Okay, Tuesday, we need to talk. You can't be here yet, because I need my Monday back. This weekend was far too much too quickly, and I think only this morning do I feel somewhat myself again. I was up and moving at 6:30 am on Saturday, which for those who know how I sleep meant I got about 3 hours or so before trekking to Fort Ord Stadium for the CSUMB Graduation. It was cold, threatening to rain, but overall pretty good. I got to see a lot of my friends walk across, and I was amused by the protest towards the Chancellor that took place during his keynote address. After the ceremony I tracked down as many people as possible to congratulate them, and was able to find most of the people I wanted to. I couldn't find Aimee or Mark though, which kind of sucked. At the end of the recessional, it is utter chaos down on the field. I think next year I will just tell my family to stay put and I will go to them. 800 people do not fit on an Astroturf field very well, especially when all of them are trying to reach their graduates.
After the festivities, more festivities were had. Jessica and I drove up to Santa Cruz with her family to eat at the Saturn Cafe. That went really well, and over the meal I was slowly introduced to everyone. I remember most of the names of the people my age, but many of the older adults who I didn't talk to much aren't sticking with me anymore. After I had my Chix Patty "Fine Burger", it was off to the Boardwalk. Before I cover that in detail, I should probably explain my experience with amusement parks. See, they and I don't mix very well. Well, they didn't used to. Back in 7th Grade I went with a club to Great America, and even the simplest of rides scared me. 8th grade, that same trip was a breeze because I was paired with Chris Johnson, who at the time also had an equal aversion to rides. With time, I got better about the "holy shit this thing is a suicide train" mentality, and started to enjoy rides more. The last park I went to was Great America with Gretchen and Karen. The fear of rides were gone, excepting one. I don't mind being upside down, but any ride that has you hanging upside down for an extended period of time makes me want to curl up and wish it away. This would also include rides like the Revolution, which I refuse to go on even now. You can guess one of the rides I went on by now. It was the first, and will be the last time I do any hanging upside down rides. No, I wasn't sick, but so much blood had rushed to my head I had a headache that went well into Monday morning. I have also added "looking up and seeing the ground" to my list of experiences I really don't care for.
We stayed for quite a while, but T and Paul were using tickets not bracelets so we picked our way back to Monterey. A few of us got food at a small place called the Bamboo Pavilion, and I was pretty impressed. For those around Monterey, it's right next to the Ace Hardware in Marina. For the number of times I have been there, I have constantly overlooked it. Since they were almost closed, we got it to go and took it back to the hotel room. Everyone talked and watched TV, a few of us went down to the spa (who cares if it was closed?) and I got back around 2 something in the morning.
Sunday + Neverwinter Nights + Kryn/Eric/Lisa * 8 hours = _
Monday came around, but I couldn't do 90% of the errands I needed to since there was a holiday going on or something silly like that. I had wanted to go to the Ash concert in S.F. with Gretchen, but there were no more tickets (update: turns out they had a few extra tickets at the door. damnit!) for sale, so that didn't happen. I think cosmic forces are at work here to prevent me from going to see a show; the only other explanation is sheer bad luck. Joe had a barbecue in the evening, and it reminded me a lot of the Bay Area Animation Society one - friends, more food than you know what to do with, games, food, fun, food, and food. I think every time Joe walked by me from the grill he threw something new on my plate. I finally got rid of my plate because I couldn't eat any more. He dropped a slab of carne asada onto a tortilla. I couldn't win. I got home about 10 or so, and I was really thankful we all walked over to his place. It was a pretty beautiful day, and the night was really warm for Monterey. We played a bit more NWN, and I think some time this evening I am going to play with the DM Client to see how easy it is to run things. This might just be the new direction to take things with this group, who enjoys combat far more than story. Plus, it handles all the rules and is pretty good about rolls and stuff. I wonder how good the toolset is though. Right in this vein of chatter, I would love to see the Star Wars RPG (also d20 system) using the NWN engine. For something like this, you wouldn't need to worry about ships or travel or those sorts of things, you could spend all day building worlds for different time eras. But, enough of my geekish rantings. Today I need to get a new cell phone. My old Nokia has finally begun to stop functioning like a phone and spent most of the weekend thinking it was hooked up to a car kit. This time around, it is going to be a phone with a Lithium Ion battery and a ringtone composer. That's all I want from my phone. Long lasting, and not paying for ringtones.
I am heading back to Roseville this weekend, and will be taking my drive with me. In preparation for the move, I put all the K-F things on my 'puter's core drive, which will remain happy and serving. I am going to probably set up an exclusive AIMGet as well, and when that is up, I will spread the word a bit more. Okay, I lied. If you are cool, you can connect to HikaruAIMServe now. That was much easier than it should have been. ^_^
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