ThisIsVlad

sarah is one of my friends from way back in the day. i’ve been friends w/ her since highschool. unfortunately, she lives in oregon now, and i dont get to see her much, but she totally surprised me last year when she told me that she was getting married. it’s pretty odd when someone gets married who you’ve know ever since they were very young. but i was actually very happy for her. her boyfriend steve is really cool, and i think they make a really great pair.

last sunday was the wedding. they had the ceremony in her backyard, followed by a reception at the stanford faculty club. the ceremony was really cool and touching. super jewish ceremony with a rabbi, huppa, etc.

the other really cool thing about the wedding was that it was kind of a reunion of sorts. most of the people at our table had all been friends ever since highschool. some people, like jenny payne, i haven’t seen in almost 8 years! also, i hadn’t seen allegra, who was a bridesmaid, in many years either. it was cool to catch up w/ everyone and reminisce about the olden days.

one of the things we couldn’t stop talking about was hawaii. about 9 years ago, when i was only 19, Yan, Jenny, Sarah, Sharon, and I all took a trip to Kuai and stayed on this huge ranch that sharon’s grandparents owned. it was an insane amount of fun. we were still fairly young, so to take a crazy hawaii vacation w/ no parents was a blast. looking back, that kuai trip is one of our fondest memories. it was so nice to sit there last sunday and have everyone from that trip back together again.

funnily enough, other than jenny, most of us are still really close friends. it’s really cool that the bonds of friendship can last that long. there were so many crazy times during that week in hawaii… and actually during those years in general, and it seemed impossible that any of us close friends would lose track of each other. well, looks like we really haven’t. in a world that’s constantly evolving and changing, where people move away to pursue careers and college etc, it’s nice to know that some things stay constant.

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ever since i first learned how to write HTML etc, like 8 years ago, i’ve always wanted to have a website of my own. the problem was, i never knew what i would want to put on the net, and also, i couldn’t think of a name for a site. time and time again, i kept thinking how i wanted to start something up, but i never really got around to it.

finally, several months back, while really drunk at a local bar, i was bitching to joey about my lack of a website and how i wanted a space to store photos etc, and he suggested i just call it “ThisIsVlad.Com”. it’s simple, to the point, and “thisisvlad” has been my instant messenger screen name for *years*. the next day, i got it registered and set up… but, i still had no idea what to put there. so for the next few months, my site consisted of 2 pages, both of which were pretty bare and empty.

i’ve had this LiveJournal account for a couple years now, but have been frustrated that i can’t really track stats on it, and that it’s hosted on some random server where i cant really make too many modifications to it. so, finally, i decided to get a new blog. i’m writing a blog using wordpress on my own site. from now on, all my entries that i write will be written there, but copied over to the LJ after i write them.

if you guys leave comments, it’d be cool if you did so in my other blog instead of the LJ. there will be a link at the bottom of each LJ post to the comments and post on my real site. Try it out!! i’ve messed w/ the code quite a bit, so there’s a good chance i may have fucked somethig up… let me know if anything doesn’t work!

so i guess that’s it…. i now finally have my own little corner of the web.

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after two months of going to the hospital 5 days a week, my dad’s treatment is finally done. today was his last day of radiation therapy. it’s such a relief to have this over and done with. my dad took it surprisingly well and had hardly any side affects that i know of. wow. it’s been over a year since he was first diagnosed w/ cancer, and now hopefully he has been cured. of course, he has to wait a couple months before they can test him to see if the treatment worked, but (knock on wood) the treatment is know for being pretty thorough at getting rid of prostate cancer.

PHEW!

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sheez, been neglecting this thing again. here’s a quick update on the last two weeks:

memorial day weekend was filled w/ barbecues. we went to three of them in one weekend: one down in sj at elena’s, one on Baker beach to celebrate colleen’s bday/graduation, and one at catherine’s to celebrate her graduation. at colleen’s we played bocce ball. surprisingly, it was hella fun… i’d be totally down to play it again. also, baker beach is right by golden gate bridge. i wanna come back one day and walk up to the base of the bridge. in the middle of catherine’s bbq we took a break and played whiffle ball for a bit. well, maybe not actually played, but i did hit the ball a few times. that was kinda cool too. later on that night they fired up the turntables, threw some duraflame logs in the bbq and people kicked it.

the following thursday, we went over to sage’s house. she’s moving to colorado to live on a farm for three months and harvest organic produce etc. that’s pretty cool. i think it would definitely be interesting to try that out at least for a little bit. most people are just so far removed from farming and where their food comes from, and i think it would be good to actually take part in it.. even if it’s just for a short while.

