The Vietnam War Sucked

Alyssa and I just watched Platoon, number 86 on the list of 100. I had seen it before but it had been a while, it was her first time. Because her number one priority when watching movies is feeling happy at the end, it wasn't her favorite. I liked it a little less than I had expected, it seemed choppy and had a scattered focus throughout. Also we got it on Comcast On Demand and the sound quality sucked for some reason. Still a pretty solid film and probably my favorite performance by Charlie Sheen and possibly from Willem Dafoe as well.

Young Love

Some friends of mine recently got married, Chris Conley and Ashley Clark (now Ashley Conley). Alyssa and I went to their ceremony & reception in the Alamo Hills and had a blast. Chris had asked me to be bartender while the photos of the bridal party were being taken, which I readily agreed to, no wait for my drinks! After a little trouble tapping the keg of Coors Light (Beer geyser everywhere!) I had the best time. Everybody is your best friend when you're tending bar, especially when the drinks are free!



The rest of the wedding was great too. They had a photo booth set up carnival style, people took pictures and put them in the guestbook to add a visual to the chicken scratch of 250 guests. Alyssa, Josh, Megan and I took a few together also. It was the first time in quite a while that Alyssa and I went dancing, and truly hit home the point that we should probably take some lessons before our own big day! Just kidding, babe. Actually I'm not, we're horrible! It's nice knowing our own wedding is approaching and being able to glean all the best ideas from our friends for our reception. Josh and Megan better look out, we're stealing from them next!

The Office!

No, not the TV show. Vorp moved out April 1st and Josh and I haven't wasted anytime converting his bedroom into our office space. First we moved the computer and video games out of the family room and into the third bedroom. We(I) re-routed the cable & Internet underneath the house and from there I drilled a hole into the bedroom closet to stuff our Ethernet cable up into. After getting the computer up and running we flipped around the living room to open up the entryway and it made the room seem twice as big as before.

Then I was given Good Friday off from work so I went to our neighborhood Target and grabbed a new bookcase and a file cabinet. And paid for them of course. I spent Friday putting together the bookcase and organizing all of our video game stuff on the shelves as well as hooking up my brother's old receiver and putting a RadioShack A/V selector switch on them. The file cabinet I used to empty out my top dresser drawer that had been overflowing with bills, home loan docs, pay stubs, insurance info, etc. and actually arrange it into files. It cleared up a lot of space in my room and made room for my new 32" LCD HDTV. It's nice having HD in my bedroom! It was the cheapest brand I could find, online at Costco.com, but is no longer available. Nice picture so far!

Juries, Juries, Everywhere

After performing my civic duty of Jury service for the last two days, Alyssa and I viewed 12 Angry Men. Starring Henry Fonda, this movie is approximately 96 minutes long and takes place entirely in a jury deliberation room. It was great! Brilliant dialogue, funny moments, high tension and a well written, well acted movie all the way around. Well worth the time to pick it up and give it a view.
The jury duty case I was on ended up being dismissed after two days of missed work and jury examination. Oh well. I earned a big $15 for my two days off, almost enough to pay for gas to and parking at the courtroom!

New Haps

Not much going on for me. Josh and I finally finished the refinance which should save us both a little bit of money going forward. I've began settling in to the idea of having an honest to God fiancee. We went to dinner Thursday night, I looked at her with what I believe to be pure admiration in my eyes and said, "You're going to be my wife." I love the sound of that. She makes me so happy. Also, I'm very good at Wii Sports and Wii Play. My brother bought a new Wii and I played a lot of it this weekend. I'm still waiting on our next movie update though. Hopefully we'll get to 12 Angry Men soon.

My Last Supper...

As a single man. I'm engaged to my wonderful, gorgeous, incredible, brilliant, one-of-a-kind fiancee. For Valentine's Day Alyssa and I cooked up a couple of goat-cheese, tomato, sauteed onion and parmesan tarts to go with a homemade Greek salad with a made from scratch Lemon vinaigrette. And then the real news of the weekend, this morning I proposed to Alyssa! (she said yes). I took an ad out in the Travel Section of the SF Chronicle. It's her favorite section of the paper and reading the paper is my favorite thing to do when I wake up in the morning. Save some weekend in Summer of 2010 for the festivities. Enjoy the pics!

Bringing Up Baby

Finally back to the top 100. Knocked out Bringing Up Baby on Valentine's Day. Really cute flick with Katherine Hepburn and Cary Grant. Katherine Hepburn was damn hot back in the day and the most ebullient personality onscreen. The movie was almost slapstick in nature but truly enjoyable. More to come tomorrow...

