if we'd had to call for help, frankly, I don't know that we would have reached anyone. My parents had gone out for the night and Mick & Chris's mom was... well, let's just say, preoccupied.

In some ways I look back at that adventure and think, "Wow. All kinds of horrible things could have happened to us.", but the reality is that I think that I am the person that I am today because of crazy experiences like that. Then again, maybe I had crazy experiences like that because of the person I already was. I really don't know.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 9 - Mar. 4

2009-05-15T15:50:00.000-07:00

The next morning, we awoke on Koh Phi Phi and it was time for us to fly to Northern Thailand. Our adventure to the south was over. Today was to be a travel day to the north. Soon we'd be just several hours from Burma and Laos, and only a bit further to the north would be China!

We had to get up early that morning to catch one of the 2 boats off of the island. We checked out of the hotel, and they were supposed to supply us with a long boat ride to the dock, but we didn't trust them, so amidst their protests we just walked. It was a nice 15 minute walk back through town and I didn't mind seeing it one last time. Once on the dock, we caught our boat to Phuket. Our travel guide on the island had suggested keeping our bags with us since we had little time to get to the airport, but the man on the boats was extremely angry that with us that we would want to. When we wouldn't agree to give up our bags, finally he tried to charge us a bribe, but we weren't having any of that. We finally gave our bags up, but at least now they were on top of the pile, instead of on the bottom.

That meant we were one of the first off of the boat. We grabbed our cab, and drove the short ~15 miles from the port on the South end of Phuket island to the airport at the north end. Once at the airport we checked in picked up some snacks, including these really tasty cola flavored taffy sticks (Maoam Cola Stripes) and then flew back to Bangkok. Once at the Bangkok airport, Eric hung out at the gate, while I ran and grabbed some Durian fruit snacks which are sort of like plastic potato chips in both sweet and salty flavors.

After a while, we realized that it was only 5 minutes before our plane was to take off, and no one had called for boarding, when we suddenly realized that we were at the wrong gate! We ran to our gate, only to make our plane just in time! Another short and uneventful flight to Chiang Mai, and we landed. As we got off the plane, I immediately recognized that this was going to be different than what we'd seen so far. Previously all the places that we'd been had plenty of tourists, and lots of people who were familiar with dealing with tourists. Now, although we were in Thailand's second largest city, there were only a very small handful of non-Asians at the airport. Also, everywhere else we had been, people had been dressed in a range from "back-packer" to suits, here people were dressed much more conservatively. It was hot and humid, but we were the only people I saw in shorts.

We grabbed our bags and found a cab and the cab driver took us the short distance to our hotel, Montrara Happy House. The old city is surrounded by a large square moat and wall. We were staying just outside the moat. The hotel was extremely affordable, clean and the staff was very friendly. We relaxed in the room for a bit before heading downstairs where we had dinner at the small hotel restaurant and then went out to check out the city and the night market.

Here's the view from just in front of the hotel that night.

It was only a 15 minute walk from our hotel down to the night market. The night market in Chiang Mai is held every night, and is huge. Blocks and blocks and blocks of people selling all kinds of things. Everything from locally made products like wood carvings, silk scarves and local food to factory made merchandise for sale around the world, like brand named clothes, Tiffiny jewelry, and luggage. We wandered and shopped. People here seemed fairly desperate to sell their goods. I think this was really the first we saw of the global economic downturn.

It was fun people watching and Eric took lots of pictures, but this first night we didn't buy anything. It was fairly overwhelming and we knew that we'd be here for several days.

After several of hours of browsing, we headed back to our room to crash. Tomorrow would be a tour of the historic district of Chiang Mai...

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 8 - Mar. 3

2009-05-14T18:35:00.000-07:00

We got up on the next morning, thinking that even though we loved this island, that we were going to have to leave. We had a flight scheduled to fly out that afternoon, but over breakfast I could tell something was wrong with Eric. He was clearly struggling with something and as we talked about it, he just didn't want to leave. So between us we came up with a plan to change our flight to the next morning, and extend the hotel for an evening and decided to stay. It turned out this was our one real "beach" day in all of Thailand.

After breakfast we made all the arrangements to stay longer and went back to the room to get ready to head to the beach. As we got ready, we spotted this little friend in the shower. He was only about an inch long, but YIKES! Look at those pinchers.

Once we were all ready we headed down to the beach on the far side of the island, Loh Dalam. This was one of the few places that there were still signs of the tsunami. Behind the beach were piles of rubble of the remains of what had been before.

We walked past all of that down to the beach and got ourselves some chairs on the cute little bay and relaxed. This was clearly the beach all of the European tourists came to.

Eventually we went swimming, but there were strange floating little pieces of who knew what, so we decided not to stay in the water too long. The bay was incredibly shallow, and you could go very, very far out and still only be chest deep.

Eventually we left there, grabbed some lunch at a little non-Thai place in town. (just for a change of pace.) Then from there we decided to head to Long Beach, which was by our hotel, only beyond it. We walked up and down several hills on a tiny path and found a quiet beach with only a couple of people on it and a huge tree with a rope swing. Most people didn't realize that there was this tiny path, so they were crawling over lava rocks to traverse the coast. Our path had been MUCH better.

We settled down and relaxed for a bit and spotted some wild life!

Played around on the swing that was hanging from the tree for a while.

And mostly just enjoyed how beautiful and solitary this beach was. The weather turned sunny and bright. I think we could have stayed on this island for days. Eventually we went out into the water together and played in the surf. As it turned out, here as well, you could walk far, far out and still touch bottom. Noticed how far we are, and that we have the camera. We never went as far out as we would have needed to to be in over our heads.

This video was the closest I came to a travel log video:

Eventually, as the sun set, we decided to pack it up and head back to our room, which turned out to be just behind this beach. Just as we were leaving though, some guy was getting first aid in the cabana behind the beach because he'd cut his foot on the lava rock. From the amount of blood on his foot, the cut didn't look good, but what was really painful was the sound of his blood curtling scream as we walked away as they did something to his foot. I was glad that we didn't see whatever it was that they were doing!

We returned to the room, rested a bit, but then quickly headed out, in hopes of making it for a hike up the hill to a view spot, but unfortunately we had timed the sunset a little too late and although we did manage to see this bug on our way, we didn't make it to the staircase to the top of the peak. I'd guess this bug was 5-6 inches long!

With the view spot not a possibility, we decided to head to a restaurant that the women that had first helped us find our hotel had recommended. It was easy to find, but while we were there a huge thunderstorm hit. It was about 85 degrees and incredibly humid and pouring rain with thunder and lightning, but dinner was delicious!

It was so humid that some cats had crawed into the refrigerator to keep cool!

Certainly, the sun had caught up with me. Several days of sun every day had given me a red hue, but it felt great! I could not have been happier.

I do remember amidst the pouring hot rain and great food and a bit of exhaustion from the sun, Eric and I talked about his trip to Palm Springs over Thanksgiving and he told me some details about that trip that I didn't know. It was funny because it was a bit of an emotional conversation and it was only added to by the lightning and thunder bearing down on us like it was right on top of us.

As with anything that you hear that is unexpected, initially there is some shock, but then there is a certain amount of relief in knowing that you've heard the truth, so it was all really good.

We left the restaurant once the rain lightened up and made our way back to the hotel. There was a bar right before our hotel, where we stopped and had a few drinks. This place was clearly where the wild Thai natives went as well as the visiting tourists. There were some fire dancers, but they seemed so messed up that they kept dropping the fire. I was just waiting for them to light themselves aflame. No wonder they put the stage right next to the waters edge.

After a couple of drinks watching the circus of people, we headed back to the room, where we watched a little Thai TV before drifting off to bed. It had been a beautiful, full, relaxing day on Koh Phi Phi Doh.

Free Viagra for the Jobless? I mean really?!

2009-05-14T12:54:00.000-07:00

OK, so I have just as much sympathy as anyone for gentlemen who have erectile dysfunction, but are they really going to give free Viagra to the unemployed? This really does seem more like a story from The Onion than from real life.

I guess these guys have time to kill. We might as well keep them busy doing something!

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 7 - Mar. 2 cont.

2009-05-06T10:06:00.001-07:00

Apparently this blog of my Thailand trip isn't going to write itself.

So... we were in Koh Phi Phi. We'd just finished snorkeling in the rain and as stunning as that was, it was nothing compared to the beach that we were headed to... Maya Beach. this was a cove of cliffs, with water so bluish green and sandy so pure white that it felt like I'd walked out of real life and into some strange cartoon world. It felt extremely surreal. Everyone on our boat ran off in every direction and the captain didn't give us any instructions on when to come back.

Eric went straight into picture taking mode, trying to capture the stunning beauty of this place.

It was a bit overcast, which only added to the magic of the place, but might make the pictures look a little dark. Here I'm taking a quick video spin:

From here, there was a long pier of blue plastic boxes that had been tied together to create a floating platform. As we walked out onto the water we noticed a large dark shape under the water. After talking to some other people who were walking into it we realized that the darkness was a huge school of fish.

Eric jumped in and walked amongst them:

After our adventure on the pier, I decided to go in search of a hidden tunnel that I'd heard was on the backside of the little island that lead to a secret cove. Eric wanted to stay, so he did while I went back through the jungle. It was a quick 10 minute walk before I spotted the tunnel. Unfortunately it was all sharp little lava rocks that lead to the tunnel and I didn't have any shoes. So I walked very slowly over the little rocks and then climbed down through the tunnel to see what was there.

Turned out there wasn't much there in the way of a beach or anything, so I slowly made my way back amongst the lava rocks, and then started walking back through the sand, when suddenly Eric bursted around a corner. Asking where I'd been. Apparently everyone was looking for me and threatening to leave without me! We ran all the way back to the boat, only to find that literally we were the last ones on the island! We got on the boat and away we sailed.

They cooked some Pad Thai on the boat, which was surprisingly delicious. (We'd been warned against boat food, but apparently there was nothing to worry about here.)

It was meant to be a sunset cruise, but the storm was causing lightning on the horizon, which was quite beautiful, but there was not any sign of a sunset. We slowly sailed back to the main island of Phi Phi and went back to our room to chill out for a bit before dinner.

