Shelter

Check out the movie Shelter

Forced to give up his dreams of art school, Zach spends his days working a dead-end job and helping his needy sister care for her son. In his free time he surfs, draws and hangs out with his best friend, Gabe, who lives on the wealthy side of town. When Gabe’s older brother, Shaun, returns home, he is drawn to Zach’s selflessness and talent. Zach falls in love with Shaun while struggling to reconcile his own desires with the needs of his family

Can I Use a Figure 8?

Another adventure filled week in the life of Cj B! Wow. Sometimes it amazes me how much my life has changed in the last year. How much I’ve accomplished in the last two years. Just wow.

I’m sitting here trying to remember everything that I did this week. I hung out with Jason Monday night. I think that’s the night that we ended up with a little party on our hands and drank 6 bottles of wine between 5 of us. Tons of fun. It was Vince, Me, The fiancee, Jason and Kris. It started out with just Jason and I making dinner together and being ungodly cute! lol Then Vince and Fiancee showed up and then Kris. We all sat around the kitchen table from 7ish to 11ish just talking. I love that I have a group of friends who can do that.

Tuesday was alright. I had this date with a latin guy, he gets here and asks for $10 for gas! WTF! Either way we hung out and watched this movie called The Orphanage it was in Spanish and it’s about this girl who was adopted from an orphanage, then goes back years later, buys the place and tries to open it as a place for handicap kids. It was VERY VERY good. I highly suggest the movie… NOT the date though!

Wed I went to this stupid backpacking clinic at REI. I mean it was nice if you had never been camping before, but I was expecting it to be a little bit more about actual BACKPACKING. Which I haven’t done in forever, so I was hoping to get a little refresher. I did not enjoy it. I think I went to bed pretty early that night.

Thursday I had my final checkup with the doctor for my ankle, so that was good. He said everything looks fine and to expect pain for the next 3-4 months when doing strenuous things. After that I went out with this guy Justin and we worked out. He’s uber buff, so I figured he’d be a great person to work out with. Which he was. A a little awk and very very flamy, but very buff and I was very sore the next day. I’ll probably keep trying to work out with him.

Friday I got home and went Kayaking with Kris up in Marina Del Ray, we had another great time up there and were out on the water for nearly 2.5 hours. Tons and tons of fun! We sat out in the ocean and watched the sunset again, words cannot describe. I wish I had a water proof camera. Got done with that, drove home, showered and then we went out to dinner at this mexican place. We drank a pitcher of margaritas, ate food and talked. Got done with that and went back to his place where we drank another pitcher of margaritas! 🙂 What a night!

Saturday I got up and Kris came over, we sat out on the porch, drank our breakfast and then decided what to do. Ended up driving to Malibu and going hiking at this place called Winding Way Such a pretty hike! After we were done with that we spent a few hours at the beach, drove home and got dinner. I came home after that and watched this movie called Valintine. It was a little slow, but I liked it overa all.

Sunday was the typical rock climbing. We did Devil’s Punch bowl again. We didn’t start the day out very good though. First my trailing rope got ALL fucked up and I had to undo that shit, then the lead climber got up to a belay station and all of a sudden we hear “clink…. clink….. clinkk…. clinkk…. thud” and then the guy yells out, “Can we use a figure 8!”. He had dropped the belay device! Which is essential! Thank god he found an extra one on his gear! It only took us 1.5 hours this time to climb up, then we rapped down and climbed back up a different route called “Slot machine”. I decided to be crazy and carry my gear up it! Tons and tons of fun! After that JoErick and I decided to race out of the bottom of the punchbowl. Oh my god, bad idea! about 20 pounds of gear, 110 degrees, and very steep trail up. My ankle is KILLING me right now.

We ate at Charlie Browns again. If you live anywhere in the SoCal Area. YOU MUST STOP HERE for food sometime. I HIGHLY suggest the Rodeo Sandwhich! It’s DELICIOUS! And for $6.95, you can’t fucking BEAT it!

I just got home and am going to just crash on the couch now. I may or may not have a date tonight. I haven’t decided if I will go or not. I’m very tired.

