Friday Coming Down

Good Friday to all and to all a...I don't know. All I know is I had a blast with my good friend C Melehan at Hannegan's last night. Rhanna was the best server ever and party animal Brigette stopped in for pre-birthday celebration. She was herself, screaming in my ear, punching me in my gut and just having a good time away from her wonderful child and hubby. This post is just to wish her a happy birthday. Brigette, please refrain from slamming your head into the wall, chipping your tooth on the table or banging your brow into the pictures hanging on the wall, or this happens...Nice icepack, girl. Alright, South Lake here I come...peace I'm outta here.

Time Check, Reality Check, Life Check

It's been one hell of a go. And it's not over yet, but the 409 has been a cornerstone to the 20-somethings Thursday's, Friday's and Saturday's inside the bubble. I just happen to live there and glad for it. The 409 has definitely turned in the recent days and a new look inside, new roomie and new things happening all around the lives of the tenants at 409. Mel and E are doing there thing, Curtis has more things changing than runway models, and me - I'm just trying to be me lately and looking out for #1 while being their for my holmies. Work has been a constant transition for me as I'm on my 3rd job at EMC - first legit job, and a possible 4th move on the horizon. I've been here for just over a year, so you do the math. I guess I have a speedy adoption rate built inside my core and thank you to the man upstairs for blessing me with that.

As for the women, piss up a rope. No, I'm kidding. But I'm starting to think that it might be better to keep your emotions locked up inside and throw the fucking key in a lake. I listen to these 20 - 30 year old single women talk and they are all over the place with conflicting stories, conflicting desires and flat out cheep lies that might as well have the truth tatooed on their forehead. But the solution: lock it down and don't ever give up position. That's enough of the Venus people.

So we're coming into a season change and gotta get the house back in to shape and maximize the fun output for the Winter.


We need to clean up the basement and get in comfy so that we can get comfy in there. Mel got is some heavy vynal posters from the shop and those will help cover the holes in the basement and give it some flare.

I feel like sharing my current position I have chosen to write from. Its actually my second office at work and I spend a fair amount of time here. Usually its reading the sports headlines but today I've decided to write and get a little expressive from the spot I like to call 'Position A'
Now that will probably offend some of you out there on your couches glaring into cyber world, but I'm willing to bet that millions of dollars have been won and lost from this very position I am in. Maybe not from a cluster of musings on a blog, but the relationship is still there.

Ohhhhhh MARIO!!!!

One of my favorite things over the last year is when either Max or CB call me up and say, "Hey, you wanna roll bocce tonight?"
The answer is always, no matter, "Absolutely."

So here we go. New season. Same players. Johnny and Scotty are great guys to play with and when they saw me it was big smiles. We were still one guy short as to the reason why I got to play: CB and Dueno were no shows...so we're still one short. I gave JD a shout and asked how long it would be before he could be at campo and finish out the squad. "5 minutes."

JD showed up (see pic for a JD highlight) and we proceeded to run a clinic on bocce. But that's not to say the other team wasn't.

It was a battle ro-YAL. Winning fourth rolls, big knock outs, and high fives being thrown everywhere. We had a great cheering section consisting of a guy trying to look the ultimate, "I'm young, I am a salesman, and look at the rack on the broad next to me."

She had big ones in a baby small shirt. Serious point of focus during rolling since she sat at midcourt with her chardonay all night.

JD picked up a few balls. Johnny and I were hot like a kettle, and Scottie rolled 'em when he needed to.

The waitress, god bless her, was always there when needed and she was so sassy cute, I couldn't help but grab another Sierra just to have a conversation with her. I'da taken a picture but that would have been weird on my part.

And to the End. Came home to the locals having a little good time with some wine on the side. So another 4-man dance party ensued and Eric, Mel, Curtis and I made sure the front porch got it's love. The stars were out the laughs were loud and the music was crankin'. Big shout to my neighbors. Soooooo sorry guys.

Good Food Leads to Good Times

Holy hook, line and sinker. The party pole was out and I was hooked this weekend. It's the end of the quarter and the job is hot right now. Lot's to do and more expected so there's need for a little R/R on the weekend. Well actually, just recreation.

I'm going to pop a plug in for Nick's on Main in downtown LG near the Bentley dealership. Nick has been a top chef in town for a while going back to Cafe Marcella and finally has his dream restaurant. And the food is hands down the best dish in town. I carried out the evening with a baby back rib appetizer and rabit entre that needed no knife. Alan and I carried on a crazy conversation about absolute awkward boobies that had me blowing pinot out my nose. A night of wine dining and good laughs at Carry's capped off the Friday.

