Heidi and Ken have arrived. Last night we got some bread and cheese and wine and watched the sunset on sunset cliffs. We chatted and had a good time. We went back to the condo and watched some sports center, well, Ken and I did at least. Heidi and Ken went to bed and Tracey and I watched some more tv. We fell asleep on the couch. I woke up about 1:30am, and I must have been watching MTV when we fell asleep cause I woke up to Britney and Madonna kissing, not a great image to wake up to, anyway. We showed Heidi and Ken Ready, Set, Bad and Justin’s other movies he has up on his site. They were into it and Heidi said RSB was the funniest thing she has seen in a long time. Also, I have to tell Justin that Tracey didn’t know that those blog sites by Brad and Ben were fake (she is going to be mad at me telling you, but she needs to be made fun of). Mare, that’s funny about Casey and fire. Tracey kept getting mad at me cause I wanted to stay outside till the fire burned out, which really would have been all night, and she wanted me to just go to bed in the tent, but I couldn’t leave my masterpieces! The Indians won, Tigers lost, and Bonderman has 18 losses, very funny. Ok, back to completing my vacation post…

We got to Santa Cruz pretty early on Wednesday of our vacation week. We got lucky and got a spot for the night. We got set up and decided to treat ourselves to a real meal, some Subway!! It was so good, and this awesome guy was working there that had a sorta mullet, a nice gut and was jamming out to JC Melloncamp on the stereo. We then heading to the boardwalk area of SC. Very touristy, but fun to walk around and check the scene out. We went to some surf shops and had a good time. After the afternoon of chillin, we went back and finally got to take real showers at the camp ground, although we had to pay a quarter for two minutes. We relaxed that night, played some more cards and got some rest. The next day we went to the beach all day and just relaxed. Saw some more dolphins and sea lions, played some Frisbee and took a nice walk. This was our last day of camping. We had another nice fire, a pretty big one to go out on. Oh, I forgot to mention this. Tracey found this recipe for cooking éclairs over the fire. Oh my God! One of the best things I have ever eaten. We had those several times, very good.

The next morning we packed up and traveled up to San Francisco for the weekend. Thanks God we had a hotel, cause I was getting sick of camping. Once we got settled in in our hotel, got cleaned up and whatnot, we drove into the city and went to the Haight Ashbury section. We did some shopping and then went out to eat at the Mediterranean place that we had eaten at last time we were in SF with Lars and the Andy’s. That was a lot of fun. When we got back to the hotel we were going to watch a pay per view movie, either X-Men 2 or Anger Management, but it was like 11$, no way, so we just watched tv. On Saturday we took the BART train into the downtown of SF, then took a trolly to Pier 39 and saw the seals and looked at Alcatraz from the pier. I got some lunch at a cool 50’s diner place (where I had a fry stab me in the top of my mouth and bleed really bad, it sucked, prolly the worst eating injury I have ever had, did I just say that?). We then took some more public transportation and ended up near China Town. We walked through there and went to Little Italy and found a great place to have dinner. We love SF, it has a great vibe to it and it’s lots of fun to be there. Definitely one of my favorite places I’ve ever been to. The next day we drove home, which was very hot since we did not have air conditioner and most of the trip home on 5 is in central Cali. Let me just say Fresno is disgusting. Overall, a great trip and I’m glad we did it. I don’t know if we will camp that much next time, but it’s always great to get away from work. Hopefully someday Tracey can write up her version with some more details of things.

Ok, here’s a little review of our vacation a couple weeks ago. Again, Tracey has more details and actual names of places, but I’ll do my best. We left Sunday morning, August 10. We stopped in LA and went to Sonic for lunch. We then spent another 2 ½ hours in our hot car (no AC) trying to get through LA and on up just north of Malibu. Finally, in the late evening, we arrived a state park right on the beach north of Malibu by like 15 miles. It was a great camp site, and we got a slightly private one down on one end, away from everyone else. We set up camp and grilled out some hot dogs. The only issue with this place was the bees. That’s right, good ole bumble bees, attacking us all night, they sucked. Anyway, we had a nice dinner, played some cards and had a fire. The moon that night was full and bright and looked great over the ocean. We almost didn’t need a latern at night. We got up early the next morning, got attacked by more bees. I took a quick shower under a little outdoor deal and we hit the road for San Luis Obispo, which was like another 2 hours or so, I think.

We got to the next state park near SLO on the coast. This time Tracey got us an “environmental” spot, which meant we had to hike up a small mountain a ½ mile to get to our site. We had to minimize what to bring from the car, cause I didn’t want to carry much, or take multiple trips. We got set up, our site had a magnificent view of the ocean and surrounding mountain side. There was a porta potty near us, so that was good. We later went to the beach and just relaxed. We also saw some sea lions, and went into the small town we were near and tried to get phone service, which we did not. That night was pretty cold, but not too bad. We played some more cards and then went to bed.

