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...

Updates July/06

Ok, now that Dirty is gone, its back to the real world. So, what's going on?
I'm still taking bids for painting the house, and I also sent out a request to my realtor to start giving me listings for new homes that I may want to relocate to and some rental properties that I may want to invest in.
It's back to the health kick again after 2 weeks off of slacking. I put back on about 4 pounds through partying hard. Went back to the gym yesterday and learned a good lesson that its not nice to stop going for 2 weeks and then go back. I'm not sore, but it still sucked. I really wish that it was somewhat bearable outside so I could get active outdoors. I suppose fall is coming soon enough.
Need to concentrate on my finances again. Booking trips and catering to travel and guest's needs have drained me a bit. Summertime has my AC running maxed out. To cool this damn house is about the cost of rent for a studio apartment. Car registration is due, credit cards are to be paid off, monthly savings and investments are to be deposited. Its gonna be tight. I could tap into savings, but that would do me nothing for discipline.
I'm off this weekend to visit my mom on Sunday for her birthday (I think she is turning 70). I work Sat night, leave for the airport to catch a 6am flight on Sunday, and then return on Monday night to work at 10pm. I get the feeling that it may be an exhausting trip, but it will be nice to be back home in the summer for at least one day. I haven't done that in a while. Hopefully there will not be too much drama. There is some inner-family stress going on right now as well as my last remaining grandparent being sick. I get the feeling that shit will come to a head within the family in the next 8 months or so, and hopefully things won't get too ugly. Nothing directly related to my person, but I may chose to get involved if my morals deem fit.
Got a camping trip planned in less than 3 weeks. We are scheduled to head up north for a weekend trip, get out of the heat, relax and chill with friends. The fire danger up north has passed, so we can have campfires, and plus, this trip is in monsoon season, so we may have a storm while up there. We shall see. Still, no storm has matched the great storm of '04. That was a doozy, and any storm that has come thru after that one makes me laugh...
Busy trying to keep my MYSPACE and blog pages updated, which is a pain in the butt but I think I finally got them all up to speed.
I think that's about all I can think of right now. Keep checking back frequently.
Oh, BTW...What's up with nobody posting comments or posts to anywhere recently? Just read this shit and fly eh? Whatever floats your guys' boats I guess.
Sheriff Out!

Dirty Ryan's Trashed Thursday

After a day's recovery from tittie bar Tuesday, we decided to throw a shindig at Casa Demelo before Dirty flew away on Friday.
The plan?
Grab a side of beef, 4 slabs of ribs, enough chicken breast tenders to have given 24 chicken masectomys, about 4 cases of beer, other foodstuffs and of course the full bar.
Invite an army over. Only a platoon showed up. We made a valiant attempt.
Striker got the meat sweats after 2 steaks, 4 ribs, 3 chicken breasts & seafood stew...passed out on the living room floor.
We had a good amount of close friends show up, some with dates, some solo. Ryan and Doug left early unfortunately. Doug had to work in the morning, but Ryan really had no excuse, but no biggie. We got him buzzed up and full on food.
We got convinced by an un-named party to start a very, very long trivia game wherein a few players dropped out due to drunkenness or fatigue.
We had one party crasher who ended up spewing all over himself at the end of the night..he,hee!
Woke up the next morning to drive Dirty to the airport after grabbing a last lunch with the boy.
It was sad to see him go. I don't think I got my full fill of that Dirty boy, and most of the peeps out here didn't see the actual "Dirty" himself. I suppose that in time there will be more festivities with Ryan, of which I look forward to.
In the meantime, normalcy has found its place back at Casa Demelo. Time to pay off bills and save up cash again after the last few weeks activities.
Godspeed off to Japan with you Ryan. Wish you could have stayed longer. Til then, its time to scaffio la briko my Dirty brother.

Tittie Bar Tuesday II, Dirty Ryan style

After returning to the 113 degree hell that is Phoenix, I worked that Monday night and then opened on Tuesday morning. I get off, head home, get Dirty and we go grab a quick burger for dinner. Doug comes over to pick us up to head out.
Where? Well we felt that Dirty was out of touch with his caveman roots, so to start we took his ass to the bowling alley. Frontier Lanes in Scottsdale was our venue.
We cruise in and to kill time before the nightly bowling special, we hit the bar area to drink and shoot pool. We ran the bartender around bad for the first round, but tipped her well and made good with her. Shots of crown and Jameson later, Dirty schools us in pool surprisingly.
We meet up with Crystal and hit the lanes. After a bit, Dirty returns to his caveman self and was soon chucking balls down the alley. Amusing yes, effective no.
We get our buzzed asses out of there and head up to Zipps for grub.
I warned them, but the tough guys didn't listen. I guess the title was just too tempting.
Zipps wings are hot. Damn hot. Like pour diesel on your tongue, lite it with a blowtorch and put it out with acid and boiling water hot.
Last time I tried and failed, I made it through 3 wings.
I sat amused as they made it through half a wing each before they started sweating and tearing up. It was a pride issue now. Ryan and Doug get three in. I get egged into having one.
As I sit burning, they still go at it. Doug tried to call a truce at 5 each, but Dirty wouldn't have it.
Teary-eyed, sweating, nose running and mouth covered in ranch, Dirty takes the last wing and gets bragging rights.
After dishing out pain, I decide that pleasure is in order. We head out to Babes for Tittie Bar Tuesday.
Pay the cover and drop $30 to the doorman for a table practically on stage and the girls dancing above your head. Doug is in awe, enjoying the girls rubbing on him. Dirty doesn't know where to look as titties are everywhere. Last call, no time for lapdances.
We head home and pass out. After all, I needed to wake up early to prep things for Thursday's party.