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Weekend trips galore! That's what we've been doing these past few weeks. From March 23-24, Priscilla and I were up in Napa, and this past weekend we were down in Monterey.

The Napa trip was started by meeting a rep from a timeshare company at the Santa Clara Travel Expo. She promised us airfare and a two night stay in Hawaii and wine tasting for two, in exchange for attending a 90-minute timeshare presentation at their resort in Napa. So in March, we made the 1.5 hour drive up to Napa.

We found the presentation a bit sketchy, and apparently so did lots of other people who posted their experience on Yelp. We were given travel vouchers for a company that also has bad reviews (so we might not use it) and a buy one get one free coupon for wine tasting (not exactly what we were promised). No matter, we ended up going to one of the wineries listed on the voucher, Falcor Winery, and really enjoyed it. The wine was strong, the host was super friendly and helpful, and he gave us a tour of the whole winery. They even waive one tasting fee per bottle of wine bought, so we bought a 2008 Chardonnay with a nice butterscotch flavor.

We had dinner at Hilo Hawaiian BBQ, a place with decent food that resembled L&L. But they were cheap and didn't give us cups for water. That night we enjoyed walking through downtown Napa, and we stayed at the Fairfield Inn in nearby American Canyon to save money. $100 after tax for a large room with a kitchenette, sweet!

The following morning, we hiked at Skyline Wilderness Park and enjoyed visiting Lake Marie at the end of the hike, even though we took a wrong turn initially. Before heading home, we had lunch at Tarla Mediterranean Grill, and the food and service were sadly mediocre.

Fast forward to this weekend. Our one year anniversary is coming up in two weeks! Can't believe we've been married for almost a year now. Time sure flies. Originally we had planned to visit Monterey on our anniversary, but Deborah, Priscilla's maid of honor, recently got engaged and announced that her wedding would be on the 27th (her fiance is in the army and shipping out to Afghanistan soon). Since we didn't want to miss their wedding, we pushed our Monterey trip up by two weeks.

So on Saturday, we visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium. Our church friends have an annual membership that provides them with two transferable guest passes, so they often let their friends use their guest passes to get into the aquarium for free! That's a savings of $35/person each time!

The aquarium was very enjoyable, albeit crowded. I particularly liked the psychedelic 1960s-themed jellyfish exhibit and the feeding held in the Kelp Forest. The otters were by far the most fun to watch. What a great place to visit!

Dinner was at a small, one-man-show place called Paprika Cafe. There was only seating for about a dozen people, but we got there early and missed most of the crowds. Service started getting slow as the place filled up. I felt bad for the poor guy. Ah, the Yelp effect.

We stayed the night at the Comfort Inn for $130. That room was pretty small, motel sized. And that was one of the cheaper places to stay in Monterey, sheesh! What's up with Monterey being so expensive?

The next day we hit up Point Lobos National Reserve, where we enjoyed a beautiful 5-mile hike through serene forest and along magnificent rocky coasts. Easily the most scenic hike we've been on to date. For lunch, we headed over to Fisherman's Wharf and ate at The Grotto Fish Market, where Priscilla had a coupon that gave us a free cup of clam chowder with purchase of an entree. We got a 1/2 pound crab and shrimp plate for $20, which included a cup of clam chowder, meaning each of us were able to have a cup. We also ordered 5 raw oysters. The food wasn't spectacular, but it was enjoyable. I enjoyed walking along the wharf and sampling the clam chowder from a few different places, even though I felt bad for not buying.

And hence concludes the past few weeks of fun. As mentioned, we'll be going to LA in two weeks for Deborah's wedding, and again for Memorial Day to spend some time with our parents. So the traveling is far from over this summer. I'll need to catch up writing my Yelp reviews while I can!

If the benefits at Pure Storage weren't awesome enough, last weekend the engineering department went on an all-expenses paid ski trip to Tahoe!

