yeah so nothing til tonight

I'm tired, i've been working my ass off, seriously, I think i left my right cheek in the hallway, and my left one is still unaccounted for. Calgon take me somewhere. I don't have that much time to blog so, hit me up later, or just plain hit me now. In the face.

also

I'm really bummed

I drove into the drive way today and saw the neighbor two doors down loading things into her car and thought it was Emma, my 4 ye old neighbor. Well she's in Atlanta and I was bummed. The new neighbors are moving in and I haven't had the heart to introduce myself. I miss my lil neighbor and Jenn and Tim. really sucks, not only were they cool neighbors, but they had one of the coolest daughters ever, and sons. dammnit, the new neighbors have alot to live up to. I miss them. They were good peeps. Damn them for moving, but good for them for moving. I miss them alot already...go figure. They were good people...really.

More 6/17

We arrived at the other house in Tarcoles but it was about 20 minutes outside of town (Jaco). The house wasn't as spectacular as Playa Grande by any means. We were greeted by a couple dogs that apparently live at the house. They were soon renamed Flea and Tick as oyie pulled a few ticks off of the shepherds ears, and they stunk to high hell of rubbing in fish carcass on the beach. The house two doors down was the local pescaderia. There are no fish markets in the countryside, just houses of fisherman that have refrigerators for the freshly caught fish and they would throw scraps to the dogs. The advertised A/C for the house was only in 2 of the 3 bedrooms. The upstairs had a whole other studio house with kitchen and the existing kitchen didn't come with all the modern conveniences but did have a stove, fridge, and sink and groceries some groceries purchased for us in the fridge. We checked out the pool in the back that wasn't that impressive and we didn't spend too much time in it. I didn't do any swimming at all after this as my ears still had plenty of water in them. The beach was black sand (volcanic) but it was very rocky, the water looked pretty dirty but this was due in part to the fact that it rains (hard) everyday here and the run off turns the water brown.



We drove into Jaco and found that it was a pretty bustling tourist town right on the beach. It was pretty much a single road town with tons of cheesy shops and a couple nice ones. Plenty of restaurants. We found one to eat at that had a kind of patio. One drunk homeless looking local came up to the sidewalk and was yelling and would scream OOOOOWWWWWWWOO! and he kept saying it was his daughters birthday and that he wanted money to buy her something. We wouldn't oblige as the guy was an asshole. He kept trying and came furthur into the restaurant and kept hammering then pulled a knife out of his waist band getting oyie up and out of his seat seeing as he was right over his shoulder. At this point one of the waiters came up and was amicably talking to him and trying to get him out of the restaurant. I got a fork in my hand and was waiting for him to get a bit more aggressive as he wasn't all that threatening but the knife was a concern. The waiter got him to go and we ate but that kinda killed the mood. We headed back home and relaxed on the balcony outside and we all bathed in our bug spray and just chilled and drank beer (Bavaria dark) the best beer made in Costa Rica. Imperial and Pilsen aren't all that good. It's hard to find beer other than the nationals. Some places had Heineken, and Corona but not many. It rained pretty hard tonight and that hampered our evening so we adjourned to the living room (no a/c) and chose from the vast collection of american vhs movies as the tv wasn't hooked up to any kind of cable.





We watched twister. I must say it's enthralling. The whole plight of Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton launching Dorothy. I must say in Costa Rica in a hot ass house with nothing to do but listen to the rain its damn fine movie making. But only then. We all went to our rooms. Vic and I in one of the air conditioned rooms, with bunk beds I might add, Darren and Jaime in the other with the queen. We stayed up and read with the lights on so that we could kill every single one of the mosquitoes before we slept so it wouldn't be that bad the next day. We were successful in ending the lives of 3 and slept pretty decently, the ac gave me a pretty sore throat and congested head.

June 17th

We are going to miss this house but it's time to leave and head down from Playa Grande to the southwestern part of the country inland from the peninsula to Jaco (pronounced Awk-0)but we will dearly miss Mayia, she has been way too good for her, but we took care of her monetarily.




The road down to Jaco was interesting, we got a bit sidetracked and went through Nicoya which was the biggest city we'd been through since we left San Jose (it wasn't that big at all). Tons of school kids, the first hospital we saw and a couple churches which we haven't seen alot of at all. Darren did some driving and was the first to get pulled over by the cops that let us off with a warning. But that was all the driving Dron did for the trip.





I've been plagued by nose bleeds the whole drive down and it has been really uncomfortable but darren and jaime had some decongestant that helped dry it up a bit but the cold I had is still nagging and the fluid in my head has been superfluous. We made it to the other side of the peninsula and at the bridge there are crocodiles that sit under the bridge and they freaking huge even though you're up about 60 feet over the river.



I had this nagging feeling I was gonna get chewed up for my antics at some point.