Catch Up

My previously stated schedule of one blog per week has obviously not been working. However I got tonight off of class so I figured I'd catch y'all up. Alyssa and I went shopping in the city with her Mom and brother. Ellie was born to Ryan and Bryn, she's adorable and has done nothing but sleep when I'm about. I went up to Tahoe over Martin Luther King Jr. weekend with a Fu Manchu mustache. I looked absolutely ridiculous and loved it. I finished another semester of my apprenticeship school and am down to three semesters left (out of 10). Josh and I are looking at a refinance on our house that could lower our mortgage payment nicely and help us both to save significantly more money every month. I love my girlfriend and every moment I spend with her. Alyssa has truly made it apparent to me what "She makes me want to be a better person" actually means. We have a great time every time we hang out and she actually recently ordered Bringing Up Baby so we can finally continue our movie list. All in all life's good.

It was a hairy situation

How great of a firefighter would I make?

I have been known to have a bit of a neck hair problem. If I don't clean it up every couple of weeks it looks like an ape is climbing out the back of my shirt. So after going about a month and a half without shaving it I finally shaved my head and got rid of the monkey on my back. I had grown my customary beard while growing my hair out and so decided to shave that too. As a joke I left the mustache until Alyssa came over to see it. When i went over to give her a kiss (with mustache) she turned her head away so I couldn't kiss her lips. I don't think she liked it. It's gone now but it will return, possibly as a handlebar. The look on her face says, "You idiot, get rid of that stupid caterpillar on your lip!"

Can You Spot Six Differences Between the Pictures?

Before

After

Actually there is just one difference; though it is a big one. Because the rainy season has begun Josh and I decided it would be a good time to redo the front walk. We got rid of the hideous, oversized, pebbled-concrete pavers (my apologies to anyone out there who may have some like that) and put in a nicer more patio style look. It's hard to tell from the before picture, but they had nine stones tic-tac-toe style with random shrubbery in between. I like the new look better!

BTW: Happy Thanksgiving!

Dorks

So I went by my friendly neighborhood (closing) circuit city and saw guitar hero two on sale for only $45. Being behind in my gaming by an average of three years i went ahead and bought it. Vorp is a dork.

A Sophisticated Wine Party & Food Fest

Our dish

Tyler Moxley of The Moxley Team @ Alain Pinel Realtors Pleasanton held his fourth annual Wine Pairing Party Saturday night, the 25th of October. I pretend that I'm some sort of high brow individual but really I just go for the snacks. Alyssa and I brought an Anderson Valley Cab with an assortment of cheese and cracker options as well as a fresh loaf of a sourdough baguette. I did all the prep and presentation though the dish was her idea. I liked it and it got pretty much taken care of at the party. The rest of the food and wine options were nowhere near as boring as ours though. There were some tasty looking swans containing a nice chocolate mousse, and salami with cream cheese and pepperoncini peppers which i ate about half of (the platter). Good times with good people.

My Favorite

Our host with many, many empty bottles.

Taboo!

Alyssa rules at Taboo! 'Nuff said.

Back to the Blog

Sunrise over the Bay

When I started this blog I was hoping to update it about once a week. Recently that hasn't happened, I guess I'm just too damn busy. Lots of stuff going on though. Alyssa's mother Alicia recently had a birthday, we went to Fuddrucker's. She loved the gifts I got her, though Alyssa did all the shopping, I just contributed some cash.

Last Thursday Alyssa and I spent the evening in the beautiful Embassy Suites Burlingame (she slept on the sofa bed Grandma, honest). My cousin Margo is the guest relations person there and hooked us up with a beautiful room on the bay and some VIP treatment. Friday morning we went up to the city to check out the California Academy of Sciences renovation. Alyssa and I both enjoyed it very much but we're both dorks so if you like aquariums and the like you will probably like it just as much.

Sunday my Grandma Pat celebrated her 80th Birthday. Most of my family surprised her at her home church which was quite a kick because her church boasts a regular attendance of 10 and my family brought 25. She was super surprised and deflected all the praise directed at her to the Lord as she always does.

So yeah, I've been busy, but don't worry I still think my life is as cool as I've always thought it to be, and will continue to share it.

Good Times

So Bryn and Ryan finally discovered the sex of their unborn child, a girl, (see c'est une belle vie for more details) and Alyssa and I played some more party games with them Saturday night. The best part for me, was that the part that seemed to excite them the most about having a girl, was that they didn't have to worry about being peed on whilst changing diapers. It was pretty mind altering to see the two of them together and know that some time in the next few months that baby that Bryn has been cooking is going to be out and about. I truly can't imagine the joy they must feel right now bringing a child into the world.

In other news no progress on the top 100 but I have started Six Feet Under Season One on Comcast On Demand. It's pretty dang good and unexpectedly (to me) stars Michael C. Hall from Dexter. Kind of funny seeing an actor I recognize primarily as a serial killer playing the part of a funeral director.