Of Gray Hairs and Teddy Bears

Time for another RANDOM THOUGHTS STYLE blog about my meandering, and seemingly rarely dull, life.  Feel free to skip if reading random stuff about what I'm up to sounds boring to you (hell, it sounds boring to me, and I'm the one writing it!).

Of Gray Hairs...

We are T-4 months away from the dreaded three oh...and I have to say, I'm handling it better and better the closer I get.  For a while it bothered me tremendously.  These days it bothers me less.  I'm more apt to joke about it than actively fear it.  I have certain reasons why 30 is bothering me (ask me, and I'll discuss in more detail)...but none of them are good ones.

However, I am feeling old today.  Why?  Because my gray hair is expanding.  For a while there was only 1 gray hair.  I could handle that.  It first cropped up around Christmastime.  Then there were two.  And then I started ignoring it.  But today I looked in the mirror, and something caught my eye.  Upon closer inspection of my right side hairline, I found what looked to be a dozen gray hairs popping up!  WTF???  Where did these come from???  I'm only 29, hair...don't be trying to age me so soon!

...and Teddy Bears

Apparently I'm a big teddy bear.  I'm strangely ok with this.

Gray vs. Grey

Here's how anal I am sometimes:  when writing the first part of this post, I was typing grey, grey, grey...and then I started thinking "am I using the right one?"  I knew that gray was spelled both ways...but which was which?  So I looked it up!  Because of course I did.  And it turns out that Gray (with an A) is mostly only used in American English, while grey (with the E) is used in English elsewhere in the world.  Being in America, I then went back and changed all my "grey"s to "gray."  Sigh...yeah, I'm that kind of guy.

Conquering Mountains

Next weekend (June 8 and 9) I will be conquering the tallest mountain in the lower 48...Mt. Whitney.  Why?  Because why the eff not!  Its there, I'm in great shape, let's do this!  Needless to say, I'm pretty stoked.  It should be an amazing hike.

Over the past few weeks, the roomie and I have been tracking down and procuring new backpacking gear.  I picked up a tent, a sleeping bag, and some new shoes among other things.  I'll go ahead and borrow my dad's old steel frame backpack for this one...but at some point I'll need to pick one up for myself.  Last thing I need to buy is a water filter pump...those things are clutch.  I'll grab one this weekend.  After that, its just picking out clothes, food, and packing the pack for the trip!  Look for a post (hopefully with pictures) after the hike.  And prepare for my undoubtedly large ego to take another bump upwards after spending time on top of the country!

Moving Woes

So our lease at our current place is up August 1st.  And since its not being renewed (the owners are planning to move back in), we are left to find a new place.  August 1st is a ways off, so there's plenty of time to look around and find a good place for us.

Well, it was enough time.  We got an e-mail from the owner of the house asking if we could possibly see our way to moving out by the middle-end of June...which is really super close.  We asked for our full security deposit returned to us now, as well as half off June's pro-rated rent, so we'd have the financial backing to make such a quick move.  We've yet to hear back from them on that proposal.  We'll see how that goes.

In the meantime, the search for new housing will have to intensify with a quickness.  We actually have an appointment to look at a place in Sunnyvale this weekend...and are scouring the ads for other possibilities as well.  Hopefully something reasonable is achievable.  I figure the sooner we can get out of this place and into the new place, the better for everyone involved.  Also, I'm out of town pretty much all of July, so moving before then actually isn't the worst idea in the world...at least for me.

Besides, the prospect of a new place is always exciting (despite how averse I am to moving itself)...a new room, a new community to figure out...could be worse!  I will miss my trail, though...I'll have an ode to my trail up on this blog within the next week or two, I suspect.  A tearful goodbye to the trail that literally changed my life.

Sharks Sadness

The Sharks had an amazing postseason this year...simply by sweeping the hated Vancouver Canucks.  I hate the Canucks so, so much...so seeing the Sharks humiliate them and swiftly boot them out of the playoffs made this year a success for me.  However, being matched up against LA in the second round made me want more.  I never really expected the Sharks to compete for a Cup this year...but things started falling their way.  LA was beatable.  And Detroit was up on Chicago...the Sharks could beat Detroit.  And the Eastern Conference sucks.  Get past LA, and the Cup was practically ours!

So, of course, it comes down to Game 7...and the Sharks are not able to solve American Hero-in-Training Jonathan Quick, and they are bounced from the playoffs in heartbreaking fashion yet again.  Someday the Sharks are going to win me a Stanley Cup.  And I will be delirious with joy.  Sadly, I doubt it will happen during Joe Thornton's time here...and that makes me sad.  Dude deserves a Cup.  I had started to get my hopes up for this season...and now the season is done.  Sad times.

Although, as I was reminded in the minutes immediately after Game 7 ended...at least my ass is safe from being tattooed for yet another year!  So there's always that...

The End

I think that's enough for now.  Random life is random, but its fun!  And seemingly getting better by the day.  30 is on the horizon, but I feel 25...summer is on its way, and fun opportunities are presenting themselves to me.  I'm going to hike up mountains, run races by the sea, and generally figure out how to continue having the time of my life here.  And, as always, I'll update this little blog as interesting developments happen in my life...or at the very least whenever I decide to throw some propaganda at you!  My blog, like my life, is rarely dull.

Cheers!