Well, I would say that this Vegas trip was a success! My mom got the free room and gaming chips, and she gave me some money to play with, which I turned into a profit of a couple hundred dollars, after I paid her back what she gave me. I plan to use this money to buy a larger couch for putting in front of the TV. We currently only have a loveseat, which is not really adequate seating for when we have people over, so that will move over to our other wall once we find a suitable couch.

Dave hadn’t been to Vegas since he has been of legal age to gamble, so this trip may or may not have been more fun for him. He didn’t gamble very much, although he did get sucked into playing the penny slots for a bit, and did win some money there, after giving some of it to the machines the days before.

There was quite a bit of traffic coming back from Vegas, so we didn’t get into SB as early as we had hoped, but overall it wasn’t too bad. We may go again in May for a birthday, which would be fun. If I win more money, maybe I can splurge on other large ticket items like a giant fancy mixer for all those things I’ve been baking! That would rock. :) Speaking of items you use to make stuff though, my mom gave me a cute red, heart-shaped fondue set, so I shall have to try that out soon, along with the raspberry chocolate recipe she gave me!

Posted at 11:39 PM | (0)

Last night Dave and I ditched pub quiz, which turned out to be ok since Kristen was still a bit jet lagged from her trip. We did invite her and another friend over to hang out for a bit as something more low key. Kristen actually cooked for us, and the dinner was good.

After food and hanging out, Dave and I packed up and headed to my parents’ house to spend the night before we head on out to Vegas for the weekend, since my mom got 3 free nights at the Monte Carlo, woo! We are leaving in less than an hour, so wish us luck!

Posted at 8:12 AM | (0)

Yesterday Kristen came back into town, after being away for a week for a work conference. To celebrate her return, we headed down to the Farmers Market (though we didn’t buy anything this time) and then decided to get a drink at Madison’s. It was still fairly early at this point, although then Kristen spotted a coworker walking down the street so we invited him to join us.

Several hours later, and it was time for karaoke to begin! Dave and I started with our Total Eclipse of the Heart, and then Kristen and I did The Sign, and I also did Sweet Child of Mine and Sunrise by Norah Jones. We wound up staying pretty late since we did so many songs. There were a couple really good singers, so I am not sure we measured up to those people, but at least it was fun anyway. It wasn’t too crowded, so it didn’t take super long to have your song called, which was nice!

Posted at 12:08 PM | (0)

This morning I had a breakfast meeting with the guy I’ve been doing work for, as well as a couple of guys he has doing programming for him. We were originally going to meet at Mesa Cafe, but the location was changed to Moby Dick’s because there is a whale in the harbor, and that restaurant would offer views of it. None of us had seen the whale since it’s been around these past few weeks, so it was a cool suggestion.

We got a table by the window, where we could see the Sandspit and the whale occasionally surfacing near it and the kayakers who were obviously trying to get a close glimpse of the whale. It made for a more interesting breakfast, although who doesn’t like going to breakfast anyway, especially if you can sit someplace with an ocean view??

Posted at 2:45 PM | (0)

Last night Dave and I met up with a bunch of friends to celebrate St Patrick’s Day. We started out at James Joyce, since it is an Irish bar, so we figured it was most fitting. There is also Dargan’s in town, which is of course also an Irish place, but for some reason that place was like 500x more packed than the Joyce, so I think we made the right decision. We luckily did not really have to wait in line or anything because we went around 6, which perhaps was still early enough not to have everyone out yet.

After being at the Joyce for awhile, we headed over to Sharkeez, to go see some of the people we know who play kickball on Tuesdays and were thus there for the usual post-game stuff. We did not stay there super long before heading over to Sandbar.

It was a long day of being out and about, and we met up with several different groups of people, gaining and losing some people in the group as the evening progressed, but overall it was fun, if you don’t count the part where Dave lost his jacket at Sandbar. :(

Posted at 8:41 AM | (0)

Yesterday Kristen came over with some apples she had purchased from the Farmer’s Market and we proceeded to make an apple pie. Well, first we went back to her place to get some shortening and brown sugar, then went back again when we realized I had no pie dishes, and then decided not to go back a 3rd time for a rolling pin that I also do not have.

