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Year In Pictures 2004
This year's CA Ski Trip was pretty fun, having finally learned how to slow down my snowboard but it was still a tough chore getting all the way down the mountain. First off right before I got to Sky Lodge I took off my snowboard and it slid into a marked off area of snow. The snow was about 4 feet deep so I crawled to my board with as wide of a surface area as possible. I still fell about 1 foot or two into the snow. Then it also took me forever to get down Maggie's run of Heavenly. When I tried getting up after a fall about two hills before the finish I twisted something on my knee so I just gave up, unstrapped my snowboard and walked down the last two hills to the main lift area. I guess snowboarding is not my forte. I suppose if people stopped inviting me up to the intermediate runs I would have enjoyed it more, or maybe not.
Sunday night. Everyone got settled in. We rented boards from this one ski shop that smelled like shit. Mike and Carolyn got hitched at the nearby Chapel while we were waiting. Played our only games of Poker in CA on Sunday.
Monday we snowboarded, which is already described above. At night we drank and I donated my bottle of Smirnoff that we didn't drink at the Troy Thanksgiving Get Together. I ended up drinking one Bacardi Gold over my limit in the mountains and subsequently made only my second prayer to the porcelain God.
Tuesday afternoon we went into downtown Tahoe and went to some casinos to gamble. Well at least other people gambled. I ended up not gambling because the tables just looked bad. At night we drove into Reno to eat at the expensive ass buffet that really wasn't that good. I would have been happy with just a burger but that's okay. What was not okay was me going to play some blackjack later on and ended up losing $70 to a dealer who pulled THREE straight blackjack's out of his ass. Such bullshit.
Wednesday was me actually going to gamble at Caesar's Palace. I actually came out on top from that but I spent it on a Subway Combo so I came out of that one pretty unscathed. I was actually down a lot of chips but I came back. On one hand I split Eights, getting a 3 and then double downed and pulled a 10. The other Eight I played also got a 3 and then when I double downed that I also got another 10. So I had a total of $40 in that hand alone which I ended up winning and helped me significantly
Okay I'm sick of summarizing all of Ski Trip. And I doubt anyone really wants to hear the whole play by play. What I learned:
1) Again I am only funny when I'm drunk. I'm a real bore when I don't drink
2) Courtney is actually a fourth year, and not a second year as I suspected.
3) Le broke his rule about girls and kissing.
4) My impressions of people changed a lot since I actually started to talk to them.
5) If you have 12 and you ask the dealer to hit, you're going to get that 10 that busts you.
6) Frisco is a nice place but I'm not sure I could handle the overcrowding and inflationary rate on apartments.
So that's it. I'll have videos of Eileen and Allen tomorrow. Here's my photos
Sunday night. Everyone got settled in. We rented boards from this one ski shop that smelled like shit. Mike and Carolyn got hitched at the nearby Chapel while we were waiting. Played our only games of Poker in CA on Sunday.
Monday we snowboarded, which is already described above. At night we drank and I donated my bottle of Smirnoff that we didn't drink at the Troy Thanksgiving Get Together. I ended up drinking one Bacardi Gold over my limit in the mountains and subsequently made only my second prayer to the porcelain God.
Tuesday afternoon we went into downtown Tahoe and went to some casinos to gamble. Well at least other people gambled. I ended up not gambling because the tables just looked bad. At night we drove into Reno to eat at the expensive ass buffet that really wasn't that good. I would have been happy with just a burger but that's okay. What was not okay was me going to play some blackjack later on and ended up losing $70 to a dealer who pulled THREE straight blackjack's out of his ass. Such bullshit.
Wednesday was me actually going to gamble at Caesar's Palace. I actually came out on top from that but I spent it on a Subway Combo so I came out of that one pretty unscathed. I was actually down a lot of chips but I came back. On one hand I split Eights, getting a 3 and then double downed and pulled a 10. The other Eight I played also got a 3 and then when I double downed that I also got another 10. So I had a total of $40 in that hand alone which I ended up winning and helped me significantly
Okay I'm sick of summarizing all of Ski Trip. And I doubt anyone really wants to hear the whole play by play. What I learned:
1) Again I am only funny when I'm drunk. I'm a real bore when I don't drink
2) Courtney is actually a fourth year, and not a second year as I suspected.
3) Le broke his rule about girls and kissing.
4) My impressions of people changed a lot since I actually started to talk to them.
5) If you have 12 and you ask the dealer to hit, you're going to get that 10 that busts you.
6) Frisco is a nice place but I'm not sure I could handle the overcrowding and inflationary rate on apartments.
