Conclusion of Variety

I ended up returning to Vegas. My Friday night gaming group thought it would be a great idea to go to Vegas and roleplay there. At first I was indifferent toward it and eventually did not want to go. However, I was convinced otherwise and before I knew was driving to Vegas at 5:00 Friday afternoon.

We arrived at 11:30 and it took forever to check in to the Riviera. We then headed out and ended up at “Treasure Island.” We found a lounge, ordered some drinks, pulled out Changeling: The Dreaming and proceeded to roleplay, drink, and smoke until 3:30 in the morning.

Next day we headed out around 11am and headed over to the Aladdin for the breakfast buffet but it had already switched over to lunch so we ate at a restaurant. We then went to see the Matt King Magic show but Matt wasn’t there and we saw his backup who was very funny. Got some drinks and a massage at the Aladdin.

We returned to our hotels and then headed over to the Hilton for the “Star Trek Experience.” This was the coolest themed event I had ever been to and I really got sucked into it. We also got dinner at Quark’s Bar and talked to a Pharangi and a Klingon.

After that we took a taxi down to Fremont street and then returned to watch the Billagio Water Show. After an exhausting we walked back to the Riviera, got a quick drink and went to bed.

Next morning we got the buffet at our hotel, stopped by the General Gamblers Store and then headed home. Overall this trip was more fun then the last for a number of reason. Things that bothered me about Vegas before weren’t bothering me this time. We had a plan and were with someone who had a good idea of what to do. The Star Trek Experience was awesome.

Family visited over the weekend. When I say family I mean my immediate family plus everyone on my dad’s side. It was sort of a family reunion in San Diego. The main reason for this is that my cousin is currently stationed in San Diego so we have two members of the family in town.

At first I was dreading the event as the last time I had a lot of family visit my home town I had a melt town. It was much better this time. My parents and brother arrived Friday evening and we went out for Japanese. I then took my brother bar hoping. We went wine tasting in Temecula on Saturday. Sunday we had breakfast, walked along the beach and then did the family reunion thing at my cousins house. Monday I took half a day off and hung out with the fam at The Del, and in Old Town.

Overall it was good to have them down even though it was sporadic causing some confusion.

We didn’t plan on going to another baseball game until the Seattle Mariners came down to San Diego sometime in July. However, Stephanie’s boss said he had tickets for the game and if she wanted them. Stephanie contacts me to see if I want to go and I say sure.

We end up hopping on the trolley and heading down to Petco Park. We get to the stadium and head up to the special area called the Toyota Terrace. We then walk into the Kyocera corporate booth to watch the game.

This rocked. There is someone watching the booth and checks your tickets, then opens the door to let you in. You walk into what looks like a living room. The entire thing was catered with fancy hotdogs, spicy chicken, cobb salad, layered bean dip, cookie, beer the works. There were couches on the inside along with a plasma screen to watch the game.

You then walk from the living room out into stadium seating. Each booth has two rows of 6 seats. You get plenty of legroom and you have a little table in front of you. You can see the game perfectly and just in case you don’t like to stare at the stadium their are TVs mounted in the rafting directly above.

As luxurious as the accommodations were the game was sad. Padres lost to the Rockies 4-12. Still, it was tons of fun and a great experience. Hopefully we’ll be able to do it again.

This last weekend Stephanie and I headed up to Solvang which is a little Dutch communty about 30 miles north/east of Santa Barbera. It took us about 4.5 hours to get there and we arrived around 12:30. It was raining when we got there so we grabbed some lunch then decided to drive around and see what was available and then checked into the hotel.

Luckily, soon after it had stopped raining so we head out and looked in a few shops. Soon after we found a winery that was offering wine tasting. I decided to go in and it was $5 to taste 5 wines. Both Stephanie and I did and enjoyed it. The winery told us they had a sister winery just down the street and we could taste there wines for half price. We stopped at a chocolate place and Stephanie got was apparently the better than sex white chocalate peanut butter barrel.

After that we got to the second winery and tried five more wines. The thing about this wine tasting was that we were drinking the wine instead of spitting it out or pooring the rest out. We hit two more wineries drinking 11 or 12 more wines, walked out with 3 bottles of wine, 6 wine glasses and drunk off our asses.

We headed back to the hotel and dropped off the wine and went out to dinner where we each had another glass of wine. After that we went to a bar and stayed out until 11 drinking more wine. We were completely wasted. We went back to the hotel and passed out.

The next morning resulted in the worse hang over I ever head. A migrain set in along with plenty of puking and shaking. At around 8:30 I was able to hold down water and excedrin, 9:30 I was able to hold down apple juice, and by 10:30 I was able to hold down solids so we got some breakfast. Funny enough Stephanie had as much to drink as I have (I rarely see her drink) and though she didn’t feel great she was definatly better of than me. We left at 11:30. The problem was that I drove my new car because I had all the entertainment (CD player, satellite radio, ipod hookup) but Stephanie was use to driving a standard.

I’m not a big baseball fan but Stephanie is. So, last Saturday we attended the semi-finals to the World Baseball Classic. The first game was between the Dominican Republic and Cuba. Yeah, Cuba. This got the best jokes like “wow, those Cubans are playing like their lives depend on it.” The game was pretty slow but the Cubans won which was really cool.

After the game we met up with some livejournal friends, Nancy and Paul and went to Hodads for dinner. We then headed back for the second game, Japan vs Korea. This is easily the funnest baseball game I’ve ever been to. This was mostly because of the Koreans who are the greatest fans I’ve seen. The constantly cheered and were extremely passionate about the game. And I’m not talk about 1 or 2 Koreans, no, I’m talking all of them at the stadium.