Pictures from the weekend are here.

Apple, You Are Losing Me!

Another crazy busy week/weekend! Let’s see. Thursday I had a date, which went pretty good. The guy is Latino and a little different, but we had fun. Went to dinner, talked about random things, had a bottle of wine and watched a movie. He was a nice guy, but probably a bit to immature for me still. We’re going to hang out again on Tuesday, but he’ll probably end up just being friends if anything.

Friday I was at work and did a full day of work. Left at 4:30 and stopped by the Apple Store. STILL no fucking iPhone! Very annoying. I wrote a nasty letter to Steve Jobs. Jerk! Left the Apple store a little after 5 and receive an email from the Boss…

Can you make sure that the subject laptop is configured with Produce Pro and MS Office 2003? Please leave the administrative codes and laptop and charger on Mac’s desk by end of the day tomorrow (Saturday). Mac will pick up the laptop on his way to the airport on Sunday AM. I understand it may not have been clear to you that Mac’s laptop was needed by Sunday AM. Your support is appreciated.

What a mess!Umm, excuse me! You have been talking about this whole laptop switch around for WEEKS. NEVER ONCE! NEVER! Did you ever say that the laptop which was replaced by a new one was going to Peru! And NEVER ONCE did you say that it needed to be COMPLETED by Sunday.

Let’s step back for a second. Weeks ago, we ordered 4 new laptops. ONE of them was for Peru, the other three for internal people. I got them all and ONE of the people getting a new Laptop had an OLD one. He was supposed to bring the old one in for me LAST MONDAY so that I could transfer all his shit onto the new one. He didn’t bring it to me till 11am on FRIDAY! When he handed it to me, he never ONCE mentioned anything about it needed to go to Peru on Sunday! UGH! So I called the boss and reamed him a new one! I was VERY annoyed. He kept saying that he had left it in this other guys hands to let me know, blah blah blah. NO YOU were the one managing this laptop change, YOU should have told me that this was going to happen. Then I go on to bitch about how this is NOT an emergency etc. UGH!

So anyways, after that Kris and I went Kayaking for about 2 hours. We got out there and just sat in the water for about 30 minutes watching the sunset. It was sooooo gorgeous! Once the sun was past the horizon, we paddled back and got back to his place about 8. Showered and then headed up to my office to pick up the laptop shit, found a REALLY great Persian place around the corner and ate dinner there then came back and we drank while I reformatted the laptop’s hard drive.

ALSO, with the laptop. I found 14 GIGS of straight porn on there. I have no idea what I should do with this information! LOL

Kris and I parted ways about 2am, but I couldn’t sleep at all, probably from all the caffeine in the pop we were drinking! So I laid in bed and chatted on the phone with this guy. He was nice, and really hot (in his pics), but sounds REALLY girly! I think I got to sleep about 4 am… And then my alarm went off at 6am, then the neighbors started talking really loudly and playing guitar about 6:45am, then someone knocked on my door about 7ish and then my phone rang at 7:30. I decided that the world was against my sleeping, so I got up, ran around and did some shit and then called Kris about 9. We went furniture shopping, I spent $300 at REI on climbing gear and we dropped off the laptop at the office. Did some other random shit and got home about 2:30, took a quick nap, showered and the picked Kris up again. We headed out to the LA Arboretum to meet up with Sirin and her mom. We ate dinner at the Arboretum, had some wine and then Kris and I went and walked around. It was right at sunset so the place was absolutely beautiful, and technically everything was “Off Limits” and closed, so we were the only ones walking around the gardens!

The concert was pretty good. The last two songs were not my favorites, but the rest of the songs were just amazing! And they had this really good pianist/violin player named Ayke Agus! She was amazing! Got home from that about 11:30 and crashed!

