If it snows...

I like snowboarding. I like snowboarding in all conditions, including white-out blizzards. This thought recently crossed my mind: Why the hell did I buy white snowboard pants? Don't get me wrong, I really like them and they're badass. However, I don't think it's ideal to wear white clothes when on a mountain covered in snow when the visibility is low. GG me.

My Weekend

Saturday: Went to Einstein's for breakfast with Kelley, rode 40 miles, then parked it on the couch the rest of the day and watched college football.

Sunday: Rode another 40 miles, went to the farmers market, then headed over to my aunts house to eat, hang out, and watch football the rest of the day.

...what a weekend!

Spanish Food

I'm back from Spain. Simply put: Trek redefined the meaning of luxury. I can go on forever about the trip, but will try not to.

Where was I: We spent 3 days in Barcelona, 2 nights in Madremanya, 3 nights in S'Agaro, and 1 night in Girona.

Travel people: Days 1-3 were my mom, aunt, and uncle. Days 4-9 were with the Trek group (11 total + 2 guides). And back to the original 4 for part of day 9-the end.

Food: I tried to keep a simple food log of the dinners each night. I missed a few nights, but here's what I had: Keep in mind- I ate everything! I tried tons of food that I'd never eaten or don't usually like. For example: paella, squid, green olives stuffed with anchovy, mussels, cured everything, duck!, rabbit, bread dipped in red wine and coated with sugar (this was a traditional dessert and quite tasty... Tapas are assorted appetizers ranging from bread w/ oil and vinegar to ravioli, salad, cured meats... and there were always at least 3-5 plates of tapas before we got the main course. (Unlimited) wine was provided at every meal during the Trek/cycling portion.

I had a bottomless stomach for the entire trip. It took me until the 6th night to feel full, and this includes all my meals. Arg.. I told you I could go on forever about the trip, and this is only the subject of food. If you want to know more, ask me! Here's what I have on my Food log:

Day 1: Tallers 76
- chicken and rabbit paella, potato omelet bites, cheese plate, sangria (#2)

Day 2: Txan Txan Gorri
-Bread, Fish (shellfish) and mushroom risotto, salmon w/ leek sauce, Sangria (#1), red wine + Chocolate cream w/ orange soup (#1 dessert)

Day 3: Zian Pizzeria
-Muscles w/ lemon, pizza w/ wild mushrooms and cured ham, red wine, choc brownie with nougat ice cream and frangelico. (vanilla mouse w/ almond and candied ____ for mom)

Day 4: Hotel in Madremanya
-Tapas, salad, lemon sorbet, duck w/ orange sauce, peanut ice cream w/ nuts, white wine

Day 5: Little castle town
-Tapas (w/ giant croquette aka Spanish chimichanga) , Iberian pork (x2), fries, assorted dessert, wine

Day 6: S'Agaro cooking at hotel
-Gazpacho, bread, shrimp and chicken, apple doughnuts w/ vanilla ice cream, chocolate mousse cake, wine and champagne

Day 7: Pizzeria in S'Agaro
-Tapas, duck w/ pear, bread, sangria, crusted banana w/ choc sauce and ice cream

Day 8: S'Agaro last dinner
-tapas (ravioli, risotto, bread, and more), Iberian pork shank, red wine, creme brule w/ cinnamon ice cream (T-#2 dessert)

A few days later...

The vacation that includes cycling has begun. Here are a few pictures from the past couple days. I stayed in Madremanya the past two nights and am now in S'Agaro for the next three (right along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea).

Madremanya from a few kilometers out.


This is the top of the hardest (optional) climb. The church I'm in front of is where Salvador Dali got married.


Me at the winery we stopped at for a tour, tasting, and lunch this afternoon!


The Mediterranean Sea and our hotel in S'Agaro.

(Posted Oct 7th at 12:30am)

Barcelona: day 2

Today was amazing! We went to La Sagrada Familia. Then another Gaudi building after that.

La Sagrada Familia

La Pedrera

(Posted Oct 3, 12:45AM)

Vacation

For those of you who don't know, I'm going to Spain on Sept. 30th. I'm spending 2-3 days in Barcelona, then heading northeast to Madremanya and S’Agaró do some cycling and touring near the Pyrenees and along the coast of the Mediterranean. This is going to turn into my travel blog for the time that I am in Spain. I will post short blogs and pictures when I get the opportunity. Enjoy!!