Saturday. Well, nothing really happened on SaturDAY but at night we hooked up the lights out front and had a horse shoe tournament in the front yard. We had a couple lanterns out there, some headlamps, and a couple pro lighting fixtures that Marc brought over. We looked damn good out there.

The plan was to stay in and hermit-out but that didn't happen and we were off to the races at CB's. My new favorite waitress this month down there is Jessica. Big shout out to the beautiful lady that presented me with so many RBV's that there was no other option but to dance off the energy at the 409. And goodness gracious we did. E King and I got the gueetar out and hooked up the coffee-shop rock for a small crowd out back. I love spitten those words and had no idea I could really do anything like that until Eric brought the phat beats on the axe...again.

It was nice to see all the fresh and familiar faces out and about living it up at the red house. Buddies were being made and friendships confirmed all around. I played GolfTalk with Dadadee Deedee Dresti that had me laugh/crying and did a summer salt type roll through a moving hoola hoop in the living room...it doesn't get much better than that. Oh and some cuties showing off there skillz.

So I gotta say it was a good weekend all around. Good job guys. I heart all your pretty little faces.

Yup that's Nate. Right there. A Nate siting.

Back in the Saddle

This summer has been awesome. Hands down, chalk full, brimming with awesome and I owe it all to the holmies, the house and the plethera of vacationing that has gone on. But I seem to have gotten off my life-goal path and the last couple weeks have been spent re-aligning with my navigational beacons.

The 409 lost a legend last month when Christopher Maxwell Benson moved on to bigger and better things, but picked up off waivers was Cdub and a man among men he is. We still have a few details to kink out with getting him settled at the Red House but it's been smooth (and long) sailing for the transition. So I gotta a good pace and I'm riding high in the saddle.

Damn, do I have anything interesting to say?

The 5-0 came by the other day and presented me with a little red card with some rules and things on it. Basically the jist of this card is "I'm the kiss of death to your parties and thou shalt cease and desist all cool activities."

Well, that was Thursday and Saturday was a rip-roaring good time at the 409 but JohnnyCop didn't think so. I think we got away with one and the strategy is to shut the windows and keep Mel off the front porch. All things considered we should be fined. I mean fine. :) Mel I'm totally kidding.

Brandon B had the best time of his life. Austin some how managed a sharp picture here but was almost in as bad a shape as the guy next to him. It's always a good show when you got a guy passed out on the couch and beauties dancing on the table right next to him. American girls, ahhhh...

Brandon and Austin...Best Friends

And furthermore, Monday Night was just as fun at the house I spent the majority of the first half of the Dallas/Philly game trying to inform my good friend Shawn Sheehan that I was pulling for Dallas out of tradition and was in no way switching to his darkside. Shawn being Shawn thinkgs that rooting for a team on a one-off basis means I'm forever a Dallas fan. Negative. Shawn is clearly delusional and doesn't know himself why he cheers for Romo and the boys. The night took off into the realm of radness when Mel came over with the Yellow Fin.

First off, I forgot to mention that Curtis is running around the house in a stressball trying to move, organize, shift, build everything he can to get his room settled, so my cooking area was minized into standing in one spot and turning in a circle to go from the chopping block to the stove. SIDE NOTE: Moving and packing is probably the shitiest time ever :END SIDE NOTE It was a tight squeeze. Anyways, for those folks stumped on the hierarchy of tuna, Yellow Fin fall into the category of 'my favorite' but is one step down from Blue Fin tuna as far as sashimi goes. I whipped up a teriyaki, wasabi, ginger, chili sauce and whala! Feasted with the fingers.

Mel cooked up some slammin' chicken drums in her signature ChakaKhan sauce. I probably had 8 drumsticks and a whole side of yellow fin for dinner and a couple glasses of charnoday to smooth everything out and melt in to the couch.

As far as the State of John's Union, its gravy - tasty, smooth and good on everything. I have the best boss in the world and I'm gearing up to make the plundge into the inside sales job I have been hunting since joining EMC in August of last year. I've worked hard for this gig and I am standing at the presipous of my future. But I do that everyday, no big thang!

The Labor Day Story

This is my first big absence from this den of documentation that I've taken and since last visit I've expelled a ton of energy over a plethera of amazing adventures. None more memorable, or lack of memory, than Tahoe Labor Day '08. It's the same core group of guys that fired off the first annual way back in Chico - it all happend like this...

Way back in 2003 or 2, when beers were $2.00 and progressives were something done at Riley's on a Thursday night, Labor Day had turned stale for us hooligans. Floating the river with thousands of people and having a mud fight only did it for a few years (Honestly, the most exciting part of the day is finding a way back to town from the river.)
Anyway, I believe it all started on Luke's couch at the legendary 602 6th/Hazel house. They had finally gotten fed up with the mud and came up with the idea to party barge, and no we're not crashing house parties here,you nerd-types. This is an all out assault on Labor Day @ Lake Oroville.

