Years end

Today is the last day in 2008. I thought (very) briefly about listing memories from the past year, but it's far too early in the day to give my mind that kind of a workout. I didn't really make any new friends this year, it's just not my style, but I'd like to think I've become closer with the ones I already have. Here's to 2009, let's do it right!

8-8

All in all, I had a pretty good Christmas. For some reason it's just not the same as when you're a little kid, I really miss the excitement of it all. I did get myself a sweet gps though, which is tentatively named "Shirley" "Where do you wanna go? ASSHOLE!" After all the Christmas excitement (or lack there of) settled down, I went to Nathan's and got in some golf before the movie. The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button wasn't necessarily a bad movie, but the three hours it took to get through it made it seem that way. Plus there's just something really creepy about an old woman in love with a baby.

The following day, I hopped on a plane and headed north for a family photo. The photo turned out to be more of a two hour photo shoot in the 11 degree weather. It was good to see some of my family that I never see, even if it was only for a day. Before I knew it I was back on a plane headed back to San Diego, receiving score updates from the pilot along the way.

I can't imagine a better homecoming reception than watching the Chargers embarrass the Broncos on national television. We had to head to DT for an ice cream social to celebrate.

Playoffs here we come. Everyone squish together, we gotta make some room on the bandwagon.


What a crazy week. The last four days have felt more like ten.

Here’s to bad decisions

What a weekend! What can I say? Friday night we went down to Fashion Valley to finish some last minute Christmas preparations as the anticipation started to build for Saturday. After the mall, we set off to find a place that would pierce Nathan’s lip and officially kick off the winter break. This turned out to be a little more difficult than we planned, but after getting turned down by a couple of sketchy tattoo places, we found a guy who was willing to do it for $21 the following day in honor of his 21st birthday. We then headed to Del Taco for some late night custom cuisine and called it a night.

Saturday started a little earlier than normal as we hit the mall to buy some party clothes. After the mall, we headed to “Wild Bill’s Western Emporium” in search of a bolo tie that would complete Justyn’s entire outfit. We hit a couple more stores and then headed home to rest up for the party. Now I can’t even begin to explain how excited I was for this party. All day I was telling myself to keep my excitement in check and pace myself with the 151…MISSION FAILED! Just before entering the party, we all made a pact to throw caution to the wind and do something we would later regret. All I can say is, I held up my end of the pact. My first mistake of the evening was not eating anything except a tiny sandwich before I set sail on my booze soaked adventure. I lasted a good hour and a half before needing Nathan’s assistance to stumble home and vomit on my floor and pass out. The worst part is, I missed a good percentage of the party and I have Christmas gifts that I can’t even remember getting. I missed one of my best friends turning 21 at midnight, don’t worry Justyn we’ve yet to celebrate but it’s coming. Simply put, I fucked up.

Sunday I spent the majority of the day on “Hangover Island”. The Miracle that the Chargers somehow pulled off was just enough to lift me out of my miserable state.

Wild weekend but it’s time to suck it up…New Years is just around the corner…151 anyone?

Witner Break

The time has come, winter break has finally arrived.
I hope you're thirsty.



Go get your hair did, lets do this right!

The end of the road

Friday

• Stayed home from work
• Caught up on some sleep
• Sushi lunch with Casey and Jessica
• Starbucks
• Started season 4 at Justyn's
• Late night Santana's

Saturday

• Breakfast at Einstein's with the entourage
• Jam Session
• Nap time
• Hancock with Nathan and Flo
• Dinner at Santana's

Sunday

• Early Charger game at Oggi's
• Slept most of the day
• Pre DT Sunday
• MILK

This is it guys! One more week and then all hell breaks loose. Best of luck to everyone on their finals.

Sorry, I couldn't help myself

Sleep tight

I didn’t get very much sleep last night but, after what happened during the few hours I did sleep, I wish I hadn’t at all. Last night I experienced one of the most vivid/disturbing dreams I’ve ever had. The truth is it really wasn’t anything out of the ordinary which made it all too real for my comfort. In the dream, I’m basically best friends (we appeared to be roommates as well) with someone I’m not terribly fond of. Then, As if the idea of spending the majority of my time with this person wasn’t bad enough, as the dream progresses, I come to realize that the reason we are such close friends is our vast similarity to one another. I then proceeded to wake up in a cold sweat, only to thank God it was only a dream.