I think we took nap. Eventually, by the time we did make it out, everything was closed. It must have been 9:30 PM. We ended up finding a little corner hole in the wall, that would still serve us, and we had some more really good Thai food. It was amazing how all over Thailand the smallest little "hole in the wall"s had such phenomenal food - and cheap! After a little more walking about and realizing that the island had gone to sleep, we went home and did the same.

I love beauty - is not my fault

2009-05-05T15:53:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago, when Eric took me to the big movie wrap party, one of the things that I loved the most about the experience were all the women in beautiful dresses and gowns. Every color and body type and hairstyle. Everything from sexy to traditional, glamorous to glitzy. It was breathtaking seeing how many different ways that women had to express their fashion sense. The guys were all in tuxedos and suits and the wildest things they had to express themselves were hats and colorful ties. The women were a rainbow of beauty and fashion. I found myself spending a lot of time with a hetro friend talking about all the hot looking women. (Not exactly what I had been expecting.)

This past weekend, while my grandmother was visiting, I was looking for a movie that I thought she might find interesting, because I thought it was very unlikely that she'd be interested in Wolverine. (Which frankly, I'm taking a big miss on, based on all the horrible things I've heard about it.) The movie was Valentino: The Last Emperor. It was primarily about the clothing designer Valentino and Haute couture, but also very much about his relationship of 45 years. It was a very sweet story and if you have any interest in fashion, which I never really thought that I did before now, I'd recommend it.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 7 - Mar. 2

2009-05-01T06:37:00.000-07:00

Where was I.... oh yeah... back to the Thailand trip...

I have said many times that every day in Thailand was an adventure, and the recounting of the days reminds me how true that really was. Every morning that we woke up, we really had no idea what was going to be in store for us that day. Certainly, the morning we awoke in the little basement hotel room in Krabi, that was the most true of all. This was easily one of the most magical days of our entire trip. Ups and Downs.

We got up early, had breakfast at the hotel "restaurant". There was nothing inspiring about that meal. We were the furthest south that we had been, and I had the feeling that the people that were running the hotel may have been Muslim because they were the least friendly of anyone that we'd run into up to that point. No matter we hung out and waited for the ride to the boat. Before long a small van crammed full of tourists pulled up, we hopped in and we were off. It was a short ride to the boat terminal, where we had to do more logistical nonsense. We walked to the spot to catch the boat, only to find that we had to return to the terminal to give them our tickets. Whatever. We were just happy to be finally headed to Koh Phi Phi. Once on the boat with the other 15 people headed out there, all of which were white and under 30, it was a pleasant journey out to the island.

As we came upon the island, it was obvious that this was going to be a beautiful place to stay.

This is the little town that was mostly wiped out by the tsunami, but obviously things have been built back up quickly. There are no roads or cars, so everyone has to get around on long-boats which serve as a taxi service around the island

I was a little concerned that when we got there, we wouldn't have a place to stay. Our hotel was far away from the main tourist area, and they were expecting us the day before, so there wouldn't be a boat from the hotel waiting. In fact, they might not even have our reservation any more since we didn't show up. Hmmm. What to do? Eric & I agreed that once we got there, we would find a phone and call the hotel. Once we arrived people assaulted us to take a boat or a place to stay. Once they heard that we wanted to head to the Holiday Inn, they let us know that it was going to cost 1,000 Baht, or about $35. Neither of us wanted to pay $35 for a ride only to find out that we had to get back to town. So, we tried to find a phone to call the hotel. Someone offered us his cell phone, and the hotel then told us that they didn't have any sign of our reservation, but that if we could prove that we had one that they'd honor it.

At that point, we had to try to call Expedia to ensure that we had a reservation, which then required a calling card. Once we called them we got put on hold with our minutes ticking away, all the time with people coming at us asking us if we needed a ride, or a place to stay. They were asking us fast and furious. It took a while to realize that they guy with the phone had been directing everyone towards us. It got to the point that I got the closest that I ever got to losing my cool. I started saying, "NO." in my firm and strict tone. Finally in a burst of frustration Expedia answered and then put me on hold while they called the hotel to confirm and then never came back on the line before my calling card ran out of time. I was pretty much at the end of my rope. This made me realize that a whole new way of thinking was required.

I said to Eric, "Let's just stay at a closer hotel and deal with Expedia later. They have a record that we called. We'll get them to undue the charge." Once we were here I realized that we could get a decent hotel closer to where we wanted to be, so we did. Within 30 minutes we were checked into paradise with a reservation for an afternoon sunset cruise to the nature park island to the south Koh Phi Phi Leh. We relaxed in our new room, prepped for our excursion and headed back into town.

I can't remember where we ate lunch, but before long we were on our boat for the afternoon and headed to monkey beach. The tide was in so there weren't that many monkeys, but you can see a monkey in the picture below if you look up in the trees just to the left and up from Eric.

Once we were done with the monkeys the boat headed to Phi Phi Leh, but the waters were a little choppy, so Eric was getting a little sea sick, although you can't really tell:

Here's the island as we approached:

This cave is where they harvest swallow's nests for swallow's nest soup and there are supposed to be some Chinese cave paintings when the Chinese first arrived here a long time ago, but they don't let visiters in any more, so we just saw it from afar and had to take their word for it.

After that, they captain told us that there would be a change of plans and that we would be snorkeling at a different spot than advertised due to the choppy waters. We went to the back side of the island and the boat stopped. The captain said we were here and that we could jump off the back of the boat, or off the top of the boat. Eric said let's jump off the top of the boat. This was incredibly unlike him, since he had a hard time diving in the pool in Koh Samui, but I wasn't not going to say no. Once there, I said that we could count to 3 and jump off together. He agreed, we counted the 3 and I jumped and he stayed behind. Arg! After some cajoling he finally did end up jumping off!

Once in the water we snorkeled in some of the most incredible snorkeling that you could possibly imagine. Huge schools of huge fish -- large schools of tiny fish -- it was just beautiful. It was the most beautiful snorkeling that I'd ever seen. Plus the water was like a warm bath. Then, if that wasn't enough, it started to pour down. The cold water pouring out of the sky into the warm ocean water was beautiful to behold and felt incredible. The whole thing was like a dream.

When the rain was coming down, some people got back in the boat, so we thought we'd check the boat out too. You can see it in this video:

The rest of the trip on Koh Phi Phi will just have to wait for another posting... this one is long enough!

It's a party!

2009-04-27T12:06:00.000-07:00

The movie my boyfriend has been working on for the past several years is finally all wrapped up and will be in theaters soon. That means that the effort of all his days, late nights and Saturdays will finally be unleashed on the world and he'll finally get to see what people think of all his effort.

This past Saturday night he took me to the company screening and huge party afterwards. It was incredible! I have to say that I really didn't know what to expect from the movie. I'd seen the ads and they had left me flat, but in the end I was moved to tears three times. Honestly, I'd really underestimated how much I was going to enjoy the movie, and it really was the best part of the entire evening.

That says a lot because the entire evening was a total blast! It was a ton of fun getting all dressed up, hanging out with lots of really friendly people and eating little tasty bites of food and partaking in the libations. I had endless fun and laughs and I can't say thank you enough times to Eric for taking me.

Giant Gay Repellent Umbrella

2009-04-21T17:23:00.000-07:00

This was just too good not to share. There is a giant gay storm coming, so watch out.

A Gaythering Storm from Jane Lynch

What's been up!?

2009-04-21T09:36:00.001-07:00

I guess I've just been so busy lately that it's been hard to keep up el bloggo. Well a quick update before I get back to my journal-ing of the big trip. Had a great, but quick trip down to Los Angeles. It's the first time that I have EVER been down there without a car of some sort and it was a quickie trip to celebrate a friend's birthday, but a reminder that I need to get down there again for some more fun.

It's also the first time in my life that I've spent the night in downtown. Just crazy. Who knew that downtown was getting so gentrified. It was actually quite nice although still kind of quiet on the weekends. Will and Andrew live in a skycraper downtown with a killer view.

Friday night we got in late and went dancing for a bit. On the walk back to our hotel there were some crazy antics.

Saturday did the beach for Matt's birthday.

And Sunday was a tasty brunch and then hanging by the pool on the roof, relaxing until the fun ride home.

Great weekend!

(All of Eric's killer LA Pix)

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 6 - Mar. 1

2009-04-14T06:45:00.000-07:00

It was Sunday, and we were up at the crack of dawn to head to Koh Phi Phi. We didn't know that we were not going to make it.

We had taken our clothes to a laundry the day before, well before we knew that we were going to have to leave so early, so the first thing to do once we met the driver was to head to the laundry and pray that they were open. If they weren't, we were likely going to have to have our clothes sent on to us. In a stroke of good luck, the laundry was open, and the woman quickly folded our clothes and we were on our way.

The villa driver drove us to the port town, but with what little we knew of the island it felt like he was going the wrong way, but he got us there in plenty of time. Once in town, we had some breakfast and waited for our boat. The place that we had breakfast, had "Top Sugar - For the goodtime!"

Once done with breakfast, we went and got on the bus, which then drove the 100 feet to the the boat, and then they made us get off the bus. Who knows why.

Once on the boat, which was primarily filled with Thai people with a scattering of tourists, we enjoyed the boat ride to the mainland. The view of the gulf and the islands was really stunning.

The boat ride lasted a couple of hours and then we got off the boat and back on the bus. The bus was decorated sort of fancyish somewhat reminiscent of a casino, but there was no bathroom. So, we listened to David Cederis together while we sped across the countryside.

Within about 90 minutes we were in the not so lovely town of Surat Thani, where they told us to get off the bus to wait for another bus.

The next bus was supposed to come in 90 minutes, but after 90 minutes of waiting and asking, they let us know that sometime the bus just doesn't come, in which case you have to wait for the next one! Well, our bus didn't come and we did have to wait for the next one, several hours later...

We went hunting for food, but there was nothing that seemed even close to edible. Dried squid on a stick. Maybe it was because it was Sunday, but most things seemed pretty closed down. This was clearly NOT a tourist destination. In fact, I think this was likely the ugliest town that we saw in Thailand, or at least the ugliest part of a town.

We managed to pick up some prepackaged food from a little store. I got lots of things that looked interesting, but without any idea how edible they were. I tried a lot of things, but I have to say that 1/2 of them were not to my liking. Scary fish curry filled pastries, etc.