So that's it. I'll have videos of Eileen and Allen tomorrow. Here's my photos
Thursday: Ate Thanksgiving dinner with the family, then stayed up all night and left at 4AM to goto Best Buy for Black Friday.
Friday Morning: Asuka was nice enough to tag along with me and wait it out but I'm pretty sure she regretted it because even before we got into the store she wanted to leave. Haha TOO BAD.. :/ I got a hard drive and a couple of DVDs. Some Asian family had 5 hard drives which had rebates limited to one household.
Friday Night: There was a lot of confusion about where and when this place was, I tried to call everyone and get it all organized but unfortunately I had very limited amount of time to do it. I'm sorry if I forgot to invite you or if you couldn't make it for one reason or another but I tried my best and it's very hard to remember everyone especially when they never ever ever talk to you even though you spend your whole time on AIM just waiting for that person to IM you and say "hi" or even just sign on AIM.
They also decided to prank me by telling the Buca employees that it was my birthday and as a result I got four waitresses to dance, sing and shake their boobies in front of me. The two in the middle were the best ones out of the group although I might have to reconsider it if I can get a picture from someone. Afterwards we went to Heroes briefly to have a couple of drinks. Then we went over to Don's house to play some Poker which I ended up losing in the end because Mike Chen is a stinkin' cheater.
Saturday: Went with family up to Palm Springs. We were going to goto Cabazon but we couldn't find parking even after an hour so we just left to go gambling. We decided to go eat and we saw a Burger King so we exited only to find out that this was the place where they filmed that scene in that Peewee movie where he's in the T-Rex. So my sisters and I took pictures with the T-Rex and the Brachiosaurus that was there
.
After that we drove to the Casino, it was called Aqua something. I decided to play Blackjack even though my previous outing wasn't so good. But I ended up winning $20 even though I was up by about $70 or so at one point. Stupid hustler dealer screwing me out of good cards at the end
Also Troy people: Please post pics of the waitresses at Buca's, thanks.
Friday Morning: Asuka was nice enough to tag along with me and wait it out but I'm pretty sure she regretted it because even before we got into the store she wanted to leave. Haha TOO BAD.. :/ I got a hard drive and a couple of DVDs. Some Asian family had 5 hard drives which had rebates limited to one household.
Friday Night: There was a lot of confusion about where and when this place was, I tried to call everyone and get it all organized but unfortunately I had very limited amount of time to do it. I'm sorry if I forgot to invite you or if you couldn't make it for one reason or another but I tried my best and it's very hard to remember everyone especially when they never ever ever talk to you even though you spend your whole time on AIM just waiting for that person to IM you and say "hi" or even just sign on AIM.
They also decided to prank me by telling the Buca employees that it was my birthday and as a result I got four waitresses to dance, sing and shake their boobies in front of me. The two in the middle were the best ones out of the group although I might have to reconsider it if I can get a picture from someone. Afterwards we went to Heroes briefly to have a couple of drinks. Then we went over to Don's house to play some Poker which I ended up losing in the end because Mike Chen is a stinkin' cheater.
Saturday: Went with family up to Palm Springs. We were going to goto Cabazon but we couldn't find parking even after an hour so we just left to go gambling. We decided to go eat and we saw a Burger King so we exited only to find out that this was the place where they filmed that scene in that Peewee movie where he's in the T-Rex. So my sisters and I took pictures with the T-Rex and the Brachiosaurus that was there
.After that we drove to the Casino, it was called Aqua something. I decided to play Blackjack even though my previous outing wasn't so good. But I ended up winning $20 even though I was up by about $70 or so at one point. Stupid hustler dealer screwing me out of good cards at the end
Also Troy people: Please post pics of the waitresses at Buca's, thanks.
I'm pretty sick
Posted 2004-11-14 12:57:37 AM | Winter
I think I'm going to die. True Story.
Edit: Sweeet sweet drugs are my friends.
Edit: Sweeet sweet drugs are my friends.
Year In Pictures 2003
Merry Christmas everyone!
That's it.
Movie Reviews:
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (LOTRROTK) - Great movie, a nice ending to the trilogy. Lots and lots of gay innuendos. Was waiting for Gimli to jump on bed with rest of hobbits and also for Sam and Frodo to begin making out.
American Wedding - Continues the tradition of the previous two movies. I liked it but it had terrible editing where one scene would begin with a conflict that didn't see a solution at the end.
