Last weekend I had so much fun at Kubla Con. I missed it last year, so I was really itching to get my geek on. Still, it took me a while to get into it. I skipped out on Friday night and went to see X-Men 3 instead (so awesome). On Saturday, I was only there for a few hours playing board games. I played a HP Lovecraft game and a Halloween Trick-or-treating game. Both were so much fun I ended up buying them. Then I left early to goto Char's graduation after-party. We all went to a lounge in Foster City. It was nice, but I felt like such a youngin. Almost everyone was older than me. I'd say the average age was early 30s (is that my future?). Still, we had fun. Now when I go out, I like dancing with the group, so it's very rare I'll break off and dance with someone else, but this time some girl came up and started dancing, so I started dancing with her and talking. After a few minutes, Dina came up and got all over me saying, "Oh nobody's dancing with Jeremy." She totally didn't see the girl! Now talk about an embarassing moment. It turned out the girl was pretty boring, and I ended up dancing with her for only a few more minute, but still... =)

Sunday was definitely the day the crazies come out. I woke up at 2:30am (which is usually around when I go to sleep), and headed over to the Red Cross office in Oakland for the carpool. We crammed 7 people in a van designed for 6 and I drove us all over to San Francisco for First Aid volunteering at the Bay To Breakers. At the office, we had orientation, got our assignments, and, most importantly, got fed. My group and I got to our station at 6:00, so we setup and waited for the race to start.

The Bay to Breakers is a very interesting race, mostly because for the majority of people it's less of a race and more of a party. When I ran it a few years ago, I was in with the not-so-serious runners (but still runners), so I missed out on the whole party thing. This time, I got to see the mood of the race shift as people went by. First you've got the ultrafast runners flying by, then you've got a larger group of people running but knowing there's no way to catch the Kenyans in front, then you start to see more joggers, then walkers, then finally the largest group of all... the party.

Sunday morning, I woke up super early to get to the gym on time. Last semester I accidently forgot about my Yongmudo belt test until around 1pm, but this semester, I wasn't going to let that happen again. I am _done_ with yellow belt. They told us to get there between 8 and 8:30, and I thought I was late when I got there at 8:30. Boy was I wrong. I should've slept in for another hour. I had plenty of time to warm up and practice beforehand, which was good because it gave me time to learn how to do a knee underfall and perfect my 16-step techniques. There was one really good black belt testing for 2nd don, and two not-so-hot red belts testing for first don. The red belts just didn't have any energy. Their keyups were really weak and their performance was not too impressive. The black belt did belt for her weapon, and it was fantastic. I've always wanted to learn how to use a belt/rope/sheet to manipulate someone, and I certainly enjoyed watching. After those two upper rank tests, there was a round of white belt tests (boring) followed by a break and another white belt test (boring) and the kids test (so cute). After that, we finally got to test. I think I did really well, but I was a bit too nervous when I was performing. I almost messed up my tiger throw because Melanie's hair was in the way, and my airfall wasn't too great. Other than that, I feel like I was really solid. I remember doing falls across the mat, and at the very end, I saw one of the judges looking at me, and I did a perfect sidefall with height, and I felt so happy. I think my blocks need some work but were about on par with everyone else. I had a great time, and I am proud of myself because I gave it my all. I am so proud of the bruises I got during the test =). I'm hoping I got upper green or lower blue, and I'll find out on May 23rd. There's another test at the end of summer, so hopefully I'll be able to get upper blue (or even lower brown... but I doubt that) in a few months.

So I'm 90% moved into my new condo now. It's quite exciting, and I still have a lot to do once I'm moved in. My dad came over on Wednesday to help me with the plumbing issues I've been having. Most of that is fixed, especially the most important one (the toilet in the master bathroom had a leak that caused the tank to refill every hour). I also started staining the new counter/table in the kitchen. I've put on two coats, but it still needs another one.

Here's my todo list for the rest of my move:

1) finish staining table
2) get new tabletop to make counter flush with wall
3) fix showerhead in main bathroom

So, I've decided to start using this fancy new site that Steve built for me. I need to figure out a way to migrate all my old blog posts from my old blog site to this new one. Hopefully I won't get tons of spammers with this one like I did with the last one or I might have to disable comments which is kinda lame, cause I like seeing people comment on my blog.

I need to add a bit about me here, put my resume up, add some info about Mini Pixar University (AKA CNM 190 at UCB), and generally fill this site with content. Maybe I'll start a photo album, too...

Anyways, thanks to Steve for being super awesome and doing all the css webtemplate stuff that I so dislike.

I'm gonna own a home!!!

Oh my god, Yosemite was so much fun. It was a bazillion times more fun that I expected. I just wanted a weekend to decompress and relax, and I ended up having the time of my life and met some of the most amazing people.

We left friday night and spent the night partying on the bus on the way to Yosemite. I think I finally got to sleep around 4am, and we woke up at 7:30 in the valley to make breakfast, pack lunch, and set out on our hikes.

Our drivers cautioned us that we might not have enough time to do the glacier point hike, so being that I can never resist a challenge, I went with Juan, Sophia, Vinay, Edwardo, Jacob, Chris, Dominik, and Larry up to Glacier Point =). We left at 9:30 and needed to be back at Yosemite Lodge at 4:00 for our bus, so we figured we'd just turn around at 1:00 if we didn't make it to the top. Well, after a tiring trek, we made it up the 6.5k hike (and the top is 1k above the floor). We ate our lunch and lagged around a bit at the top, and before we knew it, it was already 2:00. We were exhausted anyways, so this gave us a good excuse to just take the bus back down (although some fo the group decided to book it down the path). So we went to the bus area and to our shock, we discovered that the bus cost $20 per person AND it wouldn't leave until 3:45... so we decided to hitchhike. To my surprise, it was actually pretty easy to get rides. 6 of us needed rides down, and 4 of us got in the first 3 cars we saw. Sophia and I were the last two, and after about 10 minutes, we were on our way down with a nice elderly couple. I tried my hardest to stay awake and make conversation, but I just couldn't keep conscious. I feel terrible, but I am very VERY appreciative to them =).

Back at Calapalooza or Caltopia or one of those things, I talked with the guys at the Green Tortise booth, and got some info from them. I was just checking their website, and it looks like they're having a 3-day weekend trip to Yosemite next weekend. I really need some time to just decompress, relax, and recharge, so I decided to go. I deserve a vacation! =)

So Serenity opened today. I was supposed to see it at a prescreening on Tuesday, but they overbooked the theatre, and apparently getting there 90 minutes beforehand wasn't enough... heh...

Anyways, I did get to see it today at matinee with Joe, and it was SO AWESOME! You need to see this movie, but do yourself a favor and watch Firefly on DVD before going. Oh so awesome... today was definitely a good day!

I haven't been too great on keeping up to date on my personal bloggings... so...

Yesterday, we had a great softball game. We had exactly 10 players, so everyone got to play every inning, and Alexandra's friend Andy joined our team as well. He played a great 2B and is a solid hitter. We ended up getting our first team win =), so now we're 1-1! One of my hits was out of the park (yay!), but because it was to center, it only counted for a triple, but I got hit in by the next batter, so I'll pretend it was a homer for myself =)

After the game, Tom, Dominica, and I went over to Alexandra's to watch TV. I wanted to bake desert, so I went to Andronicos to get some eggs and butter for brownies (yum yum). They were SO DELICIOUS! Anyways, I didn't get home in time to do my homework, but it's no biggie...