The Canyon Behind Them

Last night I was swept away to a house in the Los Gatos Hills located on the backside of Kennedy with a beautiful view of blossom and Almaden Valley. The Spanish style house was comfy from the entry way to the back patio and the people inside warmed it up with some homemade lasagna, wine and some stereotyping in good humor.

The property is Susanne's and she is a peach. She's been in Los Gatos too long to pull the roots out now and her hospitality is pure and pleasant...but I'm getting ahead of myself. We're not even in her house!

This Spanish place we were in belonged to Nanette, a neat lady with plenty of dogs, cheer, space, horses, and a donkey named Mr. Bigg. Max and Kim invited the 409ers up to Nanettes, but soon after the 10 bottles of Chardonnay had been rung out, we headed up to Susanne's compound which resembles falling down the rabbit hole.

We tasted a few more bottles of wine, lit up some xmas lights and wore them, and Susanne' and Melissa put on a pseudo-SNL skit in the kitchen critiquing the Los Gatos Weekly and the gentry that grace its pages.

Max and I were on a different stomp and headed out to his soon-to-be complete cottage overlooking a beautiful canyon lined with the stars of Orion, a nearly full-moon sporting a rainbow orb and the spackled stars down in the AV. We brought the drums out to his patio, got a little comfy, and jammed the drums to the rhythm in our minds. Max plays some next level shit and I just try to keep up. But we soon had the ladies out on the patio dancing under the dark sky and keeping with life's beat.

You may not remember but I broke my camera about a month ago and am limited to the shit camera on my blackberry. I didn't get anything to come out up there and prolly don't want any pics of the shenanigans in the house, but the words will suffice for this night.

So we're invited back next week and I believe there is some sort of Chimenea planned. I think that is LG Commune language for outdoor fire.

There are some gems I respectfully withhold about this little community that are for those that may be so lucky to pay a visit to this wonderland. But I can tell you that you've never seen shit like this before and the calming serenity of the joint sticks to your soul and offers up a piece of it you rarely get to touch.

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!!!!!

Boats, Booz, Babes, Baunach

What a weekend, and damn-it-all if I didn't have a knee shaken good time. Unfortunately, I broke my camera taking pics with people I really wasn't all that excited about snapping killer shots with. Mid-photo shoot, wouldn't you know, the picture box falls off the tv from the thumping bass beats in the house and crash!! ...done son.

So I leave it to the writing to carry this one. We'll get to last Thursday and making out with a fish when I'm able to get the pictures up, but in the meantime we can blast through the weekend's activity sheet.

Friday was supposed to be a walk in the park. There turned out to be some good crack down at Joe's Northend on the patio, and George and JoAnne came through with the music cranking on the veranda. Mel, Baunach and I rocked it olds school while Johnny Blaze was in town for a brief stay - he's been squatting in a shanty in Boston crushing life for a while and it was good to have the legend back in the game. So laughter, glee, flirts, and blue moon's were abundant and someone, I think me, said dance party...and off we went to the 409 for some good time. Us JB's had to stop at "the shittiest Safeway in the world" for some libation juice when upon my shoulder I felt such rattle, and I turned to my right, to see what was a matter. When out of my eye there comes a big douchebag asshole who feels he should buy his booze before me. So we talked for a while, you know, about politics, the economy, our families, and the fact that he is really a girl, and then we parted ways with words of grace closure spewing from both parties...and to the dancefloor.

It was a hoot. I had already pulled a quad Thursday night but the dancefloor was red hot - I think a couple girls even kissed each other a little bit. Well we tow' it up all night long and the night ended how it started - Mel and I kickin' it real on the 409 stoop. Started to get bright, so we shimmied through the last half of Meridian Chardonnay and hit the sack for the morning.
I didn't really complete a thought until Sunday about noon, and when I did it was good. I had a great one - Go to the lake and swim ...amazing. It's so simple.

Alright, I managed to make it not so simple and got some buddies out there to Anderson just to have Ranger Rick's son tell me I needed a boat registration to play - it was the first real time in my life I thought about bribing someone. Well, I didn't and left gracefully thanking the young lad for his help.

We ended up just slugging a few budweiser and tecate bottles shoreside and the ipod was music to my ears - obvi. The day was not lost and the glass half full says that I got to have a couple beers that I wouldn't had been able to enjoy had I launched the boat and had to drive, so I had that going for me.(How many times did I just say 'had'? Stupid writing) Bottomline, we had fun and will try to squeeze out as many of these lake trips (preferebly with getting in the water) as I can until weather puts a damper on my parade.

I'm going to squander this right here and leave saying the Olympics were off the hinges awesome this year - good job and good-bye atheletes of the world. Beijing did an impressive job to make us forget about Tibet, no freedom of speech and an economy with 50% + make less that 2 dolla a day. But they can throw one hell of a party and build some pretty amazing structures, soooo....yea, no further comment.
Since I got no pics for the post I am just going to find a random picture on the drive and see what happens.

Somewhere in a cave in the swiss alps.

Taking It To The Next Level

One should always be progressing. If your not, you're either stale or digressing. So I took my lesson with Jack on the road to Peacock Gap up in San Rafael this weekend with my cohorts from the CITY in tricks, wisecracks, corona and golf.

Place is beautiful. I'm sure some of that was the optimal conditions and the appearance of Conor Kelly at the final hour...I should have lifted the seat and fixed the governor with a golf tee to grab CK out of the parking lot. It would have helped me get to a better time quicker. Well the good time wasn't that far off and right out the gate we poured on the wisecracks, tricks and foolery.

Conor and I roll up on the first tee where Luke is enlightening an asshole standing on our box that it's our tee box and to go kick rocks in the parking lot...GFY guy in the red shirt... all this while Lionel Richie's All Night Long pumped out of our golf cart. It was a fun scene to the play.
Started off medium and warmed up for a +4 on the front nine.

Well the Marin jerks continued to pester us all over the course and soon we have the beginning of act two. We're a strong foursome with solid golfers all the way around - Nic Seegs, Lucas H and the Kelly. A twosome of Judge Smails' son and his escort would like to say a few welcoming words to us from Marin. This jerk, from standing in a bunker starring at an 8 foot face says, "Hey you guys mind if we play through?"

"Sure, man. No problem"

"Yea, because you guys are playing crazy slow." This nerd said crazy slow - tried to be impressive with something cool and it came out retarded.

Well it was open season on the jokes for these two spoon fed 30 year-olds and we let it rip. This guy got a GFY comment out of someone, and a few hurry up and get the hell out of the ways. The assmunch goes for the tips and ducks one so far left we had to laugh directly in his face and compliment his well played shot. I believe the message was loud and clear. Those two dorks should prolly find red shirt guy and beat it.

Well, besides some solid, back-to-back, 50 foot puts by Luke and some other shots I can't remember, I shot 7 over on the back 9 with putting two balls in water so I was pleased with the 82 11-over.

Lukedog talking in some one's back swing, imagine that. But still somehow making it look good.

Much fun had and a big thanks to Lionel, Skynard, Sue Jorge, Keller Williams and the rest. Then parted ways with big smiles and big impressions. I mean to brag here and the four of us may not beat another four on the course, but we bust the fun meter while they drag the bottom. Good talk, we'll see ya' out there. True story.

Can this course look any better. answer: No. Not with Marin folk.