the next day i played poker over at li’s house w/ a bunch of peeps. i was kinda nervous at first cause i dont know jack shit about poker, but i caught on fairly quick. i raked in tons of chips a bunch of times, but ended up losing in the end. luckily, i was just using tom’s money so i didnt really lose any $$ ;).

saturday i went to the union street fair w/ li and caryn. it sucked ass. everyone there is super uber preppy. li played at this private party at this house. they were letting in girls, but only very few guys were allowed in (not sure how they chose who). the crowd was totally wack and absolutely refused to dance to anything unless it had a sample of a song they recognized. sheez. it’s pretty sad how some people can’t appreciate music whatsoever unless it’s one of the 25 songs that the radio very carefully spoon feeds to them over time.

after the fair, we went to go see this movie called “The Corporation”. this movie was really dope. it was a documentary about how fucked up corporations are, how they came to be so powerful, and a ton of different negative ways that they contribute to the environment and society. the movie really made me want to do something helpful. i dont know if it would necessarily be somethig to do w/ corporations, but something… anything. i think all the time about how lucky i am to be living where i do and to to be well off and to have my whole life be pretty good. i’ve really wanted to do some kind of volunteering… the question really is where??

after the movie we went to gleb’s party. it was pretty cool. the theme was “greek and clear” and their new house was elaborately decorated w/ greek colums, olive branches, and cardboard flames. unfortunately, we didnt know too many people there and we were also tired, so we didnt stay too long.

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summer’s coming up fast and caryn and i were hoping to take at least a short vacation. unfortunately, due to time restrictions, we could only go somewhere for a few days… actually, just 5. so we decided to join sharon and dave on their trip. they’ve been RVing across the country for a couple of months now, and had gotten all the way to Florida from here. so we flew out there to join their road trip for a brief time and hang out.

it was so fun!! RVing is hella cool. one of the days, we had a 300 mile drive ahead of us. normally, that would fucking suck and be torture… not so in a RV. the whole time while dave drove (poor dave), the rest of us were free to wander around the RV have fun, and drink large quantities of alcohol. drinking while on the go is dope!! (esp. when you dont have to make bathroom stops either)

our trip was divided into two parts. the first part we spent in a national park at key largo. key largo is the closest of the Florida keys to the mainland, and was really cool. thick mangrove forests lined the shores next to beaches and beautiful turquoise waters. we spent some time hiking around through the trees, and also took a glass bottom boat tour to see some of the tropical fish. we even learned some local slang: “the bomb plus tax”. heh. we tried the infamous key lime pie, and then we tried more of it in a different restaurant. key lime pie is so prevalent in the keys that you can even get it in a sushi restaurant.

the second half of our trip we spent in Orlando. Orlando is a pretty weird town. we went to this one place called gatorland. it’s kind of hokey, but kinda cool at the same time. the place is *filled* w/ gators. tons of them everywhere. huge ones! they have a show where they hang a whole chicken on a rope and the gators jump out of the water to eat it. oddly enough, not only do they have live gators there, but they also sell gator nuggets and gator ribs. we tried the gator nuggets… taste like tough chicken. they also had some baby gators that had just hatched:

after gatorland, we went to a place where they let you drive your own fan boat. you know, those weird swamp boats with the huge fan on the back? The damn things only went up to 9 miles per hour! it was still fun though, to boat through the swamp and watch turtles swim around. another thing that we saw a lot of was herons and egrets. these were cool stork-like white birds that flew pretty much everywhere in Florida…

that’s pretty much it for sightseeing. the rest of the time was just spent hanging out in the
RV and drinking. living in the RV was a blast and it was really good to see sharon and dave who we hadn’t seen in a long time. it was sucky to leave them at the end of the trip, but luckily we were dead tired after only 2 hours sleep, so that mitigated the sadness.

oh, one weird thing happened on the trip. at one point sharon and dave said they wanted to show us some of the crazy shit that they had acquired over their trip. for some inexplicable reason, the first thing that came out of my mouth was “oh, what did you guys get, Nunzilla?”. and lo and behold… that’s what it was. what the fuck is the chances of that?? a one in a billion guess?

oh actually, one more thing. we found a very weird candy bar from the UK. it was called the “yorkie” and apparently, girls aren’t allowed to eat it?!

