Such Great Heights

Where to start on what a kick-​ass week­end it was… Well, I sup­pose I should start at the begin­ning. That would make the most sense.

So Fri­day… I got home from Bran­don T’s at around 3:15 in the morn­ing, made a quick post, and passed out until I nat­u­rally woke up at 5:15, with the nasty after-​taste of Irish whiskey in my mouth. Damn those car bombs! Took a shower, then wrote an extended post while I started pack­ing. Well, really, I started my laun­dry first so I would have clean clothes to pack. Also watched the episodes of Naruto and Com­mit­ted as I waited. After I fin­ished pack­ing up clothes, got crack­ing on that suit­case… tried every­thing I could think of, but no no avail. Finally said fuck it, and decided to pack the whole thing and let Joe M deal with it up at the cab­ins. Shoved all my shit into the Trooper as a firm base, and put all the snow­boards peo­ple gave me on top. Then I just played the wait­ing game… had to wait for Joe M to get out of class to come help me change my oil, because my oil plug is huge and Son D didn’t have a tool that could fit it. (I didn’t real­ize how big it was because last time I changed my oil, I was at home and used an adjustable mon­key wrench instead of a nice socket wrench.) Joe M even­tu­ally showed up and we found out my plug is 22mm. Some­thing I’m going to have to file away for future note. By the time I fin­ished the oil change, it was 12:45. Ian R and I were sup­posed to leave at 12. That’s APhiO time for you. Joe M had to wait for Speedy­Lube to change his oil, but I was hella itch­ing to go, so dropped him at Bran­don T’s when I went there to pick up one last snow­board and then took off. (Sorry about dump­ing you like that, man!) Went over to Ian R’s and got his stuff and the food boxes from Mommy Van’s place that I offered to also take up. Mom told me it wasn’t that much, and that she had put it in boxes so it was stack­able. LIES! It was three huge over-​filled Costco boxes with no tops. I had to take all the stuff out of my car and re-​pack every­thing into the trunk. We finally hit the road at 1:30.

The drive itself was pretty unevent­ful. We just talked the whole time about Win­ter Retreats past. Got to the cab­ins and no one else was home, so we decided to explore the area on foot. This crazy ass dog fol­lowed us as well walked down a street, and as we came back, it got kinda vio­lent and started bark­ing at us and even nip­ping at our asses and heels. Aaron L’s car was there when we got back, so we brought all our shit inside and set­tled down. The first things unpacked where the PS2 and XBOX. Oh, and the food. Can’t for­get about that. I wanted to keep it all for our cabin, but Mommy Van sep­a­rated it up any­ways. Chilled there for a cou­ple of hours as we waited for more folks to show up. Then a big group of us hit up the Harrah’s buf­fet. The $30 price drove away a car’s worth of folks, but I went in with Jackson’s promise of Seafood Fri­days. More lies! It was Texas BBQ night, and while noth­ing was par­tic­u­larly bad, it cer­tainly wasn’t worth $30. After­wards, we hit up the casino for a bit, (actu­ally, Ian R and I hit up the arcade as Aaron L and Drew M hit the tables) and went home.

Helped shovel snow and arrange park­ing when we got home for the peo­ple arriv­ing later. Things were pretty con­fused and those late-​comers pretty much got shafted. It doesn’t help when peo­ple stand around in the way and don’t con­tribute, either. Oh, and I found out in the dark that the but­ton on my Maglite fell off! I found it, but I don’t really want to re-​attach it, because soft rub­bery stuff never super-​glues well. Hope­fully, I can find the receipt and just exchange it for a new one at Costco. After that, just passed out in the liv­ing room… Dri­vers were sup­posed to get beds, but I gave up mine.

Friday’s quote:

“Lews, you bet­ter eat my money’s worth. I’m just here for the witty con­ver­sa­tion.”- Aaron L, at the buffet.

Sat­ur­day… I woke up nice and early to go drop off all the crazy snow­board­ers at the rental place. Went back and passed out some more until it was time for the cool sled­ding crew to get going. We went to the Out­lets first to get some gloves for Drew M, then went look­ing for a Sno-​Park. I didn’t see the turn-​in for the one I went to with VSA, so kept going and parked on the other side of that stor­age place at the edge of it. Was gonna get every­one to walk back to the real Sno-​Park area, but they decided to just run up the clos­est snow bank instead. So we sled­ded there for a bit, and had a huge snow­ball fight. Some folks got buried… Bao N on pur­pose, oth­ers, just because they took a wrong step. It was really cool because we were the first peo­ple in the area, so it was all vir­gin snow at first.