Sunday I got up at 5am and headed out to Rock Climbing. We did more lead climbing this week and did some pretty easy/difficult stuff. Most of the route was 5.5/5.4 so not to bad. The first 20 feet was even a class 4 (which means “a fire escape without hand rails”). Anyways, Jerry and I were climbing and then Jason, JoErick and George on the other one. Jerry and I would climb up to a belay station and then wait for the rest of the guys. At the first station we had about 2 inches of ledge to stand on and for some reason it took them nearly an hour to get up to it, so I was standing there on just my tip-toes the whole time. We had a really great time climbing, the last bit of the climb was nearly a 5.10 and Jerry took a pretty good lead climb fall and went probably 10-15 feet down. I was belaying him and got ripped off my feet and slammed into the rock wall. Thankfully I got my feet out in front of me fast enough and broke off a chunk of rock where my feet hit! It was funny after it happened because I remember seeing out of the side of my eyes everyone else on the belay station grabbing for my harness!

Once we got off there we headed out to Charlie Browns again for lunch. I had this HUGE BBQ sandwich that had Pork, Chicken and Tri-Tip on it! Delicious! I love that place! We also discussed more the next few weeks and since Tahquitz is in Idyllwild, I decided to just make it a long weekend up there. So I booked a camping site up there and sent out a group request. We’ll see how many people reply! I hope we can get enough people to go. It’s Labor day weekend, so I realize a lot of people will be busy/out of town. But I just took the chance.

Got home about 4:30, showered, did a load of laundry, vacuumed, did the dishes and then Kris and I went grocery shopping, came back to my place and watched a few episodes of Rome. Very good stuff.

And that was my crazy busy weekend! 🙂

PS. That laptop that I worked so much on fixing… Still sitting on the guy’s fucking desk!

Wine, Concerts and Climbing!

What a freaking week! I didn’t even have a night at home till FRIDAY!

So Monday, I worked. Nothing exciting there. Projects are going great. I got a call from our Argentina employee saying he couldn’t get onto the VPN. I had him send me a pic of his setup and it was ALL blank! So since I have never done the setup here, I sent username/password information request to our old contractor… I also left for about 2 hours in the middle of the day to go to my personal trainer, since I missed him because of staying at the office till 3am Sunday/Monday morning… I got an email half way through the work out saying “Chris, call me when you get back”. Ugh, annoying! So I call the boss when I get back into the office RIGHT when I told him I would be back. “Yeah, just wanted to let you know everything is working OK”. WTF!? asshole! I swear he’s just calling to check up on me. Arg!

That night I got home after picking up my cute new outfit from Zara. I’ll have to take a pic of me in it! It’s adorable! Anyways, got home and ate then went over to Jason’s and we went to HomoDepot and LesbiLowes! Lots of fun! We went back to his place, drank some wine and watched TV.

Tuesday was more of the same at work, again nothing exciting. Lots and lots of projects! I can’t say that enough! Went to the gym that night and worked out, came home, ate dinner and then was going to go to Marina but ended up at Jason’s instead. Kris joined and we drank, talked and watched some movie. Erick RANDOMLY showed up at the door which was VERY AWK! I hate that he does that.

Wed work work work! I got another call from the Argentina guy and AGAIN requested the information from our former contractor. After work I went to the gym, then met up with Christian for dinner and we went out to see Jon McLaughlin in concert. He’s so great! And dreamy! haha. Got home late from that.

Thursday was more work. AGAIN went over to Jason’s for the evening. He packed, we chatted and watched Rock Haven. Very good!

Friday I got ANOTHER call from the Argentina guy AND one from his boss. So I CALLED our old contractor’s CEO and asked for the information. He simply said, “Talk to your boss.” So I call my boss, “Yeah, all requests like that need to be approved by me.” Ummmmmm. EXCUSE ME!? Why did you NOT tell me this before! This guy has been WAITING ALL FUCKING WEEK for this information! UGH! So I started bitching at him about this shows he doesn’t trust me to do my job and how he hired me to do something and I can’t do it with this sort of shit going on. Obviously not in those terms. And he was like, “Well I just like to be kept in the loop”. EXCUSE me! In the loop means that you get like a weekly report or something, NOT having to approve EVERY FUCKING THING That I do! UGH! I was very annoyed. So THEN I started running an audit on shit, only to find out that he’s been having our former contractor going in and doing shit on the systems. EXCUSE me?! That is supposed to be MY FUCKING JOB! So on Monday I am going to confront him about this shit. It’s unacceptable.