Happy Monday

I had 3 sessions when I left the house this morning. One of them was canceled, which I didn't know about until I showed up at the office for it. I took the rare opportunity to finish my day early (billable hours sucked today). I got home at 4:35 and was ready to ride until it was dark out. But no, my front wheel was flat. I replaced that tube, pulled a thorn from my tire, and put on a new tube. Okay, ready to roll out again. Nope... After pumping up the 2nd tube the air valve ripped off when I took the bike pump off. Tube #2 flat. I put on a third tube, but called it then. No bike ride for me today. The good news is I'm perfecting my ability to change flats. I guess I'll have to settle for a run instead.

In other news: Work is work. Ask if you want to know more. But don't ask me about the autism "diet." I don't know much about it. We have a new roommate moving in next weekend. She's a Ph.D (lit) student at UCSD. I've come to the conclusion there aren't enough hours in the day to do what I want, especially on weekends. Things are going quite well with Kelley and I. And my daily GRE prep has begun.

Hobbies

My new toy:


Fits like a charm:

Work and Everything Else

I figure now that it's been a few months of mystery I will share what I actually do. I'm a behavioral interventionist (aka therapist) for children with Autism and Asperger's syndrome. I travel to most cities in North SD County. Majority of the time I'm doing 1:1 in home behavioral therapy with the kids. Occasionally I'll spend some time in the office, located in Carlsbad, doing office work. Most of the kids are between the ages 2-4 and a few are 5-7. Each kid has there own set of programs/goals. It's challenging! I could go on for a while about it, but I won't.

The other part of my life: cycling and weekends. I love the weekends! For one, I don't work. I've been cycling every weekend for the past 3 months. I ride with the San Diego Bike Club Saturday mornings usually. The group ride I do tends to be 45-65 miles depending on if I ride from my house or not. According to my cyclomter, I have ridden a little over 900 miles from mid-April to now (riding only weekends). Two weekends ago on Saturday I rode 114 with 5 SDBC people. It took 7.5 hours, and one 30 min stop. That was good, kind of easy. I've been doing a lot of hill training when I ride by myself. I like to consider myself more of a climber. This Saturday, Aug 1st, I'm doing the Marin County Century!! It should be tiring, but good.

This past weekend Robert came down and we went to Comic Con Saturday afternoon. It was free. Thanks DreamWorks (and Robert). I don't see myself going back in the near future. I'm not geeky enough for anything there. However, it was interesting to see a lot of the art on display and the Star Wars trailer. I saw HP 6 for the second time Saturday night, came home and made s'mores using the fire pit in our backyard, and hit the beach Sunday after riding! Hooray for weekends!

Taking a Breather

A week ago I moved to Bird Rock (a small community in La Jolla)! This weekend I was able to relax and not have to worry about moving, past roommates, bills, etc.. So what did I do:

Friday: Walked down to a pizza place for lunch, had a friend over and went to the beach, then sat on the patio with friends to enjoy life and a few beers.

Saturday: I celebrated the 4th by riding 65 miles. The rest of the day, or what was left of it, was spent napping and consuming food. I stood on my patio table to watch a few fireworks, but nothing too exciting.

Sunday: I rode 38 miles in the morning then chowed down on one of SD's best breakfast burritos. It was also another beach day. I drove to the beach (a whole one mile away) with a friend. And walked to a sushi place for dinner.

A weekend in SB

I drove up to Santa Barbara this weekend for Katie's graduation. The graduation itself was pretty boring, but the rest of the weekend was great. I drove up to LA Friday after work, picked up Robert, and got to SB around midnight. Robert and I ran Saturday morning along the coast before the grad ceremony, then it was off to lunch and wine tasting with the family. Robert's the wine pro, so he led the way. We went to 2 wineries and got dinner before heading back to drop Katie off at home and drive to Ventura.

Day 2 started out with a 35 mile bike ride up from Ventura to Ojai and back. We then drove back to SB for a lunch party that Katie and her 7 roommates were hosting. That was actually a lot of fun. The weather was great too. Sadly, the weekend fun had to end because I needed to get back to San Diego (and Rob to LA). What a weekend though... I wish I'd had an extra day to recover.

Memorial Day Weekend

What a freakin' fantastic weekend. Saturday I did a bike ride hosted by the San Diego Bike Club. Firstly, those guys are hard core! I'd never ridden in a pelaton type group before, but that's what Saturday's ride was for. I rode with the D1/D2 group. It was the most advanced of the Development groups. I learned how to ride in a rotating paceline. The total ride was 52 miles and took just under 3 hours. It was lots of fun and I plan on showing up this weekend for the same ride. After the ride I went to friends BBQ. I sat around the pool, ate food, and played frisbee all afternoon.

