My Trip To Cape Cod: Day 3

Welcome to Day Three! Today I woke up super early to drive my Mom to her work around 7am, a heck of a lot earlier than I am use to waking up (that's 4am in Los Angeles by the way...). She has been really nice and lending me her car while I'm here so that I didn't have to rent one, so she needs a ride every now and then. I didn't mind though of course, it got me up early enough to do some cool stuff. The car I'm driving use to belong to my Grandfather, a 1991 Cadillac Brougham. It was his pride and joy, and he drove it all over the country. The car is still in great condition for being almost twenty years old! Here is a picture of it:

This car has served our family well for many years. Respect!

After dropping off my mom I headed over to the Hole-In-One for breakfast (see previous post) and had Eggs Benny again. (Win!!!!) Man...it was just as good as ever, even two days in a row. After breakfast I drove over to my Dad's house where it being still early, he was the only one awake. I told him that I had been thinking about getting them a computer while I was there and that I'd like his help to surprise the others. Surprised himself, he said that would be really great and that he wanted to help me find a good one. We talked for awhile before heading out to search for the best deal we could find for their new desktop PC.

They wanted a desktop this time around instead of a laptop because it would be near impossible for anyone to steal. Laptops are a quick snatch and grab, while unplugging and carrying a desktop computer out of someone's house is a much bigger feat. Besides...Jeff was going to want to play games eventually and most affordable laptops can't cut it in the gaming department. I knew any sales person they talked to wasn't going to know anything useful so I did my best to educate my Dad on what he really wanted to get.

Our first stop was Staples. They had package for a Dell and Monitor that was decent, but nothing that stopped me in my tracks. Just some middle of the road sort of stuff. We weren't looking for anything expensive or huge, but nothing hear was that great. Ultimately I knew we'd probably end up at Best Buy in Hyannis so we decided to cut to the chase and head up there. Hyannis is a thirty to sixty minute drive from Orleans in rain and traffic so going there is a decision not made lightly by the locals here. In fact most of them cringe at the thought of it. Thirty minutes later we arrived at the mall and the local Best Buy where we started checking out what they had.

After browsing for awhile and using my phone's barcode scanner to check out any better deals locally, I settled on an Acer mini-tower bundle and a 19" wide screen lcd monitor. This would serve them really well. Generally speaking, gaming is the most demanding thing a recreational computer will be doing at any time. If it can run games, it can do anything they'd need to use it for. It was a floor model (got it for a bit cheaper that way) so Best Buy told us it would take them a few hour to remove their proprietary software from it and give us a clean Vista installation. Shit. A few hours? What are we going to do in Hyannis for a few hours? Irene had called a few times wondering where the hell we were, not really having any idea. She assumed we were up to no good but we'd show her! Hah!

For the next few hours we walked around the mall, checked out some stores, and ate some good mexican food at a restaurant called Sam Diego's. It was really cool to spend some quality time with my Dad. Visiting once a year isn't enough, I'll have to work on this slight problem in the coming years. We also swung by The Boarding House, a local surf shop to look at some surfboard bags that I may need on my trip home. After the required time had past we headed back over to Best Buy to pick up our fresh new computer! The drive home took an hour or so in the traffic...not much fun, but I was really anxious to deliver the surprise so it was okay. When we got home we brought the stuff in and they were totally stoked! It was cool to see my brother so happy since he had been sick and practically on house arrest the whole time I was there. No 13 year old should have to grow up without the internet or a computer. It was important to me to get him back online, and back into learning the things that would undoubtedly play a large role in his future. We spent the next few hours setting everything up and removing all the bloatware from Best Buy before I handed the reigns over to my Dad and Jeff for them to get going. I even set up a gmail for my Dad, which he has actually been using quite a bit!

After a few hours playing around on the computer I packed my stuff and headed again to Mahoney's to meet up with Tim and whoever else might be coming that way. I talked to the bartender for awhile and found out he was a high school teacher who was starting a class about Video Game Development. I was floored! Seriously if they had that class when I was high school I would have taken it over and over and over again! We exchanged contact information and I look forward to hearing about how his class goes this Fall. I offered to help him out any way that I could so hopefully I'll hear more about this when school starts again in September. Tim got finished cooking and came out for a beer, and shortly after a few more friends from school arrived. Abel, Phil, Paul, and Genghis: four guys I grew up with. Genghis's family has always been really close to ours, our parents are all great friends, so it was cool to see him again. He is a like a brother to me. My East coast twin if you will. We had a couple of drinks and then they all wanted to go to Joe's Tavern down by Nauset Beach as that's where the fun was apparently. At Joe's I ended up seeing a dozen or so more people I went to school with and got to drink and have some more fun. A couple of hours later I found myself back at the Cadillac so I headed home to sleep once again.

