Mama I'm comin home.....

Early tomorrow morning(and I mean early, like we're leaving at 4 am early) we'll be heading out from California to spend Christmas with the Family on the east coast. Should make for a great time. We've got our fingers crossed that we make it with all the ice and snow that we've been hearing about lately.

Let the insanity begin!

Here we go, the next couple of weeks and possibly months should be fairly insane. Not only is work starting to take off but we were just pre-approved for a home loan. For everyone who hasn't gone through this yet, I'll explain a little. So, when you register with Lendingtree every lender within a two state radius either calls or emails you. You then get to sort through all the messages and emails and get back to everyone. With every conversation you learn more about mortgage rates, buying down loans, points, re-financing, and a lot more that I never thought I would know so much about. We'll after speaking with what felt like the population of Wasilla, I submitted our info and got pre-approved. That means we can pretty much do what Chris does best, shop!.....except this time it's for a house. Once we find the place that we love, we'll go back, fill out even more paperwork, sign more lines than a college application, and really get into debt. What's funny, is this is candidly referred to as "good" debt, although, that goes against pretty much everything I've ever learned about owing money. Ready, set.......

the only time i'll get psycho is when you don't get out.....

Most of you know that Phish has announced that they will be returning to the stage at the mothership in Hampton VA this March. When the announcement was made I immediately signed up for the mail order only to get nothing. I figured, "oh well, there's always ticketmaster" and so I waited to tickets to go on sale and there I was, that Saturday morning at 7 am pacific, trying to get tickets online and over the phone. No Dice, I got skunked. For the first time, me and most of my friends will not be attending a run of Phish shows....until now. I was emailed this post on craigslist and I've contacted this girl. I'll be staying with her, enjoying fried chicken and watching a 65 in T.V. Goodbye California, hello hampton!


http://norfolk.craigslist.org/tix/940024842.html

Send lawyers, guns and money

An absolute free for all. That's the only way I can describe driving through the US/Mexican boarder and down the Baja Peninsula. If you haven't ever done this drive, then you'll never understand. As soon as you pass through the boarder, which there is no regulation going into Mexico, you enter another world. There are shanty's tucked into the hillside just waiting for the next rainstorm or mudslide so they can slide or fall downhill to become boarder front properties. There are about 30 unfinished hotels along the water just waiting for someone to come along and finish or knock them down. The streets are swarming with dogs looking for food and people looking for money. It couldn't be more opposite of the city that lies just 5 miles north. Once through the boarder you navigate the poorly marked roads attempting to not make eye contact with anyone and avoid the insane drivers. If you manage to do this, then you're pretty much golden till after Rosarito where you start to hit tolls.

These tolls are nothing like the tolls we've all hit on America's finest toll roads(NJ Turnpike). They are the kind of tolls that you pay and hope the guy dressed like a Federale holding a machine gun waving down cars doesn't decide to stop you. After getting through this you hit the gem of a city Ensenda. If you're ever down there, you must get taco's from the stand below, they are hands down the BEST I've had. Seriously, the BEST!

So after crushing great tacos, we moved onto to Brian's cousins place in Punta san Jacinto. It's located about 50 yards from a great right point break known as shipwrecks. It's fittingly named as there is a huge rusted ship that was dragged aground right in the break. Easily avoidable it sets a great backdrop for fun surf. Dave, Brian and I spent three days in the water enjoying what little surf we had and the large amount of tequila and Tecate we bought. We spent the afternoons in the small town just up the road buying food at the market, watching a 10 year old work Dave over on a bundle of Cilantro only to get busted by her mom and have 1/2 his money returned, trying to buy meat from the grocery store and avoiding the crazy drivers.



