Tag Archives: dinosaurs

Looking back at 2018

I think 2018 was a pretty great year. I moved to a new apartment, which I really like, and started a new job that is challenging and rewarding. I enjoyed spending time with many wonderful friends, went on lots of great adventures, and saw a lot of fun shows.

I went to San Diego Comic-Con again for the 8th year in a row. This year I attended with gem, Antonio, and Kaleigh.

I cosplayed Fix-It Felix, Jr. again. And here’s gem as Lilo!

gem and I took Antonio to Zion National Park in Utah and to Vegas for his bachelor party. We did lots of great hiking in Zion…

…visited the Warner Valley Dinosaur Tracks…

…saw Cirque du Soleil in Vegas…

…went to Neon Museum of old signs…

…and went ax throwing in Vegas!

Antonio married Kaleigh! I was one of his two Best People. (He had one man and woman as his Best People).

Here’s Antonio Best Woman, Best Man, and groomsman.

My photo of Anela was shown in the OC Fair.

Here we are with the photo hanging in the gallery!

Christin’s photo of us was also shown!

I always knew that deep down I was a model.

My postcard collection was featured in the OC Fair as well. I entered it as a collection of foreign postcards. I’ve traded mail with 55 countries (up 3 in 2018) and 35 US states (up 8). Considering only postcards, I’ve traded with 50 countries (up 4) and 28 US states (up 8), having received from 41 countries (up 7) and 17 US states (up 5) and sent to 45 countries (up 2) and 25 US states (up 8).

I got rid of my mustache. Sometimes I miss it.

We got season passes to Universal and went a lot of times!

Sometimes I think about what could have been if I had purchased these sunglasses. The world would be blurry, but I’d look so fly.

Andy and Kaylin got married!

And more importantly, the bar served a variety of alcohol when it was supposed to be beer and wine only. Okay, the wedding itself was actually more important, but the drinks were still somewhat important.

The Imperial Sand Dunes made for a gorgeous (but hot) backdrop.

Christin, Anela, and gem were all beautiful models!

On the way home, we visited Salvation Mountain.

Tanaka Farms’ sunflower festival was fun and beautiful!

gem really loved the huge sunflowers!

Here’s Anela and me with Hello Kitty.

And here’s gem and me with Hello Kitty!

Anela and I visited the lavender festival, and she wore a Ukrainian outfit.

There were many photo shoots, although a lot of them aren’t ready to be posted yet. Here’s one of Angel Kawaii as Harley Quinn!

The Arts Alive and Street Painting Festival in Mission Viejo ended up being more fun than I expected, especially because there were over 50 fairy doors.

The Christmas treasure hunt was so fun. Look at the detail on the map Pete made!

2018 was the year of pop ups for me it seems. I visited Happy Place for the second time. Here I am with gem in the rubber ducky room! I still need to go through those photos…

gem and I went to San Francisco to visit the Museum of Ice Cream (and to visit our friends Matt and Katie).

The Sprinkle Pool was awesome!

gem took me to The Pizza Experience as a Christmas present. Photo ops and pizza?! Amazing!

This is how I work out now.

I had to see the Gudetama x Curry House collaboration with gem. Luckily the curry is delicious there!

And then there’s the Rilakkuma x Roasting Water collaboration too! I’ve been to two of their locations with gem for this collaboration, and I’ve visited the one near my house many times on my own.

And I can’t forget Aggretsuko’s DEN OF RAGE!!!

gem and I learned about ethics at The Good Place Experience.

gem took this photo of me as a luchador at Luzia. I really saw a ton of shows this year:

Cirque du Soleil’s Luzia under the Grand Chapiteau
The Book of Mormon at Segerstrom Center
Allegiance at the Aratani Theatre
The Unauthorized Musical Parody of Jurassic Park at the Rockwell: Table & Stage
David Sedaris speaking at the Long Beach Performing Arts Center
Cirque du Soleil’s Zumanity at New York-New York
Suburban Legends in Downtown Disney three times
Drag show at the Velvet Lounge
Goldfinger with The Suicide Machines, Buck-o-Nine, and Suburban Legends at the House of Blues, Anaheim
Dear Evan Hansen at the Ahmanson Theatre
Santa Claus Conquers the Martians at the Maverick Theater
Wicked at the Pantages
The Fury of the Aquabats 20th Anniversary show with The Aquabats featuring former Aquabats Catboy, Prince Adam, and Chainsaw and opener C.J. Ramone
Love Actually Live at The Wallis
…47 seasons of TV shows and 42 films (not counting repeated viewings)

What an action packed year! Can I cram as many cool things into 2019?

…oh and I also fractured my foot. Shhh!

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.

Walking with Dinosaurs

Last night I saw Walking with Dinosaurs – The Arena Spectacular at the Honda Center! It was pretty great and could definitely be enjoyed by people of all ages. While they taught a lot of information that I (and most other adults) already knew, there were still pieces of new information.

The dinosaurs looked pretty real – except for the extra pairs of human legs on some of the dinosaurs that is. The show went through the various periods, discussing the world, the environment, evolution, and the current dominate species. To be honest, the end felt kind of sad even though I obviously knew that the dinosaurs didn’t leave happily ever after.

Strangely, they forgot to mention the Dinosaurs TV show.

gem was excited! And no, of course she didn’t bring a dino.

Edit: I wanted to add a couple more photos!

It’s a good thing he has those spikes.

Look how big they are! Everything was to scale too, so it was pretty cool. I don’t know how realistic they would have looked close, but from where we were sitting, they definitely looked great! At least, I think they did. I’ve never seen a real dinosaur.