San Diego County Fair

Amy, Sandy, & I went to the San Diego County Fair. My favorite thing to do at the fair is to eat. And, Boy-Howdy! Did we eat! I had Australian Battered Potatoes w/Cheese & Ranch Dressing, Garlic Butter and Parmesan Cheese Indian Fry Bread, four Teriyaki Chicken Sticks, a Deep Fried Twinkie, an Italian Sausage Sandwich, Mini-Donuts, and an assortment of free samples. Oh, I shared a bit with Amy & Sandy, but I ate most of it. YUM! :D

We looked around the various vendors, rode a couple of rides (including the Mouse Trap - see picture), and played a few of the boardwalk games where I won a silly "Large" stuffed-animal lizard after beating Amy at a race - Ha! Ha! Sandy got her first "100" while playing SkiBall and won a couple of smaller stuffed-animals. We toured the Gem & Mineral Exhibit where I discovered a like/facination for the mineral Wulfenite. The cheapest selling specimen they had there was ~$150, too much for my blood. Sandy later found the mineral selling on eBay at much cheaper prices, so I'll be able to add a piece to my meager rock collection.

The finale came when I was hypnotized by Mark Yuzuik. This is actually the fourth time I've been in his show, dating back to 1991 at Magic Mountain. I'm such a ham too. Hee hee. It's fun. Among other things I was a World Class Air Guitarist, World Class Booty Shaker, and he "programmed" me to propose to Sandy, though "woke me up" before I actually went through with it. HA! Needless to say, Sandy & Amy really enjoyed the show too.

Journey to Atlantis

Sandy used her Star Freeloader Points to buy tickets for a "special" evening admission at Sea World for the new Journey to Atlantis ride. She took Amy & I and we later met up with Kirt, Karen & Trevor.

The Atlantis ride was quite a hoot and we got a "little" wet. Neat-o elevator. Trevor and I also had a good time at the Tide Pools, a personal favorite of mine since I was a very young kid.

Tomorrow it's off to the Fair!

Lower Kern Rafting - First Trip!

For the first time I went River Rafting down the Lower Kern River with Whitewater Voyages. The river is off of Lake Isabella north-east of Bakersfield.



It was AWESOME! The adventure began when I went up to Riverside Saturday night with Larry & Angie. The three of us met up with other friends, and the whole group were on the road Sunday morning at 3:30a. Including a 1hr stop for breakfast the drive from Riverside to the Lake was about 4 hours. Our party consisted of 17 people: Larry, Angie, Shane, Ron, Elena, Jay, Matt, Kevin, Trish, Michelle, Paul, Randy, Alex, Ivan, a couple of others, and myself.

We arrived early and had plenty of time to load our gear into the trailer that would meet us halfway down the river for camping Sunday night. By around 11a we were on the water. I was in the Last, or Sweep, Boat with Ron & Jay in front, Shane & I in center, Lelena & Michelle in third, with our guide Justin in back. The rest of our party was divided up with Larry & Angie in the Lead Boat with the head guide, Mark. Boat 2 was piloted by Bret (with another guide-in-training, Jill).

You start out learning the various commands for paddling as given by your guide. The first day consists of gradually increasing rapids, classes I-III, with two stops for Jump Rock and lunch. The rock was about 20' off the water. We climbed up and jumped in. A real hoot! And lunch, WOW!!! They "spare no expense" - Such wonderful lunch meats, bread, fruit, veggies, cookies, chips, candy - YUM! After these stops you proceed with more rafting.



The river was fast so we got to camp early. There was plenty of time to set up tents, have "happy hour" (chips, salsa, and drinks) and rest before dinner. Also, we had time to Adventure Swim and Surf. To Swim we went up-river about 100' and jumped in the river going through a class 3 rapid with just a life jacket. Exciting! I did it three times. :) Then to Surf, the guides tied up a board (sort of like a boogie board) up-river and one would "ride" it into the river attempting to stand with the water rushing over you. I could not, though I tried three times. The only people who could stand were Jill and Elena. The women rocked! After the water play came dinner, and again it was amazing: I had steak, corn of the cob, salad, pasta, and more. We then played volleyball until it was too dark to see the ball, sat around the campfire eating smores, and partying.

