Stephanie and I went to her parents house for Lunch on Sunday, and the food was delicious. The Lees had prepared some fish taco makings, and some cantaloupe for dessert. I really enjoyed the time we spent with them, and they were great to talk to. After lunch we went on a walk at the reservoir, for about 3 miles total. I ended up getting a little sun burn, but it wasn’t that bad. We saw a gigantic fish sitting in a little cove off the reservoir and Mr. Lee wanted to go get his fishing gear.
Stephanie and I decided to do a hike with a meetup group. We went to Castle Rock State Park to do the hike and the group turned out to be a rather large one. There were a little over 50 people there and most of them were either significantly older than us, or transient foreigners. They were all great people, and most were decent hikers, but we didn’t feel like there was the kind of people that we could be friends with. We got a lot of good suggestions of other meetup groups to try. I also think a hike with 50 people was way too many, and the waiting for the slow people to catch up got annoying towards the end.
The hike was a total of about 8 miles, and had some amazing views.
I had a really good time at the convention, learning a good number of new games. There was one card game that was very simple, but very deep in strategy. I really enjoyed playing it. The game Java that was very similar to Tikal was way too complex. I enjoyed listening to James’ lectures, and they had a lot of information I didn’t already know. The one on probabilities I already knew most of, but that was to be expected. I’m really looking forward to his lectures on Kickastarter and randomness.
I met up with Michael and some of his friends in SF for dinner at Le Colonial. I got there a little early and worked until they showed up. The food was very tasty and the conversation was lively. The kind of people that hang out with Michael are the kind of people I like to be around. I’ll miss him when he moves to Chicago. On the way back there was a line going around the block at the Caltrain station, since the Giants game had just gotten out. I was able to make the third train with my bike on board, but it was annoying to have to wait in such a crazy line with drunk people. When I got back Steph and I tried to go watch a meteor shower, but there was too much cloud cover and city lights.
Stephanie was amazing, and took me to a surprise event on Saturday for my birthday. We went east into the valley and when we started getting close I saw the advertisements for the caves. I was still excited to see if it was going to be the caves. We got there and saw a map of the caverns, It went very deep and on top of that we got to repel through the ceiling! I was scared when I came through the crack in the top, because it was 100 feet from the floor. On the floor there was a “bone pile” that was made of hundreds of people who fell through the crack in the ceiling. We continued down to the adventure tour. The tiny cracks we crawled through in the adventure tour were just big enough to squeeze through. The best part was the final climb up a chimney and then the slide down the cave wall. I really enjoyed the trip and would love to do something like it again.
Steph and I drove to the California Avenue Farmers Market and were surprised that they took up another block of the street for the market. It was nicer, and there were a number of new stands that we got to sample. One place that was interesting was an herbal tea stand that was made from the products of one garden. I would have gotten some if there were caffeinated teas there, but unfortunately there weren’t. It was also some of the most expensive tea I’ve ever seen. We got bolani and tofu of course, along with some very tasty berries.
After lunch on Saturday, Steph and I went to the Rancho San Antonio open space preserve. It was a great walk down to the farm and back. We ended up seeing a red tailed hawk on the way in that had just caught a rabbit. The rabbit probably weighed as much as the hawk, and it wasn’t able to carry it off. We also saw a deer on the way to the farm, and it went to relax in the shade of a nearby tree, almost disappearing in the foliage. The farm was decent, but there weren’t as many bunnies as Steph wanted. I’m not sure it is possible for the farm to have had enough bunnies for Steph. That said there were only three or so, and they were hiding in the back corner.
We took Andrew, Lee, Esther, and Kevin. Steph was the captain most of the time, and she did very well. There were a few parts where she was a little forgetful about some important terminology and how to do some of the more complex maneuvers, but all in all it was a good trip. We had lunch out at sea, and Andrew and Kevin got sick from it. I found that heaving to and sitting there a while is when people tend to get sick. I think we should eat before heading out from now on, and less focus of cheese in the meals. After sailing we went to The Penny and got some amazing ice cream. The strawberry was delicious and the white chocolate wasn’t bad either.
We had a lot of fun painting, and it was a good random thing to do where no one has to worry about the outcome.
Andrew, Nick, and David all chose pictures to base their paintings on, with the rest of us just winging it. I was happy with the two I made, one being the waterfall, the other being the silhouette kitties. I really like the silhouette style art.
It's an Exciting World 