Around 30 of us left on a bus at 10am Friday morning (great excuse to have the day off), and 223 miles and 4 hours later arrived at our hotel - Harveys in South Lake Tahoe. We had the afternoon free, with some people immediately hitting up the hotel casino and lots of others hitting up a couple of the bars in the area. Most of us rejoined for dinner at Base Camp Pizza, a place that has amazingly tasty and fresh pizza!

Everybody received gondola tickets which we used on Saturday at the Heavenly Mountain Resort. Those not skiing took the gondola up to the lodge to play board games. I of course had to try my luck at skiing for the first time. I didn't want to take lessons right off the bat, so I just winged it on the green run. I'll let the text of my Yelp review tell the story:

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Me: "Lessons are for suckers. I've snowboarded twice and done some ice skating. I'll be fine."
Me: [Going down the green hill] "AHHHHHHHHH!!!!"
Me: [A few runs later]: "Ok this isn't so bad. I'm starting to get the hang of this."
Me: [A few more runs later]: "Hey I have a crazy idea. Maybe I should try a blue run?"

So I ask a guide which blue run is the easiest, and he directs me to the nearby "California Trail". Sounds good! Well I regretted it as soon as I got on the chair lift and saw how far up it went. Or rather, did not see how far up it went, because the cable stretched off into the horizon.

I knew I was going to have some trouble when I got to the top of that billion foot tall mountain. That trail was freaking STEEP.

Me: "Well, there are only two ways down, and I'm not taking the chair. Ok here goes..."
Me: "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!"
Me: [Between screams]: "WHY DID I NOT TAKE LESSONS?!?!?!"
Well needless to say, I fell more during that run than I had all day prior. At least the view was awesome from up there. =/
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That night we had dinner at Stateline Brewery because lots of my co-workers like to drink, which probably also helped drown out the pain that anybody may have been feeling from that day's (mis)adventures. And after that, since drinking at Stateline wasn't enough for some people, a bunch of us caravanned over to a bar near the hotel.

We stayed at Harveys for two nights - Friday and Saturday. I shared a room with one of the younger guys at Pure. We had a pretty nice room with double queen beds, a view of the lake, and a swanky bathroom with a separate changing area, room with a toilet, and a room with a bathrub and shower stall.

It was pretty awesome how the company lavished so much on us and got us an expensive room when cheaper ones were available. And as far as I could tell, there was no special treatment - for instance, the CTO had a room on my floor which probably had a worse view than mine! Man, this company is awesome.

No, I'm not talking about myself. I'm talking about my phone.

Since Pure Storage gives us a monthly $75 cellphone allowance (they don't provide landlines), I had an excuse to finally get a smartphone. The allowance is just additional money added to my paycheck, which I can choose to spend (or not spend) however I want, but I figured it was finally time to upgrade, since there've been plenty of times I've wished I had a smartphone (95% of those times being me wanting to check into a place to satisfy my Yelp addiction).

That's right, I've held out longer than almost everybody I know, but now I've finally sold out.

So this afternoon Priscilla and I went to a Metro PCS store. I went with Metro because of their low prices ($40/month for the cheapeast plan, taxes and fees included), no contracts, and unlimited usage on all plans. I had picked out the LG Spirit 4G ahead of time due to its low price point ($200 after rebate) and decent features:

• Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich
• 4.5-inch display
• 1.2 GHz dual-core processor
• 5 MP rear-facing camera
• 1.3 MP front-facing camera

The first thing I did with my new phone? Install Yelp, of course.

I can't believe I've had my original AT&T phone, my Samsung Sync, for over 5 years. Thank you my trusted flip phone - you've served me well despite me dropping you numerous times, and how you've lasted on your original battery all this time has truly impressed me. But now it's time for me to move on. It's nothing personal. But sometimes, people realize they need... a bit more in their lives. Know that you'll always have a place in my heart. And, unless I decide to eBay you, a place in my drawer.