On Sunday we got up early to find some waves, paddled out into the water, and surfed for about 2 hours. Then we packed up the place, locked everything and made our way back up north. Luckily we were only stopped at one of the check points, at which time, I had to get out of the car and let a Mexican military man look through the car with his machine gun in hand. Definitely not a nerve calming situation. We pressed on north, stopped again for more delicious tacos....did I mention they were good?.....and got to the boarder traffic line. We managed to cut the line pretty well by acting like stupid gringos and there we sat. The line leaving Mexico is hilarious, there are ton's of people selling the most ridiculous things. We saw everything while waiting on the line, tiny guitars, regular sized guitars, Churros(which we got), terrible ice cream(which Dave got), 8 year olds juggling, 4 year old's begging, people selling tiny plastic babies, people selling giant jesus statues....Everything that is a waste of money is available there for only a few pesos. It only took us an hour and a half for us to get through the boarder, no problems, and we got Dave to the airport. All in all, it was an amazing time. We were very sketched out by the head on collision we saw, loved the food and surfing. I'd definitely head back there, but be very careful doing so. Here are a bunch of photos

All of the required ingredients for a great Mexican adventure


Can't go to Mexico and not get a wrestling mask!


Our hacienda


The Ship....notice the lack of waves?


Dave trying to bargain with the ocean like it's selling him cilantro





Brian trying on a pancho


Past and Present employers


It's on the left as you enter Ensenada. Look for the giant red Taco stand, it's worth it!

Am I really this hippy?

My modeling career is back in full swing. At Jack's Surfboards we all pitch in and do whatever is necessary. Plus, it's a hell of a ego boost to get to "model" for the site. So the other day when our usual wetsuit model didn't fit into some of the suits, I jumped at the chance to famous, again. I've been working hard to eat better and look better all year, especially before our wedding back in June. So putting on a wetsuit was no biggie. Now that I've seen the pictures, maybe I should think twice about wearing skin tight items on for the site.

They both had a poop!

Now that Chris and I are both working full time, the dogs aren't getting the 24 hour attention they were grew accustomed to while I was retired. It was for this reason that we sought out a dog walker. I'm definitely from the school of thought that the dogs are absolutely fine for the amount of time we are gone, but of course, we want only the best for Yeti, so a dog walker it was. After a rigorous screening process(we interviewed one person and were filling out paperwork after 10 mintues) we had our walker. Her name is Sam and she comes Monday-Wednesday and takes them for a 20 minute walk then writes a note recapping exactly what happened on the walk. It's down to every last detail, I'm almost sure that most tax laws are written with as much detail. We hear about everything, how they behaved, any animals that crossed their paths, who went to the bathroom, packages that arrived, that we forgot to pay her, how far they went, which way they went, the angle of the sun from the earth while they walked, how many steps they took, the exact amount of hair's Wilson shed, etc. It's truly amazing and I have to say, it's great to know what happened.

If you live in our area and are looking for a dog walker, I couldn't recommend a better person to hire. Sam is awesome!!! We are going to help her out with her website so she can drive a little more traffic and maybe get some more business from it. Check her out at:

Samantha Mears Pet Sitting Service

This post never happened.....

"Now is the time" is what was said to me about 1/2 way through my conversation today about buying a house. "You need to start saving big time and move on something quickly." That's great news, we've been talking about buying a house for a while and have been looking a little lately. Talking is really all we've really done about it. But after talking about houses and saving money today, there is one thing that we won't be talking about ever, this weekend. This weekend never happened. We never dropped the dogs off for a test night at the dog camp, we never got in the car and drove to Venice Beach for the night, we never went out for a nice dinner, we never saw the L.A. Clippers staying at our hotel, we definitely have never seen so much accepted rollerblading and you're not even really reading this. Here are some pictures from a place that we're not even sure exists.....



Not L.A. off in the distance

Relentless Seven

Wednesday night we headed back down to the Belly Up for Relentless Seven. It's Ben Harper's latest band that he's been touring with for the past month. We were really psyched to be on the list for this sold out show. It was great, the place was packed and I was really happy to not be feeling so sick this time. Here are some pictures from the show.

View from the VIP section.....it pays to know people




We learned something interesting about the SoCal crowd this night, apparently no-one here drinks PBR at Bars. About 5 times I was stopped by someone saying "whoa, they sell those here" or "that's so awesome your drinking that." Someone's got to class this place up!


If you get the chance, I highly recommend these guys. It was a lot of fun!

A lot of Turkey's don't make it through Thanksgiving....

This is so funny that I needed to get it up here. Enjoy!

