last weekend i went to chicago to see my junior high/ high school/ texas buddy roumany get married to his long time girlfriend and fiance wendy. i hadn’t seen roumany in like 8 or 9 years since his job had transferred him to texas. now we live less than an hour away from each other, however in the months that i’ve been here he’s been busy with the wedding planning, and seeing him chicago was the first time we’d hung out in a really long time.

it was a bit of high school reunion weekend since eva lives in chicago, pavnit was in indiana and dan flew out from california. i didn’t really do much other than drink and party all weekend, the only site seeing experience was the adler planetarium which i hadn’t seen the last time taka and i were in chicago a couple of years ago. i was also going to try to go to the sears tower to try those glass boxes that you can walk out on but never made it.

it’s weird how lately different cities and states don’t seem that different anymore. being in dallas or la or chicago all kinda feel the same, especially when you’re hanging out with friends and family. it’s also sorta strange how much dallas feels like home now, particularly after a weekend away from it.

despite the bad weather, friday night me, taka, eric and tina headed out for some good driving and better eating. we stayed in ventura (on the very cheap at a marriott hotel) and spent all of saturday in santa barbara on and around state street. other than the white knuckle driving on the way up in the rain, it was a very laid back weekend, with lots of window shopping and a lot of good eating. on saturday we watched coraline in 3d at the arlington theatre on state street which is a 2000 seat old-timey theatre that actually looked a lot like the theatre that coraline goes to when she’s in the other-neighbor’s downstairs apartment. it was a good film, but it was pretty creepy, i would think too much for a kid, but maybe i’m just a wuss.

but the focus of the trip was to eat lots of good food. i was seriously full the entire weekend, even eating a full breakfast before the gym and immediately after. we only ate at recommended restaurants or ones that were 4+ stars on yelp! (other than a breakfast we ate at the marriott buffet which wasn’t very good).

if anyone’s heading to santa barbara from redondo beach, here’s some places we ate that were great:

the counter (trendy burgers) in el segundo
casa de soria (mexican) in ventura
brophy brothers (seafood) in santa barbara
pete’s (cafe/coffee shop) in ventura
wood ranch (bbq) in camarillo

I was barely able to walk from my car to my office this morning my legs were so damn sore. I don’t know why they hurt so much worse than they have from previous snowboarding trips, but yeh, they’re pretty ruined. On Saturday we boarded from 8am until about 4pm, so we were out there for quite a while. Even though I hadn’t been up there in 2 years, most of the skills were still there and I was feeling pretty comfortable by mid-day.

Anyway, it was a fun weekend with friends that I don’t see often enough. We stayed at a huge cabin and did lots of drinking and eating at good and weird places. It was nice to be away from the city for a couple of days, even if I did have my laptop and the internet with me the whole time.

And Happy Birthday Sanam!

brightroom.com posted the pics from the rosarito to ensenada bike ride from last month. every year they try to add more security to make it more difficult to download the photos, but nothing can stop the all-powerful print screen button :)

al rode with us too, but he can’t remember what his number was, so no pic of him.

i wasn’t planning on riding this weekend, but both eric and al hit me up so we decided to do the pv ride that i did last weekend. we kept a much faster pace than the last ride, and on the downhill coming over the backside of pv, i hit a top speed of 44 mph, which is pretty damn fast on a bike. i’m sure i’ll cruise through the event, and i’m planning on riding relatively easy anyway and enjoying the experience.

the ride we do is 25 miles and most of it is climbing with a very fast descent from the top. i’m gonna do my best to do the ride at least once a month even after the rosarito event, ’cause i really need to keep the gut in check.

on friday night, me, eric and ben went out drinking and 2 bars (well, restaurants), 2 beers and 3 martinis later i was pretty obnoxiously drunk and don’t remember much. what i do remember is waking up with a terrible hangover on saturday morning. luckily it wasn’t a sick-to-my-stomach hangover but just that foggy slow motion action that keeps you from doing anything. so after walking to store to get some rockstar i just watched tv for half the day until eric finally convinced me to go to the gym around 2pm.

