Nate Does

... and still Champion

2010-06-10T17:38:00.001-07:00

I am the monopoly champion of the first and last annual Chessin/Ross monopoly challenge. Will I retain this title indefinitely? Most likely!

Conspiracy Dies Along with the Lakers

2008-06-18T09:28:00.001-07:00

The headline says it all. I am still not sure if the Lakers lost game 6. I stopped watching after they were down by 40 flippin' points. How does a team that made the finals, has arguably one of the best players in the history of the NBA (at least prior to this series) and has a good bench get down by 40 points in game 6. The Lakers haven't been able to string together any good quarters, but they've certainly stringed together some horrendous quarters. But 40 points?

Regardless, the series didn't go 7. The conspiracy theorists have some explanation of this no doubt.

Lakers in 7? Conspiracy theorists unite!

2008-06-16T20:17:00.000-07:00

I don't believe it, but we're approaching the possibility that the conspiracy theorists may be right. Or at least, difficult to prove wrong. For those of you who aren't in the know, the conspiracy suggests that the NBA finals will definitely go 7 games. Why you ask? For the love of money, of course. Essentially, the theory posits that there is simply too much advertising revenue for the NBA and networks covering the finals to have it end in any number of games fewer than 7. I certainly don't buy it and in fact was willing to bet $1000 for anyone who would take lesser odds on the wager... but nobody did.

Looking at the last 5 games of the series, I'm surprised the lakers are still in it. They've played like crap. They've had moments of brilliance, but haven't been able to string together more than one quarter of decent ball. With that said, if the Lakers take game 6 in Boston, anything goes in game 7. The conspiracy doesn't get detailed about who will win game 7, only that there will be a game 7.

Is that why Tiger hit a 12 foot put to cause a playoff? Did the mafia control the ball into the hole? Is that why there was an 18 hole playoff instead of a sudden death match? For advertising? We may never know.

Got Gas?

2008-06-09T12:29:00.000-07:00

Seems like everyone has been talking about the price of gas lately. Frankly, I haven't really given it much thought because it's required to live in SoCal. I'm still going to go to the beach, I'm still going to drive to work, I'm still going to do what I want to do to have fun. I haven't given it a second thought, until today.

Gas has been relatively expensive for quite some time now, but when I went to the pump, gas was USD 4.59 for the 89 proof that I put in my car. Are you serious? It cost me over USD 60 to fill up my tank. The point is this, I've got a good job, I make a decent salary, I'm single, no pets, no car payment. All I really have to pay is rent and food/drink/entertainment. But the price of gas now has me thinking about how to save money here and there. It's something that I could be doing anyway, but I'm not buying some cheaper vegetable packages for food, I'm cooking in a lot more, I'm tipping more carefully whereas before it was 20% by default... I'm still going to do the things I like to do, but I'm going to consider changing some things in the other areas of my life.

I'm just wondering how the lower income families are dealing with this, especially with our lackluster public transit. Now the question remains: Is this a bubble? No tree grows to the sky, but there are some tall trees out there.

Vegas: Plane, Automobile, and maybe Train?

2008-06-08T11:39:00.000-07:00

There have been rumors of a high speed train between Las Vegas and Los Angeles for 20 years. This project has obviously had challenges because there isn't so much as a stake in the ground to show for it.
It's about time.

In the past there have been conspiracy theorists who would suggest the automobile companies have lobbied successfully to keep cars on the road. Now I'm sure these old conspirators have found partners in the oil arena who would suggest that LA doesn't have any public transit because of the oil companies desire to squash anything that would stop SoCal dependence on the automobile. These are also the same people that think the Lakers/Celtics series will go 7 because of marketing dollars and advertising.

Whatever the reason, there has been zero execution on the train project. There is renewed hope, however. Last Friday, President Bush signed a $45 million dollar transportation bill that will help make this project a reality. Under the new plans, the MagLev train would be a non stop journey from Disneyland to The Strip. Disneyland West to Adult Disneyland? I'm not sure that the SoCal stop is the best one, but frankly, I don't care. Let's get a train between SoCal and Nevada. It just makes good sense. I'd be willing to spend top dollar to have a 2 hour trip on a high speed train, and I'm sure the Vegas casinos wouldn't mind another route for Los Angelinos to get to Vegas to spend some money.