We finally got on our bus, and started on our way, unfortunately, only to figure out that this was a local bus, which meant that it was going to stop in every tiny town on the way. It was interesting seeing the sights, and it was fun listening to Eric's music along the way, but it meant that it took much longer than expected to get to Krabi. The bus let us off in Krabi in a dirt bus parking lot with a little tourist stand to make plans. This place was close to nothing.

As soon as we got off the bus, we were greeted by a woman who let us know that we'd missed the last boat to Koh Phi Phi, so we'd have to stay in Krabi and catch a boat in the morning. The good news was that she could get us a room for $15/night total. We said ok, figuring that it wouldn't be bad to scrimp since we were probably still paying for a nice hotel on Koh Phi Phi that evening.

A taxi took us to our hotel, which turned out to be a basement dump. At least it was clean and quiet. That's the best I can say about it. Oh, and cheap, although look at the list of amenities!

We put our belongings down and headed to the night market, which was supposed to be a good source of food, and sure enough, it was great! Lots of interesting Thai food and all very cheap and quite tasty. I had some of the best Pad Thai that I've ever had in my life here.

In addition, as we wandered around, we spotted this couple making little desert taco thingys, which we bought a bag of. Turns out 1/2 of them were toasted coconut - Yum! 1/2 of them were toasted coconut with a shrimpy sea taste - Not so Yum!

After a bit more wandering, we stopped at an Internet Cafe to catch up, and then headed home and to bed. Tomorrow, we would finally make it to Koh Phi Phi.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 5 - Feb. 28

2009-04-13T13:20:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately, our next day on Koh Samui started off a bit hazy. We had a slow starting morning - breakfast at the Villa restaurant again, and then after some swimming and blogging, we hopped back onto our scooters and headed down to the beach. We made a quick stop at a view spot.

After that we went down to see the grandmother and grandfather stones that are named such because they are near each other and resemble male and female genitalia. Really.

The rock formations in this area were quite interesting so we spent some time hanging out and wandering around. We also tried some of the local candy which was a soft of coconut taffy. It was interesting, but not interesting enough to actually buy some.

We then rode our scooters to the nearby Lamai beach. We parked and walked quite a ways to find a pleasant beach spot, and the clouds cleared some and I realized that I was starting to burn, so I walked to buy some more suntan lotion. Nearly all the suntan lotions had "whiteners". Where that might be okay for my teeth, I didn't want it on my skin. I don't want to burn, but I don't need to get even whiter from sitting in the sun!

We had lunch at the small restaurant that was right on the beach and then returned the scooters and went back to the villa. We'd decided to spend the afternoon at the villa relaxing, since it was really our last day there. When we got back we started working to make plans for how we were going to get to Koh Phi Phi the next day, only to find out that the flights were all booked up, and we were having a hard time finding a place to stay as well!

In a bit of a panic the hotel staff helped us out and we orgnized a bus trip to Koh Phi Phi the next day. It would mean that we'd have to be out at 8 AM the next morning, which didn't sound fun, but we didn't have many other options. We also ended up making a reservation for the Holiday Inn - Koh Phi Phi, which sounded like a complete oximoron, but at least we'd have a reservation and it was well reviewed online. So, once our plans were made we swam in the pool, played games and had another delicious dinner at the hotel. Yum! We got ourselves all packed up because it was going to be time to move on in the morning. It wouldn't be easy leaving paradise.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 4 - Feb. 27

2009-04-13T10:19:00.000-07:00

Let's see... where was I... Oh, that's right, On Koh Samui... a small island in the Gulf of Thailand...

We woke up in paradise. We slowly arose and as I recall we took a swim in the pool on our first morning and had breakfast at the little hotel restaurant. The thing I remember about the restaurant was that there were basically two people, a boy and a girl, working the few tables that were there, not counting the cooks who worked down below. While we were there, there were never more than one or two other tables with people.

The villa seemed fairly empty in that we really only saw a few people here or there, but did meet the 3 older guys, Germans I think, who were staying across from us. I believe they were gay because they were always very friendly and were always sure to say hello. It was a little strange to see other gay people here, in what felt like the middle of nowhere, but still it's always nice to see family and I'd always rather people were friendly than not.

That morning, I had to take a picture with my phone just to prove that I was really there.

Eric took a picture of me too.

Our plan after breakfast was to spend the day on some kind of two-wheeled vehicle speeding around the island. The villa driver took us down to the scooter shop, where we rented scooters for a 24 hours. Eric had never driven a scooter, so I let him go ahead of me to make sure that he could go as fast as was comfortable and that I wouldn't be speeding on ahead of him. Plus that way I could keep an eye on him to make sure that if he ran into trouble I'd see it.

We had them fill up the tanks, which came from bottles full of gasoline that were just sitting on a table, like beers. They just opened them one at a time and poured them in. Occasionally around the island, we'd see 5 gallon jugs, like water jugs, hanging upside down full of gasoline, with a hose hanging out of them.

We headed south for a spin around the island. We passed through the town of Lamai, but didn't see the beach because the main road went through the center of town, rather than down by the beach. We'd come back tomorrow to check out this beach.

We came across a turn off for a waterfall, and we took it. We parked, and hiked in to the waterfall. On the way we saw some elephants. There was an elephant ride here, but we didn't do that. Also Eric bought some sunglasses, so that he'd have some eye protection while we were driving around.

We spent a little time here, but it was fairly crowded so we hopped back on our scooters and headed back on the road. I think we were both surprised at how small the island was. It was a pretty drive, but we fairly quickly made it through Na Thon, which is the town with the port, where we'd need to leave from when we took a boat off the island. Then we continued on to a beach that we'd heard was scenic and not as crowded as some of the more popular beaches called Bo Phut. It really was a little romantic town. Here's the main drag:

We had some lunch and then went and laid out on the beach.

The water was warm and there were some clouds, but the sun poked through enough that it was a very nice afternoon.

After a few hours on the beach, we hopped back on our bikes and headed out to finish up our travels around the island. As we continued on, there was a sign for Wat Phra Yai, which is the home of the big Buddha.

We tried from there to find the northern most point of the island, but couldn't find it, and the sun was starting to go down, so we headed back to Cheweng. Wow. This place was jam packed full of tourism and tourists. I'm glad we hadn't stayed "in town".

We parked there and then took a walk down the beach. This was clearly where all the people were. Even with the sun going down, there were still a ton of people on the beach and the restaurants were all setting up for dinner.

After a walk down the beach, we picked up some snacks for the room back home and then found a Mexican restaurant and had some dinner.

Once we were done with that, it was dark, so we hopped on our scooters and drove them back to the villa. We got a movie from the villa lobby and watched the movie, ate our snacks and drifted to sleep.

Another great day of adventure!

Alameda has everything.

2009-04-09T11:59:00.000-07:00

A friend did me a favor and found something that I didn't think could be found, and he found it in Alameda. As promised, I told him that I'd tell the world that "Alameda has everything".

Well, it's true. Alameda apparently really does have everything. Really. Everything!

We Interupt Our Normal Broadcast

2009-04-09T11:58:00.000-07:00

Sorry, but I just have to interrupt my telling of the Thailand & Hawaii tales with this video because it makes me think of someone that I'm extremely fond of. It's a cover of an older song, but I like it.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 3 - Feb. 26

2009-04-07T18:39:00.000-07:00

The next morning we got up for what would be the day that we would be leaving Bangkok. We'd only just arrived, but it was already time to start thinking about moving on. Unfortunately, I had managed to not pack a pair of shorts on the trip, but I had heard how cheap everything was going to be and one friend had even said that if he went back to Thailand he wouldn't even take much in the way of clothing. He'd just buy stuff once he got there because since everything is made there, everything is pennies on the dollar. With that it mind, our plan for the day was to get up, have some breakfast, then go buy some shorts at the major shopping area, Siam Square and then explore Chinatown and the Indian part of town. We had to make it back to the hotel by 2ish so that we could check out and grab our flight down to the islands to the south, Koh Samui. Little did we know the shopping insanity that was ahead.

We were up early and were having breakfast by 8, then we hopped on the Sky train for Siam square. We were there easily by 8:30, but nothing was open. As we wandered around in the oppressive humidity, looking at all of the little shops that were all closed we were stopped by a woman in a tuk tuk, who presented herself to us as the "Tourist Police". To prove that she was from the Tourist Police, she showed us her notepad that had "Tourist Police" printed on it, as if that was going to convince us. We both knew something was up. Turns out she said that nothing would be open around here for hours, but that if wanted she could direct us to a mall that was currently open, where things would be much more affordable anyway. We weren't buying it, and eventually walked away from her. When in Bangkok, you can tell people who are going to scam you because they approach you and immediately ask you where you're from. Then they tell you something complementary about that place and then proceed to tell you some crazy story to get you to go to wherever they want to take you. Not for us...

It was very hot, so we stopped in an open 7-11 to get a Slurpee. Hooray for the pleasures of home. I had to get the Kiss Kiss flavor, which was mostly a fruit punch flavor.

There were all kinds of crazy treats for sale in the 7-11 so we entertained ourselves for a bit checking them all out. This one, we couldn't tell if the green stuff was going in or coming out:

Eventually the mall opened! It was actually a series of 8 story malls each right next to each other. The first one we tried turned out to only have high-end designer label stores. The mall was also completely deserted.

Still, I didn't need Dolce and Gabbana and I certainly wasn't going to pay those prices so we wandered for a bit and eventually ran into a McDonald's in this mall, so I guess it wasn't all high end. I love that Ronald is making the traditional Thai greeting where you hold your hands like a lotus flower!

We moved onto the next huge mall building, only to find that it was more American brands at more American prices, although this particular mall had a strange Japanese feel to it and the items that said large looked like they were little boy sizes. Of course, if only I'd needed a pair of Crocs! Or Eric's other favorite, Sizzler!

We went to the 3rd huge mall, only to find more American stores and brands along with some interesting furniture stores, including a grand piano store, but NO shorts! This was taking much longer than expected and I think we were both getting a little frustrated that we couldn't find something so simple. By now it was getting to be lunch time and we were starting to get hungry.

We went off to the 4th mall, thinking that this was probably going to be our last attempt at this, and then we'd move on to do something else. That was when we hit paydirt! When we first entered, it was obvious that this mall was going to be different. It was packed. The first storefront we came across was a sushi boat restaurant, that apparently was all you can eat for an hour. We were set. Unfortunately, the hostess spoke basically no English, but the place was packed with people so we figured that we'd try it. We paid our money and were seated at two stations with a variety of plates and sauces and then asked "Spicy or no spicy". We had no idea what we were being asked, so we said, "1 spicy, 1 no spicy". The next thing you know we were both broght a big bowl of liquid!

