June 2003 Archives

Our "real" vacation started on Monday when we left LA north for our cruise to the Channel Islands. I had booked a day cruise to Santa Cruz Island with Island Packers. We were supposed to meet at 7:30 AM in Ventura Harbor--which turned out to be like two hours from Long Beach which meant that we had to get up at 5 AM!

We made it with time to spare, had a nice breakfast and since I couldn't find my wind breaker, I got to buy a cool fleece jacket which Jfer coveted (and occasionally "borrowed") during the rest of our trip. We also rented crappy tiny binoculars which would have been a total waste of money had I not considered it a tip for the crew.

The weather was once again gorgeous. The usual morning fog lifted around the time we left the harbor and although the sea was a bit choppy, nobody hurled on the way to the island. Our hike was pretty fast paced and very enjoyable. We were hiking out of Prisoners Harbor to Pelican Cove which is on the Nature Conservancy portion of the isle. This meant that we had to be with a guide. Our guide took us about a half hour into the trek and then proclaimed that he was a bit under the weather and would be heading back. He mentioned that we were supposed to return too, but if we wanted to rest for a while and happened to notice a continuing trail, no one would be the wiser--hint, hint, nudge, nudge. The rest of our group threw in their hats and returned with him, so Jfer and I had the rest of the hike to ourselves.

I had initially worried that we'd be bored after doing the short, 1.5 mile hike. I shouldn't have been. Despite our brisk pace, we didn't have enough time to even make the full trek--we made it to a cove close to our target but hat to turn back on order to make it to the boat on time. Still, it was great. The view was stunning, the plants interesting and we got to see some feral piglets (whose days should be numbered in the next couple of years), a snake, all sorts of insects and even an Island Scrub Jay. Both in Ventura Harbor as well as on the island we saw tons of brown pelicans and cormorants. This would be a great bird-watching trip if one enjoys hiking...

While we got to see some harbor seals on a buoy in the harbor (duh!) and in a kelp patch by the island, we didn't see any cetaceans. I guess we'll have to return in the winter for whale watching.

We had a late breakfast with family on Sunday and then the majority of Lucios got in their van to head for Las Vegas and do some gambling before returning home. Jfer and I had loftier plans, so while Debbie took car of Benny and Diane in our Jeep, she lend us her BMW Roadster, which easily made her my favorite Lucio cousin.

We took the top down and headed--with and without traffic--to the Getty Center across town. Now the Jeep was nice and all, but the Z3 is one sweet piece of machine. Sure, it's impractical, but damn it's sweet.

The Getty is a way cool place to visit. It overlooks LA and surroundings and it's set up with understated modern elegance. You park a mile or so downhill from the center and walk or take a train to the actual museum complex. We didn't have too much time and only went through one of the exhibits. They were actually quite spartan and I think I enjoyed the hands-on information as much as the art itself. We'll definitely visit again to view the other sections and their ever changing special exhibits.

Still, you can see art in many museums. The Getty's layout makes the visit more special. The architecture and gardens allows for an uncrowded and relaxed atmosphere without the stuffiness of more traditional museums. And there is zero kitch-factor--even the gift shop had mostly nice stuff.

I was looking forward to this trip partly because I'd get to meet several of my "new" relatives that had not made it to our wedding--and I'd get to spend more time with those that did. As usual, the Lucios were a lively bunch and I enjoyed being a part of them.

Still, I'm a newcomer to the family, so I got to experience the wedding and the whole dynamics around it as a bit of an (objective?) outsider. We arrived just as the preparations for the rehearsal dinner at Debbie's house were winding down (which was perfect timing on our part). Debbie's house in Long Beach is a beautiful '20s building that had been renovated and expanded with a second story and that's elegantly decorate with all sorts of cool femme art. It's got a pleasant back yard that was decked out to seat some 50+ people for the dinner.

We were relaxing nicely when everyone arrived from the wedding rehearsal. The big bunch of Lucios, including the bride, Aunt Bertha were accompanied by the groom, Frank, his six children and their spouses and his 12(!) small grand children. He's from New York and so are his family and the all sound and act that way. A bit overwhelming and quite different from the laid-back Texans and Californians, but I secretly enjoyed the mingling (and clashing) of the cultures.

Weird things I noticed: Frank's grand kids apparently had never abused a piñata before. Yankees do some strange line-dance to the Cotton Eyed Joe, they seem to prefer a techno version of it, and they don't do the Bullshit! part.

The wedding on Sunday was mercifully shorter than our own. The reception was posh, with great food and a nicely sized dance floor. By the time it was all over, the families had mingled quite nicely. However, the after-parties were segregated by family and I got to participate in a new Lucio tradition known as The Hot Seat.

Our California Vacation started a little shakily. We managed to get out of the house alright (although almost an hour after I intended to leave) and arrived at the airport with all our luggage in good order. A lot of luggage it was--Jfer's big suitcase weighed the exact 50 lbs limit allowed by the airlines on both flights to LAX and from SJC.

