Road Trip Back Home - Los Angeles April 16th to 20th

I drove down Wednesday afternoon last week to visit my family and friends in LA. I haven't seen much of my family since the holidays and even then, that time was minimal due to holiday craziness.

WEDNESDAY

• Drove down around 3:30pm... arriving around 8:30pm.
• Surprisingly, in the middle of no-where on the 5 freeway had the cheapest gas... around $3.62/gallon for regular unleaded.
• My car was covered in bugs... icky.

THURSDAY

• Had a 7:30am meeting to video-conference (VC) in to. I thought leaving a hour before work, around 6:30am, would be enough for the 15 miles between the Valley and the Santa Monica Office. Geez. Even at 6:30am the 405 is painful. I got there a few minutes late, because I ran into security issues and weird office logistics.
• I had lunch with Cindy at this cafe called Abbot's Habbit on the hip Abbot Kinney St. in Venice, CA. That area is pretty spiffy. Kinda like a modern version of Melrose.
• Left around 5pm to get dinner for my sister's birthday at PF Chang's in Woodland Hills. My sister, mom and dad all sat down and ate together. It was kinda nice to be together. My sister likes chains, I guess. The food and service is usually good.
• Since I was taking off Friday, I decided to party it up like a person who is either unemployed or doesn't have to work in the morning. I decided to meet up with Albert at the scandalously delicious Tigerheat, who I met a few weeks ago at Ty's Birthday in SF. Tigerheat is the one place that continuously makes anyone over 21 feel old. However, I had a blast because the venue moved from the Arena to Avalon. Avalon kinda reminds me of the classier big brother of The Abyss in Sunnyvale. I know... you can't compare Sunnyvale to Hollywood, but there was my attempt. One interesting moment was that I think I was dancing next to Danny Norriega, former Top 12 contestant on this year's American Idol. I also won a 102.7 KIIS FM beanie, when i caught it in mid air. Aww... fun times...

FRIDAY

• I had an early Dentist Appointment with my family dentist, Dr. Pinter. I love her, even though she has a tendency to tell me to 'brush and floss more.' She even complimented my mouth this time. 'You have a beautiful mouth.' Aww.
• I chilled for a significant portion of my afternoon at Panera Bread in Northridge. It's got free wi-fi and yummy food. Plus the staff at this location is usually uber friendly, because it's quite new.
• I took a bit of a nap and then decided to meet up with Ty and company in WeHo. I had dinner at Topz, ordering a turkey burger combo. It's always fun to dine in WeHo, because you can find healthy stuff fairly easily... unlike the Castro in SF. I then had dessert at Pinkberry. Yes, a fro yo run is required in Los Angeles.
• I met up with Ty at Rage (Friday's are Gameboi), after spending a bit of time at the Abbey. Ty's friend John was in town from Washington DC. He also went to school at the University of Michigan and was born in Northridge! So there was a bit of cool things we had in common. Albert who lives in WeHo, so he also came out.
• Ty, shall we say, had a bit too much to drink, but it wasn't his fault. The shot we had was a bit much and twice the normal size... so I took care of him. Everything turned out okay and Ty crashed at Albert's place. I also ran into Chase, who was studying his law school stuff at Java Detour, the posh new Coffee Bar in WeHo but later joined Sherif and I at Rage.
  

SATURDAY

• Saturday was super chill. I shopped and had lunch with my mom at the Westfield Topanga (Topanga Plaza to all of the old school peeps). I came up empty handed, but bought a pair of shoes at Nordstrom and had them delivered to my work. They were out of my size. They are these black Adidas shoes designed by Porsche that look super sleek and clean. They're called Men's Porsche Design S2.
  
• I took a break to run and then meet up with my friend Galen at The Grove (and Farmers Market). We chilled at Pinkberry and just chatted away. We did a bit of shopping too. Fun times. I tried not to judge his shopping at Pac Sun. Lol.
  
• I ended up meeting up with Ty, Albert and his roomie for some Sushi at Niko Niko in West Hollywood. The sushi and service were good. Ty was obsessed with Angelina Jolie in TV and couldn't get his eyes off the TV screen. Lol. Whatever new roll that Albert got was amazingly tasty.
• We mad a pit stop at Walgreens for booze that I didn't drink, and neither did Ty. Lol.
• Ty and I then headed to Here Lounge to meet up with John. I also met up with my friend Kenny and middle school friend Sherif. It was a chill night overall.

