Bacon - Man's Best Friend

it must be a uberawesome product when you have to give instructions on how to eat something as simple as a chocolate bar :
Breathe…engage your five senses, close your eyes and inhale deeply. Be in the present moment, notice the color of the chocolate, the glossy shine. Rub your thumb over the chocolate bar to release the aromas of smoked applewood bacon flirting with deep milk chocolate. Snap off just a tiny piece and place it in your mouth, let the lust of salt and sweet coat your tongue.

tip on how to eat it : Let the chocolate melt in your mouth and then chew on the tiny bits of salty bacon.

Crepe Nazi

What do Hitler's party, soup and NOW crepes all have in common?

Nazis.

8 weeks ago I had a minor surgery that didn't allow me to eat for 24 hours before. I drank a lot of sodium phosphate as well, which emptied me out and made me even hungrier. So, after a 10am surgery Wednesday morning I was given the green light to go munch.

I love crepes. I had dessert ones in AT&G back in the 4th grade and loved them so much i demanded my mom get us a crepe maker for our house. We made crepes frequently with this special crepe maker. My love hasn't died for them since, I mean I made crepes for katie on valentine's day last year.

Well, since V-day is a lot like surgery, i naturally had a hankering for some sweet sweet crepe's. Katie drove us over to little Korea town to Crepe's To Go at 2217 Sawtelle Blvd. I give you the address so that you can personally go there and experience this Seinfeld-esque experience for yourself. And what an experience.

We approached the tiny shop in a wall, no wider than 12ft across, and since no one appeared to be behind the counter, we looked at the business hours.

With hours on Monday that read "Around. depends", we should have been tipped off to the further lunacy of this place, but nevertheless we looked at the display window so we could place our order.
From meats to all veggie to dessert, i was stoked to pick at a few oh-so-good crepes to my liking. katie, being the fine conosseuier of food that she is, didnt see anything that she liked and started to concoct whole new crepes in her head. I brought her attention to the cheap blue tape scrolled across the glass and the fact that this place looked like they didn't mess around. This sign directly above the door confirmed it :
[IRNORANCE and STUPIDITY is a crime. We hate CRIMINALS and don't hide our hate and contempt for THEM. Thank You].
Then this sign!
[Never Enter with NO decision BUT with curiosity (except for small kids and IDIOTS). We don't welcome those who react to only signs and laughing here like one of them with silly face.]

We finalized rehearsing our orders to each other and stepped through the smaller than normal door.
"what yu want?" came a heavily accented asian voice from somewhere behind the counter and mass of laminated warning signs. "Oh, well, i would like

Unemployment

Unemployment is everything i thought it wouldn't be. I will sum it up in 3 words : Canyons, Snowbird, Brighton.

I wish i could be unemployed most of my life. Wednesday was my last day at Radium; i walked out the doors with words from Ion's toast "Here is to Jarom, he has been here some time." 2 days later and without a boss, i was hard at work in another state :

I spent this last weekend in Utah with HotChocolate and 'Coon - 2 of the best shredders a guy could have with. And enough fresh powder to keep any man happy.


Hot Chocolate waxing his skis. 'Coon in waay too much powder. Scott got his shredding name because he threatened to steal someone's hto chocolate at 6am in LAX. We called Micah 'Coon because his goggles left an awesome black line around his eyes.


I received my Boardin' name because of where i made all 3 of us sit on the plane. Exit Row.

Dave Humph, brother of Oktoberfest cake swimming champion, also joined us on Chute 3 at Snowbird - which just happens to be a run you have to rappel down into. Dave only goes skiing once a year and this run i lead him down is probably a triple black diamond.

Dave rappeling over the edge of a cliff onto the rocks with Hot Chocolate worriedly looking on.

After losing a ski and tumbling upside down the last 75 feet, dave managed to swing his head out of the way of the larger tree on the right and crash into this smaller tree. "Much less painful collision" he said with a thumbs up.

Then at Brighton there was a cabin.

and a log.


The 'air' i got this weekend is dedicated to economic bailouts, both 'Coon and HotChocolate for being awesome friends and of course Gollum, whose home i go soon.

BALDY is not an Original Name for a Mountain

BALDY is not an Original Name for a Mountain, but I decided I'd climb it anyway.
Apparently, every mountain that doesn't have trees around its peak warrants a name of 'Baldy' AND Baldy can just be a nickname for that mountain, it doesn't even have to be the real name! Now, I of all people understand the need for a good nickname. I mean, i usually can't even remember people's real names ; for example, Comptron and FB's real names totally escape me. I only know one is a robot and the other an architectural-structure/flying-death-machine.

Anyway, not sure who comes up with these, but its probably the same person that names everything Devil this, Devil that. When I road my bike down the California coast in '94, I encountered far too many Devil's Backbones, Devil's Punchbowl, Devil's Staircase and Mount Diablos and my ride was only along Highway 1. Yeah, so this Mt. Baldy was actually named Mt San Antonio, which is even more confusing since there doesn't seem to be any explanation as to why. Well, the Angelinos may not be able to name their mountains very well, but at least they know their concrete.
So, the Voz, pictured above, lead the way to the top. He served as my sherpa and guide from the moment we got off the ski lift and hiked to the top to him talking me out of sliding along the stopped ski lift cable to save us from freezing there throughout the night (luckily, only minutes later the ski lift started again).

I dedicate this climb to the number 88.
and this pose to Todd Taylor, the Postman. All in all, Baldy (the one near downtown LA) is a great climb.

Tryppin' on Thanksgivin'

The SIDs usually start off Thanksgiving by writing everything we are thankful for on a roll of receipt paper that reaches from the ceiling to the floor. In order to achieve that goal, we were thankful for very specific things : each finger, each spoke on our bicycles and every GI Joe and their weapons.

Before the children's children came into picture (pictured below), the parentals used to do family time capsules where we would all sit around the dinner table and talk into a tape recorder for about an hour giving an account of our year to this small device. I venture the real reason we stopped this tradition is because the employees at Best Buy are either too young now or so technologically savvy that they have no idea what a tape recorder is (true story, happened to me about 1 yr ago) OR that there are 7 grandkids now and we can't sit still long enough before the next lightsaber is ignited and a duel begins. i love entropy.
Such chaos led into an impromptu magic show. Here's how it happened. We were playing tag with the lights off in the garage and Jack figured out (perhaps with some help from Katie) that he could fit easily in the large tupperware container and close the lid. He couldn't get tagged! His cousins and siblings quickly noticed the immunity and multiple kids tried at the same time to fit in there. I had to do something to calm them down.
Magic was the answer. Note : No nieces or nephews were hurt in the performance of these acts.

Ok, so i don't have the video of the kids disappearing, but that's pretty cool magic right? Not as cool as a disappearing pencil, but cool nonetheless. We did cut robby in half though. He was just as surprised as everyone else to see his feet being pulled away from his body.
Yadda yadda, then a giant penguin came, Anne won the wishbone break by a mere quarter centimeter and we ate dinner and played christmas the day after, complete with present opening and pickle ornament finding.
A special thanks to the Fizz and all her magical costumes, for they bring joy to the children all over the world.
and a special thanks to my family for being completely awesome. i am truly grateful for you and all the entertainment and love you share with me and the other sentient beings of this planet.