The check in turned out to be a bit problematic. In used Expedia to book our tickets and did not notice that I had Jfer's maiden name on my account while all her IDs have been converted to my name by now. So Jennifer Riha tried to use a ticket that had been booked for Jennifer Lucio. The check in lady was actually quite accommodating and it did help that Jfer's picture credit card had her old signature imprinted on it. The airline (and eventually security) people saw that as proof enough and allowed us to proceed. Since we had a direct flight, the trip to LA went pretty smoothly after that.

We really wanted to rent a Jeep or convertible but, but couldn't quite justify the exorbitant price, so I booked us a reasonable medium sized car. As it turned out, we could upgrade to a premium car (or a Jeep) for only $2.00 a day which I immediately took advantage of. In the future, I might as well book the cheapest available car and then take advantage of these "promotions" that they seem to have year round.

From the airport it took us twice as long to Debbie's house than what MapQuest predicted, but who cares about traffic when you're on vacation with the top down.

Last Saturday we went to uncle John niece Jackie's wedding. It think that makes her a second cousin in law or something. The wedding was a blast -- and made us feel that we didn't go overboard with ours. John's side of the family is very sweet and charming and Jackie, who's a looker in civilian clothes, looked simply radiant in white. The groom, Corby, looked quite handsome himself, but I can't get over the fact that he's a dentist -- and they just freak me out.

Se here are my pictures from the event, including one of Margeret's infamous butt dance. BTW, I'm always happy to be the designated driver ;-)

After my previous post, it was only to be expected that something would go wrong. Yesterday I biked to work again (woo, woo--two days in a row) but on the way home I had a little accident...

When I leave work, I have to take an underpass under the MoPac railroad. It's a narrow, slightly elevated cement pathway that's never used by anyone. Well yesterday there was a kid on a bike going in the opposite direction. We both stopped and walked our bikes past each other while I kept one foot in the pedal cage and sort of hopped on the other one past the kid. And then my balance moved to the other side of the bike and while I was trying desperately to get my foot out of the cage I kept slowly tipping and landed in a pile of rocks on the side of the path. As I was falling I was visualizing breaking something right before our vacation.

I only scraped my knee, busted my elbow and lost my dignity. As was lying there with my bike above me, I heard the kid running back, lifting my bike off of me and trying to help me up. Totally embarrassed I got up on my own and thanked him for helping me while toughly "walking it off".

I can just see him coming home and telling stories about the old guy who had fallen and couldn't get up...

After weeks of mental preparation and procrastination, I finally got myself to ride my bike to work again. It's been over half a year (and more than 10 lbs) since I last commuted via bicycle.

This morning while walking Homer, we had the following conversation:

Me: I hope I won't get a heart attack.
Jfer: You'll be fine, it's only six miles. (*)
Me: I prefer to think of it as 15 kilometers.
-- pause --
Jfer: Isn't six miles more like 10 kilometers? (**)
Me: Yes it is, but I prefer to think of it as 15 kilometers. (***)

* It's actually just a tad less than six miles.
** It's 9.7km -- I'm not sure if Jfer's unit conversion ability stems from having married a European or from doing triathlons. I'm proud of it, non the less.
*** That's about how long it took, too.

I haven't really posted any pictures ever since I switched to my iMac and couldn't use the photo munging script that I was using on my Quadra.

Well, I finally got off my butt and after some searching I found an AppleScript for exporting pictures from iPhoto. After some modifications, I'm back up and running--woo, woo!

My photo album now has pictures from last year's Christmas--hey, that's less than half a year late, isn't it?

On Sunday we blew mucho mullah on furniture and today Jfer's chair-and-a-half from Haverty's was delivered--by a couple of guys in a Ryder truck, no less. They managed to squeeze it through the front door and it's now gracing our living room. It's pretty and all, but it's also huge. I'm getting a little worried about the sofa that's supposed to arrive in a month or so.

Today my old sleeper sofa got dissed by the Salvation Army. They were supposed to pick it up, but instead left a note that it wasn't good enough for them. They mentioned "shredding and tears", which I truly cannot see (but then I may have gotten too used to them to notice). Hopefully Jfer will find someone else with lower standards.

This means that we have to lug it back into the garage again (Jfer thinks they didn't take it because it's so damn heavy)...

The water fauna in our park has been rather boring lately, ever since the masses of crayfish disappeared (or, more likely, burrowed into the muck). We had not seen our turtles in quite some time until I spotted one of the smaller snappers last week in a pond where I had never seen one before--and where Homer likes to cool off during our walks. Jfer saw a baby turtle on Saturday, but doesn't think it was a snapper.

