stripethree

Summer and I flew off to San Fran for the long Independence Day weekend where we did a lot of walking and I took a lot of pictures.

We did a lot of the touristy stuff I didn’t do when I was in town last March like ride the trolley cars and we spent a lot of time down in the Fisherman’s Wharf area including Ghirardelli Square. Thursday evening we did a boat cruise to Alcatraz Island which included a walking and audio tour (which was much better than it might sound) of portions of the prison. It was foggy, which certainly contributed to the already creepy atmosphere created by the slowly decaying structures.

Walking around the inside was pretty intense.

Friday we walked around to sight see, including walking through Chinatown, hiking up to Lombard Street then down to Ghirardelli Square for ice cream.

We also went to Olivia’s for a BBQ on the 4th, which was great since I haven’t seen her since last March and because Summer had never met her. After that we got on a boat again for another cruise, this one went down to the Bay Bridge, around Angel Island, over to the Bay Bridge, and finally settled in with other boats for us to watch the fireworks.

Saturday we walked around more, I swear we walked 5 miles last weekend, and met up with Rebecca and Chuck who drove down from Sacramento, where they just moved about a week prior. It was great to see them because I don’t think I had since their wedding two years ago! We got food, walked through Chinatown and back down to Fisherman’s Wharf, then got more food. =)

It was an excellent weekend and we came back with sore legs, good chocolate, and lots of pictures. Part of this visit was to see if we were interested in moving to San Fran, and I think we are pretty sure the answer is no. The expense and the weather, and, well, another city we have in mind play a role in that.

So I finally have time to put to blog what I remember from our trip to New Orleans. The lack of memory is not because of the gap in time between last weekend and this posting, which is mainly due to my waking up before the sun, driving an hour and fifteen minutes to work, and being wiped after running around getting acclimated to the new project this week. The lack of memory is the fault of New Orleanss itself, specifically Bourbon street, and, well, if I want to put my finger directly on the cause, hand grenades are to blame. No, not the exploding kind, unless you go with Teds explanation of how they feel in your head the next day, the drink kind. Delicious, dangerous, and consumed in excess.

This sort of felt like the beginning of a Real World series, as Summer and I arrived in New Orleans first, coming from Tucson, and waited about a half hour in the airport for Pat, who flew in from North Carolina. Our four Maryland friends would meet one another at the airport about three hours later and grab a cab and meet us downtown. Pat, Summer, and I dropped our bags at our hotel, the Prince Conti, and proceeded directly to Bourbon Street for overpriced pizza slices and adult beverages. The Blue Hawaiian was delicious and potent. We strolled around, found Jesus, saw a guy dressed as a hand grenade, and decided wed partake in said hand grenades before our friends arrived. We marveled at how wonderful it was to walk the streets with booze and how bar after bar had a to go window for all your beverage needs. Once the fearsome foursome from Maryland arrived, having already had some drinks on the plane and in the airport, off we went to make sure they caught up properly. There was an 80s cover band (yes, we sang), Pat taking more shots than Matt thought he was paying for out of the shot girls pants and shirt, boobs, Big Ass Beers, and of course, the patented CPDubs drunken group tackle.

Friday some of us got up and got some beignets for breakfast, walked over to the very brown Mississippi River were we were serenaded by a quite creepy old jazz man. He was short, but really, that wasnt a good enough excuse to sing starting directly to Michelle and Summers boobs. So we made an escape and ended up walking around the city for a while the rest of the group emerged and grabbed some food. We wandered around the neighborhoods and found the pirate bar Matt was looking for and a restaurant with a very animated waiter and delicious po’boys. After lunch we headed back to the hotels for much needed naps.

We got all cleaned up and looking pretty (well, the girls at least) for dinner at Fire of Brazil. Oh dinner, glorious dinner. We went to a Brazilian steak house and to keep the explanation short, each person had a business card in front of them. Red side up means youre good as far as food and green side up means bring me meat. Lots, and lots, of meat. All you can eat meat, sliced in front of you, directly off the skewers it was cooked on. There was steak, and chicken, and bacon wrapped chicken, and bacon wrapped steak, and quite possibly the best beef ribs ever created. We ate, and we drank, and I think even though we were civil, we out lasted out welcome, as they stopped sending us more meat except for when I was able to get our waiter to send us more beef ribs and steak. It was brought up amongst us that since we were seven strong all with hearty appetites and all thoroughly enjoying the endless meal that we might have eaten more than the restaurant cared to serve us. That doesnt make it any less delicious.

