Lindsay had a few days off for spring break. “Wow, that’s great” – That’s what you might be saying. But YOU ARE RIGHT! It was great! I took a few days off (three, if you want to know) and we had a 5 day great weekend. I should add that prior to this amazing weekend I had an amazing birthday party, thanks to Lindsay, complete with oysters (and a super cool dude who shucked them for us), friends from all over the place, etc.
Well, quite a bit has happened since my last post here. I spent two weeks solo in Chicago for work. Lindsay and I went to a wedding in LA. We spent a day in Santa Cruz. I shaved my beard (and am now growing it back again). Actually that’s all I can think of.
Chicago was a great time. I stayed in a fancy hotel and went to a pretty interesting training. Anthea came to visit, as did my mom and Tristan. I ate some great donuts, and a (not pictured) great pizza.
Anyway, long story short, I took a few photos and figured I might as well post a few of them.
Lindsay and I decided to go camping again this weekend. It was awesome. It really is so incredibly awesome that we live only 2 hours from such an unbelievably beautiful place.
Lindsay and I had a 3 day weekend for Veterans Day, and we decided to do some camping sort of activity for the weekend. AND IT WAS A WONDERFUL ADVENTURE AWESOME WEEKEND.
First, because I am guessing people might be wondering and I want to admit this right away: 1) We didn’t catch any crabs 2) I didn’t get any fish while freediving because I wasn’t spearfishing.
This past weekend (just yesterday actually) Lindsay and I went bug hunting down in SoCal. This was both the first time bug hunting (aka “bug grabbing”) as well as the first time diving in Southern California, and only the second time doing a charter in California.
This past weekend Lindsay and I drove down to Morro Bay to do some camping and diving before next weekends big bug grab. The “bug grab” being a live-a-board dive charter we are doing with a bunch of friends (Nick included!) down near/around/on Catalina Islands off from LAish area.
Anyway, the trip was great/awesome. We got a late start from Oakland (didn’t leave until after 8pm on account of Lindsay having a Cross Country meet), so we didn’t arrive at the campsite until 12:30 pm or so. Thanks to Nick (hey buddy!) for staying up (or getting up?) and calling us at the exact moment that we drove by the campground. This is difficult to appreciate, but somehow at the exact moment that we drove by the campground (we totally missed it and had no idea where we were going) he called. Perhaps it’s because he was using Find my Friends (?).
Not a whole lot to say, but after several hours in the dark room, and many many more scanning photos one at a time, I figured I’d post a few of the photos I’m reasonably happy with (as promised in one of my previous posts).
Sadly, I am not and was not really in the photography mood the past months (ok, year+), and it shows as I’d say the large majority of photos are very much “meh.” That said, I think that developing these photos and spending some time in the dark room has helped me appreciate photos more once again. So hopefully I’ll get back on the horse, a bit.
This past weekend was our 10 year class reunion, and although I did not attend (in large part because flights from SF to GR are so expensive), it seems like a good time to say that I appreciate the time I had with you all.
I tend to look back at things through a rose-colored glass that probably makes what I say sometimes seem a bit “dramatic” or over the top or cheesy, and I don’t have the skill with words to properly convey a feeling. But, if you are the type of person who can watch a movie like The Perks of Being a Wallflower (which I watched last night for the first time – a bit “young” and obvious and hipstery perhaps, but a movie I “feel” and enjoy) and get a sort of warm, melancholy, significant feeling in your head, then know that that is sort of the feeling that I feel when I remember back on my time at Jenison.
It’s Sunday, 9:14am. If you crunch the numbers, that means roughly of the weekend is still available for activities. But! We’ve already done more this weekend then we’d normally do in a month.
Let’s do a quick recap of the big items. For this exercise, you’ll have to pretend you haven’t already read the title of this blog post! Don’t look now if you haven’t already read it! And if you have but perhaps are a bit foggy on it, then don’t look back!
Lindsay says that my previous post about Sykes hot springs makes it sound like we had a terrible time. We had an awesome experience, that was physically painful and exhausting. But I am honestly thrilled that we did it. To show more of our true emotion, here is a short video we took ~5 miles out from the end of the hike (note this is after we were stung by wasps, but before the pain got too hellish in the knee department.
