So much news and I’ve been falling behind!
Josh’s sister got engaged just recently! Date set is May 8th. So I’m trying to set up reservations for an Amtrak train to Buffalo because I think it’d be horrible for Josh to miss his sister’s wedding. It’s going to cost us $2000 though ($1k/person) and it’s 52 hour ride, Los Angeles to Chicago, Chicago to Buffalo.
Riding at Pismo was fun until Ryan got hurt. He dislocated his shoulder when he fell off his 3 wheeler. 
Ambulance took him out of the dunes. His parents were there though, so they took his stuff home, etc. He’s starting the healing process now.
Josh’s sand rail was way cool, but the drag strip at Pismo was somehow all whoop-de-dos so it was a majorly bumpy ride. It’ll be much smoother at Dumont sand dunes, but it’s still 100 some degrees there. It’ll be another few months before we go there.
I posted photos from Pismo in the photo gallery- link on the right.
now playing: Cold War Kids - We Used To Vacation
Dinner in the garden
Heard a strange buzzing in the garden of what sounded like a fly but I didn’t see any flies. Then I look over to where the sound is coming from and a praying mantis was eating a fly!
I got photos 
now playing: The Smiths - Shoplifters of the World Unite
voip saved me 74% off my phone bill!
We just switched to voip versus our regular at&t land line at the house. If we had good cell phone signal, I think we’d just cancel the land line all together, but unfortunately that’s not the case.
So our phone bill usually floats around $68/mo with long distance calls and everything else - privacy manager, call waiting, etc. We ordered voip for $16.95/mo (paid in full for first year) from voip.com and it includes call waiting, nationwide calls, 3 way calling, call return, voice mail, etc. It also has a web interface where you can view all the call history and manager all the features. It’s way cool. Just plug the phone router (from voip.com) into our standard linksys router and into any phone jack and voila!
We can use this and save all this money because we have cable internet, those that have DSL wouldn’t be able to use it because it requires a phone land line. So I guess the question would be is DSL + phone line cheaper or more than Cable + voip…
It also saved us big bucks because we have a business line at the house (w/AT&T we paid $12 flat and pay per call) and to have a second phone line with voip.com which has all the bells and whistles (our AT&T didn’t) we pay an extra $10/month so our total voip bill is $26/mo vs. $80/mo. Easy decision for us!
Pismo Beach… coming soon
This is last weekend before Pismo Beach trip. Should be fun. Our friend Ryan is going and Yader and all his friends. The sandrail is just about fixed.. awaiting a part from Prowler’s for the turbo as always 
It’s fun to ride in the new rail, but when they’re all out riding I wish there was more fun for me! I bring my books with me which is cool, but I wish I could import some of my friends (sans dirt bikes, quads, etc) out with me. Back in Buffalo when we had get togethers we used to play volleyball, kickball and be just overall active. I miss that. I’ll just stick with the books and the camera for now.
Which reminds me, I miss Tracey. I want to plan a trip to see her ASAP but work schedule and vacation time is not cooperating right now. I don’t want to wait until our birthday to see her!
now playing: Bright Eyes - It’s Cool We Can Still Be Friends
Mexican Riviera here we come… in 3 mos
Josh and my standby cruise to the Mexican Riviera was confirmed! w00t! We’re going in mid October for a week on the Golden Princess. Stops in Puerto Vallarta, Cabo San Lucas, and Mazatlan. I couldn’t travel there cheaper any other way, I’m positive. Such a deal.
So happy to finally travel somewhere with Josh! I’m flying his parents into town to watch our dogs for the week.
now playing: Ohgr - Cracker
Jetskiing!
Jetskiing was super fun. I was nervous because on Thursday the weather channel said there was a chance of thunderstorms on Saturday. But on Friday it changed to partly cloudy. On Saturday it was actually sunny blue skies though!
Tarrah and Lawreen came this time (and Tarrah had a wedding to go to the night before! She’s a trooper). It was lots of fun. I tried to teach them how to wakeboard/wakeskate but it’s very tough. Reminded me of my first time. I probably looked just like that. I couldn’t manage to get up long enough to stand on the wake skate so I decided to try the wakeboard because I haven’t tried it in 2 summers. The wakeboard seemed way easier somehow. I got up and stayed up until the rope got some slack (jetski pull is not consistent like a prop boat). So I think I went in 20 ft increments or so.
