The last few months have been crazy busy but I managed to find time to go camping the last two weekends.

I’m not sure where we camped last weekend but it was next to a stream and pretty, I spent most of the day building a dam to try to show up the beavers next door. And the next day we climbed Grays and Torres (two 14,000 foot mountains). Which only reinforced my belief that air at sea level deserves an award. And I also got to setup my new tent for the first time, super comfortable even for a tall person.

And this weekend Joel, Laura, and I drove up to Crested Butte for a one day hat tournament. Crested Butte and surrounding area is the most beautiful I’ve seen in Colorado and so much nicer then Frisco/Breck/Etc. I couldn’t play the tournament as my ankle is still swollen but I did go for a nice 14 mile run/hike. And the next day we did another short hike, relaxed, and hung out with Chappe and Liz in Aspen at their new place (which is awesome). Great weekend and had a great time!

And I spent tonight setting up my new desk, it moves up and down so I can work standing up and sitting down. Pretty excited as it is a lot easier for me to get things done when I’m standing up.

JetBlue is selling a All You Can Jet pass where you can fly as much as you want from September 7th to October 6th so I bought the pass for $699 (meaning I can travel any day of the week during that period)!

It is good for any domestic locations and international only has taxes and fees that you have to pay. I won’t be able to plan things out until they let you book on August 23rd but I’m pretty excited. This will get me to regionals in California, a trip to Florida to visit my Grandma, and hopefully a few more. If international is cheap enough I might try to bounce around the Caribbean. Especially as I really want to go see Tobago as that is where they filmed Swiss Family Robinsons. And if I can make it too Barbados it is only $89 round trip to get to Tobago. And I’d love to go back to St. Lucia.

Here is a map of all the places JetBlue flies for this deal! Basically from Denver I can go to anywhere in Texas, California, East Coast and maybe even all the way to Bogota.

PS. I also found out I can spell bonanza without looking it up on google which I’m proud of.

I’ve been a bit under the weather the last few days, but rallied today and ran and climbed Lion’s Head. Long steep climb but pretty fun and awesome view from the top.

We are going to Gordon’s beach tomorrow, no games for a few days. We have one game left, a quarter final in cape town! We saw Spain versus Portugal Tuesday and it was clear Spain was far better. Fantastic ref too for not calling fouls on any of their sissy diving shit (the 9th circle of hell is reserved for divers according to my interpretation of Dante’s work).

The weather has been perfect thus far. So today we woke up and rode the metro for 45 min to one of the “warmer” beaches, but just our luck you can’t see 30 feet through fog… So we eat some lunch, we read, and drink warm beverages, still nothing and it is 2pm. So we walk along the beach and it finally starts to lift and warm up, we change into our swim suits and I swear in a matter of about 10 minutes heavier thicker foggier fog rolls in… We will be back as it looks like a great beach to learn to surf and boogie board. And we feel very safe given their flag system to warn us when great white sharks are nearby and you should get out of the water…

To see the crazy fog just take a look at the below photos, one is taken during the short window where the sun was out and the fog starting to lift, the others as soon as it came back, you literally couldn’t see people surfing just 30 feet out.

Click below for an awesome panoramic too!

We survived our first game which was Cameroon versus the Netherlands. We pre gamed a little too hard but were none the worst for wear. And I will say in our defense it is a long walk to the stadium and really really fun to walk all the way with tons of cheering fans moving from bar to crazy dance thing to bar to live music on the street to bar. And apart from getting pretty lost leaving the stadium it was an awesome experience! Our next game is pretty far away and requires a 12 hour bus ride, but we got really lucky and are seeing England versus Germany which hopefully is one of the most brutal soccer games seen yet. And hopefully the USA beats Ghana so we can party with everyone once they get to the semis!

Click the first image as its a big panoramic of the stadium and really really cool to see what a monster it is. I was really impressed as you have a great view of the players and everything from everywhere!

What a great game with so many chances and in the end the USA finally scored to win their pool (they got robbed by a ref again and some bad finishes)!!!! Awesome game and great fan base here in Cape Town to cheer them on!

I almost wish they had gotten second in our pool as I’m going to see that game live! So instead I’ll see England and some other team, hopefully Germany. I will be cheering for whoever is playing England, I usually cheer for England but I just watched some English fucker try to pick a fight with some Americans for no reason down on the street. So fuck them, they should be used to coming in second place.

“I bought a cactus. A week later it died. And I got depressed, because I thought, Damn. I am less nurturing than a desert.”
– Demetri Martin

The apartment is fantastic which you can see below, and watched two games in a local bar today and had a great time. The weird food item is a “Russian Dog” which was actually quite good, and I haven’t tried the blueberry energy drink but will report on my findings shortly. South African wine is also quite good.

I’ve never seen any of the USA above Denver (besides Seattle) so while I was homeless the last few weeks I drove up to Missoula Montana and went through Grand Teton national park and Yellowstone on the way up, and highway all the way down through Wyoming. It was a a great road trip with some awesome landscapes that change quite a bit over the drive. It is always nice to know how quickly you can drive to Canada and Mexico if the need presents itself.

