-Theodore Roosevelt

It makes me feel like summer is closer, that warm weather, long nights, cold drinks and good friends are closer than ever. Plus, as we all know, Maryland summers are hotter than hell. It was about time for some spring cleaning.

Well, when the space is there, you always seem to find a way to fill it. Within a few months, I was at the point of deleting files off my hard drive just to make space for new downloads or pictures. It was bad. So, I bought another terabyte (1000gb’s) to drop in my rig.

I’ve always trusted Western Digital as a solid drive manufacturer, and they’ve earned their reputation as one of the best. The 640gb is WD as well. Both drives belong to the Caviar Black series, running at a solid 7200rpm with monster 32mb caches, dropping read times well under 5ms. Enough nerd talk, here’s a picture.

I wonder how quickly I can fill this one?

So, on that note, lots and lots of new goodness (and not so goodness) to report. Let’s start with the not so great. As of March 14th, 2009, our house is one member short. Tra-Mi moved to Vietnam for 6 months to stay with her grandmother in Ho Chi Minh City. Long story, but it wasn’t a voluntary decision. None of us are too happy about losing such an awesome roommate, but at least we had 7 months to live together. By the time she gets back from Vietnam, we will have all moved out of the current place and have gone our separate ways.

On a positive note, as a going away present, I took my 3 roommates (Tra-Mi, Sean and Kevin) out for dinner at Fogo De Chao. As an employee, my Christmas bonus last year was a complimentary dinner for four. We bought three bottles of wine at the store which I’m just going to go ahead and rave and review right now.

#3. 2003 Chateauneuf-du-Pape Rhone

This ranks third on the list of the three reds we drank, but a very close one at that. I’ve never been a big fan of old world wines, especially French, but this bottle may have single handedly changed my entire perspective on French wines. This wine scored an unusually high 95 points from Wine Spectator, while remaining under $40 a bottle. The Rhone grapes were smooth, mildly oaky, and bursting with dark berries and smoke. We drank this before and through our salad course, and it was definitely the best pick to start with.

#2. 2005 Stag’s Leap Artemis Cabernet Sauvignon

I LOVE NAPA CABS. By far my long standing favorite region and favorite varietal, I go head over heels for a big, heavy, smoky, choky, chocolatey, shoe leathery, slow burning cigar, black fruity cab. Stag’s Leap delivers. This was the last bottle that we drank, finishing off our meat course and going into dessert. I ordered the chocolate molten cake for dessert, a warm chocolate cake with melted chocolate on the inside. Taking a bite of the cake, holding it in my mouth and taking a sip of the Artemis, swirling it around, letting the chocolate and berries dance together, and swallowing – this is absolutely a superior experience. What a way to finish.

#1. 2002 Terrazas De Los Andes Afincado Malbec

The knock-down, drag-out winner of the night: the 2002 Afincado. Terrazas De Los Andes makes a fantasic Malbec from their main vineyard in Mendoza, Argentina. I sell it at Fogo like crazy, but it’s not out of this world. It’s surely a solid Malbec, but not enough to separate Terrazas from the crowd. Enter the Afincado. This is Terrazas’ Single Vineyard bottle, only producing a few thousand cases a year. We poured this bottle at the start of our meat course at Fogo, it’s smoky smooth aromas opening up in the decanter throughout our course. It was MEANT to go with our lamb chops, paired perfectly with both the red and white meats, and just enhanced every single bite. I love the way this Malbec starts – almost like a cab – comes on strong, lots of rich texture at first, has a smoky, slightly more than medium body, and then finishes like a soft breath. Far from tannic or acidic, it finishes almost like a Pinot. Earthy, but just a tad bit drier. Absolutely fantastic. I will buy this bottle again and again.

Anyway enough about wine. Dinner was amazing, with 3 of my favorite people, and we were treated like royalty the entire time we were there. After eating for almost 3 hours, drinks and dessert for everyone, our check came out to a whopping $0.00. Granted, the three bottles of wine ran us a pretty penny, it was an experience to remember. Miss you Tra.