June 16th

pretty chill day. Darren and Jaime were supposed to dive but Jaime didn't feel well so darren tooled into town and was able to get their money back. My ears at this point are pretty clogged and i can hear water in my head. Pretty chill day, didn't do much. Cleaned up and kind of got packed. Did more swimming as I'm going to miss this beach with hopes the next town is as nice.


We went to dinner at the Hotel Bula Bula which is just damn nice (http://tamarindobeach.net/bulabula/). The restaurant seems american owned, as all the beef is USDA and they had ICED TEA!!! It was a damn good meal but so far all of our meals have been superb. This ended our night as I was pretty torn up from the diving.



Thats my buddy, the tough guy crab. They're pretty as anything but if you get too close they flex their claws like they're flexing muscles and think they're gonna kick yer arse. safe to say their bravado didn't prove much when you say how many tried to go up against suvs in the road.

couple more of some friends we made on the ride

I'm partial to the monkeys but didn't see them on this round, but vic did.

Wednesday 6/15

We decided to go into Tamarindo and either hike or horseback ride. We found a place but got stuck waiting for quite a while. We milled about and finally got a truck and a car to take us to a house that had horses. These were by no means thoroughbreds. They were pretty beat up as they're ranching horses and have the scars of alot of barbed wire. Plus these horses were sweating worse than me. Pretty gross but I got my horse to trust me pretty quickly and I was up and going. The countryside is beautiful, and lush.




All this country is owned by the local people and seems almost communal the way they work it. The cows are alot different than in the states but they smell and sound similar. Oyie kept ahead of everyone else as his horse (which he named Karl) didn't want to ever be behind. We crossed a tiny airstrip and back into wet prairie. A few points we got to fly. Jaime and Darren mostly chilled at a nice slow pace, but Oyie and I flew at full gallop a few times. The land was so open it was easy to do in quite a few places. But at times my horse didn't seem to want to go very fast at all until it saw Oyie's horse take off. Really happy I did it cause it was really really pretty country.




We were filthy afterward and I don't think I was bitten all that much. The daily bathing of bug spray was pretty standard. I got to the point I had no problem spraying on my face and head but it was my ankles that got it the worst. Afterward we got back and cleaned up and were able to swim some more. I was then able to figure out the phone a couple more times and call home. Still haven't talked to mom but have talked to everyone else. Our phone cards didn't work but the phone cards that we purchased there did but only for minutes at a time, and I'd end up getting cut off and laughed at by the local crabs and iguanas that inhabit the road to the phone. Juan Carlos took us to a bar tonight that was about 50/50 locals/tourists. Shit was pretty cool, they played a mix of hip hop and latin music, girls were cute too. He tried to hook me up with his friend Nicole while he tried to hooked up with her 17 year old sister, yeah, i know but i guess it's socially acceptable there. It was freaking hot, oyie layed in the car and vic and I chilled. Hell Juan Carlos got me out on the dance floor and if it isn't ballroom or waltz or something formal, i don't know it other than the butter churn, running man or electric slide. My robot sucks. Over all cool night, no hook up even though that girl was cute as anything even though she said her english was good (it wasn't) and she was of age (she was by plenty). Beers and shots were cheap atleast from what I remember when i was sitting talking to the Columbian girl (who's english was much better).

some random pics, and only a couple more sunsets

cause the sunsets are that notable.

House tour 2

Heres the rest of the tour of house 1


loft in bedroom


Darren and Jaimes room


Oyies loft


Loft

heres the tour of the house

This is the back door from the living room to the beach with coconut trees right there

Dining room

entry way, bathroom and stairs up to the loft

my room while we were there.