Yellowstone was an odd place with water bubbling up and just looked like what you would imagine biblical drawings of hell to look like, plus it smelled of sulfur. I read a Bill Bryson book a few months ago and he had a great story about some of the employees tat Yellowstone, it seems that some of the hot ponds are about as warm as a hot tub and even though it is not allowed some employees go to them at night, one night they jumped into the wrong one after drinking and it was way way too hot and boiled them alive. Crazy.

I really liked Missoula, it reminds me of Fayetteville in a lot of ways. They even have bumper stickers that say “Keep Missoula Weird” which is the slogan Fayetteville uses as well (I think we all stole it from Austin Texas). They had awesome running trails and since I was not at high altitude I had some really nice long runs. The third day I headed out on their trails and had gone about 4 miles out when this giant giant wind started going through the trees, at first it was pretty but then it didn’t stop and kept getting louder and louder, I actually had to jump off the trail behind a sturdy tree as branches started flying off the trees and a few trees actually fell over! I thought I was about to get sucked up into a vortex of wind, some type of flash tornado or something when it finally settled down only to start raining cold splats of water, I took off sprinting back to town but still ended up getting soaked and luckily there wasn’t any lightening or I would have gotten very cold cowering in a ditch covered in icy water. Bad planning on my part but a fun adventure, and at least I didn’t get chased/eaten by a bear.

I don’t think there are daytime speed limits on highways in Montana is another reason to visit.

If you are in Missoula I highly recommend the running trails (even if you walk them), Indulge Bakery as it was delicious and I learned what huckle berries are their constant struggle to collect them while fighting against the bear army, and Kettle House Brewery as I actually liked their Cold Smoke Scotch Ale.

I’m on my way to South Africa, will get there Monday and looking forward to the crazy that is the world cup!

I flew over to Ireland for the weekend to surprise Iris, Rose, and Steve and had an absolutely amazing amazing time! Watched some rugby, drank one or two Guinness, danced, and somehow managed to stay up for 40 hours that first day / night. Thanks to Rose and Steve for putting me up in their awesome new gaff!

I ended up delaying my return for a few days because I was having so much fun! I went to Galway and the Clifts of Moher with Elizabeth and it was great to see Ireland when the sunshine was out. It made me realize when I was living there how much less sun you see in Dublin. My flight was probably just 20 minutes from getting canceled Wednesday and I should have just stayed through Sunday (Volcano screwed me by about 30 minutes)! No decisions should be made prior 10am when it comes to leaving a country :) (and in general).

Getting back was a bit rough, on the ride home from the airport I got a call about a massive work emergency which has occupied every minute of the last two days, it is ok now though (enshallah) and a lot of work to do to ensure it never happens is finished.

Here are some pictures from my iPhone, not great quality but I forgot my normal camera.

I did not make a wise choice when I decided to dance barefoot in the disco as all I had were flip flops. Apparently what I thought were plastic cups under my drunken feet were shards of glass, luckily I couldn’t feel any of this. I left a trail of blood everywhere.

And this is around 5am when the pain feels a little more real.

And my fav pic from the trip:

What I love most (and hate if you are there) about Italy is that they will never be any kind of economic threat to the rest of the world, ever… Why might you ask? Because if you are wanting to buy a drink at a disco, you might think oh i’ll go buy a drink, but nay, you must first buy a ticket in a very long line, and then after that you must go to another line to present that ticket for that drink, oh and they don’t really take credit cards very well, and they have nothing like a tray to hold all the orders. I’m so glad I was not born in Italy as I would have shot myself in my sober sober head years ago from frustration. I encountered this again with sandwiches etc. My only guess is they like lines, or they like to pretend they are employing twice as much people, or they like being inefficient.

I exaggerate a little as I wasn’t that frustrated (mostly cause they have a lot of cheap wine which makes you very patient), but it is very evident they will never be able to complete globally with the USA and China’s and even Japans of the world. It’s just sad to see. Beautiful country through, and at least they make great ice cream.

I am also basis as I HATE their “soccer” team, I use quote marks as their team is mostly just a bunch of pussy actors who spend their time practicing their dives. And when I start to love a head butting french man over you, you might be in trouble as a country.

Venice was absolutely amazing, most expensive place I’ve ever been though. Go for a day or two and see a dieing city and just imagine how amazing it would have been 300 or 400 years ago.

It was a great trip, the beach tournament was fun and after a few days feeling more confident in that I know how to play on the beach. After that headed to Cique Terra and Venice, not a lot of pictures but most are from those locations.

It is awesome, I feel like some sort of frog ninja in it.

I thought this video was funny, basically ran into some wild monkeys on a hike and they decided to leave the log and were moving towards me, during which the camera became second priority and not getting attacked by monkeys became priority 1. Luckily they were very nice and after I moved back a little all was good…

Fun times.