Holly $hit

I think I've been weaned of Xanga. =/ However, I had to post this video somewhere. This guy has balls!

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The Gnarliest Weekend Ever; Abolone Diving in the Pacific

Here is my '5am look'. Everytime I wake up at this hour, I typically feel as if I'm the only person awake in the world.  That always changes once I get on the freeway - what the heck are you guys doing up at that hour?:

Four hours on the road (with brief stops at Jack in the Box for breakfast, and Walmart for fishing and abalone diving permits) we met up with Ariel and Matt at the dive shop where we each parted with $30 dollars for a full body, thickly insulated website, an abalone bar, and a 20 pounds of dead weight we’d strap to our bodies out in the ocean (reaaaaal smart).

Here's our gorgeous private cove. (I've learned that abologne divers are insanely protective of their diving spots; I've been sworn never to reveal this location):

At a little past 11, fully suited up (and personally, feeling a bit like a fish out of water except I was about to throw myself back in) we waddled our way into the icy gray Pacific, into a bay covered with sticky, slimy, floating, bulbous sea kelp.

Here we are setting up our gear, desparately trying to avoid being the first in the water:

My diving mates: Tim (half-squatting), Ariel (fit as F*ck runner), and Matt (Ariels boyfriend). Even love wasn't going to keep them warm in the frigid Pacific:

Here I am, looking completely natural in 7mm full body spandex, googles on an weight belt cinched tightly around my waist... not (as it not comfortable at all!)

Abalone diving is dangerous. Burdened down by 20 lbs of lead, body wrapped in thick, suffocated foam, vision impaired by clouded scuba goggles and having a thick piped shoved into your mouth, I tried to picture the romanticism of the sport. I failed. While trying to block images of becoming entangled in sea kelp, chewed on by a shark, or being pinned against coral by a large sea swell, I kicked my inner tube towards the ocean after my dive mates.

This is how slimey the water was... both above and below water:

Periodically, we'd dunk our heads underwater like ducks. My neck is still sore from the bobbing action =P

Visibility was terrible.... but we were able to find this pretty starfish:

For the next two hours, Ariel, Matt, Tim and I bobbled up and down with the motion of the ocean, kicking determinly against the frigid waters, trying not to get tangled with the slippery kelp. Every so often, we’d dip our masked heads into the water (much like the ducks I used to watch in DC), searching for abalone, which happen to look like rocks!

If and when we would find what looked like abalone, we’d literally roll off of the very inner tube that was keeping afloat and, weighed down by the 20lbs strapped to our torsos, drop down to the bottom of the ocean. If you weren’t absolute mortified to be in near darkness on the ocean floor, you’d find the damn ‘sea snail’ (hoping it wasn’t a rock), deftly slip the ab bar underneath it, and pry the sucker loose like pulling a loose nail…

Cake right?

Not really.

I felt absolutely sick after the whole thing was done. I don’t know if it was the 4.5 hours of sleep, the 4 hour car drive, the suffocating & claustrophobic suit, ice cold ocean water in my butt crack, the friggen weight belt squeezing my guts, or the 2 hours of ocean rocking while alternating between a Superman yoga pose to dipping my head underwater, but I was barf-ready upon returning to dry land.

Here I am DYING to get back on shore. And on the right is Tim, washing out his wetsuit after peeing in it (a age-old method of warming oneself while in the water; I was a little hesitant to try =P):

Lucky for me, that feeling passed and I enjoyed the rest of the day taking pictures of our catches, grabbing lunch with my new friends, and planning our next adventures. The only thing that spoiled the GNARLIEST DAY EVER was not being able to visit a certain someone on the way back from diving, having to eat my catch (I felt soooo bad cutting my catch into pieces), and then having to go to THREE parties that night. Gawd. Kill me now!

On the left is Tim, proudly displaying his catch, and on the right, is Ariel with hers:

Me with mine, and the couple:

Abalone looks like rocks eh? Hard on one side, absolutely disgustingly absorbant on the other:

And at times, they move in alarming ways. Here's one sucker rearing itself nearly 5 inches above the tube... and the other, trying to escape (trust me, I felt like letting mine go...):

Pretty startfish. We did let this one go:

Next up, a fun roadtrip to LA (my first time in 1.5 years) with some friends…. and, a solo, 4 day drive up the California Coastline to Portland Oregon for a friends wedding.

Cancer

There’s a lot to share about my life these days, but I’ve been waiting and wanting to share about a particular conversation I recently had with an old college friend. I haven’t been the same since.

A few weeks back, my friend surprised with a phone call in the middle of the day. This former banker turned MBA student was back home from school, and wanted to ring me up to see what I was up to.

“The usual” I casually answered, and then turned the question on him…. I almost wish I hadn’t.

It turned out that my friend’s mother was diagnosed with cancer.