the blue kitchen

round three costa rica blog

Tuesday 6/14





We woke up and got our sheeyit together and went to aquacenter to dive (sorry no pictures). The shop was at the back of a hotel on a black sand beach. We jumped in a small outboard (jaime, darren, vic, and I and two other people). Headed out about 150 yards to the dive boat where all our tanks, and bcd vests were waiting. It took us about 1/2 hour to get to the spot at Las Catalinas islands. Go figure not the california catalina island but nice. We didn't get any pics of it, why I dunno. I think vic was concentrating on the horizon. The rock formations of these islands was fantastic, they were large rocks, the biggest about 75-80 feet out of the water and maybe as big as a football field. This was the spot of our first dive. We hit the water, I don't remember if this is where vic barfed a good portion or before the 2nd dive but it was plenty of chum for the fish. Water was about 86 degrees but visibility was pretty low (30 ft) because of the passing storm. The decent was good hitting 72 feet with about 3000psi of air. Jaimes bcd didn't work as well but we figured it out and she was able to go down. I was fine with a rash guard and shorts minus a few cuts from hitting rocks and coral at the bottom. Saw a ton of tropical fish, a bunch from Finding nemo, except clown fish. Tuna, star fish, angel fish, puffer fish, eels, something like a tuna but alot longer and in apretty big school. We saw 4 white tipped sharks, probably anywhere between 4-5 ft. They just chilled at the bottom and one paced then they both left. Alot of coral, but not nearly enough. I was checking out a bunch of fish at the bottom that were blending in but need a fish guide to tell you what they were. Safe to say a lot of fish, cool underwater canyons and fall offs. There were thermal clines that the water temp changes drastically and you swim aggressively and don't move and then all of a sudden you take off when the cline pushes the other way and you go about 3 times as fast as you're used to. I was still hampered by a bit of a cold and had a hard time equalizing the pressure in my head. Normally the pressure on the outside of your head is greater at depth, but with my cold the pressure inside my head was greater and i was still trying to equalize in a conventional manner and that swelled my sinuses badly and when I ascended my sinuses popped and the pain was pretty bad and I couldn't see for about a minute. I got to the surface and vic let me know that my mask was full of blood. I took it off and blew and alot more came out. Couldn't hear well, but could hear. Dive instructors checked me quickly and I rested on the boat before the next dive. The pain subsided enough for me to make another dive which was fantastic until the ascent which didn't hurt as bad as the first but equal amounts of blood so I was done. We went ashore and geared down and went and grabbed sandwiches from Victorias and headed home, I was pretty beat and went back and relaxed at the house. Didn't do much the rest of the day. I had alot of water in my ears and I swam a little. I took a swim at night by myself tonight and the furthur out I got the more lights in the water i saw. It was weird but as I swam I saw thousands of little green lights and if i splashed my hand into the water it was like a little firework. I made it out pretty far and started splashing pretty wildly as the more I did this the more the bio-luminescence would shine. It was crazy. Little light up plankton gave me a pretty good show. I was excited but the travel mates were not. Go figure. Never did get anyone to night swim with me, even with bad ears and blowing blood out of my nose the rest of the trip. Booooooo on them.

more from trip

One of quite a few really freaking nice sunsets.



Sunday 6/12


Woke up at about 8:30am and the whole group walked the beach (about 1km) and gathered shells (an everyday thing). We all laughed quite a bit and checked out tide pools. We got back and swam alot, then went into Tamarindo with Juan Carlos and got some lunch with our friend the iguana which there are tons of. We found a scuba company and put down about $100 deposit for diving on Monday. Shopped a bit. Tamarindo is the most touristy town where we're at now. It's not big at all, but there are a ton of Euro's and tourists. Alot of hostels and cabinas that don't look very inviting. We ate lunch with out iguana guest. On the way back Juan Carlos took us to his aunt's place so we could pick up green mangos that oyie was fiending for. He then hooked us up with one of his buddies that got us some pot. Not good pot by any means but we got some, and it got us a little high. We took a long hiatus from smoking so I'm thinking thats the only thing that helped cause this stuff was nasty. When we went into town it looks like everyone living there probably a few thousand, all mill around the center which is the soccer field where different ages get together for games all afternoon. Juan Carlos showed us his motorcycle which was a pretty nice 4 stroke. It looks like thats how the majority of the younger set gets around town. Mayia even has one. Thats an odd picture. We saw her tooling down the road to the house once. The people are Tican, kind of the indians of the country, really dark complexions and they're somewhat impoverished but pleasant and easy going. They own most of the land in this region as a people to herd cattle on. It's theres, and apparently not regulated as much as the states, but tons and tons of beef. Their houses are pretty rudimentary and i imagine the plumbing is worse off than our sick ass house. I mean we can't flush just the paper, i imagine they don't even have toilets in some houses but probably do in all. Tonight, we shaved Oyies head, which is a monumental occasion and damn surprising (you can see if from my reaction in the video), seriously I've never known him with short hair, neither has anyone else so it was crazy. Mayia made us steak, green salad, rice and beans. It was grub, we cleaned out the local market of chorizo, and steak. It was good. We discovered Lizano salsa. Shit is good. spices up rice and beans just right. Both Juan Carlos and Mayia ate with us tonight and it was nice. I'm getting more comfortable with my spanish as they can correct my verb conjugation. There was a good rain goin on with lightning and we had to be up early for diving. The a/c is messing with my sinuses as I have a bit of a cold and the passing from hot to cold is wreaking havoc on my nose.

Monday 6/13

Today is my birthday and i couldn't think of a better place. I got up this morning and it was still storming pretty bad. When I got scuba certified we were told no diving in lightning so we figured that there couldn't be any diving. About 2 hours later, the sky was clear and with no phone we couldn't call the dive place. We have yet to figure out how to use the phones and our families are probably wondering where we are. We all went into Flamingo and found one dive shop that wasn't the one we were looking for. We tooled around a bit more and found the place we booked at. Someone called somebody on a cell phone and I spoke with her and she let us know the dive went as scheduled and that people that were diving had to wait to see if we would get there and they were upset. I asked her if we could apply any of the deposit to another dive and she said they'd be happy to take us out but that our deposit was gone. I pressed and argued (a bit too harshly in their defense as it was my $100) but to no avail. We went to the first place that we found and booked a dive for the next morning. They seemed alot more on top of things and the equipment looked alot better too. Booked that and went back into town and found a sandwich shop owned by Victoria. She's a firey redhead with emerald blue eyes. She is a retiree from Florida, probably in her early to mid 60's. She was cool and her sandwiches were freaking delicious. She told us all about her family and how she came to retire down here. Damn those sandwiches were good. We took off from there and went back to the house for more swimming. Swimming here for me was like a 3 hour deal. The waves were good, the water temp was amazing and it was just damn fun. It started raining and we cleaned up and headed inside. Juan Carlos was there and got us some coconuts from the trees in the back. We mixed the milk with rum and it was damn tasty, couldn't taste any liquor, it was sweet as anything, kinda like fruit juice.




