I’m a little behind on blog posts, so I’ll bring you one now, and I’ve got another lined up (and both with pictures!)

I mentioned in the previous post that we went camping and got horrific sunburns. Mine was so bad/hilarious that we took a picture.

The spray lotions are lame. Sure you don’t get it on your hands, but who cares if you end up with a Picasso inspired sunburn! Luckily I’ve done much improving since that picture last weekend. I’m almost back to my regular shade of white.

Pictures of the new water heater coming in the next post.

Back for another “here’s all the not quite tabloid worthy stuff that’s been going on in my life” blog entry.

Over the weekend Stacie and I went camping down San Clemente way. It was technically the “San Mateo” campground, and it was frickin hot with no shade. To make the camping experience even more miserable was our newly acquired sunburns from our day at the beach. The beach and I are now mortal enemies locked in a battle until the end of the universe. Despite the crummy camping conditions, the camping company was great. We caught up with Kurtis, Amanda, Kevin, and Christie over tacos and smores. Overall it was fun, but made me long for a real camping trip in the snow.

After that our energy has been next to nothing as we recover from 87th degree burns. Yesterday we went out to Chick Fi’la, or however the heck you spell it, in Cerritos. We stopped at the Power Toyota dealer to look at some Camrys in real-life. Looking on the internet for close to 9 hours straight is quite informative, but actually touching the car helps too. Since I haven’t given a car update since the “I’m looking” post, I’ve decided on the Camry because it’s a Toyota, it’s big enough, and it gets decent mpg. I ruled out a Civic because of the size. For an extra couple grand it should be a little easier once we have kids and they’re all killing each other in the backseat. Now it will be a bigger backseat for them to kill each other in. I also ruled out the Toyota Camry hybrid. The list price on a Hybrid is $5000 more than the Camry SE I’m looking at. At my current driving habits, it would take something like 23 years to recoup the cost of the hybrid. I’ll stop Charles Dickensing you (that’s a new verb for this being super long). I’m getting quotes from several dealers around town, and it’s already proving fruitful. One dealer has quoted me $1000 less than others for the exact same car. I’m all for saving $1000.

Today brought new and exciting annoyances. The incoming water hose on the water heater decided to develop a crack and start spraying water all over. No good. Called Mike Diamond in my haste and fear. Guy came out, but the numbers he was quoting me sounded insane for what was wrong. Almost $400 to fix a flex hose that costs maybe $10? That’s retarded. I called my dad and he agreed. I managed to get the incoming water valve to turn (it was majorly stuck) but it’s a crappy gate valve that decided not to work. Turn it and turn it but the water doesn’t stop. Now the water to the entire house is off until we can install a new ball valve, which should hopefully be done tonight.

Those are the exciting happenings around the house. We’re still working on planning vacation, so I might put up a new map soon. The book is still in forward motion, though I let Stacie read the first major “act” of the story. She provided some excellent feedback that would make the story a lot better. I’ve read some people that say never go back and “edit” anything until the whole book is done, just keep pushing forward…but I couldn’t do that. I’ve gone back and I’m fixing some things before I go farther.

Brother’s bachelor party is this weekend.

Billingsley, Kemp, Martin, Loney, Ethier, you all rule! The future of the Dodgers right there.

Transformers is out today, and seeing it on the big screen will be a must.

That about sums up life for now. Hope everyone is great!

Much of my weekend was spent relaxing and playing videogames. Ever since I upgraded the computer I’ve been having a great time playing computer games. I started the original Half-Life, hoping to get caught up on the backstory before I begin Half-Life 2. The disappointment though is that 2-3 hours into the game there is still practically ZERO story. There was an experiment, it went bad, now there are alien things everywhere. Also frustrating are that some parts of the game are just painful to try and pass, to the point where it’s not enjoyable. I also started playing Oblivion, an open-ended RPG set in a fantasy world. Not only is the game beautiful, but it’s totally engrossing. You create a character, specialize in certain skils, and can pretty much do whatever you want. While at first it feels almost too open-ended, it slowly becomes very real feeling. Instead of finding the path to turn on the fuel pump like Half-Life, you have complete control over what you want to do next. I think I will either play another couple hours and get bored, or I will be sucked in for countless hours more.

Besides this Stacie and I had dinner with Andrew and Sarah one night. They brought over microwave pizza and we watched a movie. We went to eat with my parents at Marissa’s. Then we went to Disneyland with Stacie’s parents. I even got my first minor sunburn of the year! Ok, off to teach.