Seeing as how we were very, very full, we took it relatively easy afterwards. Which means we went back to the Pirate Bar and drank some more followed by more hand grenades.

Saturday we got a late start on the day and had screwdrivers before breakfast (I said a late start on the day not the drinking). We went to a place Matt knew for breakfast and it was fantastic. You can order a Bloody Mary while waiting in line and a biscuit or sandwich with debris. What the hell is debris? Im glad you asked: it is the meat that falls into the gravy while a roast is cooking. Think of it as tender, shredded roast beef and one of the most delicious things someone ever thought to serve. My mouth is watering again, excuse me I must figure out how to make something similar. We contemplated asking for cups of it to go, but we were full of biscuits, pancakes, sausage, and whatever else we had ordered and devoured.

Then we went and bummed around Jackson Square after walking around town a bit more seeing the sights.

Saturday night Bourbon street was more crowded that Thursday or Friday and the party was literally, everywhere. People up in balconies screaming for boobs (the women up there included) and the ability to stand in the middle of the street and hear at least four different songs playing at different bars at once.

We went on a walking ghost tour, which had the potential to be kickass, but dropped the ball in some respects. The tour guide told the stories well, but that’s really all there was, walk up to a house, tell us dozens of people died horribly in it, move on. We probably could have read the stories somewhere, but it would have been much more interesting if we could have gone inside some of the buildings. On the other hand, Id say the majority of the tour participants, our group included were already semi-drunk or on their way there. The tour guide, knowing what most people come to New Orleans to do, wisely had a mid-tour stop to use the restrooms and of course, get a drink.

Sunday everyone except Summer and I left at the crack of dawn to head back to the east coast. This left the two of us to meander around downtown and window shop. We walked in and out of art galleries and various shops with masks and beads plastered all over the wall and took pictures here and there. We got lunch at Jimmy Buffet’s Margaritaville, walked back into the park and relaxed for a bit.

Then we got some cheesecake at a dive diner slash bar near the hotel, said goodbye to New Orleans, and started our journey back to Tucson. It was a glorious trip, once that had us all thinking about doing something like this somewhere once a year. Another trip next year would be awesome, as that is about how long it might take for each of our livers to fully recover.

I took a ton of pictures on this trip, all of which are here. If you just want to see the daytime touristy stuff go here and if you just want to see us crazy at night, try this.

I’ve been slacking on the blog front, mainly because February has been extremely busy. Work has been hectic for two reasons, the first being upcoming deadlines on the project I am working on and the metric ton of work that needs to be completed before those deadlines come and go. Second, I’ve been figuring out the ins and outs of a work transition, as it is more than 95% certain at this point I will no longer be working from home starting next month. I am changing projects, changing teams, and changing what I do on a daily basis from a software engineering focus to a software vulnerability testing and evaluation focus. So I’ll be driving to the fort in Sierra Vista everyday, but I have the chance to learn and participate in some very interesting and cool (as in nerdy cool) things and get sent to all sorts of fun (as in nerdy fun) courses such as ethical hacker training. So I’m excited, but I have been very busy organizing things and getting as much done with my current work as I can before the transition.

Besides that, there was the SSCC autocross on the 3rd, which I did ok, sort of. Apparently there were some issues with the radios and the course and a lot of course deviations did not get called in and recorded, on my runs included. So I have no idea how I actually faired since I know my times on the results probably aren’t right. In addition, I had some battery with my camera issues so the in car video I thought I took didn’t really come out well. I did get some good pictures with my XTi. This has lead to design thoughts on a way to secure the charger to have it in the car running off the 12v power adapter. On the other hand, I have taken a step into further involvement with the Tucson folks and have designed a course which we will be using at the February event next weekend. It took some time and some input from other members, and of course, approval of the design for safety and feasibility, but hopefully it will be fun to run next Sunday. I’ll post the map with my usual post event ramblings.

Last weekend Summer and I spend the weekend in Bisbee, which is a small town about 90 miles southeast of Tucson. Bisbee was a copper town before the mines were shut down in the 1970s and now sort of straddles the border of a small arts community and an old west ghost town.

We went down on Saturday, attended the annual Chocolate Tasting, and stayed at the Gym Club Suites. The suites building was originally a YMCA, then was converted to an apartment building, and now is a hotel. The loft we got was excellent and had a small balcony with a nice view of most of the town.

