Shocking as it may seem, the furthest I’ve ever been out of the country is Tiajuna (and let’s be frank, walking across the boarder does not count). However, I know the insatiable wanderlust within has been desperately trying to get it’s first taste of traveling abroad. And with my recent departure from Slide, I was finally offered that chance.

Needless to say, Barcelona was amazing. All of my senses were nurtured - the Gothic Quarter and it’s labyrinths kept me in awe, the food and the wine were delicious, and I feel like I got some good thinking in with regards to what I want to obtain from this next chapter in my life.

And so I return to America both refreshed and [re]focused. Perhaps I’ll even blog about some of the interesting points that will occur over the next few months

B) I think even if I was good at blogging regularly, it would have been difficult to due given how busy things have been these past few months.

So, having said that, I think it’s well overdue to give a little update of sorts. I’m glad to say that my brother is not only fully recovered from the crash a few months ago, but that he now has a job! He’s a draftsmen for DeSimone - if you live in San Francisco their most notable project here is The Metreon over on 4th and Mission. I know how hard it must have been for him to just sit on my couch for 2 months in recovery, so I’m really glad he’s on his way to getting this new chapter in his life started.

It’s actually been nice to have someone around the house these days. Work has been pretty busy, which in turn has all but demolished my social life. So having some sort of human interaction with a person outside of that has been really healthy for me I think.

Outside of work and my brother, there really isn’t much else to report. However, I am really looking forward to seeing  my dear friend Vince in November. It’s hard to believe we haven’t seen each other since Christmas ‘05, but I love how we always seem to manage to pick back up where we left off whenever we do get the chance to see each other.

I hope to have more to report soon. Maybe my life will be slightly more interesting the next time I sit down to write a post. But for now, I’m just making my best attempt to calm my worries, and enjoy the times that I’m able to spend with my friends.

My brother officially lives in San Francisco

Unfortunately his first weekend wasn’t exactly the best. Early Sunday, after he and his friend got a good nights rest, they took their bikes out to do a bit of exploring. Apparently they weren ‘t paying too much attention to the tracks that run up and down most of the streets downtown. Derek wedged his front wheel in one of the tracks and flew off, shoulder first, into the ground. Thankfully there were plenty of people around to help, some even brought him bandages and coffee, while Jason made a panicked call to me for help. I met up with them shortly after, we walked the bikes home, and jumped into a cab to Saint Francis Hospital. He ended up with a broken clavicle, and managed to get out with only an arm sling and some glue to help with the cut above his eye.

After all that, he seemed to be in well enough spirits

I guess he just needed to get the bad stuff out of the way.

The rest of the weekend was a load of fun. We all headed to my favorite restaurant, Ti Couz, for some much needed food (it was close to 5 and none of us had eaten anything all day). My good friend Bobby met up with us as we walked to get some coffee. Later on that evening then headed back to the Mission to go bar hoping, and enjoy the cool summer weather that is ever so foreign to those of us from Arizona.

Tonight we grabbed some dinner at Tokyo Go Go. As we walked in the waitress caught sight of my brother and blurred out “What happened to you?!” I smirked while looking at him and said “You should have seen the other guy!”

True, my brother got in a fight with the ground, and the ground won. But that probably won’t keep us from making up wild tails when people ask about it.

I’ve been living in San Francisco, by myself, for nearly two years. While I do have friends in close reach, it’s nice to know that I finally have some family up here. And while it sucks Derek will have to spend his first few weeks in this new city in recovery, I’m really glad he’s finally made it up. There’s something very freeing about moving away from the place you grew up in. And I’m glad he’ll have me around. Ya know, just in case he needs another ride to the hospital.

After scarfing down our food from Taqueria Cancun and waiting for all the Burning Crusade patches to download, we were ready to get started. I ended up creating a Night Elf by the name of Delbchan (which is Gaelic for “Daughter of Morgan”. Nerdy, eh?). She showed me the ropes of getting started and by 3am my character was up to level 6! w00t!

After sending Megan off I was still wide awake, so I popped in Howl’s Moving Castle, which was *amazing*. If you ask me, Hayao Miyazaki can do no wrong. I love the world’s he creates within his films. And besides, it’s anime! Yet another thing I’m terribly addicted to.Surprisingly, I was up by 10am Saturday. So I took some time to review the bids from my most recent I’m in like with you game. The point was to put a lolgeek caption on a picture of our CEO, Max Levchin. After some crazy live bidding in the last hour, I ended up picking a caption that was very fitting of our over caffeinated leader. The game details are here. Below is the final product:

Later that evening I met up with my friend Kevin for Film night in the Park. Neither of us had seen a movie in the park before, and to boot Kevin had never seen 16 candles! After some power issues and the screen deflating on us a few times, the movie got started around 9:15. The crowd cheered each time John and Joan Cusack came on screen, people were shouting out lines from the movie.. it was a great time. Even though I ended up having a little too much to drink.

Today I hope to meet up with Lucas for brunch, then Andrei and I will probably go see Ratatouille. I also need to start reading Harry Potter at some point.

In other news, I’m thinking about shutting this blog down and finally redoing my website. I’m behind the times, kids. And my old domain name was waaaaay too long.

Oh, and for those of you who have yet to see transformers, go see it. For nostalgia sake.

This weekend me and Misty traveled up to Napa for a little relaxation. Oh, and to go on a few wine tastings.

It’s baaaaaaaaaaack! I am TOTALLY going to be at this. Everyone come out and join in on the fun!