Got piss tired and picture-​whored it up, then stag­gered home. Tried to get peo­ple to go down­town to explore, but I was the only dri­ver inter­ested, and many peo­ple pulled a “I don’t want to go if my friend can’t,” even though some peo­ple had press­ing need to go buy proper snow equip­ment. It ended up being just Drew M, Kat­rina S, and me. Wan­dered around the Heav­enly Vil­lage because Kat­rina S knew the area pretty well. Didn’t buy any­thing, but made some inter­est­ing finds. On the way home, got some Chan­tico for Ian R, and Drew M and I tried it. It really does taste like a melted down choco­late bar. Well, it was much smoother than what a melted bar would taste like, because it lacked the solid­i­fy­ing wax. But you get the idea. Drew M and I are going to find a steamer and buy some choco­late to make our own Chan­tico. It might even be a fel­low­ship. We’ll see.

Got back to the cabin in time for some spaghetti good­ness. Our cabin was the first to fin­ish cook­ing, and peo­ple from other cab­ins would walk over and stare long­ingly at our food. Haha, suck­ers! Just kid­ding… we invited every­one to eat with us, espe­cially Cabin 3, who didn’t get their own din­ner sup­plies and were sup­posed to bum off Cab­ins 1 and 2. Clint S came over, and scared me shit­less when he showed me that he only had two sig­na­tures on his sig sheet, and he didn’t even have mine. I made him go around the room beg­ging for them, since more than half of ExComm was there. Also snagged Gina L’s, so that’s only two more Advi­sors to go. Score! While the pledges were put to task on their require­ments, Drew M, Ian R, and I went to Albertson’s and picked up lumpia/​cream cheese won­ton sup­plies. And tam­pons, Midol, and a jug of KY. I don’t know why, but it was requested. Went back and I passed in and out of sleep as peo­ple played games and rolled food. The bath­room was finally free at like 2 in the morn­ing, so hopped in for shower, then played Mafia with a bunch of peo­ple until around 4. Called it a night when the major­ity of play­ers became inco­her­ent in their accusations.

Saturday’s quote:

“Lo can’t be the killer. The killer’s smart! He’s got a plan!”- Michow. And then it turned out Lo was in fact the killer.

The next day, I woke up to Ian R play­ing games, so I joined him for some co-​op Halo. Then other peo­ple woke up, so we switched to death­match. Ate left­over fried stuff between rounds. It was the best break­fast ever. Basi­cally slummed around the apart­ment wait­ing for every­one to wake up and get ready. We finally left for Reno around 4:30. The cool car con­sisted of Drew M, Eddie C, Peggy S, Phuoc L, and myself. So many ran­dom jokes on the way. When we got in town, went straight to this Sushi Club I had heard so much about. Unfor­tu­nately, the ser­vice and the food were a lit­tle below the bar of excel­lence. That didn’t phase the Sushi Dream Team, though! We got bel­liger­ent, demanded free drinks, and even­tu­ally broke down and stole food from sur­round­ing tables. I’m not sure if we still ate the most, but we won before it even started with our awe­some team pose for Mo W’s eat­ing team shots. Ended the night of glut­tony with a shot of quail egg. It was soft-​boiled and float­ing in soy sauce. Salty, but noth­ing to gag about. When I saw that, I hella wanted to order “ochawan mushi,” but there was no chance in hell that place would have it.

Went to Cir­cus Cir­cus after that, and we split up… Eddie C and I went with the young’uns to the Mid­way while the other grown-​ups went to the tables. Did a lap and didn’t feel like play­ing any­thing, really. I threw in some quar­ters for the ring-​toss game, but didn’t win any­thing. Phuoc L did get a bunch of stuff from the bas­ket­ball game and the fish­ing game. I decided to try the rest of my change on the slots, so first we went and used up all my nick­els, win­ning noth­ing. Then tried to exchange with Mommy Tang some dimes/​pennies which weren’t playable for a quar­ter. Instead, she gave me all her pocket change, and told me it was lucky because she was win­ning money for peo­ple all night at the craps table. Damn, I hella wanted to see Mommy Tang roll! Also found out Tina H was hella lucky, win­ning $4 off a penny slot, so went back down to find them and these penny slots they spoke of. Was going to ask to rub her for good luck, but she said it was declin­ing, so I didn’t want to steal any away from her. Tried Mommy Tang’s quar­ter in a quar­ter slot, and won $1.25, but then lost it all back to the machines. Damn! Then I tried to find out how to play the penny slots with my pen­nies… the var­i­ous booths on the casino floor hella gave me the run-​around, and I even­tu­ally just gave up. Found Drew M had lost some money and felt like leav­ing, so we all went back upstairs. Tried some more Mid­way games, and Drew M won an ele­phant by rub­bing Aywon’s ass.

