Half Moon Bay & Engagement!

On May 27th, I took Michelle out to Gumbo Jumbo- a great cajun fusion restaurant in downtown San Jose to celebrate the 2nd year anniversary since the day we met. We ate some great shrimp and gumbo dishes, and Michelle had her favorite: oysters! The place has a lovely atmosphere in addition to it's food. On fridays & saturdays, the restaurant has jazz and blues played live which adds even more to the ambiance and charm of the place.

Unbeknownst to Michelle, on that morning I had secretly asked her father for his blessing and her hand in marriage; which he gave gladly over tea with some very valuable advice about marriage. I intended to ask Michelle to marry me on the next weekend at sunset on the beach.

On the day, May 30th, I took Michelle away to Half Moon Bay, a lovely little town on the coast of California - situated between Santa Cruz and San Francisco - a little south of the town of Pacifica. Ostensibly we were going to celebrate our 2 year anniversary with a weekend getaway, but there was more coming!

We stayed at the Beach House Inn Hotel; and I had managed to procure us a penthouse overlooking the ocean. The penthouse had a fireplace, a lounge area, open plan bed area and a bathroom with plenty of space. Morever, we had a great view of the harbour, where the tiny boats drifted gently with the softly lapping waves.



We spent a great day, relaxing and enjoying each others company; we visited downtown Half Moon Day - visiting an eccentric "junkyard" called "Half to Have it" with many baubles, trinkets, wrought iron furniture, broken glass paving:



The place was literally full of eccentric and artistic items, like 20's baby perambulators, old clocks, gas stoves, tin cars, old wooden propellors, and masks like these:



We ate lunch at Crab Landing, an excellent seafood place, right on the harbor; the food was good and we had a nice Poke Tuna, Spicy Halibut, Oysters and Clam Chowder.

I had planned to ask Michelle to marry me on the beach at sunset, but alas, there was no sun on that day. So, when the evening came we picnicked on a blanket in our room and opened a bottle of Simonsig Vonkelwyn. I then I got down on one knee and proposed to her right there. Nothing can prepare one for the depth of emotions that one experiences at a moment like that - and neither myself or Michelle were prepared, but she said "yes!". After the swelling of joyful tears and a flurry of calls, we found ourselves grinning at each other and talking about the future - looking forward to our new level of commitment to each other.



The next day, I took Michelle to the Ritz Carlton for brunch. The standard buffet fee there is $88/person which puts it out of our range for frequent attendance, but we both felt like celebrating the occasion.



The range of food was fantastic - they had a sushi bar, oyster bar, desert bar, dimsum bar, fish bar, breakfast bar and meat bar (I'm sure I've left some out!). I only managed to try probably 20% of what they had there, and would've sampled the lot if I had 5 stomachs. Michelle sampled the oysters, while I concerned myself mainly with the sushi.



We left Half Moon Bay having enjoyed a wonderful time, and came away bethrothed and relaxed, ready for task of planning our wedding day.

Ouch.

Ollie just got neutered. Poor baby.

Send To Phone

Ollie.

Our little scamp at 2 months.

Don't let this adorable face fool you...he's becoming quite a clever and sneaky little poop.

St. Patricks day + Blog2.0

Happy St. Patrick's day to all those Irishly enthused at this time of the year!

After reviewing all my past blog posts and realizing how much I'd forgotten about those times, I've decided to make a better effort to make updates here. Many things have been happening, and I'd like to have some record of them that I can look back on and remember. I'll also try retroactively posting a few of the things that have happened during this recent period of "blog neglect".

So, lets get things started. A few days ago Michelle and I adopted a rabbit, a sweet little 8 week old Holland Lop, that we named Oliver.



Here's a video Michelle took of him eating hay and playing with his mobile:



The little guy is still getting used to our apartment, and has been experiencing the rigorous stresses of our potty training bootcamp :)

Not dead

...just boring.

Vincent's Visit

My brother Vincent came to visit me for a period of just over 2 weeks.

He arrived on the 23rd December, we got him settled and did very little on the first day.

24th December

Early morning, we left for Los Angeles - it was very foggy practically the whole way down (about 7.5 hours) - apart from the last hour or so. We arrived shortly before lunch time and went to Santa Monica pier. There was a 'protest' of sorts on the beach; a set of crosses for every man & woman killed in Iraq.



Somewhat disconcerting, was the uncomfortable reminder of continued death in Iraq; with the active carpentry of new crosses right there on the beach.

We also cruised around, found Muscle Beach:



and finally Venice beach, which is notorious for the bodybuilding gym right on the beach;



Later that evening, we attended a Christmas eve party with Michelle's cousins and participated in the exchanging of gifts. Fun was had by all and many great gifts were received - I got a Nintendo DS (w00t!) from Michelle and some great gifts from my family back in South Africa



25th December

After a continental breakfast, we drove to Hollywood for the day. We ventured up and down the walk of fame, finding the many greats: Angela Lansbury, Burt Reynolds, Chuck Norris ...



Michelle got the best girlfriend award:



The Chinese theatre (also known as Grauman's Chinese Theatre) is the one with all the hollywood stars' handprints and footprints pressed into its courtyard's concrete.
We also caught a movie at the famous Chinese theatre on Hollywood Boulevard: I am Legend - an okay film.



We stayed in Burbank for the night.

26th December

After waking up, we ate a Denny's breakfast in Los Angeles before going to Universal Studios. We parked in the 'Jurassic Parking' lot:



We basically wandered around the whole day, trying rides, waiting in line, buying stuff.



