i spent the whole weekend with dave and some of his russian buddies at lake perris. we wakeboarded all day on saturday, did the camping thing in the evening and then wakeboarded most of sunday too. overall i’d have to say that this was one of my favorite camping trips.

the wakeboarding was awesome and dave and i were doing some fucking retarded tricks that in un-drunken hindsight was probably a bad idea (think tying the rope around your neck so that you can do a no-hands… we do got sweet pics of it though) all three girls picked up the wakeboarding right away, so we got to spend the whole trip just having fun and not pull-after-pull of trying to figure it out.

i come to find out that not only do russians know how to drink, but they know how to eat too. usually i do burgers and dogs when i go camping, but these guys? dinner consisted of lamb, steak, jumbo shrimp and quail for god’s sake, quail! and tons of side dishes. during the day there were constant cold-cuts and all kinds of snacks for the boat too.

so yeh, about me getting punk’d… after the first bottle or two of vodka sasha said “let’s play animal charades”… “kent, i’ll whisper the name of an animal to you and you try to act it out, and we’ll have 60 seconds to guess what it is”. i was pretty tipsy, and as she was talking, she was kinda leading me away from the table we were all sitting at, and started talking about other stuff… and i kinda forgot about the game, and then she’s like “oh yeh, the game… ok, you be a kangaroo”. so i walk back to where everybody’s at and i started acting like a fucking kangaroo. hopping around, pretending to have a pouch, punching, everything i can think of, but these dumb russians aren’t getting it. so sasha pulls me aside again and says “ok, something easier… you’re a monkey” so i go back, confident that they’ll get this one, i’m scratching my armpits, peeling a banana, pretending to swing from tree to tree. the whole time people are calling out every fucking animal but a monkey, and then someone yells “time!” and i’m like “are you guys fucking kidding me? i’m a monkey goddamnit!” and they all start busting out laughing.

they said they’ve pulled the same prank on every new person in the group, and that now, i’m officially a russian =p

with less than a month before summer ends, we made our first fresh-water trip of the year last weekend. on saturday the air temp was in the low 90′s, and the water was in the high 70′s/low 80′s. wakeboarding in fresh water is so much more pleasant since a wipeout doesn’t equal a mouth full of salt water, and as dave pointed out, seemingly less painful when you do fall? maybe the density of salt water vs. fresh water, or it might’ve just been in our heads but we were pushing ourselves and unlike most marine stadium trips, i have no neck or back aches.

taka’s figured out how to cross over the wake and isn’t just stuck riding on the right side of the boat anymore, and lauren is just on the cusp of getting the hang of it, so we got to spend our time just boarding and not teaching. we boarded for 4 or 5 hours on saturday, and then sunday morning we were out for about an hour or so until it started sprinkling so we packed it up and headed home.

the thing i hate about perris though, is that the majority of the people there either just bought a boat, or rented jetskiis and are learning how to use them for the first time, without using any common sense. at one point when i was pulling costin, a jetskiier was only about 10 boat-lengths behind him or so when we were crusing at 20+ mph. the dick was just following for almost no reason. when costin fell, the guy stopped right where he was and i guess was asking him if he was ok? anyway, i circled back and started yelling at him for following too close (this was an older black dude with his son on the back) and putting my skiier in harms way, bla bla bla, and he got all black and was like “don’t you disrespect me with that tone, yada yada” and was wanting me to apologize to him. i didn’t back down, ’cause he was in the wrong, and i was yelling ’cause i was angry+he was far away so i kinda had to. he even admitted that he didn’t know the rules. so we cruise back to the dock about half an hour later, and there’s like 10 black dudes standing on the dock, all standing next to the waterskii that had been ridden by the guy i yelled at! we circled back to think it over and decided that if they threatened to beat me over it, that i’d just go ahead and apologize. turned out that they barely even looked over at us when we docked, so another disaster was averted and it made for lots of funny, racist jokes at the camp fire.

after that story, don’t we look whiter than ever?! esp. with our wigga gang signs:

scenery at perris is much more interesting than the parking lots and houses that line marine stadium:

the last time i went camping in catalina, i lost 5 pounds and most of my stomach lining from alcohol poisoning. this time was a bit less death defying, but overall just as fun. little harbor, catalina is about as hardcore camping as i do, being that you’re essentially stranded on the island for the weekend without stores or electricity, and can only bring as much as you can carry. but because of this, it feels like “real camping” unlike lake perris where if i really wanted to, i could just fold up my tent, put it in my car, and be back in my apartment in about an hour.

taka and i went snorkeling in the harbor, where the water was incredibly clear. there were fish and random sea life, and we had one of those advertisement-like romantic moments where we were swimming, holding hands and pointing out fish to each other <3! the beaches there are beautiful and clean… it’s insane that it’s only 30 miles away from mirky, long beach harbor. otherwise, we did all the typical camping stuff. ben and mike brought their guitars and for a while, the two campsites around us stopped talking or playing their own music and all sang along. these two cougars came over during one song, and were disappointed to find that we were all in relationships, except for ben, who wouldn’t put his guitar down for them =p

2 nights, 60 beers, and 7 sunburns later, we were back in civilized long beach harbor watching the video of lisa’s co-worker chris trying to jump over a 10′ across / 6′ deep ravine full of rocks and not quite making it. i’ll post it up as soon as mike sends it to me. cheers to another successful camping trip!

a few of the pics from mike and i’s catalina excursion are still trickling in. half of them i don’t even remember. this was either the most, or at least second most drunk i’ve ever been, and trust me, i’ve had my fair share.

while i like to be a dick and wear my cap to the side, i have a feeling it wasn’t intentional in this pic and i have no idea why there’s straw and dirt all over it. ah memories… even if they are second hand.

mike’s friend tim invited us to go camping with him and his outdoors club to little harbor on the ocean side of catalina. lots of just hanging out, fishing, frisbee, buffalo, (and making out for mike with this big boobied blonde). anyway, it was a great time other than one of my worst hangovers evar on sunday. i drank at least 15 or 16oz of vodka in just a couple of hours, followed by some champagne and then margaritas, and ended up losing 7lbs overall on the trip to put into perspective how sick i was from it. but yeh, other than that, it was a great time and i met some awesome new people.

they had wild buffalo on the island. me and mike were gonna try to put them in a headlock, but they were bigger than we had thought and they were staring us down so we kept a bit of distance:

crazy ocean views and me looking like i’m having a religious experience:

mike and i took the raft out in the little harbor cove but only caught a couple illegal fish:

i did catch the frisbee out of the cacti when it got caught though:

i’m thinking it’d be great if next summer we do this same trip with a bunch of our homies, ’cause the camp ground was rad with the ocean so close, and it actually felt like you were camping since the only civilization was a 30min bus ride through the hills to two harbors, and even then they only had a couple of general store-type places.

i went camping this weekend at lake perris and had a great time. we took the boat and were out on the water for about 4 hours on saturday and then another 4 hours on sunday and i definitely got too much sun. we ate a ton of food and drank a ton of cheap beer. we had 60 beers for the 6 of us for one night, and a ton of food, hotdogs, burgers, fajitas, nachos, smores and i ate like 2lbs of macaroni salad after the container broke and the ants were heading for it.

here are some pics from mike’s camera (hence him not being in any of them.) i’ll upload some pics from my camera and some videos of the boat when i get home.