This fourth of July weekend was great. I don't think I could have asked for a funner weekend down here in San Clemente. Originally I was planning on going home and surprising Sandra, but she had decided to go to Yosemite National Park with Jason, Vince and others. I think this was better anyways. I think it was a lot more fun for her to go, so staying down here was better.
This weekend was a chaotic combination of spending the final days with people who are leaving Omation and going on to do other things as well as celebrating the fourth of July.
It all started on Friday when Helge, Matt and I went to the bar to play some foosball. Since their were three of us we needed to pick up other players. We ended picking up one guy who had already drank too much and was getting aggressive, so when he teamed up with his girlfriend all he did was get upset at her because they were not winning. It was pretty pathetic, so I stopped trying because I didn't want to be responsible for this guy being a jerk. Later in the night we invited her to play with us, without her boyfriend, and she had a great time, so I think he was super pissed off about that. I think people take these games too seriously and they can't enjoy them no matter what. After the foosball died out we headed to a friend's house to continue drinking. The only problem was that we didn't have anything to drink, so we had to go to the secret gas station that sells alcohol after hours if you pay cash. We got back with more beer and kept the night going until about 4 in the morning. That is when Helge and I walked up the hill back to Omation, so we could pick up our cars and head home.
On Saturday I didn't do much until the afternoon. In a last effort to go to the beach before Helge left for Gerymany, we both went to go boogy boarding at trails. The waves were the worst I had ever seen them. They were super small and didn't break until right near the beach. This was a little dangerous because of the rocks, so we had to be super careful not to hurt ourselves either. After about an hour we had enough of it and headed back home.
Saturday evening I went to see War of the Worlds with Jean since we seemed to be the only two people who had not seem the movie yet. The movie was pretty ridiculous, but at the same time it was pretty well done. I know that some people say the ending was bad and more things needed to be explained, but I am talking the effectiveness in portraying the horror of having a huge robot come out of the ground in your neighborhood and just start vaporizing everything around you. I also though the struggle that Tom Cruise had to have with himself when he realized that he actually was a horrible parent was critical to adding the human element to the film.
Sunday was another slow day. It started out with a trip to Starbucks and did not consist of much else until the early evening when we headed back to Chris' house for a little barbeque. It was a small little shindig, so people could see Helge before he left. We ate some great deck dogs that Chris had managed to drop on his porch. The last moment something could have happened it did. After we had our share of food and beers we headed down to the beach to take over someone's bonfire. Oddly enough, when we got down to the pier, no one was on the beach, so getting a fire pit was quite easy. The attraction of the night seemed to be the phosphorescent creatures in the water and on the sand. Whenever they were agitated they would glow, so we would just sit on the beach and watch the waves. We also rubbed our hands through the sand to get them to glow. It was almost mesmerizing how they would react, so it was no wonder Liz spent so much time playing with them. Again, I didn't get home until early in the morning.
For some odd reason no matter how late I have been getting home, I have still been getting up early. This was nice on Monday because it gave me plenty of time to ride my bike back down to Chris', so I could pick up the rental car. The ride helped me wake up without a big hangover, so I was pleased. In the afternoon I hung out with Helge and we bought some DVDs. He taught me about HDRI and then we watched a movie. We watched "The Life Aquatic". It was done by Wes Craven, the same guy who created "The Royal Tenenbaums", so it had a very similar feel. I thought it was really great and if you liked the "Royal Tenenbaums" then you should watch this movie.
After the movie I met Jean and Paola at their apartment. We planned to watch the fireworks down at the beach with some of their friends from Dreamworks. They made a great picnic dinner for us to eat at the beach that we snacked on until the fireworks show. I must say that this show was not as good as the ones I have seen in Seattle, but it was still pretty nice. I think it was also because this 4th of July is special because it is not in Seattle. After the fireworks show we decided to watch some DVDs. One DVD turned into two and so on. I didn't get to bed until 5:30 this morning, but it was worth it. I watched an interesting Chinese movie called Dumplings. If you are not squeemish, then I recommend you check it out. The movie, of course, had a nice Chinese flavor to it, so it reminded me of a lot of memories from China, most specifically all of the dumpling parties we had.
So, anyways, today was slow. Mike and I did some work with the wiki. It was relaxing to do a little web programming as well as make some animated GIFs. It gave me a chance to get into a sort of hibernative state as I worked. I hope today goes well also. I don't see why it wouldn't. We might go surfing in the afternoon.