Infernal Affairs - Import from China. Great flick. I don't really know how to describe this one. I just hope they don't fuck it up for the Americanized Version (staring Brad Pitt). One of the guys in the movie looked like an asian Colin Farrell. Colin Farrell will probably play his character in the remake. Also the China "PC" alternate ending for this movie sucked and made no sense.
Turn Left, Turn Right - This was a typical 'boy meets girl, girl meets boy, both lose each other and find each other in the end' kind of movie. I'm not sure how long this movie was but let's assuming it was a 2 hour movie they wrote enough dialogue for a 1 hour movie because the boy and girl said the same thing in sequential scenes. Okay but cheesy movie.
That's it.
Movie Reviews:
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King (LOTRROTK) - Great movie, a nice ending to the trilogy. Lots and lots of gay innuendos. Was waiting for Gimli to jump on bed with rest of hobbits and also for Sam and Frodo to begin making out.
American Wedding - Continues the tradition of the previous two movies. I liked it but it had terrible editing where one scene would begin with a conflict that didn't see a solution at the end.
Infernal Affairs - Import from China. Great flick. I don't really know how to describe this one. I just hope they don't fuck it up for the Americanized Version (staring Brad Pitt). One of the guys in the movie looked like an asian Colin Farrell. Colin Farrell will probably play his character in the remake. Also the China "PC" alternate ending for this movie sucked and made no sense.
Turn Left, Turn Right - This was a typical 'boy meets girl, girl meets boy, both lose each other and find each other in the end' kind of movie. I'm not sure how long this movie was but let's assuming it was a 2 hour movie they wrote enough dialogue for a 1 hour movie because the boy and girl said the same thing in sequential scenes. Okay but cheesy movie.
It's been more than a week since I headed to UCI to go on the CA Ski Trip. I packed up my stuff on Saturday and headed out to UCI at night. After a brief stop at CV to get some final things. I dragged all that crap down to the Social Science Parking Lot then to the Student Center Parking Lot when I realized that no one was at SSPL. Once there I met up with Ed. We were the first ones there, none of the officers were there yet.
Eventually people started arriving one by one, we manage to assign everyone to a car and fit all the bags into the back of the vans and head off at around 12:45 AM Sunday.
Sunday: We drove from about 12:45AM until about 12:00PM Sunday. During this time I only did 2 things. Sleep, and wake up to use the bathroom during the rest stops. At around 8AM we got to the base of the mountain. We ate breakfast at a McDonalds and also heard the news that Saddam Hussein was captured, in a hole no less. At 12 we made our way to the rental place for the people who needed skiing/snowboarding gear. Then after that we ate at Marie Calendar's. There is something wrong with this Marie Calendar. First the manager totally ignored our table. Sam and I ate with two others (can't seem to recall which two) and the manager waited on CA people who came much later than us and basically any attempt to get service was ignored. Eventually one of the waitresses took pity on us and took our order. Oh yeah and Hot Chocolate at Marie Calendar's in Lake Tahoe cost $2.50.
We eat and then we get the bill. Since we were such a big group, they split us into smaller groupings of 4 to 6. But apparently since there were 55 of us, separated, they decided to add in this ridiculous gratuity to our fee. Even though they split us apart because they couldn't handle so many people, they still charged us for having to serve said large group. Think about that for a minute. Restaurants usually charge you money for having to serve a large group of people with one waiter. But not only were there multiple waiters waiting on us, we weren't even a large group for the waiters to manage. Each of them probably only had to take care of two tables. Anyways, we paid our bill but we left a smaller tip mainly because a $15 dollar gratuity fee split among 4 people is pretty goddamn expensive.
We finally make it into our cabin at around 3 and everyone settles in to find a place to sleep. Luckily I was able to take the bed in one of the rooms and slept on it for the rest of the trip.
Speaking of the room I was sleeping in. It was THE ROOM TO BE IN! Every night there were always people chatting it up and more people coming in and out of there. Everyone wanted to be in the cool room!
Well okay some people came in because the room was the only place to get one bar of reception on their cell phones. People were on the bed moving their cellphones left to right like one of those scanners from Ghostbusters trying to get the coveted two bars of reception. But still it was a cool place to hang out.
Monday: This was the main skiing/snowboarding day. Everyone went to Heavenly to go have a good time. Being out there at like 9-10AM in the morning reminded me of why I hate the cold. It's cold. Even with several layers of clothing it was still cold. I only bought big thick gloves that were too big to grip anything small. I didn't bother to buy smaller gloves that I could use to help me keep warm so the whole day my hand would go numb everytime I took off my gloves.
