Cactus Stock in Mexico

Cactus Stock was a blast! Rosie had a gig with the band, Skanic, as one of their back-up singers so I went with her and Jeff down to Mexico for Cactus Stock. It is held south of Ensenada in Baja California about 20 minutes from La Bufadora (The Blowhole).


There is a windy dirt road the last few miles with some shear drops and sharp turns as you cross over the rocky ridge to get down to the Kennedy Ranch. It was very scenic spot with jagged cliffs rising out of the ocean and the weather was perfect. We set up our tents and joined the party.


A few bands were playing on the cliff stage with people hanging out or going into the ocean. I went ocean kayaking with Jeff, but I lost my favorite pair of sunglasses when we capsized while catching a wave into the beach. Bummer! At sunset, we all hiked up to Crow's Point with the rest of the crowd to cheer as the sun dropped below the horizon.


At Crow's Point, I met a cute girl named Liza who I hung out with for the rest of the night after she invited me to have some dinner at her friends' campsite. After a while the bonfire started and more bands started playing on the main stage. Everyone started to gather around the fire and on the dance floor.


Rosie did a great job singing and Skanic had a fun set. After the Belly Up, it was the second time I had heard her sing with them. I got pretty plastered on Tequila through the night. I drank three-quarters of a bottle of Hornitos. I had never had it before but I really like it. It is very smooth. Not as good as chilled Patron, though.


I was so dehydrated in the morning that I got two really bad hamstring cramps in the same leg when I tried to get out of my tent. I was writhing on the floor in pain for awhile. Heh! It took till Wednesday for the soreness in my right hamstring to go away.


After a morning hike, Rosie, Jeff & I had breakfast burritos at Estella's Cantina before packing up to go home. On the trip back north, we stopped for lobster in Puerto Nuevo.

2000 Mission Bay Triathlon

Well, I finished my first triathlon yesterday in Mission Bay with my friend, Robert. It took me about an hour and fifteen minutes, but I won't know my official times and splits until they mail them to me. It was a sprint distance triathlon with a 500 meter swim, 15k bike & 5k run.


I did pretty well on my swim, but it took a little time to get used to the crowded swimming conditions. It threw me off my stroke and messed with my breathing. I actually bumped into Robert right near the end and we exited the water together.


I sucked in the transition area where I switched to my bike. Robert was gone in about thirty seconds but it took me about 3-4 minutes. Because I was still wet, I accidentally ripped my number off my singlet when I was struggling to put it on over my head. I had to re-safety-pin it back on. Next time I'm not going to wear socks or a singlet until after the bike section.

I did okay on the bike but there are a lot of very fast guys out there. I passed about five guys, but I was passed by about thirty while I was in a higher gear.


The run sucked. My legs felt like lead weights after getting off the bike. I took me two of the three miles for my legs to start feeling normal. I don't want to mention how many people passed me. I definitely need to practice on the bike and then switch straight to a run. I was able to sprint to the finish, passing a guy who was twenty-five. I was able to tell because we had our ages written on the back of our calves with a permanent marker. Each age group starts in 5 minute intervals after the professionals start. You know you are doing really bad when someone in their forties passes you.


Robert finished in one hour and four minutes (this is his twelfth triathlon) and the pros who started one minute before us finished in about fifty+ minutes. It was really fun though and I am definitely going to do it again. I definitely think I can improve.

Hangliding at Torrey Pines

My friend, Greg, and I went to the Torrey Pines Glider Port on Sunday. I had given him a Tandem Hangliding Gift Certificate for his Birthday. It was beautiful day and there were allot hangliders and paragliders up in the air over the cliff face. Greg went first because he only weighs 145 pounds, but I got to take pictures on the edge of the cliff with him as he took off with the instructor.


The instructor let him control it for most of the time as he flew around for about twenty minutes over Black's Beach. I ran over to take a picture as he came in for a landing. They overshot the landing area and I had to dive out of the way as they came in too fast. They ended up landing in the gravel area and nearly hitting a crowd of spectators.


The wind started to die so they told me I would have to wait for it to pick up for my turn. After about a hour of waiting, one of the smaller hangliders in the air came too close to a paraglider (looks like a parachute) and spun out of control. He crashed into the cliff and the lifeguards had repel 200 feet down to rescue him. He was alive but had major injuries. Because of the accident they cleared the sky of flyers, so I will have to go back there again for my turn.


Even though I didn't get to fly, it was a pretty exciting day.

San Dieguito High School - 10 Year Reunion (Class of 1990)

I went to my 10 year Reunion for the Class of 1990 from San Dieguito High School on Saturday, August 19th. It was held Downtown San Diego on the "Berkeley", an old steam ferry originally from San Francisco Bay, permanently anchored in the harbor next to the "Star of India".