Last Friday was my last day at AST, and it was a bittersweet day. I made my rounds saying goodbye to the friends I've made over my five years of employment. I had my exit interview with HR at 2pm, but since I was being paid for the whole day, I wanted to get as much work done as possible and work a full day.

Unfortunately, though I requested that AST keep my badge and computer accounts active through the rest of the day, that fact wasn't conveyed up to Raytheon IT which manages the Windows accounts. As I would soon find out, there was a request to have my Windows account deactivated by 5pm, but it was actually done a litle earlier, because some time after 4pm I locked my computer and stepped out, and when I got back I couldn't log back in.

I placed a call to Raytheon IT, but the guy who took my call was powerless to do anything but put in a ticket. The people with the power to unlock my account had gone home, and going by experience, I knew it'd probably be a couple business days before my ticket was even looked at.

Moral of the story: Don't lock your computer on your last day. Or maybe it should be "Go home early on your last day like everybody else does." At any rate, I was able to get into my computer using the local admin account, but since I couldn't access my user account, I couldn't get to my email. I just tied up loose ends as best as I could and had my officemate send my goodbye email on my behalf.

And so, that chapter of my life was closed. Not in the most elegant way possible, but certainly in a memorable one.

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of reconnecting with most of my former team at my belated goodbye lunch at Sweet Tomatoes in Mountain View. I didn't want anything special done for me, but Lisa insisted on it, and we agreed to have it this week so that my former manager (who would be in town that day) could make it. Seeing my former coworkers again was really great, even though I'd only been gone for less than a week.

And now, there's Pure Storage, where I started this past Monday. This week has been extremely busy, as I've had no down time at work. Pure follows more or less an agile methodology, and people work long hours (I even see emails bouncing around after midnight) and half-jokingly apologize when they don't work weekends.

For now, I'm on the devtest (development in test) team. I have a mentor who's been helping me get up to speed, and I've been learning a lot, but the learning curve is huge. I've learned enough to start fixing my first issue, a non-destructive upgrade test that's failing because an assumption is broken when installing an older build on a non-blank slate system.

So do I like it at Pure? Indeed. Everybody there has been friendly and helpful, and sometimes other people will chime in when I'm asking somebody for help. The open floor plan definitely makes that possible.

Since Pure is a startup (mid-stage now, I think), there's less process and red tape in place. You get to pick your own keyboard and mouse, which are ordered before your start date. Need a standing desk? Ergotron ordered; almost half of the engineers have one. How should your code get reviewed? In whatever way works best for you. What kind of laptop would you like? We have Windows, Mac and Linux. You can compile your code natively in Windows or do it in a Linux VM.

The free snacks and drinks in the breakroom are also much appreciated. As are the catered lunches that coincide with the weekly company meeting, dinners provided for those working late, and a lunch delivery service where the company pays the delivery cost and tax. Silverware, plates, bowls and cups are provided as well. It all boils down to making things convenient for employees to allow them to be more productive. I'm glad this company recognizes this.

Eventually I'll hope to have a better work-life balance (I don't want to be working so much that I don't get to enjoy life) once I become more experienced, and thereby more efficient. In the meantime, I'm enjoying the work that I'm doing, and I'm glad to be onboard.

I've always wanted to see the Bahamas. And now I have, thanks to Priscilla's travelholism and her parents generously paying for a cruise to the Bahamas for the four of us.

Last Wednesday, Priscilla and I flew from San Jose to LAX, where we rendezvoused with her parents and caught the red eye flight to our layover at Dallas/Fort Worth, and then the morning flight to Jacksonville, Florida. From there, it was a short shuttle ride to the Port of Jacksonville, where all the cruise ships sail out of. Our ship was the Carnival Fascination, and this was the second time I've sailed with Carnival. Once we passed through the TSA-like security checkpoint (minus full body scanners), we were on the ship and enjoying lunch on the Lido deck.