We also took a film studio tour, which involved getting on a tram and being driven around with a guide describing the various parts of the studio. The sets were fairly impressive and so were the interactive portions of the trip; these included: King Kong, the Mummy, War of the Worlds, Desperate Housewives(!) and of course... Jaws:



27th December

Early in the morning, we left for Las Vegas and it took us 4 hours to get there. The desert drive was beautiful, albeit not as desolate and unforgiving as I was expecting :)



Las Vegas was great, as was our hotel: the New York, New York hotel.



We basically spent the entire day walking down the strip, seeing the hotels and casinos The hotels hotels were mostly posh and lavish and extremely over-the-top. The enormous and imposing buildings battled each other for dominance of the skyline.












In Las Vegas, one is allowed to patrol the streets openly swigging an open bottle of your favourite alcoholic beverage. Vincent and I decided not to break tradition.

In the evening we went dancing at some club (forgot the name) in the MGM Grand hotel. The MGM Grand had a lion habitat in there; aparently the lions live on some ranch about 60miles away and are rotated into the habitat daily.




28th December

We went walking, drinking, and even caught a David Copperfield show which was nice. We would have attended the Cirque du Soleil if we'd been able to get tickets (even at about $200 a pop!).



Michelle and I watched the truly impressive water fountain display at the Bellagio one evening. It was very gracefully done, with the water shooting high in the air and synchronized to music; the effect is mesmerizing. The evening performances were super impressive because of the special lighting.



29th December

We drove back to San Jose (about 8 hours), enjoying the desert scenery as it went whipping by us.



31st December

We went to San Francisco and wandered a bit around Pier 39 again,





We had lunch at Bubba Gump on the pier. (Bubba Gump is a seafood restaurant franchise that seems to have sprung up in the post Forrest Gump film era. It builds it's vibe and ambience off that film, with many items of film memorabelia and quotes adorning the rustic interior. At one point in my past experience with this franchise, I had a waitress sit down at the table to administer a Forrest Gump trivia quiz)



We then took a boat tour to Alcatraz, the notorious island set in San Francisco bay, previously used as a prison housing inmates such as Al Capone.



The island itself hasn't been used as a prison since the 60's and many of the buildings have that rustic and ill-maintained look (kinda the way you would think of Cuba for example). We were privaleged to walk around with mostly free reign, taking an audio tour or just wandering as we pleased.





Upon returning, we checked into our hotel, a very cozy, small and utterly quaint little hotel operating close to Fisherman's wharf. It's been around a while, and was originally a bordello, and is rumoured to be haunted.



In the evening, we went for drinks on Pier39. I was introduced to my first Jagermeister; more specifically Jager bombs. This involves dropping an American sized shot glass (about twice as much as a South African shot glass) of Jagermeister into a beer and downing the whole thing. Much fun was had by all on this little diversion :)



We then went to Suede, a night club and partayed the new year into style.



Vinny made a few friends too:





1 January 2008

We woke up and ate an IHOP (International House of Pancakes) breakfast. Vinny seemed impressed with American-sized portions, although, they were really no match for him.



We ventured out to Golden Gate bridge, went for a walk on the bridge and then travelled back home to San Jose.





3 January 2008

Vinny and I left for a ski trip at Northstar Resort at Lake Tahoe, a 4 hour trip. Three storms threatened to descend upon us during the weekend, but we decided to risk it anyway. The first day was fantastic skiing. I was very impressed and Vincent's skiing skills, considering he hasn't skiid for about 5 years now.



In the evening, we went to a casino situated a few meters past the California/Nevada border. In California, casinos are illegal except on Indian reservations, so there were about 3 or 4 casino's situated right on the border :)

We caught a football game in the bar, had a few beers and a huge dinner at one of the restaurants there, then retired for the evening.

4 January 2008

We left for the resort, a 10 mile drive. The snow had built up enough overnight to neccessitate snow chains:



The whole day was pretty stormy, and there was quite a bit of powder.







After lunch, conditions became very uncomfortable, with lots of wind, wetness and reduced visibility and we decided to get off the slopes. So we grabbed some microwave dinners and went back to the motel, where I spent some quality time with Nintendo DS.

5 January 2008

In the morning, we got outside and found that it had snowed significantly and was still storming. About a foot of snow had accumulated on my car overnight.



The rest of the area at lake level was pretty much under snow too. This is a view from our motel room:



We also realized with some dismay that the I80 highway back to San Jose was closed.
When we learned during breakfast that the highway had just been opened and another storm would be incoming later, we decided to make a run for it and get out of the area considering that the conditions were still pretty bad up on the slopes.





6 December 2008

Vinny and I headed out to Big Basin Redwood Park, but unfortunately we got there and realized it was closed. We were still able to grab a few photos though:



I dropped Vinnie off at the airport 2 days later after 2 weeks of fun. I'm really gonna miss having him around here.

More photos here

Halloween + Earthquakes

Earthquakes

Today, there was an earthquake that registered 5.6 in the south bay area. The rolling vibrations hit my apartment at about 8pm and lasted about 20 seconds. It was with disbelief that I realized my whole apartment was rocking back and forth.

A few minutes later I found out that the epicentre had been about 10 miles east of where my apartment is and that the tremors had registered 5.6 on the Richter scale. No serious injuries were reported.

The experience of this tectonic event was truly a scary moment; I was frozen with shock if you'll excuse the pun. I have since been very sensitive to even the slightest tremors, which has prompted me to conceive an emergency exit plan in case one of the "big ones" comes along.

Halloween

On a more positive note, Halloween was good and I carved my first pumpkin. Michelle did the one on top:



Some people in the suburbs get *really* creative with their house decorations during this time of the year:



Birthday

I also just celebrated my birthday. I went with Michelle to "The Improv" comedy club, where we had dinner and caught a few comedy acts. I was very impressed with the comedian Gerrard who warmed up the audience and I was super impressed with the main act, a man called Aries Spears - truly a great talent.

I also got flowers and an i-pod from michelle. yay:



That's about it.