adventures – Page 8 – Behind the Smile

October 3, 2009June 24, 2010

Lambtown and Etc.

I always feel somewhat guilty when I am in the Sacramento environs and do not tell my friends Malvina and Sam that I will be in their vicinity, as we always have fun and delicious foods whenever we get together. However, my appearance in the state’s capitol was rather spontaneous: my mom and I trekked up to Dixon to attend their annual Lambtown festival, then followed up with a trip to the new yarn store I found the last time I was in Sac over Labor Day.

Lambtown was fun, if a bit smaller than I was anticipating, but we are not talking Maryland Sheep & Wool or Rhinebeck here, we are talking Hick California Town Sheep Thing. (No offense to Dixon, which is a cute little farm town about 20 miles from Sacramento.) There was plenty to look at and a whole multi-purpose room full of yarn and fleece. I even looked at a drop spindle, but dudes: come over here and punch me if I ever start spinning because cripes in a kayak I do not want to. I haven’t even used my loom this year – let’s master rigid heddle weaving first, shall we? Oy.

Didn’t take any pictures of the yarn room, but I did take adorable shots of alpacas and sheep:

Plus, I got a shot of this beauty:

Poor guy is in need of some orthadontia, I think. Heh.

Anyway, it was a good time and afterwards we headed up to Fair Oaks to go to Babetta’s, which my mom hadn’t been in before. We were discussing what to have for lunch and couldn’t really decide, when we noticed that like three store fronts from Babetta’s was a Thai restaurant! So after yarn we went over there and had a very nice lunch.

We got a peanut sauce salad, which was kind of your basic salad but it had this awesome peanut sauce and braised tofu bits and was just really tasty. We also had pad thai, which my mom had never had. I liked it, but I’m not too picky about pad thai. She wasn’t super thrilled with it. It lacked in the peanut department, I thought, but was otherwise good. We also tried the chicken and red curry which was also good. I must say no place has ever equaled the unparalleled greatness that is Coconut Bay in Burlingame, so if you take that place out of the equation, this place was quite good.

I have been sick all week with a minor cold, and I feel a bit better today – a lot less sniffly which is nice. I mainlined the zinc Cold Eeze on Wednesday and Thursday and that seemed to do the trick. I’ve slept a lot, which is definitely nice. I don’t think I’ll last too late tonight either. I should look for something for dinner, maybe.

August 10, 2009June 24, 2010

The Salinas Airshow

My dad’s company has a couple of branches, and one is in Carmel. Last year I guess they had VIP Presidential passes to the Salinas airshow, and this year decided to do it again, only sans presidential passes and PLUS a private chalet. PLUS family members. So that is how I found myself at the international airshow featuring none other than the Blue Angels!

The airshow is held (and has been held for the last 30 years) at the Salinas Airport. It seems pretty big for a municipal airport. I live across the street from my county’s municipal airport, and that seems fairly puny in comparison. So, there were a lot of vendors and funnel cake and all that good stuff. The vendors sold aviation-related swag.

I of course did not put “there will be vendors” together with “bring some money” so I didn’t buy anything. Also I had no money, having just paid ye olde mortgage. However, not being an aviation buff, I didn’t really need to buy anything anyway. Except, maybe, like… funnel cake.

So we got to our chalet and hung out for awhile – they put out some appetizers of chips and guacamole and salsa. The show got started with a parachutist.

Then, other acts followed by some of the biggest names in the aviation/air show industry!

(not that I’d heard of any of them.)

They had various planes parked on the tarmac, some you could go through – we went into an Air Force cargo plane and also an Air Force radar (?) plane that had funny little cubicles in it for the soldiers to look at radar screens. I’m assuming these were radar screens, anyway. I didn’t take a picture of it, alas. I peeked into the cockpit and there are SO MANY switches and dials and crap. Props to the people who fly these planes, for reals.

Then, the PIECE DE RESISTANCE.

ROBOSAURUS!

That was seriously one of the most awesome things I have seen in a long time. My dad, not up on his pop culture, called it a Transformer. And he was totally right!

My day included a transformer. Truly, a pinnacle of awesome was achieved.

Lastly, the Blue Angels performed their flight demonstration. At one point, four of the fighter jets were in formation and were 18 inches from each other. Going 300 miles per hour. That is just so amazing. The precision involved in flying those things… I am impressed.

All in all, a pretty great day, though now I’m sunburned and wishing I had worn sunscreen, but… oh well. Worth it.

August 7, 2009June 24, 2010

I Shake Through the Wreckage For Signs Of Life

Simple Scripts on BlueHost (my hosting company) has allowed me to upgrade to the newest version of WordPress with ONE EASY CLICK.

*weeps in joy*

I think this is the first time I’ve upgraded WordPress without totally borking up the process.

HEY THE INTERNET! HI!

So, I haven’t updated in awhile. I update Twitter all the time though. You should get on Twitter.

I went to Las Vegas!

I went on vacation the last week of July and traveled to Las Vegas, and visited with the sister in Burlingame, and applied for a passport. I also was supposed to get uber internets installed but that didn’t happen until yesterday. So now I have uber internets and am using a regular computer and not my wee eee pc. Which btw, I took to Las Vegas but you had to pay $15 a day to access their wireless. Um, noooo?

Anyway, so I have just been busy and now I’m dead tired, and I’m between projects, so I don’t have much to share, except this final, classy picture from Las Vegas:

Needless to say, those drinks made us sick.