8 Days this Week.

Monday, December 17th

I have 8 more days until I grow up or um... change years.

I was a good weekend. We went to San Francisco to see the other side of the family. To me... it's the other, other side of the family since I am like a way distant relative by marriage. Elijah is like a fourth cousin. But we're all close which is cool so.

We were in San Francisco this weekend. I kinda liked the leather jacket Elijah has from his Grandpa. So I went out and bought myself one for Christmas. See picture below:



Self portrait of myself. I am in a hotel room somewhere in Colorado. Nice jacket eh? It's totally awesome. I was with my sister in law who is like this expert shopper. We looked at a lot of places for a decent jacket. Nordstrom's had the best but they were like $700-$900 each. Way too much for leather. So I settled for Men's Wearhouse. I got a Pronto Umo lambskin black jacket. Totally soft without a bunch of Michael Jackson pockets, beads and zippers. Just plain. The price was $450. However they had it on sale for $225. And I had this rewards card so I got $50 off!! Freaking awesome.

Totally nice to be styling. I bought a coat rack from IKEA yesterday to go with it too. So that is up on the wall.

Next up is my birthday present. I haven't decided. Probably gonna get the Led Zeppelin Box Set on iTunes. 99 bucks for like 140 songs or something like that. I only have one greatest hits album so it will be cool to get them all.

Also... I think I am gonna lay some Bamboo laminate flooring for Elijah's room next week. Sounds like a big project. Gotta rip up the carpet and move all the shit out of the room. Should be fun. As long as I can get it done in a day. I laid the stuff downstairs in 1/2 a day and this room is just square without a bunch of cuts and shit. I found some bamboo for $1.19 a square foot at IKEA. I think the room is like 15X15 so it'll cost like $300 to lay it. Should be cool!

Two Short Stories...

Two Stories

I don't know if these are really stories.

But quickly,

Number 1... Flying home from Denver today I was listening to my iPod on shuffle. So... you know how the pilot likes to get on the horn and tell you stuff like in a sinister yet calm voice reminiscent of your dentist,

Good afternoon folks from up here in the cabin. We have reached our cruising altitude of 37,000 feet so I am going to go ahead and turn off the seat belt fastened light. We had a bit of trouble getting out of Denver but I can assure you that we'll pick up the pace and get you into Sacramento 4 minutes late.

So we're like flying along and my iPod is shuffling through a mix of the Doors and Dave Matthews and shit, and I got my "free" ginger ale as I always do to calm my "nerves" flying in a sheet metal tube at 37000 feet. And the flight goes quick for a two and a half hours... And so my iPod is pumping along and the captain gets on at the end,

Well... we have began our final decent. So (DING!) I need you all in your seats as I have turned on the fastened seat belt light.

And I was half asleep and I wake up when the dude says that and my iPod had shuffled to Jon Bon Jovi's "Blaze of Glory" and as soon as he said "final decent" all I heard from my iPod was,

I'm goin' do-o-o-o-o-o-o-own in a blaze of glow' ry

All anyone wants to hear as their plane is going down...

Number 2,

I took DW, Elijah and Goofy my sister in law out to dinner at Paesano's here in Sacramento. It's a cool place here in downtown Sac that makes pizza and pasta but in a way that sets it apart from a chain store like Pizza Hut or whatever. Plus they serve alcohol. The SIL and I split a bottle of Boeger's Barbera. Good freaking wine, man seriously. I hadn't seen Elijah in a couple of days so it was good to get out. They brought Elijah some pizza dough to play with. Which eventually... we were all playing with as well.

So the meal came and went. And we finished our wine and DW was holding Elijah. So I grab the dough and start playing with Elijah. I am the master juggler with one piece of dough. I tossing it around... throwing it in the air. Making it go in circles near Elijah's face, then BAM!!!

Oh Fuck!!

I accidentally jam my hand into Elijah's face poking my finger into his eye. Pretty hard too. I immediately feel like shit. Here I am gone for a couple of days... I hear stories of him asking for "Papa" by the door and I accidentally jam him with my forefinger. So I pick him up from my wife's arms. I hug him. And you know babies... They get hurt, you pick them up, you hug them 30...45 seconds go by... You look at them to see if they are okay. And there eye's are squinted, the mouth is wide open... face is purple as the wine left in your glass.... Nothing is coming out. Just a purple face with a mouth wide open, like me frozen in the picture above with out the sarcastic expression. Time has officially stopped because Elijah hasn't taken a breath yet. Then all of a sudden, the gates of hell open and all you hear is "WAHHHH!!!!!!" I hug him and kiss him and he doesn't stop crying of course...

I felt so bad... He's all good though... trashed the SIL's house with water.

Disney Blitz in 3 Hours

The Statue of Walt standing proud like Lenin did in Red Square

Well... here's a little story, much like this guy's without the costumes, the puking and the hard foreign alcohol. Okay well, it involved hard foreign alcohol. (Amazing the similarities...though like metaphorical though)

As part of my last night of Disneyland and my vacation. Me and the two sister in laws went on run. A fast run... See, we were at the last restaurant of the mighty G-Family of Downtown Disney and the three of us were watching the clock. Elijah had it and DW was well off to bed. It was roughly 8:30PM. California Adventure closed at 9 and we wanted a run at the Tower of Terror. And then a run in the big park which did not close until 12:00 AM.

