Ryan's Journal

"My life amounts to no more than one drop in a limitless ocean. Yet what is any ocean, but a multitude of drops?" — David Mitchell

Tag: Family

Baba O’Riley

Posted from Culver City, California at 5:00 pm, January 27th, 2007

Sometimes people need to go to Vegas. And then when they get there it’s FREEZING, and because those people came from LA they didn’t bring coats, and so they end up walking a mile along the Strip and turning into icicles. And then those people go to P.F. Chang’s for dinner, and the wait is an hour and a half, so they play the slot machine with the UFO on it (it’s the best one). And then they finally get seated and they do animal impersonations while eating, and it’s actually really hard to think of animals to impersonate after the first six or seven. And then the next day they go to the Bellagio buffet (it’s the best one) and they eat a lot, and then they find another slot machine that lets you play a video game when you get enough wilds. And then they go home broke and happy.

Vegas

I’m still not used to not having hair.

Game Over

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:10 pm, November 28th, 2006

This year’s Turkey Bowl ended with a collision that was described as sounding “like two pumpkins smashing together”, and while I didn’t make the tackle I stumbled to my feet before Miner did, so I’d like to believe I won the battle. The epic three hour football marathon was the longest in history, with everyone involved in considerable pain the next day.

Other Thanksgiving highlights included Skip’s joy at discovering Aaron had set up an eight foot tall inflatable Santa in the front yard, the eleven hour drive home (traffic is awesome), and some atomic wedgie action that is probably better forgotten.

The latest retirement will be coming to an end on Monday after more than a year, the Browns are not very good, and JAMWiki is cruising along. Also, this story is super-cool, and this video is inspiring for anyone who has ever felt dumb.

I’m the Big Winner

Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada at 10:00 am, September 24th, 2006

Lest it get lost from memory, in the last journal entry I forgot to mention the outing Audrey set up to go see a performance of Carmina Burana at the Hollywood Bowl. I know nothing about the music, but apparently it’s a famous piece and everyone has heard parts of it in movies at some point (trust me, you have). Anyhow, given the joy that is Los Angeles traffic we decided to meet Greg and Bronwyn in downtown Culver City to catch a shuttle bus to the Bowl. As we left to meet them I realized that I was having discussions with my stomach about a vanilla latte I’d consumed twenty minutes earlier. Unhappy with the state of discussions, my stomach sent a few gallons of cold sweat up to my head about fifteen minutes into the bus ride, and my head returned the favor by draining of all blood. By this point Audrey was searching through our picnic dinner for a bag to give me, but we arrived at the Bowl without incident. Once there I calmly followed the group to our seats, dropped off my jacket, and then headed to the men’s room to lose my latte. After that the concert was fairly awesome, and ended with fireworks and massive flame towers that I swear raised the outside air temperature several degrees throughout the Bowl.

And that was all of the excitement in my life until Friday. Aaron called to find out if I wanted to drive with him to Vegas – he was going for a bachelor party, and his driving buddy had bailed. The catch was that I had to find my own lodging, and that we wouldn’t be able to hang out together until Sunday; not a problem – I’m admittedly cheap, so rather than shelling out $100 for a crappy room I figured I’d just crash for the night in the Suby.

So I picked up Aaron, we had a fun drive here, and then I dropped him off at the Luxor and headed over to the less-pricey end of the Strip to see if I could find a $5 Let-It-Ride table. Six hours later with $20 of winnings in my pocket and having seen a three-foot-tall man dressed as a leprechaun running up and down a bar pouring shots I headed out of town to a spot I’d parked at for the night on a previous trip. Unbeknownst to me, however, Nascar was in town, so my nice quiet exit twenty miles outside of town was filled with hundreds of cars leaving the Las Vegas speedway. Luckily five miles later the next exit had only a few semis that were parked for the evening, and I slept like a baby until the sun woke me up at 7:00.

Double Down Redux

Posted from Culver City, California at 9:25 pm, March 5th, 2006

Tuesday

I dropped Audrey off at the airport so she could catch her flight to do a job in Las Vegas, and then I started off in the car for… Vegas. Yeah. I probably could have flown, but wanted to visit Mojave National Preserve along the way, so figured driving wouldn’t be such a horrible thing. The preserve isn’t bad, and I need to go back and explore a bit more. I arrived in Sin City around nine o’clock, the third visit in the last month.

