sirin – Chris' Site

Road Closed, Record Lows, Plan D!

20 miles, 9 hours, 4,000 foot elevation gain, 24 hours of NO PEOPLE, roads closed, snow, record lows, having to go with Plan D! All Priceless! 🙂

Wow, what a weekend. It all started on Thursday night when we decided to have a last minute Pumpkin Pie party. So Sirin, Kris, and Jason all came over to my house and we baked a pumpkin pie, sat around talking and drinking wine! What a great night! It was Sirin’s last weekend in her apartment! :'(

Friday I got up early and headed to work got a TON of stuff done before everyone else showed up and then headed out to Santa Monica for a meeting. Had a great meeting there with a new contractor and then changed and off to Fresno to pick up Nick. Got there about 2:30ish and off to Yosemite. We get to the main gate at 4:20 and the wilderness office in Wawona closed at 4:30, so we booked it down there and get there just as they were about to close, thankfully Nick knew the girls in the office so they were very very helpful, sadly they JUST closed Tioga road up to the Meadows a few minutes before we got there! We ask them to give us a permit for that area anyways and we’ll just hope that they open the road in the morning.

On our way down to the valley it starts snowing pretty good and we stop a few times, pick up some supplies because Nick forgot all his food at home, found the Backpackers campground, setup camp and then headed to the Lodge for dinner. My hottie desk clerk was still working there from this spring! Yum! I got to talk to him this time too! 🙂 After dinner we headed back to the campsite, made a fire and sat around talking for a few hours.

Saturday morning we get up, pack up and head to the Wilderness office, find out that Tioga road was STILL closed and they weren’t expecting it to open till after 1 or 2pm. Glacier road was closed as well, but they were expecting it to open around 10am. So we get a new wilderness permit for some hiking along glacier. We were just going to hike along the rim of the valley and camp up there. So we putz around the valley some more and then head up to Glacier road. Get there right at 10 and the road is still closed. We talk to the ranger at the gate and he said he wasn’t expecting it to open till 1 or 2 now. We didn’t want to wait around just to find out it won’t open at all, etc. So we dig out the map and start looking for alternatives. Finally decide to head out to Hetch Hetchy.

On the drive up there we stop at Tioga road just to check and it was STILL closed, we ran into a guy that we had met at the wilderness office and talk to him for a couple minutes then continue our drive up to Hetch Hetchy. Get there and get a new wilderness permit for the trail we had decided on up to Miguel Meadows. The rangers were very helpful and told us that even though EVERYONE was coming up to that area now that the other two were closed we were the ONLY people getting permits for our trail. GREAT news! So we finally get hiking about 1pm and it was just wonderful out there. By 2pm we were up the trail pretty good and we saw the last of the people we’d see for the next 24 hours! It was wonderful! We get up to the top of the ridge and come across this sign that says we’d already gone 4 miles! Crazy! We really booked it up the first part. So we slowed down from there as we hiked through the meadows.

About 4 we came across an abandoned ranger cabin and decided to put down camp there for the night. We dropped off our gear and explored the area a little bit then headed a few more miles into the park to get to Lake Eleanor. It was about 8 miles round trip to the lake edge and back and only 5 miles to the lake over look. Sadly I was getting a HUGE blister on my foot so we had to turn around. Got back to our camp site and gathered some wood and started a nice big fire, ate dinner and then sat around talking about anything and everything the rest of the night! The cabin/shed provided a GREAT wind barrier because we camped in between them, I’m glad we did too cause it would have been FREEZING even more if we hadn’t had that barrier, you could hear the winds howling pretty damn good! The forecast was for gusts to 50mph!

Crawled into the sleeping bag about 9pm and I went straight to sleep. I had my mummy bag completely closed up so my entire body was all the way inside the bag. The overnight low was around 15 degrees! About 4am I woke up and because my bag had come open a little bit and my nose was FREEZING. Nick was awake as well so we talked a bit and then watched the starts! Sooooooo beautiful! Shooting stars everywhere. I got a little bit freaked out there for a bit though cause I kept hearing branches breaking and stuff! lol. Fell back asleep and woke up again around 7am. Sat in the bag for a while because it was so cold outside. Eventually got up, broke down camp, ate breakfast, explored the area a little more and found that there was an old barn not to far from us, then headed back to the car.

It was so sad heading back that way. I wanted to just keep hiking farther and farther back into the park! We didn’t see a single person till we got back down to the base of the trailhead. It was so sad seeing those first people again! LOL. Got back to the car and headed back to Fresno.