We made the pie from scratch using the most basic recipe I found in one of my cookbooks. I didn’t want to do one of the super fancy ones that had non-standard ingredients (at least in part because that would have meant having to procure those items). We made the crust from scratch, hence the desire for a rolling pin, but we just used our hands to flatten out the dough and it actually came out pretty well. We opted for the crumbly topping instead of a top crust, so that also made it easier, and in my opinion tastier because of the extra sugariness. :)

Overall the pie was a success—it looked and tasted like pie and was great with some vanilla ice cream. Hooray for baking!

Posted at 11:48 AM | (2)

This evening Dave and I went down to Carpinteria to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday. Yikes, it’s hard to believe that in a few short months, I will also be that old!

We celebrated at Island Brew Co, where the friend’s wife had reserved the back room for the occasion. Many people came, and there were lots of snacks and some cake. Naturally lots of beer was consumed, given the venue, but I of course refrained because I don’t like beer. This particular establishment does not serve other kinds of drinks, but you can purchase cans of soft drinks for more than it would cost from a vending machine.

It was a good turnout and a nice change of scenery, since it’s not often that I take a trip down to Carp.

Posted at 9:40 PM | (0)

Last night after work, I went over to the Beachside to meet my friend Kristen. She, and everyone else in her department at work, had just finished filing this large document and so the company was treating them to dinner to celebrate. Everyone was allowed to bring a friend or spouse or whatnot, and so she decided to bring me. All drinks and food were going to be paid for by the company, so how could I refuse??

It was a nice evening—I met a few of her coworkers, but mostly just talked to the few that I had already met before—one of them plays pub quiz with us now, along with her husband. The dinner was outdoors, which I thought would be a slight concern given that it was a bit chilly last night, but the outdoor area is covered enough and also had a fire going.

The event didn’t go that long—I got home around 9-something, but it was still enough to mean that we of course did not attend pub quiz this week. Hopefully no one won the jackpot or was asked all questions that we totally would’ve known, but I suppose it doesn’t much matter. I like doing pub quiz, but there’s no contest between something that happens every week and free dinner and drinks!

Posted at 10:45 AM | (0)

Well, enough people were able to register through the kickball site that I figured it was finally safe to try it myself—especially since some of those people were fellow teammates and I wanted to make sure we didn’t get separated. As I said before, I wanted to wait until I heard back as to what team I should join—I don’t really care what team I’m on as long as I’m with the people I want to play with.

As a general rule, I’ve enjoyed being on the “spirit” teams. I’m not super athletic, so it’s nice to be on the teams that aren’t especially good or competitive. I’ve been on the teams where we just have fun playing and do our best, even if that still means a sound defeat. I was hoping to be on one again this season, since it might be too much pressure to be on a good team and let them down. So imagine my surprise when my friend emails me to say that everyone has just signed up with the team that went to the playoffs last season, the team that Dave is on.

I hadn’t intended to join his team—it was fun being on rival teams, and as I said, I’m all about the spirit team. However, a good number of people I played with last season will now be on this team, and I do of course know a lot of returning members of this team, so in that regard it’s all good. Hopefully I won’t let anyone down! I did see that there is a memo that this season the team will be requiring cleats (field is sometimes slippery and it’s easy to fall if you’re only wearing running shoes). Previously they would only mock you and then yell at you that you should’ve worn cleats if you fell because you didn’t have any, but now if you aren’t wearing them you will be benched. So yea, needless to say, this is more competitive than my previous 2 teams.

Guess I need to go buy some cleats now! Here’s hoping they improve my kickball skillz dramatically. :)

Posted at 10:33 AM | (0)

Last night a few of us decided to go downtown just because. Kristen knew a couple of coworkers who were going to be downtown, and so we met up with them at Sandbar. It’s weird that we’ve gone to the Sandbar a couple times lately, since that isn’t usually a place we go. It’s not that big, and for some reason, they seem to always have a cover.

After staying at the Sandbar for a bit, we eventually hit up Tonic, which did NOT have a cover, although the back patio was packed full of people. After running into some people we knew and talking outside a bit, we made our way to the dance floor inside. The DJ was playing some weird music, but there were tons of people dancing—it was packed. We found a place to comfortably wedge ourselves and stayed until the music stopped.

