Category Archives: Animals

Sleep well, Angel

Today we had to say good night to Angel for the last time. She was a sweet girl, and I’m glad I got to spend eight years with her. This was the day they came home with us.

Today we took her to the grass down the street to enjoy some treats and take in the scents. Look at the size of that bone gem gave her!

She used to always sleep in the most awkward positions – twisted, on top of things, or upside-down (her favorite).

She didn’t seem to mind when gem and I joined her.

She was quite the dashing young lady with her gorgeous scarf!

Sumo was always the one to enjoy toys. Angel wouldn’t really care, but every once in a while, something would click. She never understood how to play with toys though. She’d get excited and pick them up but not know what to do with them. We gave her so much praise anyways! She also used to like to collect all the pieces of stuffed animals that Sumo destroyed. I don’t just mean putting them in one place; she’d like to get all the pieces in her mouth at the same time. Then she’d get confused and drop them.

Man’s best friend. This is today again.

gem gave her a pretty huge bone that Angel loved. I think she enjoyed the grass, sun, and bone.

Actually, gem shared her whole lunch with Angel. Today Angel even got to try some cheese ravioli and sushi!

Angel was so content sitting in the grass, belly full. This might have been the first time Angel ever experienced being completely full. The bottomless pit actually had a bottom! She had a very loving day. Her friends Anela and Jonathan came to visit her in the morning, then Collin, Niki, Duncan, Leah, gem, and I went with her to the animal hospital.

Good night, Sweetheart. I’ll miss you.

Good boy, Sumo

Look at this good boy! This photo was taken at the shelter over eight years ago. He looks so young in this photo. We got to enjoy his company for eight years to the day, but sadly, today he left us.

This was Sumo and Angel’s first day with us after Collin adopted them exactly eight years ago today. He wasn’t a young dog when we got him, although he certainly had the heart of a puppy!

Try as he might, Sumo was never able to bite that pesky stream of water.

Here he’s enjoying some flowers.

For Halloween this past year, Sumo dressed as a pirate… in Snapchat at least.

Back in 2010, I won a Tails doll at the OC Fair. Sumo seemed to have it out for him. He loved destroying toys and leaving the fluff everywhere. It’s been years since I’ve seen him do something like this.

He always knew how to get more pets, too. He’d roll from his side almost to his back, front legs up sort of like a begging position. We’d call it “dinosaur,” because they were like little t-rex arms. We’d rub his belly and give him pets, and he’d put his legs down. When we tried to walk away, he’d just dinosaur again, trapping us there.

I remember once there was thunder, and I was the only one home. Sumo and Angel ran upstairs to come to my room. They were pretty scared from the thunder and ran under my desk to stay near my feet. If I tried to walk around my room, they’d crowd around my feet to stay with me. I’m glad I could make you feel better, sweet boy.

Look at my tired boy taking a nap. You were always a good boy, Sumo – the best boy! I love you.

Ending 2015 with the Ska Luau VI and a NYE party

Following tradition, I ended 2015 by attending the Ska Luau on the 30th and going to a New Year’s Eve party at the Carters’ on the 31st. It was a lot of fun!

gem and I were looking good at the Ska Luau. I need to work on evening my tan.

The two of us were rocking our Suburban Legends shirts! The Luau featured the Magnolia Polynesian Dance Troupe, Karate in the Garage, Hooray for Our Side, Suburban Legends, and Starpool. What a sweet line up!

We ran into our friend Bryan who’s the trumpet player for Skapeche Mode and Failed to Victory. All the bands performed amazing sets. I’d never heard Karate in the Garage, so that was a treat. I’d only seen Hooray for Our Side once, and they gave a great performance. Suburban Legends and Starpool are two of my favorite bands, and they somehow always exceed expectations. I didn’t take many photos of Suburban Legends. There choreography is so awesome that still photos wouldn’t do them justice. However, I have some videos of them playing and dancing in the playlist at the top of this post.

Starpool came out in a bang of confetti!

Throw my hands up and shout! I love when they perform this. You can see T-bone Willy Wonka and an Oompa Loompa on stage too. My ears were ringing all day the next day.

I brought a lot of food to the New Year’s Eve party – brownies, lemon bars, and biscuit pizzas.

I told Henley that I had a gift for him in the car, and he was pretty excited. He was so adorable asking if it was time to open it yet. He needed some help getting it unwrapped!