While watching others, we realized that the bowl was broth and that it was on a burner that we could control the temperature of and that very little of what was going by was sushi. The sushi was actually sad little pieces with no flavor. Most of the things on the treadmill were piles of meats, plants, organs and other mysterious things that it's hard to even guess what they were. All meant for us to put into the pot to cook ourselves. Uh oh!

We tried to do what everyone else was doing, and hoped that we were cooking things for long enough in our "soup". It was probably the strangest meal that I have ever had. We did manage to fill the entire hour with the experience and then moved on.

Once in the main part of the mall, I found my shorts immediately and purchased them for about $10, which seemed great to me. They were just what I was looking for. As we moved further into the mall, we suddenly came across a store that was selling 90 in 1 video game cartridges for the Nintendo DS for $40. If you're not familiar, most games on the system cost $20-$40. 90 games for $40 is pretty much the same as the DVD movies that were for sale for $1 or the current CD's that were available for .50. You knew that it was all illegal. Then again, I knew a friend who I was sure would like the 90 games for $40, so I quickly got to purchasing it!

They said that it would take about 30 minutes to produce the cartridge so we'd have to wait. While we waited, we wandered around and figured out that we'd found the black market paradise! I bought a Quicksilver cap for $3.

Next as we wandered we found a different video game spot that let you build your own set of games for pretty much the same price. we went back and said that we wanted to buy one of those too, and managed to pick up in international DS charger that we were looking for as well, but then it hit us. We were out of time. We didn't have 30 minutes to wait. We needed to be back at the hotel packing now! We made a quick plan. I'd race back and pack, while Eric had the cartridges made and then he'd meet me back at the hotel and I'd be totally ready to go with a cab. It was a little nerve wracking because it would be the first time that we'd split up, but sure enough we executed our plan perfectly, and we're in a cab to the airport ready to head south.

We'd hardly gone a block when I noticed that the cab driver hadn't put on the meter, so I commented, "Hey, put the meter on". He said "no", then I said, "We're only paying 400 Baht." He started to argue and then I told him to stop the cab and we'd get out. Finally he relented and we agreed to the 400 Baht. (The friendly hotel guy had told me to not pay anything more for the airport.) Before long we were at the airport and then headed up into the sky and on our way out of Bangkok!

It was a quick and easy 45 minute flight and before we knew it we were headed down towards a series of islands.

We landed at the teeny tiny little airport and took the shuttle to the baggage claim. It was all very easy.

Once there, we were greeted by the driver from the hotel who gave us the 25 minute ride to the place we were staying. We drove through Chewang, the town near where we were staying, and then finally up an impossibly steep hill to our hotel. We had found the place through a friend of a friend, and it was paradise. Once we were shown to our room, it was very difficult to believe that we were really staying in such a slice of heaven.

The room itself was stunning...

But, the real treasure was the infinity pool with the view. It was really beyond belief. Here's a picture taken at dusk that evening.

And here it is at night. We got into the warm pool and just floated next to each other absorbing where we were and how beautiful it all was.

We had dinner at the hotel restaurant which was cute and very small, with excellent Thai food. We were wiped out from the long day and didn't really have a convenient way to get down off the hill we were on, and who wanted to leave, anyway?! We stayed in that night and here is the view that we could see as we drifted off to sleep that night with smiles on our faces:

What a crazy day and what a happy ending.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 2 - Feb. 25

2009-03-31T14:50:00.001-07:00

It was our first day in Bangkok and we were up at dusk, before the sun. We awoke slowly looking out over our view, hoping to see the sun poke out, but between the haze/smog and the skyscrapers around us our view was blocked. Here is the view from our hotel room.

And from inside:

Little did we know what a wild ride the day would bring. Once the sun started to show itself we went down stairs and had breakfast at the hotel. Curried chicken with vegetables for breakfast. Yum!

After a fairly quick breakfast, we headed out to walk to Lumphini Park. The vendors were all setting up their stands, which were literally one after the next after the next after the next. We walked by people who were cooking on the sidewalk, all kinds of mysterious foods were being prepared, some of it was obviously going to be sitting out all day.

It was hot and very humid as we turned down the street to head towards the park. When we got there, the park was nice, but all the Thai people who were supposed to be exercising had clearly already done their exercises and move on with their day. We did see one woman doing something that looked like Tai Chi, but the real excitement came when we ran across the huge reptile just walking around amongst the palm trees.

We didn't really know how to get to the historic district where the Grand Palace was, but after a little work with the maps and the guidebooks we figured out that we could walk out of the park, catch the sky train, which is basically elevated BART, to the river (the Saphan Taksin stop) and then from the river we could take one of the boats that are much like buses on the water to where we wanted to go. The sky train was easy to find and even easier to use. One difference between the sky train and BART is that they sky train cars have TVs with ads running constantly.

The system worked perfectly the whole time we were in Bangkok and was a quick, cheap and easy way to get around. Once we were at Saphan Taksin it was simple to find the boat that we wanted to get on, but it wasn't obvious how to buy a ticket because they ticket desk only sold all-day passes. We did manage to find out that we didn't have to do that and managed to buy a ticket from the lady selling them in line. Turns out, you can also just buy a ticket on the boat. Once on the boat, it was a nice trip up the river.

Just like the rest of Bangkok, the river had huge modern skyscrapers right next to dingy hovels.

After about 5 stops, we arrived at Tha Chang, our stop. We got off and walked into a little food court with tons of shopping. We walked around in the heat, looking at piles of food that seemed to be sitting out in the heat with no refrigeration. This made me question the wisdom of eating it, but we stopped and had lunch. The guy selling it warned me that it was SPICY! I loved it. Hopefully the spice was going to be enough to kill whatever danger might lurk due to the food sitting out for who knows how long.

After the quick bit to eat, we headed down a side street and checked out the shopping, and then headed into the Grand Palace. The Grand Palace is a very large walled-in area, so we wandered around trying to find the entrance. As we came across an entrance, we ran into our first scammer!

The man at the entrance to the Grand Palace told us that Eric (who was wearing shorts) was going to have to borrow some long pants, which he said they had available, but that they were closed for lunch and would be open in an hour. So... he suggested that his friend take us for a ride in his tuk-tuk for only $1 for an hour. Well, we were buying this whole story, hook, line and sinker, but since we had the time to kill we decided to continue to walk around. It was only as we approached the next entrance that I realized that we were just being scammed. We asked the guard (with the big gun) about the pants and he said they were available right now. I'm glad we didn't get in that tuk tuk!

We went in and Eric got his fashionable long pants...

The first stop was Wat Phra Kaew, which is the home of the Emerald Buddha!

The grounds are covered with statues of fantastic creatures, and the pictures can show you the beauty of the place, but it really is hard to capture the spirit of it. We wandered for several hours taking pictures and just absorbing the atmosphere of the place.

When we went into the Wat, we had to take our shoes off, which turned out to be the case for all of the Wats, and over the course of time we saw quite a few Wats! After leaving the Grand Palace, we wandered to another Wat to see the reclining Buddha, which was HUGE.

When we first arrived at this Wat, I noticed that there was a constant irregular dinging sound. It sounded a little like a series of bells that kept going "cling" "cling" "cling" "cling". When got around the backside of the Buddha I discovered the source of the noise. There were little cups of coins, and you'd drop a coin in each of a long series of bowls for good luck or to have a wish granted. Eric and I both took a shot at it and I'd wished for a disaster free trip, so I got my wish!

Now did I mention that the whole time it was as humid as you could imagine? Miserably humid:

Once we left here we exited and tried to find a taxi. There were plenty of them around, but none of them were willing to put the meter on. They all wanted to charge a flat right, and a high flat rate at that. After being frustrated while trying to negotiate with the cabbies, we decided to forget it and just go back to the hotel the same way that we'd come via boat then to the sky train. It worked out perfectly, gave us another excuse to ride on the river and the sky train let us off a block from our hotel. (That had been one of the selling points of the place that we stayed, and did turn out to be quite helpful.)

Once back at the hotel, we went up and took a dip in the rooftop pool which we had almost all to ourselves. It was a beautiful night and Eric and I had a fun talk on the top of the world.

After a bit of a swim, we napped for a bit and then once it got dark, we headed out to a restaurant for dinner, I believe called Lemongrass. It seemed like it was within walking distance. It turned out to be further than expected and although it was night it was still very humid.

The restaurant was highly recommended in the guidebook, but was mediocre at best, and frankly not that cheap. I guess that's what we get for following the guidebook. Once done with our meal, we took the sky train to the red light district, which it turned out was at the same sky train station that we'd first taken the sky train from, near the park.

We sat and had some drinks at an outdoor bar, which was basically two bars across from each other all with tables where you sit and drink and watch everyone walk by between them.

While we had a drink, poor Eric fell right asleep. The jeglag was catching up with him. I finished my beverage and we got up and walked around some. We found the areas where they have the wild shows, but it seemed like there were a lot of very sad people there. The kind of people where their lips are smiling, but their eyes aren't. When we went down the alley with the gay sex clubs the asian boys swarmed at us. Frankly, it was almost scary. We left there quickly and decided to head home. On our way to catch the train again, we ran across some guys with a baby elephant. The elephant was as cute as could be, but the guys who were "hawking" the elephant looked very poor and mean. There were no pictures without payment, and Eric asked me where they must keep the baby at night. It was strange, cute and sad.

of Elephants and Sea Turtles - Day 1 - Feb. 23

2009-03-31T12:08:00.000-07:00

As I recall, I woke that Monday still not believing that I was leaving for a month. Everything was prepared. I was as ready as I was going to be. Anything that wasn't ready was going to have to be alright. Eric had to run out that morning to take care of an errand, but before I knew it he was back and Tom was here to take us to the airport. I don't even think I had a crazy sense of excitement because I was still somewhat in denial that it was happening, and the weeks leading up to the trip had been so filled with racing to get ready and the stress of the impending deadline that it all just seemed surreal.

