Dinhternet

Man, yesterday was such a long day, I’m still tired.

Woke up at 8 to get ready for “Wacky Water Day” at Fairy-Tale Town. Nhi came over and we picked up Drew and headed off to Sac.

The project was really cool. Basically the front half of the park was turned into a tiny water park. There was the castle, where we ran around with squirt guns and some lucky people got to stand on top with a hose to get any kids that wander by. One side of the lazy river next to the pirate ship was designated as the “rafting” area, where we had inflatable inner tubes ready for kids that wanted to float around. On the opposite side was the deepest part of the lazy river, and that was designated the “swimming” area. And finally in the area behind Mary’s Little Lamb was “Kids’ Zone” for children five and under to play.

Officially, I was on the Castle Lawn crew, but at first I didn’t have a gun and so couldn’t do anything, really. Then one of the other Castle Lawn people got fed up with their assigned weapon because it leaked more than it shot, and so handed it to me. I shot up all the kids by the castle and got bored, so I went roaming and shot up kids (and other APhiOers) in all the areas.

Randy, Nhi, and Ngoc were looking VERY bored at Kid’s Zone, so I told them to go exploring like me, but their staff supervisor was a bit anal, and demanded to have three volunteers at all times, so I offered to switch with one of them, and Randy heartily agreed.

Staying at Kids’ Zone wasn’t too bad. I think Nhi and Ngoc just weren’t as into it as I was. I actually ran into the lazy river and splashed around and played with the kids, and they kinda just sat in the shade of the tree. Yeah, they were doing their job, which was basically risk management for Fairy-Tale Town in the form of telling kids not to run (and trip and fall and sue), but they weren’t enjoying it like I was.

The APhiOers came and went… there was a good amount of roaming. I hear almost everyone got a turn on top of the castle, drenching everyone who passed underneath. More people migrated to our area towards the end of the day, because Kids’ Zone was the cleanest area left; the other parts of the lazy river were affectionately called “Willy Wonka’s Chocolate River” because of all the mud and stuff that got into them.

So yeah, very fun project. And Fairy-Tale Town takes very good care of us. Got plenty of free water and snacks. I was sad to see it come to an end. Well, maybe not entirely, because there were a couple of brats who supplanted the cute babies in the area. They broke both of the staff water guns I managed to get my hands on.

Anyway, ended a little bit early, so I hurried back to Davis, showered, picked up Tim H and Esther, and we headed off to San Mateo for Diana’s birthday party. Left davis around 4:45 and didn’t get to the restaurant until about 6:45, due to a couple of spots of bad traffic. Including one really bad five-car collision outside of Fairfield. But it was cool, though; Tim H and Esther are very entertaining passengers. In fact, they are quote!

(To set up this quote, Esther was sitting shotgun, and Tim H was in the seat behind her. And they both had soda cans from her place.)

Yeah… they managed to kep me awake for the drive there and back just fine. :thumbs:

Oh, and on the way there, the dinner location was changed from Macaroni Grill to Red Robin. Good thing I had a San Mateo native in my car. We got there and parked exactly at the same time as Mommy Tang. Or so we thought. Waited for her outside for a while, but decided it must have been someone else with a car like hers, because we didn’t see anyone that looked anything like her walking towards the entrance.

Went inside and found that everyone had ordered maybe two minutes previously, so we got some menus and ordered ourselves. It was my first time to a Red Robin, and very hard for me to decide because I had to be vegetarian, and there was basically two things I could get off the whole menu. Either the Gardenburger or the salad. I went with the Gardenburger, because at least it had bottomless steak fries to go with it, and I could load up on them. Also got the “Freckled Lemonade,” which is their name for strawberry lemonade with chunks of real strawberry in it.

Dinner was good, and I also got some onion rings off the communal appetizer. Oh yeah, if you didn’t know, my version of “vegetarian” is a little stricter than just “no meat.” Because it’s for my religion, I’m also not supposed to have any garlic or onion, because they “make you hot inside.” (It’s a Yin-Yang balance thing.) But I ignored that rule, mostly because I didn’t know what the hell was in a Gardenburger anyway. Kinda feel bad, but at least I didn’t have meat.

Oh, remember how I said we thought we saw Mommy Tang in the parking lot? It turns out it WAS her. She just sat in her car afterwards to write Diana’s card. Which apparently took like twenty minutes. I sat next to Mike C for dinner, and he’s still as funny as ever. I wish more of Toy class was still around. Where did all the greatness go?

