on july 4th a bunch of us went to the beach in santa cruz to have a big bbq. i would guess about 30 or so came in all and a good time was had by all.

paul, greg, cheryl, leeya, john, and mike all went to the beach at 6:30AM to stake out a campground. i arrived at around 7:15AM with jen and we set up the volleyball nets and a tent and went back to sleep for a few hours.

people started to trickle in and we started to make food and just enjoy the beach. i was a little nervous about mixing groups as usual, but i think that it turned out alright.

in the evening we started up the bonfire and john had made a great call by suggesting the use of the match light charcoal to start the bonfire. we had a roaring fire and it was pretty good. it lasted a good two hours. with the bonfire roaring, we also got to watch the most amazing display of fireworks, ever!

people brought in all sorts of fireworks and i have never been so close to so much action. it was simply amazing. i wish i had brought my tripod, it would have been amazing to take pictures of that night.

all in all, i think everyone had a blast. it took two hours to fight through traffic to get home and i nearly fell asleep on the drive, but it was worth it. i had a blast.

happy birthday, geoff! i think he’s in LA right now, but here’s wishing many happy thoughts to you, yo!

i got a phone call from my parents asking me if i had lost my cell phone. “how did you know?” i asked, puzzled. they told me that someone had left a message on their answering machine saying that they picked up the cell phone somewhere off the apartment complex. unfortunately, the number they left was unintelligible.

“just great,” i thought. i was so close, but so far away! since i must have dropped the phone along the way to my car, i decided to make a bunch of signs and plaster them around the apartment complex. they read, “LOST! sprint samsung cell phone! please return to the rental office! thanks!”

it turns out that whoever found my cell phone also saw the signs i made and returned the cell phone to the rental office. unfortunately, the office opens at 10AM and closes at 5PM so picking it up from there has been a bit of a challenge.

since today is my last day at work, i’ve decided to stay at home a little later than usual to pick up my phone. it’s been days since i lost it and *I* feel lost without it. not that i call a lot of people…or get any calls for that matter. it’s just a nice little security blanket.

it’s nice to see that there are still decent people out there in the world, though.

i lost my cell phone…

on sunday we were short several players so i was talking to my team and asked about who we should ask to sub. one of my teammates says to me, “hey, how about that filipino girl?”

“what filipino girl?” i ask as i look around in the general direction that he is pointing.

“that one over there in blue.”

“oh her? sure.” i agree, and then i yell out loud, “HEY FILIPINO GIRL!”

my teammate is obviously embarassed as i am yelling this. what i find even more hiliarious is that the girl he was talking about was my friend cheryl (who happens to be chinese). after i yell this, she turns her head and responds to me as if it were no big deal.

just hilarious, i tell you.

i just had this GREAT idea. i went to craigslist to see if there is any free firewood and it looks like there are tons of people just giving this stuff away. i’m going to go and see if i can get wood from some places throughout this week for the bonfire so i don’t have to buy too much firewood. happy days.

i’ve been trying very hard not to write about anything at work until i leave the company. let’s just say that it has been quite an exercise in self-restraint. =P

but this is the last week of my employ here and then i will not have any more 50 miles each way commutes to deal with. i think it will be absolutely fabulous.

i went to eat at TGI’s sushi, one of my favorite sushi places in the bay area. our waitress had a name tag that read “jeremy”. at first i was a little surprised to see the name and so i must have been staring at it to see how else one might be able to pronounce that name.

the waitress took notice that i was staring at her chest (but i was looking at her name tag, i swear!) and walked away. i didn’t realize that she noticed my obvious staring and so when she came again, i was staring at her name tag (which happened to be pinned on her chest) and then i caught her eye staring at me staring at her chest.

i realized what she must have been thinking and so i asked rather embarassed, “is jeremy your real name?” she smiled and said, “yes.” and walked away.

i really hope she didn’t think i was staring at her chest. =P

i thought of dardy when this happened to me earlier last week.

i went to the company bathroom and was disgusted to find that somebody had not flushed the toilet and there was toilet paper floating in the bowl. i flushed the toilet to discard the previous user’s leftovers and it was then that time seemed to stop.

we, as humans, are creatures of habit. after being conditioned for decades to expect certain things, when they don’t happen you sometimes just don’t know what to do.

i experienced one of these moments when after flushing the toilet, instead of the water level going down, i saw that the water was rising at a rather alarming rate.

everything seemed to slow down after that. i could hear my heart beating ever so slowly.

*beat*

my eyes widened with a horror that could only be eclipsed at the thought of what would happen if the water actually gushed out and splashed all over me. (mind you, i was wearing my “tight” jeans that day…to have to have backed up toilet water on my jeans is frightening enough, but to have them on my “tight” jeans…it was more than i could bear.)

*beat*

i tried for a split second to will the water back down the pipes. no such luck.

*beat*

the water looked like it was going to overflow. i felt powerless. what could i do? what was hiding under that toilet paper already in the bowl? why was this happening to me?

*beat, beat*

in the corner of my eye i saw a plunger. i grabbed it and started to plunge, taking care not to splash any water on myself.

*beat*

whatever was clogging up the pipes must have finally broken free because the water level was quickly draining down the pipes and suddenly it appeared that i would be saved from a potentially horrific experience.

man, going to the restroom should not be this hard.

adam and rae got married over the weekend. a couple of months ago adam asked me if would do the formal pictures for them during the wedding.

when i first met them and looked at the timeline, i saw that they had an hour to take all the group photos as well as some photos of just the couple. it was a pretty stressful hour because everyone seemed to have input on how things should be, but things started to slowly work itself out. i haven’t seen the group photos, but i think it’ll be ok.

i also ended up taking a lot more pictures than i anticipated. i was pretty nervous throughout the day hoping that the pictures that i took came out ok. i looked at the pictures and they seem to have come out reasonably well.