Josh and Ryan are crazy on the tube and driving the jetski with the tube. They like to go 30-35mph and swerving to fling the tube out all over the place. I, on the contrary prefer a 20-25mph tube ride, but can’t have one with them driving I gotta have Tarrah or Lawreen drive the jetski next time. At one point they were going so fast with me on the tube that Ryan fell off the back of the jetski! See?! way too fast/swervy.
The highlight was definitely when Ryan flew off the tube and his water shoe went flinging off into the air. It was like a mini explosion tube went up, Ryan went up and shoe went up and all fell. Totally reminded me of Dane Cook’s joke- “The guy goes flying into the air, his shoes flew off. When you get hit by a car, sometimes your shoes will fly off.”
The tube popped again. I guess we didn’t have a fun time unless it pops heh.We gotta repair it again when we get home.
Good times. I’m very sore today but it was worth it
now playing: The Blow - True Affection
haircut!
I finally got my hair cut. I was busy and putting it off and then the hair stylist I wanted to cut it kept blowing me off. So I went to another hair stylist that I saw a year or 2 back in West Hollywood and she was really good. My hair was to the point of being so long and boring, all I would end up doing was putting it in pony tails all the time, bleh. No point in having hair of that length if it’s always in a pony tail!
So here’s a before:
though it looked more like this generally (longest pony tail i’ve had in years!):
and now after cut and dye (i know the dye was very subtle.. i may kick it up a notch - more 2 tone in a few months):
I haven’t had bangs this short in a long time, but I’m digging them
now playing: Pixies - Head On
Transformers!
I didn’t expect to be overly impressed with the Transformers movie, but was surprised how much I liked it. Josh is a huge fan so he knew all the background.. more than anyone should know about a make believe storyline.
Without giving too much away, it was a long movie - 2 hrs 20 mins but it didn’t feel like it at all (nothing like Pirates of the Caribbean 2). The casting was awesome - aside from blonde Aussie girl. Humor is thrown in and somehow works.. better than any other action movie that tries to throw humor in it. Josh says it doesn’t follow the same factual details of the cartoon and cartoon movie, but he still loved it. The renderings are so great and look so real, it’s awesome. After the movie you feel a lot closer to your car
now playing: Matt and Kim - Yea Yeah
Yeah Yeah Yeahs + CSS + M.I.A. + … RHCP :(
“Yeah Yeah Yeahs singer Karen O, Red Hot Chili Peppers’ John Frusciante, CSS’s Lovefoxxx, and M.I.A. are to feature on a new album together.”
It looked like an awesome collaboration, but then there was - Red Hot Chili Peppers. Ugh. But it’s John Frusciante from the Chili Peppers.. I don’t really know his music, just know he’s a guitarist. So it may be ok after all.
Here’s the rest of the details
now playing: Handsome Furs - What We Had
Jetskiing!!
Went jetskiing with our new friends this past weekend Ryan and Teresa. Ryan has a Kawasaki stand up jetski. It was the first time out for the War Chariot tube! It’s sooo awesome. Way cooler than our past tubes.. it’s very difficult to flip it, but we managed to flip it 3 times
When we were hanging out beachside we saw 2 boats smack into each other (sides grazed each other). One boat was just idling and another came flying by at like 50mph at least.. and bounced off it. I dunno how you hit a boat that’s standing still.. but they managed to. Didn’t look like too much damage though. Probably dents and cosmetic mostly.
Then we saw a patrol boat clearing out the cove next to us and they said helicopters will be landing to get water. Then we smelled fire and saw smoke behind us and then the ash came down. We got all excited to watch the helicopter come to get water and after like 10 minutes it was like 5 helicopters.. constantly getting water from the lake. We decide to go tubing and then got this photo and realized the fire is at Pyramid lake in the brush behind us!!
We went tubing for a bit more and then went back to our camp area and they were evacuating because the fire was getting close. We moved to a small beach area with an awesome shelter and then we started wakeboarding and wakeskating. I still didn’t manage an up for a good amount of time on the wake skate but Teresa was awesome on the wakeboard even with the choppy helicopter waters.
More photos in the photo gallery … link on right!
