JeremyOswald.com

Seriously, not a single post since April 21st, and that wasn’t even a very good one.  It’s not like I’m so busy that I can’t be troubled to write a couple of sentences on my weblolg.  I’m not off saving the world or anything.  Since April 21st, this is some of what I’ve been doing with myself:

April 22:
Spent most of the day in Buenaventura, aka Ventura, aka Bakersield-by-the-sea.  I got to see my friend Ava, so that was nice.  Dan and I spent the weekend reviewing CityVantage, Stuffibought, Razeit, stuffybot, a new version of CityVantage, netQube and a few other things we’ve been working on over the last three years, figuring out exactly what we were going to do with our company called Premity.  We settled upon an enterprise system, using the coupon generation/validation system that was at the core of CityVantage, and making the technology available to anyone anywhere to run a secure coupon campaign from any Website.  Whatever.  I’m not forcing you to read my webpage.

April 27:
The day before my birthday, and about a week before cousin Michael’s 30th, his family flew to California from Ohio to visit him in Los Angeles.  Since there’s not much to LA, they made a trip north to Fresno for the weekend.  Short and Angie hosted a birthday bash for the two of us, starting with a trip to the Clovis Rodeo on Friday evening, followed by a dinner of gourmet mac and cheese, filet mignon and a bunch of wine.  Later that evening, Short and I performed “Little Red Rodeo” made famous by Collin Raye, “Bye Bye” and “Pop” made famous by *NSYC and a few other songs to a adoring crowd.  Remote controls served as our microphones and we were really good.

April 28:
My birthday.  Unfortunately, cousin Michael and his family were still in town.  We began our celebration at Hooter’s, moving to Short’s for a barbecue, where more of Michael’s friends came to visit, and a bunch of Fresno people came to hang out.  It was a long day that ended with me sleeping between two blow up mattresses before a cab ride home from my good friend, Jon.  But not before Short and I performed “Little Red Rodeo” made famous by Collin Raye, “Bye Bye” and “Pop” made famous by *NSYNC and a few other songs to a adoring crowd.  Remote controls served as our microphones and we were really good.
 

Short and Michael showed a cousinly affection that would get them arrested in Texas.
 

Oh yeah, happy birthday to me!  Some asshole stole the front bumper off the Land Rover!

April 30 - May 4:
That Monday I had coffee with my friend Sam and her daughter McKenna.  Sam has her birthday the day after mine, so we’re sorta birthday buddies.  On Wednesday night I attended a pub crawl with Valley Health Magazine.  It was a fundraiser for the Make a Wish Foundation, where attendees were shuttled to various bars.  I ran into my girlfriend’s aunt and uncle, who initially had no clue who I was.  People worried about me thought I was cool because I knew the bartenders at each bar.

Cinco de Mayo (May 5):
My high school friend Pat Stone, famous at Kastner Intermediate School in Fresno for his “bulletproof glasses,” was fortunate enough to get engaged to a woman from Jersey named Allison.  Short, Josh and I drove to Los Angeles for the engagement party.  The party, complete with a band, Mexican food and tequila, had an interesting DJ, whose single coolness factor was that he had a karaoke machine.  My plan was to sing “Little Red Rode” made famous by Collin Raye, but the neighbors had other ideas and the DJ was shut down.  Here’s a link to the DJ.  Check it out at your own risk.

The party was a lot of fun.  I saw a lot of Pat’s fraternity brothers from Delta Sig or something, who still refuse to tell me what YITBOS means.  Seems to me that in this day and age, some disenfranchised fraternity brother would’ve spilled the beans on the super secret meaning of YITBOS and posted it on the Web for the world to see.  Not the case, I’ve searched.

May 7 - 18:
Didn’t do much.  I must say though, I really did enjoy a lot of television throughout the month of May.  With all of the season finales, I couldn’t have been happier.  The problem with May sweeps and season finales, is that it’s followed by a three and a half month television dry spell.  ”LOST” was by far my favorite finale.  ”How I Met Your Mother” was good, but Robin Scherbatsky and Ted broke up.  From what I’ve read from Kristin, next season we get to meet the mother, mentioned in the title.  My last post in April discussed the Black Donnellys, and I continued watching all the episodes online.  Unfortunately, the rest of the episodes were really good, and the last one was a cliffhanger, with Mrs. Donnelly’s very survival compromised.  And now I’ll never know what happens.  I understand that all of the original episodes are going to be aired on Mark Cuban’s HD channel, but only reruns.  Why would they do that?  We’ll never have any sort of resolution, just the original episodes airing, getting more people hooked, then ending on a cliffhanger.  I don’t understand.  The Heroes finale was super weak, The Office was great, Grey’s Anatomy is overrated but I’ll still be watching, Desperate Housewives was entertaining, and Brothers and Sisters ended up being a show I never thought I would watch but now look forward to another season.