Once we arrived at the international terminal of SFO, we checked into our Japan Airlines flight easily enough, only to find out that we weren't seated together on the SFO-Tokyo leg of our flight. Both of us were sad that the start of our trip was going to be apart, but we consoled each other with the notion that we'd at least be together for the second leg of the trip.

We made our way to the gate only to find that there was a small army of Japanese school girls, all dressed in their uniforms waiting. As we looked around, I would have been surprised if there were a dozen non-Japanese folks on the plane. I had my first feeling of "uh oh - here comes something quite unexpected". Next a woman working at the gate came over and told us that we were going to able to sit together after all. As I was soon to discover, on our journey, things were going to have a way of working out.

The flight was quite nice and went by quickly - we had so many forms of entertainment, books, games, videos. (I had been hesitant to bring my iPhone, but it turned out to come in extremely handy.) Once in Tokyo, we took the train from one part of the airport to another, but found that we had an hour to kill so we went looking for sushi and snacks. Sushi was not to be found. (I still find this incredible.) We did find lots of crazy shopping, and everything was in Yen, so we had no idea how much anything was.

Before long we were on our second flight and on our way to Bangkok. This plane wasn't quite as nice as the one to Tokyo. The seats were smaller, and quite frankly my butt was tired of sitting in those tiny little uncomfortable chairs. Still after 7 more hours, we touched down at 11:50 PM Bangkok time. Although we'd left on Monday morning, we were arriving on Tuesday evening - thanks International Dateline for stealing a day from us... The air was warm and humid and we were both exhausted from our travels, but I couldn't help but be hepped up on the excitement that we had arrived!

We got our bags and made our way to the taxi, only to find that we didn't have the address of the hotel. After a little searching we got the address and got into a cab. The cab driver spoke nearly no English, but he did ask where we were from and when we said California he said something over and over that after several attempts, we realized was "Arnold Schwatzenager". He was a friendly guy so I asked him how to say "Thank You", and he taught me my first Thai.

After driving about 30 minutes into Bangkok, which included passing through a few toll gates, we arrived downtown. Even at 1:00 AM, it was immediately obvious that we were no longer in familiar territory. As we got off the free way onto a large street, which would turn out to be the street we were staying on, Sukhumvit, the street itself was so crammed with cars, tuk-tuk's (little 3 wheel cars) and endless motorcycles that we could only barely move at a snails pace. The street had skyscrapers on both sides, with storefronts down below ranging from KFC to tailors to Thai restaurants to junk shops. Everything seemed to be there. If that wasn't enough the sidewalks were littered with little vendors selling every manner of stuff, from food they were cooking right there to clothes to who knows what... And even at 1:00 AM it was all still going.

After about 10 mintes dragging through the traffic, we arrived at our hotel which turned out to be conveniently located, very affordable and quite nice. Clearly it catered to non-Thai visitors, but we were happy to have arrived. We went up to our room which had an amazing view of the city around us. After a little jumping up and down with excitement that we were actually there, we showered and promptly fell fast asleep.

Further Thai & Hawaii Travel Notes

2009-03-30T14:34:00.000-07:00

I realized, while talking to a friend yesterday, that there are a lot of travel stories that I haven't written down and that if I don't write down soon are going to be lost in time... so over the next few days I will be posting the story of our trip, punctuated with pictures. I'll be using some of my own photos and leaning heavily on the pictures that Eric took. So... read with interest, or just pass it by.

Returning Home

2009-03-24T13:14:00.000-07:00

Returning back to "real life" from vacation has certainly been a bit of a mind trip all on its own... The whole "return to work/San Francisco/my apartment/friends/open issues/changes", etc. has really taken more emotional adjustment than I had initially anticipated. I guess I just got 100% use to (and spoiled by) "Come up with some crazy-fun adventure with Eric. Do the adventure. Repeat."

The best part of the transition back to "reality" is that it has given me the fresh perspective to look at myself and the world around me in a new way. I expected this to happen, but much like taking a new job or going on a trip, you know things are going to be "different" but what makes it really interesting are all the specific details as to how it is different and how you never really know what "different" feels like until you're there.

In example, before I was happy staying in my apartment, but now I realize that I've got to make a nice home for myself to really be happy. I have a greater sense of my own ability to be assertive in my life and say, very directly, what I mean and create changes. I guess maybe I lost a little of that from the drag of everyday life, but I am re-energized. The funny thing is that the more time that I spend coping with the daily stresses, the more re-energized I find myself becoming. I think I really slowed down in Hawaii and rested, which gave me the ability to come back stronger than ever.

I feel like when I first got on my motorcycle and was confident enough to open up the throttle on the open highway and go as fast as it would go. I feel like I'm flying and free.

Hawaii and then home

2009-03-19T23:22:00.000-07:00

So... now that we're back home, I wanted to post something about the final 10 days of our trip.

Due to very little sleep in our last few days in Thailand, the first few days in Hawaii were mostly spent sleeping and relaxing and we recovered from jetlag. We did manage to get in a drive around the island as well as a couple of visits with the folks.

The next day we got up late and eventually had lunch and then went snorkeling at Hanuama Bay. The snorkeling wasn't as good as it had been in the past due to lots of waves making the water muddy, but Eric managed to spot a turtle and we saw plenty of humuhumunukunukuāpuaʻa.

On the drive home we stopped at a few scenic spots:

That night we went to dinner at a nice restaurant and then stopped on our way home from dinner, but found that we were being tempted by a familiar friend...

Succumming to temptation we ordered two deserts, both of which were very rich and very tasty..

Unfortunately, eating all of both of them when we were already full, put us a little over the edge.

The next morning we got up and headed to Kauai, and if we were in relaxation mode in Oahu, we really slowed down once we checked into our condo in Princeville. Here's the view from our living room:

We stocked up on groceries and ended up cooking most of our meals at home. Although these were available, we didn't have any:

We spent a lot of time around the house every day, but also tried to get out and do something each day. The first day we went snorkeling at Tunnels beach, at the recommendation of several friends and saw a lot of fish, but didn't head to deeper waters where the turtles and sharks were. Still the view down under was incredible.

Nearly every day the clouds would roll in for the afternoon, but that just meant that we enjoyed the view from the condo while we relaxed, played games, watched movies and cooked.

The last few days were filled with hiking on the Na Pali coast, which was quite beautiful, and driving around the island. The weather wasn't sunny, but still Kauai is beautiful in nearly any conditions. It was just great relaxing after our Thailand adventures.

Our last day we walked to the beach near our condo for some more beach time, the weather was sunny and bright, and some more incredible snorkeling. Tons of fish and sea turtles. It was a great end to an amazing journey! Watch for more pictures coming soon...

Slowing down in Hawaii

2009-03-14T19:15:00.000-07:00

We just arrived in Kauai and I figured it was time for an update...

The last night in Chiang Mai was unexpectedly fun and adventurous! We went to a once a week night market, that takes place every Sunday night and unlike the nightly market, this one seems to cater largely to locals. It's HUGE and the close off about 20 city blocks... There was everything there! Piles of edible insects, spiced for your pleasure - some of which were as large as my iPhone. Yum! Crunchy! There were young girls dressed up like traditional dancers lip synching for money - honestly, they reminded me more than a little of those little girl beauty pageants... There were a zillion merchants... Tons and tons of local crafts and local people. Very little that seemed like it was produced in a factory. It was really fun, but we ended up staying late and then Eric was sweet enough to run with me to the old night market to get a carved elephant that i'd seen and wanted... Then back to the hotel to pack! We were in bed by 1am.

Unfortunately, this meant that our last day in Thailand didn't go quite as we might have expected. Turns out it was daylight savings time back home, so we unexpectedly only got 4 hours of sleep before the flight back to Bangkok, where we only really managed, due to a series of crazy events, to check out Chinatown. It was like no Chinatown that you have ever seen! Piles of tongues next to piles of fireworks not far from the coffin shop. Fried tripe next to piles of slimey parts that I didn't want to ask about... In any case, even wihh the mishaps it was a fun last day, but I think we were both ready for a rest...

The next morning was our flight to Hawaii. The cab driver was insane and what was either a misunderstanding or him trying to earn a few extra Baht, he didn't take the highway to the airport. Once we made it clear that we were in a rush (Eric used the International symbol for "You're going to slow and I'm going to freak out if you don't get us there faster") the driver put the pedal to the metal and in Bangkok that means nearly driving your passengers. It was insane. We made the flight and had a long and uneventful flight, including a 5 hour layover in Tokyo. Unfortunately when we arrived at our hotel in Waikiki it was after not sleeping for 24 hours and it was only 10am and our room wasn't ready until 3, so after a very brief walk we settled/slept on the beach until it was ready... Then we slept in the room until the next day, only taking a quick run out for dinner. More in a bit!

Chiang Mai & driving around Northern Thailand

2009-03-07T23:32:00.000-08:00

Well, we've gone a few days here in Chiang Mai without posting, so are some pictures and an update. First off, Chiang Mai is a very "easy" city, in that it is easy to get around, the people are friendly, and unlike some other places around Thailand that we've been, you don't get the sense that anyone here is trying to take advantage of you to get your extra Baht. We've been having a great time - good food - everything is extremely affordable. The only bad thing I could possibly say is that the permanent haze and smell that something is burning is a little disconcerting. Still, it's been an easy place to lay our hat for a several days...

The first day was wandering around seeing the wats of the city. The city has a center area that is surrounded by a moat, which we explored on our first full day here. As usual, Eric being the (mildly obsessive) photographer has meant that we have a lot of amazing pictures, but in this posting, you'll just see some of my pix, which are the more garden variety.

Here is a naga, which are the mystical water serpents that are at the entrance to the majority of the wats. It seems that they are supposed to be guarding the Buddha. The naga are usually positioned on the stairs that lead up to the temple, which in some cases, when there are a ton of stairs makes for a very, very long naga:

Here's an ancient old pagoda. The tallest in all of Thailand. It's huge. You can get a sense of how large it is, from the picture of Eric at the bottom of the stairs...

(You'll notice the huge multiheaded naga!)

There are A LOT of Buddhas. We've been to about a dozens wats, and each one has about 25-100 Buddha statues per wat. That makes for a whole lot of Buddhas:

After a day of touring wats, we took a tuk-tuk back to the hotel, which wasn't nearly as scary as people had made it out to be. More just fun really:

After a day of touring Wats we stopped to get a fruit shake, which are incredibly prevalent here, we've had at least one every day. As you can see, when we stopped, I noticed that we were still being followed:

After the fruit shake we took a brake and then we went to dinner with a friend of a friend who happened to be in Chiang Mai for a conference. The restaurant was nice and it was nice to have a little piece of "back home"... If only briefly.