Virginia recommended the Happy Snapper in Brasilito, a tican town outside Flamingo for good seafood. We all got ready and took Juan Carlos to dinner. It was grub, owned by an american retiree it looked like as there were tons of old americans eating there. I had the lobster, most everybody else had different plates of fresh tuna. I had local apple pie for desert. Definitely different but splendid.



After this we went home and crashed so we could dive the next day, plus it rained again tonight, but it wasn't going to keep us in bed this time.

?

and how the hell do you throw multiple pics onto this thing. I swear, I've been looking at this for how long and still can't figure it out.

sweeeet

First let me start by saying the Hollywood Bowl is a damn good place to see live music. We made it out and met up with what seemed like the whole graphic design crew from college. My sis, marzia and joy and her man made it too, but try as i might I never saw them whilst in their seats. Hell I never even went to my real seats but had a few songs that I had to get up and go stand somewhere til the seats emptied out again. But Arcade Fire is a damn good band to see live and i'd love to again.

But David Byrne, I have a new found respect for. He freaking puts on a well fleshed out show. I know alot of his music from my childhood and the early 90's, but highly respected him from his music interviews and analysis on Sessions on west 57th on pbs. But damn the guy puts on an impressive show. Dude if you guys remember what the name of the marching band that came on, gimme some love and let me know.

We still have wine leftover but everybody got pretty toasty even with all the hummus, salads, cheese, crackers and spreads that we all brought. Good night, with good people, good wine/food, and great music. Thank god I found my bus at the end of the night.

This is long

now that I've got the internet working over here...




It's day 3 but I'll write about it all from the start now. On Fri night/Sat morn we arrived at the airport (LAX) just under 2 hours before departure and our seats on the plane were given away. We argued with the service reps (which there was none of now after we started with almost a dozen). Associates were standing around doing nothing or going home. They offered to put us on the 1:30am flight and give us $200 vouchers and this new flight had a stopover in San Salvador, El Salvador. I was tired and put up a bit of a fight. We thought we were going to miss this new flight as the associates were taking forever getting our vouchers (3 of us didn't even get them) and checking our bags. The supervisor was taking her sweet time getting down to the ticket terminal. We made the plane in all different seats and landed in San Salvador at about 9:15 am. 1 hour flight to San Jose from there. Relatively easy to get out of Santa Maria Airport. We got a shuttle to Avis (about 10 miles away) and upgraded our midsized SUV to a full size Mitsubishi Montero 4wd (2003-pretty pimp ride).



It took about 4 1/2 hours to get from San Jose a bit east of central country, to get to Flamingo. The countryside is beautiful. Alot of green, rolling hills and mountains. Mango and banana trees everywhere. Tons of full size semi's driving on tiny roads. Many, many broken down cars and thousands of tiny repair/dealership places. Cows, horses, goats, and pigs on little lots with small houses. The land was the plentiful thing on the property. Animals wander around freely including livestock. Dogs walk all over the roads and are mistaken for roadkill (they lie on the side of the road with trucks going by and don't move-safe to say plenty of dead dogs too). We get to Flamingo and drive around and get lost. It's a kind of shanty town in parts and hotels and a couple schools and markets on the rest. I later found that these are the outskirts of small towns Brasilito and Matapalo. We wandered around aimlessly and find little shacks where locals and surfers live, but eventually find the road to Matapalo. This is the closest town to Playa Grande, where we were staying. The house was about 6 km from town down an extremely rough road that was fun to tackle in the 4wd but it ended up thrashing the car in the long run. There are a ton of crabs wandering this road. They're bright red and blue and when you confront them they puff up and put up their claws like they're flexing for a fight. The things are about 4-5 inches across for full grown crabs. Also safe to say we squashed quite a few of them inadvertantly before we actually fought. We arrived at the house and Mayia met us with her son Juan Carlos. He's 24 and she had to have been in her mid to late 40's. She showed us the house, which was phat as hell, then took us to the super mercado. Spent about $100 on groceries and cleaned them out of chorizo and steak. $100 gets quite a bit down there, but prices on food stuffs, gas and goods is generally in the same ballpark as the states. We didn't want to cook and it was pretty late so we went down the road from the house where there are some houses and a hotel tucked away and we ate burritos. Pretty traditional ones and not too surprising. The power went off right when we finished the meal and we sat for a bit, and got bit, by mosquitos. But this allowed us to have some needed post traveling drinks. We went back to the house (which i will give you the tour off momentarily), and everyone pretty much crashed but i remembered Oyie and I left our ballcaps at the restaurants. I grabbed a flashlight and walked it back. About a 20 minute walk. I scored the hats and walked back. The cacauphony of birds, frogs, and crabs were loud but both welcoming and comforting.