Speaking of Toy class greatness, if I could have a… I dunno, video clip of the day, it would be when Esther gave her gift to Diana. She didn’t have the time to wrap it, so she tried to just hand it to Diana when they sat next to each other, but Diana closed her eyes and insisted it be wrapped. So Esther looks around and grabs a display box on the table (it’s a paperboard cube with different drinks/desserts on every face), opens up the top, shoves her gift (a shirt) in, and hands it to Diana. Diana then pretends she doesn’t know what it is and goes through the whole shaking-the-box-to-guess-what’s-inside routine. Mike C tells her not to do that, because the gift is a burger. Finally, Diana opens up the box and looks very surprised as she pulls the shirt out.

After dinner, we went back to Diana’s place for what looked like a long night of drinking. But first, while Dick was out securing the goods, all the guys sat around in the living room and Mike C read a girl magazine out loud. It was very educational. I wasn’t going to have anything, but then Brandon busted out the absinthe that Dick had brought back from Europe, and I had to try some. We did a ghetto version of the Bohemian ritual, and drank the stuff straight up instead of mixing it into any fancy cocktails.

I have to say, the green fairy disappointed me. Well, honestly, I didn’t see anything at all. I think we all needed more than our one or two shots’ worth. Or maybe we just have to do it the old school way, with rat poison and stuff to really kick it up to the next level. Oh yeah, and we were watching Eurotrip at the same time, too. But we didn’t get to the clubbing scene by the time we were taking it.

I got really tired after that, so Tim H, Esther, and I went home. I think Esther was scared I was going to start hallucinating and run us off the road or something, but that didn’t happen. Not even close. I dropped them off at her place, safe and sound. Then I went back to my place for a bit. Peggy wanted to hang out, so I went to her place, and ended up crashing there.

Interesting day today.

Woke up at 7 and alternated between going online, reading Cryptonomicon, and just laying in bed. Did that until about 11:30, when I finished the book.

Wrote a post. Went to watch TV. Nothing good on at all. I ended up watching Celebrity Poker, but it was not entertaining me in the slightest. Back online, but no one was on today. Lay in bed some more. Back down to the TV, where I watched X-Files. Haven’t seen that in forever. It was good.

Mommy Van came over and dropped off some Loose family stuff Mommy Tang had for me, and I burned Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5 for her. As soon as she left, I went back online, where I got today’s first quote from Mommy Tang.

Thanks, mom. Thanks a lot. Oh, and she said she drooled on it, too. Yay!

Did some service stuff, then caught up on a couple of mangas and watched Bleach 43. After that, it was time for the project. Standard KVIE pledge drive deal. It was straightforward.

If you’ve done it before, you know that on the opening screen, you type in your name. Well, Peggy sat next to me and typed in “POO” on my screen and insisted I introduced myself that way all night. Since I can never say no to her, I did just that. THe script reads, “Hello, and thank you for calling KVIE. My name is Poo. May I get your name?” I would try to get the middle sentence out as fast as possible. Most people didn’t seem to notice or care. But one lady did. She is today’s second quote.

I do believe she was mocking me.

The project cut off at 11. They shoved some burritos on us and we went home. Chatted online until now… I guess I should pass out soon.

Now that I think about it, I’m still pretty far behind. Should have written more yesterday, but Saturday’s post was so long, and I had to do it twice because Firefox crashed the first time. Oh well… here’s Sunday…

Izzy P got a call in the middle of the night and I woke her up for it since I was lying next to her. She didn’t sound very appreciatative, though… lesson learned: don’t wake up Izzy P.

Woke up at 5 and got ready in minutes. Took a little longer to get everyone else ready. We left Peggy S’s place at 6, which was a little behind schedule, since we told Hanh D we would be picking her up by then, and she lives on the other side of San Jose. For some reason, I was lead car to both Hanh D’s place and to the actual project. Maybe Peggy S and Ian R think I’m responsible, and/or know my way around Frisco. Hehehe. But I did keep us going at a reasonably good clip (averaging 75), and we got there in time. And before the chair.

After we signed in, found that they weren’t very well organized, and job assignments were almost a free-for-all. Most of us were doing Checkpoint 4. Doing what, I couldn’t even tell you. Then Will F announced that they needed another Delineator, so I went over to that crowd. Found out that what Delineators do is put down the cones that mark the course route, and pick them up again after everyone has passed. Not too complicated. I was in group D3 with Debbie P, Jackie H, Kevin P, and Thu H. And there were three non-APhiO people and David, our supervisor and driver.