I’d rather not disclose the identity of this person since there is no telling who reads this thing. If you must know, just ask.

System update

Recently, I've come to the realization that "Chris Chadwick version 3.0" might be a necessary upgrade. It's nothing dramatic, just little personality flaws that I'd really like to work on. First on the list is being more social. My natural instinct has always been against meeting new people and there's no telling how many great relationships I've missed out on as a result of this. In fact, some of my closest friends today are people that I initially had very little interest in getting to know. I've been told on many occasions that most people think I'm an asshole when they first meet me, and that sucks. I'm sure if it's some kind of defense mechanism I use, but there's no excuse for it and I'm going to work to change it. It seems cliche but, maybe these changes will go on some sort of mental new years resolution.

Winter Wonderland

Here goes, time for my very first blog post from inside the Kowalski fort. Pretty much just another weekend recap to kill some time while I'm at the study session, with nothing to study, unfortunately.

Friday

• Spent a very entertaining/relaxing night in finishing season three with the entourage

Saturday

• Woke up early to get work done
• Bevmo to return the kegs
• Guitar Center to cash in the free gift card
• Got song number four well on it's way at Justyn's
• Rubio's FREE BURRITO
• Made an good attempt to go to Balboa for "December Nights"
• Four Christmases...meh!
• Board game fun at The Kowalski's
• Late night "Yellow Shack" trip
• Lock out "fun" with Flo

Sunday

• Slept in way later than normal
• Clothes shopping with my Mom for a stupid family picture
• S-Bucks study session
• Sushi Sunday
• More S-Bucks
• DT Sunday
• Late night cyber cafe

So far, this is shaping up to be one of the best winter breaks in recent years. It's still a couple weeks away and the extensive plans have already begun. Between Christmas lights in the Hummer, outdoor ice skating, Kate's holiday celebration, Justyn and Leo turning 21, flying out of town for one day, and Christmas itself, my hopes are high.

Santee tastes so good

Last night I went to the “Taste of Santee” event at the Santee Union Bank. When Eli called and invited me, I wasn’t exactly sure what I was getting myself into. It turns out it’s basically an event put on by the city of Santee Chamber of Commerce in order to showcase and thank local businesses (mostly restaurants). To put in plainly, free food and beer (Coors Light obviously). The event also featured music by none other than The Honky Tonk Kings, I won’t go into detail about the band, I’m sure whatever you’re picturing is accurate. I took a picture just in case though.

Holiday cheer

So I pretty much got all of my Christmas shopping done online at work today.  I know it doesn't really put you in the same holiday mood as going to the malls this time of year, but it's also a lot less stressful. Plus with everyone doing free shipping, it's way to hard to pass up.

Also, I found out today that my boss is taking us all out to lunch at Onami for a Christmas gift. I'd prefer a bonus but, all you can eat sushi will suffice.

Let's have a Christmas movie night, maybe once everyone's finals settle down.

Make mine a double

The last several days have been pretty eventful so I had much time to one of these.  

I had the day off of work on Wednesday, thanks to the pumpkin carving contest I won back on Halloween, so my family and I went to Disneyland for the day. We couldn't have asked for a more perfect day. The forecast had said severe thunder storms, this was not even close to being true. In rained lightly for about ten minutes and then was a perfect sunny 70 degrees. The predicted rain must have scared off the masses because there was hardly anyone there, which resulted in short lines all day.  We ended our fun filled day by having dinner at The Blue Bayou (the restaurant inside The Pirates ride).  The food was pretty pricey but, it's safe to say it was one of the best meals I've ever had.

Thursday wasn't too exciting, just went to my Aunt's house up in Carlsbad for Thanksgiving, ate my weight in tofurkey, then went to Nathan's for some last minute party prep.