I hung out with Bobby and Julie and it was really fun seeing all the people I haven't seen for 10 years. I had kept in touch with a few people, but it was nice to see my friends, like Michael Clarke, who I had gone to school with since 3rd grade. I have a bit of a bad memory, so it was so nice to have so many memories come rushing back to me as I saw faces from the past.


It was a fun night with good food, lots of drinks from the bar and plenty of dancing. I just wish Mary Ann could have been there. I know a lot of people who dreaded or want to avoid their reunion, but I had a blast.


I was voted "Most Changed" during the awards ceremony. The prize was a engraved wine glass. I took a picture of the large gathering as I returned from the dais. Too bad they didn't give the type of awards that Homer Simpson was so proud of winning at his reunion on The Simpsons, like "Oldest Car", "Lowest Paying Job" or "Traveling the Least Distance to get to the Reunion". I might have grabbed one of those as well. Just Kidding! Heh!


After the reception at the "Berkeley" ended, I went with Yancy, his wife and a large crowd into the Gaslamp Quarter to the dueling piano bar called "Sing Sing" on 4th Street. There was a sizable group of us even after the place closed with people not wanting to end conversations with friends they hadn't seen for a long time. I ended up walking back to my car around four in the morning.

San Dieguito High School Graduation

Laughlin, Nevada Trip

The past month has been very busy. It continued when I went to Laughlin, Nevada for a few days last week with my friend, Chris and several of his friends. We drove there and stayed at the Flamingo Hilton.


This is my second trip to Laughlin. It is fun to walk down the boardwalk along the Colorado River lined with casinos. There is a intense contrast between the hot desert air outside and the chilly air-conditioned casinos as you pop in and out along the walkway.


Chris towed his jet boat out which we put into Lake Mohave. The boat was a wild ride that gave the feeling that it would flip at high speeds. It was very crowded at the main boat launch the first day, so on the second day we drove further north to a more secluded launch area. We found a nice sand bar to hang out on.

Camping at the Colorado River

I have been going camping at Picacho State Park on the California side of the Colorado River for a few years now with my boss and others from work. It is a great place but you have to drive over an 18 mile dirt road from the I-8 near the border of Arizona to get there. This weekend I went with Blayne, Julie, Rosie, Wendy & Jim.


Normally we ride in Blayne's boat that he keeps in storage here, but Jim brought his new ski boat. He was eager to get his boat in the water and we took Blayne for a pull on his single ski. This water is great for skiing because the river flow keeps the chop down and you can get some very glassy conditions. Blayne can really get some deep carves.


This river's sand banks shift all time and sometimes they are in different spots each time we come. We were pulling Blayne far upriver and we hit a shallow sand bar going about 30 miles an hour. We came to a pretty abrupt stop and Blayne almost ran into the back of the boat. We were stuck pretty good in about a foot of water. Normally it is fairly easy to push the boat off into deeper water but this time it took about 10 people and a ranger boat to help pull us off the sand.


The days at the river are so relaxing and fun. We set up a spot on a sand bar and spend the day relaxing in the sun and taking turns on the boat, skiing, wakeboarding or getting pulled on innertubes. It is fun as well to get dropped off up river and have a nice float back down on inflatable rafts with a couple of beers.


As the sun starts to set, we go back to our camping spot and eat dinner, drink and chat around the fire. Each trip, we also have a night hike up to the arch.

Sailing to the Coronado Islands, Mexico

Julie has a friend who belongs to the yacht club down at San Diego Harbor and she invited a group of us to go sailing with them this weekend to the Coronado Islands south of San Diego. They are four small rocky islands in Mexican waters off the coast of Rosarito. I had been there before in 1995 for the last ocean dive of my scuba certification.


It was my first time on a sailing yacht. We had a nice wind behind us and we traveled the 13 miles to the islands in straight line. Normally I get seasick fairly easily in medium size fishing and diving boats, but I was fine on the sailboat. I think it is because sailboats have a heavy keel which sets them deeper in the water so there is less bobbing on the surface.


We anchored in the tiny bay of South Coronado Island. There are a couple of buildings on the barren hill that houses a Mexican Navy garrison. On the shore of the bay is an old group of pylons that used to hold a casino from the days of Prohibition.


The captain and I went snorkeling around the yacht. The water was very cold but it was a beautiful sunny day. We had a nice lunch and relaxed in the sun until it was time for us to raise anchor and head back to San Diego.


The sail back was more exciting because we had to tack back and forth against the wind. I really enjoyed riding in the boat that was sailing at a sharp angle to the water. The return journey took allot longer and it was dark before we reached the harbor. It was cool to see the lights of San Diego bright against the dark ocean. I was allowed to steer the yacht for awhile as we were coming into the harbor. It was a great day.

