Yosemite in the spring

So I know that it has been a while since I have written on this blog. Some of you may be thinking I am neglecting my loyal readers, but I submit that I am much more faithful than many of my other blogger friends who don’t post for weeks, dare I say months, at a time (you know who you are myron).

Last weekend we moved into our new apartment on Friday and got it all done fairly quickly and am just doing the last of the picture hanging and other things before our apartment is presentable to the public. On Saturday we got a chance to go to the great booming metropolis/mecca of Ripon Ca to see our friends the Schenks. Kevin and Lindsay have been friends of ours for four years now and we always love going to see them especially now that they have a young child named Ethan John (his middle name is a tribute to me I’ve been told). Kevin is a teacher at RC(for those of you not familiar with the lingo that is Ripon Christian) and was directing Oklahoma for the Junior high. We had a great time spending the night and hanging out and tipping a few back for "old time sake" (the expression "old time sake" seems to make a lot of things that might be looked down upon by some, acceptable and fun).

Kevin in a "cool" hat (standard ripon attire).

This weekend we headed out for the hills (Yosemite) as we have done for the two previous memorial days with friends. Last year as well as this year we went camping with Myron Kamper and Andrea Van Wyk (soon to be Kamper). Last year we hiked half dome and had a great time, but this year we chose a shorter hike with great views. I guess I should start at the beginning. We arrived on Sat. about noon set up camp, had lunch, and then went for a short hike. We have this great spot in the national forest that we go to with a stream 10' away from our tents so we can fall asleep to the sounds of running water, very nice. The running water is not so nice in the middle of the night when you have to pee and do not want to get up, but the spot was perfect and of course free. Our hike took us along the Tuolome river towards Hetch Hetchy lake. After a 1hr hike we arrived at a spot in the river that I had heard about. Deep pools and steep walls on both sides make perfect spots to cliff jump off and just relax for a few hours in the crystal clear water. The spot is not on the maps (as many of the best places to go are not as well) and since it was not in the National Park we had the whole area to ourselves the entire afternoon. In California this is very rare let alone the fact it was a holiday.

Brenda and I jumping off of the rock.
Me jumping and Myron is wondering how far it is down and how cold is it going to be.

The next morning we got up and I had a problem of the intestinal kind. We had eaten Hobo dinners(meat, potatoes, veggies and butter in tin foil and stuck in the fire) the night before. I apparently had a reaction and experienced the worst farts I think I have ever had. It is usually hard to wake Brenda up, but apparently not when the tent stinks. I also thought Myron and Andrea needed to get up so I loaded my 12 gauge and shot a round off just outside of the tent. They awoke as expected and were frightened to say the least. We then drove to Yosemite Valley and hiked Four Mile Trail (actually 4.6 miles one way with a 3000' elevation gain) to glacier point. The views of the valley the whole trip were great and lunch at the top followed by a short nap was a great break before we hiked back down. While at the top tour buses come with the weak and or otherwise lazy people, who would rather drive for 2 hours to the top than hike the 3 hours up. When I got there it took about 20 minutes of sitting around to hear the English language (not a joke). Do people who speak English not travel, or is it that English is out of style. Call me old fashioned, but I like English and I done speak it good and are sure proud of it.

The group at the top with Half Dome, Vernal and Nevada falls in the background.
Brenda and I at the top.

The freaking awsome campsite.

Vernal (lower) and Nevada(upper) falls.

Yosemite falls in all of its glory. By the end of the summer it will just be a trickle.

Today we had a great breakfast and headed to Oakdale to Myron parents house for a lunch and a good old fashioned butchering(I just realized how much I say old fashioned, but refuse to do anything about it). Bryan and Rosemary always seem to put on a good spread of food. We had oysters and hot links as appetizers and burgers and the works for the meal (very good). We were just about to leave when the butcher showed up to shoot a cow that was not doing so good and butcher it. A .22 bullet, a lot of guts, and blood made for a new experience for Brenda and Andrea. Myron has the pictures and is going to send them to me soon so I will post those as soon as I get them.