“The Instigator” of last years amazing Pillow Fight in San Francisco has informed us that it will be happening once again this Valentine’s Day (Wednesday, February 14th) at Justin Herman Plaza. Here are photos from last year’s Pillow Fight.

It’s not Valentine’s Day, it’s PILLOW FIGHT Day!

Where: Justin Herman Plaza (Market & Embarcadero), San Francisco, CA.
When: Wednesday, February 14th, when the Ferry Building clock strikes 6pm.
What: PILLOW FIGHT!!!

How:

1. Tell everyone you know about Pillow Fight!
2. Tell EVERYONE YOU KNOW about Pillow Fight!!!
3. Nothing in your pillow but pillow.
4. Don’t hit anyone with out a pillow.
5. Don’t hit anyone operating a camera.

Last year’s Pillow Fight was *amazing*! Let’s make the magic happen again! Please bring a few trash bags to share and help pick up after wards.

At any rate, I was bored Saturday night. Really bored. To the point where my choices we to start working at 7pm, or find something to do. Thankfully my good friend Brian responded to my text message and invited me out for drinks and dinner with some of his co-workers.

The evening began at Blondie’s (which in my opinion is the only place to go in the city for a good martini). We hung out and waited for 9pm to roll around and enjoyed their “Deep Blue Funk”. Yummy! By 9 we walked over to Limon to wait for the rest of the Facebook crew. By 9:20, we gave up, walked up and down the street trying to figure out what to do next.

It was at this point I had an idea. We go on a treasure hunt. And who are we to say what treasure we would find, other than we would know it when we found it. So, it was on to the Castro! Yarrrr!

Treasure #1: Dinner

We started walking, not sure if we were hungry or not. But more hoping to stumble onto something that seemed interesting. We walked up Church to Market and started looking into the windows of all the places we passed. It was decided that if we were to stay out and possibly drink, we should at least have something to eat. Initially we walked into Sweet Inspirations, but decided we needed real food so we walked into Lime. Just enough food to satisfy our stomachs (I need to say just how much I love the mini-burgers here) and just about $20 for three plates. Not too shabby!

Treasure #2 : Desert

I really wanted to go back to the bakery we were initially in just because the mouse looked so good and they seemed to have a good selection of tea. But Brian informed me of a Ice Cream place that had all sorts of interesting flavors (like Guinness Ice cream!?), so we headed over to Naia for some samples. Even though we had talked about getting cake, we ended up getting orange chocolate and dark chocolate ice cream. But while we were walking over there we noticed something else going on that looked promising.

Treasure #3 : Dancing!

What’s this? Ladies night at The Bar On Castro? And only a $3 dollar cover change? Dude, count me in!! When Brian and I first walked I got a kick out of all the Lesbians dancing around and flirting with the teenish looking gay boys. Not to mention that they were practically streaming gay porn on the monitors. We hit the bar and I watched in horror/excitement as the bartender made my drink with 3 parts vodka, 1 part redbull. From here on out the night could only go two ways, really good or really really baaaad.

We walked around for a little bit, chatted with a few bar goers, and after I had enough of my *very* strong drink I felt like dancing. At which point I got to shake it with a beautiful girl by the name of Arwen. Brian and I left at a reasonable time, and very fulfilled with our hunt for fun on a Saturday night.

Picking up where we left of is a good starting point. Let’s try that, shall we?

The boy:

It feels like things ended almost as quickly as they started. Things were great, then things started to settle, things started to turn bad, and I was left with a very difficult decision. But I’m positive I made the right one. I can’t really find the words right now to describe how any why it ended (eh, I probably wouldn’t post that here anyways).

The work:

It’s improved. Some. I came up with a plan of attack, executed it, and have finally been able to come up for air to re-claim my weekends. No more working 60+ hours a week, no more stressing myself out to the point exhaustion. I figured that if I kept going at the rate that I was I would get so burnt out that I’d end up hating my job, quitting, and what worse, never want to work for a start up again. NOT GOOD. I love my job. And if I want to be of any use to anyone when I go into the office, I need to set some standards for myself and follow through on them. And things have paid off, we’re back to having a manageable work load, and I’m finally able to do some of the things I’ve been wanting to do for the past 3 months. Yippee!

The NSA Reunion:

Was awesome! Richard, my very first boyfriend, was my date. Got to see a lot of people I haven’t seen in ages. We even ended up running over to the old school, silly and drunk, and ran around telling stories. Got to see all of my family, meet my moms new boyfriend, hand out with my brother, and just relax for a little bit. When I got back I treated myself to a massage and a day of watching TV and movies. Yum.

Venice Beach:

Cyan and Misty dragged my away from the office to hit the beach for the weekend, and oh what a weekend it was! Friday night was reserved for dining and relaxing in the hot tub. Saturday was spent at the beach and Santa Monica Pier, and Sunday we hit Universal Studios. Check out Cyan’s flickr photos!

Jody’s Wedding:

*blink* It was last minute, and for a little bit I was afraid I wouldn’t make it out of Mexico alive! But I did, and we had a lot of fun. Got to see the World Cup game while we were there too.

What’s coming up?

Tomorrow night I’m going to see Verdi’s Requiem with Cyan, Lucas, and Scott. w00t! I will be at my first ever San Francisco PRIDE next weekend, and Fatigo’s coming to town!!! They’re playing at the Hemlock Tavern June 27th and at Brainwash the 28th. I can’t wait to see my old friends and listen to some good tunes!

That’s all I got for now kids. What this girl needs more than anything at the moment is a little sleep. Night!