Mr and Mrs Arend Hermsen

I guess technically it's after midnight and today is now tomorrow but ignoring that fact Aaron and I went today to Sycuan Resort out in East County to film / enjoy my old friend Arend Hermsen's wedding. Ironically he married Aaron's former coworker Carrie Stone (whom I've also become friends with over the past couple years) though there was no prior knowledge of the friend of friend situation. To my great pleasure Flor also came out about an hour after Aaron and I arrived to enjoy the wedding too; it was great having her there.

Weddings these day's seem a little different to me than they did not too long ago. Since Flor and I married I now think about us whenever I watch a wedding ceremony. I think about what I was feeling and thinking during each significant event during the day. It makes me smile. Anyway, the wedding was very nice, the location and weather were perfect and the food was good. I just wish I was able to enjoy the party a bit more than I did... having to wield a camcorder kind of wipes you out.

Congratulations my old bowling friend!

My Disease Is Spreading

Last month while Flor and I were in Vegas for the USBC Open Championships we decided on the way out of town on Monday to visit the Orleans in an attempt to find some good Noodles... unfortunately we didn't notice the Japanese Noodle Bar in the casino until after we settled for the cafe. Grrr! Anyway, instead of just taking off we decided to join the Casino Club (or whatever it's called) and use the free game of bowling they provided for signing for some casual entertainment that afternoon. Of course we are nerds and decided to visit the pro shop upon entering the center and... well, the rest is history. We bought her a ball and a bag to complement the bowling shoes we bought for her last year. I'm pleased to announce, Flor is now officially a bowler. Here's the proof.

Reminiscing on the Past

As I've been diligently working on cleaning up my blog and website over the past week or so I've actually gone back and re-read virtually every post I made on the topic of bowling. I've also started going back through many of my oldest posts on all other topics (mostly my personal journaling from my old Live Journal blog which has since been transferred over to this site) and I've been cleaning up a lot of these posts to fit a little nicer with the format of my newer entries. I like the look of justified margins and none of my old posts were aligned this way. Also, back in 2004 and 2005 I apparently didn't know how to utilize the spell check nor does it seem like I ever proof read my posts for grammar problems. A lot of these errors are finally getting fixed thanks to my recent ambition.

All of this reading however has really got me reminiscing on all the old friends that I have but don't see anymore and all of the fun times that I had back in my undergrad days. I know I didn't start blogging until after I had graduated but many of the people I spent time with were my friends from college and many of them were still there in '04 and '05. We had good times together back then and I miss them.

Beyond the sentimental, I also found myself looking back at a few old pictures and smiling wholeheartedly at them. I guess everybody does this from time to time so this is not earth-shattering but I have enjoyed reviewing some of the memories. I'm not going to elaborate any more but I will share a few of those good times below. Enjoy!

2001 - Venice with Doug Downing & Kevin Parker


2002 - Madrigal Dinner with Matt Sconce


2003 - SD Gulls Game with Erin Westgate and Klingons


2004 - Impromptu Dinner Party at Hotel Del with Friends


2005 - With Evan at a Schmidt's Place


2006 - Hanging with Chris and Brad


2007 - Rob being Rob with my Girl


2008 - Rich and Flor | 80's Party


Fun times... and don't we all miss this fantastic facial hair:

Continually Improving My Blog's Template

In my free time the last few days I've been working significantly on tweaking my blog's template to maximize the viewing space for posts while making a navigation menu to make things a little easier on eye. I think I've done some good things; check it out and let me know.

Along those lines, these updates to the template are a part of my grander scheme to make my site more professional and pleasing to potential contacts I may make in the future. In one way I plan on upping the professionalism by organizing my posting a little better. In another way I plan on cleaning up some of my older posts that are not quite appropriate for publication anymore. Until now I've written on this blog about a broad spectrum of personal events, interests, and thoughts; I'm looking now to split up this site by it's main theme's and place some of those themes on a different site strictly devoted to those idea's. For now the only significant change will be my bowling information and commentary. In the future I may start working on a separate site for my financial related commentary but that is another job for a later date.

I have created a new site called Mounts Bowling where I've copied over all of my bowling posts to. Soon I will be deleting the bowling related posts on this site and editing down some of my older posts that touched on bowling as well as other less appropriate topics and opinions. After all I started writing on this site back in 2004 and much of what I wrote back then is not very interesting and/or professional either.

I do still plan on documenting much of my life here however so posts in the style of the the past couple years will likely continue into the foreseeable future.

1st Meat Since February!

1st meat since February! It's been a long time coming.