After dinner, we went to see Watchmen in the theater, which was quite amazing. I made sure to read the entire graphic novel before going to see the screen adaptation, and I’m pretty happy with the transition. The storyline and overall visual design held pretty true to the source material, but they left out a LOT. Granted, if they had tried to cram everything on the screen it would have been a 10 hour movie. Rating: A-

Hmm, what else? Oh, I bought a new digital camera.

It’s a Canon PowerShot SD880IS Digital Elph with a 10mp sensor. Pretty nice little camera, takes rock solid pictures, records high quality video, and most importantly is very compact and travels well. I gave my old Casio Exilim 5mp digital camera to my mom for her birthday. She loves the quality pictures it takes (relatively good for an older camera) and she needed a digital camera, and I wanted a new pocket camera. No pocket digital will ever come close to the quality that my Nikon D80 dSLR captures, but it’s not very portable. I bought the camera just in time to take to…. UTAH!!!

As a graduation present to myself for completing the AnimationMentor program (more about that in a soon-to-come post, I promise) I bought a ticket to Salt Lake City for 5 days to catch some late season snowboarding. It was a last minute decision for myself, Fabio and Fabio. I suggested the idea to the two guys from my work (we have been snowboarding together throughout the season in the Baltimore area). Thirteen days before, we bought our tickets. Was almost a spur of the moment decision, but it worked out well. One of Fabio’s friends lives in Salt Lake City, just outside of the Big and Little Cottonwood Canyons, where four of the best resorts in the area are located. So, needless to say we stayed for free for 5 days, 4 nights. We got a rental car, and bought lift tickets to Brighton, Snowbird, Park City, and The Canyons.

The first night we boarded at Brighton. Snowfall from previous night: 12″ to 18″.

It snowed the whole time we were there.

Nice nightboarding sesh to kick of the vacation. First taste of snow, craving more already.

Day 2, heading up Little Cottonwood Canyon road to Snowbird.

Sitting on the edge of powder heaven. Previous night’s snowfall: 10″ to 17″. Elevation: 11,400ft.

Huge powdery bowls. Like a big snow playground.

Day 3: Park City. Snowed again, all day long. Previous night’s snowfall: 16″  to 22″.

I found these double black diamond back paths through steep, dense forest. You could make fresh tracks almost every run from the top. Almost 36″ of fresh snow has fallen in the 3 days prior.

Day 4: The Canyons. Snowed some more. Powder keeps on piling up. Previous night’s snowfall: 12″ to 16″.

Many resorts in the area have had over 48 inches of fresh snow dumped on them in the last 4 days. (That’s four FEET).

And halfway through the last day, the skies finally opened up, the clouds cleared, and it was bright and sunny as we finished our last day on the slopes.

It was an all out 4 day snow-fueled adrenaline rush. Much needed, very deserved vacation.

Let’s see… So one of my coworkers came across a pair of free tickets to Cirque Du Soleil here in Baltimore. She couldn’t use them, so she gave them to me. I took one of my best friends Dan down to Ravens Stadium for the show the other day, and we had an absolute blast. The show is called Kooza, and it ran here for about 5 weeks, ending today. Pure entertainment, the show was ridiculous. So many talented performers pushing the limits of the human physical potential. Genuine entertainment.

Besides that, not much new to report. Leaving for Mexico in 7 days. That’s something to look forward to.

Oh – one more really random thing. A little over a year ago, I stumbled upon a website called FutureMe.org, where you can write yourself an email, or to anyone for that matter, and send it to a certain time in the future. I wrote myself a letter, and decided to send it to myself a year in the future. Well, the other day, I got an email from myself a year in the past. Kinda trippy.

Who knows where I’ll be a year from now. ISN’T LIFE EXCITING?!

1. It must have the Vitruvian Man doing a cartwheel.

2. He must be facing backwards (ass out).

3. He must be wearing a jester hat.

And then, I just ran with it. After several iterations and a few sessions of Kevin’s creative input, the design is complete. This is the first time I’ve ever tried to design a logo, and I have to say I’m pretty happy with the result.