The next day, we rented a car and headed north. Driving in Chiang Mai is a little insane because driving is on the left, and worse, all traffic laws and signs are more guidelines than anything else -- including red lights, which seem to be nearly completely ignored, even if people are crossing the street. In any case, we headed north, and stopped by a waterfall with a ton of butterflies. It was when I took this picture of Eric, that I noticed that we were still being followed by our little "friend":

From the water fall, we dropped by some orchid farms which were pretty, but the butterfly areas at the orchid farms were really the impressive thing to see. (Here are a few orchids, but quite honestly it didn't really seem to be orchid season.)

Then another stop at yet another beautiful waterfall... Although honestly, just like churches across Europe... after you've seen several you started getting a little bit of waterfall overload:

Then came the real fun, which was the elephant farm. Being good little Northern Californians, we made sure to go to the elephant park that treated their elephants well, and were humane to them. We did an elephant ride, saw elephants painting art (really.) and caught a small glimpse of the elephant show.

And... of course, just as we were on our way out, Eric made a new friend.

Our final stop of the day was another wat, which was on the very top of a hill, overlooking Chaing Mai. What hit me most at this wat, all of which feel quite spiritual, was this sign on the way up the hundreds of stairs to the wat:

Once, back in town, we stopped by a Burmese restaurant because we were determined to have some Burmese Tea Leaf Salad while we were here. The little place that we found, did indeed have it and it turns out that what we get in San Francisco, although "California-nized" is fairly authentic. Hooray internet!

We had such fun in the car, that we decided to keep the car for another day and head south this time. We drove about 90 minutes south to a town called Lampang. It was where the British had the center of the teak trade, but these days is just a quiet Thia city. Not much to look at, but we had a nice lunch on a river, and then went to the local wat, which is supposed to be one of the most beautiful in Thailand. It was quite beautiful. The main tower is supposed to have a hair of the Buddha in it... Here's a pic:

While here, I had a memory there of my great grandma Manley who, when I was very young in Santa Monica, use to take me to the huge church near here house, when it was completely empty, and she'd tell me to think of someone that I wanted to wish well, and then we'd put a nickel in the slot and I'd light a candle for that person. (This was the only church that she exposed me to.) There is a ton of candle lighting at these places as well. I wonder why it is that people like to light candles as prayers so much?

In any case, fortunately, I had Eric to continue to take tons of pictures... He says that he's taken 1,300 so far! I think this will be the most photographed trip that I have EVER taken.

Eventually we got back home to the room. Returned the car, napped for a bit and then headed to the night bazaar, where we shopped for several hours. It's a madhouse, and sadly, there is a certain desperation to the people there. You can't help but feel like the economic downturn must be hurting them as well, only they are already making so little that they are hurting severely.

We eventually made our way back home, and this morning got up early to head to Thai cooking school for the day, and who should we find in our room!

We had a quick breakfast, and then got picked up and driven the few blocks to the school, where we were in a class of 7 people. First we did a tour of the market, and then we spent the day making fresh spring rolls, Tom Kha Gai soup, Pad Thai, our own curry paste, curry dishes, papaya salad, and even sticky rice and mangoes for desert.

The food was phenomenal, it was fun to make it and eat all day, and after 5 or 6 hours of that we headed here to the Internet cafe to catch up on the world, and post our goings on... Tonight we have one more street market to hit and then we have to be up early in the A.M. for a flight back to Bangkok to tour an ancient city and then dinner with a friend, David, who coincidently happens to be in town and then Tuesday we'll be heading to Hawaii. It has been an amazing trip! Hopefully I'll get the chance for one more update here before we go!

Being followed in Chiang Mai

2009-03-05T02:28:00.000-08:00

I have some scary news... This morning we got a late start, but the day started very well! We were just headed down stairs to start our day when the guy at the front desk told us that we could upgrade to a much nicer room for $10/night. After taking a look at it, we definitely decided to upgrade. It's much nicer and that started the day off well!

From there we wandered around looking at the variety of "wats", which is really just the name here for Buddist temples. There are a ton of them, many of which are very old. We saw about 6 of them, just wandering on foot, and they were mostly built around 1200 AD to 1400 AD. There are lots of cool pictures of them, but the scary part is that somewhere along the way, this guy started following me. I'm not sure, but I have a scary feeling that I'm not going to be able to shake him.

Koh Phi Phi (cont.)

2009-03-04T05:50:00.001-08:00

OK... So, now we're in Chiang Mai, but I did want to get back to finish the Koh Phi Phi adventure...

Our first day in Koh Phi Phi, we did the phenomenal boat ride, which frankly, even though we only had time for the 1/2 day tour, was beyond all belief. Eric, being the amazing photographer, will of course have the pictures that defy belief, but in the meantime, you'll just have to settle for the pictures that I've taken. (In a place like this, it's hard to not take SOME good pictures.)

First off, here's a picture of us landing on Monkey Beach. Just look at the color of the water:

Next, here are some monkeys that we were 10 feet away from. There weren't as many monkey's as we might have liked, but our tour leader, a Mister Chang and his assist Mr. Ng, explained that the monkeys don't like high tide. (?!)

Here is a picture of Eric coming out of the water from snorkeling. Sorry, but he looked so cute that I had to take a picture.

This is the gorgeous beach that I mentioned before. It's really just beyond description.

This is on the same beautiful beach, but with Eric amidst a school of fish. Let me repeat that the darkness in the water around him is FISH, and as he moved through them, the school of fish just opened up a white spot to wherever he would move to. People who were walking by didn't even realize that it was a school of fish.

We had such an amazing time on the boat trip that we decided to stay a second day in Koh Phi Phi, which meant that we were going to have to change some hotel and flight reservations around, but we both agreed that it would be well worth it and with a little help from the hotel staff we moved things around, so we could stay another day.

The next day was spent enjoying several different beaches on the island, which honestly was just dreamy. Eric said it was his favorite day of our trip so far, but I've enjoyed every day in a different way. I'd be hard pressed to pick a favorite. In any case, as the day wore on what had been a day with high clouds became sunnier and sunnier and sunnier until at the end of the day we were on a near deserted beach with the sun shining and the amazing beauty of the islands all around us and the occasional long boat speeding by in the distance. It was incredible. On the way back to the room we saw a guy who had cut his foot on the coral -- that seemed extremely unpleasant and we could hear him scream when the poured something on his foot. Ouch! We made it back to the room and changed for dinner, and once at dinner, a thunderstorm hit quite unexpectedly. The open air restaurant was packed, the food was delicious and the thunder pounded away outside while it poured down rain.

Fortunately, it slowed enough for us to get back to a bar by our hotel, where we had a cocktail to wish the island goodbye before we headed to bed. This morning we got up early and sailed away... to Phuket, where we caught a private cab to the airport, then a plane back to Bangkok and then another plane to Chiang Mai, where we checked into a cool little boutique hotel. Very cute and very affordable! Now we're blogging a bit, and then off to the night market to pick up some deals!

You are being robbed - Don't blame me, blame Koh Phi Phi!

2009-03-03T05:41:00.000-08:00

The fact that you're reading this without pictures is an absolute crime. We've spent the last few days on Koh Phi Phi, which is one of the most beautiful spots on this earth, and so I apologize that I don't have a cable with me that let's me show you some of the amazing pictures, but even if I could, pictures just don't do it justice.

It started yesterday when we arose in Krabi in our nasty little hotel room. (which, frankly, is overstating the place) We had something that was vaguely reminiscent of breakfast and before long were picked up and whisked off to the pier where our boat awaited us for the 90 minute ride to Koh Phi Phi. (Pronounced Pee Pee.) When we first arrived it was a bit of a nightmare. The hotel didn't have our reservations, resolving the issue via Expedia was next to impossible and people were tugging on us constantly to "book with them" or "take our watertaxi". It was all extremely frustrating, especially being 90 degrees and humid. We decided to salvage the situation and take a different hotel and battle it out with Expedia later.

Once checked into our new digs, we turned around and got ourselves booked on a cruise to the next island over Koh Phi Phi Leh, which is a nature preserve. It was one of the most stunningly beautiful places that I've ever been. The boat ride over was a bit rough because the sea was turbulent, but it was fun stopping on Monkey Beach and seeing a few monkeys in the trees. Then we stopped in a small bay to go snorkeling for an hour. When we first stopped, Eric suggested that we just off of the top of the boat, as the tour guide suggested. I was up for it, so we went up and I jumped off, but Eric held back. After just a little coaxing he jumped as well!

Once in the water, we were amazed at what we saw underwater. I have never seen so many fish while snorkeling, and while we were there it started to rain, but the water was so warm, like a warm bath, that it was an almost spiritual experience. I really can't put into words what it was like, but it was completely amazing. From there, we went to another beach which was just stunning. It really felt like someone had spiked my coffee because this beach was just unbelievable. Pictures soon, but for now you'll just have to take my word for it, that it was unbelievable... Uh oh... I'm afraid I have to run for now... but more later!

I was crabby in Krabi

2009-03-01T05:10:00.000-08:00

Well after a day of boats and buses and waiting all day, and spending several hours in the town of Surat, which is just plain unattractive... Well, to be fair we were trapped in the area by the bus station, so maybe that was it, but in any case, it wasn't much fun. I was starved and my best option was a dried squid on a stick, which looked like that sucker had been on the stick for quite a while... We ended up eating some food out of a snack shop, most of which ended up being unedible.

Our bus finally came, but ended up being the bus that stops in every tiny village on the way, which meant that we didn't get to Krabi until late, and even then the bus ended far outside of town. We were too late to make it to Koh Phi Phi, so we had to take a hotel in Krabi. This meant that we would not be staying in our pre-paid bungalow on our private beach, but rather in a basement room that looked like something out of a scary movie. Initially this turn of events had me a little crabby, but then we made our way down to the open market and had some tasty food. Once I realized that this place was an adventure all on it's own, I was in a much better mood!

Now we're hanging out in an Internet cafe updating things. It's nighttime, but the weather is about 85 and it's a little humid. (Fortunately our room has a fan.) Tomorrow will we be getting up early and heading to Koh Phi Phi. I don't know that we'll have an update tomorrow, since we'll be snorkeling and trying to make up lost time from today. In any case... our adventure continues!