This time around Priscilla signed up for "your time dining", which gave us more flexibility in allowing us to eat dinner in the fine dining hall on own schedule. The food options were fine indeed - escargot was one of the starter items, and for the main course it was difficult having to choose between the lasagna bolognese, pan-seared tillapia fillet, chicken a la grecque, cinnamon pumpkin and veggie pot pie, or the braised beef briskey in gravy. I finally opted for the chicken, though we ended up ordering a few different main courses and sharing. Sharing is caring!

And how can a night be complete without entertainment? At night we caught the welcome show, where our cruise director Paul gave some introductions and a mini-comedy show. Two other comedians also did short routines, a preview of the longer programs that they would do the rest of the cruise. Fun times.

Friday at noon, we disembarked at Freeport, our first stop in the Bahamas. There wasn't a lot to do in town and we didn't sign up for any shore excursions, so we just walked around the small shopping plaza and Straw Market where there were tons of vendors selling souvenirs catering to tourists. It seemed like the same kind of stuff you could buy anywhere else, minus the logos that read "Bahamas" and whatnot. Priscilla did buy two postcards for herself, and her parents bought a souvenir magnet, but overall the stuff there just didn't interest us.

Not to be deterred, I looked around at our food options - I wanted something authentic. I passed on an authentic-looking (as much as possible) shack selling seafood for exorbitant prices - a $20 fish sandwich wasn't my thing. We passed by a bar that was offering $1 shots, which was cool but their food looked pretty Americanized. Finally, we took a look at the menu of a place called Senor Frog's, a seemingly pretty popular place for tourists. They touted their authentic Mexican food. Wait, Mexican food? I must be in the wrong country! Their menu had things like a fish taco plate for $17 - loco! We had lunch back on the ship.

The attire for fine dining that night was dressy. After dinner, we took advantage of our swanky looks to take photos at the various professional photo stations set up on the venue floors. Finally, we caught a night show called "Divas" in which male and female performers danced and did a cover of many popular diva songs. Two particular performers, both guys, really stood out in their vocals. The show was pretty cool.

Having learned our lesson from Freeport, when Saturday rolled around and our ship docked at Nassau at 8am, we had tickets (purchased through Carnival for $70/person) for a "sea and see" excursion. A short walk into town brought us to a ferry that took us on a harbor tour. We saw mail boats (the method of mail transportation between islands), bridges carrying traffic over the harbor to Paradise Island, and waterfront mansions owned by celebs including Tom Cruise, Chuck Norris and Oprah (who has two properties next to each other).

Our ferry was met out in the water by a semi-submarine and we transferred over for a short sea tour. Our tour guide threw rice overboard to attract fish, and we sure saw a lot of them! Everything from grunt fish, ballyhoo and yellow snapper. We didn't see any sharks, unfortunately.

The third part of our tour was onboard a bus, which took us past Bay Street, the police station, a Methodist church, the Parliament buildings and the Supreme Court. We stopped for 20 minutes at Fort Fincastle and the Queen's Staircase. The bus tour felt pretty short, and we ended earlier than the brochure claimed. Booo.

We then walked through the Nassau Straw Market, stopped at McDonald's to use their WiFi (and bought a crispy chicken sandwich so that we didn't look cheap), and then finished up the afternoon at the free Junkanoo Beach, where we just sat on the shore due to not having swimwear. We didn't eat any real food in Nassau, but we did buy a coconut from a shack at the beach for $5. I liked how they chopped off the shell on one side right in front of us, and stuck a straw in there for us to drink the coconut water. Everybody in the cities we visited accepted U.S. money, and supposedly the Bahamian dollar and the U.S. dollar have a one-to-one exchange rate.

Nassau was interesting. It had a small town feel but did have a steady amount of cars on the street. The buildings aren't dirty but do look worn with time. The aggressiveness of the locals trying to sell taxi, sightseeing and other services kind of put me off. We certainly didn't experience this kind of aggressiveness in Hawaii! Though perhaps that aggressive desire for our business could've been used in our favor as a bargaining tool had we been interested in their services (we might've scored a better deal than we did through Carnival).