Snowboarding in general was fun, but tough. Even the beginner's mountain was hard for me. It's not the fact that I couldn't stand up. Standing up and going down the hill fast was no problem. Learning how to turn and slow down was a different matter. For the life of me I could not "carve" my snowboard well enough to slow down. I would either carve too hard and fall on my ass or I would have to purposely fall to stop my snowboard. For some reason I thought it would be wise to go to the next easiest slope and I ended up staying there for half an hour snowboarding and falling in succession.
Well you know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me." Well for some reason I was convinced by the other people there that I had not gone on the right course and that in fact I went on a more difficult course. So back up I went to that slope only to realize that the one I took was in fact the 2nd easiest slope and that I would have to go down it again. Luckily there were other people with me this time and we kept each other company while we tried to get down the mountain. One of our partners ran into one of the signs while we were starting and ran her snowboard into a tree right at the end. Good times. Good times.
Well at night when we got back to the cabin... Let's just say things got a little wild. Not much of the action was recorded by me but let's just say a few people on the trip have perfect blackmail material :)
Tuesday: A group of people went snowboarding again while another group went to Downtown Lake Tahoe to just look at some of the shops. Nothing much went on there except I won myself a harmonica only to realize later that it only plays 4 notes. At night we went to Reno where we ate at a buffet and then went to their "Win stuffed animals" Game Place. I played Ski Ball for an hour with little success, destroying the notion that I was king of ski ball. I still won a monkey though, so that was pretty cool.
Wednesday: Not much happened here, just a lot of chilling and relaxing. I woke up at like 9:15 because people had left earlier to go snowboarding again. I don't think anyone else woke up until noon. We got a lot of snow time though. Someone bought disc shaped sleds and we rode down this hill that was next to the house. And then later on in the night some of us went out and had a small snowball fight.
Thursday: Everyone packs to goto San Francisco. $30 Parking!!! A group of us went to Fisherman's Wharf where we saw the Bush Man. Haha, that was awesome. Paul didn't believe there was such a thing but there he was with his bushes.
We headed towards this World Famou Ghirardelli's where we ordered their Earthquake 8-Scoop Sundae. We totally annihilated that shit.
Ended up going back to eat with the rest of the group at Lichee Garden. They gave us a ton of food which we couldn't finish, which was sad 'cause we had a ton of guys at our table.
To wrap it up, we started driving back at around 10:30, we got back to Irvine at around 5 or so and then I found myself back home after a fantastic week.
Miscellaneous:
If it smells like Icy Hot in your room, someone must have slept on top of an open Icy Hot tube and spread it all over your sleeping bag.
Someone clogged up one of the toilets with what can only be described as dried apple sauce.
It is funny when you see someone in San Fran. turn their wheels the wrong way on a sloped hill. It is funnier when someone sticks a "How to park your car on a sloped hill" scrap from the San Fran guide on their windshield wiper.
Ski Ball at the Circus Circus is rigged, I swear to god.
A certain person decided to punch someone because said person wanted to get some sleep while others wanted to watch Minority Report. Either he really wanted to get some sleep or he was determined to not watch another Tom Cruise movie in the same night.
Here is me with a picture of Mt. Doom, aka the Heavenly slope to the top.
Eventually people started arriving one by one, we manage to assign everyone to a car and fit all the bags into the back of the vans and head off at around 12:45 AM Sunday.
Sunday: We drove from about 12:45AM until about 12:00PM Sunday. During this time I only did 2 things. Sleep, and wake up to use the bathroom during the rest stops. At around 8AM we got to the base of the mountain. We ate breakfast at a McDonalds and also heard the news that Saddam Hussein was captured, in a hole no less. At 12 we made our way to the rental place for the people who needed skiing/snowboarding gear. Then after that we ate at Marie Calendar's. There is something wrong with this Marie Calendar. First the manager totally ignored our table. Sam and I ate with two others (can't seem to recall which two) and the manager waited on CA people who came much later than us and basically any attempt to get service was ignored. Eventually one of the waitresses took pity on us and took our order. Oh yeah and Hot Chocolate at Marie Calendar's in Lake Tahoe cost $2.50.
We eat and then we get the bill. Since we were such a big group, they split us into smaller groupings of 4 to 6. But apparently since there were 55 of us, separated, they decided to add in this ridiculous gratuity to our fee. Even though they split us apart because they couldn't handle so many people, they still charged us for having to serve said large group. Think about that for a minute. Restaurants usually charge you money for having to serve a large group of people with one waiter. But not only were there multiple waiters waiting on us, we weren't even a large group for the waiters to manage. Each of them probably only had to take care of two tables. Anyways, we paid our bill but we left a smaller tip mainly because a $15 dollar gratuity fee split among 4 people is pretty goddamn expensive.