I was bound to a couch for two weeks, barely able to walk even while icing and bracing the injury. I couldn’t drive, because I needed to be able to bend my right leg to drive, and that definitely wasn’t happening. I didn’t have health insurance, so the surgery that was necessary wasn’t a feasible option. I just decided to self medicate and take it easy on my leg. A week later I got a job testing video games full time – that certainly didn’t require much movement! Before my injury, I was working out constantly, surfing a lot, running on the beach, lifting weights, and getting in pretty decent shape. It was easy in San Diego, where there are hundreds if not thousands of people exercising along the coast line at any given moment. When I injured my knee, I was completely removed from all physical activity for quite some time (except for a few beach volleyball games). Since last January, I haven’t run or exercised my lower body at all, in fear that I might re-injure my MCL. However, when the opportunity arose to go snowboarding at Whitetail with some friends, I accepted without hesitation. Granted I still have knee pain every once in a while (especially after hard nights at work), I figured the worst case scenario is that I go snowboarding and if my knee starts to flare up, just sit out the rest of the day.

NOT THE CASE! Snowboarding was amazing. I just wrapped my knee up, took a couple Tylenol and shredded the mountain up. It felt so good to get back on the slopes, after 2 years without any sort of snow sports. I bought a board and some boots from an old friend and took to the mountain with no reservations. I forgot how dearly in love with the sport of snowboarding I am. There were 5 of us from Fogo that went, a few gauchos and a few servers. Two of them had never been snowboarding before, so after they fell pretty much the whole way down the bunny slopes, we persuaded them to take lessons so they would have more fun. One of the guys was pretty good so we went on the black diamonds and double blacks together, however I did spent a majority of the day boarding by myself because I don’t like to be held back or have to wait for anybody. There were no lift lines as school has just started for everyone, it was the middle of the week, and the weather was perfect. It started snowing around 3pm and by dinnertime there was a thick fresh layer of powder on the whole mountain. Made night boarding so much more fun.

I was sore for 3 days after getting off the mountain. Made me realize how insanely out of shape I am. But I’m better now, recharged, and ready to hit the mountain again! So we’re all going again on Tuesday. An expensive habit yes, but worth it?

Absolutely.

The perfect halo
Of gold hair and lightning
Sets you off against
The planets last dance

Just for a minute
The silver forked sky
Lit you up like a star
That I will follow

Now it’s found us
Like I have found you
I don’t want to run
Just overwhelm me

What if this storm ends?
And leaves us nothing
Except a memory
A distant echo

I want pinned down
I want unsettled
Rattle cage after cage
Until my blood boils

I want to see you
As you are now
Every single day
That I am living

Painted in flames
All peeling thunder
Be the lightning in me
That strikes relentless

-Snow Patrol
from the album A Hundred Million Suns

-Edgar Allan Poe, Baltimore, MD

Add one more goal to the life list: ride the entire length of California Highway 1 on a motorcycle – solo. Last year when I was in San Diego, a friend offered me the opportunity to ride bicycles from Monterey, CA back to San Diego, following Highway 1 all the way down. Being out of shape and out of work, I had to decline, but got excited at the thought of traveling the 1. I’ve heard driving it is quite an experience, but to be confined in a vehicle among 650 miles of some of the most beautiful coastline in the world just doesn’t seem right, and just a little too comfortable. On the other hand, riding a bicycle 650 miles up and down the mountainous windy terrain seems ludicrous. The happy medium here seems to be by motorcycle.

Could it be done in a day or two? Absolutely. But I want to take my time, relax, maybe do 100-150 miles a day, stopping to take pictures and enjoy the scenery. I want to absorb the sunrises, the sunsets, the mid-day fog, the Pacific breeze and the salty ocean air.

Now all I need is a bike.

Granted, I will most likely move close to wherever a job takes me, but as of right now I have to find a starting place. And that place is Santa Monica. It’s right on the beach (a beautiful one I might add), close to many animation studios, and seems to have the same sort of feel as the beach community where I lived in San Diego. These plans are liquid and subject to change at any point (isn’t that the exciting part?), but I will do everything in my power to make my dreams come true. Always have, always will.

I found some images on Flickr from Santa Monica that just make me crave it even more.

I’m going, going, back, back to Cali, Cali.