On Friday, I discovered my true calling in life.  Nathan's party was pretty much perfect, minus a douche bag or two (but David saw to it that the clown got his lumps, the other received no lumps but still found a way to shed some blood).  I'd never experienced a party from the other side of the bar before Friday night but, it was a night I'll never forget.  I wasn't really drinking all that much myself but, there was a certain buzz that came over me just watching how happy my drinks were making people.  This was no small task and couldn't have been successful without the help of my countless assistants, mostly Martin.

I can't stand feeling like a day is over before it's even began.  That's pretty much what Saturday felt like.  I mean we got some much needed house work done to transform the Kowalski house back into the Kowalski home, but it seemed like we'd barely woken up and the sun was already beginning to set.  We found time at the end of the night to reward ourselves for the overall success of the previous night by drinking the remainder of the keg and playing board games.

Sunday was pretty uneventful since I woke up feeling terrible. I'm petty sure it was just the result of drinking too much the two nights prior and my body crying out for a detox. I got some much needed rest though, and ended the night with some sushi.

The next party you see me tending bar at may look slightly different. The drink slinging Chris Chadwick of the future will look something like this.

Something Corporate

With the Black Friday party growing larger by the minute, Martin and I decided it needed some corporate sponsorship. It didn't take very long to decide that Wal-Mart was the obvious choice. It wasn't quite as easy to pull off as we had planned but, 24 hours and 5 trips to 3 Wal-Marts later, we managed to score $60.00 in essential party supplies.  Actually we're not done yet, we still have a couple of items to return for gift cards, but since it seems only the Santee store is dumb enough to allow these kind of activities, it'll have to wait a day or two.

I'm going to Disneyland tomorrow with the family and should return full of holiday joy. Not even the predicted rain storm can get me down. Between Disneyland, Thanksgiving, and Black Friday, the next three days should be amazing.

Adventurous weekend

Thursday (not technically the weekend but who cares)-

• Went to Justyn's to hear Martin's angelic voice
• Soup Plantation with my family
• Parkway Billiards 

Friday

• Santee tree lighting ceremony (got a $20 Oggi's card)
• Fillipi's (pronounce it how you want, it still sucks)
• Got duped out of watching Wall-E
• Settled for an Office mini marathon

Saturday

• Designed a flyer for the most ridiculous party this town will ever see
• Fry's
• Submarina with the MEN
• Wrote and partially recorded song number three
• Fashion Valley with NK and Flo
• Super spontaneous trip to LA for "dinner"

Sunday

• Research for Nathan's party
• Craigslisting in Chulauana with Justyn and Sheila 
• Brief nap
• Charger Game at Kate's
• Online party promotion

It's so much easier to do these weekend recaps when you don't drink at all during the weekend. Which pretty much means, next weekend will be damn near impossible.  I'm not even going to bother promoting the party on here since everyone's already on the VIP list.

Entourage

The East County Entourage: (left to right) J-Bell, Martin, Nathan, Chadwick, and Loi.

Case of the Fridays

Fridays at work have become an eight hour game of looking as if I actually have work to do. It's always been pretty slow on Fridays, mostly because people tend to apply for loans at the beginning of the week, rather than later. However, it's gotten to the point where there is very little work during the week, with a larger percentage of people getting their loans denied, and basically nothing on Fridays. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy relaxing and looking forward to the weekend, but the thought of getting laid off is somewhat unsettling. Anyway, I'm ready to get my E.C. tree lighting on tonight, should be fun.

$1.99

Someone pinch me! A full tank of gas for twenty dollars? I never thought gas would get this cheap again. Honestly, I expected it to start going back up after the elections, but I guess not.

I guess the Santee "Annual Tree Lighting Extravaganza" is this Friday, should be fun. Personally, it still feels a little too early for the Christmas season, Halloween is barely over. Maybe once I see that tree ignite in all it's East County glory, I'll begin to feel the joy of the season.  If nothing else, it'll be something fun to go out and do.

Also, I've begun the lengthy process of downloading all the albums that are messed up on my iPod.  It's taken me awhile to get around to it but, I'm really sick of wanting to listen to something, only to find out that it won't play.