We finally make it into our cabin at around 3 and everyone settles in to find a place to sleep. Luckily I was able to take the bed in one of the rooms and slept on it for the rest of the trip.
Speaking of the room I was sleeping in. It was THE ROOM TO BE IN! Every night there were always people chatting it up and more people coming in and out of there. Everyone wanted to be in the cool room!
Well okay some people came in because the room was the only place to get one bar of reception on their cell phones. People were on the bed moving their cellphones left to right like one of those scanners from Ghostbusters trying to get the coveted two bars of reception. But still it was a cool place to hang out.
Monday: This was the main skiing/snowboarding day. Everyone went to Heavenly to go have a good time. Being out there at like 9-10AM in the morning reminded me of why I hate the cold. It's cold. Even with several layers of clothing it was still cold. I only bought big thick gloves that were too big to grip anything small. I didn't bother to buy smaller gloves that I could use to help me keep warm so the whole day my hand would go numb everytime I took off my gloves.
Snowboarding in general was fun, but tough. Even the beginner's mountain was hard for me. It's not the fact that I couldn't stand up. Standing up and going down the hill fast was no problem. Learning how to turn and slow down was a different matter. For the life of me I could not "carve" my snowboard well enough to slow down. I would either carve too hard and fall on my ass or I would have to purposely fall to stop my snowboard. For some reason I thought it would be wise to go to the next easiest slope and I ended up staying there for half an hour snowboarding and falling in succession.
Well you know the saying, "Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice, shame on me." Well for some reason I was convinced by the other people there that I had not gone on the right course and that in fact I went on a more difficult course. So back up I went to that slope only to realize that the one I took was in fact the 2nd easiest slope and that I would have to go down it again. Luckily there were other people with me this time and we kept each other company while we tried to get down the mountain. One of our partners ran into one of the signs while we were starting and ran her snowboard into a tree right at the end. Good times. Good times.
Well at night when we got back to the cabin... Let's just say things got a little wild. Not much of the action was recorded by me but let's just say a few people on the trip have perfect blackmail material :)
Tuesday: A group of people went snowboarding again while another group went to Downtown Lake Tahoe to just look at some of the shops. Nothing much went on there except I won myself a harmonica only to realize later that it only plays 4 notes. At night we went to Reno where we ate at a buffet and then went to their "Win stuffed animals" Game Place. I played Ski Ball for an hour with little success, destroying the notion that I was king of ski ball. I still won a monkey though, so that was pretty cool.
Wednesday: Not much happened here, just a lot of chilling and relaxing. I woke up at like 9:15 because people had left earlier to go snowboarding again. I don't think anyone else woke up until noon. We got a lot of snow time though. Someone bought disc shaped sleds and we rode down this hill that was next to the house. And then later on in the night some of us went out and had a small snowball fight.
Thursday: Everyone packs to goto San Francisco. $30 Parking!!! A group of us went to Fisherman's Wharf where we saw the Bush Man. Haha, that was awesome. Paul didn't believe there was such a thing but there he was with his bushes.
We headed towards this World Famou Ghirardelli's where we ordered their Earthquake 8-Scoop Sundae. We totally annihilated that shit.
Ended up going back to eat with the rest of the group at Lichee Garden. They gave us a ton of food which we couldn't finish, which was sad 'cause we had a ton of guys at our table.
To wrap it up, we started driving back at around 10:30, we got back to Irvine at around 5 or so and then I found myself back home after a fantastic week.
Miscellaneous:
If it smells like Icy Hot in your room, someone must have slept on top of an open Icy Hot tube and spread it all over your sleeping bag.
Someone clogged up one of the toilets with what can only be described as dried apple sauce.
It is funny when you see someone in San Fran. turn their wheels the wrong way on a sloped hill. It is funnier when someone sticks a "How to park your car on a sloped hill" scrap from the San Fran guide on their windshield wiper.
Ski Ball at the Circus Circus is rigged, I swear to god.
A certain person decided to punch someone because said person wanted to get some sleep while others wanted to watch Minority Report. Either he really wanted to get some sleep or he was determined to not watch another Tom Cruise movie in the same night.
Here is me with a picture of Mt. Doom, aka the Heavenly slope to the top.
Finals are finished. I'll be gone next week but I hope to see everyone later on next week. Until then for those of you with finals... Good Luck! Enjoy the vacation.