Sunday I was a little sore from the previous day. I woke up and rode 25 miles. I rode with another guy from SDBC for about 20 miles. Once again, those guys are good! My legs were sore going up Torrey Pines. I think I just relaxed the rest of the day.

On Monday, Jen, my roommate, and I decided to go on a day trip to Julian and hike along the way. We hiked to the summit of Mt. Cuyamaca, which happens to be the second highest peak in San Diego County. Then we had lunch and pie in Julian. It's not a very exciting place, but we had to go just to go. On the way back home we stopped for another hike. This one was much easier. Finding a way to cross a river was the only problem we encountered. There were lots of warnings for mountain lions and rattlesnakes. Fortunately we didn't encounter either along the trails. By the end of the day we'd hiked close to 15 miles.

Other happenings since my last update: I have a job.

Old and New

I got a new road bike! It was surprisingly harder than I thought to pick one out too. When you get to a certain price range the bikes are all very similar. I test rode the final two, a Trek and Specialized, and went with the Trek. I haven't been home or had enough time to get a good 30-40 intro ride on it, but that will change this week hopefully.

I had a 1985 Peugeot with a steel frame, down-tube shifters, standard double crankset in the front, and a 6 speed cassette (gears) in the back. The Peugeot was approximately 24.5 lbs. I put on new handlebar tape, break levers, clip-on pedals, one shifter (it took forever and a day), and a new seat. To it's credit, the bike did have one of the best frame mounted pumps. When I got the bike from my uncle, this is exactly what it looked like.


Here's my Trek. Everything is better. It has an aluminum frame with carbon front/rear stays and a carbon seat stay. Handlebar shift levers are awesome! I don't have to reach down and feel (in space) how far to move a lever to shift anymore. I have a compact double in the front with a 10 speed cassette in the back. And it's about 5 lbs lighter.

Back in SD

I took my bike to a different shop today and had them true the back wheel. The guy guessed it would last 6 months tops. So when I got home today I was stoked to be able to ride my bike and rode to Encinitas and back (36 miles). I broke a rear spoke... so much for that repair earlier in the day. I also fell at the end of my ride. I blame fatigue. And now I have a nice 2.5" cut along the side of me knee.

In other news... it's good to be back in San Diego. I went to PB tonight and had a great time.

Out of Options

I haven't been able to ride my bike at all since Monday because the back wheel is not aligned and it can't be fixed. And I tried to run, but my ankle isn't healed from snowboarding. Ahh! This sucks!

Goodbye LA, Hello SD

My time in LA has come to an end (for now at least). The past 2 months living at Robert's were awesome. I have now seen all 5 seasons of Lost, started to actually cook meals, and begun playing ultimate frisbee. I'll definitely miss LA and Rob's place.

Robert helped me move down yesterday and supervised most of the room set up stage. Thanks Robert!! I'm living in the same house from a year ago, just with different roommates. So far my room is mostly bare. There's an empty wall across the room from my bed that's begging to have a flat screen tv mounted on the wall. But that will have to wait a while because I'm still in the job market. Woo.. off to start my day.

Spring is Here

Still no job... but other than that life is going well. I'm moving to San Diego on the 28th. Last week I ran/rode every day. This week I ran 5 miles on Monday and racked up 110 miles on my bike over the course of three days. Today's ride was 50 miles with 2 killer climbs and a strong headwind for the last 7 miles. We went to Granville Cafe, aka the mojito place, for dinner tonight. Finally, after 3 not so successful attempts, I ate my entire southwest burger tonight! And then had a whole cupcake from Crumbs for dessert. Mmmm...

Robert and I are road tripping to Mammoth tomorrow. Katie is on spring break this week, so we all get to go boarding for a few days. I like how that works out. It's supposed to snow Saturday night and Sunday, which means Monday could be some good powder.