Weekend recap

Friday

• Quantum of Solace at 12:01 am
• Red Lines with "The Entourage" 
• O.T.D.(Office till dawn) at Flo's

Saturday

• Another productive jam session (two songs in two weeks)
• Got some "Stones" (not Keystone) from the new Henry's 
• Shots of peach rum "oh barf"
• Got to bed at a decent hour for some much needed sleep

Sunday

• Got duped at the taco shop
• Charger game at Kate's
• Nap time
• Sushi Sunday

Another great weekend!  I'm pretty excited about the way this band thing is going.  It's been great just hanging out with good friends and making music.  Plus the song writing has been pretty effortless, thanks to Nathan. As for now, it's back to the grind but, these fun weekends make the five days in between fly by.

Who needs sleep?

This whole staying up until all hours of the night thing is really starting to get pretty comfortable.  There was a point, not that long ago, where the idea of going to a midnight movie on a work night just seemed ridiculous.  Not that it mattered much, seeing as how I rarely stayed awake for the entire movie. 

 Overall I wasn't too terribly impressed by the new 007 movie but, it was well worth staying up late to go see.  

Not to contradict my earlier statement but, I should probably keep this brief so I can get some sleep.  I've got another big weekend ahead of me, with lots of The Office still left to be seen.  In fact, I think I might just go watch tonight's new episode before I fall asleep.

EDIT: "How great was it that they worked the word 'duped' into the movie?"

That's what she said

My night started off by going to dinner with my Grandparents, which is always exciting. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with them but, I always end up feeling like I have to filter everything I do or say around them.  Anyways, that was just the dull intro to what quickly became a great night.  The Office has always been one of my favorite shows but, there's something exciting about watching it with a small hand full of people who mean the world to you. Especially, when it's people who are experiencing it for the first time. Long story short, one episode quickly turned into a twelve episode marathon that lasted til 5:00am.  The whole evening can be summed up in one word, EPIC!

We got duped!

It's time to put another fun-filled weekend to bed but, first here's a re-cap of how it went down.

Friday:

• Power outage at work, everyone got sent home early
• Got some drink at "Tap-X" that tasted like shit
• Tasty food at Sam Woo
• Destroyed Rock Band at the Kowalski house (ooh ah ah ah!)
  
• Ghost walk

Saturday:

• Santanas with Nathan and Justyn
• Super productive jam session 
• Fashion Valley (Nathan got duped)
• Justyn got himself a new Zune
• Got an iPod shuffle for $20
• Broke my straight edge with the G1 bartender
• Karaoke with Martin in the Jetta
• Santanas...AGAIN!

Sunday:

• Charger game at Kate's
• Nap time
• "Sushi Sunday"
• Iron Man at Flo's

Other than the fact that I saw my "best friend" KG way too much, I'd say it was a pretty epic weekend.

Run like the wind

First off, let me say that I think it's hilarious that this has basically turned into a "running blog".  That being said, let me tell you about tonight's run.  Tonight I ran with my new teammate, that John Mayer looking mother fucker we all know and love, Martin (Latin heart throb) Rivera....and Justyn came too.  It's so much easier to push yourself when you run with someone else, especially Martin. Every time I start to think I've had enough, I just think about all the shit I'm going to get for quitting, and find a way to suck it up.  It's moments like tonight that I really wish I hadn't smoked as much and or as long as I did but, that's in the past and part of the reason for wanting to get back into shape. There's something about the pain I feel in my legs the next morning that feels so good and makes me want to do it all over again. I've got a long way to go to even consider that marathon but, this is a nice little start.

Once you go black...

Barak Obama is set to become the 44th President of The United States and the first black one. I find it funny that the media is portraying this as a "land slide victory", when in reality if you look at the popular vote, it was only by a two percent margin.

I'm curious to see how Obama did locally in home sweet Santee.

Election Day

After four long years of waiting, it's finally here. Election Day! There seems to be far more buzz surrounding this election than normal, especially from young people. It's sad that it took an idiot president to get people to care but, whatever works. Hopefully everyone gets a chance to make it out to the polls today, regardless or who/what you're voting for. You may not care at the moment but, a lot can happen in four years and you might between now and then. It takes very little effort on your part and you don't have to vote for everything but, you should vote for something.