Wednesday

Spent most of the day in the Monte Carlo hotel room, then Audrey and I spent the evening roaming around trying to find the dumbest slot machines possible. She actually won some money on the mermaid machine, the shark game ate us alive, the old prospector took my five dollars, and Rocky came through and gave me a couple bucks. Most importantly we signed up for one of the casino’s player cards, so there should be hundreds of comps coming our way any day now.

Thursday

Scott and Anna arrived in the evening to celebrate Scott’s thirtieth birthday, but the flu bug hit so I spent the evening passed out in bed.

Friday

Fully recovered, Scott and I investigated how best we could lose our money by playing Let It Ride. My theory when it comes to gambling is that the casinos are always going to win, so the goal is to have as much fun over as long of a period as possible before they take all of the money — basically make the casino suffer a bit before it bankrupts me. During the day I managed to stay even, but a $10 minimum in the evening had me sweating. Cashing in $60 and getting six chips turned my stomach to acid, and while the game moves slow enough that the cash wasn’t burning up in front of me, it was still a pretty painful experience. As my chip pile slowly dwindled Audrey came over to watch the carnage, and I was dealt two aces. She then said with utmost certainty that one more was forthcoming, and a short time later I walked away from the table noticeably richer.

Saturday

Spent the last day in Vegas with Scott and Anna before heading off on my own to visit Wynn (wow) and then picking up Audrey for the ride home. The evening’s excitement was crossing back into LA county and passing a car chase going in the opposite direction — three cop cars and a helicopter all barrelling down the road.

Double Down

Posted from Culver City, California at 11:50 pm, February 16th, 2006

Last Friday night Ryan Sutherland, Aaron and I headed to Vegas to celebrate Aaron’s birthday. The trip started with Sutherland’s primordial response upon hearing the cost of a hotel room for the evening (“Goo”), was followed by much Beastie Boys music along the way, and culminated with an appearance by Charlie Chisel and a journey led by the ouija beer. The night ended late, and the following day we hit the Bellagio for brunch before heading home by way of the Mad Greek in Baker.

Audrey and I headed out to the desert two days later for some camping. Death Valley is a good bit cooler in the winter, and we had some good hikes in between coyote and kit fox sightings. Highlighting the differences between someone like myself who prefers the outdoors, and someone like Audrey who has spent almost all of her life in cities, the wind picked up Tuesday night and lulled me to sleep, while Audrey was up most of the night wondering if the tent would blow away (it didn’t). We headed to Vegas Wednesday to catch the Blue Man Group show (it ruled), lost some money on a baffling video slot machine involving an old prospector and Q-Bert, and finally headed home this afternoon after visiting the Mirage’s pool and jacuzzi.

The slow push to get through the remaining Antarctica photos continues, although I should be able to get most of them online tomorrow. As to the rest, at the rate I’m going it may be several more years…

Golden Canyon Landscape

Golden canyon landscape in Death Valley.

Post-Thanksgiving Roundup

Posted from Culver City, California at 12:50 am, December 3rd, 2005

Two weeks without an update is very poor form – my apologies. The only excuse I can offer is that the recent move from Studio City (home of CBS studios) to Culver City (home of Sony studios) has been busy. Here’s a recap:

Pre-Thanksgiving

Each day was pretty much the same: wake up, then spend the day helping Audrey sort stuff, move large items, and list crap on craigslist. Afterwards, deal with the two million people who call to ask if they can pick something up, and then meet the four who might actually show up. In fairness I had a bunch of fun with the craigslist minions, and as the previous posting mentioned met a bunch of odd characters.

Thanksgiving Weekend

Drove home, then went with Aaron to look at Toyota Tacomas. Our testing of the vehicle included the “lie down in the back and pretend to eat chowder” exam, and some time driving around the parking lot with a sales guy who kept mumbling something about “my damn Lexus”. Afterwards we met Chi and the Tall Guy at Chow before finishing the night with a game of Balderdash. The Turkey Bowl the next morning was a massacre, with a final score in the 77 to 42 range. Losing Bowerbank before the half killed us, although Nick’s trail of tears play somewhat made up for the embarrassing loss. Kev (who surprised everyone by showing up at Aaron Field at 7:30, almost three hours before kickoff) and Chi joined us for dinner, and Sally again outdid herself. The next morning I woke up at 4:30 so that Aaron and I could chase down the mad dealz at Circuit City, although when we arrived the line stretched across the front of the store, down the length of the parking lot, and onto the sidewalk, so we apparently weren’t the only idiots to get up early. The rest of the weekend was relatively uneventful, although Lynn and I had a nice drive back to Los Angeles, with a much-needed burger stop along the way.