I can barely walk today – today is Monday. Last night we returned home from Sykes hot springs, where Lindsay and I completed (yaaa!!!) a 2 day, 20 mile hike. This is my second (Lindsay’s first) hike-in backpacking trip (the first being much shorter, only a few miles, into Joshua Tree), and for whatever reason we decided that it would be a good idea to start our backpacking experience together with a trail rated “difficult.” See everytrail.com for details if you don’t believe me.
NOTE FROM THE FAR FUTURE: This screenshot is missing, but it was a screenshot of the hiking on everytrail. Which I think is now alltrail? Either way, it was a difficult trail.
Lindsay and I have now done a total of three dives in Monterey. Two dives at Breakwater, two dives at McAbee beach.
The second Breakwater dive was with my Dad, and I think it was pretty great. We saw a small octopus, a bunch of great kelp, sanddabs, and the list goes on. Here is another quick video (note that I wouldn’t claim these are amazing videos but I record video for the sake of the memories, then try to cut them down into short-ish watchable chunks).
As some of you may know, I come from a family of SCUBA divers (from now on I’ll just say “divers” or “diving”, but I mean the SCUBA variety, not the free/olympic/etc variety… though I am very interested in giving freediving a shot). Still, despite having dove in a number of locations around the world (Michigan, Mexico, Belize, Virgin Islands, Thailand, etc…) I had never been diving in the Pacific.
Lindsay and I decided that it was probably a good time to do something about that. We had all of our dive gear out here (thanks family!) so there wasn’t much stopping us. Well two small problems:
-We didn’t have hoods or gloves
-We didn’t know where to dive
Lindsay and I went to Colombia in June. There we met Kyle, Sean (Lindsay’s brothers) as well as our dear friend Corie Brown.
I’m a bit late describing this trip, but it was one of the bigger trips of the year (actually, travel wise it is the biggest in the last two years) so I wanted to at least mention it.
I took 5 days of vacation, making a 9 day trip. Lindsay had two full weeks, as did Kyle and Sean.
Ultra quick post, because Lindsay wanted me to post something:
We MAY be leaving tomorrow (Sunday). Actually we MAY have left today, but as we are flying standby we are never sure for sure. Tomorrow morning’s flights are looking better then today’s though, so we’ll see!
We’ve been in Bangkok for about 10 days now, just hanging out. It’s been nice, and I think we’re going to miss Bangkok, as well as the rest of SE Asia of course.
a few days ago, while paroosing the second-hand book shop, i happened across a compilation of short stories by Paul Auster. well, not actually, “by” paul auster (which is too bad, because i love that man) but rather by 183 americans who decided to write NPR with a small anecdote about their lives to be read on NPR’s This American Life (which just so happens to be my very favorite of all NPR programs). naturally, without any hesitation, i bought it.
I realize this blog may have a mixed audience so I’ll leave out the graphic depictions, but long story short Lindsay, Biggi, and I had Thanksgiving dinner at a bar/brothel tonight. It was actually a really high class place and the food was great, but it was certainly the first Thanksgiving dinner I’VE ever had that was served by somebody whom I could “hire” for “something that was NOT serving food.”k
Lindsay ran the marathon and finished it, so that’s good. Jake, hope you enjoy this one. The drink in her hand is actually a new drink here that tastes like grapefruit but has no sugar or something, and it’s really good, unlike those other fruit flavored water drinks, which are not good.
Note from the far future: I have no idea what this post was all about.
It’s been a long time since we posted anything, and this is not really anything worth writing home about (I think there’s a joke there somewhere), but I figured I’d at least share a picture I enjoy. It’s just a very quick version of what I hope will eventually be something I print out on a wall to remind me of what’s important in life. Lots of photoshop will be needed, but I’m convinced this photo has potential. It’s (as you may see if you read the description) a photo of a place that Lindsay and I stopped at often in Vang Vien Viang (spelling?) to have a water and a coke (total cost: ~80 cents) and look at the incredible rice fields… The photo truly does not do the place justice, the small shack you see was actually somebodies small house that they sold drinks from out front, and it was on a 30 or 40 foot cliff… so when seated on the mat yuo see in the front, you were sort of suspended over top of these beautiful fields… sort of like when Simba was held up in the lion king, same sort of feeling I would imagine.