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last week i went to marine world. it was my dad’s company picnic and he had free tickets, so our whole family went and caryn came along. i have mixed feeling about marine world. on one hand, i love animals. going there and checking out giraffes, dolphins, lions etc is really cool. we even got to watch tigers swim *under water*. on the flip side, i kinda thind it’s fucked up to have these animals stuck in small enclosed areas and doing stupid tricks to entertain people. i feel kinda hypocritical for going therea nd having a good time, when i think it’s not the right thing to do. at the same time though, there is this theory that zoos etc are actually good for animals in general. when people (esp children at a young age) actually get to go out and see live animals and interact w/ them etc, it encourages them in later years to want to help protect them. basically, if humans dont interact w/ nature, they’ll have no reason to like it and/or want to preserve it. i guess the animals at these parks end up suffering for the greater good.

one of the cool things at the park was an enclosed area filled w/ lorikeets. these are really cool looking vibrantly colored birds. you can buy little cups of nectar, and then the lorikeets will land on you and drink up….

the other cool thing about marine world is the roller coasters. this have this one hella cool one where you are accelereated super fast right from the start (instead of slowly being pulled up a hill) and then it shoots you into a vertical corkscrew. the speed that this thing starts off w/ was so fast!

all in all it was a cool day. i hardly ever hang out w/ my family these days except for short 2 or 3 hour blocks for dinner or something, so it was really nice to go and spend the day w/ them. plus it was cool that caryn got to hang out w/ them as well. they’re always asking about her, but since she’s gone during the week, they’ve really only met her a couple of times.

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i’ve been meaning to write this damn post about going to yosemite for 2 weeks now. fuck, i lag.

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ever since i was a little kid, it’s been my dream to hike to the top of half dome. ok, maybe that’s exaggerating a little. it’s actually only been for the last 3 or 4 years, but nevertheless, i’ve hella wanted to do it for quite a while. climbing half dome is no easy task though… it’s a grueling 12 hour 17 mile round trip hike and the uphill is friggin insane (you gain about 1 mile in elevation). not to mention, that the last part is so steep that you have to hold on to a cable to pull yourself up at a 45 degree angle.

i’ve never actually done the hike cause i pretty much figured i wasn’t in shape enough to be able to handle it. each summer i’d promise myself that i’d do a bunch of practice hikes, and go for it, but never did. finally, a month ago, my brother did the hike and came back all ecstatic, saying that it was the best thing ever and that i really had to go do it. according to him, although it’s long and tiring, i should be able to do it. so fuck it, why not try?

finally, two weekends ago, caryn and i drove up to half dome. we bought a bunch of trail mix, power bars, water etc, and stayed in a tent cabin. did i mention that the hike takes 12 hours? we woke up at 6 in the morning and staggered outside. we were both sleepy as hell, but at the same time really excited to go out and do the hike. one of the cool things about the trail to half dome, is that there are two *huge* waterfalls on the way. not only that, but one part of the trail is called the mist trail and you spend a good part of it being sprayed by mist from one of the falls till you are really drenched. walking next to this thundering waterfall with water splashing and spraying all over and filling the air with tons of rainbows was such a beautiful experience. wayyy cool!

as we hiked on and on, we got pretty tired, but surprisingly, we weren’t completely exhausted. we totally felt like we had the energy to do the whole hike… but unfortunately there was a problem. i think that for some reason we slept in some weird fucked up position. i remember in the middle of the night waking up cause my right hip was hellza hurting. then in the morning, only about 20 minutes into the hike, my hip started to kinda hurt. wtf? it definitely wasn’t hurting from hiking seeing as we only had just begun. anyways, as the hike went on and on, it was hurting more and more till eventually, every single step i took was extremely painful. oddly enough, caryn had the exact same problem w/ her right hip.

what to do? i was *very* determined to make it to the top. i soooo didnt want to turn back. but hiking hurt so bad… and the farther we went, the farther we would have to hike back. giving up seemed so lame!! especially after making it so far. i felt like some old person, as i sat there complaining about my hip. sheez. but we finally conceded that the only thing we could do was to turn back. we had hiked 5 miles by that point.

so then we turned back… and started the 5 mile hike back down. unfortunately, i was so frustrated by turning around, that i took the hike down fairly quickly, often jumping from step to step. Bad Idea. by the bottom, my left knee was starting to hurt. when we finished the 12 mile hike (10 miles round trip plus 2 miles to/from trailhead), we were both exhausted, and we laid down on the bed to rest.

15 minutes later, i could barely get up. both of my knees throbbed with pain whenever i tried to bend them. i could barely walk. my knees were completely shot and i limped around like a loser. at this point we started to worry. usually when you work out, you feel twice as sore the next day… what if the next day we’d be even more jacked than before? i was in no state to drive that night, but caryn could drive.. but what if she couldn’t drive the next morning! we decided to leave while we still could. heh. so pathetic!

anyways, all in all, it was an incredible weekend. the hike was beautiful, the falls were breath taking, caryn got to see yosemite for the first time, and we had a lot of fun. 12 miles is pretty damn good for us. it really sucks that we didnt make it to the top… but oh well… hopefully next time.

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