My cousin Matt got married this weekend up in Fresno. He decided to be like his sister and have a wedding out of the blue (although he wasn't pregnant), but it wasn't quite as rushed as hers. My brother, dad, and I went up there on Saturday because they guys were going to play golf (I wasn't invited), and I went along because I knew much of the family was going to be driving up on Saturday.
Karma intervened and it rained on Saturday, so the guys only got about 7 holes in before calling it quites (take that!), so we all went over to the hotel where everybody was staying. This was a large hotel, but when my whole family went into the bar, we completely took over the place. Some had to leave for the rehearsal dinner, and the rest of us went to The Cheesecake Factory, which was a couple blocks away (and I was completely bummed - who wants to eat cheesecake?). We discussed Snowcrash (which I need to reread), clairvoyant dreams, and blogs, among other things. It was a very fun discussion with the three generations that were present.
On Sunday was the wedding, and it was being held at a Serbian Orthodox church in Fresno (my cousin is Greek Orthodox and his new wife is Serbian Orthodox). My family is rather large, and the church it was at was really small, so it was standing room only for the ceremony. Luckily, the reception hall was plenty big. It was great to run around with my cousins, corrupting them by telling them to dump a whole basket full of birdseed on Matt and Chrissy's (his new wife) head (and of course they did it), and telling them to call my other cousin fat (she's 9 months pregnant).
Many people think I hate weddings, but I don't really mind them when it's a family one because we manage to have fun no matter what. Some cousins and my uncle (who's son was getting married) were worried that the wedding might be dry, so they brought a water bottle full of Ketel 1. There was wine at each table (Merlot and Chard, so I didn't really drink much, at the wedding at least), but they still managed to find some punch to add "water" to. We joked that the people from Fresno would think we didn't like their water because we kept adding our own to the punch.
Of course after the wedding we weren't done partying, so we headed back to the hotel and invaded the bar again. Then after we got kicked out of there we went to a hotel room where there were cigars (and other unmentionables) to be smoked (but not by me) and our own bar to use. Then after getting too many complaints at that room, we took it to another. So all in all it was a great weekend, full of family, good food, and good drink.
Monday, April 16, 2007
Saturday, April 14, 2007
I don't care if I never get back.
Yesterday I went down to LA with my brother to watch a Dodger game. He and some buddies have four season passes, and they weren't being used last night, so I got to invite some friends. After a long string of turn downs, Chris and Nate were finally able to go, so we met up with them at Jessica's place to drive in together ($15 for parking is such a rip off).
We got there after the first half inning (somebody was late), but it wasn't a sold out crowd, so we still got our free hats. The seats are in the first row of the second section of the pavillion, if anybody cares, but there are two important features of these seats. The first is that there's tons of leg room, which is very nice. The second is that everybody who goes and gets food has to walk past you to get to their seats. So by about the third inning we were all craving Dodger dogs and nachos. There was a mass exodus from the stands, and we all went to find some food. Billy, Chris, and I all managed to do so in a reasonable time frame, but I think it took Nate two and a half innings to finally get his two super Dodger dogs.
It was a good game - there was a home run to score the first run, and then lots of doubles and base hits by the Dodgers (and not so many by the Padres), so we won pretty easily 9-1. All the while discussing movies and TV shows, of course. I think the best conversation was when we got to talk about bad kid's sports movies, like The Sandlot (which isn't bad), A Kid in King Arther's Court, Little Giants, and some that I think I've forgotten.
Oh, and it cracked me up that the words for Take Me Out To the Ball Game were incorrect on the board during the 7th Inning Stretch.
We got there after the first half inning (somebody was late), but it wasn't a sold out crowd, so we still got our free hats. The seats are in the first row of the second section of the pavillion, if anybody cares, but there are two important features of these seats. The first is that there's tons of leg room, which is very nice. The second is that everybody who goes and gets food has to walk past you to get to their seats. So by about the third inning we were all craving Dodger dogs and nachos. There was a mass exodus from the stands, and we all went to find some food. Billy, Chris, and I all managed to do so in a reasonable time frame, but I think it took Nate two and a half innings to finally get his two super Dodger dogs.
It was a good game - there was a home run to score the first run, and then lots of doubles and base hits by the Dodgers (and not so many by the Padres), so we won pretty easily 9-1. All the while discussing movies and TV shows, of course. I think the best conversation was when we got to talk about bad kid's sports movies, like The Sandlot (which isn't bad), A Kid in King Arther's Court, Little Giants, and some that I think I've forgotten.
Oh, and it cracked me up that the words for Take Me Out To the Ball Game were incorrect on the board during the 7th Inning Stretch.
Friday, April 06, 2007
You had me at merlot.
So this past week was a week of family vacation. We went over to Los Osos, which is situated right by SLO, and really isn't a bad place to go vacationing. Anyways, my siblings and I joined our parents over there on Tuesday, and we had a surprisingly pleasant ride over there. I don't know what was wrong with my brothers, but something must have been.
It was a vacation of firsts! First (long distance) car ride I can remember with my brother's that wasn't horrible. First time buying Converse (it was past time for a new pair of shoes). First time I was able to drag any members of my family wine tasting (I got all of them to go, even if only three of us tasted!). First time that my brother (Billy) tasted and bought wine. It made me so proud. First time that somebody thought I was older than Billy in a long time. And I quote:
Castoro Pourer: I'll let you pour it out. I'm not mean like your older sister over there.
