Tag Archives: OC Fair

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!

iHookah, relaxing with friends, and more

In addition to the OC Fair about which I already posted, my weekend was full of some other things too. For starters, Antonio and I went with Anela to iHookah, where she danced.

Thankfully, that’s a still photograph and not a video. In that case, let me assure you that Antonio and I are amazing dancers. Thanks to iHookah for posting photos! It was Antonio’s first time smoking hookah, and it was a good time. I really like iHookah too; they have great service, and the staff is super friendly. It’s fun to watch Anela dance too!

I also hung out at gem’s a few times. On Friday, gem, Anela, and I had dinner, watched TV, and played Super Mario 3D World with gem’s brother. Sunday night, after the OC Fair, gem, Antonio, and I took turns playing Splatoon. It reminded me of being a kid!

As usual, what a terrific weekend!

OC Fair 2015

It’s that special time of the year where I eat terrible fried foods, watch bunnies, and look at all the cool competitions – the OC Fair! This weekend I went with gem and Antonio and had a great time!

I definitely ate some bad food, including some fried Oreos. It’s not a fair without high calorie food. It was delicious, but my stomach did seem a tad confused at the terribly unhealthy food it received.

I really enjoy looking at the collections every year.

This ticket collection by John Dettle was one of my favorites (probably because I have my own). I assume they’re all tickets of events he attended himself, but I guess I don’t know for sure.

I also love looking at the other competitions – food, place settings, photography and other visual arts, crafts, it’s all so cool. There were a lot of cool photographs and paintings, giving me a lot of cool inspiration and ideas despite not being super artistic myself. The place settings are always interesting too. This surprised me the first year I saw them; I didn’t expect to care, but I do! There were lots of neat crafts too. I especially like the scrapbooking!

This rabbit was my favorite. He was super energetic, running in circles, climbing on his box, and jumping over his box. As soon as I had the idea to record him doing it, he stopped jumping over it. I was patient, and he eventually jumped over it for me!

We played a coin tossing game, and gem won a small prize! She intends to give it to Sumo. I was hoping to win a minion so I could send a video to my cousins of Sumo chomping it, but I wasn’t good enough to win one.

I ended my fair trip by taking photos of flowers!

Hello, 2015

Last year was a pretty fun year. I was pulled on stage during a clown show, went stand-up paddleboarding, and went wakeboarding. I attended Katie and Matt’s wedding. I started doing yoga this summer and have stuck with it consistently. I switched to a bodyweight workout routine and have been doing that regularly. San Diego Comic-Con was a lot of fun, and for the first time, the roles were reversed; people asked me for pictures. (I was in my Aquabats costume.)

I attended a ton of concerts, including but not limited to Reel Big Fish, The Maxies, The Originalites, The Aquabats, Koo Koo Kangaroo, GOGO13, Half Past Two, Sugar Stems, The Interrupters, The Holophonics, The Skatalites, Suburban Legends, Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Los SuperSpies, and so many more. I watched a bunch of improv, mostly at ImprovCity and Spectacles. I attended some Risk! Live. I went to a Teenage Mutant Pizza Party and the Scott Pilgrim Picture Show with CinemAttack! There was Dapper Day, Walking with Dinosaurs, a Civil War reenactment, The Great Gatsby party, the OC Fair, and LA Kiss. There was some Yadi Presents burlesque, a performance of Wizard of Oz, Chicago, Big River – The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Man of La Mancha, and other performances. Lots of fun stuff.

Edit: Oh, man, how can I forget the Tall Ships Festival or being a guest on the Twisted Nether Blogcast?!

Work continues to go well. I cleaned out my closet. And yes, that’s worth mentioning. I attended Henley’s first birthday party and gave him a big smile with his present. I finished off Mists of Pandaria and started Warlords of Draenor. Sorry, but a little video games had to leak into this too. I got my backlog (my list of games, books, movies, etc.) that were purchased but never finished down to 340, which is pretty good. When I started counting in April, I had 471 items that needed to be beat/watched/read. I got rear-ended while driving for the first time. That’s not really much of an accomplishment, but I handled it at least. It was my 10-year high school reunion a few months back, and that was a lot of fun. I also cooked a bunch – stuffed bell peppers, pizzas, calzones, salads, salami wraps, pork chops, steaks, a cake, lemon bars, brownies, and more delicious things. I, a straight man, went out for a drink with a man I met on a dating site. I got stung by way too many bees.