Hope Rides Again

Saturday night was amazing. Robert did his brotherly duties earlier in the week of letting me know that Lance Armstrong tweeted (...?) Anyways, after waiting a few days, I was informed that I was 1/100 twitter followers to be selected for the Hope Rides Again event in Hollywood. It started out with a 2.2 mile bike parade down Sunset Blvd and ended at the Montalban Theater. Once there, Ben Stiller introduced Lance Armstrong. Lance spoke along with the president of the LAF, the CEO of Nike, and Shepard Fairey. Topics included Lance's return to the bike, the LAF and fight against cancer, Nike's commitment to Lance and his foundation, the history of the yellow bands, some crowd Q&A and a few random stories here and there. Ben Harper finished the night with a concert. It was a great opportunity and I'm thrilled to be a part of it. Robert posted 5 pictures that I think accurately sum up the night, not to mention they're just awesome: Hope Rides Again Photo Summary

Sunday afternoon was also awesome. Robert had an ultimate frisbee touney. I went out to support the team and bring Robert food. I stuck around for the finals, which turned out to be a great performance by both teams. Robert's team was down 14-7. And that's when the game started. First to 15 (win by 2) wins. They rallied back scoring 8 points in a row. Talk about a turn around. The final score was 18-16. The first time I watched an ultimate game I was bored out of my mind. This game had me out of the chair and on the sidelines cheering 'em on most of the game.

Early Mornings

I'm not sure what it is this week, but so far I've been woken up too early on two different mornings. Wednesday I was woken up by a stream of 4 texts messages. Thank you Verizon for delivering messages sent to me on Sunday a few days later at 5:20am. This morning it was a car alarm right outside my window. It was too tired to look at my phone, but it was before the sun came up. I thought my habit of waking up between 7-7:30 was early enough.

Griffith Park

I went for a bike ride today in Griffith Park. Google Maps and the real deal aren't quite the same. I got lost in the sense that I didn't know where I was going but knew where the direction I came from. The fork in the road with no street signs didn't stop me. The dead end did though. It rained too. I got really dirty along with my bike as a result. But it was good and I survived.

Stage 7

Yesterday Robert and I drove to Pasadena to watch the finish of the Tour of California stage. We didn't get our timing quite right, but it all worked out. We walked along the course and found a good spot on the side to see the entire race go by, twice. Even though the cyclists go speeding by and they're gone in an instant, it was lots of fun to go. Afterward we walked down to the Rose Bowl where all the tents were. We saw a few of the cyclists after the finish as well as Lance's remade time trial bike. For those of you who don't know, his first one was stolen in Sacramento and returned a day later. I also got a water bottle that one of the guys through aside. A lot of walking turned into a great afternoon. Here's a picture that Robert took: Finishing the race

Short Vacation

I took a break from looking/applying for jobs on Monday and went up to Mammoth for 2 days. These pictures sum up the trip.

Tuesday:


Wednesday (from the top of 25 looking back at the mountain):

So-cal Life

I'm living in LA (at Rob's place). My life isn't too exciting right now. I spend just about all day, every day, looking for a job/internship/volunteer anything. I'm also starting to write my statement of purpose for me re-admission application for ucsd. That's going to take some time and thought. I have started watching Lost at night. It is a good way to take my mind of the job search, though sometimes is doesn't work. Sunday was a good break from the usual routine. Robert and I went snowboarding at one of the local mountains, Mt. Baldy. The day was an adventure getting up there with chains, the slowest ticket line ever, and near whiteout conditions. But was a good experience. I think the pure powder tree run and having no idea where I was going made the day complete.

Faaaster

I went 44.8 mph! going downhill on my bike today! It was kind of fast. One of the main reasons I wanted a speedometer was so I could see how fast I go down hills. I think I could push 50mph if I had one more small gear, or the hill was longer.

Off Days

I'm just venting. I like to think that I'm usually upbeat and positive, fun to be around.. that kind of stuff. Today/tonight has been the opposite. You know somethings not right when I'm barely motivated to watch Harry Potter (to cheer me up). Who knows... It's been an off night though. Tonight I've posted my resume on a few sites, looked at jobs, looked at grad school programs and requirements. I think life decided to catch up to me today. If I had to guess, I'd say it's a combination of the job search not going well, me not being in grad school (or any school), me having my BA and not a BS, and I HATE living at the house right now. (sigh) Hopefully things get better this week. And if anyone has connections anywhere (like so-cal) for a job, I'm in the market. : )

The Holidays

Here's the short version: Christmas and New Years were great! I was in Mammoth for a week and celebrated new years by drinking, wii bowling, freezing my ass off in 20° weather and watching fireworks. Then I was home for a day and off to San Diego. My weekend was awesome. We went to the beach one afternoon and saw some crazy lady go in the ocean (she also talked to us which was kinda random). And a pelican got swallowed by a wave and surfed it to the shore. I miss sd.

Also, I still want a job. Who has connections in San Diego??