This is probably the closest thing to a political post I will ever do.


P.S. Take down all the proposition signs, it just looks trashy.

The wait is over

It wasn't supposed to be here until November 10th but, my G1 has arrived.  So far it's a pretty neat little device, it has it's bugs but, that's to be expected with new technology. 

Halloween was nothing short of amazing.  We got it started with the "Woo Woo" , thanks to the G1.  That pretty much set the tone for the night.  People got a little too drunk,  some lost their keys, while others just fell asleep in public.  All in all, a great night.  

That being said, I feel like it's time to cut back on the excessive drinking and start making healthier decisions.  I'm not sure if I'll be running the Rock 'n' Roll Marathon or not but, it'd be nice to be in good enough shape to attempt it and not have it seem laughable. 

Oh yeah, thank you Bell family for the free dinner at the Barona buffet... so good.

It's pumpkin day

On the rare occasion that I'm not completely spacing out during my forty minute commute home from work, I notice random things that amuse me, today was one of those days.  Now everyone is pretty desensitized to the twenty-somethings that plaster "East County" stickers all over their vehicles, but today I witnessed some old school E.C. pride.  An older looking man sporting a 70's license plate, the old blue and yellow ones, that read SANTEE.  Instant laughter. I made an attempt to capture the moment on my camera phone, but I couldn't get close enough.

Also, today was The "Second Annual Waste Time At Work and Carve Pumpkins Extravaganza!"  It's really not even fair to call this thing a competition.  They give us two hours to carve, yet some people insist only putting twenty minutes into it. Needless to say, I won first place (a full day off with pay)  for the second year in a row.

Harden!

Such a great weekend. Lily's Halloween party was so much fun this year, mostly because everyone dressed up. My Metapod costume turned out a lot better than I expected it to, but it's time to retire it... for now. I've got another pretty sweet costume planned for Dallas' on Friday... it's gonna be epic. 

Has anyone else noticed how low gas prices have gotten? I fully expect them to sky rocket again after the elections, but for now it's pretty sweet.

NFL week eight

These are my picks from my work football pool. 

Oakland @ Baltimore

Arizona @ Carolina

Tampa Bay @ Dallas

Washington @ Detroit

Buffalo @ Miami

St. Louis @ New England

San Diego @ New Orleans

Kansas City @ New York Jets

Atlanta @ Philadelphia 

Cleveland @ Jacksonville 

New York Giants @ Pittsburgh 

Seattle @ San Francisco

Indianapolis @ Tennessee 

Home Sweet East County

Just when I thought it couldn't get any more East County than drinking PBR in a Santee backyard, I find myself at The Flinn (a country western theme dive bar deep in the heart of Lakeside). After you drive for about ten minutes down a vacant dirt road, you begin to see dozens of lifted white trucks on both sides of the street...and you're there. Log cabin style shack, cow skull above the door frame, and all the Coors Light you can handle. "Holy crap. Is this for real?" 

It makes for a good story but NEVER AGAIN!

Fall Classic

The Phillies beat the Rays 3-2 in game one of the World Series. It's nice to finally have an evenly matched series. Game two is tomorrow.

Also, my halloween costume is almost finished. 

Fear Before

The new Fear Before (the march of flames) album leaked today and it’s amazing. It’s refreshing to know that creative bands still exist. The music industry is saturated with stale bands that insist on making the same crappy record four or five times but, I guess people keep buying it so...

Anyways, it’s damn good so go buy it or at the very least, torrent it.

Also, the World Series starts tomorrow so I guess this is as good a time as any to make my predictions. I’ve got the Rays in seven and expect this to be one of the best in recent years.

Hello

Well alright, I guess it's about time I joined the rest of the twenty-first century and got my very own blog. Excited? I knew you would be. I'm not entirely sure what people post in these things but I guess I'll figure it out as I go. In the mean time, I should let you know that I'm attempting to grow a mustache (this is much harder for me than it should be). Here's the first of many photo updates of my progress.