Category Archives: Sports

Looking back on 2016, and looking forward to 2017

I keep hearing about how awful 2016 was and how 2017 should hopefully be better. There were a lot of celebrity deaths in 2016, and I was devastated by the presidential election. More personally, I was laid off from Toshiba in a huge reduction-in-force, and my roommate had to put our two dogs to sleep. Yeah, there were negatives. And yet I’ll be lucky if 2017 lives up to 2016.

I traveled to Europe and saw eight countries with three of my closest friends, gem, Antonio, and Anela, and visited two great friends, Jessica and Andrew, who had recently moved to Paris. I saw Denmark, the UK (including England and Northern Ireland), the Republic of Ireland, the Netherlands, Belgium, France, Italy, and Sweden. It was amazing, and I swear I’ll get to sorting photos and blogging eventually.

I saw Disneyland Paris and our hometown Disneyland’s Season of the Force. I attended Devin and Lorena’s 30th wedding anniversary party that included a face-painted bar crawl and a 1920s speakeasy party. I saw Kristine’s first exhibit that she curated in LA – Firsts, Seconds and Thirds: African American Leaders in Los Angeles During the 1960s & 70s.

I watched Anela dance a few times, including Shimmy Shakedown featuring her and Melissa. I saw the Wet Silk art exhibit, met Jon Klassen at the LA Times Festival of Books, and watched an LA KISS Arena football game.

The Holi Festival was a colorful blast of fun. Here I am with gem, Tory, Sean, and Nicole. I also went to the Huntington Beach Cherry Blossom Festival!

I went to a number of photoshoots with Anela, including this Fourth of July shoot that I really enjoyed, a fairy photoshoot, cherry blossoms, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall and train tracks in LA where I also got to shoot gem!

I took a bunch of friends to the Alpaca Hacienda for Anela’s birthday, and we got to see feed and pet alpacas and a llama!

I watched Sherlock Holmes and the Time Portal as well as Sweeney Todd, and gem surprised me with tickets to see Patton Oswalt. I’d been wanting to see his stand-up for a long time, and he didn’t disappoint. I had the three most amazing meals of my life – two at Frame in Paris and one for Edward’s birthday at Alexander’s Steakhouse in Pasadena.

I participated in a high-altitude sleep and cognitive ability sleep study at Barcroft Station, White Mountain Research Center where I witnessed some of the most beautiful views of nature I’ve ever seen. I saw the B-52s and Flight of the Conchords live as well as a number of local ska bands that I see regularly. I went to Allison’s awesome gaybut party and finally made it to one of Bryan’s parties where I participated in some of the most stimulating conversation I’ve had in a while. Visit our lawyer site to find more info.

I cosplayed Luke while gem cosplayed Professor Layton at San Diego Comic-Con. I also cosplayed Fix-It Felix Jr., and a Pokemon Go trainer. I got to dress as a zombie later in the year as well! I attended the Sonic the Hedgehog 25th anniversary party and saw some improv such as Spectacles, ImprovCity, and more.

Two great friends, Gracie and Jon, got married, and I got to watch.

I worked for three months doing server and other hardware installation for California DMVs. While I was traveling across the state, I got to visit my friends Matt, Katie, and Marc. I also had the chance to have lunch with Chuck Sommerville, a game designer whom I’ve admired for a very long time. He’s incredibly fascinating and has done many interesting things, and he was every bit as nice as I could have hoped.

And I even got to meet Alex and Darnell’s beautiful new daughter, Meredith.

Now I’m sure I’m missing many awesome things about 2016, but that just proves my point. If 2017 is half as good to me as 2016 was, I’ll be very grateful. Happy New Year.

Wakeboarding on 9/12/15

In September, gem, Anela, and I went wakeboarding with my parents and brother. I was a bit slow posting photos from it, but I wanted to make sure to get these online.

The ukulele survived the trip unharmed!

Here’s my mom with Anela and gem.

Pete looks pretty happy with his boat here! This might be our last wakeboarding trip, because he wants to get rid of the boat. Maybe he won’t manage to sell it, and we’ll get to go out again. It’s already November, and it’s best to sell it when it’s still the best season to go out on the boat. I don’t mean to root against him selling it or anything…

gem took a few photos of Anela at the back of the boat while Pete worked on the engine.

Shes pretty much looking right at Pete here, so I’m sure he said something hilarious – typical Pete.

Here’s our rescue team! First there was the Rescue Anela, but then Rescue gem joined her!

We were all in varying states of injury, so there was actually much less wakeboarding than usual, and slower wakeboarding at that.

Here’s some evidence that there was indeed some wakeboarding at least. – Anela wakeboarding.

And here’s me wakeboarding. I tried touching the water a few times. Less than graceful, but so what? I don’t think it’s in the video, but they wanted me to switch hands turn around while wakeboarding. It didn’t go so well, but I still had a great time wakeboarding that day!

After we finished wakeboarding, we headed to Michael’s (after a brief detour to a pet store). I like this photo quite a bit. We ended the evening with both Eiswelt Gelato and Yogurtland and then some Super Mario Maker. It might have taken me a month and a half to post about it, but it was a fantastic day.

Wakeboarding at Puddingstone

I went wakeboarding with my family this weekend at Puddingstone in San Dimas. I’ve wakeboarded twice before this, but it was my cousins’ and brother’s first time. It’s a ton of fun, but I can definitely admit that I’m sore the next day. That video was my longest go. Thanks to my cousin Haley for recording!

Here’s Mitch. He was definitely getting much better near the end, but I stopped recording when my phone got close to dying.

Here’s Haley, who actually stood up briefly on her first attempt. She was pretty amazing.

