New adventure day

OR at the very least, wannabe multi-cultural awareness day. I had today off, so after getting some sleep, I wake up and decide that I wanna be out and about. I leave with a nice coffee buzz and head out to Tempe. I remember that ASU just got in school for the fall semester, so I drive through campus to check out the scenery. It's nice. Make some phone calls while I'm driving to people I haven't checked into for a while, leave some messages and talk to my cousin for 30 minutes in a parking lot. I head off to the pound to browse through pups, see some okay ones, but mostly nothing special. A lot of the stalls were empty, which I guess is a good thing. Not that I'm planning on getting another dog soon, just something to pass the time.
I leave and head out back through Tempe. Coffee is working its magic and now I'm starvin Marvin. Hmmm, Nello's or Moki's? I decide on Moki's. Its a new place in south Tempe specializing in Hawaiian food. Great atmosphere, casual Hawaiian and surf themes. It's a counter order grill, no servers. Owner/ manager is thankfully an islander. Greeted with an Aloha opon entry, I order the Ohana meal. Teriaki chicken, choice of salmon or mahi mahi, coconut shrimp, sticky rice and Hawaiian salad. Meal and drink plus tip for $11. Tasty treats.
I head out with a full belly and drive out to Phoenix to hit up the Chinese cultural center and the 99 ranch market. After browsing through the exotic aisles of whole chickens (including the head), pork bung, candied gingers, weird looking mushrooms, fish balls and baby octopus, I grab some groceries and treats before looking through the fresh fish display. Some looked ok, some looked bad, some looked dead. Growing up in San Francisco, I'm used to a plethora of Asian people walking about. I must have gotten desert isolated while living out here the past 10 years, because I caught myself in the store saying to myself "Hey look, an Asian American!" As if its some strange oddity, let alone hearing them speak their native tongue near me.
Dropped $37 bucks on random goodies and headed home to battle rush hour traffic.
I think its nap time now.

Sup...August? Chu can say Hello to September

August updates...It's still hot...damn hot. So I'm eager for September to roll in to start cooling things off. Oh who am I kidding, it won't drop below 100 until October. It's just closer to it that's all.
Went on a kick ass camping trip this month that felt damn good to get the hell out of here and up to cool temps..if you can call 80 cool. And it rained all the time we were up there, which was marvelous!
T-Bone got married this month and started his new life with Katie and their new daughter...congrats!
Striker went AWOL from work and decided to enlist in the Army Airborne. He ships out to boot on Sept. 12th. God bless, train hard and keep your ass safe my friend.
Contacted my realtor and went browsing around looking at investment properties in Scottsdale. Some 4-plexes were what was catching my eye. I told her to send me more for me to keep browsing. Time to strike out on my own if I can't get the restaurant thing running just yet.
Jenny is coddled, complacent and spoiled rotten. Just laying around and getting treats all the time has made her a security breach and combat ineffective as a camping point dog. So no more treats! Especially people food! You three out there know who you are!!!!
Speaking of food, I need to get off my ass and drop some weight again. I put on about 10 lbs of the 30 I lost, and I'm not happy about it. Laziness and not eating all the right foods again. Drinking doesn't help too. So...This week I've restructured my meals again, cut back and am trying to be good about not eating too many starches or fatty greasebombs. Lotta fruit and veggies. I've also thrown down a challenge too to myself, no booze for about a month. None what so ever. Not that I drink a lot on a regular basis, but it definitely will help for me to getting into my fighting weight as I don't want to enter my 30's in 2 months as a fat blob.
I should be getting the house painted next month too once the weather cools off. After that I can put the house up on the market if I decide to move soon. I may hold off though because the market is shit right now. It's a great buyers market, but selling is tough.
September means a couple of things though...First and foremost...Its back...FOOTBALL is BACK!!! As it stands now, I have Sundays off, so expect a number of Sunday morning gatherings at Casa Demelo for games, BBQ and boozing. Secondly, September is only a few months away from the annual Holiday party once again! 9th annual. Can't believe it...it was just yesterday that I held last years! Expect it around the first week of December. Finally, September is that much closer to my big day. Saying goodbye to my 20's on Oct 31st this year and its slated to be a big freggin party from what I hear from people. Tryin to be sneaky...you guys know I know something is up!! Just promise me that the midget and the donkey or some hot bitches will be there this year alright??