Thanks for reading! This trip is going really well. I'll be writing a new blog entry each day until I come home next week.

My Trip To Cape Cod: Day 2

Wow! This trip is already amazing. I spent last night at my Mom's place in Brewster, Massachusetts in the house where she has lived for the past ten years or so with her boyfriend Scott. They also have a nice dog named Baby who is always good and excited to see me when I visit. I woke up around 8am (somehow) and got myself ready for the day before heading off to Orleans to my favorite restaurant in the entire world.


The Hole-In-One is a small breakfast and lunch place in Orleans that is easily and by far my favorite place in the world to get food. When Emily and I visited last year I made a point to bring her here right away! I walked in and got lucky with a seat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee and the same thing I always do, Eggs Benedict, or Eggs Benny as they like to call it. Eagerly awaiting my epic and glorious meal, I read the paper to see what was going to be happening this week and get a glimpse of the weather. Eight days in a row of rain and clouds....blah! Oh well, I'm not here for the weather anyway...

Less than five minutes later my food arrived and it was everything I could have ever hoped for. For some reason I am just hopelessly addicted to the Hole's Eggs Benny. Their hollandaise sauce is just so good, I can never get enough of it! A few minutes into my meal an older gentleman sat next to me and decided after a quick look that he would have the same thing I was having. Seemed like a good enough reason to chat, so I introduced myself and told him about how I traveled three thousand miles to eat the Hole's Eggs Benny and that he had made a good choice in it. He agreed about it's greatness and told me that he had been coming for years and had even been the one who built the very building we were eating in. This eighty-five year old man and I had a great conversation about his kids (who were old enough to be my grandparents) who lived in California and about his grandson who was a great artist and was interested in an animation career. It was a solid start to what was definitely going to be a great day.

After breakfast I drove over to my Dad's house to visit with him and my brother Jeff. My brother unfortunately had a spot of the flu and wasn't able to leave the house much but they had made an exception so that he could come to pick me up at the airport. After that he was on house arrest until he was healed up. We hung out and played some video games, talked about a great many things, and caught up on all the things that had been happening over the past year with his schooling and such.

A month or so ago my family had an unfortunate break in where their only laptop had been stolen. They'd only had it for about two months and it was a pretty devastating event as none of them had ever experienced any break ins or theft in their neighborhood. All of the sudden everyone was locking all of their doors and being a lot more cautious with everything, which you'd expect...but it's just sad that a single event like this can really alter their habits like that, but such is a life. Without a computer I hadn't had a whole lot of contact with them over the year besides the occasional phone call, so I started thinking of a plan on how I might be able to get them back online before I left. Everyone should be able to send emails!

Later that afternoon my Dad lent me his 7'10" surfboard and a wet suit and I drove out to Nauset Beach to hit the surf. The Cape had a really nice swell coming in from the east, but it was very windy and messy surf. I went out anyway and it might as well have been my first day surfing! I got totally thrashed out there. Head high waves were closing out the beach and definitely had their way with me and by big board. It was still fun though! The waves here are so much more powerful than at my local break. Even the smaller surf will push you all over the place, where as back at home I can go right through them like butter. It was a good eye opener though, I need to expand my local surfing a little. I love the Atlantic!

When I was about thirteen my Dad gave me a really nice gift. It was a surfboard that he had used when he was young and surfing competitively. In 1984 a good friend of my Dad's named Mike Losordo had shaped it for him at his house in Orleans. Designing it together, they concocted a wide 5'8" thruster with a swallow tail and a three inch rocker. Three glassed in fins, with a sick orange and blue paint job. This was the type of board that for the time was just ridiculous. It just absolutely rips. When I was a fledgling surfer at the age of thirteen my Dad gave me this board and sent me off to the beach to learn how to ride. I could barely use the thing! I don't think I ever once stood up on it it was so damn squirrely. Definitely not a board meant to learn on and definitely not for the faint of heart...but I loved it anyway. A year or so later I retired the board to the shed at my Grandfather's house in exchange for a longer slightly easier board and there it sat for about 15 years. When I came back this time I decided I wanted to find this board, fix it up if I could and bring it back to SoCal with me. I called my cousin who is living at the old house still and asked him to help me find it. Will we find it? And will it be in decent, ridable condition? To be continued!

Today was my sister Amanda's birthday, so that evening my Mom and I bought her some Chinese food and took it over to her place to surprise her. My 3 year old nephew Jordan met us at the door and brought us to see his 2 month old baby sister Neveah. She is really cute! It was great to see my sister and we got to catch up a little while Jordan told us all about Peter Parker and Spiderman's powers. He also made sure we knew that Spiderman loses his powers in the second movie, and that he later gets them back. He is such a great kid!