A bit off topic, even for a completely off topic post, but this summer has provided a couple of great shows.  ”Traveler” on ABC is fantastic, as is “Hell’s Kitchen” on FOX.  My favorite summer show has to be “Top Chef” on Bravo.  Now in season 3, “Top Chef” is the most interesting show on this summer.  Despite the fact that I have no idea what over half of the ingredients or sauces are, I’m hooked.  So hooked that I’m finding myself thinking up new recipes.  Not too terribly long ago, I came up with the Jeremy Hangover Sandwich, of which I’ll share the recipe at some point.  I’m not counting that as a result of watching Top Chef, but more about what sounded good at the time.

May 19:
I attended Mercedes Championship, a fundraiser put on by the Saint Agnes Men’s Club benefitting Saint Agnes Medical Center.  The dinner was awesome this year, with catering by the Chef’s Table.  Our table was a great group, made better by the fact that my stud of a brother recruited one of the models there to sit at our table.  I played a lot of craps as the theme was casino night.  And just like at real casinos, I should’ve quit while I was ahead.  Unlike real casinos, there were not complementary drinks during game play.

May 21 - 24:
A bunch of work.  I’m working with my dad quite a bit now, we even started a consulting company together.  It’s nice working with him again after some time away.  I’m also still working with Dan on Premity on a regular basis.  I’m primarily working from my home in the Pearl building in downtown Fresno.

May 25 - 28:
Memorial Day Weekend, Deidra and I went to Los Angeles with Short and Angie.  Michael and Molly were out of town, so we stayed at their apartment next to the La Brea tar pits.  Friday night we made a great dinner and Saturday we went to the Cubs-Dodgers game with Stone, Allison, Eric and Erica.  Deidra and I were the only ones not originally scheduled to go and didn’t have tickets.  Luckily, before we bought any, a nice couple from Laguna Beach “miracled” us and gave us the tickets that their son couldn’t use.  We sat with the couple and had a lot of fun.  The next morning we went to the Grove and farmer’s market for breakfast.  Molly’s sister Krissy just graduated from Penn State and moved to Los Angeles to nanny.  She and her mother, Lori, had just driven into town.  Lori gave me a hug and immediately pushed me in the pool.

June 3:
I attended “A Celebration of Wine,” a fundraiser for Fresno State University.  Lots of great wineries showed up to pour lots of great wines.  Lots of restaurants were there serving lots of great food, and lots of men wearing Tommy Bahama shirts and man sandals showed up to look cool.  Somehow the day devolved from a nice wine tasting event to watching two guys drink two day old beer from a keg in the shower of a rented RV in front of my parent’s house.

June 6:
John Mayer and Ben Folds came to Fresno, and I went to see them with Deidra and my friends Patrick and Erin.  On my suggestion, we went to a local restaurant, Sushi-n-Pop, before the show.  Never again.  We were there for more than an hour and a half, and it took us that long to be served exactly 12 pieces of shitty sashimi.  The waitress had better things to do than waitress.  We saw her twice.  I couldn’t even have picked her out of a lineup that night, and no, it’s not because all sushi waitresses look alike.  Still can’t believe I tipped her.  My saving grace later that evening were the leftover tacos in my fridge.

The concert itself was great, except for the assholes with goatees sitting directly behind me yammering incessantly.  The first guy was jealous of his buddy that drives truck for Pepsi, who got to sit in the Pepsi skybox and drink free Coronas.  The second guy with a goatee has been married for 11 years, but you gotta give it to him, ’cause marriage just ain’t his style, if you know what he’s sayin’.  He couldn’t believe that he was forced to drink Miller Lite instead of his regular Newcastle.  He was 300 lbs of class and was stoked to be seeing John Mayer because everyone knows that John Mayer is the next Stevie Ray Vaughn.

June 15 - 16:
Will Dyck’s bachelor party.  Will is a childhood friend and I lived with him in the compound.  We went to his groomsman Andrew’s cabin at Shaver Lake.  The cabin is on the far side of the lake, very secluded, in a private fishing camp or something.  The place runs on two generators and the shower is outside, overlooking the lake.  Will fought with the generator and it blew up in his face, literally.
 

After the explosion, we realized that most of us had no business being awake any longer.  Everyone went to sleep in various rooms throughout the cabin and on the patio.  That pesky sun began to rise around 5 a.m., making it difficult for many people to sleep.  Luckily, Josh brought a tent.

We set up the tent and happily fell asleep.  I awoke sweating, my face pressed against a tent wall and my socks missing.  I escaped the tent and realized that perhaps we didn’t assemble the tent as the manufacturer intended.  In this picture, Josh is still inside, catching some zzzzz’s.
 

We spent most of the rest of Saturday lounging around.  Most people don’t know this about us, but Josh and I are always good for a laugh when we take pictures of each other taking pictures of each other!  HA!  lol
 

June 17:
Josh and I made our way back from the bachelor party the night before and spent Father’s Day at my parent’s house.  We bought my father an iPod Nano and filled it with his favorite CDs and subscribed him to a couple of podcasts.  One podcast was the Goosecross Winery podcast, Napa Valley Radio.  The other was the Rotted Brain, which about a month later, he would ask me “what the shit is the Rotted Brain and why can’t I get it off my iPod?”

