I want some!

So awesome! Why didn't they have these when I played? I would have picked a cool demon name and everything. Don't know what I'm talking about? Check it out. All I can say is, "Cool!"

Huge Pink Bunny

So I've been wanting to post about this for some time because I saw a link to it on a friend's website. But alas, I didn't save the link and am too lazy to search for it. But check it out. I just laughed when I saw that. Talk about too much time on their hands.

PS. Thanks to Amanda for having the link in her AIM info, so lazy Becca didn't have to search for it.

Deep thoughts

"I would not live forever because we should not live forever, because if we were supposed to live forever then we would live forever, but we cannot live forever, which is why I would not live forever."

Miss Alabama
--Responding to a question in the 1994 Miss USA contest

That's so deep, I have nothing to add. Or maybe I have nothing to add because I have to go to work.

Basque food and soccer

Last night my family got together in honor of my grandpa's birthday. We would usually go to Woolgrowers for a gathering like this, but couldn't for some reason, so we went to Benji's. Both have Basque food, which is pretty fun. There's the "Set up," which includes bread, vegetable soup, beans, tomatos, salad, tounge (yes, tounge), and french fries. Then you order your main meal, which comes with either red or white wine.

It was great fun, as anything with my extended family is. We were there for about two and a half hours just talking and carrying on. It was hard to tell which half of the table was louder, the young side or the older side. Only one of my cousins was there, which could have had something to do with it, since the more of us there are, the louder we get.

Today was the second week of the women's soccer league I play in, but I couldn't play last week because I was camping. The new team I'm on is very interesting. They are all older than me (which I've come to expect), but only a couple years. The "manager" was actually my coach for a year in high school, and is somewhat difficult to get along with. A lot of them have small children running around, which is funny, because when the ball isn't near a person, they tend to look over to the sideline to make sure their kids are behaving.

I don't have much in common with them, except that most of them have played before and know how to pass. There are a couple really good players who have lost a bit of touch, but it doesn't matter because of the competition. It was nice being able to make a run and know that the person with the ball would be able to get it to me, so I got to do a lot less running.

Fantasy Football

So, those of you who know me well enough know that I don't particularly enjoy watching sports, I enjoy playing them much more. This is the main reason that I don't really follow professional or college sports. The more I watch a sport, the more I want to play it, and I generally don't have the opportunity to (with the exception of soccer, which I can watch because I play often enough).

Hi, my name is Becca and I am dumb. :)

By the way, that was Jason, and he made me not delete it. Anyways, back to fantasy football. Apparently, this is something that's really huge, and tons of people waste all sort of time checking sites and planning rosters. So I decided to play this year with Chris and his brothers and their various acquantiances. Its fun, mostly because of the smack talking that can go down.

Anyways, my team plays Chris' team this week, so hopefully I'll win, mostly because he's done all his research and I haven't. I'll let you know how it goes. Last week I had the third most points of anybody, but got creamed by Paul, who had almost 30 more points than anybody else. It was insane.

Its been fun, but I think that fantasy soccer would be more interesting, because there's less points and stats in the game, so you would have to be very careful in who you pick and play.

Meanderings

"He that hath wife and children hath given hostages to fortune; for they
are impediments to great enterprises, either of virtue or mischief.
Certainly the best works, and of greatest merit for the public, have
proceeded from the unmarried or childless men; which both in affection and
means, have married and endowed the public."

I got this through my daily philosophical quotations, and it kind of made me think. I seem to remember reading part of a book that was along these lines. Its Sci-Fi, so bear with me. Basically, there's kind of a rebellion while these people are on a ship, and one of the teenagers realizes that the parents can do nothing to stop the big bad, its only the un-tied down teenagers who can really do something, because they don't have a family that can be held as collateral.

Anyways, it makes sense. We see all sorts of movies (most recently The Negotiator comes to mind, even though I didn't see it) where the weakness that all these heros have is their family. We even see it in normal life, where working people with families have to have their priorities straight.