Come morning the guides treated us to a wonderful breakfast (eggs, pancakes, bacon, OJ, bagles, granola, cheese, tortillas, etc.). The water level had risen overnight to the highest it'd been in four years. Another guide, Fillipe, and some other people with a fourth boat joined our expedition (though my boat remained Sweep). We got on the river around 10a, this time another guide (Wade) in a kayak went on ahead to video us. That was cool.

The second day has even better rapids, class III & IVs, even a class V (though you portage around it). Because of the water level, some of the guides were calling them class III+ & IV+. My boat also rescued Paul who got stuck standing on a rock in the middle of a Pinball, a class 4 rapid (ask me about Paul's Island sometime). It was such a rush! Again, two stops, a higher Jump Rock and another scrumptious lunch. Eventually it was over, the loaded us up, we drove back up-river to our cars, loaded those and drove home. I didn't want to leave. Hee hee...


Rafting Photo Album
Anyone who's ever interested in rafting in California should try Whitewater Voyages. Their guides are amazing and take such great care of you. They serve you the best food and are just a lot of fun. We all had such a great time we're going back next year!

New Computer

My home computer has been chronically freezing now for the last few months, and progressively getting worse. I tried reinstalled W98 to no avail. I ran an assortment of diagnostic programs and found that either the RAM was bad, or the motherboard's RAM ports were bad. The computer (1GHz AMD Athlon, Via motherboard, built-in sound, 512MB RAM, 60GB IBM hard drive, CD-RW, DVD-ROM, DLink 10/100 PCI NIC, GeForce2 32MB AGP card) was two years old and I didn't feel like wasting any more time. I'd been wanting to upgrade anyway, and here was a good excuse.

I had originally purchased the RAM from ChipsandMemory.com in San Diego with a Lifetime warranty. When the system went down I contacted them and the owner Alex told me that the Lifetime for that style of RAM was over, the manufactuer had stopped supporting it, as had they. However, he would give me store credit of my original costs if I bought new equipment. Excellent Customer Service!

Today I went by ChipsandMemory.Com and Best Buy to purchase hardware to assemble a new computer.

[06/15/04 Update: You can see a full list of the completed computer here.]

Disneyland - Larz & I

Larry & I went up to D-Land. Good times. Good times.

Six Flags over Texas

Shawn, Sandy & I spent the day at Six Flags over Texas. I'd never been there before and it's not qutie Magic Mountain, but we still had a BLAST!!!

There were few people people in the park and we rode (nearly) all the rides. I especially enjoyed the Superman Tower of Power and the Texas Giant. The latter being one of the funest roller coasters I've ever been on, so much so I rode it three times. Wheeee!

Update - Friday, March 30, 2007
Pictures now available here.

More time in Texas

Today the gang spent more time shopping and looking around the DFW area. Being a Grapevine City Planner, Cindy was very keen to show us the new Gaylord Texan resort. I must say it is quite impressive!We finished the day with a showing of Shrek II which I really enjoyed and thought was better than the first.

Update - Friday, March 30, 2007
Pictures now available here.

Off to Texas for Shawn's Graduation

Amy, Mr. & Mrs Lee, Sandy and I arrived yesterday at Dallas Fortworth Airport. We're here visiting Cindy, Richard, and Shawn in the small suburb of Grapevine, TX (just north of DFW) for Shawn's graduation from Colleyville Heritage High School. We spent the day shopping and looking around downtown Grapevine and tonight we start the celebrations with a BBQ Dinner Party.

Update - Friday, March 30, 2007
Pictures now available here.

Tower of Whee

Sandy and I got back from the Disneyland Resort, spending the day at Disneyland and California Adventure. We rode the new Twilight Zone Tower of Terror for the first time. We were underwhelmed. It's Ok, it's Fun, but overrated. Anyway, we had our usual good time at D-Land, so that's what counts. :)

Here's a picture of us on California Screamin'.

JPL with Mr. Lee

Mr. Lee and I drove up to Pasadena earlier today for the JPL Open House. They had various exhibits, the highlight of which was the Mars Tour that included life-size models of the MERs: Spirit and Opportunity.

On the way down we stopped off at Tom's Farm which is kind of like a baby Knott's Berry Farm. Neat little place. We ate at Señor Tom's and it was pretty good food!