SUNDAY

• Woke up uber late and went to Target to get some jams for the road.
• Took the 101 North to the Silicon Valley because the weather was nice outside and I wanted a bit of an ocean view free of Big Rigs.
• Got home around 6:30pm, with bugs attached to my front bumper and all...

Trip Back Home to LA - April '08

Red Mango Invades Yuppieville

I happened to be roaming Downtown Palo Alto for a late lunch at Pluto's, my favorite customizable salad joint when I noticed some new University Ave. signage.

One would have thought Pinkberry (originating in West Hollywood, CA) would have beat the 'original' Red Mango (originating in Korea) fro yo chain to Nor Cal. Alas, Red Mango acquired some prized University Ave. real estate and looks to be opening shop soon. The only other real competitor is Fraiche Yogurt, the yummy organic mom and pop shop over on Emerson. Of course, you know I've been raving about them for ages...

The US Government Needs A Proof Reader

So I got both my federal and state refund checks in the mail today. I won't complain about how paltry they are (bitch... is that all?), anywho...

As I was opening up the envelope from the federal government I couldn't help but notice a HUGE spelling error on the back of the envelope.

Can you find it?

Club Etiquette: Rule 1

If you're going to hit on someone, It's probably a good idea to be 'conservative' when you guess someone's age.

It's not an uncommon question to ask 'How old are you?' when you first meet someone. But if you ask... and take a stab... don't be a dumbass and guess an age that could possibly be offensive.

The One Thing

If there is one thing that's guaranteed in the Castro, it's that older men will remove all of their clothing and let it all hang out at night when the weather is good. This has happened on multiple occasions...

Not Quite Myself

I'm still trying to figure out why I broke down last week. Think Mariah Carey, but the gay male version and chop that in half. I can't quite pinpoint where all the stress came from --- lack of sleep, work stress, life stress, no-vacation stress, etc.

I can honestly say I was depressed for quite some time... maybe two to three months. I don't remember a time where I felt like that since early college.

Good news is that on Friday (4/11!) I felt something magical. And no, don't insert a penis joke there. But, I can honestly say I feel like myself again. Maybe it had to do with the gorgeous Nor Cal weather. Maybe not. But it felt good.

Now what do I mean by 'myself'? It's something pretty trivial. If I'm not feeling like myself, I tend to become very shy, less vocal and not open up. Think the personality of a boring straight man.

Now it's funny. I know people had to have noticed, especially those close to me. It was one comment about a month ago that made me internalize something was a bit off. Bill T., my coworker/friend, said 'You know Will? You're pretty quiet these days.' My response? 'I think I'm just getting older and more calm.' That was complete B.S. But that's because I didn't quite want to accept something was wrong.

All I hope is that I'm myself from here on out... because the world doesn't need another boring straight man.

Chick Flick Moment

So yesterday I started to become ballsy when it comes to dates and meeting new people. I pulled off what I thought was a fairly chick flick moment.

So, flash back to last weekend at Dragon in San Francisco. This guy pushed his friend to introduce himself to me around 1am or so. I was pretty flattered. His friend was cute and kinda had this urban / hipster vibe to him. After talking for a while, I found out his name was Earl. I remembered it because I immediately thought of the TV show. He remembered my name because of 'Will & Grace.' I guess we both watch enough TV to remember people's names that way. After having an interesting conversation, I decide to give Earl a ride home. I got slightly lost, but that gave us some more time to talk. Something about him was intriguing, but I couldn't quite nail it down. I arrived at his place in the Upper Haight and called it an evening. I was stupid not to give him my phone number and regretted it all week. I blame it on me being tired, because at that point it was 3:00am.

Flash forward to last night in the Castro. I was heading to the Google Castro Pub Crawl, version 2.0, but remembered Earl worked at Nirvana, a pan Asian restaurant which I went to over a month ago. It's delicious, you should try it. Nirvana is close to Badlands, the first 'pub' we were crawling.

I decided to stroll on inside after peaking in the Window to see if he was working. He indeed was. He was at the bar talking to his coworker. His back to pointing to me and I gave him a quick tap on the shoulder. He turns around and looked shocked. I'm pretty sure he remembered me. At this point it was 9:30 and i'm sure he was getting off soon. We chatted for a bit. I told him I had to go pub crawling. He said he was going to go to Hot Mess at Stud. I let him know flat out that I regretted hot giving him my phone number, So i decided to stop by and surprise him. We have the same phone, so It was easy to enter. ;)

He texted me later, giving me his number and said it was a pleasant surprise I stopped by to see him. I told him we should hang out soon.