Post-Thanksgiving

Audrey and I rented a giant U-Haul for Monday, and my job was to find two movers to help out. One of them called to cancel while we were picking up the truck, but luckily there was a group of about fifteen day-laborers standing around outside of the U-Haul office. As we walked out Audrey whispered “get a big one” in my ear, and this proved sage advice as Jose not only worked amazingly hard, but schlepped around items that I thought might be a chore for two people. His constant grunts of “muy fuerte” were both amusing and appropriate. By the time the day ended we had completely filled and then emptied a twenty-six foot long truck, but the new place is great so it was quite worthwhile. The next day was spent piling remaining items from the old house onto the lawn with a giant “FREE!” sign, and while I’m sure this display of communal trash dumping might have upset the neighbors, it introduced us to the special breed of craigslist stealth ninjas, who showed up unseen at all hours to remove completely random items — while our TV cabinet was still on the lawn the next morning, its glass door apparently caught someone’s fancy.

Wasted

Posted from Las Vegas, Nevada at 9:40 am, August 13th, 2005

I’m trying to reconstruct last night based on the contents of my pockets, which include a bunch of Irish email addresses written on a coaster and a CD of a bar band that I vaguely remember getting after tipping the band $40. There was waaaay more beer involved than was probably smart (I should have known better than to drink with a couple from Ireland), but it was a classic evening. Chuck Chi was Irish step dancing with a sixty year old Asian woman in a straw hat, Aaron actually tried to use the line “I’m broke and I’m cheap, but I’m a good guy”, there was (earlier in the day) a chow-mein reuben combo at the Bellagio buffet, and vastly more silliness than I’ve experienced in years.

Aaron and Friend

Aaron and Friend.

Concord, California

Posted at 5:10 pm, December 25th, 2003

First annual Holliday Bowl today. The photos are from the Turkey Bowl, but it gives a good idea of the shenanigans that were going on. Sadly my big moment in today’s game was getting my clock cleaned on a kickoff return, but the Goob managed three interceptions and four scores.

Aaron Field

Helmet Cam 2.0

Harrod and the Helmet Cam 2.0

Glendale, California

Posted at 8:05 pm, November 30th, 2003

Thursday

Drove through the night Wednesday, arriving home at 3:00 AM Thursday morning. Five and a half hours later Aaron woke me up for the Turkey Bowl, which is the annual football game held at “Aaron Field”. Herrod showed up wearing the helmet cam 2.0, an improvement over the prior helmet cam which had survived only long enough to record Aaron tackling Herrod followed by the helmet flying across the field before shutting down. This time around the video camera was triple taped to the helmet, a chin strap was added, and tons of bubble wrap was used. The video was fun to watch, but next year’s version is going to need some steady-cam action to reduce viewer naseau.

The joys of one touchdown and knocking Miner senseless during a kickoff return were lessened when I misunderstood what the option play was and tossed a perfect strike to Junior, who took the interception back for a touchdown. Our Thanksgiving eating contest followed several hours later, but when Aaron weighed out with a net seven pound weight gain I conceded. Scott stayed in, chugging water for all he was worth and holding on gamely for second.

Friday

Sleep, beautiful sleep. Also scanned in a few more pictures from my 1999 trip to the Galapagos.

Saturday

Skip and I went into the city, hitting up Woo’s for the standard barbecue pork rice noodle rolls and won ton. After a bit more roaming we returned home, and once Aaron was off work we headed out. Ping pong and pool at Masse’s was thwarted by a five dollar cover charge, but a good time was still had by all.

Sunday

Wanting to avoid traffic I started on the road at 11:30 Saturday night, and drove to Monterey where I planned to get a few hours of sleep in the K-Mart parking lot. Unfortunately the local police were out in force, and while watching them pull over a girl and run her through a sobriety test another cop snuck in behind me and demanded to know what I was up to. When I told him I was watching this girl being forced to touch her nose and stand on one leg he lost it a bit, but once he was done laughing I was on my way down highway one. Finally got a few hours of sleep on a turnout along the ocean, and then spent the day moseying south along the most beautiful road in America. Stopped for an hour or two to say hello to the elephant seals, and finally got back to Los Angeles late in the afternoon.