That night I AT LAST got a night alone! It felt soooooo great. I watched Life After All. Amazing French movie. I just lounged around on the couch, and cuddled with the cats! excellent! 🙂

Got up early Saturday morning and took the car in for 15,000 mile service. Got home from that at like 10 and watched another French movie called Wild Reeds. Also very excellent. I love French boys, why is the one at the Crepe place up the street not gay! He’s sooo cute! He looks very much like Serge in the movie that I watched. I wish I could go skinny dipping with him! 🙂

That night I had a date.. What a freaking mess! I was about ready to call it off when we were on the phone talking about what to do. I told him I lived by Riviera Village. He was like, “That’s not RB, that’s Torrance, people there just think it’s better to say RB” blah blah blah. Well I’m sorry, my fucking ADDRESS is RB! Therefore I LIVE in RB! Asshole. I wish I had just canceled it. We went bowling, he paid for an hour, we were there for 50 minutes. He cut his finger on the ball, he kept dropping it, he didn’t break 60. Then he spent like 15 minutes arguing with the manager because we were only there for 50 minutes, so he wanted his 10 dollars back. UGH! Very annoying. Fucking lawyers.

Big Rock @ Lake PerrisGot home and chatted with a few people then went to bed.

Sunday morning I got up at 5 and drove out to Big Rock at Lake Perris. Amazing climbing! We started off with a 150 foot lead climb. Got up to the top and setup a top rope. We had three total climbs setup and then these two hot guys showed up… And right behind were their kids! 🙁 The one guy was UBER hot and took his shirt off and had nipple rings! YuM! AAnnnnnywaaaays! I did the 150 foot climb twice and then did a 100foot climb once. By that time my ankle was not hurting, but getting very swollen so decided to just lay off it. The other guys did another shorter but harder route. I am very annoyed with my ankle it needs to get better!

We talked about the upcoming weeks and it sounds like TONs of fun! Next weekend we are going to go back to Devils Punchbowl again and then we’re going to go up to the base camp at Whitney and then the next weekend do a 1,000 foot climb!! I am so excited! 🙂

After the climbing we went to Mission Inn and had a 2 hour brunch with Champagne! YAY! Very delicious!!

I am excited for the next week. Should be more relaxing and shit.

Pictures from Rock Climbing are here.

Midnight @ Work…

It’s Midnight, Sunday. I am at work…. I have been here since 7pm. UGH!

This weekend has been very very fun. Thursday night I went over to Jason’s house and hung out with him and Steve. We ate at Seashore, drank wine and chatted and had a great time. Friday I worked and then did the gym, after that Kris came over and we watched a The Trip and drank some and chatted. He left about 1am and then the 18-year-old came over. We made out on the couch, watched movies and chatted till 5am. No sex. 🙁 He spent the night. Got up at 7am to drive him to work, came home and changed and went kayaking with Kris. We went all the way from RB Pier down to PV. It was a great trip and we got pretty far out!

I got home from that at 2ish, napped for 30 minutes and then showered and went to eat dinner with Sirin and one of her friends. We had an enjoyable time even though I was very very sleepy. Left dinner and Sirin and I went to the CalPhil. Had a really great night there! Again, I was EXHAUSTED, but I enjoyed the music. Rodgers and Hammerstein was the theme for the night. I was dozing off during some of the music, but it was honestly very lovely to doze off to the CalPhil! I could do that every night! Got home from that at midnight and crawled in bed and crashed.

Got up at 5am this morning, came into work, shut down all the servers and then went home and crashed in bed till 10:30! Woot for sleeping in! Got up and cleaned my apartment which was in desperate need of that. Then I met up with Sirin and Kris and we went to see Mamma Mia. Honestly, not as good as I was hoping, but still wonderful! We sang during the parts we knew.

I have been really contemplating buying a DLSR lately. I really want to start taking some better shots of life. I think it’d be fun! Actually, I want to buy a lot of things. A new couch, a gun, a camera, a new TV. If only I were rich!

Ok. The Tech guy is here, I must go… Hopefully I will be in bed by 2am!