The house was a palace. Easily a multi million dollar house if you plop it down on a southern California beach. Walking in (pics will follow), there was an entry, a half bath to the left and a spiral staircase up to the master loft that overlooked the living area. King sized bed, master bath, a/c. The kitchen was below this bedroom and just beyond the entry way. There was a large stone counter/island with the rangetop, nice appliances, fully modern. Through an opening to the right was the couches and tv, and dining room. Really high vaulted ceilings made it a large space. Just past the kitchen opposite these living/dining rooms were two other bedrooms, both with beds when you walk in, both had staircases to lofts in each one and a full sized bathroom. The showers spoiled us. It was one of the biggest showers I've ever used. Next to teh living room was the doors to the back and the beach. It was a nice patio with an outdoor bar and sink, a shower with a pretty intricate stucco mural of a woman with the shower coming out of her torso and not her bare breasts! A nice table with umbrella, some beach chairs, some hibiscus, and coconut trees sporadically next to the patio. This leads to some fig-like trees that connect and create a ton of shade just feet from where the tide breaks, then some beautiful beach and ocean. It was damn nice, I gotta say.

wasted week

It was fully my intention to sit on my sick day off at moms (housesitting) and transcribe journals onto the blog, but alas her internet connection that you measure with an hourglass and sundial wasn't even working, so that left me with no internet, and naturally theres no cable, and I already ready the LA Times, so i had Time Magazine or Miniature Weekly magazine, so instead I went and saw Batman. Ehhhhhhhhh, it was good, but I liked the original Tim Burton one better. After that I decided it was time to make Beignets that I picked up in New Orleans from Cafe Du Monde. If you don't know what they are, look em up, they're french donuts and they're good, even though I couldn't eat any as my 'mach won't have em. I ate one this morning, it was pretty good. We'll see if I can last out the day. Work asked if I wanted to stay to 5:30 from being here at 7am. Don't think so considering I have to get to my moms and feed the animals, and get back to LA and try to go see Autolux at a free show at the natural history museum. What can I say? I gotta see em. Female drummer, that's not only excellent at her craft but she sings while she drums superbly, so I'll suffer for that.

is it saturday yet?

I didn't have the stomach to go to work (so to speak). Lethargia and well my liquid loss diet continues. If it lasts through the weekend, I'm going to the doctor. I still have a ton to do. I have to finish laundry and run a couple errands and make it to moms to check the pets. I think i'll go over there and make a salad and have a glass of milk. I've been craving them and instead of going to the store and doing full grocery shopping i'll nosh at moms for free.

idonwannawork

I woke up early after going to bed early and I still don't feel well. I can function but laundry was a chore and I didn't finish it. Can someone come and pamper me. I just want to lay in bed and not do laundry or worry about making food or doing dishes. I'm wiped and have to work but don't wanna. Just sit and watch some movies and somebody can scratch my head. I have little motivation to do anything other than make trips to the bathroom. Aight, this post is taking a turn and doesn't need to.

i just realized that i've eaten, two chicken sandwiches (burger king in the airport-one sitting), one small airplane sandwich and one burger since sunday afternoon. That can't be good.

imodium, pepto, stomach pump anything at this point

so this was my relax day and I needed it. I feel bad. Stomach is messed up still. Happy this started at the end of my trip but wish it didn't continue at home. Gimme a couple hours, I'll write.

Woooof!