Glendale, California

Posted at 11:30 pm, November 9th, 2003

I’m not quite sure how best to describe the events of the past weekend. There was Aaron and Colonel Streule bumping and grinding on the dance floor while their girlfriends pretended not to know them. There was mud football and mud lacrosse, sleepwalking (“There’s a floor! And a carpet!”), grilled sausage with onions and peppers, near-debauchery with a girl whose name rhymed with Denali, and an ugly Browns game. And of course there was the 750 mile round-trip drive. I’m ready to move back to the Bay Area now.

Los Angeles, California

Posted at 11:00 pm, January 6th, 2003

Busy lately. Flew home for Christmas, and after covering the house in lights celebrated with the family — my brother got me a Bernie Kosar jersey, which is probably the greatest gift anyone who grew up in Cleveland could ever hope to get. If you can imagine Aaron and I in 1986 wearing dog masks and singing “Bernie, Bernie” (to the tune of “Louie, Louie”) then you can understand the beauty of this gift. Jenn came through with a three liter bottle of Heineken that was immediately dubbed “the Christmas miracle” so it was a joyous Noel.

Flew back to LA Christmas night, then drove back up to the Bay Area for the weekend to move some things and visit the family again. Drove to Las Vegas for New Year’s to meet some friends, and ended up spending New Year’s day with the worst hangover I’ve had in years — Banick and Kalyan always manage to make it a memorable occasion when we all get together. While New Year’s eve included fireworks on the Strip, being hit on by hookers, and watching friends lose $200 in less than fifteen minutes while playing blackjack, the highlight had to be when I eventually trusted my balance enough to attempt a trip to the casino restroom, only to hear someone say “Be careful, he’s been drinking” as I was passing by. I might be getting too old to be doing that sort of thing, but it was still fun.

After New Years I drove back to LA, worked two days, then did a mad dash up to San Francisco (375 miles), back down to Las Vegas (600 miles), and eventually home to LA (300 miles). The buffet at the Bellagio and the silhouettes of dancers in cowboy hats at Shadow Bar competed with the image of Banick too drunk to sit up straight (“Holliday, help me get my face off of the table”) as the highlight of this Vegas trip. Now I’m dead tired and back at work, but the plan for next weekend is to stay in my room and hopefully have nothing more taxing to do than lie in bed so with luck I’ll be ready to do it all again in a couple more weeks.

Los Angeles, California

Posted at 9:25 pm, December 22nd, 2002

It struck me last night that Christmas is practically here, and suddenly all I can think about is getting home on Tuesday night and stringing lights all over the house with my brother, then spending Wednesday with the family laughing as we go through the annual gift exchange. I’m going to be an absolute cyclone of Christmas energy by the time the plane lands Tuesday night.

Aside from holiday joy the last few days have been relatively uneventful. The weekly running mileage was slightly over sixty, and that’s the first time in my life that I’ve done so much. I’m still not in the shape I was in during college, but I can feel myself getting there. It’s an amazing feeling to be able to run under six minute mile pace again, or to actually feel good after running ten miles. Life is treating me very well at the moment — hopefully everyone else is filled with a similar amount of joy during this holiday season.

Palo Alto, California

Posted at 11:35 pm, November 29th, 2002

The discovery of champagne and margaritas for $2.75 near Union Square was a dangerous one, but it did lead to some good times with the Goob and Jenn. Drinks were followed up by a tree lighting with Leah, Nish, and several thousand other people, but since they seemed to be doing everything but lighting the tree we escaped to Sam Woo’s for egg rolls and won ton before parting ways with a group hug at the BART station. Happy times.

Palo Alto, California

Posted at 9:30 pm, November 28th, 2002

The annual Thanksgiving eating contest went horribly wrong this year, resulting in Aaron winning through disqualification. The final weigh-in stood near five pounds gained before the infraction took place. Also of note is that when we discovered Aaron’s list of things that make him happy (written when he was in the sixth grade), “my brother” came in fourth from last, well behind “donuts” and “when my mom gets home from the grocery store”.