He seemed pretty happy with his new Buzz Lightyear! As it turns out, he had really wanted one too. While I was undoing the ties to get Buzz out of the package, Henley repeatedly gave me hugs. He’s so cute.

We suggested he open gem’s gift while I got Buzz out of the box. gem gave him a jacket that looks like a polar bear, complete with bear ears of course. He’s wearing it in that photo, although he didn’t want the hood.

Dev’s dog, Happy, is totally a lap dog.

Here’s me and Dev! He’s one of my oldet friends. We met in 8th grade.

I guess Mike likes my brownies! Actually, he was wondering why Dev scooped them out of the pan with a spoon.

gem made cheesecake ice cream as gifts and left them in a freezer. I realized that Gracie and Jon forgot to take one, so we began discussing the ice cream. Somehow we realized we could heat up my homemade brownies and serve them with gem’s homemade cheesecake ice cream.

Super success! A picture doesn’t really do it justice, but trust me that it was delicious.

And that was my New Year’s Eve! Thanks to Alex, Darnell, Henley, gem, Devin, Lorena, Gracie, Jon, Mike, Dev, and a couple people who I didn’t really know (sorry, I forgot names after a day already) for a fantastic end to 2015!

Christmas musical and party

This weekend I met an alpaca. I’ll get back to that.

The Compass Kids of Compass Bible Church performed The Loaned Manger this weekend, and gem’s nephew, Micah, was one of those kids. We saw the first performance, and it was a lot of fun. Some of the kids were super talented! We even got to sing some Christmas songs before and after the show.

Here’s one of the songs.

There was a petting zoo outside, so after the musical, we got to hang out with some animals. This camel was pretty cool, but he really wanted my coffee.

gem met the tortoise and the hare! I guess the hare won the race, because the tortoise didn’t really move.

I might be blurry, and he might be derpy, but I still like this photo.

Here’s gem with the alpaca too!

This weekend was also my friend Demian’s annual Christmas party! I had a blast, and I ate a ton. Rice Krispy Treats are good, but have you ever had Cap’n Crunch’s Crunch Berries treats? Wow. Also – pickleback shots! They’re a shot of whiskey chased with a shot of pickle juice. Pretty delicious actually.

The party was also a good time to sing The Twelve Days of Christmas. Pete made these signs about twenty years ago, one for each day of the song. Singing was a family tradition. Everyone sings the song until it comes to a day and then the person with the sign sings his or her part. For example, we’d all sing “on the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me,” and then I’d sing alone, “ten lords a-leaping.” Unfortunately, less people are coming to our family Christmases, so we don’t get to do it. It went over really well at the party though!

gem even accompanied the singing on her ukulele. It was so cool! It was a great party, and it was also cool to catch up with friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while.

Thanksgiving weekend

This might not have been a Thanksgiving spent in Hawaii, but it was still nice and fairly packed full of action. I spent most of Wednesday evening attempting to create pumpkin pie blondies. While I’ll still eat them, I’d say they didn’t work out. Oh well! Thanksgiving morning I woke up at 4 to get an early start and to drive Anela to LAX. On the way home, I stopped by my dad’s to say hello and then headed home for a nap. In the afternoon, I went to my aunt’s in Redondo Beach for Thanksgiving. That’s her dog, Tommy, at the top.

He was pretty freakin’ adorable. I spent the evening with my aunt, uncle, and two cousins. It’s been great getting to know my cousins as young adults. Usually my mom, stepdad, and sometimes brother come too, but this year they didn’t come. I found out that Mom and Pete were painting the house this weekend instead. Oh well. We had a delicious meal, watching Jurassic World and Shark Tank, and played Bananagrams, Rummikub, and Triominos. My cousin Haley left fairly late in the evening to do Black Friday shopping. I didn’t even realize that stores were open at midnight. It seemed crazy to me. More on this very soon…

I left a little after 11 for Irvine. After getting home, I met with gem. For Black Friday from midnight to 8 AM, Spectrum was going to have free carousel and Ferris wheel rides. Now that I knew stores were open at midnight, it made much more sense.

We started with the carousel ride, which was right next to a live DJ. Fun!

Next up was the Ferris wheel. It was freezing, but it was fun! There was free ice skating as well, but we decided it was too cold for that. We went to Macy’s to look for a bathroom, and next thing I knew, we were shopping. I had to send a Snapchat to Haley. Just a few hours earlier, I thought Black Friday shopping at night was silly, yet here I was, 3 in the morning, sucked into stores. I didn’t buy anything though.