Escape

4 days of blissful escape. That's all?? Well worth it though. I get off of work early on Friday night, get home at midnight, pack up the truck and leave a little before 2am. The crew had already gone up that morning, so I was bringing up the rear.
Start driving, and from the onset of leaving my driveway til the arrival at camp, it was raining. I'm not talking about the standard run of the mill sprinkling, I'm talking about driving 2 hours plus through a dishwasher set on pot scrubber mode. I get to Pine and Strawberry at 4am and the fog sets in. Forced to go 20 mph on the highway in 20ft visibility and then even slower on the forest road til arrival at camp. Hop out of the truck, boisterously wake up the gang and start boozing. Drink til 9am after breakfast and then pass out for 3 hours. Wake up, party some more, pass out. Repeat process indefinitely till its time to go home on Tuesday.
It rained up there, and it rained hard. We jerry-rigged a tarp canopy system for everyone to crash under that worked really, really well.
Laura and Andrea left Sunday afternoon after recovering from Saturday nights card games. Kings rule...and so do the boys! The girls got messed up that night.
Sunday night it rained all day. Soaked the camp, but the ground absorbed all of it. Monday day it rained after taking a hike. Then we got set-up. Chillin in the recliners, Chris and Jenny clue in on a sound in the trees. I hear a yipping sound. Chris and I grab a shotgun and head out to stalk, leaving Jenny and Crystal in camp. 150 yards out in the trees we come across a old turkey carcass. The barking gets closer. Jenny is back in camp barking now. We assume that she is barking at us and decide to head further out. We get within 50 yards and the yipping stops. We lose it, poke around for a minute and then head back to camp. I walk ahead of Chris about 20 yards and walk into camp to be greeted by Crystal and Jenny who are hiding in the truck.
Apparently the yipping was a coyote pup calling out for mother. Mom walked right through the center of camp after we left and scared the crap out of Crystal. Jenny was busy barking at us and ignored the coyote. We were just caught in the middle.
Lessons learned- Jenny is freggin fired as a watchdog. Months of sleeping, coddling, treats, people food and lastly that pink bandana the girls put on her the first day has made her soft.
Secondly-Someone is staying in camp next time.
Anyways, good times had by all. Next trip should be sometime in October. People always miss out on fun and adventures and then complain that they should have gone with us...well then START GOING!!!

From the depths of Hell (Gilbert Arizona)

Arizona really blows today...like, blows nasty hairy, sweaty, fromunda cheese growing monkey balls! And so does this damn house! I've been dealing with a very finicky dual A/C unit system here at my house for the past 2 months now. One works fine, but one sometimes worked, and sometimes made you it's personal bitch. Well, I get home today from the bar after only making a whopping $23 dollars to show up at home to a hot house because (big freggin surprize!) the A/C unit was acting up again. This time though, it went offline for good.
It wouldn't turn on at all, and the control panel was unresponsive too. I reasoned with it, played with it, bargained with it, threatened it...all to no avail...so finally I bashed the fuck out of the control panel that wasn't working anyways. Now at least I know I need a new control panel.
Call the A/C company. They brushed me off until a few days from now. No good. I told them to fuck off. (not like that) I call another supposable 24-7 service company. They said that they could come out tonight, but would cost me an arm and a leg. They could come out tomorrow though. Great! Too bad i work A FREGGIN DOUBLE TOMORROW!!! By the way, which was caused by a bartender quitting his job all of a sudden last week, so everybody got screwed...except that we hired a new guy, and the schedule went back to normal for everybody EXCEPT me??!! Niiiiice....
So, I'll be sitting in a hot ass house until Thursday. Maybe I'll lose some water weight...after SWEATing my bawls off!!!ARRRRRGHGHGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
When I get the hell out of here to go camping this weekend, the first 3-5 beers I will down in like less than 10 minutes....
*i sooo can't wait to move out of this freggin home.....

Headed home

Last Sunday I headed home to Cali for a day to spend it on my Mom's birthday. A quick trip, straight out of work Saturday night to the airport, no sleep, crammed a bunch of family time in Sunday and part of Monday before flying out Monday night to go straight to work from the airport and then open up work on Tuesday...whew!!!
It was a good time, but exhausting.
Jeff is closer to getting his pilot's license and had a sweet job lined up!
We headed to my Godfather's house for a family BBQ. Ribs, seafood, rabbit, homegrown veggies, mom's to die for apple crisp, Portuguese martini's (a lot of those) and other goodies too. I got pretty tore up with Jeff and the rest of the family in the early evening. We had a great time, talked some family business, and took a LOT of pictures. Came home and as my parents were getting ready for bed, I felt like taking a walk around the neighborhood. Halfway during the walk, the martinis and beer kicked in and I realized that I was pretty freggin wasted. That was a fun time. I pretty much time-traveled the second part of the walk and the only part I remember was stopping in front of a house with some weird decoration in the window and having a white cocker-spaniel come racing out of another house next door to come up and bark all to hell at me. All I remember was that could have stomped the crap out of that dog, but decided to keep walking on...Got in, made a sandwich and passed the hell out in my old bed.
Got up the next day and hanged with dad and mom for a bit, had lunch, talked some more and we all sat in the backyard underneath Dad's grapevine talking for a while before I had to go to the airport.
Came home, and went straight to work, went to bed and then opened on Tuesday. Left work Tuesday, went shopping, grilled some chicken and veggies on the BBQ, had a few Portuguese martinis, played some video games and then took a 13 hr coma.
We maybe having a BBQ/movie night on Thursday. I'll keep you up to speed.
10 days til the camping trip...get your gear ready! We may get wet...bring gear accordingly, it is monsoon season...