Continuing success of the weekend warrior

2008-04-28T13:48:00.000-07:00

I had the opportunity to go out in a boat on the Pacific this Saturday. Typically, we drive to surf spots and paddle out. With a boat, you paddle in. So much fun, and definitely money.

After surfing for a few hours, we had an unexpected visitor.

Enjoy!

Run in the Sun

2008-04-07T19:39:00.000-07:00

I'm not much of a runner. I finished a marathon, but I nearly died doing it. I never got the runner's high that they said I would.

Also, my knee surgery a few years ago has given me a great excuse any time I question myself. It's not good for my knee I say. Pounding the pavement will only hurt me later in life. The bottom line is I just don't really like running. I'd rather swim, surf, canoe or really do anything except run. iPods have certainly helped because it gives you some distraction, but seriously, running is kind of lame, and boring.

Treadmills are nice because it forces you to keep running or you'll fall off the back. Most gyms have a nice TV setup too, where you can watch brainless, captivating shows while you run, again, for distraction.

I did go for a run today, and I rather liked it. It's the first run I've gone on in a while. In fact, I've only run a handful of times since the marathon. It was nice! Rather than explaining why it was so nice, let me show you.

View Larger Map

Need I say more?

Bali Pictures

2008-04-07T14:58:00.000-07:00

I've organized (in the loosest sense) some of my pictures from Bali. There are a lot of them, but I think you'll enjoy them. If you have any questions or comments, please let me know.

Bali Part I

This is pictures from Kuta, Ubud and our first few days on the island.

Bali Part II

This section of photos has a lot of wedding pictures.

Snapshot Pics

These are pictures from the entire vacation. They were taken with my point and shoot (Optio S4) so some of the pics are fairly blurry and bad. However, it allowed me to bring it with me to places I wouldn't want to take my SLR. Therefore, you'll probably see more booze and club scenes than any other photos.

Dolphin Glory

2008-04-06T17:26:00.001-07:00

This morning came early because last night involved Taleo, Ten and Tentation. That troika makes for a long night, usually denotes a good night, and likely includes a late morning the next day. However, I wanted to charge into and embrace the day. Sunday is a glorious day in general. The Lord's Day as it were. It's the last day of the weekend and I feel it should be attended to with great vigor and activity, regardless of the prior night. Today was no exception. After all, you screw up one Sunday, that's about 2% of your Sundays gone for the year.

The sun was shining and beckoning me out to the waves. I hit it early. The decision to put on a wet wetsuit and swim through some "textured" waves was appearing to be a bad. I wasn't feeling great and my energy was waning. After catching a few waves, I felt even worse. I vowed not to let the triple T from last night affect my Glory Day, but I was having some trouble actually executing on that vow. Then, in the middle of my self centered pity, dolphins.

Here I am, focused on me, my thoughts, my feelings, where dry land meets ocean, not even thinking about how great it is to be in the ocean, surfing, with the sun shining. The dolphins changed that. It's invigorating, and somewhat scary at first, to see a dorsal streaming through the water. After realizing that dorsal fin is attached to a dolphin, the dogs of the sea*, you understand that you're in a special place. They're simply breathtaking. They cruise through the ocean, checking things out, eating, playing, wandering. These particular dolphins were within 10 feet of me. I don't think they gave me a second thought, or even a first thought for that matter. But I thought about them. These dolphins looked particularly long in the dorsal fin. The looked weathered and worn by the sea. It got me thinking about them. Where they had been last night. If they had any regrets about what they'd done. I doubt it. They seemed like good, proper dolphins.

Regardless, swimming with them is always amazing. It's also what makes surfing so great. Participating with some of nature's coolest beings in their environment is simply cool. It made me happy to be alive. It made me excited to be part of that experience, if only for a fleeting moment. It made me feel good about things. It made me want to do it again, and I have no doubt I will.