Back on the ship after dinner, we briefly visited a piano bar and listened to a really talented guy playing requests from a list. Then we looked at our photos from the night before that were posted in the photo gallery. We were pretty tired after that long day, so we then called it a night.

Sunday was the day at sea. After waking up late and having a light breakfast, we went to a towel-folding session, where we learned how to make some of the towel animals that the cleaning staff had been making and putting in our stateroom every night.

After lunch, Priscilla and I went to a comedy show called "The Game of Love" where our cruise director picked three couples from the audience, two senior couples and one newlywed couple, and asked them questions to see how well they knew each other. The result? Pretty well overall for each couple. The show was hilarious, thanks to our wise-cracking cruise director.

In the evening we caught another show called "Motor City", a dance and musical performance that went through a few decades of oldies music. I liked this one better than "Divas" and loved the singing and all the costume and background changes. I think this show is done by the same performers that did "Divas". They actually had both shows playing that night and Friday night. Mad props to those performers for having to memorize songs and choreography for two different shows in the same night!

Monday morning after breakfast, it was time to debark! The debarkation process was pretty smooth, and most of the time spent waiting (15 minutes?) was waiting to get off the ship. Various shuttles were waiting to take people back to the airport, and we caught one for $10/person. Our flight from Jacksonville to DFW wasn't for another five hours, so I used that time to get caught up on friends' Yelp reviews. Our flight from DFW to San Jose was rough at almost four hours long! We finally got home around 8:30pm and were pretty exhausted.

Overall it was a fun trip, but we could've done more in the Bahamas. I learned that I don't really enjoy stuffy plane rides, and even on a cruise I get restless when there's not much to do. I also gained four pounds temporarily, even though we were going to the gym every day. Just something about being in the midst of so much good food every single day makes me want to eat a lot despite my body telling me to slow down. I don't think I could handle a longer cruise; four days was already plenty. It was fun, but I'm glad to be back home.

After 5 years and a few days working at what is now Raytheon Applied Signal Technology, it's time to move on! As of this Friday, it's official - I've accepted an offer with a company in Mountain View called Pure Storage, and I've given notice to AST that my last day will be February 22. I'll start at Pure the following Monday, the 25th. In the meantime, I'll naturally be helping to tie up whatever loose ends I can and possibly train whoever will be taking over my role on my current team.

Why the change? Well I'm at that point in my career where I feel like a change would be beneficial for me to grow my experience and work with new technologies. Defense is also an uncertain field to be in right now, with the government cutting defense funding. My previous team was affected by this last year and had to let some engineers go to other teams because of dwindling funding. And sadly, with the acquisition by Raytheon, the environment at AST has slowly turned from personal and employee-centric to impersonal and rigid. Soft benefits like monthly lunches, section lunches, service awards, holiday parties, company-sponsored events, and even the budget for the candy bowl in the lobby have been slashed. Meanwhile, healthcare premiums have gone up, including employees having to pay a good amount in premiums for a high-deductible HSA account which used to carry no premium for the employee.

Things haven't been so great for morale, and walking down the hallways, this is evident by the name signs many people have modified to display only their employee ID number (in reference to the fact that Raytheon changed our logins from our name to said impersonal ID numbers)... a silent protest, if you will. In the past year, I estimate that at least one person I know has left every month on average, an attrition rate that has been unprecedented.

So I'd been applying to companies I found through job boards like Monster and TechCareers. I applied to 15 companies from late November to early December, and 7 in early January. Unfortunately I didn't hear back from most of them, and I think the primary reason was that I was applying to ads that were a few days old, which in this job market usually means that the position's been filled, at least for a smaller company that's not hiring for too many positions.

But along the way, I happened to apply to a recruiting agency (found through Monster), and the recruiter who got in contact with me eventually sent my resume over to Pure Storage. Things progressed rather quickly from there, and though I thought I could've done slightly better in the interview, they were pleased to give me a competitive offer!

