I caught Loki and Dio in the act. I wonder if they spoon when we’re gone…
We got a new addition to the family (me, Scott, Loki) about one month ago. I have been interested in having a playmate for Loki for when we are gone during the day, and I also wanted to increase my cuddle chances since Loki mostly wants to play, and rather than laying on my lap she’s always pestering me to throw her ball. So one day Scott said he wouldn’t mind having another cat. The following weekend we went to the SPCA (the only no-kill shelter in Reno) to look at cats. We wanted a cat who was between 0-2 and similar size to Loki. After looking at the kittens and then the adult cat we saw Dio. She was actually in a little cage because she had a cyst removed and they didn’t want her stitches to open. When we walked by her cage she began purring and gabbing my hand with her paw. She was (still is) a scraggly thing with her shaved neck (cyst), stocky body, and huge paws. She is also on the chunky side. They had her weight posted as 9lbs but it is closer to 10. Now that doesn’t seem that big, but she is short, so she looks like a hairy barrel.
For the first 2 weeks Loki was visibly pissed at us for disrupting her world. She got used to being the only animal in the house and didn’t want to share us, her toys, or food. So they couldn’t be near each other unsupervised. The other cat would just hide and was non-confrontational. Loki would stalk her and throw hissing fits. She also didn’t sleep with us the first 2 nights. Things were looking bad, we were worried they would hate each other and never learn to get along. But then they starting existing in the same room without Loki hissing/attacking Dio. Then that lead to sniffing, and eventually chasing each other around the house. So now they seem to get along ok. They don’t snuggle together, but they get pretty close to one another and play together.
The only bad thing about Dio is that I don’t really increase my chances of a cat in the lap. She lays next to me while watching TV, but doesn’t like being man-handled and forced to endure belly-rubbing. But if she thinks you will give her some food she is all yours. Actually, if you get up to get her or pet her she goes running to her food bowl. Another thing, I don’t know why she did this more than once, but she peed on the bed. Maybe because that’s where Loki sleeps at night or something, but now she is sleeping in the guest room until that gets resolved. I think she is also way too attached to food. She’s a portly thing. I know she had kittens recently so I thought the excess baggage was a result of that, but she inhales food and takes every chance to beg. So I measure her food but then I saw her chomping down on Loki’s food.
Dio just came in to cuddle with me, but I think it’s just because she’s hungry as she seems to be eating my headphones that are next to me.
We don’t have very good photos of her yet. I don’t know why cats seem to know when the camera is rolling… 
Another weekend rafting and no drownings. Scott and Tricia 3, American River 0. But the river, with a little help from Tricia, almost took me down this year.
We went back to American Whitewater Expeditions (AWE) again this year. They did such a great job last year we didn’t even consider going with another group. This year we also stayed the weekend and did two trips on the river. The original plan was to run the class III Lower South Fork on Saturday and then take down the Middle Fork class IV on Sunday. We had run the Lower South Fork before, but it was a good time and we thought that it would be a good warm-up for the class IVs on Sunday.
Lower turned out to be the most exciting, at least for me. On the biggest hit on the South Fork our guide, Dave, told us to pose as we went into the ditch. As we hit the hole Tricia was off balance and she slammed across the boat into me. I also was posing so I was off balance and I was ejected out of the boat. The crew seemed more amused than concerned that I was in the white water.
I swallowed a mouthful of water on my way in, but I suppressed the urge to panic. Well I suppressed the urge for the first 20 seconds, but then became concerned when I did not pop out of the water as quickly as I would like. I started kicking and finally emerged for a humiliating swim to another boat for rescue. After some jeering and fun the other boat transferred me back to my team and we continued on. The entire trip was fun, but this ended up being the highlight.
On Sunday we planned on riding the class IVs of the Middle Fork. We woke up early and loaded up in the vans for the 1 hour and 45 minute drive to the put-in. Things got off to a bad start. The crews were slow to load up and it was generally chaotic and out of sync. We left late from Coloma and arrived late in Auburn for a rendezvous with another boat of rafters. When we got to the meeting point the other rafters were late. We waited another 45 mintues before they arrived. We then had another 45 minutes to the launch point for the Middle Fork.
About 20 minutes out of Auburn we noticed that other rafting vans were headed back to Auburn. This was odd and we suspected that there were problems up ahead. Our suspicions were correct and forest fires had shut down the road to the Middle Fork launch site. After a little bit of discussion we turned around and headed back to camp in Coloma. It was another hour or so back to camp.