Algodones Sand Dunes in Imperial County, CA

Jeremy and I went to the Algodones Sand Dunes off of Interstate 8 at Gray's Well, CA about a half hour's drive from the Arizona border. This huge dune field is one of the locations where they filmed Star Wars scenes for Luke's planet, Tatooine.


The dunes here are beautiful with big bowls and high ridges. We went for long rides on ATV Quads. It is a surreal experience being surrounded by hills of sand as far as the eye can see.


During the heat of the day, we ended up swimming in the canal that carries water from the Colorado River to the large farms of Imperial County.

New Tattoo!

I got a tattoo after Thanksgiving. It has tribal bands and an intricate design weaving through them that looks like waves or a storm or a nebula depending on how you look at it. It wraps around my right arm like a band. It is big, about six inches at its widest. My brother, Jake, drew it custom for me and used his own tattoo gun that he has in his bedroom.


It took about fours hours over two separate visits. It hurt a lot, like a miniature sewing machine going over my skin. It really hurt on the tender skin on the underside of my arm. My brother did it for free, but it would have cost about 400 dollars in a tattoo parlor. I may add some color to it next year.

Sensory Overload - Part I

I love science-fiction novels and I read at least 500 during my teens and early twenties. After reading a pretty lousy book early in 1996, it finally motivated me to try and write one of my own. It seems like perverse logic, but all my favorite sci-fi novels written by talented authors only intimidated me from trying to write one myself. The crappy books though, at the very least I could write one this bad, I thought.

Also lingering in my head all this time was a seed planted by my twelfth grade English teacher, Richard Cunningham, that I had the ability to write a book someday. I had scoffed at the idea at the time, but it never left me.

I started writing my book on May 13th, 1996.  I had no clear direction at first for my story but I was in the last year of my Army Reserve service so I latched onto a idea about a soldier being medically discharged from the military after being injured on a dangerous mission. Since the Cold War during my youth was over, I decided to place the story in the aftermath of a war against a alien race.

As a test for myself, I started out with a prologue of that final disastrous raid and I told myself that if I liked it well enough, I would continue writing.

After some positive feedback about the Prologue, I ended up slowly writing 7 chapters that dealt with the aftermath of the mission and the main character's discharge from the military. In those chapters, I developed the synopsis below.

Mini-Synopsis:

The Great War between the Terran Race and the alien Durmir is finally over and the newly formed DùrMan Confederation has created peace for the first time in a generation.  For an elite soldier like Jâk Silvestri who spent his whole life fighting in the war, his special forces unit is now tasked with hunting down former war profiteers and crime syndicate leaders.  After a freak brain injury on a mission that also killed his best friend, Jâk is medically discharged from the rapidly downsizing military and sent out into the civilian world he has never experienced.  While avoiding the crime syndicates who recruit former soldiers like him, Jâk vows to go after Tan Sipter, the man he failed to capture on his last mission.

I am currently stuck around 150 pages and I don't know where to take the story next. Hopefully, I will figure it out soon.

Cabin Trip to Big Bear Lake, CA

I went with Jeremy, Chelsea and the rest of the HopStar dancers to the San Bernardino Mountains for the Big Bear Swing Camp. We all stayed at Valena's family cabin right on the lake in Big Bear. It was a big place. The key didn't work so we spent the whole weekend entering and exiting through the dining room window.


Jeremy, Chelsea and the rest of the HopStar troupe are really good swing dancers. They move so fast and perform amazing aerials. I have only been taking lessons for a little while so I can only handle the most simple steps. It is real fun though.


We had a great time hanging out, cooking big meals and playing different games at the cabin. We played one card game where the loser had to lick chocolate syrup off the belly of the winner. Guess who won?


On our last day, we rented three small fishing boats and went cruising around Big Bear Lake. The water was pretty chilly but a few of us went swimming. I have been to Big Bear many times, but this is the first time I have ever been out on the lake.

Big Bear City on Dwellable

Surfing at Pipes

I took this picture last Sunday when I went to the beach with Jeremy and Forest to go surfing.


The waves were pretty small at Pipes that day but I like this photo.

Trip to New York, NY

I went to New York at the end of March to visit Mary Ann's sister and mother and visit all the places that she told me so much about before she died.


I went with Mary Ann's sister, Michele, into Manhattan for the day. It was my first time to New York City. Mary Ann had always told me how great it is and how she wished she could live there. Michele and I rode the subway downtown and went to the top of the World Trade Center. It had a huge elevator that rocketed to the top at an amazing speed.