It was a cool year.

2015 started with a party with close friends. Just a minute or two into the year I got to witness a friend propose to his girlfriend.

We’re off to a good start.

The OC Fair and other weekend fun

On Sunday I went to the OC Fair and saw lots of cool stuff. Of course, first thing’s first. I had to eat. I had some tasty bacon-wrapped mushrooms with Gouda to start my day and then wandered into the butterfly enclosure.

I had a butterfly mustache!

After putting some nectar on my nose, I got the butterfly to land there. Honestly, something about it freaked me out and I just wanted it get off.

I didn’t mind one being on my head though.

I also checked out the farming area. The Brussels sprouts looked and smelled to tasty! I love them.

This sign taught me how to wash my hands. Good thing it was there. I always thought I was supposed to rinse with soap, not water.

gem’s family called me White Leghorn (not to me though). I had to get a picture with the sign.

Then I rode my trusty steed away!

I checked out the visual arts next, which is usually one of my favorite parts. It must be pretty cool to have something shown there I’d think. I looked at the photographs, paintings, crafts, woodworking, and place settings. I’m not surprised that I like most of those, but it does seem a little strange that the place settings are interesting to me.

In the middle of looking at these competitions, I stopped for more food! I had fried zucchini topped with nacho cheese, jalapeños, and bacon! It was okay, but I wish the portions were much smaller. I also tried fried avocado dipped in ranch. That was pretty tasty actually!

The rabbits were adorable of course. This little guy was munching with his paws in his bowl, so I mimicked him.

After the animals, it was time to look at the collections. I looked at everything and read the descriptions as well. On my way out, the man who worked there stopped me to comment on how I looked at everything and suggested that I enter next year. We talked about collections for a few minutes. He collects martini glasses!

On my way out of the fair, I saw more animals. Lots of animals. I couldn’t leave without going in the petting zoo. One pig looked pregnant – but no, just fat.

Unrelated to the fair, my odometer hit 33,333. That was kind of interesting.

And then I had pizza for dinner! (Don’t say it, Anela.)

OC Fair!

Last weekend I went to the OC Fair for Alex and Devin’s birthdays, and it was fun as usual. I was meeting some friends there, and I just happened to see them standing around while I was in line for food. I went over and stood next to them nonchalantly, hoping they’d notice. Not only did they notice, but they were actually posing for a photo. I hadn’t realized, but that worked out well.

We wandered around a lot, but I always enjoy the farm animals and the photography best. Well, that and the food. And I ate so much food. I started with mushrooms stuffed with cheese and wrapped in bacon before moving on to taquitos.

Next there were apple fries – an apple cut up like fries, flash fried, and served with whipped cream and caramel sauce.

At that point we took a break from eating for a concert. We saw Common Sense, The Expendables, and The Dirty Heads. I’d never heard of any of them, but they were all entertaining. I didn’t really care for all the pot references or pot smoking in the crowds, but I was the outsider in their culture I suppose. I wrote down a few lyrics to look up songs later as well.

After the concert, I ate some delicious Mexican funnel cake, which is a funnel cake made out of churros. It’s so good and so bad at the same time. I also had a nice conversation with my friend Patti.

It was a terrific day.

OC Fair 2012

A couple weeks ago, gem and I went to the OC Fair. It was a lot of fun as usual!
First, we ate. We started with BBQ’d mushrooms, bacon and cheese, which were delicious. Of course, I had to have some fried Oreos. This time we tried a new dessert – fried jalepeno and Baby Ruth served on a bed of churros. It was okay, but to be honest, the flavors didn’t blend all that well. The churros were delicious though!

I really liked the look of the photo booth. The fact that it was colorful, mentioned colors, and was a photo booth seemed begging to be photographed and made more intense. I should start taking photos of more photo booths!