AWE was cool about the cancellation on the Middle Fork and offered to take us down the Upper South Fork. I was disappointed but wanted to do the Upper anyways, so it wasn’t to bad. We also get a rain check on the Middle Fork and will probably be going back in another couple of weeks.
The Upper South Fork was fun. We hit a couple of notable rapids. We surfed one of the first rapids. This almost resulted in the raft flipping. Even though it didn’t flip, half the crew was still swept down stream. A couple took the term “surf” literally and thought that you were supposed to stand as the raft hit the wave. Not surprisingly they were the ones swept down stream. After we retrieved the rest of our team we had a fun but uneventful trip down the river.
On both days we had the same crew. Dave was our guide. We had Dave as our guide last year. He was fun and we had confidence in his abilities. Although he showed us some pictures of his last run on the Middle Fork that showed that our confidence may have been misplaced. Tricia and I also shared the boat with a group from Marin County. We had fun time hanging out on and off the boat with Carlos, Becca, Tony and Karen.
Loki is the featured cat in a local commercial for a “cat’s only” kennel in Reno, The Cozy Cattery. Loki was a tenant at the cattery while Tricia and I went to Thailand for a couple of weeks over Christmas and New Year’s.
When we returned to pick up Loki the Cozy Cattery owners mentioned that they had done some filming for a commercial. At the time they mentioned that Loki was cute, but she had not been active enough to warrant a live action spot in the commercial. However they did state that she was a masterful purrer and may make the commercial as a purr over.
A few weeks ago Tricia received a call from one of the kennel owners indicating that the commercial was finished and would be airing on the local FOX network.
We thought that maybe Loki had the purr over and maybe a quick shot of herself. We were surprised when she purrs for the entire length of the commercial and that she has a 10 second clip.
Check out her commercial. I would also highly recommend The Cozy Cattery. It is a great place for cats if they can’t be at home.
Scott and I have been lazy and have not updated the blog in a while. I was thinking about the lack of content in the past few months and finally got off my ass (not literally) and decided to do some blogging.
Scott arranged a weekend in Monterey, California to celebrate my birthday. It was nice and we had a good time. We basically did stuff I like to do, seeing how it was my b-day. This entailed eating seafood, drinking wine, and looking at animals. So the first day we got there around lunch time and went to the wharf where I ate a crab salad. It was very tall as you can see here: (or after the jump seeing how flickr isn’t working). We then walked around. There were a bunch of sea lions by the docks barking and playing. I liked how they lay butt to face. When we at dinner my plate was once again very tall. I don’t have a picture of that; I know how everyone wants to see everything I eat…
Day 2: Went on the 17 mile drive along Pebble Beach to Carmel. There we saw lots of seals. At one beach the seals had swam in to give birth. There were new born baby seals there. A gross story: a seal that had just given birth was laying on the beach, minding its own business when a sea gull grabbed its innards and began pulling. Very gross. The gull was unsuccessful in detaching anything, but we could all see the long string of innards in its mouth. Up until that point it was very scenic. After the sightseeing drive we went to Carmel. Carmel is ridiculously wealthy and pretentious. It was a little weird. We walked around for a while looking at stores specializing in unnecessary crap, and found a place to have lunch for less than $20 per plate. It was nice and all, but we were listening to Leftover Crack on the way so we didn’t feel like we belonged there. It made Monterey look like the poor side of town, the wrong side of the tracks. After we made our hasty exit we went to the outskirts of Carmel for some wine tasting and scenery. We went to a hill and hiked around. I chased some wild turkeys trying to get a picture but they were not being compliant. That evening we went to dinner at a popular restaurant (Passion Fish) and it was very tasty but a long wait (we had reservations too). It was also sort of reasonably priced for being an upscale restaurant. I wish there was a place like that in Reno.
Last day: We went to breakfast at a vegetarian restaurant (again, I wish Reno had a place like that). It was very difficult to find a breakfast place. I think Monterey has a city ordinance banning breakfast places close to anywhere where tourists are. The only thing is that there was a bunch of yuppie women there talking about all their failed relationships and complaining loudly. They were typical, privileged Californians. I thought Scott might appreciate me talking trash about Californians. We then went to the aquarium. We first saw the otters then went through the rest of the exhibits. All and all it was a pretty good aquarium, just not the best one I’ve been to. I enjoyed touching all the marine life, the sea caterpillar was especially weird. Scott doesn’t have the same interest in touching animals and marine life that I do. I least I didn’t push any little kids out the of way. We can forget the dolphin incident. After the aquarium we were on our way and headed back to Reno, it only took 8 hours. That was just because we stopped in Gilroy to go the outlets there.