The drive back to Fresno was really nice, stopped into Wawona again and talked to the wilderness permit people again found out that Tioga road was STILL closed and never opened and that Glacier point had JUST opened Sunday morning so it’s a very good thing that we didn’t just sit around and wait for them to open. Though I do kinda wish we had got there before Tioga had closed, we would still be stuck up there! How fun would that be! lol.

Got back to Fresno, dropped Nick off and then headed back to LA. It was so sad driving home! 🙁 When I arrived home Sirin had left her lights on and her windows open, I saw her apartment all empty and was sad that she was gone now!

Overall it turned out to be a GREAT weekend up in Yosemite and I can’t wait to do another trip soon!

Yosemite Here I come!

Oh my, what’s up with this! I really suck at updating ya’ll! Oh well.

Things have been really busy lately. This past weekend I left home at 7am and didn’t get home till midnigt on Saturday. Then Sunday I just hung around all day.

Saturday I finally got the windows tinted in the G35! Yay. It’s so sexy now. At first I was scared that it was too dark, but now that I am used to it, I wish that I had got the back darker! Oh well, it’s still really sexy! 🙂

After that I went shopping at Target and then met up with JoErick to do some rock climbing at this gym. The guy running the place was HOT HOT HOT! Oh my god! We did some great climbing but JoErick dislocated his shoulder as we were doing some bouldering right before leaving. TOo bad for him! From there I headed to REI and spent WAY to much fucking money. But i bought this really cute Down jacket and a matching rain jacket. I wasn’t planning on buying any of that stuff YET, but they are having a HUGE fall sale AND it snowed 12 inches in Yosemite this past weekend… Did I mention that I’m going backpacking in Yosemite this upcoming weekend?!

Anyways, that REI didn’t have all the stuff that I wanted, so I headed to the other one which DID have what I needed. Picked that up and then went to dinner with the Aunt and Uncle. Crazy times.

Sunday I cleaned my apartment and helped Sirin move some shit to her new house. It’s SOOO cute! I wish that I could buy a house!

Umm, so Monday I worked and lots of annoying shit was going on as per normal! Freaking boss man is STILL authorizing purchases even AFTER I yelled at him last week about doing that! There was some other stuff too, but it was very annoying. Headed to the gym after that where Kacey proceeded to KILL me! Though I did do one armed push ups for the first time! yay!

So yes, this upcoming weekend I’ll be headed back to Yosemite for the second time this year. I’m very excited for it, but also very scared because of the snow! We’ll seeeeee

Dad’s Visit!

It’s been a pretty drama filled weekend around here, but lots of fun.

Last week at work was crazy as usual. Friday I had a demo with this company that FINALLY has their shit together.. Sad thing is, it’s a product from MICROSOFT! I can’t believe I am saying this, but I really really like this software called Dynamics! For once it appears that Microsoft has got something done right! I am setting up a full 8 hour demo for later this month after I am back from Phoenix. I was supposed to leave at noon but this guy’s Outlook kept crashing on him. Gee, I wonder why, could it be because you have 5 Gigabytes worth of email stored on your computer!?!!? WHO needs that much fucking email saved!?! I got out at 1:30 and had some stupid conference to go to.

Got home that night and cleaned up the apartment and did a bunch of other stuff. Nothing to exciting. Got in a HUGE fight with Jason over the whole Kris/Erick meeting thing. I really do not approve of it. Long story short, I was pretty pissed the whole night at him. Then to top it all off as I was leaving to pick up dad, I saw Erick pulling away from Kris’ house. Just rubbing salt in! 🙂

So I go to pick up dad and stop to get gas at the Shell station by the Airport and some fucking homeless woman comes up to me and won’t fucking leave me alone. She started to get a little violent! I was scared. Went and picked him up, he was actually early and his luggage was the first one off the plane so we were able to get home pretty quick and get in bed.

Got up Saturday morning to some horrible overcast weather. Decided to drive out to Perris anyways just to see what the weather was like out there and as we got closer, it kept getting foggier. So we get there and they say they probably won’t start flying till 1, there’s already 2 hours of reservations backed up in front of us, so we wouldn’t get in the air till nearly 3 or 4 if at ALL! So we decided to forgo that and headed to the Marsh Air Museum. It was alright, they had lots of neat old planes and stuff out there. From there we decided to hear out to Joshua Tree. Had lunch at this CRAZY little Cafe in which the woman got our order COMPLETELY wrong! But we ran into these two REALLY hot rock climber guys who ate lunch with us and gave some tips on places to check out in the park. Spent a few hours in the park just bouldering around, hiking, etc. Headed back to LA and made it in really good time, stopped at China Town and Olvera Street, both of which were having some sort of crazy festival! Ate dinner at Olvera, headed over and showed him Union Station and then headed over to Disney to show him that crazy building. We walked around on the top of it and then headed home.