After a short night of sleep, I went with gem to her parents’ for a large Thanksgiving meal. Here’s gem’s niece, Selah, laughing. She’s beautiful! I’d seen photos of her, but this was my first time meeting her. How lucky I was!

Selah liked gem’s homemade ice cream. Was that the Earl Grey or the apple pie? No idea.

She got a little on her face! 🙂

She likes playing with phones and seemed to like the camera. We took this selfie! I was careful to ensure she didn’t call 911. She did that recently at their house.

Here’s Selah playing with gem’s ukulele. She hit it like a drum, but when she held it up to smash it down, gem took it away. She’s so adorable!

I played two games of chess with gem’s nephew, Caleb. He kicked my butt. gem and her brothers had a family jam session too! I thought that was really cool.

After that? Black Friday shopping again somehow. There’s nothing I really want in particular, and nothing jumped out at me, but it was still fun.

On Saturday, I visited my mom, Pete, and James. I had offered to help paint the house, but they actually had finished. We played Scrabble and ate chili. Yum! We also came across some old school photos. Can you find me? This is from kindergarten. And this one is from first grade. Later Saturday night I read some of Aeneid, finished Iphigenia at Aulis, and watched Big Hero 6. Exciting evening!

Sunday morning I awoke early to pick up Anela from LAX. I actually drove over 350 miles this weekend, which is impressive considering I didn’t actually go out of town. On the way home, we stopped at Original Pancake House for breakfast! We had blueberry pancakes and Swedish pancakes. Tasty tasty.

In the evening, I finished the weekend by eating leftovers and watching Frozen with gem. We also had these treats! I baked pumpkin pie blondies recently. They tasted decent though they were too strong and too soft and mushy. I considered them failures. gem thought to cover them in dark chocolate. It was a nice improvement; they were much tastier!

Michigan Vacation

Earlier this month, I spent a little over a week in Michigan with a day in Canada. Duncan visits family there and asked if I wanted to come this year. Of course! We stayed with his dad, Dan, who was incredibly accomdating. I’d met him previously, but it was nice getting to know him as well as Duncan’s brother, Griffin. There’s a sense of humor that runs in his family I think. After a layover in Denver, we arrived in Detroit early Saturday morning, went back to Dan’s house, and slept for a bit. That evening, we spent some time seeing Ann Arbor.

Ann Arbor has these little fairy doors scattered around the city. We only saw one, but they seemed pretty interesting to me.

You can read about them at Wikipedia’s Fairy Doors of Ann Arbor. If I went back, I’d spend more time looking for the others. We spent some time walking around the University of Michigan, which was pretty cool. I saw Tau Beta Pi’s Bent and had to get a picture with it! Ann Arbor had a really cool downtown area and was a great city overall. The weather was nice too; it was the first time I had ever been that far north or east, so it was quite a bit different. The day we landed, the high was about 15 degrees lower than Irvine’s low.

On Sunday we left for the cottage. We spent a lot of time visiting cities near it, eating, taking in the sights, and playing board games. I like how quickly Dan and Griffin learned our inside jokes. Oh, Loaded Questions’ “Duncan questions.” There’s another picture of the cottage at the top of this post.

I know this isn’t a fantastic shot or anything, but it was cool seeing so much of the night sky there. The cottage was right on the lake, so it seemed like a beautiful spot for some yoga. Thanks for the photo, Griffin! It was really amazing seeing the changing colors of the trees too even if they weren’t fully changing yet. I felt like every day I’d be amazed all over again. One of the highlights (yeah, it was a highlight!) was learning to skip stones on the lake. Simple, yet fun.

We visited Mackinac Island after driving to the Upper Peninsula, which was pretty cool. It was a fort used in the Revolutionary War (among other wars). It seemed surreal to be thinking about the Revolutionary War.

Cars weren’t allowed on the island, but there were plenty of horses. Oh, and there was fudge. I bought two pounds of fudge to take home. Unfortunately, most of it’s gone by now.

Every fort needs some cannons.

Did you know that this region has black squirrels? Black squirrels!

The island had plenty of trees.

Here’s a shot of me while I was there. Thanks, Duncan.

Birds totally bore me at zoos, but I learned that I like taking photographs of them. This guy really wanted our fudge.

During our mini-vacation to the cottage, we also visited this lighthouse.

It was just a tad foggy but very beautiful.

After returning to Ann Arbor, we met with Jackie and Kenneth. I know I should have visited sooner, but at least I did eventually!