I have to say, Scott has been very generous over the years with my birthdays. So thank you Scott. He’s a big sweety.
Scott and I made it back from our trip in Thailand. It was a lot of fun and was filled with new experiences. The first two days were spent in Bangkok after our 21 hours of flying, that doesn’t include the time at the airport and the trip to SF from Reno. And the night before we left SF someone pulled the fire alarm at 2:30 AM which was hellish. Bangkok is basically a huge metropolitan area with massive shopping centers. The MBK center is probably the highlight of Bangkok for Scott and me. It is 7 floors and has everything. There are pharmacies, spas, a grocery store, department store, movie theater, flea market, and even places for plastic surgery. The highlight was the food court. It was amazing, lots of places where you can order anything you want and it’s healthy with fresh ingredients cooked right in front of you. There is also a whole vegetarian section. And cheap. So in one place I can eat something tasty, get a massage, pedicure, go shopping, and see a movie.
I guess that’s enough gushing over the MBK. We also did a little sightseeing of the actual city. We took a boat ride on the river and then saw The Golden Palace. The thing with the Golden Palace is that the emerald buddha wasn’t on display because of it being so close to the King’s birthday. The palace was nice and there was a lot of interesting buildings and statues but we were most impressed by our hotel and the mall.
The hotel we stayed at was really nice. One thing that took some getting used to was the customer service. The staff will cater to every need even if you don’t think you need someone to fold your napkin in you lap for you and rush when you finish your complimentary orange juice in the morning. The breakfast was amazing. It was a massive buffet and you could have food made to order.
Food is not the only highlight of the Thailand trip. We did plenty of other fun activities too. I can’t forget the cheap massages, the pools (awesome), tree top adventures, and the beaches. After Bangkok we spent 5 days/nights in Pattaya where we stayed at a brand new hotel called the Zign. There the service got a little creepy after a little while. Since it was brand new (still under construction) we were the only people there until the last night and had teams of people waiting on us. At dinner people would sweep in to put our napkins on our laps and then would watch us like a hawk if it looked like we needed anything. They would actually stand about 5 feet away staring at us waiting until we finished our plates and then swept in. This would be the same treatment we received at the complimentary breakfast. A funny story about the staff is that they spoke English but not really well. And they won’t say if they don’t understand something. So we know they didn’t understand us when we see a team of people huddling together. This was after Scott asked for the check, and then said the bill when the waitress looked like she didn’t understand. The manager came back to the table and asked us what we meant. When we explained we wanted the check he told us the waitress was confused when she thought we asked her to ring the chicken’s bell. Here are some pictures of the pool. We thought the “old” pool was nice until we saw the pool that was finished the last day we were there.
When we were in Pattaya we spent the days visiting with my family and going to the beach/pool. We attempted the nightlife one night when we vowed to stay up past 8PM (we weren’t on the local time) but that wasn’t our scene.
Mostly because of the visible abundance of sex tourism. So we stuck to things like swimming and jet skiing after that. We took one day trip to an island off of Pattaya called Koh Khrok. There was a very nice beach and we spent the day drinking coconuts, reading, and I floated around in an intertube. That is my ideal day to spend in Thailand.
After our stay in Pattaya we went to Koh Chang, an island off of Trat. This was our favorite place because it much more low key than Bangkok and Pattaya. We stayed on the White Sand part of the island and we spent time at the beach, went on the tree top ziplines (our favorite activity there), elephant trekking (poor elephants), and Scott ate two steaks one night at a French restaurant. Our first full day we went to a waterfall, the beach, and then the tree top zipline. At the waterfall Scott swam where he wasn’t supposed to and the park ranger came over. He jumped in a sectioned off (by a rock) area to swim under the waterfall. He was the only person that did it. The tree top was a lot of fun and I didn’t freak out from the heights. I did fall twice, but that didn’t shake me. We mostly took videos of that so we will post some in a montage we will construct. Lots of fun and a little scary. It was also more physically demanding than I expected because you go through an obstacle course.
