4 Down, 96 To Go

You may have noticed the updated movie list to the right. Yes we finished Blade Runner today. I felt obligated to add a blog in its honor because I had done the same for the previous films. And that's the only reason. Not highly recommended. So far I can say Toy Story is great, but everybody already knew that, and Yankee Doodle Dandy was a pleasant surprise. Other than that so far, (not) so good.

Alyssa's Graduation

My girlfriend is now officially a college graduate. Saturday the 24th of May, 2008 I went to her commencement ceremony at St. Mary's College in Moraga, CA. She graduated Magna Cum Laude in history and also won the History Department's Award for most outstanding history major. Afterward we went to her house and threw a Happy Graduation party. She was a wonderful host and floated around like a little social butterfly the whole time. This is the video of her departmental award.

And here are some random Graduation and party pics.

Alyssa & I before the ceremony
Alyssa getting in line to receive her diploma

Alyssa with my Grandma's(Grandma Pat & Nana from the left)

Alyssa looking all cute

My family laughing at my father.

Beer Fest Low-Lights; With Pictures!

While up in Boonville for Beer Fest over Mother's day weekend I literally got the crap kicked out of me. I was trying to think of a clever way to say it where it didn't sound quite so bad but there is really no other way to say you got your ass handed to you. My brother beat me down. Over the course of less than two minutes. Without any struggle at all on his part. It was pretty pathetic. And by pretty I mean really. To be fair my brother has a longer reach, weighs more and has a mean streak in him that I don't possess. Though none of those have mattered in the past. I'm just gonna say I was really drunk and that I must have been dizzy or something. Enjoy the pics! The time was 5:18 when we are both sitting in chairs and I have a smirk on my face like I said something clever. It's 5:19 when we are both standing up hugging and I look like I got the crap kicked out of me. The photo of my beer and I is five minutes later.

My New Tattoo

My brother and I have recently settled on a tattoo. We've been considering matching tats for a while now and I found this online. It's the original coat of arms of our ancestors in Ireland. Please feel free to respond with comments on what you think. We're also fairly certain there is no way to make this look like a synonym for penis, which happened to happen to a friend of ours. I just made up the ancestors part, I'm pretty certain we used to be McGinn's which might mean these people aren't even related to us. And this is the fancy version of the coat of arms. Here's the real one:

Movie Update

We (Alyssa and I) finally got through Ben Hur and moved on to Yankee Doodle Dandy. James Cagney starred and won the academy award for his performance in the film in 1942. The movie was black and white which bothered me at first but I had forgotten about by the end. The film was surprisingly enjoyable, after the snore fest that was Ben Hur. YDD was a great musical/comedy with some catchy show tunes. Not to mention the subject matter (George M. Cohan) was one hell of an interesting guy. I'm now looking forward to Blade Runner, another one I've never seen.

Beer Fest '08

I just got back from the "12th Annual Legendary Boonville Beer Festival" in, believe it or not, Boonville this weekend. It was phenomenal. You pay $40 for a ticket, and when you walk in you are given a 8oz or so glass that you use to drink about 400-500 different types of beer if you are so inclined. These pics are some of the swag I acquired while we were up there, with more pics to follow as soon as I get my brother's photo's. I'll write more when I post those pics but I'm exhausted so it's time to go to bed.

Yes that is a beer on my hat. It appears to be a brown bear with deer antlers, hence bear + deer =BEER! Absolutely Brilliant!

Sharks See Stars

Time to bid adieu to the (ice)skaters from San Jose. My favorite team from the most incredible sport of hockey, the San Jose Sharks were eliminated in quadruple overtime by their intradivisional rival the Dallas Stars. It was an incredible game that featured the best goal tending I've ever seen; by both the vile Marty Turco and the incomparable Evgeni Nabokov. After fighting back from a 0-3 series hole to make it 2-3 the Sharks just couldn't keep up with the pests that are the Stars. After a game that covered five hours and fourteen minutes of real time the Stars finished off my Sharkies on the power play. See you next year boys and thanks for the effort. Except for Brian Campbell, Brian Campbell would have to show effort before I thanked him for it.

Graduation & the Derby

Today i went to the commencement ceremony of one of my favorite people in the world, one Katie Perry. She is my buddy Josh's little sister and i've known her since she was about 3 years old. Anyhow it was a great ceremony, except for the part when the guy who received an honorary doctorate had a stroke onstage. Maybe it wasn't a stroke but he sure looked to be in bad shape. After that we went to a great celebratory lunch at Maggiano's in Santana Row. Tons of food, calamari, pasta, meat dishes, tiramisu, creme brulee, just non stop food. It took about 2 hours just to get through the courses. Congratulations Katie!
On a not so great note, the second place horse at the 134th running of the Kentucky Derby today was euthanized(put down, killed, put out of its misery) on the track immediately following the race. It just shows you, in horse racing, and life, second place will get you killed. The above picture is the son of a bitch who did it.

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.