Next day we had the best drive of the trip, up around Big Sur. It was the type of scenery where you don’t believe it’s real, it’s that amazing. And we’re driving on Highway 1, huggin coast line, overlooking the great big, blue ocean on our left, and Colorado like mountain on our left. At this point we were very excited about Big Sur. We got to our camp ground (which we had to hike an ¼ mile to, geez Tracey, all this hiking, just to camp!!) and set up. We got a nice site under a huge tree, so we had some good shade. We then decided to walk to the beach, which was a mile hike. So we get our crap together and make hike. Once we get the beach, which is actually a bit of a bay, we have to wade through some knee deep water to get to the beach. Then we discover that the wind is gonna be an issue. The wind is so strong and constant that the sand is whipping around and is actually hurting us. Our skin is burning from sand blasting on us. We are just standing there, trying to figure out what to do. We then notice that there are many driftwood and rock shelters lining the beach, we walk down and find an empty one and camp out. Also, the joke we ended up having was that we were told we could take as much drift wood from the beach as we wanted for our camp site, well, as I mentioned, the beach is a mile from our campsite, so what are we supposed to do? Carry wood a mile one way just for a camp fire? Right on. I got bored just sitting in that shelter, being miserable because of the sand blasting that I decided to take the drift wood challenge. I ended up taking 3 loads of drift wood back to our camp site, for a grand total of 6 miles, round trip of hiking just to get fire wood. But it was fun and I got a great work out. The fire we had that night was epic. Ask Tracey, I got really obsessed with having big fires at night, and watching over it, and tending to it. I think Tracey was getting jealous of my fire tending. Every man has a little pyro in him, they understand how it is. That was one of my favorite parts of the trip, having fires every night. Anyway, we were supposed to stay in Big Sur for two nights, but the wind was ridiculous, so we decided to head out the next day and take our chances in Santa Cruz. We only had one night booked up in SC, but we just wanted to get out of Big Sur and the stupid wind. That wind sucked cause it was so beautiful there, and we wanted to do more hiking, but it just was unbearable. I’ll write more tomorrow, I’m tired of typing. I’m just glad I got this out today. Gotta go meet up with Tracey and our good friends Heidi and Ken, then just called, so I’m leaving work now. Or, to put it like one of my favorite lines, “work was hard, so we quite” or something like that, I don’t know. I read your blog mom, so that’s why I got this out today, hope you enjoyed. Go Inidans!

Glad to hear our prayers were answered Mom. Sorry we didn't call you back last night Dad, we were cleaning our old apartment and forgot to bring the cell phone with us. We miss you guys to and will call you soon. We'll be cleaning all of tonight as well, unfortunately, but the new place is coming together nicely and Tracey has done a great job decorated with painting, new lamps and things like that. We are so excited about everyone coming out for Thanksgiving, should be a great time. Hey Dad, is that CS Lewis conference thing a sure thing? There's a guy at work I was telling about the conference and you and he wants to go and meet you as well. I didn't see that Warren Zevon thing on VH1, but I read about him in the local paper and it made me sad as well. I was also reading some stuff on Johnny Cash, which was kinda sad as well, with him just losing his wife. He is very intriguing to me for some reason, even though I don't really listen to his musis (except the traditionary playing of "Ring of Fire" anytime I visit the ole Waffle House in BG). Reading about those guys made me think of gramps. The other night I had a dream about him. I was traveling for what seemed like a far distance, then I finally arrived at this house where he came out, I just ran up to him and threw my arms around him and just started balling my eyes out. I miss him everyday, we need to call him. SD did get Giles, thats funny. Hopefully SD will have a decent team for next years new stadium. And I will be going to as many of the Astros games as I can next weekend, for your birthday Dad. I've been listending to the LF EP that I picked up at the show this weekend over and over, I love it. Just found out that Alkaline Trio and Reggie are touring togther this fall and will be hitting SD the day before my family arrives for Thanksgiving.

Last night I heard an AT & T ad on the radio with Lewis Black as the voice, very funny and cool, love that guy. Tracey and I are really into the new Fox show "The OC". It's really cheesy, I know, but the one kid in it, the real son of the main family is hiliarous. He's also in that new Skate movie "Grind", which I have not seen. I want to see "Step Into Liquid", and Northfolk looked interesting, maybe I'll rent some time. Mare, I'd like to borrow Narc, bring that down for Thanksgiving, I liked that movie, although it's raw. Well, I'm totally worn out from moving and cleaning and working. I'd really like to just go play some bball. Sorry Ryan and Michele, I don't think I can join your fantasy football thing. Some guys at my work got me into a baseball one this summer, but I did nothing with it and was too busy, so I'll have to pass. Ohio State starts their defense of their championship on Saturday. I hate michigan, and how can the Indians lose to the Tigers, that guy was out at home, anyway. Tomorrow is Heidi and Ken, good times ahead.

"If you shave anything below your neck (refering to guys), you're a freak, period." Jim Rome
"I'm stealin to be her one in a million" LF

I passed my FrameMaker final. There have been Great White shark sightings about 35 miles north of SD. And someone got eaten by one in central Cali, does not make surfing look very enticing right now. That's all I got today.

"I'm going surfing cause I don't like your face" Weezer

A quick update here. Tracey and I are mostly moved in now. It was exausting (mostly because El Brundage had already worn me out with his visit). We also painted a bathroom, and then I had to study for my final exam in my FrameMaker class which is tonight. I just want to come home and crash, but I can't. And I want to give some props to Tracey in regards to the moving. She did so much leading up to the move, getting boxes filled up, and even moving several loads on her own in our cars. So it made my job of moving just the big stuff easier, thanks Tracey. Now we have three days to get the new place in order for Heidi and Ken. And find time in there somewhere to clean our old place. I'm tired just thinking about it. Sorry we didn't call you back Mare, we were so tired.

As for the Lassie Foundation, very nice. Wayne had a full band, including two guitars, while he just sang, and a xylaphone (have no idea how to spell that). Campuzano played one of the guitars. Wayne was very stompy and vibrant and sassy, as expected. They played "Im stealin to be your one in a million", "I can be her man", a new one called "We're the number ones" and a few others I didn't recognize. They only played a half hour, so that sucked. I picked up an old ep that I didn't have, and a sticker, but no tshirt, and he didn't have the El Rey LP I was looking for. He said get it on the Northern Records site. They are slowly working on a new album. Overall, very cool, very cush.

Dad, got the Thanksgiving itinerary. Its going to be fun. And Mike, I have plenty to say about your post, but some other time. I don't have time to even get started on that whole mess. And who was cheering for the Tigers this weekend? You let them win one!! No..........