Lot o' Stuff

Let's see... went to Palo Alto with Alyssa a while back to get lunch and cupcakes. Sprinkles cupcakes has these high quality fancy shmancy cupcakes that have a ton of frosting.

My brother took me to the Sharks game with some 6th row tickets that were awesome.

And we rode a holiday train in Sunol.

That about sums up the last couple weeks.

A Night at the Opera

Alyssa and I finally got to the Marx Bro's movie A Night at the Opera. All it took was a long holiday weekend for us to run out of excuses to avoid it. The best thing I can say about it is that Alyssa would (and did) rather wash dishes than watch it. Oh well, it was another of the hundred down. I think this will be firmly ensconced in least favorite position for now.

Wedding Fun Part Deux!

One nice view from our room.

Alyssa and I went to Union Square to begin the bulk of our registering at the Macy's there. Since we were in the city I figured we should go out to a nice dinner and stay at the Westin St. Francis and make it one helluva day. It was awesome. We went to dinner at Fleur de Lys a fine cuisine spot owned and operated by Top Chef Masters contestant Hubert Keller. The food was incredible, Monsieur Keller was a humble and gracious host and the hotel was great.
This is my dessert, the Fleurburger with banana milkshake and fennel ice cream fries.

Oh yeah, the registering was fun too.

Wedding Fun!

The registering has begun! Alyssa and I went to Target the other day and did our first bit of registering for wedding presents. We had such a nice time we've decided to go to Macy's at Union Square to register for the dishes she wants as well as all the other stuff. What do you register for anyway? In addition to whatever kitchen crap we go for we're also interested in one year's worth of netflix if anyone is interested in buying it for us and all sorts of other weird stuff as well. I registered for a PS3 at Target, just in case.

Camera Is Back!

Nicest part about my new iphone? Always having a camera with me. I went down to Carmel last weekend to help install a new door at my parent's home there. My dad and I cut out the wall to fit the new door in while my brother removed the existing flue pipe for the water heater and furnace. I also removed a couple of windows that were in the part of the house that the addition is tying into. (My parents didn't want windows looking into their new master suite from other parts of the house I guess).

On Sunday I went to my Aunt Kathy's for my Grandma Pat's surprise 81st birthday party. She was suitably surprised and was thrilled to have her family together. We played a round of Grandma themed Pictionary, including places she and my Grandpa had met and dated, previous jobs she held, and some of her passions, including gardening and Sunday school teaching.

I took most of today off because of the horrible weather, this is a picture I took while driving across the San Rafael bridge at seven this morning. Safe , I know!

New Phone!

If I haven't returned your phone call or text messages for the last few weeks it probably wasn't personal; my phone just didn't work anymore. So I got an iphone. It's great. I love it. I had no idea how wonderful it was and considering I went from never having a phone anywhere near the capabilities of your standard smart phone to this I'm pretty much blown away. It's only a little bit more than my current phone plan too. I'm really freaking jazzed right now.

The Haps.

I'm feeling blah, blah about the blahg right now. It seems more effort than it is really worth to continually coming up with witticism after witticism. However, some cool stuff has recently happened so I felt like updating. Alyssa had her 23rd Birthday (Yay Alyssa!) we went to the concours d'elegance in Pebble Beach and I finished the job I've been on for the past four and a half months at Stanford. The concours was fun, it was a beautiful day in Carmel and the cars were gorgeous. Jerry Seinfeld, Jay Leno, Arnold Schwarzenegger? and some other celebs were there making it seem very posh. We went out for drinks to celebrate Alyssa's birthday last Saturday at Easy 925, a club in Danville. Everybody wanted to buy her a drink, thankfully she didn't overdo it. We've finally decided on a cake maker for the wedding, which makes one less thing left. Other than that, same old same old.

CFW Throws a No-Hitter!

Alyssa's little bro Christopher threw a no-hitter Saturday morning in a little league tournament. In four innings (the other team got mercy ruled) he struck out 9 had one walk and didn't allow a hit. He also walked, had an RBI double and a single while scoring two runs. In an earlier game he got beaned, thankfully on his non-throwing arm, and scored a couple of runs as well. He was pretty stoked.

Lights, , Action!

The blank space in between Lights and Action would normally include Camera, but my life has been camera free for the last couple of months it seems. Alyssa and I went to Carmel for a four day weekend on the Fourth of July and I forgot my camera. There was a 42 mile bike ride out of Carmel Valley that I didn't bring my camera to, a great hike from the coast in between Carmel Highlands and Big Sur that I left my camera at the house for, and great dinners in Carmel by the Sea that didn't include any picture taking.
I went to Josh and Megan's engagement party on July 11th but didn't have my camera with me. Alyssa cooked me meals that entire weekend and I didn't capture any on film. The Lacks had Alyssa and I over for a BBQ Sunday and I got no new pictures of now 6 month old Ellie. My parents had me over for my birthday Tuesday night and my Mom actually took some pictures, so that doesn't count.
Anyway I've been dropping the ball on picture taking, and without pictures blogging can be B-O-R-I-N-G. So I've been slacking on that too. Alyssa and I whooped up on Ryan & Bryn Sunday in a pictionary game, though it was for my birthday so maybe they let us win. Ellie has really started to show some personality from the previous times I've seen her, smiling and interacting with people and toys, rather than just sleeping and eating. Wedding plans are progressing on schedule, I guess, and work has been going well. Overall, life is great!

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.