tut-tut it looks like rain

this is what happens when it rains in california:

ben decides to work from home today because traffic is too hectic

the teacher for my second class cancels becasue she says 'no body comes to school when it rains'

gotta love california.. we just shut down when it rains..

scuba steve...

last week, while ben and i were at play it again sports i found a scuba wet suit for 30 bucks.. these wet suits usually run over a hundred dollars for a cheap one.. usually more.. this was such a good deal that i vowed that even if it remotely fit, i was going to buy it.. and it did fit.. it was a little tight.. but ben assured me that 'tight' is a good thing..
today ben talks me into scuba diving... we headed out to cardiff and we had a great time.. and my suit works perfectly.. it turns out that tight was a great thing.. i was warm, hot even, the whole entire time.. what a great deal...

ben getting our gear ready
 
  

Gophers - 1.5, Ben and Chara - 1

The gophers have eaten 1.5 of our nice flowers

and what happens when you eat 1.5 of our nice flowers

you die. that's what happens.

the moral of this story. Don't eat our nice flowers!

caddyshack take two...

ok.. we have been having gopher problems for a while.. and i've been struggling with how to handle this situation.. do we just try to shoo them away?? do we kill them??? trap them?? how should we handle this? we tried poison.. and that got rid of them for a while.. but now they are back.. and they hate us even more..
ben.. being so very cute.. planted a bunch of gerber daisies in our front planter.. this morning i went out and i noticed one of the very pretty plants seemed a bit lower then the others.. like something had tried to pull it into the earth, but quit halfway through.. but i wasn't sure if i was seeing things... so i left it alone.. this afternoon i went out to get the mail.. and that very same plant was gone.. vanished.. nothing left.. not a leaf, not a twig.. not even a flower petal.. whatever is underneath my lawn ate the whole gosh darn thing.. and now gerber daisy # 2 is on its way down..
so now.. it is on.. i let ben set two different traps down the gopher holes.. that's right.. horribly mean traps that will probably kill those little furry guys in unhappy and uncomfortable ways.. i can no longer feel sorry for them.. no longer do i feel guilt over my hatred.. they have destroyed too much..
stay tuned to see if ben and i win the great gopher war of 06...and if you have any ideas.. let me know.. i'd rather not loose another plant to the little critters..

And the winner of the Chili Cook-off is....

Thats right, I Ben, have won the DivX second annual Chili Cook-off with my newly created and now famous Brokeback chili


 

I tasted some of other Chilis and it was by far the best. I am so very proud. And Chara is very happy as the prizes were from William Sonoma which she can now return to buy her very sought after red spatula.

 

watch for falling coconuts

the other day ben notices that one of the tires on the car is in bad need of repair.. ben has ordered new tires but they will take a couple days to get here.. so ben tells me about this questionable tire... bad move.. all i worry about now is that the tire will explode on me while driving and i will run into something or someone.. so i ask ben 'is it ok to drive' and ben says to me 'yeah.. just be careful'.. ok.. maybe it's just me.. but how do i do that? what excatly does that look like? 'can i drive it on the freeway.. can i go the speed limit' i ask.. ben says 'of course... just be careful' what does that mean? i have no idea.. i think it means nothing.. it's just something ben is saying so that if something did happen he could tell me 'i told you to be careful'
.. this reminded me of something i saw in thailand.. before the tsunami phi phi was a very busy island.. in order to avoid injuries, the hotels on the island would employee locals to climb up all the palm trees and remove the coconuts..after the tsunami the island was very slow and the coconuts where no longer removed from the trees.. instead there were signs every where that said 'beware of falling coconuts'... what does that mean? if a coconut falls from a tree and your underneath it.. there is no way that 'being aware' is going to do you any good.. and it's not like you can avoid walking near palm trees.. they are everywhere.. so i'm thinking the purpose of the sign is so that when you get hit on the head with a coconut the people on phi phi island can shrug their shoulders and say 'we don't know what happened.. we told her to be careful'..

Beatiful Sunset

Felt like a summer night tonight

it was 80+ degrees outside, warm evening with a beautiful sunset

pretty nice



 


This was taken from Lake Dixon as we were rock climbing 

Chara climbing at Lake Dixon

Took cousin Vanessa out rock climbing this afternoon

great weather, as it was warm with an awesome sunset as we were climbing

Chara showed her how it is done


 
 

stupid internet

most of us would say that the internet is a good thing.. but today.. today it is a bad thing.. here is why i hate the internet today.. when a teacher forgets to assign homework last thursday, she can email you the assignment late tuesday night, you are still responsible for turning it in on thursday.. great..

Almost a blimp ride

Actually they call them airships, and we almost got to go up in one of the biggest in the world, but the weather did not cooporate.



but we did get to sit in it and hover for an hour while we waited for the weather to clear up. Didn't happen, but we did get chicken and waffles for lunch since we were in Long Beach so its all good

Ben...

yet some more birth control courtesy of my sister

i was super busy yesterday.. because of this i didn't get a chance to answer my phone..
when i finally checked my messages this is what i got:
(from my sister) "hey chara.. just wanted to ask you a question.. isaiah swallowed a magnetic marble today.. actually it's a little bigger than a marble.. but either way he swallowed it.. he walked up to me, pointed to his mouth and said 'mommy swallow'.. i already called a nurse and she said he'd be fine.. but i wanted to know if you knew anything about this kind of thing.. anyways... call me and wake me up tonight if there is something i should know.. otherwise.. just keep laughing.. "

isaiah is fine.. actually went to the doctor.. who x-rayed his abdomen.. which was much more traumatic than actually swallowing the marble..