Year one included one limo, one boat, one keg, one cd...pretty much one of everything. Year two we hit a growth spurt and brouth the outta-towners in for the weekend for some time-of-life experiences. Two limos, Two boats, 4 kegs, but again one cd. Who's perfect in their second year anyways? We brought it hard at the bar in the marina playing liars dice with the local town representatives and held the libation down while Hunter patiently waited for the rigs.

Now to be clear on what the rig is, it is a floating shitter with a bbq on it. It's got a few other bells, like a cd player and a rope, but basically it's a floating outhouse. That doesn't mean they are a ton of fun - you get some women and some legends dancing out on the front of that thing and it starts to flood over the bow, then you really have a party.

The early years sure got crazy, but we were just getting our feet wet and the word annual was gettin' thrown around knowing full well some of us had graduation coming up thus the end of career training.

But it was now time to get serious. By now, there are many return patrons every year to this group and missing out on Labor Day really isn't an option. The plan switched to a meeting of the legends in Jones Valley on Lake Shasta. It was the beginning of the Aquaholics and the start of what might be 'the greatest time ever spent by people once a year'. Lynn came correct with the drinks, Luke and I dialed out the daily maintenance and Block took care of the driving. Mj manned the other vessel with a strong crew included a mix of Chicoans, and old friends from the day. Everyone will always remember the 3rd and 4th sets on the beach from the killer guitar picking and beautiful vocals.

To be totally honest, all this round did was show us what we were really capable of, and in 2007, it was lights, camera, Action! for 4 days/3 nights on the Jones Valley Escapades.

I don't know what else to say except watch the videos, but I'll try to scramble some words around to make a picture. Basically we took ever good thing about the trip and made it better. Details.

• If you're going to bring beer, use a jockey box.


• If you're going to bring booz, buy by the case.


• If you music, bring the sweetest ipod player ever and 8 ipods.


• If you're going to have a camera, film a music video.


• And last but not least, wherever Labor Day is there must be a jacuzzi.

check out that outfit.

These are just a few of the key details that made this trip the best-to-date. Marc Permagrinfilms.com Donahue makes mean videos and Conor and LD outdid themselves and became internet celebrities. Our theme was the pirates taking over the lake and take over we did. I think the best way to explain this trip is an anecdote about when we tried to meet people on the lake...someone got on someone's phone and said they had some co-workes that had a houseboat on the lake too, so we picked a spot to meet them on the lake. We finally connect and the boat finds us and is approaching, they get close and a good look at us and all of the sudden they threw it in full reverse and took off. Don't want none a these pirates. I guess it was the costumes, fun, themed out boat slash best time ever that scared them (some just are not ready) Oh well, they missed out. BonBon came correct with his various outfits of the trip, my personal favorite being the pink cowboy get up.

Well I'm getting tired of writing so to this year's trip, we had to go to plan B. Shasta is a dump right now and is a puddle, so we quickly pulled together a trip to Lake Tahoe at a nice house in Dollar Point. The jacuzzi overlooked the lake and the fun didn't stop all weekend. All the usuals, dancing, fraternizing, addy-pursing...yea, that's right addy-pursing. Is there a problem?

Best time ever had in a casino happened on this trip. We lit the dealer up for a good hour. We had her surrounded. Entire table staying on 12 and 13 and watching the dealer blow a 6 skyhigh. Sitting at home was miss kelly and she came through in the clutch to knock the dealer on her ass and make us a little money to blow at a later time. There was a rippin' good band playing at the Bilty that night and this guy wielded an ax as good as anyone I've ever seen. Rourke danced with every girl in the place and LD was dancing with himself in the mirror at one point. I tried to take a picture but it didn't come out all that great and it's stuck on my phone, so maybe I'll figure that out later.

here is LD dancing with himself in the mirror. told you it was a bad pic

The journey was excellant. Some of the smarter members elected to stay Monday night. We got pickled for Rourke's birthday that his parents had forgotten about and then took in a movie, 2 cheeseburgers, mac n cheese with hot dogs, slice of pepperoni pizza, watermelon slice, an It's It, and a sleeve of Mamba's. Oh yea. and another sleeve of cinnamon crumble donuts with milk. I still wasn't right Tuesday at work. That right there will tell a story.

Yea, then I saw Willie Nelson and had a kick ass time with my ol man. We bro'd down hard on the veranda at Mountain Winery and I heard the prettiest voice in the world open for Willie. But thats if from the couch at 409. I gotta run cuz I needs to lace up my super f'n radical new SBs, SON!!!!!