I don't really have a point, just thought I'd share what I've been thinking/reading lately. Although I read the book forever ago.

The Aftermath

So I just got back from the camping trip. And by just got back, I mean that I've had time to take the necessary nap and shower to recover from the camping trip. Let me just tell you upfront, it was great. One of the better times I've had in the past couple years, I'd say. I'm sad for all of you who couldn't go, because you missed some fun happenings.

Let's, see... where to start. First, the camping site that we were headed to was a bit of a wild card. I had never been there, but the site we wanted to go to was not available, so I found this site though the Reserve America website. We weren't entirely sure how to get there, even with instructions. It turned out to be a pretty sweet place, but more on that later.

So Thursday night, Chris, Rob, and I went grocery shopping for the trip, which was really brave of Nat, because she trusted us to buy the food. And I'd say we did a pretty good job. But we had to do speed shopping, because the store was closing at 9, and we got there about 8:30. What kind of grocery store closes at 9. We made it safely out with a couple minutes to spare, almost forgetting the S'more fixings, jam, sausage, and tortillas, but managing to get everything we needed. I was impressed with us.

We left Friday around noon. Well, we were supposed to leave around noon, but I showed up late (11:30), and Rob couldn't tear himself away from the tv, so we left a little later than we thought we would, I think around 12:45. After various errands we still had to run, we left Bakersfield probably around 1:30. We headed to Santa Maria and beyond.

Now, Chris had done his homework to find some different wineries that we would go to, but saw so many that he decided we would kind of just go where looked fun. We were expecting something along the lines of Paso Robles, where there are huge signs that say, "Wine this way!" but alas, this is not the case in Santa Barbara County. We got off at Bulleton, and put in the Sideways soundtrack to get us ready. But we could find no wineries! We finally found one, but there was a w-word going on (Rob and Chris kept sushing me, but I say, if they want to have their w-word at a winery, they can deal with the noise! I'm not sushing) but it was so crowded, we decided not to fight the crowd.

Feeling defeated (and somewhat confused) we decided just to head to camp and check that out. Hopefully it would be more of a success than wine tasting was (on the first day). Turns out that it was a success, because the campsite was pretty nice. There was a (mostly dry) creek running pretty close to it, which we got to explore, and also held some nice wood for us to gather. Nat showed up about an hour after us, and then the real party started.

A little about the campsite. There were some very interesting people camping by us. One party had four tents (I think) but 5 SUVs and one little car. Another site had a "Mystery Machine" van and that was it. I think we sometimes saw an air mattress lying around. Another site had four tents, a psuedo-tent for keeping bugs away from the table, a bike, and an air rifle. All of this came from one truck, not to mention probably 5 or 6 people. The final site had a motorhome, and old beat up car, and a tv. So it was an interesting place.

On Saturday, we decided since we had no luck and Nat had never been wine tasting, that we would forgo the hike and exploring in favor of finding some wineries. We headed towards Lompoc and scored! We found a very nice winery by the name of Melville, where there was a very fun pourer who gave us the hookups. Not only did she pour us very nicely sized portions of each wine (about a third full of very large glasses), but she told us of some of the better wineries around the area. It was great.

The rest of the day was kind of normal, except for the last one we went to, which is owned by two Aussie brothers. There was a very different atmosophere there than most of wineries, which was fun. It was much more laid-back, and struck me as I think an Aussie winery should.

Sunday, we hit a couple more (2) wineries on our way out after breaking camp. They were pretty good. The thing about SBC wineries that's different from the PR wineries is that all of the Paso wineries are located at the vineyard, which I think is pretty awesome. It gives you the whole atmosophere, and just plain looks cool.

Most of the SBC wineries are not located on vineyards. A lot of them are like little stores in the small towns around there. I think I prefer the Paso wineries better. Plus, SBC doesn't make a lot of Zin because the grapes need more heat. They can turn out a lot of Syrah, which is nice. But Paso has the Zins, of which I am a fan.