On the ride back, hit some HELLA thick fog, and it was so cold out­side that the fog froze to my win­dows, so we stopped at a gas sta­tion in Car­son City to squeegee my car clean. There hap­pened to be video poker machines there, so we tried our luck, and Eddie C ended up win­ning $20 off $.50! We stopped at Safe­way on the way home, and he treated us to some fancy expen­sive apples — not that Granny Smith crap — and also some flow­ers and heart-​shaped cook­ies for the moth­ers. Oh, and we also got some pud­ding and flan to try to kill some of our four gal­lons of milk.

When we got back to the cabin, I again passed in and out of sleep as every­one else had pud­ding and made a giant Park God replica in the snow. (SJ folks know what I’m talk­ing about, right? San Jo!) Woke up again for scary game/​stories, and passed out for good some­where in the mid­dle of the sto­ries. Every­one knocked out in the liv­ing room that night. Drew M on the very edge because he was first to pass out, and we were still telling sto­ries. Then it was Eddie C, Ian R, Peggy S, me, the cof­fee table, and Phuoc L on the couch. Spoon-​a-​palooza started in the mid­dle of the night, and Eddie C kept edg­ing every­one towards me, and I was stuck against the cof­fee table. Very inter­est­ing times.

Sunday’s quote:

“Where’s my hot tea?!”- Phuoc L to the Sushi Club waitress.

And finally, we come to yes­ter­day. Woke up and packed up all our shit. Throw­ing stuff into my car wasn’t as bad as before, because we didn’t have to re-​do it. It was more cramped, though, because I didn’t fold down my rear seats, since I was also tak­ing Drew M and Phuoc L. Piled the boards and such a lit­tle dan­ger­ously, but noth­ing that I couldn’t han­dle as long as I closed the back gate quickly and opened it slowly. The cars split hands at that point and a bunch of us headed out to the lake to play in the snow some more. It was a great omen that para­medics were pulling away a neck injury vic­tim as we got there, and we decided to sled down in the same spot. Smart­ness! No one got hurt, though, and we headed to the edge of the ice for some snow­ball fun. Some lucky folks even got watery fun as they broke through thin ice. Yay! The cars split again at that point, and Aywon N’s fol­lowed mine to Safe­way for some Star­bucks before the long drive home. We passed them a walkie-​talkie, and for the whole ride, we played car-vs.-car 10 Fin­gers. Each car had a com­mu­nal ten fin­gers, and any­thing we said had to be true for the entire car. The other car won (due to some low-​blows), and we agreed to take them out to din­ner for it. Got back in town around 4, and I was half-​asleep for the longest time, so I decided to take a real nap for thirty min­utes, but I missed Drew M’s wake-​up IM, and ended up sleep­ing for over an hour. Woke up as Peggy S swung by to pick me up, but she didn’t have room in her car, so I drove… Aywon N never picked up his phone, Chai was sleep­ing, Scott was doing home­work, and Lo and Phuoc went to play bas­ket­ball with Bao, so it was just Peggy S, Drew M, Ian R, and me. Also called up Sophia C, who just got back in town, too. We were gonna use my Chevy’s gift cer­tifi­cates, but Car­rie hadn’t passed them out yet, so went to Applebee’s instead. Joe M and Jenny Y vis­ited brei­fly, too, but didn’t eat.

After­wards, dropped every­one off except Peggy S, who wanted to watch scary movies. Specif­i­cally, May, but our CD col­lec­tion is a mess and I couldn’t find it, so we ended up watch­ing Allan D’s copy of Juon 2 instead. It was com­pletely dif­fer­ent from the ver­sion that the fresh­men gave us. (Which I also couldn’t find.) Still pretty freaky, though… the Juon series is slowly tak­ing away all my “safe” areas! Peggy S left after the movie, and I read some manga and chat­ted online for a bit before pass­ing out.

Yesterday’s quote:

“No prostate can­cer for me!”- Some­one in my car, when we were dis­cussing if we could use a “I have not mas­tur­bated in…” line for 10 Fingers.

Ah… fun times. Hope every­one has a good day going back to class today. I have work off, so I’m going to work on some stuff at home and prob­a­bly stop by CoHo a lit­tle before the meet­ings tonight. See you guys there!

Tags: Aaron L, Aywon N, Bao N, Brandon T, Clint S, Drew M, Eddie C, Food, fresh, Games, Ian R, Joe M, Michow, Mo W, Movies, Peggy S, Phone, Ron L, Son D, Sophia Chang, Stories, Work