I'm tired, I smell kinda funny, It was a long trip but fucking cool as hell. Costa Rica is everything you can imagine to be. I will attempt to transfer my journal to it, but I'll go with today. We got up after i stayed in last night from horrible stomach cramps and diarrhea, but am happy it hit me at the end of the trip and after i got to do all the things I did. We inventoried the house which there will be pictures of. The two houses were night at day whereas one was like a multi million dollar home if it was in malibu and feet from the surf. The second was more like a beat up house in a hippy commune but also right on the beach which was cool but not a nice beach. We went into town and did some final shopping, and some of you will get a bottle of Lizano Salsa. It's like a tangy sauce, hardly a salsa but makes plain as veggies, rice and beans taste great. I kinda overdid it for the first week so I'm taking some time off but you'll dig the shit. Coffee for everyone. I did drink about a half dozen cups and i gotta say it was pretty freaking good. American coffee does blow as I know it. We checked out some surf and started driving back to San Jose which is about a two and a quarter hour journey through gorgeous countryside, this drive (from a different region than we left out of) was very affluent, and the houses were nice and groomed and had decent churches (not many), and prideful signs about their country. We got back into san jose and dropped off the car which was now missing the front license plate and had a broken antennae, and tons of mud. Insurance might cover it, but we went off on this car as the first house had about an 8 kilometer drive in on heavy dirt roads with huge puddles that we hit other times but thats later. We got to the aeropuerto, and chilled for quite sometime3 hours early as we didn't want to miss our flight (we all were ready for home), listened to ipods and read. We got first class on the plane because they effed up our outgoing flight and that was plush, all the free drinks you want a nice dinner, two seats instead of three, ample legroom, pillows, hot towels. It was a smooth flight considering my stomach conditions, smooth entry into the country even though I almost left a bag of gifts in the plane and had to go back. Waited for sometime for the flyaway bus to come and at this point was rearing to settle the rear but it took some time and some waiting for multiple trips in one car back to the house, but I'm here, I need a shower, I'm pretty tan for me, but I'm going to sit, watch some espn and read a paper, and sleep and not work tomorrow and do alot of laundry, even though for most of the trip we got our laundry done for us for free!

You'll get postcards, i sent them out today cause there was a limit on mailboxes or I'm just slow but i'll settle for plenty of both. Jenn, i didn't get your addy and it wasn't in my bag, quite a few weren't in my bag but I got a bunch of those back on a quick phone call home but it's stamped from costa rica so you'll get that.

I'm out

june 11-21 so don't think i'm posting during that time. I'm going to be playing with ACTUAL monkeys this time. So feel free to leave me comments. The worst the better, especially if you wanna talk shit, or if i never come back you can fight over my stuff.

rasta

t

dammnit

So i'm packed, but I was doing it until about 4am and then overslept by quite a bit. The traffic is much worse coming after I normally leave. I think I'm getting sick too cause i've been burning that candle there ain't nothin left but the puddle of dried wax, and I think that's killed my immune system. I have about one million things to do when I get off, but we're getting company bought Tito's Tacos (yommay-LA favorite). I won't be checking this until roundabout the 21st, so y'all won't be hearing from me. I'll post pics when I get back, I'll try to have fun and be safe but we'll see. I'm going to do a ton of relaxing and reading, so don't mind me too much.

Hasta Luego

what if...

I had to crash on your couch and mooch your food, would you let me? Lets say for one week.

shezuz krighst

Oyie and I just finished screening 50 shirts two colors both sides. Thats like doing 200 one color one side. My back hurts, I need a rub. And WHY THE HELL DO I HAVE TO WAIT A WEEK TO GO PAY FOR A BACKRUB?!? WHAT HAPPENED TO TIT FOR TAT. SERIOUSLY, I'LL TRADE UP AND DELIVER THE 2 HOUR FOR 30 MINUTES OF BACK RUBBIN, NO HAPPY ENDING REQUIRED...but i'll take it if it's there.






yoo turn ovah, 15 x-ta dolla

Leroy Niemann, this ones for you.

I usually get emails from an old guy that lived at my old work. I was bummed today to get one from his address that was from his son saying he had died during surgery on June 3rd. I sent him an email on memorial day saying I was thinking of him and the sacrifices his generation made during WWII and thanked him. I guess he never got it. He used to come to the service counter where I worked and would flip me the bird and I'd laugh as there was no finger there. He'd always bring me jokes on paper and email tons of them. We would argue routinely about politics as I'm a democrat and, well, he's not.

He came down one day and asked if I had a moment, and I joined him in a more private room and he showed me all the recently declassified documents about his coast guard unit that saw action overseas. He was now able to talk about it and couldn't hold it in. We talked for almost 4 hours. I was intrigued as he flew the same amphibian aircraft my gramps flew so it was like a connection to him. He would install and destroy radar sites on the islands off of Japan as a relay for ally ships in the pacific. He was a very nice guy, and I will miss him. He came down before I transferred and let me know that he was going to make it to the opening weekend of the WWII memorial in DC before he died and that it was very important to him as all the vets were kicking off so fast.

Leroy, I'm glad I met you and respect you as a man, and hope you can pass your jokes on to other deserving souls where ever you are. Thank you again sir.

cause I have a list, multiple ones at that.

Okay, famous women in my current top ten list:

1. Salma Hayek
2. Monica Belucci
3. Jessica Alba (c'mon she's hot)
4. Catherine Keener, uh huh thats right
5. Maura Tiernay (it would take armageddon to topple her from this spot)
6. Diane Lane
7. Penelope Cruz
8. Eva Mendes
9. Catherine Zeta Jones
10. Bjork (just been a fantasy for a while. she's movable)

and then so on and so forth

Jenny (from Rilo Kiley is in there), Maggie Gyllenhal, man i gotta add more.

There is a list of dead women that I wish I coulda been around, with, whatever....that'll come.