We all went out to eat at the Jolly Pumpkin, which was amazing, except I ate way too much pizza. It was really wonderful talking with Jackie and Kenneth again. I’m glad it just felt like old times. It’s funny how many nights I spent talking with Jackie back in college. It makes me all nostalgic!

Duncan and I had to represent Robot House by doing the robot in front of Robot Supply and Repair.

We also saw a ton of cool street art!

On Thursday, Griffin got us lost in the GM Renaissance Center in Detroit. I thought we might have to live there when the elevators wouldn’t let us back out.

What’s with Detroit and secret places? We walked all around Slows BBQ before realizing this was the door.

At the John K. King Used and Rare Books store, I bought a book called The World of Odysseus. I’m excited to read it!

That night we had White Castle for dinner. Um, you know how frozen White Castle food sucks? The fast food joint is actually pretty tasty! Granted I felt sick the next day (as I was told I might), but I’ve already found myself craving it again.

It was time to head to Canada on Friday! I hadn’t left the country before this and was super excited. Even if Canada isn’t that culturally different, it was still thrilling. I rented a car, and we started by going to Niagara Falls.

See, I guess I like birds now.

I was surprised that it wasn’t louder. It was breathtaking though. Give California some of that water, jerks. Here’s me and Duncan courtesy of a friendly stranger. Duncan had been to the US side before and said the view was much better from the Canadian side.

Before driving to Toronto, I had some coffee and a Canadian Maple donut from Tim Horton’s. I had to be cliche. It was good, and there really are a ton of Tim Horton’s in Canada.

Toronto doesn’t make a big deal about this, but apparently Dr. Mario lives there. Amazing. We had dinner and drinks at The Lockhart, a bar inspired by Harry Potter. The food was good, and the cocktails were amazing. I had The Captain Picard, “(2oz)Earl Grey Infused (Bombay) Gin, Agave, Lime, Tonic,” and a Cafe Moscow, “(3oz)Espresso infused Vodka, Baileys, Kahlua, Agave, Choc. Sprinkles (opt.), Coffee Bitters.”

The next day we spent most of the day looking for sights from Scott Pilgrim, although we also went to the University of Toronto and a few other places.

Sonic Boom is a record store at which Scott Pilgrim shops. It was pretty cool, and I bought a shirt.

Here’s the library at which Scott sees Ramona rollerblade up the counter.

This park was used in the movie, although there was a lot of post-production done on the scene.

While not super recognizable, the house with the bit of blue was used at Scott Pilgrim’s place in the film.

Casa Loma was where Lucas Lee was filming in Scott Pilgrim.

Think I could do a grindy thingy on that rail? Scott Pilgrim and friends eat at Pizza Pizza, and now I do too. Not bad.

Pizza Pizza also served poutine, which killed two birds with one stone.

Lee’s Palace is where Sex Bob-omb opens for The Clash at Demonhead. We didn’t go inside, but it sure had an awesome exterior!

Here’s one final shot for the vacation, me standing outside Lee’s Palace.

It was such a great trip! I wish I could have done more, but honestly, we really packed a lot into the vacation.

I have plenty more of my photographs posted on Flickr, and I’ll have more up on social media too. Thanks to everybody who made the trip great – Duncan, Dan, Griffin, Jackie, Kenneth, and a lot of others!

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!

Stand up paddle boarding and the OC Night Market

This weekend held a few fun things – like stand up paddle boarding! First, I had the wrong address number, and we drove 10 minutes out of the way. Next, we used East instead of West in the address and drove 10 minutes incorrectly again. Finally, we got to the board rental place and locked the keys in the car. We decided to worry about that later because it was time for Kaylin, gem, and I to have fun!

gem wanted to do yoga, and then I wanted to do yoga too.

Due to wrist pain, I’ve been avoiding anything that puts pressure on my wrist, but you put a paddle board under me, and I decide I don’t care.

Oof.

I tried for a while to balance on one foot, but I just couldn’t do it. I guess that’s no big surprise.

We got to see lots of cool animals while on the water such as this SUP dog! It fell off the board once while we watched and just swam back up to the board. It had a handle on its harness, so its owner just picked it up and put it back on the board. Adorable! We also some saw some birds of course as well as seals or sea lions. I can never tell the difference, but they were cute and liked to aarf. One kept trying to jump onto a boat; we watched him a fail a few times while we cheered him on, but he gave up. Another was just napping and started aarfing at us when we got too close.