Why isn't La Jolla spelled La Hoya?

I've always wondered why La Jolla's name is either horribly misspelled or if everyone is just accepting the mispronunciation. Regardless, on Friday the final piece to the Castellani puzzle came in for a visit. Adam took some time off from his job slinging pharmaceuticals to fly out to L.A. and spend Thanksgiving with his girl friends family. He was nice enough to grace us with his presense for the day and head to La Jolla with us. It was great to have the whole gang back together and spend time enjoying the nice weather. We spent time walking around town and waiting for Mom outside the greatest needle point shop west the of the Mississippi. After sitting and waiting while she shopped we headed to Georges restaurant for a little lunch. This place has an amazing deck overlooking the water, if you're ever in town, I highly recommend heading there for food. It's well worth the wait!

I'm glad that everyone was able to come out and see where we lived. Plus, amazingly enough, it was Adam's first time seeing the Pacific ocean.....which to his surprise, looks exactly like the Atlantic.....only it's on the other side.




Trust me, request the rooftop seating. Not sure if this random guy will be there, but I would say probably not....


Adam's first glimpse of our "western" water


Friday evening sunset walking out of La Costa

Thank God for Wedding gifts

This past Thursday marked a couple of first's for me and Chris. It was our first Thanksgiving where it was okay to have the temperature over 65 degrees and it was also our first hosting either of our parents. Most importantly of all, it was the first time for us to use most of our wedding presents. For months during the spring boxes would show up each day at our house, Chris would un-pack them, and I would say "seriously, when do you think we are going to use 3 Carafe's?" Boy was I wrong in doubting the need for multiples of the same housewares.

Thanksgiving day was great, there were plenty of Bloody Mary's, Wine and great food. Chris got a tutorial in how to cook a Turkey, what it would take to fix our Rabbit wine opening and how to make a Castellani favorite, Ping(stuffing). As usual, we all managed to eat too much and then fall asleep early. All in all, it was great to celebrate Thanksgiving in our tiny apartment by the beach.

The Bird.....


Our table.....

First Annual Yeti "Trot"

The rainy season began with a bang this week. We hadn't seen anything from the skies that was more than a drizzle during our first 8 weeks of living here. Well everything changed on Tuesday night. From Tuesday night through Thursday morning we received over 3 inches of rain. It was pouring!

On Thursday morning Chris and I had signed up for the Oceanside Turkeytrot. We figured running a 5k in the morning would make us not feel so bad about eating so much delicious turkey. While, when I woke up at 5:30 it was a monsoon out there. So we bailed on the run and went back to bed. When we woke up at 7, the clouds were starting to break up and the sun even poked out. So Chris decided that she was going to run with the dogs since we had blown it with our Turkey Trot. So the first annual Yeti trot was started. We invite everyone we know to join us next year for the 2nd annual trot with Yeti and Wilson. Although, if you know how lazy Yeti is.......you know it's not much more than walking.

Fair weather

Since we've moved here I've probably been surfing 80% of the days. Obviously, heading back to work has certainly driven that percentage down, but I'd say that's still pretty good for 2 months of being here. Well I was back in the water both days this weekend, even though I went to Ikea yesterday, I managed to paddle out for a sunset session and then today with Greg around noon. Today we hit Grandview down in Leucadia. It's a right that breaks over a soft reef, which is really nothing more than some rocks covered in sea grass. It was fairly mellow with some decent waves coming through but nothing bigger than waist high. After a couple of hours of mediocre waves and the clouds burning off, I turned back towards shore and to my surprise, Chris was actually paddling out. This isn't amazing because she was actually surfing with us but because she's become something of a fair weather surfer. Only when it's sunny and warm will you see her slide ever so gracefully into her wetsuit(seriously, it's hilarious to watch, someday I'll get a video on here of it) and join us in the water. We quickly found out that she'd actually been out for about an hour, paddling around to the different groups of people looking for us. She was about to give up, when we were spotted. We spent the next little while catching waves, watching her get crushed by one big one, making the rash on my arms worse, and seeing a baby seal about 20 feet away from us. It was another great weekend and I'm excited to eat my weight in Turkey on Thursday!