Theory of Relativity

2008-04-05T13:01:00.000-07:00

Back from Bali.

Leaving the "Dreamland" that is Bali and coming back to reality has been a bit of a challenge. I've explained how wonderful, dynamic and fun Bali during my vacation visting old friends, meeting new friends, surfing, noodles galore and lots of relaxation and partying. It's no surprise that coming back to work, bills and responsibilities is causing a bit of a Bali hangover.

HOWEVER, please allow me to put things into perspective.

I live in Orange County California. It's springtime, evidenced by the return to PDT and April Fool's Day. It's Saturday afternoon, I'm chillin' in my apartment with a 52" LCD TV, a Mac computer, In N Out close by and the NCAA Final Four about to begin. I'm exhausted because I went surfing at the Newport Jetties with a friend and had a great, big, fat breakfast burrito at Cappy's Cafe. I may go back out to catch a few more waves or find a beach cruiser to get ready for the summer.

What I'm saying is this: life in the OC is great. Bali living will have it's own stresses in the form of work, bills and responsibilities. For now, OC is my home and I love it. I'll continue to dream of greener grass on the other side of the fence. I am glad that places like Bali exist. After all, I could be living in Wisconsin and dreaming of Bali. It's all relative.

Nusa Lembongan ... Nusa = Island

2008-03-28T23:20:00.000-07:00

One day we decided to hire a catamaran to take us to Nusa Lembongan. Initially, I was skeptical of this move because of all the fun we've had in the last week living minute to minute and loving every second of it. I'm typically not a planner, especially on vacation, and this was altogether too much planning for me. Luckily, we had Raj who is money when it comes to excursions, meals and general merriment and Vinay who is money when it comes to bartering. Vinay's motto is "If the first offer isn't insulting, it's too high".

This meant that in essence, I didn't have to do anything to prepare for this trip, which I appreciate greatly on vacation. My only requirement was to go along for the ride and participate in whatever comes our way. After all, when the universe conspires with you, it's all gravy.

We began our tour with a 40 minutes ride in two vans to the docks. Upon reaching our van destination, we were all pleasantly surprised with our floating transport. It was a sick catamaran with food and soft drinks. Naturally, that wasn't going to cut it so we sent the crew off to load the cat with two crates of Bali's finest (and only) pilsener - Bintang.

After a few moment we were on our way. The water was glorious, the journey was smooth, and the Bintang flowed like wine. After about 90 minutes of cat cruising, we got to the island. Apparently 90% of the income on this island comes from seaweed production. Apparently, that means they take all the seaweed out of the ocean because the water was clear and amazing. We went snorkeling off a reef and saw lots of cool reef fish and blue coral.

One of my favorite parts of the trip was anticipating the reef breaks for surfing. There are three breaks off Lembongan Island named Shipwreck, Lacerations and Playground. We happened to do our snorkeling off of Lacerations break. After a few minutes sticking around close to the boat, we decided to venture a bit closer to Lacerations and try to do some body boarding. There was a local who was out with his surfboard and not being able to resist, I asked him if he'd let me borrow his board for a ride. If I haven't mentioned this already, the locals are fairly nice. Many of them try to hustle, but this guy obviously knew I was not one to mess with (and I also had no cash on me). He let me borrow his board and I caught some nice reef waves, my first ones. Lacerations wasn't as dangerous as it sounds and we managed to catch a few good waves. After a while he realized he was the one getting hustled and I wasn't going to return his board until I had been satisfied. He swam back to his boat and I got a few more nice rides in. Afterward, I paddled back to his boat and thanked him and realized he was showing a group of kids from Santa Barbara around Bali. I threw up the West side, they laughed, and we both went on our way.

In the meanwhile, other members of our excursion were enjoying parasailing (except Babi G who was upset about the mean local) and snorkeling.

