Monthly Archives: September 2009

Sep30

Some like it HOT

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Some like it HOT

Kevin and I are in Austin – where it’s like 90 degrees with 100% humidity.  Not just HOT.  Sticky, sweaty, I need to take five showers a day to feel decent, hot.  We crashed Anj’s work trip with Ambrose and are all going to Austin City Limits (ACL).  Yay!  I’ve wanted to come to Austin for a really long time so I’m glad we got to come with friends and *bonus* on a festival weekend.

Day one, we flew out at 6am.  Talk about stupid.  That’s REALLY early when you calculate travel time, being at the airport early, etc.  It did give us most of the day to wander around Austin though.  So far, we’ve been to (the tallest) state capitol building, which seems to be infested by locusts – go figure, Ironworks BBQ, South Congress Street (SoCo), and Amy’s Ice Creams.

Austin is known to have the world’s largest “urban” bat colony.  They live under Congress Bridge and every night at dusk 1.5 MILLION bats fly out from under the bridge to find food.  We waited VERY PATIENTLY for a VERY LONG TIME and did not see 1.5 million bats.  We saw about 20.  Total.  No swarms of bats.  Nothing to wait over an hour for.  We decided that it could be one of two things.  1. LIES!  ALL LIES.  Austin’s way to trick tourists and make fun of the hundreds of people waiting for the bats, or 2. the bats weren’t hungry tonight, but they’ll for sure be out tomorrow.  I’m not sure yet we will be waiting for them…

We don’t really have an agenda for the rest of the week, except ACL on Friday.  Just more exploring and lots and lots of sweating, BBQ and TexMex (not necessarily in that order).

Our hotel is right by the Real World Austin pad! It's now a restaurant, just like the Real World Seattle house.

Our hotel is by the Real World Austin pad! It's now a restaurant, just like the Real World Seattle pad.

Sep14

Pretty Peas

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Pretty Peas

With a pretty weak Bumbershoot lineup, I wasn’t super excited to spend the entire weekend there (nor could I – see previous post).  But I was actually super excited to see the Black Eyed Peas.  I’ve been sort of infatuated with them lately.  It started with “Boom Boom Pow” – how can you not love Fergie’s line “I’m so 3000 and 8.  You so 2000 and late.”  So awesome.  And now every time I hear “I Gotta Feeling” I get so excited.  Maybe it’s the simple lyrics I like, I don’t know.  It’s just so catchy and fun – a total head bobber. We (yes, we!) love to blast it in the car and sing and head bob along.  

Since Kevin gets free Bumbershoot tickets from his work, it made it really easy to go for A show and not feel guilty.  So, we went and saw The Peas and boy did they give us a show!  They are really good entertainers.  I’ve said many times that I can’t stand Fergie.  She’s a total butterface, I hate the London Bridge and Big Girls Don’t Cry songs and how did she end up with Josh Duhamel anyway?  Now…weeeell, she’s no Beyonce, but I kind of dig her.  She seems real.

Oprah’s hip to their beat too because they opened up her 24th season on the streets of Chicago.  Oprah’s crew suprised her and set up what I think is the World’s Largest Flash Mob to date.  Oprah’s reaction was pretty cute. She usually annoys me with her “know it all, I am the queen, I am Oprah” attitude but she was genuinely surprised and was lovin’ the Peas (watch her at the 2:45 mark – so great!).  Thank God for DVR.  Let’s just say I’ve watched it a few times…and don’t plan on deleting it anytime soon. 

  **Update 9/15/09**

You can’t watch the video on YouTube anymore (thanks Harpo).   But click HERE to see it on Oprah’s site.  If you haven’t seen it – it’s worth a watch!

Sep7

Family Ties

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Family Ties

My oldest and dearest family friend, JR, got married last weekend.  JR, his two brothers, my sister and I grew up together.  We spent countless summer days at the lake throwing squeeze-it bottles at each other (No, not squeezing the water out of them like squirt guns.  Throwing them.  Full of water.  At each other.), playing Dukes of Hazard in the basement and collecting ten plus pound bags of candy every Halloween until college (I’m almost serious – young face + free candy, hello?!).  We’re family.  Being the two oldest of the five, we kind of ruled.  Seeing him get married and re-connecting all of us (three in Spokane, one in LA and me in Seattle) was just like old times.

We had a blast.  Instead of throwing squeeze-it bottles, it was a bouquet – and yeah, I caught the sh$t out of it! (It actually got deflected, bounced off my face and I picked it up off the floor but who’s asking?)  Instead of Dukes of Hazard, we danced.  All night long.  Even my sister and parents were dancing – NEVER thought that would happen! And instead of pounds of candy, they get lots of presents and we were all dressed to the nines!

It’s crazy, getting older.  I love thinking back to all of the great times we had as kids and all the memories we shared with the Sugalski’s.  It makes me excited to have my own family and forcing our kids to be “instant” friends with our friends kids.  They’ll thank me later, I’m sure.  We’ll see if that whole bouquet catching tradition really works!  (Are you reading this Kevin?!)

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Sep1

SUP Yo

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SUP Yo

Our surf boards have siblings!  Kevin and I just bought new (used) stand up paddle boards (SUPs)!

They’re huge. Twelve feet long (my surfboard is 8’6) and almost two and a half feet wide. Kevin’s challenge was to make them fit in the garage.  It’s a tight squeeze but he did it!

Next purchase = paddles so we can actually use them :)  

 SUP

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