The game itself was also exciting as it was a low scoring game but the players were constantly hitting. I’ve found that pitching is what bores me about the game. I like it when the players hit the ball, even if it is a pop fly or an easy out thrown to first.

On Monday we attended the final which was Japan vs Cuba. This was a fun game especially at the top of the ninth when Japan was leading by 1 run. Japan ends up winning and I found that I enjoy “World” baseball a lot more then “Professional” baseball. I liked not having to have a “team” to cheer for. I was just enjoying baseball. I also enjoyed the cultural elements of the different fans and the announcements in different languages.

On Sunday we also attended a play “Intimate Apparel” about a black seamstress who makes lingerie for other woman. She starts getting romantic letters from a mysterious stranger working in Panama. He then shows up in NY and marries the seamstress.

The performance was excellent and everything was well done. The only problem was that you had to keep your ticket to get free parking and I through ours out when we left. Cost me $20. Damn.

Yesturday I ran a game of “Dungeons and Dragons” for a small group of junior high students. It was part of a library program and they needed someone to run the game and I volunteered.

It was really strange. I don’t spend much time around kids at all and wasn’t sure what to expect. As far as D&D went I didn’t know if they would be familier with the rules or not. I’d met with the Librarian about a month ago and she said most of them would not know the rules.

I was also told that we should use the basic rule set. This is a box set with the most basic rules for the game as compared to the three core books (Players Guide, Dungeon Masters Guide, Monster Manual).

I ended up making 6 characters from those core books and prepared a short adventure. Nothing too complicated. Basically the characters were suppose to be part of a small town which they were to protect.

I left in a hurry but ended up about 5 minutes late (5:05). Luckily the librarian and her husband were describing the game to the group of four players, 2 boys and 2 girls. Here I found out they didn’t have any experience and started telling them what a roleplaying game was. We then went over the character sheets using the stuff from the basic game.

We then auctioned off a set of dice and I let the others pick out some dice that they could keep. By this time it was almost 6 and two kids had to leave. Parents kept sticking there heads in saying “we’ll have to leave soon” and I was thinking did they actually sign them up or did they stick them in to keep their kids busy while they do their taxes.

By the time we started playing I only had two players and they had a great time. I expect both of them to be back and they were kind of bummed that I only ran on Thursdays. Another thing was that what I normally plan for in a rpg had no value. Sticking to the basics was key. Such general concepts as what is an elf or a cleric and how to decipher a d4 and what does 2d4 mean were all important and we had to go over them.

Can’t wait until next week.

On Saturday I played my first official tennis match. It was official in the since that it was scheduled. It was against the UCSD Chinese tennis club. We spent parts of the last month practicing in order to play. Of course this wasn’t traditional tennis practice but more like playing matches against other members from our group and playing with your partner in the case of doubles.

This was my case. I had a partner, Tan, who is a really cool dude. During our first practice match we did really well. During the second we did horribly. We tried working together but the second match really brought our self-esteem down.

The match was at 4pm on Saturday. I was a little nervous so went out Saturday morning and practiced some groundstrokes and serves. It didn’t help at all as I was all nerves when I arrived at the UCSD tennis courts that were really nice. Tan and I warmed up next to UCSD men’s tennis team and I suddenly felt intimidated. So, I was intimidated, nervous and confused as the people who organized the event got everyone paired off.

Tan was also affected, as we had no confidence from the beginning. We lost 0-6, 1-6. Pathetic. And it wasn’t that our opponents kicked ass, it was more that we did awful; constantly hitting the ball into the net or out and each unforced error caused havoc with our esteem.

Talking to Tan after the match he said he was having problems hitting what I call bubble balls. These are soft shots that float over the net. The first team we played during practice hit the balls with a lot more pace than the other two and we were able to handle them. I think this is a result of singles players trying to play doubles. I feel like I don’t understand doubles well at all. I know an important part is to form a bond with a partner but that is hard to form over two three matches. I wish we had talked about the bubble balls before or during the match because I realized if we attempted to return bubble balls instead of trying to put pace on the ball we would have had a much better game.

Well, I bought my first new car. I finally got it last Saturday after helping my friend move. It is a black, manual 2006 Scion XA. I had been waiting for 2 weeks when they told me a silver or white would be in but they then told me I’d have to wait 2 more weeks but a black one was available. Honestly, the color didn’t matter so I took it. It had one mile when I drove it off the lot.

Now it has 150 and I love it. I never really cared about cars before but ever since I started the car buying process I’ve noticed that I check out other peoples cars making note of make and model.

I love my new car. It doesn’t have much power but it is pretty small and I just parked in a spot I normally wouldn’t. It is also comfortable easy to drive and I can also have some peace of mind since it has both an alarm and lowjack. I currently on the list to both get an ipod stereo and satellite radio installed. For now, I happy listening to the radio and CD playing. And it really is the little things like being able to change the volume and stations from the stearing wheel, that is so cool.

Oh, and props to my friend Andy who got me a sporty gear shifter that looks great with the car.

Saturday night I had a great b-day party. It was at Uno’s in Pacific Beach. Steph called ahead to let them know we would be there. We got there a little before 6 and headed upstairs to the bar. Soon after Andy showed up. It was the three of us for about 20 minutes and I started in on the beers and Andy got me a shot of the hard stuff. Everyone else showed up soon after and we headed down stairs.

We ordered a couple pizzas and I got pretty drunk. It was a lot of fun. Afterward a few of use headed down to Cheetas (the strip club) and hung out there for an hour. I went home after and watched an episode of Dr. Who which my brother gave.

Today is my b-day. I’ve survived 3 decades and am doing fine. I’m looking forward to my 30s. I want to say that my 20s zipped by but that is not the case. They went on forever.

from Stephanie on the mirror this morning