All in all a good weekend

Worlds

Well the worlds is over. We did not fare that well as the standings go, but we had a lot of fun and learned a lot as well. I sailed on Thurs and Fri and had a great time. We had a hard spinnaker take down on the first race on thurs and got in big trouble. The winds were 20-25kn and my captain came up hard instead of jibing and over we went. The foredeck man let the tackline go and that was the wrong thing to do. It took us quite a lot of time to come upright, but when we did we found that the spinnaker was torn and unusable in the second race. It was really honking out there and we still raced and beat a few boats that had trouble during the race. The wind was so strong in thee first race that one boat lost its mast.

Here is a picture of my captain and his girlfriend. Like most successfull/semi-successfull dot com company owners, he "traded" in his wife for the younger looking one to his right. For those of you who know what West Marine is, the founder and CEO is the man between Dave and his girlfriend.

Here is a picture of us headed for the mark. If you look closely you can see me as the second one from the front.


Above are pictures showing how windy it was. The boat on its side is performing the manuver that we did a few times during the races and very often during practice. It is not fast and it is not very safe.

It turns out that Dave Ullman won the worlds. He is 61 and can drive like a mad man. I was lucky enough to meet him and he was very nice.

We are going to be moving into a new apartment as of tues. It is bigger 2 bedroom two story apartment and we are looking forward to it for some time. One of the first things that Brenda wanted was a new dinning table. She is very convincing and has been wanting one for some time so we got one today. It is very nice and just what she wanted, so that makes me happy.

Our new address is 2094 Surrey Place #2 Campbell CA 95008

This week

I am having a hard time coming up with a good way to start this entry out so I guess I will just begin. I am on a soccer team at work and we had a game this fri. It is always fun to play with people from work and this is the first job where the people that I am working with, actually hang out after work. Our game went well. I am the goalie and we won so everyone was happy. I only lost my cool once when the ball hit off of the top crossbar and then went straight down and stopped 6" in front of the goal line. The ref was not in the best position and called it a goal. This tied the game at 3-3 with 8 min left. I did not agree with the ref. and expressed my feeling through verbal and non-verbal forms of communication. I felt a bit better after we scored the 4th goal and got the win. (the ref. apologized for the call after the game and we shook hands)

After the soccer game there was a going away party for one of the girls that I work with. This was not the typical party that I think of when someone says company party. There of course was lots of food, but there was lots of booze as well. My bosses were there and they sure were having a good time. It was nice that Brenda could come along and I think that everyone liked her more than me (not uncommon). Near the end of the night and after a few forty's of Old English the host of the party was sliding down the stairs of his apartment on sleeping bags with the bosses kids. I cannot wait till the next party because we had a great time and I really like the people that I work with. I went sailing again on Saturday which seems the be a reoccurring theme in this blog. "The Worlds" festivities have begun, even though the racing does not officially start till tues. I am only going to be racing on Thursday and Friday, but am kind of thankful for that. I got very bruised and battered this weekend and it was good to take a lazy Sunday afternoon nap. We had practice races on sat. and did not do very good. I am not going to say where we finished, but lets just say it was nearer to the back of the pack and leave it at that. One race we did crash and had the boat as far on its side as I have ever seen it. All was good at the end of the race as you may be able to tell from the picture above. This is the foredeckman(John) looking for the beer.

Going once...Going twice...Sold

Wow, I am astounded at how many people are reading my blog. There must be two or three of you out there. This type of exposure is something that I an unaccustomed to. I am truly thankful. This week was of course full of fun and work. Saturday we helped our friends move into their new house in the morning. We are hoping to get their apartment soon, but are not holding our breath. California is a very expensive place to live. We are currently in a 1 bd 750sq. ft. apartment that is $1100 a month. That may seem like a lot but the alternative is buying a 600sq. ft. condo. down the street for $380,000 (not including HOA fees). what a scam. A real house in our area is at minimum $750,000. This is one of the main drawbacks to this area. The apartment we are trying to get is $13oo a month...what a deal.