Prior to the agency submitting my resume to Pure, I knew nothing of the company. But I did some research and liked what I saw, and apparently they have a Wikipedia page, which is a good sign.

Pure is now a mid-stage startup with around 110 people. They operate on the cutting edge of enterprise-grade flash storage, and their flagship product is a flash array that delivers better performance than spinning disk at a lower cost. Their office is on Castro Street and they have some awesome perks like unlimited vacation days, which encourages people to be responsible, be productive while they're at work, and to take ample time off when they need to. Everybody there seems really bright, and I'll probably be amongst the youngest of people, so I'll have a lot of people to learn from.

I'll definitely miss working with some awesome and bright folks at AST. It was difficult to break the news to my managers and I did so with mixed feelings, but they were pretty understanding. AST was my first company right out of college, and it'll always have a special place in my heart. At the same time, I think I'll really like it at Pure. Not just for the exciting and challenging work, but for the laid back (but hard working) and personal atmosphere. Something that I miss about AST, and something that I've realized is important to me.

A company's bottom line should be its employees, not profits. That's not to say that profits aren't important (because at the end of the day, we all need to get paid and the company needs to have enough left over to keep the lights on and continue growing), but a company that invests in its employees first will know how to retain talent and create a positive working environment that channels into a positive feedback loop. That's the kind of environment that I thrive in. And I'm looking forward to seeing it again!

On January 1, 2013, Priscilla and I did the unthinkable. We hiked Mission Peak in Fremont! Originally we weren't going to even think about Mission Peak till maybe April, but Priscilla one day was all gung-ho and suggested doing something difficult on New Year's Day. I quickly got some RBF people in on the fun, so there was no way Priscilla could back out!

It ended up being the two of us, Judy and her friend Grace, Joe, and Nicole and her mom Nancy. Apparently a lot of other people had the same idea, because parking was very difficult to find in the small lot and on the nearby residential streets! We finally found a spot 5 minute's walk from the lot.

The 2000 foot ascent over 3 miles took about two hours to complete. It was cold and very windy, especially at the top, which I didn't expect. Judy ended up getting sick afterward, which I felt bad about, but she seemed better the next time we saw her. We had a lot of fun getting to know everybody better, and conquering the peak in celebration of the new year!

That Saturday, four days later, Priscilla and I hit up another preserve: Monte Bello OSP in Los Altos. It was also unexpectedly windy, but only near the top of the canyon. We hiked to the summit of Black Mountain, which turned out to be a bit of a letdown, but overall it was a nice hike with a cool view of the tree-filled canyon.

And this past Saturday, the 12th, Priscilla and I hiked in Picchetti Ranch OSP in Cupertino. Man, we're on a roll! Fearing the worst, Priscilla dressed in multiple layers, only to find that it wasn't too windy or cold here. The hike wasn't too difficult, and Picchetti (which has its own winery by the same name) is relatively small, so we continued on the trail that took us into Stevens Creek County Park. We ended up hiking just over 4 miles - not great, but we were in a hurry to get to...

Game day! My officemate Lisa arranged a game day/night with some friends at one person's house in San Jose. There must've been at least 30 games that different people brought. We had 9 people, so we played different games with people alternating between two groups.

I finally got to play San Juan (which we were supposed to play the last couple game nights, but there were always so many other interesting-looking games). I also played Wise and Otherwise, and four rounds of Boggle at the end of the night after pizza. What a fun day this was, and what an interesting year it's been so far!

What else have we done? I went to my first ever baby shower on the 6th, in celebration of Justin and Vicky's soon-to-be first child! Priscilla and I saw The Lion King at the Orpheum Theatre in SF, we had dinner with my uncle and aunt, and we've both been busy looking for new jobs. I had my second on-site interview in five years (first in two years) and have been studying like mad. Hopefully we'll stay productive and be able to say at the end of 2013 that we had an awesome year of learning, growing and serving.

