hosting people takes a lot of work, and it takes lots of planning and preparation. my best friend jj and his gf nikki made their somewhat annual trip to socal from august 22-28. jj usually has his annual...wait for it...STORM CON conference in anaheim. think of it as a less glamorous, coma-inducing, retarded step child to COMIC CON, minus the hot babes, crazy costumes, movie star celebs and free swag. up until this point, i thought the conference primarily consisted of a bunch of dudes talking about sewage pipes. jj quickly corrected me, and set me straight. it is a conference revolving around water treatment and drainage solutions. sounds like a party to me! nonetheless, the conference took a couple of days, so nikki (my nikki) and i were lucky enough to have jj and nikki stay with us afterwards! i must say, when jj and i get together, it's pretty much no-holds barred. much to the chagrin of nikki and nikki, they allowed us the luxury of being idiots, for at least a few days.

we made sure to plan ahead for places we wanted to take them and places they wanted to eat. we hit up this place in old town orange called "the perfect circle cupcakery" which was featured on cupcake wars on the foodnetwork, and won! the cupcakes were delicious. then we had a great dinner at this restaurant called rutabagorz. (oh, and the night before, we took them to this malaysion restaurant called penang malaysia for some roti canai!!!!)

the one thing you need to understand is that when nikki and jj are in town, you can't just sit and do nothing (which i love to do on a regular basis). i knew i had to plan some things for them, as i know they like to do a lot of activities. my nikki was lucky as she had to work thursday and friday, so she couldn't really join us for what i had planned.
we hit up some golf at hidden valley golf club in corona. this gem of a course is literally 4 miles from my house, and the views are fantastic. they had a promo running on facebook, so the rounds only cost $20 bucks each for 18 holes and a cart. you cannot beat that value!!! we did tee off after noon, which happened to be the hottest part of the day. being inland a bit, the temperature was up there...i know we were dabbling in the high 90s. nikki thought she was going to die, as she was burning all over. we couldn't get the sunscreen on her fast enough!

next we decided to do some mountain biking in the laguna beach. we figured that being close to the water meant cooler temps. only during the drive down there. we were pretty much exposed to the sun on top of the mountain, but the trails were awesome! however, it did take us almost an hour to get up the mountain. the terrain was all sandy and loose dirt so it made it more difficult to get to the top. when we did, the views were worth it. plus, all the trails were pretty much downhill. afterwards, we took a stroll to the beach, got some gelato and ate at a hole in the wall taco place off of pch. when we got home we were exhausted, and nikki's poor skin was red hot...it felt like it was giving off heat! we went for a massage and then a good dinner.

paddleboarding was next on the agenda. we went to paddle power in newport, and that was a lot of fun. we went around the harbor for an hour and half...i'll just end the story there...

we hit up the beach and boogie boarded. the waves were huge and the sun was beating down on us. it was the perfect day to be at the beach. we then picked up inga who happened to be in town doing a press junket for the 3D release of lion king. we headed back to our place for some margaritas, spritzers, and abnormally large portions of mexican food!!!

inga managed to get on the same flight and jj and nikki, so we took them to target for some last minute shopping and then to the airport. luckily there were no delays from hurricane irene, so they were good to go. honestly, the best way to spend a weekend...with good friends, good food, and good fun! thanks for coming out guys!

it has been way too long since my last post. i've learned over time that i really don't have to write a novel...but just a few lines updating my latest escapades.

so for diana and sally...here is my update.

this past weekend, (actually 2 weekends ago) i flew down to Denver to meet up with my old dragonboat team, the aquaholics. it's been over 3 years since i've actually paddled competitively, but i've been keeping as active as i can. i wasn't worried about the actually paddling, just the

actual racing itself.

but first, i had to contend with 2 days of hiking in the Rockies with JJ, Nikki, Cheryl, Dan and Christina. first things first, however, i was fortunate that my buddy who used to work with me at the Ducks recently got a job with the Colorado Avalanche. Kyle met up with me and my friends on the wednesday wehn we arrived. he gave us the lowdown on Denver, and told us that just the week prior, it rained for 11 days. luckily for us, the weather improved slightly.

the next day, we hit up some hiking trails up in estes lake. not sure where that is in relation to denver, but it took us about an hour or so to get there. i didn't realize that the altitude was going to affect me so much, but it literally felt like i was out of breath all the time, and that i cement blocks on my feet, as every step felt heavier than the first. bear lake was the name of the trail, and it was around 1.6 miles one way. it took us

a fair bit to get to the end, but it

was well worth it!

day 2 saw us hit up another trail, but i wasn't sure the name. i thinkit was called the ute trail named after an indian tribe. this trail was a little more open, as we drove to the top of the mountain, then took the trail literally on the mountain side. the ground was very uneven with a lot or rocky terrain. we saw some wild marmots running around (apparently drinking dan's piss) we saw the state flower of Colorado, and dan didn't collapse from a cardia arrest and fall down the mountain, so all in all, it was a good challenging hike.

saturday was the day of the festival. it was being held

on sloan lake just outside of denver. we got up early, as we had a full day of racing! from my understanding, we had 7 races in one day!!! seeing as its been awhile since i raced competitively, i knew this was going to be a challenge. suffice it to say, we did really well. we won the 500m championship, came in 3rd for the 250m (which i still think we won by the way) and then we won the 1000m grand championship. not bad for a team from toronto. afterwards, we celebrated like rockstars in downtown denver! the pic on the left is of freddy, our newly appointed drummer which we found the day of the race to drum our team! if i recall, he said that this was the best experience of his whole life!!!

sunday was our white water rafting day. wade did all the organizing, and it was awesome. funny thing is that we were given the wrong directions to the rafting company, so we ended up at another place, not knowing it was the wrong one. we all got geared up, ready to go, and then when they were announcing the groups, we were pretty much the last one standing. they asked us who we were, and we told them, but they had no listing for us whatsoever. we figured out that it was the wrong place, so we got changed, and drove a mile or 2 to the right company. we pretty much held up not only our group, but 30+ other people that were there. they were all cool about it, and we managed to get in our fill or white water rafting. the water was cold as ice as it was glacier water from the mountains. the rapids were pretty intense and everyone enjoyed. as soon as my balls defrosted, i was A-OK!!!