Welp, my web hosting company went under.  I lost a year and some change worth of posts, some page work, and a few other things (all my links disappeared, tag cloud, etc.).  Sucks, but not much I could do.  I consider myself lucky to have a raw SQL dump from the beginning of 2008, and a back up of the design from a few months ago.

After months of procrastination and no time… finally got around to the fun journey of upgrading an older WordPress SQL dump, importing, and re-building things.  I think I can even restore the missing content manually since I was able to grab a cached page from google!  (smart thinking eh!?)  Only a handful of posts to re-create.

My new hosting is awesome and the new built-in WordPress install is nifty!  Although I’m not sure I like the new 2.7* WordPress, seems to becoming more and more cluttered.

Back from Mallorca, Spain!!! What a friggin’ vacation…

Click on the picture or here to go to the flickr photo set.

Big thanks to Mom & Dad, Mr. John Fujii for their help, encouragement, and support to make this happen.

Thanks to Natalia, her family, Miguel, Nata’s Tios, and everyone else that made this such a wonderful experience above and beyond anything we could have anticipated.

Vacation Theme Song: Island in the Sun (weezer)

Ian & K8′s list – Impressions of Mallorca:

• People drive like bats out of hell (even the old people), every other aspect of life is in slow motion.
• Paint (lines) on the roads are just “guidelines” – mainly for tourists.
• The whole difference in personal space always takes getting used to.
• I think I might like olives
• The most common pretty boy haircut is a styled, over-gelled mohawk, or faux-hawk
• English is in. Any clothing with a logo in English is like wearing Diesel or Gucci around here… Sometimes it was unclear if one knew what they were wearing. Like a t-shirt that says “ugly” on it, or big bold “American Eagle” logo… seriously.
• Everyone wears thin flip-flops
• Vegetarian’s nightmare – lots of yummy pork products, pastes, cured, or a whole leg quarter right on yer plate.
• Brands like Reef, Miss Sixty, RipCurl, QuickSilver etc.. are EXPENSIVE… like $90 US beans for a pair of Reef flip flops.
• How the hell do you use the bede?
• Lemon jelly mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
• A can of coke is like $4 US beans
• Round-abouts = scary

– Wed – Day 0 –

• Arrival in Palma – got situated at the house then headed downtown for some sights.
• Saw castle up top overlooking the city.
• Went downtown to el centro by the water and walked around. Saw a 400+ year old olive tree, the cathedral.
• Had tapas down by the water.
• Late night dinner at a sea side restaurant over looking the bay and cathedral.

– Thrus – Day 1 –

• Visit “Es Trenc” beach and restaurant with Natalia and Miguel
• German naked guy at the beach was nasty character
• Lunch at Es Trenc restaurant, had some awesome paella, couldn’t do the gambas though.
• Dinner with Natalia and Miguel at restaurant “Tanto Amore” – sweet late night Italian place.

– Fri – Day 2 –

• Late start – went to Soller, a pretty little pueblo en las montanas
• On the way, drove up over the Sierra Tramuntana (la parte central)
• Hit the beach at Porto de Soller
• Back in Palma, went to the centro comercial (mall).
• Had yummy pasta & sauce at Nata’s that her mom made us

– Sat – Day 3 –

• Heading to Colonia to Nata’s parent’s house
• On the way (sort of), went to Calobra, a beautiful beach between cliffs in the north/northwest part of the Sierra Tramuntana. Crazy switch backs to get up there… amazing view.
• From the beach, on the way to the house, stopped at Pollenca, a little village with cool stairway, 2000+ year old Roman bridge, maze of streets.
• Dinner with the whole family at night
• Saw a late night festival with dancers dressed up in traditional Mallorquin attire, twirling around, fun music, and the clickers!

– Sun – Day 4 –

• Up late from partying the night before. Went to amazing beach , Ca Na Clara, near the house. Rocky, secluded, paradise.
• Afternoon lunch with the family
• Drove to Cabo de Formentor – amazing view from the top of a rock protrusion jutting out into the sea. Lighthouse…
• Natalia and Miguel went out for their last night together. K8 and I made dinner at the house. Family had returned to Palma.

– Mon – Day 5 –

• Was cloudy and rainy. Back to Palma for the day to go shopping!
• Ian bought tons of shit
• Dinner at conveyor belt all you can eat sushi restaurant, sweet!

– Tues – Day 6 –

• After breakfast, went to outdoor market in a nearby village
• Back to Ca Na Clara, rocky beach paradise
• Back to Colonia for a great, quiet, late night dinner of Salad and everything else in the fridge

– Wed – Day 7 –

• Went to beach in Porto de Alcudia
• Shopped around in Alcudia afterwords
• Dinner by the sea in Colonia at another nice Italian restaurant. Gnocchi was fantastic!

– Thurs – Day 8 –

• Closed up Colonia, left for beach in the trees.
• Had a blast, rented a paddle boat, got stung by a friggin’ jelly fish
• Dinner with family in super fancy, modern restaurant. Food was amazing.

