point break LIVE!

This weekend, JR and I went to see Point Break LIVE! - a theatrical version of the movie, where they pick Johnny Utah (Keanu Reeves' character) out of the audience, and that person reads their lines off cue cards, for a more realistic performance.

IT WAS FUCKING AWESOME. PERIOD.

I cannot believe I stumbled upon this from a live music mailing list at work. It was a 10 at 10 deal - $10 for the 10pm show. Regularly $25. It's an amazing show for 25 bucks, much less 10!!! AND they serve beer? Hell, yeah.

We stopped at the bar on the way in and asked for water (we were intoxicated enough already), and the bartendress said they were out, but she could get us cokes. Fine with us. Then she says, "We ran out of bottled water during the first show - someone's gone out to get some more." ...pause... She leans in and half whispers "Personally, I think it's cottonmouth..." Yes!

The show was outright insane. People chanting along with all the great lines, deliciously over-the-top acting, merciless dousing of the audience...

It is imperative that you go. "This is your wake-up call!"

goin' back to TA-HO, to TA-HO, to TA-HO

Tahoe, here we come! JR and I are renting a condo in Tahoe this weekend with Lindsey & Angela, and Alex & Jasmin. Oh the drinking to be done! We got a condo for 6 at Granlibakken, which looks really cool.

We've got a lot to do today before we head out - get the oil changed, finish laundry and packing, pick up a prescription, pick up a package from the post office, drop off Winston at a new PetHotel, go to JR's boss's party for a while, and buy liquor and wine and snacks and alcohol. Did I mention the alcohol? For there will be hot tubs.

Awww yeahhh.

happy birthday, jr!!!

Well, we did it! We successfully pulled off a surprise party for JR tonight! Despite a close call when Shannon hadn't gotten my e-mail yet and kept saying, "Absolutely! We'll go celebrate your birthday with you on Friday night!", and Aaron kept saying, "But that's date night. We can't go.", and the back and forth of "We can do date night any night!" and "We'll see...", he was still surprised. He had no idea.

The plan was for just JR and I to go to dinner at Kookez and then to go see a movie, just the two of us. Unbeknownst to him, Deano and Shyer had made a cake, and Aaron and Shannon were waiting for us at a special table at Kookez, with balloons and everything, even a mug full of sugar-free candy. We had a nice long dinner with all our bestest friends, drinking wine and beer, and JR and I took a night off from our diet.

Deano and Shy put 31 candles on the beautiful cake Shy had made, and brought it out in a fiery blaze. :) The cake was delicious! After we had our cake, we all counted through the candles and recounted our entire lives up to this point. JR started it off, and he noted the last 2 candles as the best years, starting when he met the best girl. I'm totally keeping those 2 candles.

I love you, JR. Happy Birthday. Best years of my life too. And only more to come.

IxDA in SF

IxDA (Interaction Design Association) San Francisco held it's first speaker session last night, "Communicating Concepts with Comics" by Kevin Cheng, of the hilarious OK/Cancel comic strip/blog and Yahoo!. It was a good presentation, and I'll have to think about how/if I can incorporate it into my process. As someone who considers themselves an "artist", it is unendingly frustrating for me to suck at drawing people and faces. It would take some practice and probably a WACOM tablet, and much patience (and we all know how patient I am...)

After the presentation, we met up with the G-UX/SF crowd at Velvet Cantina for yummy nachos and rather crappy margaritas. It was fun to see all those folks outside of work. We don't do it very often, and it's one of the big things I miss from life in San Antonio. (Then again, I don't know how much of that was socializing and how much was work driving us to drink.) I am really looking forward to Aaron & Shannon getting here to regain some of that after work camaraderie. Anyways, two measly cheap tequila margaritas, and I've got a nasty headache this morning. I missed the kinda-late shuttle so now I'm on the late shuttle. (At least I'm not taking the late-LATE shuttle.) Which is OK; I'll take the later shuttle home, because as I discovered after the Google Dance the other night, the later evening shuttles are faster and way less crowded.

just a regular ol' tuesday

Today is just like any other Tuesday, except Aaron & Shannon are looking at a rental just a few blocks away this morning that we really hope will be THE ONE, and tonight is the Google Dance.