It was a ton of fun! The wind picked up near the end, making us take forever to get back. We were on the water for a bit under three hours, and I guess it was a pretty good work out. Unfortunately, I did get sunburned, but gem gave me aloe from her aloe plant! When we got back to the beach, Kaylin stayed with us while figured out the keys. Hooray for AAA.

After paddle boarding, gem and I grabbed lunch at Akropolis. The Greek food was amazing! We started with this huge appetizer platter. I was really craving dolma, and this platter delivered it and more. Everything was amazing.

We also had a Greek pizza, which I considered the best pizza I’d ever eaten. gem said it was just because I’m hungry, but I think that’s a valid factor. Experience counts.

It had sauce, cheese, gyro meat, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, and tzatziki. Oh, wow. It was really amazing.

I also talked with the guy working there a bit. He confirmed that it was Greek owned. He’s actually half Greek and half Persian, and he asked if I was Greek because he noticed my name on my card. Neither of us were taught Greek, although he knows Farsi, which is cool! I’d love to come back here.

That night I went to the OC Night Market with these awesome people, gem, Anela, and Jonathan.

We ate a bunch of tasty things like this donut with ice cream in the middle topped with chocolate chips and mini Oreos. Actually, it was just kind of meh. I don’t think the donut added anything except unneeded carbs, and I’ve had much better mint chocolate chip ice cream. But it was fun to eat it anyways haha. We also went back to the same booth that took an hour with our order last time; this time it only took a couple minutes, and the servings were much larger! Anela craved fries, so we ended up getting curry fries, garlic crab fries, and Spam fries. We all expected the Spam fries to be fries topped with Spam, but they were more literal. It was Spam cut likes fries and fried. Yummy but salty!

My biggest goal for the night was to find Orion’s Cookery and get their new Hot Cheetos Brick, essentially a Rice Krispies Treat made with Hot Cheetos instead of Rice Krispies. They only had two left when I bought mine. Huzzah! After my first, small bite, I thought it was a little odd – not bad but not amazing – and maybe slightly stale tasting. Then I ate more, and as I took a bigger bite, I was pretty impressed. Win!

Anela wanted the Turkish ice cream, with which she was familiar. I’d never heard of it. According to Wikipedia, it’s called dondurma and is also popular in Greece as dudurmas or kaimaki. It’s thicker than normal ice cream and more resistant to melting. The vendor let me take his picture before he got our ice cream. I liked his clothes! He makes a bit of a show of serving it, which also shows off how it’s different than our typical ice cream. He’d put it in a cone, swing it around such that typical ice cream would fall from the cone, hand it to Anela, twist and grab it back, etc. It was fun!

And how was it?

Tasty, tasty! I’d definitely get it again, especially given the show of it. Wikipedia also mentions that that showmanship is typical of dondurma vendors. Buy some if you get the chance!

Okay, that’s it. You can stop reading. Thanks! 🙂

Henley’s first birthday party

Henley’s first birthday party was a couple weeks ago! I’m sorry I didn’t post this earlier.

He was looking quite handsome in his tie with his dad.

Here he happily mangled his birthday cake with his family.

gem gave him a stuffed dog named Mr. Chibs.

Henley took to him immediately. He was so cute!

It almost hurts to see because he’s just too cute.

What’s the goal of life? It must be to make a child smile like this.

gem also gave Henley two hats. First there’s this suave hat.

And then there was this cute red one that even had ears!

I gave him a winter time Winnie the Pooh. Henley loved him so much he tried to eat him.

Chomp!

Here are just some of his gifts.

Henley wasn’t the only cute one there. Tegan got quite messy.

The adults had fun too. gem played with some decorations.

gem and I also rode the seesaw together. Some other kids came and joined us too.

The park is the perfect place in which to climb a tree and play ukulele.

Henley went right to sleep in Dev’s arms.

Here’s Henley and gem hanging out together.

High five? Dance time? I don’t remember for sure. I know I danced with him for a while!

I thought it was cute when he put his hand on gem’s uke.

Just hanging out.

He’s just too adorable.

There are more pictures in this album too.

Prom Night of the Living Dead

Last weekend was Pizza Beat Entertainment’s Prom Night of the Living Dead! They’re the group that held Ska Day at Disneyland as well.

By the way, even with makeup remover (which I did not buy before trying on the make up the first time), it’s really difficult to get that eyeshadow off. Also, I splashed blood on the flowers.