Adventures in Merchandising

When you get married Everyone has some piece of advice for you. Believe me, all night at our wedding people were saying "If you do this.....you marriage will last forever" or "you know what the secret to a good marriage is?" Then their statement would either be some actual piece of advice but most of the time, it's some joke about always doing what your wife says or learn the phrase "yes dear.....anything you say dear." Well I'll tell you what, I've learned what the secret is, it's the ability to put off everything you want to do to head to Ikea. On Saturday I got the pleasure of not surfing or watching any college football so we could head to San Diego for some good ole Swedish merchandising. What's even more funny about this, since we used to live in Utah, this was the first Saturday trip to Ikea we'd ever made. See, we would always save our trip's for Sunday morning since 98% of the state was spending the morning at Church.

Well, the point of this story is the layout of Ikea. If you've ever gotten to spend a wonderful weekend day wandering inside of these giant stores, you have had the chance to see a crazy demonstration of Merchandising. I've always been amazed at the amount of house products that they have put together, how they've actually set 20 tables with all different items and then assembled and made 40 different beds. This trip was also different because it was the first time that someone seemed as confused about how to navigate this wonderland of Allen Keys and brightly colored cups as we've been. As we wandered through the light section, we were approached by another confused customer. "Hey Guy" he says to me "I'm all turned around in here, do you know where the exit is?" I couldn't help but laugh and say "I think it's that way" while pointing to what seemed like it could be the way out. What's interesting about this, is that of all the people around, for some reason, I looked like I knew where the exit was. Either he could tell that I've got plenty of Ikea experience or I had that "get me the hell out of here right now" look on my face.

So, if you've never gotten to experience this place, then by all means, cancel anything fun you've planned this weekend and get ready for the most baffling shopping ordeal of your life. But when I'm there I can't help but wonder, do people ever get so lost in their maze of products that they end up spending the night?

Football or Cougars

No matter if you're watching the Today Show, Sportscenter, or 10 seconds of CNN, you get bombarted by polls. I'm always amazed that 80,000 people can vote in a little under 15 minutes that Michigan will have 9 losses this year or that Sarah Palin's up-doo cost McCain the election. Well, we're not voting on football or cougars here, it's all about the final showdown between the dogs. So please, take a second and vote for which dog is really your favorite.

May the best dog win.....

2 down.......1 to go

So when we were moving down here we knew that there were 3 things that we were going to have to deal with......Wildfire's, Earthquakes, and Mudslides. Luckily we've managed to get the first two out of the way in just over 6 weeks. This morning we got our first quake, measuring 4.1 and centered about 48 minutes East. It was quickly followed up by a 3.8 aftershock a few hours later. What's even weirder, is that I was talking about earthquakes yesterday while sitting in the water with Greg. Who knew that it wouldn't take too long to finally get one. Check out this link for the whole story.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/northcounty/20081117-1043-bn17quake.html

Our house, is a very very fine house.......

For everyone who hasn't experienced our beach bungalow......here is where we call home.








This is our gear room/Chris' closet





Not a bad view from the end of the driveway huh?

Thank god for Lifesavers

Thursday night was our first trip to Chris' bosses club The Belly Up tavern located just down the street from the Muttropolis world headquarters in Solana Beach. It's an awesome place to see a show and should be a great place to frequent. This would have been an awesome night had I not come down with a fierce case of food poisoning. So I can say that they've got really nice bathrooms and the attendent is very nice. The evening's hightlight for me was the lifesavers that they provide in the bathroom. It was a rough night for me that's lead to a rough weekend. I can't wait to go back when I'm feeling better so that I can really enjoy the place the way it's meant to be enjoyed.

Fighting for Peace?

This is Hilarious to watch so I had to get it up here. Do you think that Priest's vestments will start coming with a pair of boxing gloves?

The world isn't ready for Blue Steel......

When I arrived at the office today I was treated the internet being completely down and thus we were unable to do anything. So we started out by unpacking some O'Neil wetsuits and then we started taking pictures of Volcom clothes. I was psyched to find out that some of the samples they sent us were too big for our model, so guess who stepped up to the plate.