It's been really nice having Aaron & Shannon in again; we can get a glimpse of what we've really been missing this whole time - close friends to go to dinner with, or have movie nights with, or get smashingly drunk with at a moments notice. Last night we took the bus and then walked to a great little restaurant at Market and Church called Chow. It's one of those places that we've always wanted to go, just never taken the opportunity. It was yummy: really good food was eaten, and Stella Artois was consumed. Ahhhh... A week or so ago we got a taste of how nice it is to have friends so close after going over to Rick's place to learn how to play craps - you can have a great time, consume too many alcoholic bevs, and WALK HOME. We really, REALLY hope they get this apartment a few blocks away.

Also, going rental-hunting with them this weekend was very eye-opening. Read Aaron's description of it: it's dead-on. Each one had something perfect AND something absolutely intolerable. The land-lady at one was like something out of a movie. You can't write characters that are that freaky.

Although this wouldn't happen any other time, they also saved me from a street-cleaning day parking ticket yesterday. Our neighbor Pam came banging on the door to let them know my car was still on the street, and they moved it and then moved it back. Yay!!!

The other part of the normalcy of the day is Google Dance tonight, where a gazillion SES Conference attendees come to the G-plex to drink and rabble-rouse and see all kinds of cool stuff and listen to good music. Depending on the amount of alcohol consumed, there may be actual dancing. We'll see. And then I get to ride the shuttle home, so I don't have to worry about driving. I love that! Plus, I get a cool t-shirt. And come on, that's really what it's all about.

Hopefully I'll get good photos tonight and then be the responsible blogging/flickring adult that I'm supposed to be and immediately upload them and blog about the event. Why they have to do this on a Tuesday night is beyond me.

Between 10am and 6pm though, it really is just a normal day. Maybe I need to find some way to become involved in organizing of these things, because just talking about tonight makes me feel like today is a blow-off day. I'd rather be helping set it up than doing my regular work.

So, be sending your good vibes our way at around 10am Pacific time, because that's when A&S see the last place.

And, after re-reading this post, I see that the repeating thread is alcohol consumption... Here's to a less alcohol-related post in the future. *clink*

it's design week on AVTV!

Tonight, after meeting other designers for drinks at House of Shields, we're going to go see Helvetica. I am very geeked about this - I tried to go see it at SXSWi, but the theatre filled up way too fast. They could have had 2 other showings at the same time and still not handled everyone in line.

Last night, we joined BayCHI and went to the meeting/speaker series. Christina Wodtke (IA expert, founder of boxes and arrows, eleganthack fame, etc.) gave a presentation about Going from Designer to Founder that was very entertaining and enlightening.

Tomorrow night, it's either SFlickr or a class at TechShop, we haven't decided. One of the things that was so appealing about SF was the flickr community here, and we've been here a YEAR and have yet to make a meeting. By Thursday we're both so tired. But we're determined to fix that.

Friday I get my cast off, which has nothing to do with design, but THANK YOU JEEBUS!!! I'm at the point where I don't think I can take another minute of it. And JR offering to saw it off himself isn't really helping.

So that's this week in a nutshell. I have so much back-blogging and back-flickring to do... So you'll be getting a little traveling back in time for a while. You'll take it, and like it!

ask ashley™, #2

Stepping outside the box, today's question is from an actual reader! (An almost-lawyer in Houston who would prefer to remain anonymous.) :D

Dear Ashley,

My neighborhood pub has $12 steak night every Monday during happy hour. I like steaks, and I like happy hour, but the two combined always render my Monday evenings completely useless. What can I do?

—Nap-Time Nelson

Dear Nap-Time,

Looks to me like you're screwed. How can anyone resist $12 steak AND happy hour?!? Accept that Monday nights are reserved for uselessness. As some Zen master said, "It is what it is."

