Tahoe Quick Boarding Trip

Met up with John Knoke and his girlfriend Shawna for a quick two day trip to Tahoe. Weather was unreal, snow was great, and we had a blast up there....Got pretty toasty. The first day we spent at Kirkwood and the second day we spent at Heavenly. Prices were outrageous due to presidents day weekend but well worth the trip up....We managed to avoid much of the crowds by staying high and at heavenly starting at the Nevada side..Full groomed snow, almost nobody up there for two hours...The black diamonds that were groomed were fun, but there were more blues groomed. Threw in a few pictures of the kids that I had on my camera phone here too. I really missed Cheryl and the kids and they were pretty sick while I was gone but I'm back and hopefully everyone will be better soon.

Side note: John Knoke hasn't snowboarded in 3 or 4 years and was flying down the mountain and tearing it up. My favorite run was this huge ditch that was about 8 or 10 feet high..it had some bumps but it was like surfing an uneven but super fun halfpipe that went 200 yards...John went there too but wasn't as stoked as I since he hadn't been out as recently as I had...If I were there for a week I would have loved to have hit every ditch/ravine/bowl that we could find..Especially with better snow...John's still there..And I'm jealous! To mine (and John's surprise) both of us fell minimally...I only fell once the same time as John did about 20 feet from the lift....It was pretty funny (after the fact) and I'm glad I didn't fall on any heavy runs...That hurts!

Hot Hot Heat, Louis XIV, and The Editors

Took my wife Cheryl and met up with Jason and his girlfriend Alyssa..Haven't seen Jason in about 12 years and caught back up by pure chance when he was trying to find someone to write reviews for the FM949 Holiday Hootenanny back in December for his website ZeeGig. It was really cool to catch back up with Jason and meet Alyssa. We caught dinner at the House of Blues restaurant and proceeded to catch Hot Hot Heat. Caught last 4 to 6 songs and I was totally impressed. Always thought that band sounded cool but never bought any of their albums...I think I'd actually buy some of their albums for my Ipod now. Their last two songs were two of their hits and the crowd was pretty amped on that. Louis XIV showcased some of their new songs from their new album and again I was impressed to see them again. Really enjoyed their show with old and new songs. Unfortunately it got a bit too late so we didn't catch any of the Editors so no review there.

Jake Shimabukuro at Anthology, Downtown San Diego

I took my wife to see Jake play and it was a show that was very impressive. This guy plays the Ukulele and amazingly well at that. His influences and songs were extremely diverse. Everything from George Harrison, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, classical, jazz influences, etc. were part of his repertoires. His demeanor was so nice and he was humorous and really had a lot of interesting things to say. His knowledge of all types of music was impressive and his range was really incredible. My wife and I didn't know what to expect but we were pleasantly surprised and really enjoyed it. We would surely go see him again in the future. Well worth it and Anthology is a top notch concert venue.

Riley Again..

Riley was excited to go to Disneyland..It was rainy in the AM but cleared up for the rest of the day but just cloudy all day...Pretty empty due to the superbowl and rain though.