Oh Koh Samui!

2009-02-28T22:10:00.001-08:00

Our first morning on Koh Samui, we woke up in paradise. The view from our bed was looking out over the pool onto the bay and island down below. It was stunningly beautiful. We had breakfast. After several days of spicy food for every meal, we decided to go with the "American Breakfast" which was delicious. Then we got a ride down to town where we rented scooters for a tour around the island. The gas was actually in, what looked like, beer bottles, which they poured into our scooters.

The guidebook warned that there were inumberable horrific accidents on the island, which isn't surprising with driving being on the left hand side, and so many motorcycles and scooters everywhere, and it being a resort island, so I'm sure many people are drinking and driving. Still we didn't have any problems whatsoever. We drove around the island, seeing a pretty waterfall, some elephants that were being used for elephant rides, the port town which is the capitol of the island, and then stopped at Bo Phut, which is a small cute beach for people who want something cute, but want to lose the crowds. We hung out on the beach for a few hours and swam in the crystal blue water, before getting back on the scooters. Our next stop was a huge buddha, and then to Chewang for dinner. Chewang is the busiest, most crowded town on the island. It was something to see and the beach was beautiful, but I'm glad that we weren't staying there. Finally, once darkness hit, we headed back to the villa for a quiet night at home. It was really an amazing day.

The next day was more beaches... A woman came up to me on the beach and asked me if I wanted a pedicure and when I said no, she told me that I had the feet of an elephant!

The afternoon was back at the villa trying to figure out where to go from here. Finally we were to the part of our vacation that was "unplanned" so we had to start to get to planning. Unfortunately, flights out of Koh Samui in the south were booked, so we ended up working out boat to a bus to another bus to a boat to the island of Koh Phi Phi. After all that work, we had a very sweet evening at the villa where we spent the last night just appreciating what an insanely beautiful and romantic place we were in.

This morning was up early to get to Koh Phi Phi. In fact, as I type this I'm in a crazy little bus station in some town that I don't know the name of, waiting for our bus. We've heard the bus that is supposed to arrive in an hour may or may not come and that we may have to wait two hours. Then even once the bus does come, it is only going to Krabi and we're not sure how we can get to Koh Phi Phi! Well, this is what the "adventure" part is all about... I'm sure it will all work out just fine, but it certainly is a mystery to figure out how!

Shopping and then off to the Islands

2009-02-26T19:05:00.001-08:00

Well, our best intentions of heading to Chinatown and Indiantown after hitting the shopping mall were completely thwarted. We headed to Siam Square where there are supposed to be several hugs malls all right next to each other, thinking that we'd get me some shorts and then head out. Unfortunately, like everything else, the mall shopping was quite different.

We got there at 9, only to find out that they didn't open until 10. As we wandered in the humidity and heat hoping to find something open, a woman who identified herself as the "Tourism Police" stopped us and tried to talk us into going to a different mall across town that was supposedly cheaper and already open. She seemed to believe that if she wrote everything she said down on a little notepad, that it would make it more likely that we'd believe her. In reality she was just a paid shill trying to talk us into shopping elsewhere. There seems to be no end of these folks who try to get you to go shopping somewhere else, and they'll say nearly anything to get you to wherever they want you to go. In the end we fled from her into the air conditioned safety of a 7-11, where I bought a slurpee that was flavored "kiss kiss". It was sort of fruit punchy.

Eventually the 8 story mall opened, but it was all high-end stuff, so we moved onto the next mall, which was also around 8 or 9 stories, and was like some strange Japanese mall. American stores, but the sizes were all micro sized, and everything was as expensive as the US. We moved onto the next mall, which was more american stores and brands, but still nothing that we wanted. We were just about to give up and then finally we went into the next mall, and stopped for lunch. The place we ate at was a "make your own soup"/sushi restaurant. You had a little pot of boiling stock in front of you and a conveyer belt came by with stuff to dump in, like raw chicken, raw shrimp, greens, babycorn, livers, bacon, other strange meats and organs... all drifting by, and you just plucked whichever plates you wanted and then dumped them into your boiling soup. Amidst the strange soup items were pieces of sushi. I can only imagine how people were supposed to make sure they didn't accidently eat something raw that they shouldn't have. It was all you could eat, but you only had 1 hour & 15 minutes. We both jumped in best we could, spying on our neighbors to figure out what to do, but it was the strangest meal I've had in a long, long time!

After that we went shopping and we'd hit paydirt. This was the mall that had all the illegal knock-offs. I think we could have shopped in this mall all day. We got some clothes and some video games and made a quick exit to race to check-out and catch our flight to Koh Samui.

The trip to the airport was uneventful, other than the cab driver thinking he was going to charge us more than 400 baht, but the friendly guy at the hotel had already warned us not to pay any more than 400B, so another trickster averted. Honestly, it easy to keep out of the hands of trouble, if you just keep your wits about you. I think it really has helped having both of us having our eyes open.

Once we flew down to Koh Samui, which was just an hour flight, we were picked up from the airport here and driven down to our resort, which is like paradise. I was near silence for about our first hour here because I was in such shock that we were staying in a place that was so unbelievably beautiful. It really defies words, but check out Eric's blog for some pictures. It really is just incredible. Our room overlooks an infinity pool which we mostly have to ourselves, and the view from the pool is of the island down below. We stayed at the hotel for a dip in the pool and then for dinner and collapsed relatively early because I think the jetlag is still with us just a little and we've only been sleeping 5-6 hours a night. It was like going to bed in heaven. More soon, but now it's the next morning and time to go see what this island has to offer in the way of beaches and natural beauty, although honestly, I could just stay here by the pool and be totally satisfied. I'm so glad that we have 3 nights here!

One night in Bangkok and the world's your oyster

2009-02-25T17:33:00.000-08:00

Last night was an interesting evening in Bangkok. We came back to the hotel and went up to the rooftop pool, where we swam around in the warm water at the top of the 16th floor, while we looked over the city. The sunset and the weather started to dip down to 8o degrees... Eric and I had a great talk up on top of the world, and then eventually we went down to the room to get ready for dinner.

We walked quite a ways to get to the restaurant that sounded good in the guidebooks, but ended up being relatively mediocre. Quite honestly, the tastiest thai dish I've had so far was the curry that we've had for breakfast at the hotel! (Maybe it, like the food back home, is made for American tastes. I'm not sure.)

From there, we took the sky train to where everyone else was going... Patpong. The red light district. After have a couple of drinks at an outdoor bar, we wandered through the areas where the "shows" were being held. It was unlike anything that I'd ever seen. The closest being Amsterdam, but this was far more... in your face. When we went down the street with the gay clubs on it, asian boys were trying to pull us into their venues in a way that was almost like being attacked. It was a little intense. We also saw a baby elephant in the street, working for peanuts. Like most of the people working that night, there was something cute about it, but also an underlying sense of sadness. Something about everything being up for sale.

In any case, we were both exhusted from a bit of jetlag, so after our brief walk around, we headed home and to bed.

Today will have some shopping, some Chinatown and Indiatown and then a flight down to the southern islands for the next few days stay!

Bangkok - Day 1

2009-02-25T01:17:00.000-08:00

The flight to Bangkok was completely uneventful, and although the first 10 hours to Tokyo was fun (who knew what a nice airline JAL is?) the Narita airport in Tokyo was unexciting, other than to prove that we were definitely in a different culture. Unfortunately, then next 8 hours to Bangkok was not very much fun. Tiny seats, and frankly I'd just had enough sitting down. Still the iPods full of TV shows, movies and music, plus our Gameboys kept us entertained. Once we arrived it was an uneventful cab ride to the hotel, which proved to be very nice. We arrived at 1 AM and the streets were still full of nightlife. We went right to bed, it was 8AM San Fran time, and after sleeping a solid 6 hours, so far there seems to be no sign of jetlag!

This morning we got up early to have a tasty curry breakfast in the hotel, and then to wander the streets of the city. There were all kinds of crazy little street vendors, with every imaginable type of food for sale. Each vendor lined up one after then next after the next. We walked to a large park, which was nice, but uneventful because we were a little late to see all the people who were supposed to be there exercising. We did spot a huge reptile, in the park. It looked a bit like a gila monster. From there we took the sky train to the water taxi, which rode us up to the Grand Palace. All in all, trasportation ran us $2 each!

The strange smells and foods were fascinating, and the contrast of the poverty to the wealth in the form of skyscrapers and palaces was amazing. The Grand Palace was a work of art, unlike anything close to what I saw across Europe, and I loved all the crazy mystical creatures that surrounded the huge building where they keep all of the remains of the past kings. Eric is, of course, taking pictures like mad, so I'm sure there will be a ton of top notch photographs.

We ate lunch at a little outdoor cafe that had piles of thai food sitting out on plates and seemed to mostly cater to Thai people. I'm not sure if it was good for me, but it tasted delcious, and I even tried the "spicy pork". The vendor said when I ordered it, "No crying allowed!". The first hour after eating it, my lips were on fire and my stomach wasn't sure what to do with it, but that all calmed down and I was fine. Let's hope it stays that way.

Now it's early afternoon and we're about to head back to the room for some rest, maybe a dip in the pool, and then we'll be heading out to check out some night life. Hopefully pictures and more tomorrow! Our plan at this point is to see China town and India town tomorrow and then fly down to Koh Samui in the later afternoon.

The last day

2009-02-20T09:49:00.001-08:00

This is the last day of work before vacation. If I can just make it through this one day then I will be off of work for 4 weeks. It's still a little hard to believe, but I can't help but feel a building sense of excitement at the adventures that lie ahead!

I can't help but be a little nervous about the unknown. I've heard stories about Thailand that are both scary and strange. The culture will be so different from what I'm used to and the conveniences that I take for granted will be no where in sight.

There will be exotic animals to be seen, stunning beaches to swim in and ancient cities to explore! Honestly, I even look forward to missing home. Watch this space for more updates on our adventures!

Crab Invasion of Alameda, soon to be followed by Spider Attack

2009-02-17T11:30:00.000-08:00

I was alerted recently that Alameda is about to be attacked by an invasion of giant crabs! They are gathering in the bay, preparing their invasion of the east bay island hamlet.