Me: Actually, I'm his younger sister.
Pourer: Really?
Me: Well, only by four minutes.
Pourer: You just seemed much wiser than him.
That made my day.
So it was a good vacation, as much as I had my doubts going into it. And now it's onto Easter weekend, which is always fun because people come back to town. So hopefully this will be a good cap to a fun week.
It was a vacation of firsts! First (long distance) car ride I can remember with my brother's that wasn't horrible. First time buying Converse (it was past time for a new pair of shoes). First time I was able to drag any members of my family wine tasting (I got all of them to go, even if only three of us tasted!). First time that my brother (Billy) tasted and bought wine. It made me so proud. First time that somebody thought I was older than Billy in a long time. And I quote:
Castoro Pourer: I'll let you pour it out. I'm not mean like your older sister over there.
Me: Actually, I'm his younger sister.
Pourer: Really?
Me: Well, only by four minutes.
Pourer: You just seemed much wiser than him.
That made my day.
So it was a good vacation, as much as I had my doubts going into it. And now it's onto Easter weekend, which is always fun because people come back to town. So hopefully this will be a good cap to a fun week.
Monday, April 02, 2007
Chilling at the BN
So I went to Barnes and Noble to get some entertainment for this week and I saw a guy sitting in one of the aisles in a camping chair with a water jug sitting next to him. I guess that's something to aspire to.
Close Encounters of a Three Kinds
I decided to take a trip down to LA this weekend and to visit with Robert a little bit. So I left on Sunday morning to head down to Santa Monica. When I was about to Pyramid Lake, I looked into my rear view window and see a white Trailblazer. So I thought to myself, "Hey, that could Tim, going back from Spring Break." Of course I didn't really think that it would be Tim. But lo and behold, that Trailblazer pulled up next to me and I looked over and it was Tim! Which was pretty hilarious.
Now, everybody knows that I procrastinate, and the latest thing that I've put off doing has been to register my car. So as of yesterday my registration was officially expired. Normally I don't see very many cops on the drive down to LA, usually one or less. But this trip I saw no less than 4 cops, and 3 park rangers. One of these cops almost pulled up right behind me at a red light, where he would have had a perfect view of my out of date tags. Luckily he turned left just before the light. But it was pretty funny. Or annoying or whatever.
The last encounter was of a different kind. Some of you may know that Rob has been playing D&D with some people for the past year. Well I decided to finally go down and join, which was part of the reason for the trip. So I got to play a regular character in the party because his player couldn't be there this weekend. Now D&D isn't like your normal video game where if your character dies you can just reload the previous auto-save and try again. If your character dies, she's dead, unless you can find a cleric to rez her, and that's rather difficult and expensive.
Generally if you die you just reroll another character and start over at level 1. Of course, dying isn't all that common since you have to get down to -10 health. I got this guys character to 0 health (at -1 you drop unconscious and bleed out 1 health per round until -10). I'm not all that attached to this character, but I imagine that Jerome is pretty attached, so I don't really want him to die. So I run away to a healer (who happens to be Robert) when we only have the last guy left to kill. Most of the party was beat up, so I decided to try to be a hero and fire my bow at the guy instead of hiding, even though I knew that after I fired he would have a clear shot at me.
I hit the guy for 5 damage (which really isn't that much), but considering he was at 0 health (which we didn't know) it was enough to knock him unconscious and out of the tree. And of course the fall killed him. So I didn't die. But since it was April Fool's Day, one of the group members called Jerome and told him that Jork had died, which was pretty hilarious.
Now, everybody knows that I procrastinate, and the latest thing that I've put off doing has been to register my car. So as of yesterday my registration was officially expired. Normally I don't see very many cops on the drive down to LA, usually one or less. But this trip I saw no less than 4 cops, and 3 park rangers. One of these cops almost pulled up right behind me at a red light, where he would have had a perfect view of my out of date tags. Luckily he turned left just before the light. But it was pretty funny. Or annoying or whatever.
The last encounter was of a different kind. Some of you may know that Rob has been playing D&D with some people for the past year. Well I decided to finally go down and join, which was part of the reason for the trip. So I got to play a regular character in the party because his player couldn't be there this weekend. Now D&D isn't like your normal video game where if your character dies you can just reload the previous auto-save and try again. If your character dies, she's dead, unless you can find a cleric to rez her, and that's rather difficult and expensive.
Generally if you die you just reroll another character and start over at level 1. Of course, dying isn't all that common since you have to get down to -10 health. I got this guys character to 0 health (at -1 you drop unconscious and bleed out 1 health per round until -10). I'm not all that attached to this character, but I imagine that Jerome is pretty attached, so I don't really want him to die. So I run away to a healer (who happens to be Robert) when we only have the last guy left to kill. Most of the party was beat up, so I decided to try to be a hero and fire my bow at the guy instead of hiding, even though I knew that after I fired he would have a clear shot at me.
I hit the guy for 5 damage (which really isn't that much), but considering he was at 0 health (which we didn't know) it was enough to knock him unconscious and out of the tree. And of course the fall killed him. So I didn't die. But since it was April Fool's Day, one of the group members called Jerome and told him that Jork had died, which was pretty hilarious.
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