Tag Archives: Holidays

And I didn’t take a single picture!

Posted in Entertainment, Hobbies, Travel, Vacations by

Oh, Reno, how you love to take our money away.  It’s ok though, because we enjoy your biggest-little-city can-do attitude, complete with sprawling casinos and “European” gymnasiums (whatever that means).  Also, your lack of homeless people hired to shove little pictures of naked ladies at passers-by is non-Las-Vegasly refreshing, so Thank You, Reno, for that.

This year, it just happened that my birthday, Valentine’s Day and President’s Day (yes, President’s Day) fell reasonably close together to have a four-day weekend out of town.  Chris and I have stayed at the Peppermill Casino three times now, and it’s rather lovely – it’s all Italian-themed (except for their Chinese restaurant, Chi, which is Chinese-themed) and they have a fantastic spa, casino and restaurants (including Chi).  We arrived Thursday night and spent much of the weekend losing money, enjoying drinks (perhaps a little too much on Sunday night), and luxuriating in our ridiculously over-sized suite.  Well, the suite itself wasn’t over-sized, just the furniture.  But it was awesome!  Also, someone might have eaten the Famous Amos chocolate-chip cookies from the honor bar.  I’m not pointing any fingers, but that someone might have been me, or as Chris identified as the culprit, Snacky McSnackerton.

Anyway, here is a picture of the slot machine that ate all my money.  If you see it, I suggest walking in the opposite direction.  The tigers are tricksy and false…their fancy jewels flash and you hear them roar, but they just take without giving.  Damn you and your scatter bonuses, Siberian Storm!!!

Additional Reno places of interest that took our monies:  the spa (hello, facial and pedicure…I’m pleased to meet you!  Why yes, I’d also like to have one of those luxurious robes as well, thanks!), Romanza the Italian restaurant (so happy that we got in on Valentine’s night, although the lobster and shrimp and sea bass that we enjoyed might not have been so pleased), Atlantis casino (just a quick jaunt down the street and…why, I’m so happy to meet you, Sumo Kitty slot machine!  Here, take some more of my money!), and the Peppermill Poker Room (Chris can fill you in there, although I will say that the craps table was most uncraptacular.  Chris scored pretty well with the dice!).

We were having such a good time that I insisted upon staying another night in our suite instead of heading home late in the evening.  And it all worked out…the cats were even happy to see us home.  Happy birthday / Valentine’s Day / President’s Day to us all!

Where has time gone?

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me! by

Well, I guess December really got away from me.  Before I knew it, it was the 20th already!  I haven’t been up to a lot though, so you needn’t feel like you’ve missed out on anything.  We had a great  Thanksgiving – my mom came up from San Diego and we had a really excellent time seeing her.  Here’s a picture of us at Kennedy School:

That’s all for now – I’ll be back next year!  Toodles!  :o)

Thanksgiving time already???

Posted in Friends and Family, Home Life, Me Me Me! by

Well, I guess Halloween can’t last forever. But, just in case you’re sad about the season ending (like I am), here are a few pictures for you from our Halloween party!

Our terrifying living room.
We turned our basement into a spider den! Horrific!
Even more scary, I made my first attempt at wearing false eyelashes. It didn’t go too badly! Plus, they were purple.
Here’s my costume! I was going for Mad Hatter, but I’ll also accept Mimi from the Drew Carey Show (not really) or drag queen.
Christopher was the local reed dealer. You know, because he makes and sells reeds for oboe.
We had some amazing costumes at our party, including plenty of Star Wars characters. Rachael was the Death Star, her being pregnant and all.
Paul’s costume was clever – he went to the evite site and wrote all the party-goers names on name tags. His concept: identity thief.
Those eyeball cupcakes didn’t stand a chance!
Uh oh…looks like the party is getting started…
Indeed! We even had Elvis singing karaoke in the spider den!
Hey you two – no funny business! Just kidding, carry on with the funny business.
So scary! But fun! Looking forward to another good time next year!

Finally…A Sunny Weekend!