Futzing with my camera this evening I snapped this funny picture of the cats:

After the North Boulder Crit, we went up to Estes to hang with Polea and friends. They had invited a bunch of people up to hang, drink, cook lots of food, bonfire, the usual fair. We got there mid afternoon, this time over at the “new” house. Emily was there, Jeff and Maggie, and shortly later M-to-the-K came rolling up on her bike. MK and Drew had just moved up to Estes a couple weeks prior, so this was a nice chance to catch up with her. We spent most of the afternoon laying around drinking beer and eating cherries. I took a few minutes to run around and take some pictures. Here are the girls reading smut magazines:

Colorful pic of the cherries:

portrait of the taco:

Twin Owls as seen from the porch. MK pointed these out as a popular climbing spot:

We played frisbee for a while. We had to keep Jackson occupied with a ball while we threw the disc back and forth. Jeff and Maggie’s dog Floyd was running after the ball with Jackson. Jackson being the ball-monger I think pissed Floyd off. At one point he suddenly snapped at Jackson biting his head… was a bit scary… Jackson suffered a bit of a puncture wound by his ear. So that was a good excuse to quit, grab another beer, clean up the dog, and get the fire going. Eventually we started cooking… then belly Mike and Katerina showed up, more cooking, the Russians showed up, more cooking, drinking and eating… good times.

K8 and I got engaged over the winter holiday. However, we never formally celebrated it and even worse didn’t do a great job of telling folks. I mean, we told family, close friends, and a few co-workers, but badly assumed everyone else would find out by osmosis. Gosh, were we wrong… not sure what we were thinking.

We decided to throw a big BBQ on us and invite everyone we could. It was to be a celebration for our engagement and to throw our friends a party. Sean hooked us up with a discount on a keg of Odell’s 5 barrel, Jolea let us use her Sam’s Club card to get bulk food, and we also borrowed Polea’s croquet set and an extra grill. Several others chimed in offering to bring side dishes so we were all set.

The BBQ was from 5pm till whenever… By 6pm only a handful of folks had showed up. We had plenty of snacks out and the keg was tapped so we held off on getting the grills going. I think around 6:47pm, just a guess… everyone else showed up ALL AT THE SAME TIME. We had the Rio cycling team, Polea, Emily, Michelle who happened to be visiting, the Russians, Miles, Owen, JJ & pregnant Katy, Sean Scott & Kelly, Dan the Man, Mikey, Dean & Bridget with Izzy, the new neighbors, even the quiet neighbors, Kelly and Dr. Bob… hopefully I’m not forgetting anyone.

Action! K8 had margs going left and right (killed a handle in 2 hours), Ryan and I got the grills fired up. I had one grill completely full of marinated chicken and brats while Ryan worked on Peter’s grill cooking portabellas, fake brats, asparagus, onion etc. All the food turned out fantastic, and surprisingly most of it got eaten. Croquet, music, good times….

Jolea had baked us a cake! In the picture you can also see a framed photo that JJ and Kt brought us So nice.. Around 9:30pm or so… everyone piled into the kitchen for dessert. We had a some cheers then starting dishing out the cake… check out Ryan’s face in the picture!! Hilarious!

Folks started trickling out, but a handful stayed late. Izzy was entertaining us all by playing with and tackling our dog Georgia. The Russians presented us with a piece of artwork that is absolutely beautiful (gotta get a picture of it). Polea also gave us a couple old school books from the fifties that covered life basics Oh, and a “kokigami” book (no explanation here LOL).

Its amazing how when you are hosting a party you don’t get to “hang” as much because you’re too busy doing things. In fact it wasn’t until most had left that K8 and I started boozing some ourselves. In the end we tied one on out back nursing the keg with Polea and our new neighbor Ian who had just moved in. Finally we cleaned up, got to bed maybe around 3am or so. What a great time!

Unfortunately our really cool neighbors Brad and Jackie with their kids Maya and Naomi have to move. They are selling there house and moving to Breckenridge for the summer then off to Steamboat permanently. Since they will be renting and up in the mountains they needed to find homes for their two cats Ava and Arlo. We decided to help out and take Arlo. He’s super mellow, cute, lovey, does well with dogs, and Sophie doesn’t seem to mind him at all. So, we’re hoping they will become good friends. We renamed him to Napoleon after Napoleon Dynamite..

So far its working out well I guess… He peed a couple times in the house, but now that he’s settled in a bit it hasn’t been a problem. We already got him shots and had him neutered last week. Hopefully loosing his nuts will tone him down some – keep him from fighting. He’s quite the local scrapper and has scabs, scrapes, and cuts all over. With two cats and dog we now have our own official petting zoo.

Last weekend we had Monday off for Presidents day so K8 and I spent Sunday and Monday snowboarding up in Vail. K8 just got her snowboard set-up last week and this was her first time. Both days we stuck to the gondola so K8 could get comfortable on a board before throwing herself off a chair. She did fantastic!!! By the end of the second day she was connecting turns and moving down the hill quite well. Miles joined us on the second day to hang out and join the fun…. good seeing you Miles!

Pic of K8 and Miles playing air guitar on their snowboards during a mid afternoon lunch break:

Couple more pics, K8 and I, K8 and Miles:

K8 and I went to a Shins concert last night in Denver with April and Adrian. Thanks to those two for scoring us the tickets AND driving our asses down there. We were expecting a good show, but the Filmore kinda sucks as a venue so expectations are never too high. However, wow! What a surprise… they put on a fantastic show, it was awesome. K8 and I actually saw them about two years prior and the Filmore was maybe 2/3s full. This show was sold out to mostly a younger crowd, I’d say high school kids but I honestly can’t tell any more. Overall, the Shins have matured… the vocals, musicianship, sound stage were well done. You could tell they were having an absolute blast and are still in shell-shock from selling out venues for the first time. As usual I was eye-balling the guitars and in “Turn a Square,” I realized that when I play it, I am way off and missing several chords. They ended the show with “So Says I” which fit just right and made for a great peak to the show…. awesome. Makes me want to go get my guitar out and “try” to sing like that….