Lastly, this is my brother, James. He’s been on the boat previously, but this was his first time wakeboarding. I’m glad he tried it!

Mayweather-Pacquiao potluck

I went to a potluck for the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight this weekend. I’m disappointed that Pacquiao didn’t win but not surprised. The food was really tasty though!

I made jalapeño poppers and bacon-wrapped dates yet somehow didn’t take a single picture of them. My parents had pasta salad, hummus, pita, chips, salsa, cookies, and candies. Mark and Elena brought ribs. Duncan baked snickerdoodles while Collin brought garlic chicken bites. I was cooking at the same time as Collin and got to try them repeatedly during the cooking process. Tasty!

gem brought pork buns, two flavors of homemade ice cream, and homemade guacamole. The buns had egg in them too and were delicious!

She also brought balut! Non-Filipinos always seem so scared of this, but it was tasty! I read about how different cultures season it differently, so I’m pretty curious to try it again with some variations.

Pete also decided he didn’t want his Ghostbusters sign anymore, so it came home with me! It lives in the living room now.

This was originally used during the chili cook-off. Joseph made a chili with ghost chilies, so Pete the sign for us to use. Since then, it’s been sitting outside at his house. Pretty sweet!

It was a really fun potluck, and I got leftovers too! Even Sumo and Angel got to eat some delicious ribs. Yay!

Action-packed Super Bowl Sunday

Sunday morning I went to Quail Hill for a hike!

gem used her nice camera while I took pictures with my phone.

It was a really beautiful day. We didn’t hike for very long, but it was nice to get out. The sky seemed especially blue against the greenery.

After our hike, Anela suggested tea. It was a great idea! Roasting Water was serving their drinks in cute glass bottles with corks. The tea was tasty, and I got to keep a neat bottle.

When we were finished with our tea, we headed to Boiling Crab for lunch. It’s a Super Bowl tradition. The plan is usually to eat during the Super Bowl to avoid the rush, but this year we went before the Super Bowl. It was still relatively empty. I didn’t take any photos, but it was delicious. You’ll have to trust me.

With food out of the way, I went to hang out my friend Aiya.

We also trapped this baby. Henley didn’t seem to mind.

Actually, I went to spend time with Alex, Darnell, and Henley, three of my very favorite people in the world. It was wonderful seeing them. Every day I get to spend with them is always one of my favorite days.

It was a excellent and action-packed day!

Wakeboarding and visiting the OC Night Market

I went wakeboarding with my friends gem and Anela this weekend! We went to Silverwood Lake with my parents on their new boat. I’d been wakeboarding once a few weeks ago, but it was gem and Anela’s first time.

It’s hard to make us out in the photos, but that’s gem.

And here’s Anela on the board.

Here’s a great action shot of Anela eating lunch with a bonus bunny ears from Pete.

This was cooler in person with the wind.

Wakeboarding is fun, but lying in the sun with your eyes closed is also fun.

I’m going to guess someone said something funny right before this photo, because my mom looks really happy.

Here I am wakeboarding!

Wakeboarding in action! Woohoo!

After some delicious shrimp, potato, and corn soup at my parents’ house, we met Anela’s friend Daniel at the OC Night Market.

We ate, as gem would say, all the things!

Multi-colored dumplings with multiple dips! Mmm!

Delicious baco – soft!

Delicious baco – crunchy!

We saw this super cute sign with a rad dino on it.

Fried macaroni and cheese with garlic aioli and sausage is tasty.

We also tried what was being marketed as “eggporn.” The egg is cooked inside the jar in boiling water along with cornmeal, bacon, and green onion. I think. Anyways, it was pretty good.

See these cookies? They’re amazing! There’s actually two kinds in that photo – habanero peanut butter and jelly and salted caramel apple oatmeal. They’re from the Velvet Rope Bake Shop. Check them out and get some cookies!

I also had some other things that I didn’t photograph (or the photos came out badly) including a fried squid, ice cream in a plant pot, fresh potato chips with Thai coconut curry toppings, some sort of corn dog, Brussels sprouts, spam musubi, and probably more about which I’m forgetting. Tasty! There was also a lot of cool art to see, a costume contest, some kids dancing, and live music. I heard a girl with a guitar do a great rendition of the Pokemon theme song, and I also some cosplayers throwing a pokeball at each other.

Oh, and then there was this wookie.

More photos here.

Dinner, LA KISS, brunch, and more

This weekend I managed to get a decent amount of activities done. First, on Friday I got around to cleaning and shining my shoes. They look a lot better. Later that evening I went to gem’s to make dinner and watch a movie with her and Anela. We had some tasty curry and watched Don Jon. I’d seen it previously and really liked it, but gem and Anela hadn’t seen it.

On Saturday after yoga I went with Joe, Max, and Lenny to watch the final home game of LA KISS for the season. It was a really good game, and the last minute had a lot of action, but LA KISS lost.

I also had brunch with gem and Antonio after yoga on Sunday. I don’t see Antonio very often, so it’s nice to hang out with him (even if I’ll see him quite a bit over SDCC). We went to Haute Cakes, and I had too many hotcakes. It was a pretty good weekend.

Love Goose vs No Homers

A little fantasy football smack talk for Week 5 drawn by gem.

Chapman 5K

We ran the Chapman 5K on Saturday. I was slow, with a time of 35:56.3, but I never stopped to walk. I’ll consider it a victory.

Edit: The results are online now.

I was 455th of 630 males. I was 49th of 57 in my age group (25-29). My chip time was 35:56.4, and my gun time was 37:33.4. My average pace was 12:07/M. Also, gem was listed on that page also under my name, so yes, my name shows up twice. She signed me up twice and failed to sign herself up, heh.

herp a derp

Nate’s going down this week.