Even if the targets of the attack survive, I'm afraid that an army of giant spiders is waiting in the hills of Oakland for a follow-up attack!

Hats - Part II

2009-02-16T08:35:00.000-08:00

Here I am, just after stealing my friend Phancy's hat. I thought I was only going to steal it for long enough to take this picture, but now months later, I still have it.

Hats - Part I

2009-02-15T21:25:00.000-08:00

There are times when a man must wear a hat -- not just to keep his head warm, but to explain to people his position in society. It not only explains who he is, but where he fits on the social hierarchy. I always use hats to this effect. Well, and because sometimes I just look good in them.

Me and Varla Jean from Planet 9

2009-02-13T14:21:00.001-08:00

OK... So maybe the little camera phone didn't always take the clearest pictures in low light situations. Here I am with Varla Jean Merman. Unfortunately, she looks a bit like a space alien in this shot.

Keith is Dashing

2009-02-13T10:00:00.000-08:00

This is my very good friend Keith, who we realized last night that I have known for a long, long time. We did Europe together back in the 90's and he'll be a friend for as long as I live. Longer, if I have anything to say about it.

Breakfast - the most important meal of the day

2009-02-12T15:43:00.001-08:00

It is critical for your well-being that you start every day with a good breakfast. This is what passes for a good breakfast with someone who I'm quite close to. Yum!?

Wonder Trigby

2009-02-12T13:40:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I wonder how I got to be such a Wonder!

Happy Scary Frog

2009-02-12T06:14:00.001-08:00

There are times when suddenly a happy smiling frog jumps out from behind something smiling at me. What can I say? I guess he's just trying to surprise me with delight!

Starbucks Passion Tea Lemonade - Don't blame the victim

2009-02-11T23:45:00.000-08:00

Here I am enjoying a tasty beverage. You can tell it's mine because my name is on the cup...

Too many wigs?

2009-02-11T16:49:00.000-08:00

There are some foolish individuals that have suggested that a person can wear too many wigs, but I think you'll find this documentary evidence to the contrary:

Phone Pix!

2009-02-11T12:59:00.001-08:00

I recently got a new lover, er, I mean, phone. Unfortunately, this means that my BlackBerry Pearl that had served me so well for these last few years had to be put down, but as luck would have it, I had, only a few days before, copied out all the pictures that I had taken with that little camera phone! Now they are all sitting on my hard drive staring at me, like a strange retrospective of the last year. Why did I take all those pictures? What would a psychiatrist say about me if they were to be analyzed?

As a bit of a blogging experiment, I think I'll post some of the more interesting ones with little stories. This may not entertain anyone but me, but hey, then isn't that what this blog is all about anyway? So... to get started, in case you didn't know I'm bananas:

I din't come here looking for trouble

2009-02-10T14:22:00.000-08:00

I came here to win the Super Broker Shuffle.

Only two weeks until vacation

2009-02-07T16:59:00.000-08:00

OK... I think we've finally got an outline of an itinerary planned for our big trip:

First stop: Bangkok, for a day and a half stay. From what everyone seems to say, Bangkok isn't as nice as it once was, so an abbreviated stop here is probably going to be enough. Still I'm sure we'll see the big palace and maybe grab a bit of night life while we try to recover from the timezone change.

Next we'll by flying down to Phuket, and from there taking boats to Koh Phi Phi and Koh Phi Phi and depending on how that works out maybe Koh Lanta. Then, we'll work out way via Krabi to Koh Samui, where we're hoping to stay at a fancy villa for a few nights...

Next we'll fly up to Chang Mai to the north, where we'll spend a few days checking out the markets and local culture.

For our last stop in Thailand before we head back to Bangkok to fly back to the US, we'll be seeing Sukhothai, the ancient Thai captial.

And then, we'll be flying to Hawaii for a few days with the parents on Oahu, where we are staying in a nice hotel downtown.

And then to finalize the trip, we'll head to Kauai for a week to rest and relax on the beach before heading home.

I'll try and get some pictures and stories up along the way, in between the adventuring and relaxing!!!

Wow! Madonna.

2009-02-03T09:20:00.000-08:00

A little ways back, I had a boyfriend named Keith, and he had an ex-boyfriend named Chuck. When Christmas came around Chuck got me a Madonna CD as a gift. I was a little shocked and asked him, "Why did you get me this?". He said, "You have every other Madonna CD except this one, so I thought I'd finish your collection." I had NO idea that I had every Madonna CD except one. Sometimes you don't see yourself very accurately.

Last night I was talking to a friend, trying to give him inspiration, and I found myself quoting a Madonna song. How scary is that? Of course, that is what reminded me of the above story... And then when my friend said to me that I was his own personal Madonna, I can't tell you exactly what I thought. Except that I'm still in denial about it... Here was the quote:

"They say that a good thing never lasts and that it has to fall, those are the people that did not amount to much at all..."

OK... She's not so bad...

Moving on up to the Dark Side!

2009-01-31T16:32:00.000-08:00

It finally happened. My little blackberry pearl finally went into seizure mode. It kept rebooting and just wouldn't stop. Suddenly I was cut off from the entire world. I could see the text messages coming, but I couldn't read them! I could see people were calling, but I couldn't answer! Hurriedly I rushed to the T-Mobile store to see if they could fix my problem, but I couldn't find the T-Mobile store and I couldn't use my phone to help me out!

In a panic, I ducked into an AT&T store, only to hear the seductive lure of the iPhone display in the corner. So black. So beautiful. So alluring. She said, "You don't care about customer service, or the government spying on you, all you really need is to use your fingers on my beautiful shiny, bouncy bits. Try me. See how good I feel?!".

I rushed out, somewhat sure that I'd escaped the siren song of the little phone. Steve Jobs was not going to take over my mind. I did not need to prove anything to anyone. I did not need the status of the iPhone to validate me. I could make my own mind up. Still in the back of my head a little female voice kept saying, "You know you've wanted me for a long time. Come on over to the dark side. If you do, I'll let you post your pictures on Flickr with GPS data embedded in them." NO, NO, NOT WITH GPS DATA... My greatest weakness.

I finally found the T-Mobile store and went in telling them that my phone was on the fritz and that I was thinking of switching to an iPhone. The best they could do was either another 2 year contract, or a suggestion to buy an iPhone on the Internet and then unlock it. Neither sounded very appealing. So, after I realized that there was nothing they could do for me, I raced back to the AT&T store with a huge smile on my face, and bought my iPhone! As I was carrying the box back to the car someone leaned out their window and said with a knowing look and a confident tone, iPhone in hand, "You're going to love that phone.".

I've had it 6 hours. It's oh so pretty. Now, finally, I can proudly walk into the mac temple, er... I mean Mac store and know that they will finally accept me as one of their own. (I mean, so long as I'm willing to pay the fee that they'll charge me the first time I need the least bit of help with it. And, honestly, I know that they'll keep charging me again, and again and again...) But, it is so, so pretty...

It's all true!

2009-01-27T07:33:00.000-08:00

I'm going to Thailand! And, Hawaii...

It'll be a month off of work.

I love my work. In case you don't know, at my work, we convince software and hardware companies to give away their products to non-profits, so that they non-profits can better further their mission by implementing technology. It's all very "Robin Hood". The difficulties, in some ways, are more than they ever were at my more corporate jobs, yet still at the end of the day I feel like I'm doing something good. Whether it's supporting the homeless shelter, or the org that helps vets with PTSD, or the org that helps kids with AIDS, or the place that saves dogs from being put down. I'm a very small piece of each one. Hopefully helping each one do just a little better job of what they do.

Still, even doing work as good as that, everyone needs a break now and then. I'm lucky enough to have started seeing a guy who, as circumstances has it, has to take a long vacation. So, off we go to Thailand and Hawaii to see the parents and then off to Kauai, my favorite island in Hawaii. It sounds like a crazy adventure to me and, frankly, I can't wait to go. If someone had told me a year ago that I'd be doing this, I'd have told that person that they were crazy. Yet, when life throws you changes all any wise person does is make the most of them. No matter how unexpected they are. Especially when the changes are so good.

I love to dance with life and see where she'll take me. She hasn't let me down yet.

If you happen to have any "must sees" in Thailand, please let me know!

Going on vacation!

2009-01-23T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well, after a lot of trying to work out the details, it looks like I'm going on vacation! I can't wait. I'm extremely excited!!

Where? When? Wouldn't you like to know. As soon as I've got the details nailed down, I'll post 'em. Hopefully that will all be done by tomorrow, Saturday! WOOHOO!

Trigby, Trigby, Trigby

2009-01-21T10:10:00.000-08:00

So... Being named Trigby is always a little odd because everyone is always reminding me that it's such an unusual name. As if I was going to be surprised... "Oh, Trigby? That's an unusual name!". Don't get me wrong. I love my name, it's just a very unique moniker. It means that I can have a google alert for my first name to check every time that it is used on the Internet, to ensure that I know when and where I'm showing up. (Or at least everything where someone actually uses my first name, which is obviously not my pay-per-minute porn site. :) )

In any case. Today a new entry for Trigby showed up. Trigby the Troll. Lucky me, right?

http://happysunshinedaytoday.blogspot.com/2009/01/trigby-troll.html

You gotta have hope in your soul!

2009-01-20T12:26:00.000-08:00

"We must choose hope over fear." - President Obama

Finally a new day has come. In the depths of the last eight years, I really did wonder if the U.S. of A. would find its way beyond the challenges that we faced. I wondered if Bush would ever be willing to leave his office. Honestly, I wondered if the citizens of our nation had lost their ability to make decisions that would be in their own best interests. If we hadn't possibly become so lazy, so self-centered, and so ignorant that our democracy could no longer function. They say that in a democracy the people get the leader that they deserve. I have wondered how we came to deserve Bush...

I know Obama isn't a savior. I know he's a politician and a human being, and as fallible as any of us. Then again, I know that he far more focused on the competency of our government than the last president. He's more willing to make difficult decisions that benefit the general population and not just his cronies. He seems to believe in the United States of America that I was taught to believe in. One based on principals. Based on people striving to do their best, not getting by on the laurels of those who had come before. Not the land of an ignorant angry mob.

There will still be hard days ahead, and it will take a long time to dig out of the hole that we've spent a long time digging ourselves into. Still, Obama gives me, what he gave me when I first turned my support to him, Hope.