That night, I went out for a drink at a local bar called Mahoney's where I met up with my friend Tim Adams who worked there. Another friend Dylan McCoul (spelling?) stopped by with his girlfriend and we all spent the evening talking about old times and hanging out. Always a good time. It was an amazing day! Tune in tomorrow for what happens next. ;)

My Trip To Cape Cod: Day 1

For the first 23 years of my life I grew up in a quaint little town on Cape Cod called Brewster. Massachusetts's eastern most peninsula is filled with beautiful sandy beaches, great ice cream shops, and my family and friends. Once a year I visit for as long as life will allow and try to spend time with my family and say hello to as many people as I can in the (inevitable and always too) short time I have. 2009's trip begins on June 17th, the day after my 27th birthday. Usually Emily comes with me to visit, but her summer classes wouldn't allow it this time unfortunately. Next time though!

My trip began today with a flight leaving at 11am from LAX (Los Angeles) Airport. My friend Dan Edwards was nice enough to drive me from Emily's house to the Virgin America terminal around 9am and get me on my way. On the way into the airport we were stopped at a random vehicle search by the LAPD which was moderately interesting, but besides that my goings on at the airport were relatively uneventful. A quick self check-in at the Virgin booth, about 10 minutes through security and a ninety minute wait for take-off.

The plane ride itself was great! I fly back here once a year and this is by far both the fastest and most comfortable trip I've had in a while. With a swift tail wind the plane arrived almost a full hour ahead of schedule, about a four and a half hour trip. Virgin America is a great airline as they offer you lots of room, internet, plugs for all your gear, LCD screens on each seat, and all the drinks you could ever want. They even had real Absinthe on the flight. Very interesting!

I arrived at Logan International (Boston's Airport) around 7:30pm and my Dad, Step-mom, and brother were there waiting for me. My brother Jeff is thirteen and in the past year has grown I think three feet taller since I last saw him. I barely recognized him! It was so great to see them all again, sometimes once per year just doesn't seem like enough.

The drive home to Cape Cod is about an hour and a half or so, depending on how fast you like to drive. Massachusetts and California have very differing opinions on highway speeds, as all of the highways on and on the way to Cape Cod have a maximum speed of 55 mph. Some smaller highways on the Cape even have a 45 mph speed limit. Can you imagine a 45 mph speed limit on a freeway in California? Neither can I.

On the way home we all stopped at the Ninety-Nine restaurant where my Dad bought me a nice steak dinner for my birthday. We all sat around eating, drinking, and just being merry. Good times and great food.

An hour or so after the meal we arrived in Brewster where I was going to be dropped off. I had made plans to stay with my Mom at her place that night and when we arrived she was up and waiting for me. It was so nice to see her again. Another one of those moments were once a year just didn't seem like enough. We talked for awhile, catching up and just enjoying the time before I headed to the guest room to get some sleep. Traveling is always exhausting, so I hit the hay to prepare for whatever tomorrow was going to bring.

Off To Cape Cod!

As this posts I'll be on a plane back home to visit sunny Cape Cod for a week. There is plenty I need to do while I'm there, but most of all I'll be spending a lot of time with my family. There's a little niece I've yet to meet that was born just a few months ago. There's my younger brother Jeff, my nephew Jordan, my Mom, Dad, cousins, aunts, uncles, grandmother, friends, and so many more. Can't wait to see some familiar faces.

I'm also extremely excited to surf some awesome, clean Cape Cod Atlantic waters.

Munich and Venice

Last night Emily and I purchased tickets for two more places in Europe. If you can somehow not count the fact that we'll be in Paris, which is an amazing vacation in itself, we've planned and bought tickets for two (more) vacation spots. In late October we'll be spending a week in Venice, Italy, and then for the week of Christmas we'll be staying in Munich, Germany. We got things pretty cheap too...considering what we're doing.

Emily has created a new blog called, "Paris On A Student's Budget" where she'll be writing about our adventures. Check it often!

Today is my birthday, it was great.

Absolutely Amazing Photographs Of Waves

These are photos taken by a guy named Clark Little. Absolutely stunning. This guy puts himself into some serious wipe outs to get these shots.

E3 Was Fun

I went to E3 last week!

Games I'm looking forward to:

• Ruse
• Marvel Vs. Capcom II (rerelease for Xbox 360)
• Rogue Warrior
• Final Fantasy XIII
• DJ Hero (kind of)
• Capcom vs. Tatsunoko
• Assassins Creed II
• Blur Racing
• Scribblenauts (AWESOME)
  
• Modern Warfare II (kind of)

I didn't get any photos unfortunately but man it was a lot of fun. Google 'Microsoft Natal' if you haven't seen the demo(s) yet. Technology is getting scary.