B2B and Yosemite

Bay to Breakers Sunday started like any other Sunday. Candace made a half gallon jug of gin and tonic, Chris, Ben, and I put on skin tight denim shorts and plaid tops before stuffing a handle of Jack into a backpack and heading out the door. Meanwhile Veronica, Ian, and Ashley were the proud owners of a walk of shame theme. High heels attached to handbags, smeared make-up, and messed up club attire matched meticulously with a handle of Jim Beam.

Any good road race competitor will have at least one goal. Ours was simple. To find our way home while completing approximately 2/7th of the actual race. Seems like a fairly simple and easy task, but not when you mix in booze with 119,993 other clowns, mythical creatures and pants-less wonders. Ben nearly got arrested for uncaging the urine monkey on a fence in Hayes Valley. I wasn't sure what to expect when the bicycle riding boys in blue told him to beat it. Chris was on a mission to lose his pants ever since we saw a group of people in their underwear yelling "just say no" to pants. He tried to tell everyone that the giant rip up the side of his denim booty shorts was a mistake, but I know him better than that. The gesture was an attempt at solidarity with the pants-less army that he wished to join. Candace on the other hand thought it'd be a great idea to take the final 1/3 of her drink out of a skull funnel. There might be some mathematical equation or some famous words from a philosopher that describes how we all arrived home safely that day. If you find either or both let me know.

Monday arrived before the last human dropping was cleaned off our neighbor's porch from the day before. For most that meant heading back to work. For me, Chris, and Ben the fun was just beginning. We were Yosemite bound before the sun reached its highest point in the sky. When arrived to rain, snow covered parts of the ground in the higher elevations and fog disguised the magical splendor that is the view from the valley floor.

We immediately set up camp and started asking around about out planned accent up Half Dome. Some people told us we wouldn't make it very far, but to spite those nay sayers we hit the trail loaded up with gear the very next morning. The climb was tough, but we didn't hit the snow until we were about 85% of the way to the top. That snow was packed down solid. We got all the way to the cables, which were laid down with no steps in place for safety. We decided to conclude our accent rather than try to scale the final 400' with our depleted shoulder strength and no real safety gear. I certainly plan on finishing off this piece of unfinished business very soon.

The rest of Chris and Ben's visit I'll sum up with a few words and phrases, you can fill in the rest of the blanks...lost camera, ouch my tooth, burritos to remember, red wine to forget, no need for sun block, sushi, Indian Food, and the Clifton comedy cashier of Yosemite.

Robogames, Mankend, and the travesty of TJ's

After a week and a half of going on a sojourn for just the right words, actually sitting down and writing, an mostly just editing, Robogames is just about in the books or on the air. The amount of work that goes into producing a single story for Crosscurrents still amazes me. Like a finely mixed cocktail the slow production process is one part I'm new at it and two parts no overwhelming sense of urgency for stories about robots. I guess the robots will show us one day when they take over the planet!

The toughest part of the entire process perhaps was voicing the piece. My voice is a real live wire. I wield a lot of authority and sound like an announcer even while speaking with friends and family. I really had to tone it down and talk at a level out of my comfort zone for this one. After an hour of throat clearing-water sipping excitement, I finally produced enough usable tracks to make the story. Note to the friends/family who I announce to on a regular basis, some voice acting classes would make the perfect birthday gift (November 18th, wink-wink).

Working in radio is clearly one of my favorite things to do. Even when a story takes a long time to produce or eats away from my free time I still enjoy the work. Something that is increasingly not my passion is working at the store. I've been there for over a year now and the needless stress is starting to get to me. I haven't learned anything new in a long time and the work is the same everyday. I realize most jobs are repetitive and not very exciting but as a reporter I have been trained to want more. I feel like something is lacking if I'm not learning something new every day, expressing myself through my work, and striving to get better at what I do. A working environment that doesn't engage those qualities is boring at best and soul crushing at worst.

Once in a while there are glimmers of light that come out of the retail darkness. Just last week a guy decided to wash himself under the nozzle in the store's parking lot. The man was stark naked at 6 o'clock Friday night bathing himself as customers came and went from the busy store. Management called the police, but in San Francisco citations for public nudity are not high on the to do list. The cop arrived about 10 minutes after the gentleman finished his leisurely shower session. Events like that don't happen often, so fortunately I have other outlets for my creativity and to blow off steam.

Enter Man-kend, its like a weekend where you do manly stuff. Candace and our roommate Veronica were both out of town last weekend. As a result Veronica's boyfriend, Ian and I decided to get some guys together. We started by catching the hit movie Kickass. Then made our way back to my place where we drank beer and started talking about the state science funding in America, military spending, British politics, the Arizona Immigration law, and finally strip clubs and boobies! You can probably spot in the previous chronologically written sentence where the beer started having its effect.

Soon we started a longer than necessary walk to The Pig and Whistle, a so-called British pub on Geary. The journey was longer than necessary because "We're men! So what the hell do we need a map for! The meal was very unmemorable partially because of the band of 60 year old rockers trying to recapture their youth through playing really annoying/terrible music at decibel levels scientifically proven to cancel out brain waves. One other thing made the meal less than notable, the food sucked! Even Tom, our token British friend, thought so!

After the meal that made us all hope for Amnesia we started walking down Geary looking for a place to throw some darts and watch some boxing. We found such a place at 5th and Geary, the Abbey Tavern. There we watched Mayweather defeat Mosley, had a couple of drinks, watched the current version of Ian have a dance with Ian 40 years from now, and started chucking darts! All in all a fun night. One that no farm animals were harmed in the making of, always a bonus!