Gordon, my second cousin's brother, and his soon-to-be wife Iris had their wedding banquet this past Sunday. My parents came up from LA on Friday, and they, Uncle Kenway and Aunt Susan, and Priscilla and I drove up to the reception at Tong Palace in San Francisco.

Strangely, Gordon and Iris are not married yet. Their wedding will be this Wednesday (12/12/12). My mom's understanding is that this Sunday was the only day the restaurant was available for booking. Still, I've never before been to a wedding reception where the bride and groom aren't married yet! Why they didn't find another restaurant I'm not sure, but I'm guessing they didn't move their wedding date up because of the significance of that date.

At any rate, the reception was fun. There was a magician, a friend of Iris, whose magic acts were interwoven with encouragements to the bride and groom - like a toast, but without toasting. The quality of the restaurant food was a bit bland, and the service was sub-par, but we still had fun. I think I last saw Gordon when I was really young, but he remembered me and knew that I'd gotten married recently, and he also remembered my brother by name. Scary.

Gordon was pretty hilarious. Just talking to him for a minute reveals what a joker he is. During the dinner, as people clinked their glasses for the couple to kiss, he either turned them down, pointing to various initiators in an "I'm coming for you" type way, kissed his mom on the cheek, or kissed his bride while holding up a napkin in front of them. It was all in good fun. They ended up doing one real kiss for the camera!

Last week was the first Thanksgiving that Priscilla and I celebrated as a married couple. On Thanksgiving day, we went down to LA with a friend from church, Eunice, at 6am. There were a good amount of cars on the road, but traffic flowed smoothly, and we got there in 5 hours - our best record yet. That night, Priscilla's parents joined us at our parents' place for a traditional Thanksgiving dinner.

The next day, we did some Black Friday shopping! Priscilla's parents had been talking about getting an iPad, so we got them an iPad2 from Target, where it was being sold with a promotional $60 Target gift card. We also stopped by Fry's to get a 2.5" hard drive enclosure, since my laptop started having boot problems, and I hadn't been good at backing up my files.

On Friday afternoon, we joined Deborah in hanging out with Crescentia and her parents at their house. Crescentia had said she was too busy studying to hang out with us, so Priscilla's plan was to bring the hangout to her! Although it was supposed to be a potluck, Crescentia's mom cooked a lot and provided about 80% of the meal.

Saturday morning, Priscilla and I went hiking at Aliso Canyon Park in Porter Ranch, went to DSW and failed to find boots that fit her after an hour of searching, and picked up food from Hot Wok to take to Justin and Vicky's house for a potluck/hangout. Tim and Victor joined us and we ended up playing Star Trek Catan. Sally joined us a bit late, and she ate while we finished playing. I felt bad because she didn't get to play with us, and after the long game it was already too late to do anything else. But a few of us did just end up talking for half an hour before we went home.

Finally, on Sunday after church, a bunch of current and former CCAC people (all different people from the ones we'd hung out with previously) joined us for lunch at Small Island. We had a good dozen people, including the guy that Deborah's been seeing! We had a good time of catching up with people.

We ended up leaving LA around 3:30, and traffic on the 5 was stop and go! It was so bad that I ended up taking a detour through the mountainy highways 198 and 25. We ended up getting home around 11:30, and I'm sure it would've been even later had I not taken the detour! Lesson learned: Sunday afternoon is probably the worst time to drive back from a Thanksgiving holiday.

Another entry late by a month. I really need to get on top of blogging about things right after they happen. I tend to take care of things in a LIFO manner, and when too many new things come up, the older things get buried. Hence I still have a bunch of Yelp reviews to write for Oahu.

