Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Jay and Dennis came to visit my homestead in Thousand Oaks last Friday night, and we proceeded to watch Antoine Walker and my beloved Mavs destroy the Gary Payton-less Lakers. They convinced me to hang out with them on Sunday, which I was hesitant to do at first, but I realized that I would not get a better chance to hang out with Paul and all of them again. Okay, so my Sunday is now booked for me.
Saturday morning, I was (as I expected to be) awoken by Wally and his crew from Conejo Valley Appliance for the overhaul of my ducting, furnace, and compressor. They finished up at 5pm, where I was left with just enough time to get ready for the Pepper's holiday party. Lots of wonderful food care of Tammy's parents, as well as good company all around. Around 1am, Jason and I realized that it's probably time to be heading home, so I downed 2 cans of Pepsi and sent myself on my way.
Sometime early Sunday morning (2:15am, to be precise), I realized that I could not sleep. I tossed, turned, and watched TV until 5am, still debating whether or not I should make good on my promise to go to San Diego. By 5:30am, I was on the road.
I arrived at Jim's townhome in Sorrento Valley around 7:30am, still not having had a good night's sleep since Thursday night. It was good to see all those guys, especially Paul, who came to the realization that was replaced by Brian Hardy. We all headed over to a park for some early Sunday morning football. My box score (3 TDs, 3 INTs, 2 sacks, one of which resulted in me falling backward, slipping, landing on my shoulder blades, and snapping my head backwards a la Swiss river hopping) was unimpressive, but pretty decent given the lack of sleep. Jay and Dennis headed off to the Charger-Packer game, while the rest of us (myself, Jim, Paul, Scott Carnahan, and Jackie Yeung) headed off to Del Mar for some fish tacos. Mmm, those fish tacos at Brigantine are some good.
After debating a bit as to what to do, we decided on heading over to Balboa Park just to walk around and get some fresh air. We stopped by the unimpressive natural history museum (my top two natural history museums are the one in DC and the one in Vienna, Austria). By 4pm, we figured that the Charger game would be over, so we headed back to Jim's place for a little bit of board game playing before heading out to Pacific Beach for some sushi. (In case you didn't realize it, the neighborhoods in San Diego are the same size as the ones in Pasadena, it's just that easier to access and have more things to do in each. Like I know where La Canada is in LA. I know where Cheviot Hills is. Why would I go to these places when Woodland Hills and Newbury Park are perfectly crapulent?)
I made it back at 10:30pm, but I neglected to return a remote control I was borrowing from GNP. I braved through hideous valley traffic to return it to the Pasadena store before 6pm closing time, but not wanting to head back into the mouth of the dragon, I decided to have dinner in Pasadena instead. Hence, the Arroyo Chophouse.
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Ron Dollete
rdollete@ixiacom.com
