HAPPY HOLIDAYS!!

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. 2007 wasn't quite the year I'd hoped it would be.
Twelve months ago, when I had just gotten back from Fiji, 2007 was looking like it was going to be the year. My friends and I felt closer, my family felt tighter, I felt I was growing and had direction and focus. Everything looked very promising.
As the new year came and went, my friends, myself included, started to hibernate, date, and fill our time separate of the others. I thought it was just that winter was settling in...it has continued. I was unemployed for most of the year, living at my parents house, feeling a bit of an imposition. And, of coarse, most recently, the loss of my best friend Rebecca Ohlson. This year, if it weren't for a few special people, things, and events, would be tossed out with the trash.
So everyday, every single fucking day, I am thankful for my dear girlfriend Emma, my brother, sister, and parents, and of coarse, my bike...heh. Yeah, my bike, I know. Anyway, I so, so, so look forward to entering 2008 with these people and things by my side.

So Merry Christmas, stay warm with your family and friends, and Happy New Year, enter it embracing the ones you love and the ones that love you and always remember the ones that have passed...

This picture ges me...

Pack it in, pack it out.

I have been packing, little by little. My apartment is starting to look naked. My room is starting to look like a cardboard maze. Every night I get a box packed up. I have wanted so badly to move on from this apartment, this neighborhood. I couldn't pack things up fast enough. Then, this morning, while I was packing up just some random loose items in my bedroom, it happened. I realized that this apartment was the last physical link I have with Becky. This was OUR apartment, these were OUR things. I realized that if I kept going at the pace I was, that I would no longer be able to walk by Becky's room and say hi. I could no longer look from the kitchen into the hallway and see her coming and going. I realized that I don't want to leave that apartment. I don't want to lose the idea that Becky could still walk in the door at any moment.
I will always look to the door of the bars that I am in and see Becky walking in with that smile and excited prance in place thing she does. As I am sure I will continue to see her, if only from behind, walking up to the bar, down the street, into resteraunts, and around corners just so that I can't be sure that it is or isn't her. I guess I'll always have that.

(I hate that I don't have internet in my apartment and that I have to write this while I am at work and that I have to hide my tears so I don't look like a weirdo in the front of the office)

I found a new apartment, I will now be living on Lyon at Golden Gate. It's near my old neighborhood. It's quiet and nice. There are no crack heads, prostitutes, bums, crazies, or scum of the earth hanging outside my door. It's a happy time. I have two new roommates that I am looking forward to getting to know better. A new place that we will get to mold into our home, and that, I look forward to.

I will always love you Becky. We will always be best friends.

Hippie's and Outdoorsy Types

These two groups of people frustrate me so much. They are basically good people, they just have awful fashion sense and horrible hygiene habits.

What a fucking year...

Now this.

My other rooMmate, Ryan Dempsey, was just the victim of a hit and run. He was riding his bike along polk, when a driver decided to make a last minute right hand turn with out signaling. Dempsey hit the car, slid across the hood and across the intersection. He is 'ok', but thinks he may have broken ribs, and he is cut up a bit.

He got some of the plate, ALE302, and thinks the car may have been a Toyota Carola, or similar model of car.

What the fuck??!!! I am increasingly loosing faith in my felow human beings. What kind of scummy motherfucker drives away from that. I am so fucking fed up with San Francisco drivers, especially around our apartment.

FFFFFUUUUUCCCCKKKK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sailing...

I am a water person, no ifs, ands, or buts about it. At first my adventures were mostly hikes up and down creeks. Then, I was turned onto rives, and now, my most recent adventure has been exploring my own backyard....the San Francisco Bay. My vessel; Sea Angel. A Hinckley 35' Sloop. I have been out about four or five times, and each time gets better and better.

So far I have learned:
-Preparing the boat, roaps, sails, and general rigging.
-Man overboard techniques.
-How to reef.
-How to Tack and Jib (both with a crew and by myself).
-Some map reading/navigation.
-Rope handling.
-Some SailBoat laws, and some MotorBoat laws. I am still trying to get a hold on them.