See me and the rest of the Volcom collection check out the Jacks site.

9-5

Workin' nine to five
What a way to make a livin'
Barely gettin' by
It's all takin' and no givin'
They just use your mind
And they never give you credit
It's enough to drive you
Crazy if you let it.....


Wow, nothing like a first day at work to make you miss your 5 week hiatus from the real world. I woke up bright and early this morning, showered for the first time in two days, shaved, made coffee and jumped in the car for the hour commute. It wasn't too bad of a ride, listened to Stern the whole way. It really makes the trip go faster but doesn't help with the Xterra's gas mileage. I've realized that I maybe getting gas everyday if I continue to drive it that far. It was about 120 miles that I put on today and I've got just over 1/2 tank after filling up this morning......not good. Either way, first day was good. There is a ton of work that needs to be done but I'm excited to get the opportunity to build my own program. So enjoy the Jack's site as it is now because she's getting a major facelift.

The Best Sandwich you'll ever have......I swear!

Since we woke up this morning and saw that it was going to be 35 degrees in Park City, we decided to celebrate with another beautiful November beach day. So we headed out to meet up with Tom and Kasey. The first two hours of our day were spent driving up and down the 101 trying to find the right surf spot, we settled on Pipes. It's a mellow beach break that was great for the ladies to hone their skills.




I got the chance to longboard for the first time on a 9'6'' beast that Chris dubbed the destroyer. This puppy was a 35lb hog that handled like a shopping cart in the water.



After 3 hours of drinking ocean water and getting sunburned, we decided it was time to pack it in and grab some lunch. Kasey recommend a sandwich spot in Leucadia that would have the "best sandwich we'd ever had." My cold Italian sub was anything but the best(the title is still held by the Goosey Gander Gombo) but it was still good. As I write this, I'm still kicking myself for not getting one of the Caprese sandwich's that were recommended while I wasn't listening.....Oh well, maybe next time.



I will have to note, that Pipes has far and away the best shower that I've been under after surfing here in SoCal. At this point, there a couple of factors that go into a great shower......warmth, power, and length of time it stays on when you push the button. This fine work of plumbing had a everything but it's finest quality was the amount of time it continue to flow after you hit the button. Never have I been able to get my front and back with one push. Then one more push, and I'd washed off my entire board, come on. Somebody was really on it when installing it. If I had two more hands, I've give it four thumbs up!



Side note, this shower is so good, it's still going in this picture....I swear I didn't push it for the shot.

Has anyone designed the wetsuit drop seat yet?

After getting this article from a friend today, I had to post it. These pictures are mind blowing. How this wave even exists is beyond my comprehension? What's really amazing, is that when this guy saw this break....his first words were "yeah, I think I got that." It's crazy what people will do for an award.

Not Everybody's working for the weekend.......

As some of you know.....today was my last day of being a house husband. We've been in Carlsbad for about 5 weeks now and I've been without a job for the entire time. It's been amazing having the chance to spend time with the dogs, read a ton, take care of stuff for our new place and get in the water twice a day. Today was my first day back in the water since it rained on Tuesday. I'm not too interested in Hepatitis, so I steer clear of the ocean for a couple of days after it rains. Well at about 9am I paddled out into knee to waist high waves. It was awesome, I spent about 2 1/2 hours in the glassy water and now my arms are spent. I headed back down to the beach this evening to take in my last work free sunset. Here's what I was treated to......









I'll be taking advantage of this last weekend of freedom before I rejoin the working world.....Can't wait to fight the 5 everyday. I'll be working for Jacks Surfboards from here on out.

It only took me a year.......

After talking about creating a blog for about the past year, I've finally done it. It only took me about 2 hours last night to come up with a name. Would you believe that someone actually owns the blog name "purplemonkeydishwasher?" That's how desperate I got, I started using old Simpson's references to try and name this thing. But after a while, I merged my East Coast heritage with my new obsession.....Surfing. So I'll be using this thing to update my friends and family on what I am doing, to review some of the things that I own and whatever else it turns into. So welcome and enjoy the non-sense that is my life........