At lunch, they took us to the Waka Resort on the island and set us up with a great feast of rice, noodles (my favorite combo), seafood, satay and other amazing food. After a group pictures, we were back on the cat for our return trip.

On the way home, we made easy work of the leftover Bintang, had the crew wait on us hand and foot, and saw some dolphins jumping in front of the cat and swimming alongside us. In the immortal words of Ice Cube "today was a good day".

Below is a video of our entrance into the island.

Bali Hai

2008-03-21T05:04:00.000-07:00

Finally made it to Bali. I've already found myself adapting to the culture and uniqueness that is bali.

The flight: It was, as most good flights are, uneventful. We made it safely and China Airlines wasn't half bad. The 14 hour flight gave us plenty of food, AVOD and Asian people. Including Vinay. The best part of the trip was Vinay getting special "kosher" meals. Apparently they looked at both of us and decided Vinay looked more like a Jew.

We've been in Bali for a few days. If you've ever been to Bali, you understand how difficult it is to be in an internet cafe. Not only because of the incredibly high speeds of the Bali internet services, but also because it's Bali. And Bali is best served outside, at the beach, eating and drinking to your hearts content.

I'll do a better job of posting my experiences and detailing them later, but let me give you a brief overview of our vacation so far.

Food:
Great and cheap. If you like noodles, you will love it here. The noodles are tremendous and cheap. When I say cheap I mean $2 USD for a plate and beers are a buck. The local beer is a pilsener called Bintang and understandably, the morning are what we call the Bintang Hang. We were at a club where the local boys get you beer and service for 15000 IDR or about $1.50 USD. Apparently the IDR is closely matched to the USD, so this is one of the few places in the world where the dollar still works well for travel. I can't imagine how the Brits must feel.

Surf:
Bali surf is awesome. There is no limit of beach boys/touts willing to give you a surf board rental, or really anything you want (or don't want) including prostitutes, but more on this later.

Partying:
I never met a drunk Aussie I didn't like. Thankfully, there are millions of them here.

I will continue posting more later.

Sunday Glorious Sunday

2008-03-16T22:32:00.000-07:00

This Sunday I was able to spend some quality time with my couple, Peter and Tara. We signed up for a Laguna Culinary Arts class months ago and today was the day. The class is called Sauces for Meats II. Naturally, we did not think about wasting our time with Sauces for Meats I, if such a class even exists, and went straight to the second level.

Our instructor chef was Octavio from Aliso Viejo. He was a relatively friendly chap with a great, big mole on his forehead. Naturally, because it was a cooking class, I wanted to say guacaMOLEy a lot-but I kept myself in check. Guacamoley! Holy Moley.

We began the session with class introductions. Most of the class was female, except for me and Peter, the entire class was female. Most of them looked like they were not only great cooks, but great eaters as well. Fun, large, excitable women... it made for a great class.

We got basic instruction on knife skills. At least enough instruction to avoid cutting off any digits. I learned some knew ways to cut shallots (onions), peel garlic and hold a knife. But, just the basics. Another class I had taken got more in depth with "knife skills" and I employed them with ferocious abandon.

The sauces we made consisted of reducing a concoction of sorts into a smaller, more viscous version of that concoction, seasoning to taste, straining and adding brown roux. Much of the stuff I won't have on hand in my kitchen like the brown roux (although it's easily made, apparently) and the demi glace, or what we call "gold" in the kitchen.

Oh, there was also a lot of Thyme in our sauces. And naturally, there were many Thyme puns going around the kitchen-"Do you have the thyme", "I don't have thyme", etc. It was funny in the atmosphere of Chef Octavio.

Here is the list of sauces we made:

Lamb Thyme-Garlic Sauce
Mustard "Robert" Sauce - our group called this Bob Sauce
Marchand de Vin Sauce
Orange Grand Marnier Sauce

My favorites were the Bob Sauce and OGM sauce. They're great for everything! Afterward, we fired up the grill and had our own throw down.