Well, thats all I can think of right now.

Other things Sail....
Right now I am reading an amazing book, A World of My Own (The first ever non-stop solo round the world voyage), by Robin Knox-Johnston. A. Mazing. Dood was alone, out at sea for ten and a half months. I can't wait until I am ready to charter a boat by myself. I don't think it will be too long.

My family

My brother is sick, but he is still sort of interesting.

My sister smiles a whole bunch and sometimes she jumps at you and her hair looks like springs sticking out of her head...in a good way, like a sun shiney good way.

My Baba is also sick, which I feel like is a really rare thing. When he gets sick it sometimes looks like his face is sliding off of his head, it gets really long. He wears his blue and black stripped robe and reads the paper and eats avgolemono by the bucketfull. He sometimes trotts after you and will flipflap smack you on the shoulder or butt or head and then challenge you to a game of foosball....which he thinks he is good at.

My Mama is the sweetest, cutest, word mispronounciest, wonderful, spirited woman. If she can't make you smile, well, then you are doomed. I think the government should hire her....for whatever.

San Francisco, please don't let me down...

I am quickly becoming disenchanted with this city. It may just be my current neighborhood, the TL, but I think that that is only a portion of it.

Things that really, really bug me about the city....

1- The homelessness
2- The violence (every night there are fights outside my window, oh, and last night there was gun fire)
3- The ridiculous prices of....well, of everything.
4- The people. Who ever said Californians, especially Northern Californians, are layed back, relaxed, mellow, warm, inviting and cool was way off the mark. We may have once been like that, but all I encounter now are dipshits, errogant, elitist dipshits. Oblivious, couldn't care less dipshits.
5- Cool. I hate cool. No one has any fun being cool...and shit talking about people who are having fun and looking silly doing it is not fun or cool.
6- The fog.
7- I was going to try to make this a top 10 list, but once I wrote out a few of those earlier ones I got so mad i forgot some of the other ones......I hopefully wont be back with more.

Friends, where are you??? Get me out of this funk. Show me that I want to live in this city....cause right now....I really don't.

East Bay here I come...

From the looks if it I may be moving back out to the East Bay for a couple of months. Back to Concord. Back to my parents house.
While it's not an ideal way to start the new year there are a couple of perks. I will get to save lots of money. I will be riding my bike a lot more hopefully (it is winter and rain may be a slight damper, no pun intended, on actual road time.), and...well, I guess that's it.
My weeks will most likely be split between Emma's apt. and my parents house. Hmmmm....I have yet to figure out a schedule that would make this as seamless as possible. Things I will have to consider are getting to work from the East Bay with a bike. Bart officially hates bikes...and most of its passengers for that matter. Bringing enough clothing to stay a couple of days at Emma's. Hauling around my training gear for Muay Thai. And much, much more. I will keep you updated on my search and how bright or dim the future of Mr. Cakes being a SF resident looks.

As of right now, Sylvia from D-Structure, this guy Pat who is totally great, and I are looking to convert a two bedroom into a three. Our cap out price is $2,100. We have found absolutely nothing. Well, nothing except this nice little apartment about a block away from Emma's place down on 14 and S. Van Ness. There is just one problem, the building management company is a nightmare. Yelp them, Makras Realty, absolute nightmare. I don't want to get involved with someone like this....but it is either a nightmare bulding manager or my parents as landlords....I think I would rather go with the parents.

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And then there's this girl....

MTBM

This is probably the only big guy in Muay Thai that is actually interesting to watch fight. All the others hug too much....



Ernesto Hoost, originally from Surinam, has been in the game for ages. If you get a moment you really should check out this collection of pictures that chronicles his career (http://message.axkickboxing.com/index.phtml?action=dispthread&topic=16863&junk=1165425911.04464). I think he trains fighters at Vos gym alongside his former trainer Dutch Legend Ivan Hippolyte.

Hoost, who’s a veteran of 118 fights seems like he’s beaten everyone who’s anyone in the game. Some of his notable wins include Changpuek, Andy Hug, Mirko, etc.

D-Structure 1.00000 Year Anaversary