At 1pm on sat., Brenda and I as well as a friend from work went to the beach. The boys went surfing and Brenda just sat around and looked good. It was a great day at about 80 at the beach and sunny as usual.

When we got back from the beach we went to the San Jose Christian School auction. This is unlike any school auction I have ever heard of. Tickets are $25. This fee covers all the appetizers, fellowship, and wine that you would want. Yes all the wine you can drink at a school auction. This is always one of the funnest school events that we go to during the year. The auctioneer looked like the Nanny 911 lady from TV (not that I watch it...oh ya...there are a lot of idiot parents out there and morons should be castrated and not told how to procreate(some of these idiots couldn't figure it out without being told)).

I guess that their were Russians there as well. This lady had one of those weirdo hats on with a hanging tassel on it. It made Brenda laugh out loud and draw a lot of attention.



Here is Myron and Andrea having a good time. They do not get to see each other very often, so they decided to hang out in the back row (presumably to cuddle and kiss, but I did not witness any of that). I was thankful that they were back there because they were nearest to the wine tasting (refill) area.

We did not get anything at the auction this year but a good time with all of our friends and meeting a lot of the parents. I often hear stories about these people from Brenda, but do not get to put a face to the name very often.

This week of adventure

It has been a very busy week for us and me in particular. Our sailing team is ramping up our practices for the Worlds. As I do every wed., I went out sailing and it was blowing 13-18kn. In that type of wind it became painfully evident that our team was going to need a lot of practice if we are not going to look like idiots for the races coming up in May. While heading downwind we were surfing some of the bigger swells and waited for a big one to jibe on. We began to jibe and got in a bad spot and breached. For those of you who may think that I am talking Greek, a jibe is a turn of the sailboat while heading with the wind. The wind caught our sails and our boat was no longer vertical, but much of what is supposed to be dry on the boat, wasn't. We were heading into the rest of the fleet at an uncontrollable high rate of speed and a collision seemed inevitable. Just in time our boat turned upright and sailing continued. You think that we would have learned what we did wrong, but no we didn't. We performed that maneuver two other times, but got better at our recovery technique.

I also had to work this weekend as well as last. From the time that we got back from the DR I have to work 16 days straight. Weekend work is not bad because it is only for a few hours, but I still have to go and that stinks. It has come to my attention that many of you reading this may not know (or care) what I do for a living. I recently (Dec.) began working for Arcadis and am currently employed as a "Scientist". I am working at a closed down solid rocket fuel plant in the hills of south San Jose. Some of the chemicals used in making the rocket engines had leaked onto the ground and in now in the groundwater. I work setting up groundwater extraction wells that pump water out of the ground through a treatment system and then to a irrigation system. We have over 100 wells and pump many millions of gallons a year out of the ground. I like this job, but most of all I like my co-workers

So after work and sailing on sat. I also had church league bowling. This league is mainly dominated by the "older" crowd, but is fun...most of the time. I have a woman on my team that is over 70 (I am not sure and ashamed to ask so Brenda and I agreed on leaving it at over 70) and a dear sweet lady. I was very angry when she beat me. I know that I should be happy because she is on my team, but when a senior citizen beats a 26 year old at a sport, it is a little hard to take. The above picture is of the moonlight bowling that starts at 8pm. We start at 5:30 and had the worst machines in the whole place and it took till 9pm to get 3 games done. We are usually done by 8pm. Below is a picture of bowling as well (the head on the bottom left is the one who beat me). I have taken care with these pictures to make my score not readable. This is not an accident.

For those of your who are reading this and laughing with me please leave a comment. For those who are laughing at me...don't bother....