It hasn't been all bad, though. There are still plenty of squirrels for Homer to chase. We also occasionally see a Yellow-crowned Night-Heron canvassing through the shallows. And recently we noticed a sizable orange carp that had somehow found its way into one of the ponds. It's too big for the birds or turtles to get it, so I'm curious how long it'll last and how big it will get.

This morning during our walk I glance into the water by the "Turtle" bridge (we decided to name the park bridges just this weekend) and to my surprise I see the big daddy snapper in the water. At first I thought there was a plastic bag or something caught on his fin (the water was a bit murky), but after he moved a little I noticed that it was another big ol' turtle under him! That's right, folks--I caught big daddy turtle making sweet slow turtle love to his snapper girlfriend. They seemed a little embarrassed about being caught going at it and disappeared in the sewer pipe--or big daddy's "pad" as I like to think of it--when they noticed me peeping.

So unless this was just one big turtle giving another big turtle a piggy back ride, there may be some baby snappers hatching in the park three or four months from now.

Today's Gourmet Club's cuisine is Italian and our responsibility is to provide a soup and bread. I picked up a couple of soup books at the library and Jfer is going to brew a mushroom soup this afternoon (she just called aghast that chanterelle mushrooms are like $50 a pound).

I, of course, am responsible for the bread. I have decided to make three different kinds (yes, that's definitely overkill, but once you've got the oven going, why stop?)

• My first bread are grissini, or thin dry bread sticks. We made these for our pumpkin carving party last year and they were a big hit. I'll make a total of 32 and my first batch just came out looking great. I'm using a Betty Bossi recipe from her bread book.
  
• My second bread is a classical white Italian bread. It's braided and decorated with sesame seeds. It's on its finally rising and will go into the over after the grissini are done. this is the first time I'm using the Italian Bread 101 recipe from King Arthur Flour.
  
• The final bread comes from this recipe and is supposed to be (similar to) the bread they serve at the Macaroni Grill. I even get to use fresh rosemary from the rosemary bush I got from Elizabeth (that poor plant will never be able to grow up).
  

BTW, as far as restaurant chains go, Macaroni Grill serves the best tasting Italian bread by far. Bread sticks that you get at most places (Olive Garden, Fresh Choice, etc.) are usually crap compared to this. The other great bread to die for is the focaccia they serve at EZ's.

About.com used to be one of my favorite sites to go to when searching for more in-depth information on a topic. The content was informative and personal--I even know someone who used to contribute.

Not any more, though. For quite some time About.com hasn't been much more than a regular search engine (as if anyone could compete with google) with a bunch of ads. What really irks me about About.com, though, is their stupid policy of opening a huge window behind my browser window when I go to their site (from google, usually). How freakishly annoying can you get? Does this really "capture" the user on their site? Not me--whenever I accidentally stumble onto about.com these day, I automatically close both my current window as well as their desktop-hoggin' behemoth behind it.

Come and join me, whenever someone asks you about About.com, just say no!

I had a weird experience today: when I was paying for lunch, the cashier addressed me as "dude"--and it bugged me! The Highschool (or college?) kid said something to the effect of "That's gonna be $8.50--dude." For some strange reason my reaction was to be taken aback--thinking that's not how you address a customer. The weird thing is that I think it's neat to get carded and all, but somehow I didn't like being called dude by the checkout dude.

Am I going to start complaining how kids these have no manners? How in my days we addressed our elders "yes sir" and "no ma'am"?! Not to mention walking uphill to and from school every day?!? Ack!

Another year, another Danskin Triathlon. This year, Jennifer was one of the workout leaders in the Team Danskin training program which actually meant that she was helping others instead of working out as much herself. It also meant that she'd be starting in the second wave, which caused me to be awake before 6 am on a Sunday--Jfer and had mom had actually left and some ungodly hour way before then.

Spurred by an article in the Austin Chronicle, we decided to see the Raiders of the Lost Ark - Adaptation at the Alamo Drafthouse. It had been a while since I had seen the original movie, so we rented and watched it on Saturday night.

We got to the Alamo almost 45 minutes early and there already was a line. Apparently the first showing on Friday was a hit and the AICN review didn't hurt sales, either. I was glad to have gotten tickets online, since the show had sold out.

The movie was thoroughly enjoyable and I was glad to have watched the original the night before. Two of the guys who made it were at the screening and answered questions after the movie. The movie is a shot for shot remake of Spielberg's original (with the exception of the fight scene by the airplane). The film makers were nine and ten years old when they saw the movie (int 1981) and decided to re-shoot it. It took them 8 years and you could see them change in age from scene to scene. In one scene, Indy's voice changes between two shots. The kids incredibly ingenious in their special effects and in substitutions and staid true to the original. It was fun waiting for the next scene and wondering how they'd do it. And they never took an easy way out. The funniest part was their using a puppy (Snickers, according to the credits) as a substitute for the monkey. They even had it do the Sieg Heil gesture (with a nylon string, as they told us in the Q&A). Definitely a great movie to see, if you ever get the chance.