On Sunday we walked around ‘downtown’ and checked out the shops and sights. We also went on a tour of the Queen Copper mine and rode down the tracks over 1000 feet into the mine, 600 feet underground. I didn’t bring the camera on the tour because I had no idea how rough the ride would be and how much possibility there was for the camera to get damaged. After all, before we got on the rail cars we were outfitted in bright yellow jackets and hard hats along with battery packs hooked up to lights. Let me tell you how flattering that outfit wasn’t.

Yesterday I dropped by the Tucson Animal Fair which Summer was working at, which provided some good photo ops.

It was basically a mass gathering of animal rescue shelters and services located in and around Tucson ranging from breed specific rescue foundations, to the Humane Society of Southern Arizona, to various dog agility and dancing (yes, dancing) classes/groups.

That’s all for now, next stop: New Orleans with Summer and 5 of the Maryland VW kids. Louisiana has no idea what it is in for.

Mom and Dad flew out here for their first trip to the western part of the States last weekend to visit and see the various desert attractions. They were in Tucson for a couple days and saw the sites and go to meet Summer when we all went out to dinner Monday and Tuesday nights. It was great and they liked the authentic Mexican place we went to Monday night as well as the local Italian place we went Tuesday night. They liked Summer and Summer liked them; all went very, very well and I was glad they got to meet Summer and vice versa.

On Wednesday Mom, Dad, and I drove up to Sedona for the day. After grabbing lunch at a small, local deli (which was really good), we drove around the area and took lots of pictures. We went and saw the Chapel of the Holy Cross, which is a church built into the side of one of the red rocks.

We walked through ‘downtown’, did some window shopping, and took a bunch of pictures. We saw a lot more of the area then when I’d been there before. The sunset was awesome and we got dinner at another local place, again, it was very good.

Thursday we headed up to the south rim of the Grand Canyon and since we got there earlier than check in, headed right into the National Park. The first couple hours of our amazement were dampened (no pun intended) by the rain, but eventually it cleared up.

We drove down one of the rim-side roads and stopped at a bunch of of the viewpoints, walked around, and again took tons of pictures. There’s no way to fully describe the vastness and enormity of the canyon, even looking at the pictures I took still don’t represent it well enough. It really is unbelievable. We could drive maybe a mile or two, stop at another view point, and there was a completely unique view of the canyon. We drove 25 miles out to Desert View Watchtower, the highest point on the south rim.

On our way out of the park, we stopped with a bunch of other people because there was a heard of elk eating by the side of the road. I got a bunch of picture of them (on the real camera, they are coming…) from way up close, 20 feet away give or take. It was oddly comfortable how they just ignored everyone near them taking pictures; they are probably used to the people but at the same time, they are big animals, and who knows what they’d do if they got pissed. We made sure to stay far away from the calf, and definitely get no where near in between it and it’s mother. There were no males around, but my Dad went back later on and saw a couple and said he got some good pictures.

Friday morning we hiked Bright Angel trail down into the canyon. It was a moderately difficult trail and we hiked about a mile and a half before we decided we would be wise to head back.

A mile and a half doesn’t sound like much, but the elevation change is unimaginable, and hiking back up was definitely a challenge.

After that we had lunch and took a shuttle to some of the other viewpoints on the other side of the south rim, including Hopi Point, which is the highest natural point on the south rim (only the Desert View Watchtower is taller, as far as I know/remember) and the best place to see the Colorado River snaking through the canyon.

All in all, it was impressive and awe inspiring. It weird to know that there is no where else in the world I can or will ever see anything like that, and apparently the north rim is even more spectacular. Maybe next time.

Summer and I spent last weekend in Rocky Point a.k.a. Puerto Penasco, Mexico at the Las Palomas resort. The resort is really cool, people buy the condos, furnish them in their own taste, and can rent them out through the resort or on their own (or both). Summer found one online that didn’t cost an arm or leg and off we went.

We chose not to venture off the resort because, really, there wasn’t any reason to. The beach was right there, there were folks to bring you food and drinks on the beach, at the pool, to your suite, and you could even swim up to the bar. Why leave?

The beach there wasn’t like anything I’d ever seen. The different between high and low tide was crazy with low tide revealing tons of areas of rock and tide pools that were fun to explore.

