Ascent (& descent) In Arroyo Seco

Today i went through probably the most harrowing experience of my 24 years. Except maybe childbirth, i bet that was scary for me too. Anyhow i was working in Arroyo Seco on one of my parents' properties. For those of you who don't know Arroyo Seco is about 20 miles south of Salinas on 101 and probably 10 miles west of 101. It's this beautiful scrub brush landscape with a (sometimes) dry river at the bottom of a, no exaggeration, 500 foot gorge.
So i had the pleasure today of climbing down a sheer cliff face to the bottom of that gorge in order to repair the pump in the well at the bottom. It was terrifying. I love stuff like this, cliff jumping in particular has always been a hell of a thrill for me, but something about knowing one false step might be the last i take increases the pucker factor of something immensely(so much so for my father that he didn't even go down there with me). For those of you who don't know the pucker factor is how much your b-hole tightens and your balls shrivel up when doing something. Anyway i made it down there and got a new pump on the motor so we should be good to go from here, but even if we aren't, i will never be climbing down there again.
That wasn't even the most wonderful part of my day though. When i was on my way down there my father and i stopped at home depot to get some of the stuff we'd need for the day. I've never been more impressed with the quality of absolute moron that home depot finds. We found the world's least concerned Building materials supervisor and the world's most inefficient checker in the same store. I pulled the Charles Meng patented move of putting my two hands together in the shape of a gun and miming blowing my brains out the back of my head while this nut job was scanning away. Oh well, other than that it was a fabulous Saturday and truly an absolutely amazing, wonderful, unforgettable experience. That i will never ever do again.

Shameless Advertising

Since i officially have almost one regular reader of the blog I figured it was time to start advertising on here. The one link on the page is for the newly founded business venture of a couple of friends of mine. They rent inflatable jumpers for kids parties and all the associated equipment you can think of. They're nice guys and I'm hoping i can get them to give me a little kickback if i encourage other's to use them for their children's party needs. Kind of an advertising fee i guess. anyway if you are bored or want to rent jumpers, check them out.

Hypocrisy On Day 1

So today I started a new goal that pretty much goes directly against my rant of yesterday. My girlfriend Alyssa and I started watching AFI's (American Film Institute, not the band) top 100 American movies of the last 100 years(her idea). Our plan was to start at number 100 and work our way down but neither one of us could stay awake for Ben Hur. That means number 99 Toy Story kicked us off with Ben Hur coming later, preferably after a caffeine binge. This may seem like I'm already going against the whole obsessed with the wrong stuff ideas from yesterday, but really I'm holding it to one a week or so, until we get to the good stuff anyway. By the way, Toy Story is an absolutely classic movie, brilliant dialogue, amazing graphics that were literally the first of its kind, they started a revolution in animation and pretty much put old school cartoonists out of the big bucks arena. And I was somewhat chagrined to realize that I still knew over 50% of the dialogue, I was saying most of the movie under my breath right along with the characters. Tonight is the Sharks game, hopefully their last game of the series with the Calgary Flames. Other than that just taking it easy on a lazy Sunday.

Introduction

I've finally caved in to the baser me and decided i need a blog. The title is kind of an inside joke from my days at UCSB. Due to the huge alcohol abuse problems down there every police report was full of kids taken to the drunk tank stories, which of course always ends with, "Housed in Santa Barbara County Jail, Pending Sobriety". At the time i would joke with my friends about starting a band with that name cause we were drunk all the time, but it has somehow evolved into a life lesson for me, a warning against complacency.
It seems that everyone in this world is drunk on something, be it their jobs, sex, alcohol, drugs (legal and otherwise), sports, music, movies or entertainment in general. These can all be wonderful things, but there is such a tendency in this nation, this society in general, to completely immerse yourself in meaningless fluff. I know that I've been guilty of abusing damn near everything on that list at some point. Life can be about so much more than the trivial shit we fill our existence with.
Anyway, that was getting a little too preachy. What Pending Sobriety means to me is that i need to focus on what is real in my life, my girlfriend, my home, my family, my friends, and most of all my future. What i plan on acheiving in this lifetime and how i plan to do it. Where i'm going to go from here. I've taken the bullshit out of my life and am ready for what comes next. I'm tired of this drunk tank shit, ready for the bars of the cell to be thrown open and for my clarity of thought to transform itself into a clarity of purpose, my ideals to mold my actions, and my beliefs to mold my life. Life is too short to do anything else.