Spring Break with the Son

Collin is out for the week and here's some pictures from the adventures we had last weekend in Davenport Beach. He's 17 and almost as tall as me, man I'm getting old, one of my new check-in's last weekend at the squadron was just a year older then him.

Here's some pictures and a video I took, enjoy.

Toad the Wet Sprocket at the OC Fair

A couple of weeks ago in passing, I entered a contest on the Toad the Wet Sprocket’s myspace page to win concert tickets to see their first show that they’ve performed in over a year at the Orange County fair and last week I got an email from Wahoo’s Fish Taco’s (people who sponsored the prizes) saying that I won.

So last night my son and I drove up there. The last time I saw them in concert was in September of 1996 with Neil Young. Collin was almost 3 and I was stationed at MCAS El Toro and married to his mom. The reason he knows Toad is because I gave him an MP3 player last year that had a bunch of their music on it.

Toad as always been one of my favorite bands, their music resonates somewhere inside of me but its sound has defiled easy description and a most people have never heard of them. I told my coworkers, “I’m going to see Toad the Wet Sprocket!” And every single one of them said “Who?”

Toad the Wet Sprocket’s music is sad and bittersweet, it’s hard to drop them into a genre, they’re a mix of REM, Jar’s of Clay, Nickel Creek and old Jimmy Eat World. Their music invokes loss, love and life mixes everything together into a rush of beauty. Most of their music is about something being wrong but somehow they get it just right. It’s strange that I can get such joy out of such sad music.

Great show guys, you’ve always been able to touch home with me.

Now we're heading down to Comic Con, expect pictures.

Vlogging Seaworld with my son

It's one of the cool things you can do when you have offspring.

Budget month with family

We’ve been saving our pennies for what is turning out to be a somewhat expensive trip to the Milblog Convention in DC. This budgeting added an interesting twist to this month considering my son was visiting for the first week and the mother-in-law was here for the week afterwards. Each day it was a trick finding some new low cost entertainment. For instance, last weekend we used up our Seaworld’s Here’s to the Heroes tribute, a free pass for any military member and 3 of his direct dependents, when it normally costs 56 bucks a ticket, that makes it quite a deal. Thanks Anheuser-Busch! I will never talk bad about your beer again! Heather's mom still had to pay but we got in for free.

As you can see by the pictures here, we had a great time.

The next morning I shipped off my son back to his mom loaded down with an extra suitcase full of gear. I came home and made my wife and her mom a breakfast of eggs, bacon, home fries and we spent the morning hanging out and watching movies. Easter dinner ended up being a nontraditional meal of ribs, corn on the cob and green beans at a bar-b-q the next block over.

Monday, I took them out for Vietnamese (20 bucks for all of us including tips) and Heather covered the next couple of days with a grand tour of San Diego, visiting one of the dog beaches (free), Balboa Hospital (free, Heather was born there), Cabrillo National Monument (we have a year pass), USS Midway (25 bucks for both of the) and in return her mom showed her the house she was conceived in and sponsored her food. On her last night in San Diego, she treated us to Studio Diner (a fifties place with great food).

Busy two weeks. Us being family loving people, having them come visit did us a world of good, hopefully they has as much fun as we did. Thanks for coming!

Travel Vlog to Arizona

Video of our trip to Arizona which includes some of the places we went, my mom's latest project and blackmail video of my son singing Gwen Stefani. No, not really blackmail because I don’t believe in blackmailing people, I prefer instant gratification.

We had a great time, my wife and my son are great traveling companions on any journey. She didn’t make this trip but will the next one.

I also posted a bunch of photos here

We made it back to San Diego

It ended up just being me and my son going to Arizona, the brides mom came in this week and it's hard to be at two places at once. Helped my sister tear apart the inside of a house for a day then the next 4 days were spent driving around and visiting friends all over the state. How my week was spent?

My other son, Alec (he’s not really my other son but I call him that) gave me a very cool Behringer guitar and amp and is turning 16 this summer, don’t worry son, I’m kicking into that fund too. He's the one on the left

My real son has shown an interest in Vlogging, so I helped him with his first entry while he was playing video games. (Just in case he joins the military later in life, it’s easier handling post traumatic stress when you already have defense mechanisms in place) We also made some movies of us doing wacky things going across the state, going to put the clips together in a movie before he goes home. I'm related to my two favorite traveling companions. Collin and I sang, took pictures and video everywhere and had a great time. Expect more pictures soon.

Friends I visited?

Jason, haven’t seen him in person since 2000, he tried giving me and Collin a cat, they were cute but I don’t want to be responsible for Gatsby eating it when we got home. I’m not sure if the dog thinks cats are good eating or not. I'm happy that you're doing alright buddy.

Justin, who I haven’t seen since I came out in November, he needs to come to San Diego and eat lobster. He used to make fun of me for being a corpsman, about being a male nurse. Know what he is now? A male nurse.

Larry, who might as well be my brother, I visit him every trip out there and hopefully we’re going on a family beach camping trip this summer

Nathan and Aimee, whom I use to double date with all the time in high school, I haven’t seen them since 1993, it was great seeing them, they're very good people.

Andy, who just started blogging and has earned a coveted high spot on the links. Not many of my friends from high school are bloggers, have to take care of them when they start. I haven’t seen him since 1991, he lives down the street from my uncle and is actually making a living as a photographer.

More on the trip later, have to go make some breakfast.

Ack, 3000 miles in 2 weeks

Pictures are here of the second half of the trip. I feel like that family in that Chase bank commercial, it's very good to be home in my own bed. We had a great time but both of us are getting too old for these endless road trips. It's time to buy stock in Southwest.

Other news, we're getting ready to move into our new house and soon thereafter become the parents of a new dog.

Below is a picture of me, my wife and son at the Winchester House (damn he's getting big)