Posted in Travel, Vacations by

It seems that the weather has finally turned! Lately we’ve had more sun than rain, and the temperatures are getting to the point where I haven’t had to wear my coat to work (although I still wear my wrap sweater and use my space heater every day in my office). So, we took advantage of the sunny weather and headed out for a couple of nights at the coast over Memorial Day Weekend.

Our first task was wine tasting. We drove through Yamhill County, stopping at Penner-Ash (meh), and the Carlton Winemakers Studio (yum).

The view from the tasting room at Penner-Ash – it doesn’t look particularly sunny here, but it was gorgeous anyway!


We then made our way to Lincoln City, and drove south just a little way down the coast to Salishan Resort, where we stayed for two nights. It was actually a pretty nice place – our room had a view of the ocean, a fireplace, and the whole thing was kind of like an Ewok village because it was built in the forest with catwalks that connected all the buildings. It was almost like going to summer camp, but with much better food and a bar with a pool table. We even played a round of golf – 18 holes of putting greens (and I believe I won by 4 strokes).

The view from our room – we could even see the ocean.
Chris kind of kicked my butt at pool.
The putting course – it was very pretty, and was even registered as designated bird habitat by Audubon.
Chris may have beaten me at pool, but I triumphed at golf!

Over the course of two days we visited Chris’ friends Brad and Tyler, who were working on putting the finishing touches on a rental home they were helping to build in Lincoln City. The place was amazing. No drywall in the entire house – everything was wood. And, it was right on the coast – direct beach access, and lots of windows. We also met up with them at the casino those two nights – I didn’t do too terribly well at craps, and Chris did a little better at poker. But we didn’t lose our shorts, so I’ll consider it a success.

Coming back we had a marginally obscene breakfast at Lil’ Sambo’s (named after the beloved (?) racist children’s book), where there was some random old guy in the parking lot dressed as Captain America. I wanted to stop there because I remembered the story from when I was a kid, and liked the tiger in the front of the restaurant.

I finally remembered the story when I read it at their gift shop. Tigers turning into butter???
WTF??? And why isn’t his mask on correctly?

I look forward to more sunny weekends in the near future!

A 2010 Retrospective…Lamenting the Passing of the Best Year Ever!

Posted in Accomplishments, Friends and Family, Home Life, Me Me Me!, Updates by

Happy new year, everyone! It is with great sadness that I say goodbye to 2010, the Best Year Ever. Behold 2010, a year that sidled into my life without presumption or pretense, and now a year that has slipped away like grains of sand through an hourglass…these are the days of our lives…Wait – haven’t I heard that somewhere before? Dang, and I don’t even watch soaps!

But in all *seriousness* (because we all know how Serious I am), 2010 was a fantastic year. I’m left wondering how 2011 could possibly be any better, seeing as how so many crazy-rad things happened in the past 12 months. Like what, you ask? Well, how about the following:

So, can you now understand why I might be sad to say farewell to 2010? Yes? Oh, I know…your response is that 2011 will probably be even better. How is that even possible? Well, I’ll keep you posted on how that works out – be sure to check back soon!

P.S. – Did you notice how I kept last year’s resolution? I totally maintained this blog! I posted way more than in 2009…let’s see if I can keep it up in 2011!

That’s it???

Posted in Career, Me Me Me! by

Happy Halloween, y’all! Because I’ve been super busy this month with moving and everything, I didn’t have time to get a costume together or my residence decorated. And it’s a real shame, because I had a great costume all designed – I was actually standing in JoAnn’s with bolts of fabric in my arms, but I abandoned the plan last minute because I’m just too busy. So, you’ll have to see my costume next year.

Anywhooooo…I did manage to slowly transform my office into a spooktacular spider lair during the month of October. My costume would’ve played into that. Yes, I was the only one at work who decorated their office…I don’t care though! As far as I’m concerned, Halloween should be every month. Candy and costumes? It doesn’t get much better than that in terms of holidays!

Suck it, 2009!

Posted in Blogging, Me Me Me!, Updates by

Toodle-loo, 2009! It’s time you moved on. Based on my regular reading of MSNBC.com, it appears that most of the world had a sucky 2009. But I have to say, mine was pretty good. I had some adventures, moved to Portland, got a new job, made new friends. All good things, right? The only bad thing was that I didn’t blog nearly as often as I would’ve liked (ok, so it wasn’t the *only* bad thing), which is probably more of an impact on my disappointed loyal readers than anything else. Could that be the main reason that 2009 sucked for so many of you? If so, I’m terribly terribly sorry. I will try to make it up to you.

And to that effect, let’s just say that things are gonna change around here at A Very Marcilicious Blog. 2010 is gonna be BIG! I can feel it…it’s getting bigger already. The postings will be more frequent and more feisty. The pictures will be more scintillating and scandalous. The links will be more poignant and procrastination-friendly. There might even be a poll or two. And hell…there might just be another blog. Yup – I’m starting to think about another blog highlighting my adventures in online dating, which will be at least as entertaining as the New and Improved 2010 Marcilicious Blog. Stay tuned.

In the meantime, enjoy some newish pictures, which I’ve provided as slide shows to the right. If you’re reading this some time in the future and are thinking that the slide shows are not the ones mentioned here, click these links: Halloween in White Salmon and Christmas in Portland. Good times, everyone, good times. See you on the flip side!

Last Post of 2008! For Real This Time!!!

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Vacations by
Lest you think that 2008 was totally in the toilet (see previous post), I thought I’d share a few more photos with you. I got a really great surprise today when I received a CD in the mail from Cecily (thanks, Cecily!!!), who compiled all the photos she took on our trip to the Chiricahuas over Thanksgiving. I’ll probably try to upload them to a Picasa web album sometime, but here are just a few of the photos that I thought were particularly funny or had incredible scenery. So happy new year, for real this time!

Thanksgiving dinner at a truck stop – bad pizza and rootbeer floats!

So this is what I look like first thing in the morning? I’d just crawled out of the tent after our first night backpacking in the wilderness area; yes, that’s ice in my hair.

One of the many spectacular views of the Chiricahua wilderness; this was just before we somehow managed to get ourselves off-trail. I wish I knew how to use the self-timer on *my* camera!

You can’t see it in the photo (how clever…), but Cecily’s ankle is totally jacked up! At this point, we were enjoying the views at the Chiricahua National Monument, which were accessible a short distance from the car.

Thanksgiving in the Chiricahuas

Posted in Friends and Family, Me Me Me!, Travel, Vacations by

Since I don’t consider Thanksgiving to be one of my favorite holidays, I decided it would be a good time to get out of town for an outdoor mini-adventure. My friend Cecily, from grad school, flew into Phoenix where I drove to pick her up. We had the best Thanksgiving dinner ever – bad pizza and rootbeer floats at a truckstop outside of Tucson. Afterwards, we drove around FOREVER trying to find the Forest Service lands that we were told about so that we could camp for the night – finally, we found the turnoff for French Joe Canyon and set up for the night.

It turns out that our campsite was just next to Karchner Caverns State Park, which we explored the next day. It’s a pretty cool state park – it’s got a good museum and gift shop, although their coffee wasn’t the best. We took a tour of the Rotunda and Throne Rooms, where we saw Kubla Kahn, the biggest column known in the state of Arizona. It was pretty spectacular, although I can’t show you any pictures because there were no cameras allowed. Bummer for you!

After that, we drove east through Willcox, then took a forest service road through the Chiricahuas to the South Fork of the Cave Creek trail, just west of Portal. We hit the trailhead around 2:30, so it was a bit late; just before we got on the trail, a man approached us to tell us to be careful of all the illegal immigrants and drug smugglers coming through the area. Thanks, dude! After about a mile and a half, we turned off the Cave Creek trail and onto the Burro trail, which took us up and to the east. We didn’t get terribly far that first day because we got a late start; also, we needed to take advantage of the first flat spot we found in order to set up a tent. By the way, I need to thank my friend Glen for loaning me a bunch of ultralight equipment which reduced 20 lbs off my pack load. So if you’re in the market for a new pack or tent, go to his website, Gossamer Gear, to check out the goods!

Anyway, it was clear that others had used the same spot we found, since there were water bottles and toilet paper scattered around the perimeter of our site. I cooked up some yummy pad thai and Cecily started a fire to let all the smugglers know that we were there and not to bother us. It was a rather cold night – I didn’t get a lot of sleep because 1) I was listening for drug smugglers emerging from their hiding spots to steal our food (which they didn’t), 2) Cecily snores, and 3) it was freaking cold. We woke up to a sheet of ice on the inside of our tent, frost on our sleeping bags, and I even had frost in my hair! But a hot meal of oatmeal and peanuts and cranberries and tea warmed us up pretty good, at least while we waited for the sun to come out.

We continued on our way, up up and up the trail – and the views just kept getting more and more spectacular. We watched flocks of band-tailed pidgeons fly around below us. There were incredible rock outcrops all over the place. And the sun was out, which was in contrast from the days before. We hit Horseshoe Saddle at around noon, and there was lots of evidence that illegals had been coming through – water bottles, clothes, discarded packs, food containers, and even syringes. And unfortunately, because there was so much activity, a lot of social trails had been created, which were in fact more evident than the official trail we were trying to follow. So, at around 8000 feet, we ended up losing our trail and hiking down several fake-out trails that led us into a steep drainage.

We started bushwhacking our way down the drainage, which we knew would take us back to Cave Creek and the original trail that we were on. In my estimation, given the amount of shit in the drainage, there were approximately 359 bears in the vicinity, in addition to the drug smugglers which were surely hunkered down waiting for nightfall. Cecily and I scaled several bouldered drop-offs with few problems, but our luck didn’t last forever; Cecily fell down a 15-foot rock face and sprained her ankle really badly. But she was hard-core and didn’t cry or anything; we taped her ankle up, loaded her up with ibuprofin, and I gave her my hiking pole to hobble along on. We were only about halfway down the drainage at that point and it was starting to get dark and cold, and there was definitely no place to camp, so we decided to just try and get out that evening. I had to go ahead of Cecily and try to find the best way down the canyon drainage, which still had several rocky drops before we hit Cave Creek around dusk. But we were so happy to hear that running water!
We didn’t find the trail right away and hiked up the opposite side of the creek until I decided we needed to go back down to the creek where we would definitely find the trail at some point. Which we did – Cecily ended up hiking about 3 miles on her bum ankle, but with head-lamps and hiking poles, we made it to the car and set up camp at the Sunny Flat forest service campground. Whew! It was a good thing that Cecily brought some Vicodin with her…
The next morning, we drove back over the mountains to the Chiricahua National Monument, where the medic/ranger wrapped Cecily’s humongously swollen ankle up and provided her with ice packs and an airsplint. We drove through the monument and took in the amazing views at Massai Point. Finally, we drove back through Willcox and into Benson, where we ate a huge dinner at Apple Farm restaurant, one of the best meals I’ve ever had. The mashed potatoes were AWESOME!!! I felt like I was going to have a food baby.

We then drove back to French Joe Canyon and camped at the same spot as our first night – but this time we started a fire (with a little help from a bit of denatured alcohol, thanks) and had smores. Yummy! The following morning, we went back to our Thanksgiving day truckstop and paid $5 each for a shower. This was the first time I’ve ever had a truckstop shower, and it’s not nearly as dirty as it sounds. It was actually quite refreshing – I even managed to comb the emergent dread-locks out of my hair that had started to form during the past few days. Then, it was back to Phoenix to drop Cecily off at the airport, and then back to San Diego.
It was really a fun trip, all minor injuries aside. It was great being outside and getting my mind completely off of work for a few days, although I wish the trip could have been a little longer. I have more pictures that you can view through the slideshow link on the right side of my blog, and Cecily will be sending me her pictures as well, so there will probably be even more photos soon. It was a good Thanksgiving – even if there wasn’t any cranberry sauce involved!