Great Wall Simatai Panorama

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Riverside Quarry Leviathan

Riverside Quarry Leviathan
Originally uploaded by jonketo.

Last week I took a short trip to California for work. Since I was only about an hour away from my friend's place in Long Beach I drove up for some sport climbing during the weekend. Here is a picture of James onsighting Leviathan (12a) at Riverside Quarry. The place is pretty decent for being so close to Los Angeles, but it is not one of those picturesque climbing areas. The names says it all, it is a quarry. It is no longer used and has seen better days. Since it was closed the people in the neighboring communities started using it as a dumping ground, so you get a Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome feeling.

Other highlights of the trip included meeting some of Nikki's friend's coworkers (or was it Nikki's coworker's friends?), trading Jagger Bombs with Sav since neither of us wanted them. Pizza and Hoegaarden at The Abbey and finally paninis and soccer at Aroma Di Roma.

Thanks for Nikki and James for hosting me and showing me a good time.

Happy New Years from Victoria

Legislative buildings at night
Originally uploaded by jonketo.

New years for Sandra and I is always more important than ringing in the new year. Last year we spent it watching the fireworks in Seattle, but they were not that spectacular, so we decided to have a short get away. Truthfully, Sandra asked for it and I thought it would be a great idea. So we split for Victoria and had a great time. We stayed at the Fairmont Empress on the harbor. It was quite a nice place and that made the stay in Victoria a little more enjoyable. To be honest, I thought Victoria was a little boring once you had gone shopping and had dinner. Spring is probably a better time to go anyways.

We watched the fireworks from our room (since there weren't any in Victoria) and the weirdest thing happened. As the camera was panning across the crowd in Times Square I was like, holy crap, that is Haychoi's sister. Low and behold when I asked him about it, he said it was here. Just check out the pics.

Cheering
Smooching