So from the 28-30th of September, I was down in Central California with the wifey, Kenny and Raymond on our de facto annual camping trip. We camped at Montana de Oro State Park in Los Osos and visited Morro Bay during the day. The location was ideal because it's roughly halfway between the SoCal and NorCal folks. Bao, Minh and Christine were supposed to join us, but they bailed at the last minute to do house shopping. At least Minh and Christine were nice enough to hand off a ton of food and supplies to Raymond, who brought them up from SoCal.

So the three of us NorCal people carpooled down in Kenny's car early Friday afternoon. We grabbed lunch at Vito's Famous Pizza (meh) in Sunnyvale, stopped at an archery shop in Gilroy for Kenny to scope out prices, then continued the rest of the way to the campgrounds. The total drive took about 4 hours and traffic was light.

When we got to the campground, we scoped out sites (they're available on a first come, first serve basis) and decided on one that was flat, spacious and isolated - pretty much perfect. Being a Friday and not during peak season, fewer than half of the sites were occupied when we arrived. Priscilla and I set up our tent while Kenny bought us some firewood, we walked to Spooner's Cove nearby, walked back to camp when it started getting dark, and waited.

Meanwhile, Raymond had gotten a late start up from LA (understandable, since he had to pick up gear from Minh), had been stuck for a couple hours in LA traffic, and still had a ways to go. Unfortunately he had Minh's tent and all the food, so there wasn't much the rest of us were able to do while we waited. He finally arrived around 9pm, and we all worked to prepare chicken foil wraps and steak and pitched the large tent that Raymond and Kenny would be sharing. We ate until we were stuffed, Kenny brought out Bourbon for us to try, Raymond got humorously tipsy, and we all went to bed. Priscilla and I were extremely comfortable, since we had new sleeping pads that I got from Amazon (having learned my lesson from being very uncomfortable the last time we went camping). But Priscilla was cold, since her sleeping bag is old and thin.

We got better at starting campfires compared to the last time we went camping, since this time Kenny knew to use more kindling. He brought an axe to split firewood, and Priscilla somehow had the best wood splitting technique of us all. After a steak and egg breakfast in the morning, we drove over to Morro Bay and went to Rock Kayak where we rented two doubles. We weren't allowed out of the bay, so we just paddled around looking at boats and sea lions, saw Morro Rock semi-close up, and docked on the sand bar on the opposite side of the bay. Kenny and Raymond went for a walk while Priscilla and I made our signature heart with A+P in the sand.

For lunch, we went to a plaza and had turkey sandwiches. Afterwards, we bought three containers of redworms at a fishing shop and headed down to the north t-pier for some fishing. Kenny, Raymond and I had all bought fishing poles from Amazon specifically for this trip. Priscilla was the only one with prior fishing experience, and she was the only one who caught something! She caught a small jacksmelt, which we would gut, cook and eat a few days later. Meanwhile, the more experienced family fishing off the end of the pier was catching fish left and right.

We had more chicken wraps and steak that night. Bourbon followed again, and I showed a slightly higher tolerance for it this time, drinking three standard pours without getting too red.

After breakfast the following morning, Kenny took us on a hike on the trails around the campground. We probably hiked a good 3-4 miles, and we got a great view of Spooner's Cove and the camp site below from atop a hill.

It was late after camping, and we decided that we would have time only for lunch. We had two containers of redworms remaining, so we just dumped them at the edge of camp. In hindsight, Kenny realized that they were the right kind of worms that he could've used in his home garden.

After packing up and debating where to get lunch, we finally agreed to go back to Morro Bay. We ended up eating a late lunch at one of the few places that was still open - Giovanni's Fish Market. The food was ok; I enjoyed eating some of Priscilla's clam chowder bowl, but it was a little pricey for such a small bowl.

We parted ways here, with Raymond heading back to Irvine, and the rest of us heading back to NorCal with Kenny. The trip was fun and the basic level of amenities are probably the lowest I'm comfortable with. I was starting to feel dirty from getting smokey from the campfires and not showering for two days. Any longer than that and I would've started to feel really gross. Needless to say, one of the first things I did when getting back home was to take a thorough, hot shower!