Baby's Brewin'

You're telling me that in order to increase the viewership on my blog, I'll have to exploit my wife and soon-to-be-born child? And that it's not even guaranteed to work?? Well then...ok. How bout we start with these ones? Jennie at 8+ months...

The Babymoon

Sometimes you need to get away from the hustle and bustle of San Diego. Ok, that's a lie, but no, sometimes you do want to get away and relax. Usually, in our case, we like crossing oceans and seeing what else the world has to offer; but this time, with a baby brewing at 5+ months, we went domestic and landed in Arizona where we learned that Zonies drive just as bad in their own state as they do in California. Anyway...

Sedona. Beautiful place. I can't emphasize that enough. Well, maybe I can...BEAUTIFUL place. Better? It really is stunning. And the Red Rock is really, um, red. But, you know, a pretty red. We had wished at times that we had the FJ with us, but then again if we did, we wouldn't have found out the kind of terrain the Nissan Versa was capable of traversing. (The Nissan Versa. Innovation that's efficient. Innovation for All.)

So go there if you get a chance. And go to LoLo's Chicken & Waffles if you fly into Phoenix.













more on flickr

philly phun

Phinally visited the phamily out in Philadelphia. Pheel phree to phancy the photos...













plus a phew more on phlickr

home sweet home

Funny thing happened just before we left for Peru...we bought a house. And by "just before", I mean we got the keys and flew out the next day. It wasn't planned that way. Buying the house wasn't planned at all actually. Let me rewind...

So it's January last year and we're starting to wonder where we're going to live once our lease is up downtown. We had actually moved downtown to test the waters and see if we'd want to invest in a condo down there. There were dreams of being those cool urbanite home-owners, pushing around some little hipster kids in some $1500 stroller while sipping $20 lattes at that new organic coffee shop that just opened after taking over that other organic coffee shop that just went out of business. But these guys are safe because they have imported japanese water on the menu, so they got it figured out. Anyway, fuck that. High-rise living is not the way to go. Unless you're on the top floor, everybody's problem is your problem. Every building downtown is under litigation, which means the people managing the place will be harassing you about something they need to check so that everything is kosher with building codes. And that "something" they need to check is, oh by the way, the pipes in your wall of your ONLY bathroom, but no worries, they'll be done in a couple of days.

We cross downtown off the list, but we're still not certain we want to buy. Then from nowhere, this banked-owned listing pops up in Encinitas, just a couple miles from the beach for way below what it's worth. Encinitas works. Jennie's lived there before, it's close to both our jobs. And suddenly we've got a real estate agent and loan officer and we're putting down an offer before we even see the place in person. Unfortunately, that one goes nowhere for us, we never see it and it sells for closer to it's value, meaning way out of our budget. In any case, it gets the ball rolling and we start looking.

Now we've settled on Encinitas. Maaaaybe we'll look at some places in the La Costa/Cbad area, but we're really just wasting our time. The first house we officially look at is just bleh. Overgrown yards, old cabinets, old appliances, dirty carpets, dirty walls, dirty fucking everything. But what do you expect from a short sale? And short sales seem to be the only way we could afford a house in Enci. Well, maybe there's potential. If we can knock down this wall, tear all this out, replace this, replace that... Ugh, sounds like a headache. But like I said, there's potential. We put down an offer and keep looking. And keep looking. And keep...you get the idea.

Fast forward to February. Oh wait, that was only a month that passed. It damn sure felt a lot longer than that because by this time we've seen a ton of houses and already put down a few more offers. One of which actually got accepted, but they countered over some details about dates, not money. Being the anal, researching junkies we are, we decided to do a little leg work since this property converted the garage into this casita type thing and we wanted to make sure it was all legal. Turns out it wasn't, but got some exemption back in the day with the provision that it had to be brought back up to code in a few years which meant that we'd have to make it so we could park a couple of cars back in that cute little casita. At this point, we learned that building an attached code-compliant garage costs a minimum of $30K. A room that's mainly there to keep bird shit off your car. We declined the counter offer. In the meantime, that first place we saw, the dirty one with the potential, gets back to us. Two buyers before us fell through and we're up next.

