photo update

i went to LA over the weekend. i feel like all we did was eat. that, and go to grace and joe's wedding. :) the time was marked by eating. the corner bakery, green tea terrace, roscoe's chicken and waffles, sam woo bbq, bcd tofu house, the dragon (reception site), and a super yummy taiwanese cafe called xiao mei (or something like that). they had shaved ice and shanghai pan-fried dumplings. so delicious.

grace and joe's wedding was super fun and again, we ate...a lot. there were a lot of courses to that dinner. yay! and afterwards, we got to hang out with them a little out in santa monica before they left the next day for vegas.

in 4 short days in LA, i learned to navigate my way around...sort of. i'm pretty handy with a map and i know my directions (north, south, east, and west). and people already say i drive crazy anyway, so i fit right in.

photos from camping, whirlyball, and the LA trip can be seen here.

1000

according to sitemeter, i have hit 1000+ visits since i signed up with them. to add to the funny searches that have taken people to this blog, i present "abe the rockstar" from a google search.

i'm back from LA. i'm super tired and pictures will follow. really, they will.

key words

the thing i think is really neat about sitemeter is that you can see how people get to your page. 2nd place for weirdest referring page is a google search for "steph infection." that is not at all flattering. but, the craziest one i've seen is someone's search for "half-naked garrett." i told garrett that this obviously indicates that he has a stalker of some kind.

so very square

jeana came to visit this weekend and on friday night, and we went to the old spaghetti factory for dinner. towards the end of the meal, pam said she saw movement from under the table across from us. jeana and i were looking and i saw nothing while jeana spied a piece of lettuce. we thought pam was on crack. but, as we kept looking, a small mouse suddenly appeared and scurried across the floor. we all lightly screamed. we told our waiter who then told the manager, who came over to make sure everything was ok. i think he would've comped portions of our dinner, but we didn't have him do that since we were done eating and the food was great. he seemed awfully nervous about the situation and it wasn't until later, after kristie mentioned that they could potentially be shut down, that i realized why he was so concerned. sometimes, i am not so quick. jeana actually saw the mouse again as we were getting ready to leave. she does not have love for mice. neither does che, and she has a totally crazy story about her encounter. y'all should ask her about it.

i saw fantastic four on saturday. after the movie, some peoples went to ohana, a hawaiian-type place in belltown. previously to saturday, i had never been to belltown on a weekend evening; it was usually sometime during the work week. on a weekend, there are crazy people out. when i say crazy, i mean people who are cruising 1st ave. with their windows open and their lyrically inappropriate music blasting out of the car, with girls who are dressed almost not at all, and skeezy looking guys calling for the girls' attention. this is what i imagine hell to be like. [it is also how i imagine LA to be. i have no idea if that's actually true, but it's the mental picture i associate with LA. sorry people who love LA. i'm sure i'll change my opinion after i move.]

ok, it probably wasn't that bad. but i think i was shocked and confused by all the noise and busyness. to me, it seemed obnoxious - people trying to see and be seen. i think that i'm missing the genetic component that lets me think that any of all of the above described would be fun and enjoyable. it was definitely interesting to see. i have no idea how i'm going to survive LA. i think this is officially when i stopped being in denial about how square i really am. one particular pointy-eared friend would say i'm boring and blame it on me being from oregon. but i think he's recently discovered that in fact, oregon has nothing to do with it. oh well. :)

i finally got to play whirlyball this weekend. it was fun! i'm have a little soreness and a few bruises, but it was totally worth it. it's basically like lacrosse/basketball in bumper cars. great friendly/competitive fun. pictures will follow soon, along with camping pictures too.

i came home from dinner and as always, i do a spider check of my room. good thing too, since i found a big one near my door, a slightly smaller one in the corner of my room, and 5 teeny, tiny little baby spiders on my wall and ceiling. should i be alarmed at finding that many spiders? and where did they come from? i seriously hate spiders.

was that me?

sometimes, i'm hazy on the details when i read through old posts. i wonder if that means my memory is fading and i'm getting old. i'll read an entry and it's just so weird because i think, "did i write that?" and "it doesn't sound like me." mostly i think that i wrote better stuff before.

independence day...mine.

long weekends are great because they let you relax and do fun things. then the weekend is over and you have to go back to work. you get to work and things are good because you still remember your fun weekend. it is 2 hour later when work makes you want to tear out your hair and potentially cause bodily harm to those around you. you then have to remind yourself that you are, generally speaking, a sane person. you repeat this to yourself several times, while taking deep, calming breaths. this will seem to help for about 10 minutes. then you have to remember that august 12th is your independence day. freedom from the tyranny of work...at least for a little while.

camping!

i went camping at lake easton this past weekend. it was a lot of fun. i must have remembered some stuff from all those camping trips back in high school because i set up a tent almost by myself. stone had an assist. :D we had campfires, marshmallows, smores, bacon and eggs, french toast, spam musubi, sandwiches, penne pasta, spinach salad, french bread, cup noodles, hotdogs - basically, a lot of good food. and, we still have pasta leftovers, which will be our lunches and dinners for days. we played lawn bowling, went canoeing, played volleyball, king elephant, taboo, and just hung out by the fire. definitely a super fun trip.

today we visited ikea for the last day of the sale. then it was using up the extra tomatoes by making salsa and putting some of the extra pasta in a cassarole for a 4th of july potluck. the movie of the evening was independence day and fireworks were seen from the rooftop of stone and his roommate's queen anne apartment. there were a lot of people packed into a limited space and lots of fun had by all.

and it's back to work. bleh.