To be continued...

Carrie Fisher's 'Wishful Drinking'

Okay. I'm a self-confessed Star Wars nerd. However, that didn't really play into me seeing Carrie Fisher's one-woman memoir-ish play 'Wishful Drinking' on Friday night at the Berkeley Rep. Carrie Fisher is of course, Princess Leia, just in case you didn't know.

Anyways, I drove up with my friend Roland, showing up a bit late because we hit some killer East Bay Traffic and unexpected bad weather. We watched the first 10 or so minutes of the show in the lobby on the TV, but that didn't really bother me. We were then ushered in with one other woman who showed up late. They made us sit on these stools, which were surprisingly good seats, probably better than the ones I paid for.

We got in and Carrie was in this robe, smoking some cigs telling us about here life. I haven't laughed so hard in ages. She has a knack for delivering one-liners. I really enjoyed the show and never really realized what's she's gone through in her life. I would honestly see it again, if it's extended run didn't end on April 12th. If you're local, I highly suggest going to see it, especially if you don't mind the occasional crude and quirky humor. I also liked her interactivity with the audience. That led to some amazingly funny moments.

One thing to note: I got the 30 under discount. I now understand why. The average age musta been 50+ in that theater. But it's good to see older folks can still laugh. ;)

After the show, we grabbed some dinner at a local pizza place who's name escapes me because it was one of the few quick-serve restaurants still open past 10:30pm. I didn't get pizza, only ice cream. It was this amazingly tasty organic stuff from Marin County.

I wanted to go out after, but Roland was too tired, so we headed home around 11:30 or so.

Making It On Valleywag

Every day I usually check Valleywag.com, the Silicon Valley's answer to Perez Hilton. In fact, their tagline is 'Silicon Valley's Tech Gossip Rag.'

Yesterday, I saw a post on Fraiche Yogurt in Palo Alto being the new 'hangout' if you're looking for Venture Capital (VC) money. I looked at the entry and noticed the photos looked familiar. It's because they were my photos! Whoa! Super cool. =)

I was excited they credited me too. It was just a nice surprise to my day.

Check out the entry:
http://valleywag.com/371610/fraiche-yogurt-palo-altos-new-vc-hangout

Back to Dragon

I really needed to have some fun last night. You might say I've been sweet talking my buddy Ty to go out to Club Dragon all week. I haven't been for a while. Next weekend is Ty's birthday and after that, he's going to become a hermit due to studying for his LSAT's. I personally like going to Dragon for the music... it's usually fantastic.

His Diversity Sourcing group at Google went to Circus School for their quarterly group offsite. I'm kinda jealous. It sounded so fun! Juggling, Trapeze, and a ton of other fun stuff. And they went out to dinner afterwards.

I called Ty up and talked him into going out, despite his wishy-washy spirit and being tired for the evening. After all, he was in the Circus for the afternoon. I called him on my way up to the city around 9:30 and picked him up at his pad in the Sunset District, after about 10 minutes of talking him into going out. A sample excerpt is:

Ty: Oh Girl, I'm tired. I went out last weekend.
Me: You have a couple of weeks until you're hermitizing yourself. You can't keep shocking your body. You need a little warm-up.
Ty: Girl, you're working it...
Me: I learn from the best...

It was actually my first time being to his pad. I got to see the infamous shoe storage system. Lol. He place is totally cute and has some nice perks.

We then went to the Castro to pick up Joe, who was at the Cafe (The Nite is called 'Boy Bar'). Although, he didn't end up going with us, so we just headed straight to Dragon around 11:30pm. Ty kept on saying which songs he's liking recently. As I was playing my 'March Music Car CD Mix' I kept on saying 'Girl, It's on it. Just you wait.' I have good taste in music, what can I say?

We got to Dragon and Ty kinda just knows everyone. Lol. We danced for a while, even though the Hip Hop floor music set upstairs was kinda blah. Ty ended up buying me a Malibu and Pineapple, which is about as wussy as you can get. But I don't really drink anymore, so it was cool.

We ran into a lot of fellow Gayglers, slang for Gay Googlers, who were also just chillin' for the night. Jordan, who I haven't seen before (well, maybe in the Gym on campus, now that I think about it) was total eye candy. There was this funny moment of him struggling to get out his Tums. Evan ended up deciding that we need to have lunch on Wednesday. So I think a few of us are gonna shoot for Oasis Cafe, which is located in my former building (*aww memories*).