We made nice with some of the wildlife and borrowed some sea shells.

The swin up bar was great, as the owners of the condo we rented told us, the carne asada tacos and quesadillas were delicious.

And the scenery was pretty much spectacular.

Nothing crazy and insane, but it was very, very relaxing. Summer wisely suggested we bring the pool rafts she has and they were key; I think handfuls of other visitors that saw us super relaxed in the lazy river, at the pool, or floating in Sea of Cortez will be bringing their own floatation devices when they return. We did rent a jet ski from one of the random guys on the beach which was fun as well. The place was pretty empty so we could pretty much go up and down the coast as fast as we wanted, which we certainly did.

It’s also crazy how many resorts are going up in the area. This was the only one open on the area of beach we were at, but you can see from the pictures that there are ones going up all around it, including the enormous second phase of Las Palomas itself. Forget buying a house, how about a condo on the beach of Mexico? This is only a three and half hour drive from Tucson too! Even on highway 8 coming in, there were hotels and stuff going up everywhere. I have a feeling that if we go back as soon as in the next year even, it’ll look very different. Oh yes, we will be back.

More pictures.

Excellent on so many levels. The 4th of July was an awesome beach tour.

Ocean Beach:

Torrey Pines Gliderport overlooking Black’s Beach:

Coronado Beach:

All were fantastic. Went to a party at a friend of Brad’s and could just barely see the fireworks from the backyard. Drinks and smores were an excellent end to a very fun day one.

Thursday was Sea World and the Humane Society. We saw all the shows (well, all but the one we weren’t interested in) including the night shows, which were cool.

We left during the afternoon to tour the San Diego Humane Society then went back to Sea World for the night shows, any of the exhibits we missed, and for the cable car ride which was awesome at night. Definitely got the most out of the Sea World ticket.
Friday we went back to the Humane Society. Since Summer was interested in their training program, we basically got another tour and got to see and play (and help train a little) some of the animals that were up for adoption. Then we went off to La Jolla Cove since it was too crowded to visit on the 4th. We got some great pictures, and Summer got a little bit wet while trying to catch a photo of one of the crabs walking around.

We also walked all the way down to see where the sea lions come up on the beach.

Yes, we walked to the end of the ‘pier’, and yes, we got wet, again. Haha. Then we went to dinner at George’s at the Cove and it was fantastic. We ate upstairs, overlooking the cove; the view, even though it was bit overcast, and the food were both fantastic.

We spent most of Saturday in Balboa Park walking around sightseeing, goofing around, and we also went to the Photography Museum.

We also went down to the Gaslamp Quarter on Saturday to check it out, as well as the ‘Dr. Seuss’ mall. Both the malls we went to, this one and the one with the movie theater and where Brad works, were completely outdoors. Blows my mind that the weather is that great in San Diego. Maybe I’ll rethink not wanting to move again…

Lastly we braved the crowds and saw Transformers, which I have been wildly anticipating for the past, oh, year or so. I was very impressed and very entertained an I want to go see it again while it’s in theaters. Other than that, I’ll keep my inner geek from gushing. The only thing bad about this vacation was that is had to end, sadly. There’s plenty more to do, so I definitely want to go back sometime, and sooner rather than later. It was fun and relaxing and exactly what a vacation should be! I think the next trip might be to Meeeeeeexxxxico though. Sweet.

I ended up with a crazy number of pictures from this trip, and they are all here.

The rest of the San Fran trip was excellent from the happy hours, dinners, to the weekend long birthday activities for Olivia. That city is pretty sweet, but I’m not so sure about living there. I’ve been swamped since I got back with work and catching up on class stuff I neglected. I definitely welcome being kept busy as it keeps my mind away from the selfish actions of others that I am forced to deal with. I’ll leave any harsher words out, just know they are there. Luckily, I have some of the best friends in the world from Maryland to California and many places in between.

Yesterday I went and looked at a handful of places in Tucson that I researched online and liked. Three of the four met expectations, the fourth was not bad, but it just wasn’t as good as the others. I put in an application at the last place I visited, a smaller, quiet complex a couple miles outside the real ‘city’. I still have no idea if I want to stay in this area, but I figure, it’s a $30 fee to get approved for a place and I’ve got until almost mid-April to let them know since they have a couple places available. I’ve got to start the process somewhere, and I figured even if I don’t end up there, this place was a good start. The other two nice places I liked as well, but one doesn’t have anything available that fits what I want and and other, while nice, just didn’t have some of the minor details that the place I applied to does.