And if you read this whole thing, I'm impressed and amazed. Check out my site soon for some of the quotes from the trip, which are pretty funny.

This weekend

I'm going camping this weekend. I know you're all jealous that can't go. You'll just have to get over it. So there will be no new posts until at least Sunday, when you will get to hear all about the crazy adventures we had over near Santa Barbara. In the mean time, I'll leave you with this quote.

The man you want to keep bound to you should be chained by food and drink. - Plautus

My blister is healing nicely

So I guess my previous post was pathetic, because only one person commented. Lets see if I can do better. Monday, Chris and I decided to play some golf. Bet you didn't know that I can play golf, did you. Well, neither did I. The last time I played was like summer after sophomore year in high school, and I really sucked at it. And I mean really. The problem was that my muscles were so used to swinging for softball, that they automatically did that any time I didn't put my full concentration towards a golf swing.

My hope was that after not playing softball for four year (well, except for church softball in the summers) I would be able to golf better. But really, it wasn't a big hope. It worked! I didn't suck nearly as much as I used to. I would almost say I didn't suck at all, it was just normal new golfer stuff. And I beat Chris on two holes! Woohoo! Not that that's saying much (sorry Chris).

Last night after planning our camping trip, Chris, Rob, and I played some Cettler, as we've taken to calling it. I won again, but it was close because Chris had 9 points. It was an interesting game, because we were all playing in the same space. Luckily, the 3's were rolling last night, so I won.

Okay, that really wasn't interesting. I'll try to do better tomorrow.

2-0

Even though the games don't count towards playoffs, my team is still 2 - 0, which is pretty awesome. We still need to work on our defense, though. Todays' game was 5 - 3, which is good, but not great.

We had out second DA meeting on Thursday, which was fun. There was more to talk about in the first 5 chapters than I would have thought. We had a 100% comeback rate, plus one new person (it was Rob so it doesn't really count because he should have been there before). All in all, a good time was had by everyone.

Last night I had a dream that I was moving out of a dorm room. Does this mean that I'm actually ready to get past college? I don't think so, because I was moving out of my Jr. year dorm room. So I really just want to be a Senior again.

I have two hours before I have to go lifeguard, so I think its high time for a nap. I did get up at 6:15, after all. And Chris, I don't want to hear it.

Adventures

I was in Mervin's because I had to take something back for my dad, and decided to wander in the women's area. I remembered why I hate shopping. Instead of having nice sections that tell me what's there (casual, sporting, and so on), they have Petite, Junior, Misses, Misses Career, and Women's. Utterly confusing. And not only that, but all the sizes were weird. In the women's section, there were no S or M, but 1x, 2x, and 3x. What the heck does that mean? Then there's PS, PM, and so on. What is the world coming to when you can't even shop for clothes simply?

Last night I totally (on accident) took out one of my players at practice. I was trying to show them how I wanted a sweeper to clear the ball, and asked Maddi to dribble at me. I said, "When you're about to me, kick it a little ahead of you." So she did, and I got ready to clear it. I looked up at everybody to make sure they were watching, and to say something, but Maddi had decided that she was still dribbling. So she had touched the ball again after putting it in front of her, and was following. So instead of clearing the ball, I cleared her. Bam! On the ground. Luckily, I hit her foot, so no damage was done. Instead, I got to give a lesson on the importance of fouling at the right time. I think they'll have a healthy fear of me from now on.

Amanda left for Davis today, which means that there are four of us left in town. Well, three and a half, because Rachel is gone all the time during the week. Hopefully Rob will get a job soon, and there will only be two and a half (not that I want you to leave Rob, but I hope that you get a job).

I have an interview tomorrow, which should be good. Hopefully it pans out, because I need a more full time part time job than subing. Peace!