I think I'll stay

I'm back home in San Diego

and there is something very nice about walking around outside in a teeshirt in January.

the puppies are happy to see me, and I think i'll probably stay here for a while

Ben...

Finally, a good movie!

my movie going experience has been redeemed. I have finally seen a good movie.

It was Thank You for Smoking, and it was great. Super funny, very cute, great cast, great script. Not the best movie ever, but by far the best I've seen here, and I really enjoyed it.

Ben...

Oh and the performance of the Brazilian Girls at the outdoor Music on Main concert tonight was amazing as well (being on stage with them also helped) I've seen more good music performances here than movies.

Music On Main Street Concert


And there was free cotton candy



And hot cocoa from this guys with a hot cocoa dispensing backapck. I need one of those.

chopsticks

inspired by his auntie loan, isaiah tries to embrace his vietnamese culture..
 
 

 
 

I was this close to getting onto the North Face helicopter

But alas... it was not to be.

We were trying our darndest to get onto the North Face helicopter that was taking celibrities, and the North Face Athletes out skiing while we were out here at Sundance. But the helicopter was booked, and we were not famous enough. So instead we just got to hang out at the North Face house, but that alone was still a great experience.

check out the views from the house in this video. They are spectacular.

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Two more things checked off my list

see a movie
go skiing

So I finally got to go see a movie today, and finally went skiing yesterday...

So I've been at Sundance 11 days now and I've finally gotten around to seeing a movie. So I head down to the Yarrow Theater to catch the press screening of the premiere of Alpha Dog.

Wow.

What a crappy crappy movie that was.

Justin Timberlake needs to stick with the singing and dancing thing

Well at least I finally got to see a movie. Hopefully I'll get to see at least one more to try to redeem the movie going experience thus far.

and yes I did get to go skiing finally as well. We went out yesterday and it was awesome. And let me tell you about awesome

Awesome = free lift ticket ($78)
Awesome = free lunch by a private chef at a ski in ski out house right on the mountain (priceless)
Awesome = free stuff they give you at the house while you are just sitting there eating lunch (mostly crap, but its free crap)

I have some video I will try to edit and put up here later.

And its snowing like crazy now and I may get to go again tomorrow. I hope so...

Ben...

crazy on you..

i have this instructor who is a little bit crazy...
there are only 90 students in the nursing program at my school.. because of this, most of our lecture classes happen in big halls with all 90 of us sitting together like one big happy family..not so this semester.. this time.. we have one class where we are split up.. half of us meet at 8am, the rest of us meet at 12pm.. this made 45 nursing students very unhappy.. you see we nursing students like to get up at 5am.. and get our day over with.. so every one of the 90 students wanted the 8am class.. of course that didn't work.. so.. every one in the 12pm class is trying to crash the 8am class...
here's where the 'crazy' professor steps in..
crazy professor states that, due to group projects, she'd like an even amount of students in both classes... she then, without having anyone drop the 8am class, added 7 people from the 12pm class... now she has too many people in the 8am course.. and she is unhappy with that.. and she is unhappy with those of us from the 8am course who refuse to move to the 12pm course.. she tried offering 4% extra credit for anyone willing to move, or for anyone who could come up with a solution to this problem..
the 4% extra credit didn't impress us..we didn't know what 4% extra credit even meant.. 4% of what? we weren't sure.. so we stayed put..
now she is super mad.. and informed us by email that she will hold a lottery system pulling 7 people out of the 8am class...
this is where i'm pretty sure our professor has lost it.. you can't pull students out of classes they have registered for just because you messed up and added people you shouldn't have..
this will not work for me.. i have a class directly after the 8am class that would conflict with the 12pm class..
if she tries this, and it works, and i get pulled out of class thanks to her genius lottery idea i'll be pretty upset, and i'll have to drop a couple other classes..
if this happens.. i just might drop nursing all together and go to work with ben's company.. he seems to be having a good time right now..
oh yeah.. this is the teacher who is giving us a not so secret pop quiz on the syllabus tomorrow.. has anyone ever been tested on a syllabus? i don't even know how to study a syllabus..

I found the place I want to live

So today i viisted the North Face house. They have taken over a house atop Deer Valley ski resort and it was absolutly amazing.



First the house is an 11 million dollar house with a huge panormaic view of the most gorgeous mountains and valley below.



This house alone was amazing. Now stuff this house full of North Face gear, Lee jeans, some guys custom making some sweet belts, some energy drink, and some Keds shoes and not to mention a private chef.

The private chef Joe was amazing


















and he made us this amazing halibut



The house was amazing, the people were very nice. I also ran into Chrispen Glover, Peter Sarsguard, and Michael Rappaport while there.

The only bad thing about the day was that we were this close to getting on the North Face helicopter for some awesome heli-skiing. But alas, the helicopter was full, and we were not able to get on it.

But they did give me this sweet North Face Jacket, so i forgive them.



All in all, not a bad day. And I'm hoping to go back tomorrow to do some skiing from the house with the North Face skiers.

Ben...

Sorry Chara, we are moving to Utah.