Also... are Stella or Duvel included in happy hour? If so, you are truly lost my friend. And I might come visit you next Monday.

—Ashley

Ask Ashley™ is not to be confused with (or impinge upon the trademark rights of) Ask Abby™.

sxswi 2007

Well, we're back. Great panels, great schmoozing, got to see some of my own personal internet rockstars, and drank til the wee hours. Incredible parties. Check out some of the photos:

Flickr Set: SXSWi 07

So far, I've only uploaded the ones from my powershot. I still have to upload the ones from my Rebel.

After the conference was over, JR and I headed for San Antone to see family and friends. I got to see my dad's new house (amazing!). My sister Karolyn came down from Houston one night. And we had such a great time with our friends! Hi friends! :)

That's all for now. I'll tell you how I torqued my back while crashing to my knees (busting my right knee for the THIRD time now), but it'll have to wait.

things even i know

Tonight we met some friends at the Saucer for a few beers, and we met someone that started working with them recently (at that company). This woman was drinking red wine. At some point during the conversation, after she was on her second glass (and who knows how many she had before we got there), she mentioned that SHE'S 4 MONTHS PREGNANT, so she shouldn't SMOKE. I'm pretty sure you aren't supposed to DRINK either. Every time she ordered another glass, someone who joined us asked if that was okay for someone who's pregnant, and she'd respond, "Sure it is." She finished 3 glasses of red wine, moved next to the guy that was smoking so she could at least get some secondhand smoke, and finally got up to leave. Someone was complaining that she was leaving early, and here's the best quote I've ever heard from a pregnant woman:

"If I have another one, I'll really be drunk."

Ah...Texas.

Wait til you see photos from our trip to Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World. Yeehaw!

snow globe 2007

Every year, the G takes everyone on a ski trip. Ours is to Squaw Valley, in Tahoe. They rent out all of the resorts up there, and in the middle of the Village they have firepits and smore fixins and hot chocolate and a huge snowglobe. You get one free day of skiing (or snowboarding or iceskating, etc.), and they throw a huge party and everyone stays overnight.

They bussed us from AT&T Park in SF early on Tuesday, and then back mid-day Wednesday. The weather was gorgeous during the trip. On the trip to the summit (9,050 ft), one of my co-workers and I discussed our plan for our first ski trip; "Just don't embarrass yourself". That was my mantra for the party.

The place our team was in was incredible! Conveniently, that was also where the big party was. There were 3 rooms: Polar (ice), Jungle (rain forest), and Aqua (water). The '80's cover band came on just when everyone was drunk enough to sing at the top of their lungs and dance their asses off. Perfect timing. I had 3 drinks, and by the time we left to go to a room party, I was more than feelin' the drinks. At an elevation of 6,200 ft, I was feelin' the drinks. Apparently I am more susceptible to the al-key-hol at high altitude.

I went with Jocelyn to the room party anyways, but I knew I'd made a bad choice when they wanted everyone who entered to take shots from a water bottle filled with 151. It was a paradox: I was not drunk enough to throw caution to the wind and chug, because I knew I was too drunk to chug. "Is this the wisdom that comes with age?" I thought... and then I knew that couldn't be it because that's when I left to go back to my room and throw up. And all of this was by midnight.

By morning, I had the worst headache and I could barely eat. But from what I heard, I was smart to leave when I did, as a number of people stayed and forgot to stick to the mantra. 151 can do that to you.

joe and jr at lime

joe and jr at lime, originally uploaded by ashleyv.

Last weekend our friend Joe came to SF for Adaptive Path's MX conference. While he was here, we got to take him out on the town. We had dinner at Fresca (ask him about "horrifying fish platter"), drinks at lime, and the next night, dinner at Empress of China, on the top floor of a building in Chinatown, with a great view of the city and the bay. It was great to see him, and it made us miss our friends and family in San Antone. If only Julee could've come with him. We miss her too!