When we got back Kristen thoughtfully called us to let us know that the time change was taking place and that we should remember to change our clocks. It’s a good thing she did, or it never would have occurred to me that it was happening already. I forget that it’s so early in the year now. Crazy.

Posted at 10:20 AM | (0)

Lately I’ve been wondering if I am destined to play kickball this season. A few weeks ago, the kickball site got a redesign—one that was supposed to cause downtime for only a single weekend. This downtime lasted over a week and a half, and when the site came back up, it was still not allowing any registration. Slowly, it began offering registration for some divisions, but not for the ones in SB, which sucks because we were right in the middle of registration time.

The site visually isn’t much of an improvement over the old, but the signup process is a zillion times worse. Apparently lots of people have been having problems successfully registering, and it’s not even obvious how to do it (not to mention the day the site crashed randomly). The way they now do groups and teams is horrible, and I think it’s only going to lead to a lot of confusion come the first meeting. At this point it might be easier to have people just use pen and paper and physically hand over money!

Even though I could register right now, I have still held off because I am waiting to hear from some teammates as to what they are doing. Ideally I just want to be on whatever team has the most people that I know and have played with. I was trying to get back on my team of 2 seasons, but it looks like while there might be a few people playing, they have yet to decide which league to play, and will also no longer have the same name. That said, I had already contacted a friend who also played both leagues with me—our plan is to be on the same team, whatever that may be. Hopefully I shall find out soon—it would suck to not play at all after all this.

Posted at 10:55 PM | (0)

Yesterday a few of us went to go see He’s Just Not That Into You. Initially it seemed like there wouldn’t be any other people in the theater, but there wound up being a few different small groups when it started—almost no men unless they were clearly there on a date.

The movie itself was just OK. I had heard several people who said they liked it, but I think it was a bit long for the type of movie that it is. It had a lot of biggish names acting in it, but some of the plot was too contrived and it was just….long. It was amusing in parts, but overall I’m not going to go right out and see it again anytime soon.

Posted at 5:55 PM | (0)

Dave and I didn’t really have any plans for our Saturday, so when our friend Kristen said that we should all do something awesome with it, we said sure. We settled on walking downtown to get some afternoon dessert at Anderson’s Bakery (I got a chocolate croissant, yum!), and after consuming our choices, we checked out the kitschy shop a few doors down that has random items for sale and a floor with many loose bricks.

After leaving the store, we proceeded to one of our several local yarn shops and looked through the yarn, magazines, and other things on display. Kristen decided to buy a magazine that had several cute patterns in it, and I couldn’t resist buying a kit for knitted toy mice for Dave’s cat. She had some yarn balls on her cat tower thing that she tore to shreds because she liked playing with them so much, so I figured I could make her cute mice to replace them. The kit came with enough yarn in varying colors, tiny bells, and catnip to make 5 mice. It also came with some black yarn for sewing on a tail, eyes, nose, and whiskers.

After leaving the yarn shop, we walked around Paseo Nuevo briefly and then headed back home, but not before stopping by the Betsey Johnson store to look at all the poofy party dresses! Her stuff is pretty out there in terms of it not really being practical for everyday life, and on the expensive side, but some of it is actually kinda cute. I think Dave wanted to die though, being surrounded by what he felt to be the most horrid pieces of clothing ever—dresses of lace, silk, cotton, knits, applique, and crazy colors, sometimes all rolled into one!

After looking at the dresses, we headed back to the apartment where we realized that Kristen forgot her knitting. Since she only lives a few blocks away, I walked with her back to her place and then came back. She finished up the baby sweater she was working on, and I immediately started on a toy mouse. It was an extremely quick knit and I was done with it within half an hour. I felted it by hand, stuffed it and sewed it up and wound up with….well, a sort of lopsided mouse. Since I can make 5, I considered that one to be practice, and made a much better one today! The cat probably won’t care if it’s not the most realistic mouse, which is why I left the lopsided one as-is, but I much prefer the one I made today, which you can see below.

Posted at 8:55 PM | (0)