so i got around to watching 2 dvds that i got from blockbuster last week. eastern promises is a movie about the russian mafia in london doing mafia things and having the typical internal mafia power conflicts. i swear half the cast were people that i’ve seen at dave’s parties. the plot line was a bit complicated to try to explain, but trust me it was a really good movie (88% fresh).

after that taka and i watched feast of love which i hadn’t even heard of, but the dvd cover had morgan freeman and greg kinear so i figured it had to be good. later on i looked it up and it actually was in theatres, but only made about $3m and was 41% fresh on rotten tomatoes. the story is just about a bunch of different people in love and different kinds of love. the thing is, it’s about intense, complicated love, kinda like closer, but a lot more tittes and a little bit of heart-warming morgan freeman thrown in.

eventually eric dragged my ass off my couch and another rockstar and back workout got me back to normal so the day wasn’t a complete waste. but yeh, definitely not as young as i used to be.

we all have so many pics of wakeboarding from the last few years, that most of us don’t bring a camera anymore. luckily shali brought one to the labor day bbq and got a few good shots. actually i think this is the first time anyone’s taken pictures of the boat while not on the boat. here are a few that i’m going to have printed and framed.

pulling up anchor and getting ready to head out. i know most of you aren’t the csi:miami freak that i am, but for those that are, this (including the image in the header graphic) is the set of waterways that almost every scene that has a jetski or a boat is filmed in.

me towing mike

shal, sanam and taka sitting in front of the most complicated-to-assemble tent ever

thanks shali!

i can’t believe that summer is over, or at least symbolically with the passing of labor day. compared to summers passed, this one just flew by. i guess it’s because i’m getting older, i’m married, maybe have more responsibilities? whatever the case it went by too quickly. i only took the boat out twice for wakeboarding, once to lake perris and then this weekend to marine stadium. eric and i have only been out fishing a handful of times, and i still haven’t got on my bike, even though i’m planning to ride the final rosarito to ensenada event at the end of the month.

this weekend for the second labor day in a row, we set up on the thin strip of beach that runs along the south side of marine stadium, where we put up a canopy, and could beach the boat. usually, wakeboarding can only accommodate up to 8 people because of the size of the boat, but this way lots of people can come and take turns with the wakeboarding while others can chill on the shore. it was a lot of fun, even though i ended up getting pretty sunburned (taka’s stupid japanese sunscreen). it’s unusual that i get to see that many of my friends at once these days, since everyone keeps moving further and further away, so it was a good time boating, bbq’ing, (at one point a patrol car drove by and asked me about my grill ’cause he said the residents were making complaints? anyway, he just told me that if i wasn’t using it to cover it up with a towel, ’cause bbq’ing is illegal on the beach.. cool guy) playing football and just otherwise enjoying perfect socal weather.

on saturday morning we had to put my beloved family dog, shadow down. shadow was 14, which is pretty old for a dog that big, and he had been going downhill pretty quickly over the last couple of months. he’d lost a lot of weight and strength and could barely walk anymore and was in a lot of discomfort, so when my mom took him to the vet and they said that they couldn’t really do anything for him, we decided putting him down would be the best thing for him, even though it was incredibly difficult for us.

shadow was more than just a pet, but a member of our family. he brought a lot of happiness to us and will be missed very much.

shadow @ the beach flickr set

last night we had dinner with the campys at gyu-kaku, a yakiniku restaurant in torrance. according to wikipedia, the gyu-kaku chain has over 800 restaurants in japan and now have a handful of them here in so-cal.

on tuesday and thursday nights between 9:30-10:30p they have a happy-hour special with 50% all harami and kalbi beef and $1 beers and $1 sake. =$2 sake bombs?!

the food was delicious; we ate 8 plates of meat, an order of vegetables, salad, edamame and 8 beers within the happy-hour hour. the total bill? $63! needless to say this is going to become a tuesday night tradition.

http://www.gyu-kaku.com/