Wrote a poem on the back of your shoulder

This is embarassing but funny. I was driving home yesterday and my allergies had been acting up all day. Well there were some dried up nasties in my nose and I found a tissue in my car and had at em. Well I couldn't get one completely off the edge of my nostril, so i used a bare finger to get the remainder and I looked to my left and there was this black girl staring at me with a "oh no you di'int" look on her face. It was really horrific looking. Well, I thought, "What, I had a tissue?" but realized she caught the tail end of the bare finger. I knew I was caught, so I smiled at her really big, sheepish little kid does with all my teeth, and then i slipped my next finger into my mouth. I watched the shiver go from her eyes to her toes and she did the whole body shake. Dude it was great. I love people watching, and falling victim to it as well.

ehhh

I really got nothin, I've got a million things to do before Friday. However the priority of the day is to go pick up the new coldplay and the new white stripes so I have ultra fresh music with me for the trip. I'm still doing laundry and getting gear together. All this and I have to make a ton of shirts and get the house cleaned up and get rainbow fish (yes the only gay fish in the world) over to moms house to take care of him. I also think I will take my pepper plant and bamboo over for her to care for. Gotta finish eating food in fridge as it ain't gonna be good when we get back. I will attempt to find gifts for a select few while I'm down there. No requests please as I'm pretty damn good at finding stuff for people.


I must say that I loved joy's pics of the bbq, they were pretty funny. There are a couple that are quite damn good that involve my beloved riding crop [spanky]. It was fun good peeps and the fact that so many females WANTED to watch the paris hilton video, and the fact that we HAD it. (go figure, that thing has been sitting in the coffee table for this long and I never knew [or cared I guess]). But she properly demonstrated Paris' lack of technique and made it a lesson with a corona bottle. Didn't see it, but heard about it. Good times. Good send off.

monday

Okay bbq is over, it was good. I'm tired. Hope everyone got all the alcohol that they could've wanted. Thank you all for coming and for my gifts. I'm still pretty beat. I slept on the couch so that Matt could have my bed and woke up early enough to get the phone call from my sister that I had to be at mom's for breakfast with the whole family. I made it there for a grub breakfast and SOME playing with the nephews. I was feeling a slight bit bad that early in the morning and as the day progressed, i was pretty useless, although I did get most of the dishes done. Albeit, i fell asleep for the night soon after and woke up this morning to go to work feeling pretty good.

Now I just have to get packed this week and I'm off to Costa Rica for a couple weeks of fun.

Good weekend, hope you all had a fun one as well, and if you weren't at my house, I hope you had fun anyways.

BBQ

Be here or be queer, or be doin something else, or be far away, or be doing something way more fun (maylards fuckin suck), but i challenge you to be doin something more fun, cause you'd be in the lake, with us, drinkin shitty beer, the weather is really nice, theres tons of food, good music and good peeps. Yard is clean, backyard is nice, house is clean, room is clean, food is prepped, music is tuned, friends are comin, cakes are baked, lumpia is fryin, chicken is grillin, pork is squeelin, veggies are, well veggies, but good.

So be here or be doing something cool, cause you wouldn't want to be queer. unless thats your thing, and not like theres anything wrong with that. but you'd still be queer and have no chance with any of us, again, not like theres anything wrong with that.

But remember...pajama party is later this summer, and thats designated as a party (this is just a 50-60 person bbq), and are parties are D-lux, spare no expense to do's(seriously, prizes-as always- a huge pillow fight, and more), so if you're not gettin ready for that, well, you're not down with the lake

godamn, i say godamn

Often does music make my body do things that i can't control, but seeing Bloc Party in a small venue tonight was sick. I think I have some long term hearing damage. If I was in a band that would've been an ideal night if I was playing. They had a mosh pit it was THAT sick. The crowd was nuts. Nuts i tell you. They were loud and energetic. One of the top two live shows I've ever been to and if you know me, thats saying a ton. It was like musical crack. Every part of that band was good. The drummer, DAMN! he is GOOD! Lead singer had to have been awestruck cause people rocked that place he crowd surfed. The crowd would not leave after the first encore and chants went up. Not British ones albeit (brazilian), but chants nonetheless and they came out again. Even after giving up sticks, picks, shirts, set lists and all. They were gracious and pumpin. I had to take out my makeshift earplugs pretty early to get it all. The crowd spilled out into Wilshire Bl and was still amped and dancin. People were soaked from the sweat. You couldn't help but move in that show like you were uncontrolled. I was exhausted before the show, but crazy amped during and now I'm whooped beat tired. If you get the chance i highly suggest checking them out.