I previously put my name in the hat for a position with my company in Seaside, near Monterrey, California, but it didn’t work out. It was nice to find out that the folks out there were impressed with what I had to offer and want to keep me in mind for other opportunities out there; just this time around some things that have nothing to do with me didn’t work out with the planned work. A little disappointing, but that’s the way it goes. There are a couple other things I want to look out, still within the company of course, in San Diego and Fairfield. Maybe, maybe not. I figure if I am going someplace new, it might not be a bad thing to get back into an office environment and at least met some people implicitly through work. As I expected, I keep getting encouragement to come back to Maryland, and I have mixed feelings about it. Sure it would be familiar, it would be easier (minus actually making that insane drive again) and would probably be more comfortable, but I don’t want to go back there, get stuck there, and be unhappy with it. Granted, I could end up unhappy if I go somewhere else than Maryland, but at least then I tried somewhere else, and I can always pick up and go somewhere else.

It’s great to have this decision and be able to pick up and go, but it’s also extremely difficult decision to actually make.

Oh, and check out the completely redone Gallery. it’s not 100% complete but I want to show it off anyway.

It has been a fantastic first leg of my trip to the west coast. The only hiccup thus far has been US Airways somehow forgetting to pass my bag along to United in Phoenix, but luckily it was quickly found and delivered with minimal effect on or plans. While I’m visiting Olivia here, we are both working during the day, but the wonders of San Francisco started when we took off Friday for lunch, grabbed some sandwiches and walked three blocks down to Pier 39 and ate by the water. Wonderful it was, especially since I’ve lived absolutely no where that I’ve been able to do that. For the evening, we went downtown, met a handful of friends of Olivia and Jay and appropriately patronized an Irish pub for St. Pattys. We wandered around the city some as well and it is magnificent. Then back the bars, I lost count of how many we made it out too.

Saturday morning we packed up early and hit the road for Sonoma. The Golden Gate bridge is beyond impressive in person and besides being ominous, is also quite eerie when draped in fog. Everything that surrounded the drive to Sonoma was beautiful, like nothing I’d ever seen. I can see why people love this area just for the visual wonders of the landscape. Less than ninety minutes later we are cruising Sonoma Highway and pulling into the first winery on our tour. We made it to eight, yes, eight, on Saturday. All of which had multiple wines to sample and amazing food to accompany it. By no means did I know much about wine, but it didn’t matter because it wasn’t important and even just by listening I learned more than I probably ever needed to know. We even got a behind the scenes tour of one of the wineries including a vertical tasting of two of their signature wines. Yeah, I didn’t know what that was either, but basically, you sample the same wine from different years. It was a bit intimidating to be in a room with people speaking in such detail and with knowledge about wine. Wine! Everyone was friendly though, whether or not that was helped by their blood alcohol level, well, who cares. Again, the food. I can’t stop thinking about the food. Some of the vineries actually had well known catering companies providing the food, at least one of our stops was determined by my friends knowledge of how was providing the food and no so much the wine. There was everything from beef marinated and grilled like I’d never tasted to all sort of cheese samples and dishes. There was plenty of it as well and no lunch stop was necessary. We stayed at a hotel in Sonoma for the night and made friends with everyone at the bar and the staff. The place was great, with the exception of a relatively early last call. Dinner was great, even off the bar menu, and whatever delicious margarita that Christina, our bartender, was fantastic. I didn’t bother counting how many, but neither did anyone else in our party.

Today, Sunday, we got up and out again to complete our ambitious wine tour and I think we visited another 10 wineries today. The food today was even better and there was even some champagne to sample at some stop and a nice selection of Cherry and other desert wines at another. We basically made our way up and down Sonoma Highway to every location we has not visited the day prior. Once we were finished with that, we headed hack in the direction of San Francisco and stopped outside Alameda at a sushi place that is a favorite of Olivia’s. It was fantastic. I’m amazing I’m not yet passed out in a food, wine, and walking coma, and unfortunately I cannot take the pictures off my camera yet since the necessary cable didn’t make the trip.

I think enough’s enough about the food and such, if I keep talking about it I will somehow get hungry again even though it seems impossible. I would have never thought or tried such a weekend trip on my own but I’m so glad that I got the chance to do so.