Cute, right? Doesn’t it make you too?
I owe part of this photographic capture to Jasper (Mr. 068).
While getting coffee at Starbucks, I veered away from the group to take photos of the coffee stirring sticks and those little shakers that have chocolate, vanilla and whatever else powder you can put in your drinks.
Jasper came by, saw what I was doing and said, “That’s so cool! They’re so cute! Wouldn’t it be cool if the stick had a smiley face?” So, I asked Ellen and the barista for a pen, drew the face on the stick, slid it back into the “bucket” and started taking photos.
VOILA!

How cute would it have been if I drew a face on another stick and had them looking at each other?

Probably… SUPER DUPER CUTE!

He ain’t my baby!

Now, I realize that this is my third photo of some random dude with his shirt off. I’m not on the hunt for muscular guys!! NO WAY! But, i find myself in situations or places where people like this roam free. He wasn’t the only guy at Hangar 18 that wasn’t wearing a shirt. But, he was the only guy to have back muscles like that.

I like the stretching and body “curvatures” (???, I dont know) that this picture emits. He reminds me of Spiderman.

So, if you read the “Hangar 18″ post, you’ll see at the end I told Chester, “Hey! You climbed hard enough to take your shirt off!!” Do you get the saying now? LOL.

So, i pinged him!
I asked him if we could get together to go rock climbing. I knew he had a membership to an indoor rock climbing gym. We settled on the date and kept it! Woot!

I went to Chester’s place first. I hadn’t been there since he graduated, about 5 years ago! His place is still the same. I saw his parents and talked to them briefly. His parents are lovely and they smile a lot. I was glad that they didn’t remember me, because the last time I encountered his parents, I was laughing my bum off watching Van Wilder, but I didn’t even know that his parents and grandma were in the other room praying the rosary. Oops!

Ok, so back to rock climbing!! Hangar 18 in Upland, is where we went. Driving up the street I knew which building would be the gym because of the look of it. It was just a big, huge, tall “square” or I guess, “cube”.

So, thats the inside of the gym. Pretty cool, right? When we got there, there were already people hanging from the ceiling upside down. There were also little kids, around 7-10 years of age climbing with their parents!

Here’s Chester. He was my belayer. What’s a belayer, you ask? Let me try to explain.
When you go up the wall, you need to be secured with a harness and rope. Every time you climb further up the “mountain” or wall, the belayer will pull back on the rope, so that in case you lose your grip and fall back, you won’t fall to the ground. Is that right, Chester?

Of course I wasn’t going to leave this post before showing you all that I actually climbed the wall!! I made it to the top! WOOT! This particular wall I scaled has a small incline, so as I was approaching that part of the wall, I started to get scared. I had to stop a few times and breath deeply to calm myself. I called back to Chester, “I’m scared!! I don’t know if I can go any further!” But, Chester, being the great support system yelled back, “No! You can do it! Keep going!!” As I was about the scale the incline I thought to myself, “Chester isn’t going to let me fall. Besides, I’m wearing a harness!” The photo is a bit blurry, but thats what I get for letting someone else  use my slr without prepping them first. I totally failed, because I brought my small point & shoot camera, but the batter was dead.

It’s kinda fun coming down from the wall because you’re like, bouncing back down attached to a rope!

Here’s one more picture of Chester as he scales a wall without a harness or rope!
“Hey! You climbed hard enough to take your shirt off!!” That’s a running joke him and his friend, Paul has.
Oh, you don’t get it? Well, maybe in the Day 70 photo– you’ll figure out the meaning. LOL.

THANKS for taking me indoor rock climbing, Chester!
Comp Sci till we die!
NOT! I didn’t even get a job using that degree!
HA!

Cuz, i’m updating right now!! LOL.
Last week, I got together with friends from college to hang out in LA and try a new burger place. After much debate on where to go, it was decided we’d eat at 25 Degrees under the Roosevelt Hotel. The burgers were pretty huge that I’m glad that Ellen and me decided to share. But they were really tasty!! I’ll post something about the 25Degrees burgers sometime this week, so stay tunes, ok?

I kinda don’t really remember how we all met. I think I met Joe first. He lived in the dorm next door to mines and we had the same mutual friends. He always hung out with Ellen and Jasper. Jasper was in my major, but we only had 1 class together throughout college. Ellen and me became super good buddies. Before my second year of college ended, I met Nick a top the stairs of the Alamitos dorm, although he SWEARS we met each other at the Student Union (with Ellen) where I asked him to teach me how to “C-Walk”. LOL. We met Benji through Barkada.

Nick, Jasper, Benji, Joe & Ellen

Here’s everyone (minus me), in front of Grauman’s Chinese Theater. Good times, guys!! Always full of laughs! The neat thing about going to downtown LA that particular night was that the Oscars were taking place only 3 days later.  We parked by the Kodak Theater and actually walked on the red carpet! Well, the carpet was covered, but still…. we walked on it! “Oscar” was there and everyone was taking photos of him, but for some reason, I just didn’t want to.  In hindsight, I think I SHOULD have taken photos. O well, maybe I’ll make my way to the Kodak Theater next year and get a picture with him.

I’m trying this new “gallery” thing that WordPress has.  We’ll see how long I keep uploading photos here instead of flickr. But, I really like that all the photos are small versions shown in the same entry!  Two pictures that I think are funny, are the ones of Nick and me holding the iPhone up to our faces. The only thing that really comes to mind whenever I look at those photos are, “Man! We need some of those oil absorbing sheets for our noses!!” LOL…

This is Jasper. He’s one of the funniest people I know… and one of the smartest, too!
I went back and forth on which photo I wanted to put up, and then realized, “It’s Tuesday! Two-fer Tuesday!” All my readers may now thank me for having graced Jasper on my blog, not once, but TWICE!
You are ALL welcome! LOL.

I like the first photo because it really shows Jasper’s long, luxurious coif (check out that excellent sweeping bang action) and his rugged, manly facial hair. LOL. And i really like the energy that came across in the second photo. I can’t remember what he was laughing at, but Jasper always comes up with funny stuff to do or say.

I realize there are no titles under these photos. Would you believe me if I said that Jasper is just indescribable? No??! Oh, how about if i said that I just don’t have words to accurately express these photos?

I think the second reason is just a tad more believable. LOL

HAHAHAH!
This is my friend Nick. We ate at a restaurant where I encouraged him to get soup– but only because everyone else was getting fries. Nick is sooo silly!! I absolutely adore that about him!

Great photo, though!! Everyone at the table agreed!

Sometimes the definition of love gets a bit fuzzy

Did I tell you guys that I love hearts? Because, i do! As I was walking around LA last week, I saw this heart outside the Victoria’s Secret store. Manual Focus = COOL when it comes to lights!! What do you guys think?

Isn’t that photo so cute? I love Grover’s little peeking eyes!!
Jho suggest that I do a series of photos with Grover hiding somewhere in my cubicle! There’s only one other place I know he can hide, so finding other places for him will be a challenge! Let’s see if I can find more spots for that cute, little monster to hide in!!

And DID I feel special when I got this letter. My nephew who lives in Illinois sent me this letter a while back ago. I remember seeing an envelope sitting on the table with “young” handwriting. I looked and said, “IT’S FROM MATTHEW!!” But, I’m a horrible aunt because I never responded back.

But whenever YOU get a letter, don’t you feel special? Isn’t your heart warmed with each word? I hope it is…

Thank you, Matthew for sending me the letter!

Maybe i’ll visit Illinois soon…