Ho Hum...Just another shitty day in paradise...

I used to have a bumper-sticker with that on it.  My parents brought it back from one of their trips to Hawaii.

Today is the day after my 50th birthday...
I've gotten more exercise in the last three days than I have in the last year;
I've got a cooked-lobster color sunburn;
I've drank more sea water than fresh; and
I've eaten more carbohydrates in the last three days than I have in the last year and a half.

Moco Loco:

All this to say we are enjoying our vacation like never before. Check it out:

Birthday Mac-N-Cheese:

Stuff we've seen so far:

This guy was huge...

This is called "Chinaman's Hat".  I changed it to Asian-American's hat.

Mountains with fog.

Primate Poppy's sick idea of birthday present packaging!  WTF?

Wanna see what Poppy gave me for my birthday?  I know you do...

We've been watching Game of Thrones...I just love the part with Calyse and her dragons; that's a real-live dragon egg and a book on Dragonology.  All I have to do is put the egg into fire and I'll have me a little pet dragon!

Well, time to go stuff some more food and drink down my gullet!

Aloha!!

Gone Fishin'

Not really, just stuck working on another project from hell. We leave for Hawaii in a week so I'll be back then...

But, before I go...



Why?

I AM A SUPERHEREO!!!

Look what I'm getting for my birthday!!!



It's a backpack vacuum! How cool is that?!

As you might imagine, Fatass did not reach her goal of losing those 30lbs so much to her dismay, she had to go big-girl-bathing suit shopping.



Buy hey, it's a Speedo, it's got built in boobies and she got it at Costco for $20.

Sigh...

HAPPY GOOD FRIDAY!

According to Paster Bennett, when I was Confirmed, he told me I had a 2nd grade knowledge of the Lutheran religion. Not much has changed.

So here's my question...why is it called Good Friday if Geezus-The-Carpenter was nailed to a conch cross? Let's consult the internets!

"Good Friday (from the senses pious, holy of the word "good"), is a religious holiday observed primarily by Christians commemorating the crucifixion of Jesus Christ and his death at Calvary. The holiday is observed during Holy Week as part of the Paschal Triduum on the Friday preceding Easter Sunday, and may coincide with the Jewish observance of Passover. It is also known as Black Friday, Holy Friday, Great Friday, or Easter Friday, though the latter normally refers to the Friday in Easter week.

Based on the details of the Canonical gospels, the Crucifixion of Jesus was most likely to have been on a Friday (John 19:42). The estimated year of Good Friday is AD 33, by two different groups, and originally as AD 34 by Isaac Newton via the differences between the Biblical and Julian calendars and the crescent of the moon. A third method, using a completely different astronomical approach based on a lunar Crucifixion darkness and eclipse model (consistent with Apostle Peter's reference to a "moon of blood" in Acts 2:20), points to Friday, 3 April AD 33."

So I still can't figure out why it's called "Good Friday". I like "Black Friday" better, but I thought that was the Holy Day of Shopping.

I must ponder this over the weekend.

Since we had such crappy food this past weekend...

I wanted to make something tasty last night. So I did.

We'd stopped at a produce stand on the way home. I had an idea about doing spaghetti squash with a red sauce. The produce stand had some jarred sauce so to that I added sauteed shallots, garlic and mushrooms and a can of peeled Italian tomatoes. Also wanted to jazz it up and make it a puttanesca style. So I added crushed red pepper, black pepper and capers. Just for a little body and nuttiness, I added a little fino sherry and beef broth. Adventure-Poppy wanted to go a little further so brought home some oil-cured olives, Fwench feta and some basil. Served it over the spaghetti squash.



Pretty freakin yummy!

Now that was a fun weekend!

Poor-Poppy has been working so hard these past three weeks that I had a scathingly brilliant idea...Let's go to Monterey for the weekend!! So we did. I consulted my internets and found a cheap hotel on Hotels.com. It was about a mile or so from the wharf area.

Jax-The-Cheese-Connesewer went to stay with Amy-Mae and Charlie. They went to their place in Clear Lake so Jax also had a fun weekend away!

We began the journey Friday after work. My only goal, besides relaxing, was to get me some fish tacos. More on that later.

Our first stop was in Soquel. Research-Poppy had found a dive bar there. Sure enough, it was one of the better dive bars we've been too. There was a guy sitting by the shuffle board table. He said to Ranger-Poppy "Hey, nice hat...are you a park ranger?" That's not the first time we've heard this. She said she wasn't that that she was from Texas...so then the guy said something about being a Texas Ranger. Some time went by, and a guy came in selling roses and the next thing you know...



This is our new friend, Emanuel. He's a skateboarder by trade. Pretty fun guy. So, we figured our weekend was off to a great start.

Look, Rhino-Kelly!



We stayed there for dinner. We had Mexican...but no fish tacos!

The next day, we got up to torrential rain:



Seems odd to make coffee in the bathroom...



Now, since this was Poppy's weekend, she got to spend it the way she wanted. We went to Cannery Row and walked around a bit. Ended up at a tasting room over looking the water so we watched the otters frolic while we had a glass of wine and then it was off the the Antique Mall! Poppy luvs her some antiques.

Here some stuff that I spied...

Geezus on the Conch cross!



Creepy, but I kind of wanted it.

Speaking of creepy, why do all antique places have these freakie fake cats?!



Is this what Grandma started making after those crochet toilet paper covers went out of style?

I call this a Smattering of Smurfs:



And last, but not least...BunBun:



Poppy and I fell in love with BunBun. We wanted him bad, but we decided that we'd come back the next day to get him and a few other trinkets. So we put our stash in a dresser drawer so we could easily find it...only I guess they were watching us because when we got back to it the next day, it was all gone. Most of it had been put back to their original homes...accept for BunBun. We couldn't find him anywhere. We could ask the front desk folks cause we didn't want to bust ourselves. So BunBun will be just a memory now. Boo!

Saturday night we had $$$dinner$$$ at The Chart House. Gross is all I will say about that. I still haven't had my fish tacos!

Sunday morning I did some research on my internets and found two places that had fish tacos. But before that, we had to go see the water. High surf advisory was in effect:





Very cool!

Back to the Fish Taco hunt...we parked the car and walked a few blocks to Taco Del Mar...Closed! Walked back a few blocks to Pappa Chavos. I got fish tacos, but they were fried. I'm still looking...

Happy Monday!