Sunday we got up EARLY again, there was a HUGE train wreck right by our normal climbing place, 26 people died, so that was all closed off. Decided to go to Malibu, George got there first and found out IT was also closed due to some stupid Triatholon. Ended up having to drive all the way to Mojave which ended up being a good thing. We got out there and headed to the bottom. I got to do my first lead climbing which was TONS of fun! I was a little scared and shaking like crazy, but I made it to the top without slipping once! These other random three guys joined us in the same spot and one of them brought his REALLY hot son along! I enjoyed watching him climb… Got done with that and I ran out of the Punchbowl again which was fun! My Ankle didn’t hurt this time, so that’s showing signs of improvement. Of course we ate at Charlie Browns! 🙂

Headed back to RB from there, stopped off at the airport overlook for a few minutes and then drove him through all the beach cities, stopped at the RB Pier and did the “Speed Boat” which really wasn’t that fast or that much fun. 🙁 The best part was that we saw probably 30-40 dolphins swimming along side the boat for a while.

Got back home and I showered then we went out to dinner with Sirin and Kris which was a lot of laughs. We had yet another stupid waitress at the freaking RB Brewing Company.

After that I left dad and went to Kris’ for our end of week drinks. I was only going to have one beer and then leave so he could study more and I felt bad about leaving dad home alone. Well that turned into one beer, a bottle of wine and then a Rogers Roy! I didn’t leave till 1:30am but we finished all of the first season of Heroes! Now we just have to get through Season 2 this week sometime! It was a little awk at times last night with him though, not in a bad way, but whatever. It’s hard to explain! I like him, but I don’t really think we should start anything for the sake of the threesome relationship (not in a dirty way!!) and the fact that he’s just gonna leave anyways! Like I’ve said before he’s a really great guy!

Sunday I got a REALLY long email from Erick again regarding the whole he and Const thing that happened back in April (well I found out about it in April, the act happened in January). I’ve basically decided over the past couple months from taking a step back and really looking at who he is that I don’t really feel comfortable having him in my life. He’s a manipulator to get what he wants, kind of a stalker in ways and there are tons of other little things about his personality that just really sit wrong with me. He was a great friend before, but I just don’t feel comfortable having him in my life at all any longer. I have yet to reply to his email as I’m not sure how to exactly put how I feel into words and I feel like he does deserve a full explanation.

My Boots! Where are my Boots?!

I have no idea where my boots are? Or something! Who knows!

Most of the same old craziness abounds in my life! Last week was great, Friday we had a wonderful dinner party with Sirin, Kris, Steve and I. Jason was supposed to come, but he was sick. 🙁 we made Tequila Lime chicken and Asparagus Risotto! We sat around the kitchen table from like 9pm-2am talking and having a great time! I think I drank a tad to much though! LOL

Saturday I got up at 8ish, Kris and I went kayaking and then hit up the company picnic party! All the people I work with are crazy and there was this really scary clown at the party. Kris and I almost won the water balloon tossing contest! 🙁 IT was really funny at the start when he THREW the balloon at me. I got him back for that! If my company doesn’t know I’m gay before, they def know now! We left there about 3 and I came home for a quick nap, shower and then off to the final CalPhil concert of the season. It was pretty good. They played Queen!

Sunday I got up and did rock climbing up at Stoney Point again. We did a different route this time (S-Crack) which was very challenging! No one made it up except for JoErick. 🙁 It was good trying though! Very very hot out! After that we hit up Souplantation and then I went home to do laundry and shit.

Some drama that evening between the whole Kris, Jason and I plans. Ended up having a really fun night anyways and drinking to many bottles of wine.

Monday, people called me into work early and then I felt sick most of the day. Went home early and napped from 5-10, went over to Kris’ to watch Weeds (oh my god, creepy!), came home after that and crashed.

Things overall have been great! Sirin got her house which really makes me want one now too! 🙁 I’m very excited for Dad to be here this weekend, going to be a real weekend of new experiences! I can’t wait! I have been getting a little annoyed though lately by someone’s constant negative attitude towards trying new things. I don’t get it, go out and try new things people! If you don’t like it then no big deal, at least you have tried and you can say you did it, if you do then cool, you have something new to do! Ugh. it’s just really annoying.

People are my office are still idiots. Calling me at fucking 6:30am for idiotic reasons and shit, downloading programs that just slow down the computer to a crawl and then complaining at me about it because the computer is slow. And really, who needs 14,000 emails in the inbox!?

Anyways, I really need to work on updating more. Life is just too busy!

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.

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!