I think that night was also the New Years Celebration. So weird. There was an itinerary constructed that had events planned out to 5 minutes. It started off with my favorite part, the lady boy cabaret show. This is the equivalent of a drag show. This is funny because it was at a 5 star, luxury, family orientated resort. The lady boy came over and danced at our table and then moved onto old Russian men with their families. The low point was the “fun game” segment. The MC asked for volunteers, no one volunteered. Even after people were told it would be a beer drinking contest. So then they pleaded with the audience to have “just 5 volunteers…Please?” Still no one came up. Then they decided to force people to volunteer by drawing names out of a box. So it was uncomfortable, but funny because it was so sad. Other events were the funny balloon show, traditional thai dancing, sword fighting (based on the traditional story of a “naughty monkey fighting a dragon, oh I mean a giant” as stated by the MC), and fire works. By the time the fireworks rolled around we went back to the room and watched tv. We thought we were being attacked by bombs when the fireworks went off. No joke, they were the large fireworks being set off 20 ft in the air. It was an earth shattering noise and the fire works would rain down on the trees and 1 story cabins. This went on for a long time too.
Next day we rented a motorbike to get around and we prayed to not get killed because driving in Thailand is a scary experience. We survived no problem. We also went elephant trekking. This was ok for the first hour but the second hour was kind of boring and we felt bad for the elephants. Then after the beach we went to dinner down a little ways on the island at a place called the Hungary Elephant. The food was French and it was amazing. I order salmon and mussels and Scott got a steak. While eating his steak he was marveling about how good it was and then I said if it’s so good you should get another because it’s like $6 for a high end meal. And then he went for it. He ate two steak meals for dinner and the waitress probably thought were crazy gluttons. But I guess I would think the same.
The next day we headed out and it was the longest travel day ever for not going that far. We booked a minibus for the trip to and from the island and the total travel day for the arrival was about 4 hours. The way back was 8 hours. There was something wrong with our driver and he took so many damn breaks and didn’t even drop us off in Pattaya where we wanted to go. Anyway, that made for a long day and we spent one last night in Pattaya and visited with my family for the last time before going back to Bangkok. The next day we went to Bangkok and we spent the whole day at the MBK center and the next day headed out. We felt kinda bad for our taxi driver because when we got to the airport his taxi broke down. It was a long day of traveling but wasn’t too bad. We got bumped up to business deluxe over the longest leg and then took an earlier flight from Oakland to Reno the next day so we could pick up Loki. Good thing we did because the later flights were delayed or canceled and we got to see Loki early. All and all a good trip and a learning experience.
Scott and I decorated our tree, it looks pretty good. I think it’s the best tree we have had yet. This might have been the most exciting day of Loki’s (our new cat) life, aside from us adopting her. She was constantly in the way when we were assembly the fake tree and then went nuts when the lights were put on and we were adding the ornaments. As we were decorating we would see branches rustle and some eyes or a white patch of fur in the green, plastic branches. Surprisingly, the tree is still standing and no ornaments have been broken. She can’t quite make it to the top yet but she has gotten stuck trying. Here are some cute pictures of her in her new wonderland:
This is late, but Scott and I had some awesome costumes this Halloween. We were Bret and Jemaine from “The Humans Are Dead” video, season 1, episode 1. We made the costumes and I think they look pretty good. I don’t have much else to say besides the fact that they are awesome costumes. No exciting anecdotes. Well Loki was a chicken, she thoroughly enjoys looking ridiculous.
On Saturday September 8th Tricia and I adopted a 3 month old kitten from PETCO. We promptly named her Loki after the Askewuniverse character Loki from Dogma.
It was a spontaneous suggestion by me to go by the pet store to look at the cats up for adoption. I think we both assumed that if we found a cat we liked that we would not hesitate to adopt.
When we got there I quickly spotted my favorite kitten. Loki was the cutest and feistiest of the lot. I was hoping to find a long haired kitten and Loki met the criteria. It did not take much debate to decide to adopt her.
Our biggest concern was Loki’s personality. We were afraid she would be scared and just hide for the first few days. But shortly after we got her home we discovered that she is an obnoxious whore for attention who likes to play, through all hours of the night. But she seems very happy and we have had a lot fun playing with her around the apartment. Loki hasn’t let us get much sleep, but we are hoping she calms down over the next few days and gets on our sleep schedule.
So I saw Ignite in Reno, NV at Club Underground. I showed up late, just as the band before Ignite was finishing up (Stick to Your Guns) and two fights broke out immediately between stupid straightedge kids. Any way, once Ignite took the stage I began having a good time. Ignite played mostly off of their new album and put out a solid set. Once Scott gets back I will upload video of the show. Something that I found humorous was the commentary by Zoli, just because he would talk about how he and his brother spend their time rescuing animals from oil spills and cleaning off pelicans covered in oil. He would just say things along those lines between sets. It wasn’t preachy or anything just kind of cute/dorky. He would also talk about history and current and past political crises that none of the teens in the audience knew anything about. I had fun, and that’s what counts I suppose. Here are some pics: