Weekend Update

The weekend was fairly low key. Some friends came over to hang out on Friday and Saturday. I went out and picked up a pressure pot to help my mold making and resin casting. The pressure pot will help squeeze out air bubbles in the mold and resin and hopefully result with the molds and resin casts parts in higher quality. I was originally planning on hitting up the slow dive boat out to Catalina, but I used that money on the pressure pot and other things. Additionally, the boat dive to Catalina pretty much takes up the entire day from 5 in the morning until about 6; I had other things that I needed to do on Sunday. So a nice morning dive took care of the itch to swim with the fishes. Hugo and Beanie tagged along to the beach.

I’m starting to be a little too forgetful. I had forgotten to apply some anti fog gel to the mask, so every so often, I would have to let water into my mask to defog under water. I remembered to bring the defog gel, just didn’t remember to apply the stuff to the goggles. Having Terry, Hugo, and Beanie there probably helped with my poor memory. The next thing I forgot was the fiber optic cable for the strobe. I brought to strobe, but didn’t bring the cable, so I ended up diving with out the strobe. And as a result, the pictures I took underwater suffered.

It was amazingly calm and clear. There was little to no surge whatsoever, so I ended up just sitting along the bottom of ocean. Pictures were very easy to take, but again, without the strobe, the photos suffered. Here are some pictures of a sponge and various other sea creatures.

I just sat still and the fish didn’t really pay any attention to me, a few were curious and came up to me, there was a fairly big Sea Bass, and Garibaldi came really close to me. Little to no surge, had me just sitting still. It was great, I could have stayed down there forever.

Here is a video I took while sitting down and just enjoying the gigantic fish tank. From the video, you can probably see that there was very little surge and the surroundings were not whooshing back and forth every couple of seconds and the fish were not fighting any sort of ocean current. Just an amazing day down there.

Anemones look like flowers in the ocean, but they’re actually animals, and will react when touched and such. Again, without my strobe, the pictures are horrible.

Playing with the anemone from the above picture:

Since the fish were so nice to hang out with me, I grabbed a sea urchin – oh and another thing I forgot was my bloody knife. I cracked the sucker open using my flashlight as a hammer and fed the fish. The sea urchins are damn tasty so it’s completely understandable how ferocious the fish get when one is cracked open before them.

Here are a few pictures of the sea weed growing from the reef.

Another video shot while swimming along in very calm waters.

Here, there are several caves where lobsters hang out during the day to sleep. Again, for shots like these, I really wished I didn’t forget the fiber optic cable for the strobe. There were at least a hundred or more lobsters just hanging out inside this cave.

The cave of a hundred lobsters…a video may be a better representation than the picture.

I brought Terry along, which allowed me to bring the little monsters along for a car ride. Here is Hugo enjoying the beach.

Pictures of Beanie.

Beanie’s attempt to dig to China; he gives up fairly easily.

With the dive finished, and the dogs done with their trot along the beach, having eaten enough sand for the day, we head back to the car to leave. The skies were absolutely clear when we got to the beach around 9, and the fog starts to roll in about 11:30 am when we started to leave. It makes for a pretty cool picture.

Heading back, we leave the dogs in the car parked in the covered parking area of the Costa Mesa branch of Mitsuwa, and have lunch at the food court. MmmmmmMMM cream puff….

Click here for more pictures and more videos (bigger versions).

Yeah, Terry and I couldn’t help but make inter-racial gay couple jokes as we’re each walking the little corgis along the beach. But we felt better when we got to Mitsuwa, as there were a decent number of beautiful women walking around. Oh the hottie that works at Miyabitei, Terry like the little Jap Goth chick working at Italian Tomato; and the numerous customers. It was probably enough to over turn the gayness of the morning.

We got home around one, and there were a ton of other things that needed to attending. I didn’t care about either team in the Super Bowl, but I had the tv on just for background noise. Terry passed out on the couch. The scuba gear was soaked and hung. Jay came over, but was hungry so he went out with Helen and Art. Then Hugo and Beanie got little baths. Beanie used to be a pain in the ass to bath, but I guess the beach and car ride wore the little bastard down and he just sat there and took his bath without any sort of fight.

I needed to hit up Lowes for some additional pneumatic fittings to plug up some of the areas on the pressure pot before I can put the sucker into use. Costco was hit for some supplies, and we visited the Toys R Us so that I could get some more lego pieces that facilitate my mold making.

Back at home, I finally do the much needed oil change for my car. Apparently, I had barely 3 full quarts of oil in the sucker. *sigh* I should be more diligent in taking care of my car. With that done, Helen, Art, and Jay are back. Brandon was in the neighborhood as he and his friend went to the local Tet Festival (Vietnamese New Years Festival) down in charlie town (Westminster). So we broke out rock band and played for a little while. Ah, Sunday made up for the shitty lunch I had on Saturday…. Ok, rant time, I recommend you stop reading now…

So I had lunch with my dad and his family on Saturday. I get there around 11:30, I’m already 15 minutes late, but they’re even later, and don’t arrive until about noon. I don’t think we actually got a table until about 12:30; but that’s relatively fast in comparison to the tens of other folks outside waiting for a table. It’s my dad and step mother’s favorite restaurant. They know all the staff there, so they usually get to “cut the line” and get a table relatively quickly. While having dim sum, they are handing out little red envelopes to a good number of the staff. Lunch was going just fine, until just about the very end.

While boxing up leftovers, and just chatting, I’m suddenly hit with splatters of soy sauce, and whatever was being cleaned up from the table behind me. I quickly turn around and addressed the waiter that is cleaning up the table. “WHAT THE HELL? DID YOU JUST SPLASH CRAP ALL OVER ME?” And the waiter in his infinite amount of wisdom says oops then laughs. Side note: I’ve worked in Chinese restaurants, not unlike this one; and when one is cleaning up a table, you do not EVER just throw things into a tub with such force or in such manner that it splatters the surrounding guest. AND if such a thing were to happen, you don’t FUCKING LAUGH AT THE FUCKING CUSTOMER. I lost it; but I didn’t completely lose it. In my younger days, I would have smashed the fucker in the head with either my fist, a tea cup, or plate – or done something utterly passive aggressive and just dumped a bottle of soy sauce or any other liquid within arms reach and tried to provoke the dipshit into attacking me. But again, this is my dad and step mother’s favorite restaurant, so my venting was left to the foulest string of cursing in Cantonese. And even that was done under breath so only the table and a few others close enough could hear it. My dad’s freaking shit, this is his favorite restaurant and he wants to keep coming back here. He knows me. He knows my temper, and what’s it is capable of, so naturally, he’s a little frightened that I’ll do something bloody awful.

The worse I do is just stew silently, with small little outbursts of curses spoken in low tones. Oh did I want to rip into that stupid mother fucker; but I restrained myself. The splattering got onto my step mother’s WHITE jacket. Another little side note; once upon a time, we were at another restaurant and while serving, the waiter accidentally dropped a small amount of sauce onto her dress. She was fuming. She had the management take down information and all sorts of stuff as she was going to send the dry cleaning bill to the restaurant because of the splattering. And because this is a restaurant my parents frequent at least once a week; she was quick to respond in regards to the splattering on her white coat. “Oh, this isn’t a big deal, this is machine washable, I’ll just go home and wash this at home.” This was said with out any provocation or mention of the jacket by the restaurant management. What utter bull shit, had this been some random restaurant, she would have bitched up a fucking storm. And they kept trying to calm me down in hopes that *I* don’t cause a fucking scene.

Now, let’s back up. When I initially responded to being hit with the leftover shit from the clean up duties of an alien card toting douche bag of a waiter; had the guy immediately apologized and done something to cut off any possibility of antagonizing the situation; I would have no leg to stand on. It would have completely taken any breeze of a wind out of my sails. I would have looked like the complete asshole for beating down the moronic douche if he was doing his utmost in trying to remedy the situation. But no, the idiot laughed; really, it was absolutely hilarious that while doing his job, he splattered the dirt collections of half eaten food particles and liquids on the customers of a neighboring table. I don’t think my dad fully understands why I was so upset with the situation. Regardless, this pretty much gives me a get out of jail free card for the next event. I absolutely hate spending any amount of time with that half of the family – 9 times out of 10, something happens to just push me over the edge. It is probably healthier for me to just distance myself from them. I also hope that they’re smart enough not to have me return with them to that restaurant, ever.