The OohLas were good too. Female lead singer, very cute. I like the female singers, The guitar muscles on girls is hot, especially if accompanied by a flower in her hair and nice patterned stockings. I'll see them again. Good night, exhausted and I seriously can't hear shit unless said to me directly.

blegcht

Tannens, and phosphates aren't being kind to me today. Found a nice middle of the road chardonnay Samantha Starr...Monterey, CA. TAAAAASTY! But the mediocre Cab is the one that's not feeling good. Not hungover but not feeling good. Master Vic graduated last night and Oyie and I stared at many a beautiful lady and yelled when his name was called then went back to radar monitoring. Funny was when I was waving at MV's mom and sister and they looked right through me. Then oyie who is also Filipino waves and they light up. Yeah, uh huh, ignore the white boy! I see how it is.

Met up with everyone for a good dinner. Enjoyable, then went home with a buzz and gave MV a buzz, cut that is. hooked up the 1/5th fade. Still got the haircut skillz. But I almost overslept as the wine kept me up last night. Tonight, Bloc Party at a pretty small venue. Thats what I'm talking about. Arcade Fire next month, Hollywood Freaking Bowl people. $12 tix. Hollywood Bowl! Tomorrow bbq and a bunch of people at the Lake (our house). GMP is rolling down for our mutual monthly bdays, she needs to, and I need her off her putie for a couple days, so we're gonna see if we can get her a pick her up.

Rasta, gotta get back to work.

yay

Have I ever told you guys that i love doing adult site logos? Yeah thats cause i don't. Pain in the ass. But i'm determined to make it look good. www.thatshotdvd.com is going to have biter written all over it. I'm going to do sillouettes of naked women ala apple ipod people where they're in bright colored stockings or something like that and thats the only real detail that'll show other than an errant nipple. I'll probably throw in a hidden image of Hitler to speak my mind on porn sites. Somehow I became the default designer as he got me a big tshirt order (not porn related). I just can't say no to extra money at this point even though I said upon leaving school I'd never do porn design. Yeah well, it's hard living in Van Nuys and NOT be somehow involved in porn. GODDAMMNIT! Why couldn't I be a makeup man or fluffer or something. BOOOOOO on me, I know. Trust me I pounded a beer while I was doing it, as it was driving me to drink.

On a lighter note, Jenn sent me my horoscope and considering my birthday is coming up, I needed the good news and last months was pretty accurate as I followed it and the tshirts kinda lit up so it sounds like i need to stay on that path. following are excerpts. June better be good as i'll dodge the creditors and keep my trip to Costa Rica peaceful. There is note on being highly communicative and considering my travel window, I won't be talking to many people other than in my pretty decent spanish with a bunch of central americans, you probably won't be hearing from me. I added my musings in parentheses after the notation(damn funny, to me atleast, JAM ON!!!):




Uranus rules all things unanticipated and sometimes brings conditions that are even weird or strange (yes, yes it does, much to the chagrin of others).

Uranus is known to bring both sudden setbacks and surprising breakthroughs (once again true, true, I do enjoy the occasional strafing and then stop and watch the reactions of others- i know but it's funny to see).

Nothing can put you on top of the mountain as quickly as Uranus (I do like sitting atop hills and have fallen many times).

Uranus is not due to exit the career area of your horoscope until 2011. (So my ass will only be employed until then?!?).

This month, on June 14, Uranus will slow down and retrograde - try to get your key plans in place prior to this date (better be, i'll be sitting my ass on a beach for the following week hopefully without food poisoning on that date cause its the day after me bday and i'll be hungover, fo'sho (yeah i said it like that), thank you very much).

Good fortune planet Jupiter will stop retrograding and resume forward, direct motion on June 5 (Good cause my jupiter mastercard [or is it Juniper? ehhh here it'll be Jupiter-close enuff] is the one i'm about to dodge, so they better not start calling me).

Jupiter has been in a weakened state (yeah cause that cc is maxed out right now).

as is the case with Jupiter this month, it is usually easy to see the upbeat change. Watch the days surrounding that time (June 5), for you should see some sort of release of a difficult situation or the start of a much happier trend. (so they're gonna give me a credit increase AND release me from my debt?).

You may see some interesting romantic developments in June, too. Jupiter is now orbiting through your fifth house of true love and creativity (well that could be useful, I'm currently on the market, however prostitution is legal in costa rica and the mates told me that would be my bday present, however I've told them to go fuck themselves. Teo don't do hookers thank you very much)

If your birthday falls on June 6 or in the days surrounding this date, you will be especially cognizant of heightened activity around you. It will be quite exciting! (yeah sweet gmp's bday and she isn't going to take any more shit from the drunken guitarristo)

You seem to be very focused on money, too (yeah i ain't rich Beeyatch!)

It is also possible that you will send a large check to cover a previous commitment or obligation (OR THEY SEND ME TO COLLECTIONS, yeah, yeah I know).

you may find that you will have to delay a purchase because you can't afford it (ya heard?).

Saturn will leave Cancer. For the past two years Saturn has held down your income and made it hard for you to earn what you deserved to earn (thats what i'm talkin about, hope it doesn't mean i'm downgrading my car).

This is not money you would win, but someone who loves you could give you a birthday give that makes you very happy (yoyo lotto-California loves me).