June 18:
Toured the Holy Cross Center for Women, a place about two miles from my apartment that offers women clothing, education, childcare, laundry and a variety of other services.  Sister Mary runs the center and the free medical clinic across the street.  It was interesting talking with Sister Mary about the clientele of the Center for Women, nearby Naomi’s House and the Povarello House.  Downtown Fresno sure needs a lot of work.  The other day I was at Food Max at Fresno and B streets because it’s the only grocery store close to my place.  The facility itself is very nice, but each time I go there I can’t help but feel like an asshole with all of my convenience items and dollar bills and English skills.  Last time I was there the guy behind me was obviously homeless and counting his change to buy a loaf of bread, which he ate plain immediately upon exiting the store.  The family in front of me was using food stamps and had to count out a couple of dollars in change to cover their stuff.  I can’t imagine living that way.  On the bright side, they have a lot less debt than me.

June 29 - July 1:
Since Short’s birthday is July 1st, I went to Los Angeles with he and Angie.  We stayed with Michael and Molly, and Krissy stayed there for the weekend as well.  Angie bought Short a Nintendo Wii for his birthday, so we spent most of the weekend playing video games.  I had my ass handed to me by Krissy, as she easily beat me at bowling, boxing, tennis and golf.  To add insult to injury, I was sore for an entire week afterward.

July 4:
Short and I drove to San Jose.  We checked out the Mennonite National Convention and I walked away with a Goshen College shirt that doesn’t fit me.  I’m not sure how Short is going to squeeze into his.  We saw our friend, Paoli, who I hadn’t seen since Short’s wedding two years ago.  He wanted to see the huge farmer’s market that San Jose was famous for that neither Short nor I had ever heard of.  Our cab driver, Tran, knew it very well and took us there.  Too bad for us, it was not close to anything, and farmer’s market isn’t the huge July 4th destination you might imagine.  After checking out some mangoes, watches and luggage, we called Tran, and had him deliver us to Dave and Buster’s at the Great Mall.  At Dave and Buster’s, I beat Paoli and Short at skee ball, a horse racing game, a race car game and cutthroat pool.  To my dismay, Paoli was actually good at that game where you maneuver a big metal claw to pick up junk and I got stuck wearing this watch for the next two weeks.
 

July 9 - 14:
My parents rented a place in Pebble Beach.  Josh, Deidra and I spent the week with them.  Just off of 17 Mile Drive, the place was amazing.  We spent the entire week cooking, riding bikes, walking to the ocean, wine tasting, visiting the aquarium, going out to eat and reading.  There were quite a few houses for sale in and around Pebble Beach.  Considering the fact that it’s a buyers market, if it weren’t for the fact that I’m not even a hundredaire, I would’ve put in an offer.

Here we are on our wine tasting day in Carmel Valley.  The wine was shit, but the place also offered an array of hot sauces.  Josh and I tried everyone one of them, finishing the tasting with a whole habanero pepper each.  After which, we both caught the sweats, couldn’t see straight and lost our sense of taste.  This picture was after imbibing the shitty wine, but before the hot sauce adventure.
 

July 21:
On July 21, 2000, exactly seven years to the day from last Saturday, Josh had taken Short, Beth and myself to see The String Cheese Incident live in concert at the Greek Theater in Berkeley.  Seven years later, Josh again purchased tickets so we headed to the Greek, with some friends.  The show was awesome.  If you haven’t heard of String Cheese, they’re essentially a jam band, or hippy band.  It made for a great atmosphere, with hundreds, if not thousands of braless women.  Unfortuantely, a great number of them also happily forego razors and deodorant on a regular basis.  So, in the words of Dwight Schrute, paradox.  I did see an interesting addition to the hippy chick look, fake breasts.  Here’s a picture of the crowd:

Yes, you can sorta see that there is a heavy smoke cloud filling up a lot of the arena, that is not camera trickery.  In fact, it was a good start.  Josh, Mitch and I tried to estimate the street value of the theater.  I posited that the dollar amount was easily over $100,000, figuring that if 1,000 people had $100 worth of any type of narcotic on their person, we’d hit that number.  I’m not sure how many people were at the show, I’d say at least 10,000.  Josh wondered what the street value was before the show vs after.  Incredibly, I was really worried that I smuggled a camera inside when they were expressly forbidden according to the sign in front of the theater. I know, I’m a pussy.

Hula hooping is commonplace at these events.  My brother forgot his, but other people had extras.  Here are a bunch of hula hoopers.

That brings us pretty well current.  Finally.  Hit up jeremyoswald.com again in another three months for another painfully long post.  If you’ve made it this far, you must be really bored.  Start your own blog, pay attention to your kid, or pick up an extra shift.