I also met Ben for the first time in person. He's a nice guy who I occasionally talk to online. He's usually at Dragon and other clubs in the city to support his friends, who might be performing for the evening.

Near the end of the evening, I met Earl, who happens to work at Nirvana. I thought he looked a bit familiar. Nirvana is an Asian Fusion restaurant in the Castro, which I happened to go to with Joe and Bill a few weeks back. The food was great and so was the Eye Candy. Haha. We talked for a bit and even got our dance on for a little while. I offered him a ride home because I had to take Ty home anyways. Earl lives in the Upper Haight, so it's on the way. Ty decided to go home with Fred, so I just took Earl home. I probably should have got his number, but I know where to visit him. Haha. I also know he'll be at Dolores Park on Sunday... which I'm gonna go to so I can chill, people watch, and see the Hunky Jesus contest. Yes, you read that right.

Outside Dragon I also met Jimmy, famous for his Tyra Banks Segment on Interracial Dating. He added me on Downelink a few days earlier. So when we kept on looking at each other outside, we kinda recognized each other. He lives in LA now but visits the Bay every so often. He's a nice guy.

I got home around 3:45am... after driving home listening to some Jams...

Sweet Escape

Over the past 6 months I've traveled quite a bit, but nothing ever felt like a vacation. I've taken a few days off here and there but my mind rarely gets to escape reality.

I really need a break --- from work, laptops, tv, the economy, etc.

I almost feel as if I need my mind to be drained from current thoughts. My mind needs an escape. A book works for a while. Dancing at a club works for a while. Eating at a nice restaurant works for a while.

At this point I might need something a bit longer. More than a week. Maybe even more than a month. I need some time to reflect and be a bit introspective. Maybe I'm looking for an epiphany to come save me...

Saturday Horoscope

I had a real urge to stay in tonight. It was funny cause my horoscope was this for today:

Allow yourself the luxury of staying at home for a while today, even if everyone is heading out to have fun. As much as you could quickly fit into the group dynamic, it's more important now for you to reconnect with what's in your own heart. You may be tempted to deal with a dilemma on a purely intellectual basis, but it's much healthier to keep your emotions in the mix.

N'Touch With My Bad Self

President's Day weekend was pretty interesting. I actually went out on a Sunday Night in San Francisco, a rarity for a South-bay-er like myself.

Alex called me on a whim around 8:45pm and asked me if I wanted to meet up with Bill and him at N'Touch, the oldest remaining Gay Asian bar in San Francisco. He was like, 'You literally have to go in your car and meet me now. I'm meeting up with Bill at 9:45pm.'

At that point, I hadn't eaten dinner. I was planning an El Pollo Loco run, but I had to opt for something quicker. Sadly, that was my local Taco Bell, which I haven't had in ages. I grabbed a burrito and a couple of tacos and made my way on up to the City.

N'Touch is pretty far from the freeway, on Polk Street in the Northern part of the City. I found parking pretty easily and made my way inside. I think it was only Alex, the Bartender, and a few others sitting at the bar. Of those who were there, a good portion of them are usually sketch, but that makes things interesting.

I got there on time and we waited for Bill to show up. As I was looking to see if there was 'potential' around, I noticed the back of the person's head sitting right next to me. I thought, 'Oh, he's probably cute.'

The cute-back-of-the-head guy turns around and it's my friend Joe! OMG! I was so embarrassed. Haha. Turns out he was meeting up with someone he met online at Manhunt. (ya, it's gross.)

So Alex, Bill and I ended up playing pool with Joe. We had a good time. Loads of dirty talk happened. Alex was also wearing these weird cut off gloves. That and losing at pool were the few things I could remember. Lol.

Silicon Valley Weekly Yelp!

I'm thrilled Yelp decided to add a Silicon Valley edition of their Weekly newsletter, The Weekly Yelp.

I usually get good ideas from it about fun things do do around town. Previously, I was only reading the San Francisco version, but now I can do stuff around my neck of the woods with the Silicon Valley Edition.

Suuuuweeeeet!

Spicing up DC

I arrived in Washington DC via a Red Eye Virgin America flight this morning. I slept most of the afternoon.

I then caught the Spice Girls in Concert at Verizon Center with Brent and James. I also ran into Matty, who I met through Ty. It's a small world.

A bigger post will come later. :)