Ack Okay Here We Go Again...

Strange shenanigans with my blog lately, having to retype this post, gr.

So my original plan was to go visit someone in LA on Friday, and the plan was to call her when I was leaving. So I called Friday morning after packing, and she told me something had came up. So I sat around for a few hours moping. Then another friend called and said he was going to San Diego a day later than he had originally planned, which of course I'd had to miss out on since I was supposedly going to LA instead. This ended up fitting in perfectly, and so within an hour or so I was headed off down the 101. I actually ended up stopping by the friend's place since it was only a couple min out of the way, and leaving a funny note on her door. That of course earned me a page later asking me what the heck I was doing in LA and was I still there. Alas I was most of the way to SD at that point, much to her chagrin. I spent the night at my friend's mother's house, which had this really sweet view on all sides from up on a hill looking toward the ocean. After a wonderfully peaceful sleep we were up pretty early and headed out to breakfast at this family restaurant nearby.

Our plan was then to head over to Sea World for the day with his girlfriend, the same group of three I went with a few years ago. Unfortunately the weather was not ideal, as it stayed in the 60s and even colder much of the day. That didn't stop us from sitting in the "soak zone" whenever possible though. One of the highlights of the day was going on the Shipwreck Rapids ride four times in a row, which is one of those rides where the vehicle is shaped like a large innertube with seats all facing inwards, as you float along through rapids and under waterfalls and the like, with the object to not be the one getting waves over your head drenching you thoroughly. I always have such a blast on these types, especially when it's the people across from me getting the worst of it. This one had a waterfall at the end though that stretched across the whole path, so there was no escaping it other than the fact that some parts were heavier than others. Unfortunately the worst wave was the one right before the end, so you could stay totally dry to that point and end up with half your clothing sticking to you. After each ride I would find a dry spot on my body that made it "unacceptable" and chants of "ONE MORE RIDE, ONE MORE RIDE" would ensue. After four though, we'd all gotten hammered thoroughly and decided to call it quits. For the remainder of the day my jeans never dried, and my shirt ended up getting stretched out quite a bit due to the weight of the water.

We also had a bunch of fun trying some of the carnival games, and I won a mini Shamu at one of them where you have to roll golf balls up into a bunch of holes of different increments to propel your racer across the track. There was also a DDR machine there, and my friend and I ended up drawing a bit of a crowd of onlookers. We're not insane or anything, we don't have any of them memorized and can't do it blindfolded, but we're alright. Was very good for warming up, and helping dry off a bit.

As usual the night Shamu show was my favorite, as they rocked the house. The preshow consists of current popular songs blasting through the stadium, as the big Jumbotron video screen switches back and forth between a couple video cameras they have posted around the stadium, which zoom in on unsuspecting audience members at inopportune times. I of course try my best to look as dorky as possible and always manage to appear at least once. My friends were pansies and sat up in the safe section this time around, but I was in my usual soak zone aisle seat, and with the much smaller crowd choosing to brave the waves I managed to get on the big screen three different times, although they claim it was only two. Nothing like being on the big screen. :)

Afterwards the original plan was to go out to dinner with her family, but I ended up getting in touch with another friend and she came and picked me up instead. I hadn't seen her for quite a long time, and she'd made a drastic change to her hair, so that was pretty interesting. I'm hoping to hook up with a lot of the people I haven't seen in forever before this summer, as things will probably get pretty crazy pretty quick.

Later on that night I was introduced to Viejas, one of the many indian casinos down there. I must say that based on that night, Chumash must be really robbing people blind on the machines. I only played a couple machines I didn't cash out on, with some of them cashing huge amounts. We played a lot on the tables as well, and even though I had a below average night at blackjack the machines made up for it and then some, which is usually the opposite of what goes on. I also played a bunch of Caribbean Stud, a game I had never played prior, which is very fun. It can get expensive, but you can win in a hurry as well, and on any given hand you could win the progressive jackpot, which was at over $81,000 while we were there. Pretty crazy stuff, even higher possibilities than Let it Ride.

Unfortunately we had to leave quite early the next morning, so the watch alarm went off much earlier than expected. On the way back I made a second stop in LA, having arranged a lunch meeting with the aforementioned friend who'd kinda ditched me the day before and I'd sorta ditched in return. That was fun, as although she has intentions to come up in a couple weekends, she had never met any of my friends from Santa Barbara. Eventually we got on the road again, and made it back to Santa Barbara late Monday, shortly before the rain.

There, the weekend in a nutshell.