After the feast and a glass of wine, I was beat. I rested and relaxed, and let me friends Peter and Tara have some alone time. Next class: Sushi I

Friday in the OC

2008-03-15T10:28:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was Friday in the OC. That means different things to different people. End of the work week, chance to cut loose and party, a time to relax. For me, it depends. My recent domestication in the OC has meant I like to kick back with friends, go check out a new restaurant or a tried and true sushi spot. But yesterday was different. The work was hard, the hours were long and the gym was rough.

After work a friend and I decided to get a surf in at our local surf spot. It stays light out until 7pm now, which, is awesome. Did I mention how much I love daylight savings time? Well, the surf wasn't great. I'm typically not a surf whiner, but it just wasn't worth getting wet, and that's unusual. But that's partially because we had plan B figured out before we knew plan A wasn't going to work. Plan B was a visit to Mutt Lynch's.

We have friends staying on the boardwalk for a month while their house is being remodeled, so we swung by. They were hanging out with their two beautiful, blonde children, but unfortunately couldn't make the trip to Mutt's. I don't blame them. I'd make the most out of my three story beach front, boardwalk house for a month too!

We continued to Mutt's down the boardwalk and took in all the glory that is Southern California. Birds, Beach and you name it :)

Upon arrival, we immediately ordered two large beers. These goblets of glory are the social lubricant required after a long work week and a great catalyst for amorphous discussions about the future of technology and communications. We had two each. Had we had a 3rd, we might have solved world hunger but alas, our own hunger was calling and I had sushi plans with my friends, Tara and Peter at Ten.

We walked back to the G-ride along the boardwalk-sun setting, buzz mellowing, dogs and people jogging. This was the beginning of the Friday I needed.

Vegas: A New Day, A New Way

2008-03-13T22:28:00.000-07:00

Having been to Vegas hundreds of times over the last 10 years of my life (I'm only 29, but fake ID's are easy to make, even back in 1998) and having lived in Vegas for a few years, I think I have Vegas figured out. Where to hang, when to hang there, places to avoid, palms to grease. But I also like to continuously improve myself. My usual Vegas getaways tend to be 72 hours of blurry, redbull fueled drunkenness shared with my best friends, or anyone who can stay awake as long as I can. However, since I've moved to the OC, I'm trying new things. This time, I decided to "do Vegas" in a different way. Go big (quick) and go home. Needless to say, Vegas was, is and will always be awesome. The following is my summary of last weekend's new Vegas experience.

My buddy Mike C and I flew in, went big and went home.

We had a room at Hooters... ( o) (o ) Kinda funny place to stay, but the tables there are cool for a few minutes. You can take pictures, talk on your mobile, all while playing at the bj tables and watching the typically clad Hooters girls deal and shuffle shoes. It's kind of a goof off casino. Not for us hard core types.

After a few watered down RBV's we went to LAX at Luxor LAX is a dope club. Gotta go VIP if you want to do it right. We had a table reserved but decided not to because we were with a group of flaky girls and their boyfriends. Glad we didn't. Would've cost a G, and we left after 2 or 3 hours. It wasn't too bad schlepping with the plebeians and I actually had a great time chatting with a couple from the Midwest (of course they knew about Appleton) and getting loaded.

After hearing Lupe Fiasco about 30 times, Mike C and I rocked the Luxor BJ tables till 6 in the mornin, what you gonna do? I gotta pocket full of benjies and my home boy do too. We crushed it, couldn't lose. We had people stopping to watch us as we were betting and laughing, doing the wave and causing a relative scene. The pit boss loved us so we asked for comped breakfast which she obliged. Then we feasted: I ordered the buttermilk stack of pancakes, the corned beef hash skillet with eggs, side of super fat sourdough toast (dry) and topped it off with a strawberry shake! So good.

Woke about around noon. Oh, the other great thing about Hooters is that you don't have to check out until 4pm! How great is that. Then hit the airport and flew home. Best part is, I was home Saturday afternoon. Then went to a UCI basketball game with Lucier and his girl Tara later that night. Go Anteaters. Zot.

Fly in, Go Big, Fly out.