At this point, I’ve forgotten which area of her body was ill, but the treatment and the disease had made her weak and a little crazy. My friend has returned from school to take care of his mom, and the responsibility was a hard one to bear.

What does one say moments like this? “I’m sorry” isn’t nearly enough to cut it, but one is left grasping for better words to fill the silence. I must have mumbled a word or two of condolences, and mentally tried to block out how I would feel if I were in the same situation.

“But there’s more” my friend said, making pause and refocus on what he was saying.

“A few weeks ago, my dad was diagnosed with cancer” my friend continued. “It’s terminal”

My mind probably spun then as much as it’s spinning now. Two parents instead of one… going from a whole family looking ahead towards retirement and the arrival grand children, to one that as going to leave their kids without a past. Grandkids without grandparents.

Despite how conflicted I was, I could only imagine how my friend was feeling, despite the calm in his voice. I asked him how he was coping. I asked if he was fine. And his answers, though they’re a blur to me now, were collected and resolute. I was confident he was going to survive. Although I had spent little time with him in the past few years, it was easy to tell he possessed the strength of character to get through this…. what can you call something like this…. this personal hell.

My friend called me last week; his mother had passed away and his dad was hanging on by a thread.

Life is too short. Never take life for granted. I wish I had something more insightful to say, but I don’t. You form your own conclusions.

Charity Social benefitting Earthquake Victims, this Saturday in SF

Dear Friends,

I'm going to refrain from sending everyone a canned & cold promotional email about Saturday's Charity Social and attempt to appeal to your softer, sweeter, GIVING side.

A bunch of friends from Stanford and Berkeley reaching out to our networks to raise money to donate to the victims of the recent 8.0 earthquake that hit the Sichuan region in China. (We're not counting the 52 major 4.0 to 6.0 after-shocks that hit the region days afterwards.)

As of today, 69K people are confirmed dead... but we're really concerned about those that are survived. Some reports peg the number of people left homeless at 11 million (not a typo!) and those people aren't exactly staying at Hiltons and sipping Vitamin Water.

There are major food and water shortages in the region (60 million pigs have died), there are nuclear sites in the region that may be compromised, and rain and fog and unsafe roads have all wreaked havoc on the post-disaster relief efforts. "Quake lakes" have been forming around rockslide areas, creating unusual bodies of water that will eventually collapse the makeshift rockslide dams and flood regions downstream

On Saturday, with your help, we're shooting to raise $20K to donate to the Tzu Chi Foundation (with corporate matching). They were the first force from outside the PRC into the disaster area, and they have the best reputation for channeling 100% of the donations directly to the victims. (www.tzuchi.org)

Joining forces with your planning team are our corporate sponsors; Red Mango, Hyphen Magazine, Cold Stone, Miza Spa, IGN, Tea Cake Bake shop, and others. They're giving us their products to give/raffle off to you in the hopes that you'll donate more to the relief efforts.

The event will start at Circolo at 9:30pm with a mixer featuring appetizers and snacks, and then roll into a party afterwards. We expect a very very good and GIVING crowd, and hope that you'll find the time to come support (or money to donate) and meet some of the most kind-hearted people in the Bay.

And remember, 100% (not 10%, 20% or 50%) of ALL money collected at the door and through our raffles will be given to the charity. We hope to see you there.

Love,
Kingston, Caroline, Catherine, Elaine, Jean, Julie, Natalie, and Yvonne

The End of the Beginning

I’ve often thought about whether going through the program was worth it. Even after walking out the doors for the last time, with all my weekends free for the rest of my life, I can’t decide =/ Getting into the program definitely played a huge part in me getting my current job, which I absolutely love… but I had to give up a lot of things along the way… most of which I can never get back. Especially time.

I have a few ideas on how I’d like to spend the upcoming weeks. Last year, I made of 30 things to do before 30. I wasn’t able to finish everything on that list, but just working towards helped me do a ton of things I otherwise would have focused on. This year, I think I’ll take things a bit slower. There are things on that first list that I want to make more of a priority… getting back in marathon shape, learning the finer aspects of photography, and taking in much more of the outdoors…

I still have a long way to go to be a better son to my parents – no more excuses – and now I’ll have the time to focus more on my work and devote some much needed time on MyLifeFuel.com. Maybe I’ll even find the courage to date a little more, though it’s probably going to be a while before I can open up again.

While I was merely looking for a creative title for this simply blog, today really does feel like the End of the Beginning. Now that I’m finally done with school, and *sigh* just turned 30, I feel like I’m ready to take on what comes next. Maybe it’ll be a little more exciting and adventurous than the past few years. But, that adventure will have to start tomorrow… after a full night’s rest and lunch with my mom for Mother’s Day. Oh yeah, the adventure will start after that ;) haha.