So the clock was ticking, I swigged the last of my margarita and we were off... To the hotel first to change some clothes and shoes...

Little Sis ran us fast through the park to the Tower which had a bit of a line. It only took 20 minutes though and we got the first spot as pictured below.:


Neat huh? We just had to show y'all. After Katie snapped the picture she was like, "This so has to go on your blog..."

At this point it is safe to say the margaritas kicked in because we were clamoring for a flask of something. And the contents of that flask could have been anything.

Here's us at the top of Tower of Terror (I am the drunk dude in green):





Pretty funny stuff...

Next we ran full speed out of the park and into Disneyland. At that time a parade was running so the lines were short (so we thought.) We found a group of girls maybe early 20's or late teens running for Thunder Mountain Railroad like we were. I don't know what happened or who started it (me) but it turned into a race to get there. And we're old except for Katie so we were like anchors beating these chicks out. Katie towed her sister and I through the park. It was funny because we were failing like pieces of paper and Katie had the direct path to the ride. We finally made it to the ride so we ran through the line. And right before the train... the line splits and we went left running all the way to the front... On the right were the chicks we were trying to beat out and I yell, "Well... look who's gonna ride first?" and Karen yells, "Denied!!!" Katie looked at us like we were imbeciles but it felt good. No freaking way with our bad backs could we ever beat those chicks with Katie. The photos would have been seen below had we taken them. Pitch black in the tunnels with the fireworks blasting as you came out. It felt spiritual. We went by the goat eating dynamite (which I have a picture of but the camera is in the car) and I got like three rows attention behind me and then I yelled it while pointing as we went by. The people behind us were like, "That dude's hammered..." But really I was coming off my buzz at that point...

Next was a side detour on the way to Splash Mountain. Keep in mind, we had less than 3 hours to hit these rides from the beginning. The park was dark with a bunch of shitty parades going on. It was wall to wall people and we had to zig zag around to get where we needed to go because they had all these feeble ropes with retired people waving flash lights on where to go.

But the side detour we took was directly to Pirates of the Caribbean. We got right on... There wasn't any excitement. Karen and I just got our breath. They yelled twice to keep your feet on the floor but it wasn't me.

Next was Splash Mountain. Ice cold water and chilly fall air. Nice to get soaked. I lingered towards the back of the log. We had a group that got the front of the log so we were cool. I almost slipped forward making a stupid pose for the camera. Karen flashed her gang signs. Katie wished for world peace. It was symbolic. If there were photos, they would be seen below. I yelled a lot as we went through the tunnel.

The final attempt we made was to hit the Matterhorn. Unfortunately my dream of riding this thing at night was still only a dream left for next year. They closed one side like idiots so the line was long. It was decision time... wait for the Matterhorn or checkout Space Mountain and ride it. We decided on Space Mountain. It was around 11 and the sign said 45 minutes for the ride. We waited for an eternity, people watching throughout the line. I hate couples who sit and make out while the line is moving. I hate really fat people who listen to their iPods by themselves wearing Star Wars trucker hats. I hate red necks. I hate parents who drag their 5 year olds into a long line and then yell at their kids because they hand on the chain dividers that make the lines.

Anyway, the ride was awesome for the 3rd time this week... Here's a picture of Elijah in an over-sized Charlie Brown shirt at Knott's Berry Farm:

The Goat Is Eating Dynamite: Disneyland Photos with excerpts

If you have ever ridden the Thunder Mountain Railroad then you know what the title of this post is about. I took this photo after getting off the ride at Disneyland yesterday. Me and my little 7.1 megapixel camera snuck up on this butterfly and just caught four photos of shear beauty. This is the best one of the four. I uploaded it large so if you click on the photo you can see it in a real large size.



As anyone knows that has been with a one year old, this sign holds true. This was behind the Winnie the Pooh ride at Disneyland. Elijah had fun on this one. He had fun on a lot of the rides. Not one freak out where we quickly had to dash off the line. I think he really likes the Bug's Life rides at California Adventure. Kind of a funny park, California Adventure with a bunch of Californians visiting it. It's not like we can get around the state too easily.




Many mythes surrounding this spike that I have not confirmed. One is this golden spike under Sleeping Beauty's castle is the center of Disneyland before the addition of Toon Town. The other is that when Thunder Mountain Railroad was built this was the first spike for the track. Almost no one sees this spike. When I stopped to snap a picture people asked me what it was. I just said, "A golden spike".



Elijah rides the carousel with Goofy...



This is the Tower of Terror. What's amazing is the faintness of the smoke still lingering down here. When we got here earlier in the week the smoke and ash were still all over. I was standing maybe 200 yards from the tower so I decided to snap the picture of the smoke.