The first thing we had to do was put on our day-glo orange hats and vests. (I think it’s a step up from the hot pink one I got last year. )

Putting down the cones was easy. We assembled them on the truck, and dropped them strategically spaced out along our section of the route. Then one of us had to run along with caution tape and connect all the cones. We also had to set up a couple of barricades to stop cars from turning onto the course, and to mark some course hazards, like a big pile of dirt on the side of the road.

After we finished marking up our section, went to a big bend in the course between Checkpoints 1 and 2 and stopped there. Helped Energy 92.7 set up there, and Cheer SF was there, too. Spent the next four hours cheering on everyone that went by. David was very inspired, he made pom-poms out of extra caution tape (one of the non-APhiO people told us last year he made skirts with it) and had a bunch of cheer signs ready. They included, “Your boots were made for walking,” “You go _____ (Fill in the blank),” “Thanks Gold Crown Walkers,” and “You walkers are bananas! B-A-N-A-N-A-S.” Oh, and he took one of the many “No Stopping” traffic signs from around the park and wrote under it, “You’re halfway there!” He also told us to think of something, and he would put it on a sign for us, but none of us could come up with anything.

So we stood around for hours. Well, Kevin P and I stood around. Debbie P, Jackie H, and Thu H did a lot of dancing to the music. Thu H even requested songs. Saw Amy K, Diana Pai, Kitty K, and Carol S in the crowds. Also saw this scary old man who had a hot pink wig, neon orange bikini (complete with male camel-toe), and tall black heels on. It was like the sun… I didn’t to look directly at him, for fear of permanent damage to the retinas.

Got sack lunches again. They were sitting in a cooler on the truck the whole time, but we didn’t really bust into them until the walk was almost over. Partly due to that one guy. It’s a good thing we did wait, though, because we definitely needed the energy for picking up the cones. The process was a lot more involved than putting them down. We had two people running slightly ahead taking the caution tape off the cones and winding it up to throw away. Two more people ran along outside and handed cones into the truck as it drove by. One person on the platform on the back of the truck to take the cones being handed in. And finally two people in the truck taking the cones apart and stacking them up nice and neat.

That took a while. And I was stupid and stepped in a pothole and rolled my ankle, making me take a pretty embarrassing fall and scrape my knee. And my ankle swelled up. That was fun.

After we finished up, headed back to the other side of the park, where the finish line was. Along the way we passed Jimmy P and Jane L’s Delineator crew, who were still hard at work. And their system wasn’t as good as ours. Oh, and random people we passed would shout, “We love you, Coneheads!” as we passed. That was nice.

So we got back to the finish line, where everyone else was. First thing Peggy S says to me when she sees me is to demand my hat, so that she could have the full set. Nhi K seemed to have everything under control as chair, and told everyone we were all free to do whatever, the project was now officially over.

Ian R, Izzy P, Peggy S, Thu H, and I walk back to the cars, only to get stopped every couple of yards by someone who wants to buy one of Peggy S’s hats off of her. Got back to the cars and the plan was to follow Ian, who was going to Starbucks, a gas station, Costco, and then back to Davis. Tried to follow him out of the city, but I lost him right before getting on the ramp to get onto the Bay Bridge, so I decided to just lead Peggy S back home. (Well, still stopping at Costco, by forgoing the Starbucks.)

Found out that Ian R somehow ended up pretty close behind us, so I was once again lead car. Took us most of the way, and then Peggy S (or maybe it was Ian R, I wouldn’t know because both Thu H’s cell phone and mine died, but she was the one who moved and had me follow) decided we weren’t going to the Vacaville one. We stopped at the one between Vallejo and Fairfield. I forgot the name of the town. Ian R and Peggy S got Harry Potter there, and then I borrowed Peggy S’s card to get some gas.

Made it back home after long last, and I passed out almost immediately. Woke up a couple hours later and went online for a bit. Peggy S woke up and we went out to dinner. Were gonna eat at Thai Bistro, but they closed a little early, so ended up at Old Teahouse, where we ran into Ian R, Alice C, Becca Y, and David Y. Oh, and Debbie AY, Jenny D, Ling K, and Randy L were at a different table, too. Peggy S got her Seafood Udon and I wanted the Seafood Bake, but they told me the oven was broken, so no bakes possible. I doubted it was actually broken, but whatever… got the yin-yang rice instead. Quote comes from dinner talk.

After that, Peggy S needed to study, and I offered to keep her company by reading with her. Only we didn’t have a place, because she can’t concentrate at her place, and my place was super hot. So we invited ourselves to Sophia C’s. But she wouldn’t let us bring Harry Potter into her apartment, so I started to re-read Cryptonomicon instead.

After a while, Sophia C got tired and kicked us out, so I dropped Peggy S off, went home, and passed out.