We had hotdogs from a cart at the base of the Twin Towers afterwards. It was delicious. It was a beautiful sunny spring day. We walked and rode the subway all over the city visiting Wall Street, Trump Tower, Rockefeller Center, Radio City Music Hall, Central Park, SOHO, China Town & Times Square.


Besides the city, Mary Ann's sister and mother showed me around her home town and we visited with her other family members throughout the states of New York and Pennsylvania. I am so grateful for Mary Ann's family for their hospitality.

Rock Climbing in Idyllwild

Rock climbing last Sunday on the West Face of Tahquitz Rock was really fun and a little scary. I took a few pictures. We climbed about 500 feet straight up, stopping for a lunch break half way up on little ledge, conveniently called Lunch Ledge, with a great view of the surrounding forest and Suicide Rock across the valley.


The hardest part of the climb was the Fingertip Traverse, a long section with only a small shallow crack to hold with my fingertips right on the edge of a 200 foot vertical drop. Good thing I was wearing a harness connected to a safety rope. The tricky part in the traverse was when I had to unhook from the rope briefly to get around a small bush that grew out of the crack half way across. My calves started to ache trying to grip the rock face with my sticky rubber shoes and my palms were sweaty when I reached the other side.


I felt great when I reached the top of this 5.3 rated climb with Tom and Julie. I love heights and it brought back memories of climbing tall trees as a kid.

Last Day with Long Hair

After growing my hair long for 2 years, I cut my hair short today. It was nice to have long hair after spending six years with it short for the Army Reserves, but it is time for something new. Snip! Snip!

Mary Ann Bailey

My girlfriend, Mary Ann, passed away at the end of January a week after we got back from our ski trip to Whistler, Canada. She suffered from an eating disorder and got very sick at the end. Her parents and her sister flew out from New York to see her before she was disconnected from the life-support system and to attend her memorial.


It was a beautiful service held on the cliff above Fletcher's Cove in Solana Beach. We played the video from Mary Ann's skydiving jump because it was a great capsule of Mary Ann's life and personality. As the sun set we had a moment of silence that held until the sun disappeared completely below the horizon. The mayor of Solana Beach told us that the next town hall meeting would be held in her honor.


The absence of Mary Ann from my life is intense. She was the first person that I ever loved and she was an amazing person. We lived and worked together so we were together all the time. I was barely able to eat for two weeks afterwards but my family and friends, especially my father, were great in helping me deal with the immediate aftermath when my life seemed like a blur.

Ski Trip to Whistler, Canada

Mary Ann and I just went on a week-long ski trip to the Whistler Blackcomb Resort in Canada. We almost didn't make it into the country because Mary Ann didn't have her regular driver's license (she only had a temporary paper license) but I think the border officer took pity on us, because she finally let us through.


We flew into Vancouver and took the Whistler Express bus up to the resort in the Coastal Mountains. It was a very scenic trip and we knew we were in for a good ski trip when we hit falling snow at low altitude. We arrived and checked in at the Glacier Lodge. It was a nice place and it was right near the ski lift at the base of Blackcomb Mountain.


This is my second trip to Whistler Blackcomb. I came here before for one day to ski with Jeremy and Peter as a side trip to our Seattle cabin trip in 1994. We barely had a chance to explore this huge ski area in such a short time, but it had made me extremely excited to come back. Whistler Blackcomb is actually two separate mountains right next to each, connected by ski trails and lifts with Whistler Village right in the middle. The place is huge with over 200 trails and tons of lifts. You have to take three separate chair rides to get to the summit of Blackcomb.


I am more of an experienced skier than Mary Ann so we would ski together on the easier trails until lunchtime and then I would go off and explore some of the more difficult terrain for a few hours while she went back to the lodge to relax. There was a lot of heavy powder on this ski trip which we don't see in Southern California. It was pretty difficult to get used to so I had to stay off of the black diamond trails until I got the hang of it.


After a week of skiing, I decided that Blackcomb was my favorite of the two mountains. It is the highest at 7,494 feet and I think it is more scenic with tree-lined trails instead of the huge open bowls of Whistler. Blackcomb also has the glacier at the top which is fun to ski on. I got a chance to ski down the backside of Blackcomb which had been closed for most of the trip due to heavy snow fall and high winds. I happened to be at the summit when the back trail was opened for a brief window of time, so I took off my skis and hiked over the ridge with a small group of people. It was a long fun run starting with a large bowl filled with deep fresh powder and then a winding trail all the way to the bottom.


Mary Ann and I would have fun in Whistler Village after we finished skiing. It was full of restaurants, bars and clubs, even a movie theater. Mongolian Grill was our favorite place to eat. It was a cool place where you pick all the ingredients you want and put them in a large bowl and the cooks would fry it up in front of you. It was delicious.