A Night in Downtown San Diego

The plan for Friday night was to go down to San Diego and hit up downtown with Nanci and her friends from school. Unfortunately all of her friends flaked for one reason or another (sick, going back home...etc.) so it ended up being just her and I, "Oh darn!" *sarcasm*

Since Nanci is so familiar with San Diego, she was my car's GPS navigation for the night (with a much sexier voice, I might add).

First up on our adventure, finding a parking spot. The Gaslamp district was already packed, so after going in a few circles and finding nothing we ended up parking at the Hyatt not too far away. Right as we exited the parking structure a guy on a bike taxi (officially called a "pedicab") pulled up and asked us if we wanted a ride. It seemed like it'd be fun so we hopped on and our "driver", Kevin, started pedaling us into Gaslamp. We ended up in a crowd of 4 or 5 other bike taxis and I yelled, "They're beating us!" So Kevin raced 'em and got us to the very front while we taunted the losers behind us.

Kevin, our awesome bike taxi driver guy.

"Pretending" to be scared for our lives on the bike taxi ride.
We felt like Italian cuisine so I had him drop us off at Buca Di Beppo. The host walked us through the kitchen to seat us at our table, which was pretty neat. While we were waiting for our food I showed Nanci my amazing table tricks and bar bets. She was totally impressed of course! The food and drinks were very good (except for the fly which we trapped in a glass and gave to the bus boy to set free). Nanci even got into the table trick spirit by leaving our waiter one of those famous dollar shirts, which she made all by herself! You can see how proud she is of it.


A quick side story: We were really full but still had a couple large stuffed pasta shells left. Now normally I wouldn't take them with me if we're going to be walking around, but I remember seeing a few homeless people on the way in, so I had our server box it up with a plastic fork so I could give it to one of them. After leaving the restaurant we came across a homeless man collecting cans. He seemed a little surprised at first but eventually said, "I'll take it."

After dinner we headed over to the Shout House. A dueling piano bar. You haven't lived until you've heard Baby Got Back and Ice Ice Baby on pianos with beat boxing!

Everyone was definitely "Stayin' Alive"
On the walk back to the car we took a picture in front of some fountains you can't see.
We decided to call it a night pretty early (11PM), since we both had things to do the next day and I still had the hour drive back. We had a really good time as downtown San Diego is always fun. I can't wait until next time. With even more people, it'll be even more fun!

Pizza Party!

After a half day of work and half day of listening to a motivational speaker ("Choose your attitude"), Jonathan invited some of us from work over for dinner and a movie. Here are the results:

Jonathan made a pepperoni and mushroom pizza.

And Krystin made a BBQ chicken pizza.

15 minutes later, the results of pepperoni and mushroom pizza.

In case it's not obvious enough, we watched Walk Hard. It was ridiculously funny! Memorable Quote: "Let's go play machete fight. Ain't no terrible tradgedy's gonna happen today!"

A shot of everyone chowing down. The homemade pizza was delicious! "It's not delivery, it's DiJonahtan."
So when's the next pizza and movie night Jonathan? I want a Hawaiian pizza!

I love the world...

I think this pretty much sums up my sweet weekend.

Exciting Activity of the Day

Nothing quite like waking up at 5:30AM! Yes, I put the "AM" in all CAPS to emphasize my yelling it. Just kidding, it wasn't all that bad. But why would I wake up at such and ungodly hour you ask? Well, it has to do with getting ready for Temecula's 2008 State of the City address.

Each year the current mayor goes over the accomplishments of the past year and what to look forward to in the present and near future for the City. Each mayor puts their own personal touch or theme on the event. This year's theme presented by Mayor Mike Naggar was "Winning Championships". So it had a sports and team emphasis.

Like the past few events, this one was held at the spacious Pechanga Casino. Always a nice venue and the free breakfast is definitely a plus. Jonathan and I ran the presentation and audio/video for the event. Everything on the screens behind the mayor was me and Jonathan's handiwork.

We rehearsed the night before, where we ran into a major glitch when one of the circuits blew and we lost power to the equipment. Luckily after they fixed the breaker the live event the next morning went flawlessly.

My Room is Complete

Well, after spending the weekend unpacking and getting rid of stuff. I also managed to setup my room just how I wanted. Take a look.

I hung my flat stereo above my bed, for some sweet dream music.

I put up my sweet moving LED art. It took me a couple tries to get it level.

And I connected my lamp with an X10 controller so I can turn on, off and dim the light wirelessly.

Out with the old

So in my effort to go from this:

(not really my mess)

To this:


The time has come for the great purge of '08. All those trinkets, gadgets, and baubles I've held on to for years will end up in one of three places. The keep it, donate it, or trash it boxes.

First up on my list. My old papers. Papers from high school, papers from my filing cabinet, I had papers dating back to 1998. So I went through each folder and threw out or shredded almost everything before 2006. I must have ended up shredding about 3 reams worth of paper and threw out 2 more.


Next were my old PCs. The ones that started it all. I remember it like it was yesterday, playing games, reloading it every week, breaking it, then figuring out how to fix it over and over again. Then I got connected to the internet, from there it's all history. hehe Okay, maybe I wasn't that nostalgic about them but I was environmentally concerned. I didn't want them to end up at some landfill leaking toxic material into the ground. So I chose to donate them. A quick Craigslist search for people looking for free PCs and "wa-la". I found a kid looking for a PC to store his files on and a company that picks up old computers and parts and uses them to repair and build new computers for people. Good karma, I welcome thee.


So what's left? Well I'd say I've gone through more than half of my stuff. Next up, pets! j/k We'll never get rid of you Keri. Not that you can even read this, since you're a cat.

Where the Magic Happens

You are looking at my new desk setup. Notice how clean and minimalistic it is. This is where I will be typing up my amazing blog posts from now on.

Let's see how long I'm able to keep it this clean. I give it 2 weeks. ;)

Yays, I found it!

So I've been unpacking all my boxes, using the dump and sort method. Dump the box, throw out the stuff I don't need, put the stuff I need away. I went through 2 larger boxes and was starting on a 3rd smaller box of papers. I dump it...AND WHAT DO I SEE?!?!!!

My digital camera that I've been missing since October! I'm soooooo stoked. I knew it had to be around somewhere, but I hadn't seen it in so long I started thinking I might have left it at someone's house or party or house party.

Unpacking is great! You never know what kind of treasure is going to turn up.