Let's skip ahead, this has gotten too long already. Drama, headaches, more drama, inspections, termites, dead termites, more drama and - dun-dada-duuuuun - it's ours! Yay homeowners! Off to Peru!

And we're back. Before we left, we hired contractors to realize that potential we were still clinging on to. Six weeks they told us. I was skeptical at that time frame, but when we returned, the flooring and cabinets were all tore out, weeds were cleared, some major wall repairs were done. Optimism was at an all time high.

Three months later it was an all time low.

Five months, nowhere to be found.

Six months, all the hard work paid off...

Along the way, we learned how to do (and did!) crown molding, window casings, entryway framing, closet headers, load bearing calculations, electrical wiring, outlet boxes, hole patching, drywall, joint compound, wall texturing and a whole bunch of other things that'll make me feel confident while I stand outside Home Depot looking for some side work.

Once upon a time...

To commemorate the 1 year anniversary of our return from Peru, I thought it'd be a good idea to post photos to prove we were actually there.

Peru was our last BIG trip. Well, I mean, not last as in final. Just the most recent one...which was a year ago. A year ago! Man, time flies I guess. Anyway, this one was great.

We met up in Lima with Jeff and Grace and spent the next couple weeks travelling through the country. Machu Picchu was obviously the big draw, but because we wanted to see so much in not so much time, we opted against the Inca Trail hike. Not that I would've agreed to do it anyway. A 3 to 4 day hike through the mud and rain? No thanks. I'll take my Inca Bucks and super-lux 1st class bus and be on my way.

After checking out Lima, we headed through Pisac and the Sacred Valley to Ollantaytambo. Thankfully our hotel had a lounge with a TV and we were able to catch the season finale of LOST. Damn straight we watched that. The view from the ruins was pretty spiffy as well. From there, a train and bus got us to the big MP. Pretty damn spectacular. The 1st day was chill; we did the tour thing and learned about the ruins. The SECOND day, tho... We lined up at 5am with all these guys just so we could be one of the first 100 and therefore the opportunity to climb up Waynapicchu. It's that mountain you see in the background behind your standard MP shot. THAT was a hike. Not so much the getting to the top, but from there going the long way back around to the start? Ugh. I'm sure Inca Trail folks scoff at it, but whatever dude, I was duh-uhn after that. We actually got yelled at when we lied down to rest on the grass back in the ruins. Guess you can't do that. I also got scolded for jumping down from one terrace to the next. Don't do that either.

We headed back to Cusco that same day. The train and bus stops were madness. It was sometime after midnight when we got our transport to the hotel in Cusco. It was also raining and cold. Couple that with all the mosquito bites I got on our Waynapicchu hike (which you can still see the marks 1 year later), I guess it was inevitable that I got sick. Luckily I was only out for a day, and I really only missed seeing that legendary 12-sided stone. I wasn't too heartbroken.

From there, it was a flight to Arequipa and then a bus ride to Chivay. Along the way, we hit an altitude high of 4910m. By the way, altitude sickness = no fun. Jeff can attest to that too. It eased up in Chivay where we stayed overnight before heading to Colca Canyon to (hopefully) see some condor action. Not that kind of action; just the flying kind. We got lucky apparently. 45 minutes of waiting and finally about 8 or so came soaring up the canyon. And they ain't shy...they can get pretty close.

The next big sight-seeing stop was Paracas and the Ballestas Islands (aka mini-Galapagos). Paracas was really interesting; it's this huge desert peninsula that was a part of the ocean floor millions of years ago. With a marine layer that never goes away and very rarely does it rain, there were no critters anywhere. No bugs or nothing...it was bizarre. Plus the red sand on one of the coasts felt like you were on mars. The Ballestas Islands are the home to a whole ton of birds. So many that they harvest their poop. For what, I can't remember.

Our last big thing were the Nazca Lines. Underwhelming. But I guess it's one of those things. I think I might of been more excited finding the churreria the next day in Lima.

photos!
My top 100 @ flickr
the big album (with videos!) @ picasa

enjoy.

deserted...again

Yes, I purposely waited over a year just so I could have two desert entries back-to-back.









Anza Borrego Desert State Park
Ocotillo, CA
@flickr