California Part 3.2 - Napa and Sonoma

The second day in San Jose was a Monday, and Kurt and Jug both had to go to work. Jeff and I decided to take a day trip to wine country, which is only a couple hours away. We took a wrong turn on the way there and ended up driving through San Francisco, which was actually pretty great because we drove across the Golden Gate Bridge.We had a really great time going to wineries - the tastings were really fancy and fun. Our favorite was the first one we went to - "J", where we tried the most things and where all the wine was paired with tiny appetizers.We went to Saint Clement Vineyards second, and it was in a cute house on a hill. There we did a tasting that was made up almost entirely of wine we couldn't afford a bottle of - about $80 a bottle. It was pretty good.
Our last stop was at Peju, which was pretty interesting. The person pouring the tasting did a rap giving all the information about the vineyard... and he was a 60 year old white man. The wine was ok, though, and we had a good time. We'll have to work on our wine knowledge if we go again, since mostly we're only able to say, "that one's pretty good", and "oh, this one is also pretty good", but as long as we had a good time, that's probably what matters.The whole day was really great, and the scenary while driving around was one of the best things about the whole trip.

California Part 3.1 - San Jose

During the third and final leg of our California adventure, Jeff and I flew to San Jose and stayed with our friends John and Kurt. We got there mid-day and hung out with Kurt at his cool condo. We went out to Pizza My Heart for dinner and has a garlic-mushroom-sausage-pepperoni pizza. It was the most garlic I have ever eaten in my life - it just had whole cloves of garlic (the size of large marbles) all over it, and it was soooo good.

We were thinking about seeing Juno after pizza, but then decided to instead go back to Kurt's place and watch "Sideways" which is about two guys that spend a weekend visiting wineries in California. The movie was pretty good - it had gotten a lot of build up, so I don't think I was as impressed with it when I finally saw it, but I enjoyed it, and the characters, even if you don't like them, were interesting.

John came home around 11pm from his holiday trip to the east coast and then hung out and had a glass of wine with us. We watched the (2 hour!) premier of American Gladiator, which was pretty funny, and then finally went to bed at 2am.

California Part 2 - Big Bear

After leaving Camarillo, we drove to Big Bear Lake, CA. It's in the mountains near L.A., and Jeff's mom's family has a cabin there. It was actually built by her grandfather. Here's what it looks like:It's a beautiful drive through the mountains to get there, and the cabin is just across the street from the lake.Jeff's aunts and uncle were at the cabin also, and we spent a few days hanging out having family meals, doing puzzles, and reading books. I was in charge of keeping the fire place going, which I think I did a pretty good job at. There was no TV and no internet, so at one point we took an coffee shop trip to check email, but other than that we just relaxed at the house.

I spent a lot of time reading Dracula, which is one of the things that Jeff got me for Christmas. I like to read classic books, but it's usually hit or miss - either its completely readable and interesting - like Tale of Two Cities, Pride and Prejudice, or Jane Eyre, or it's really hard to get through and historically interesting, but not fun. Luckily, Dracula is the former - it's written as a series of letters and diary entries by various characters, and there are really good footnotes explaining historically relevant things. I'm about half done now.

California Part 1 - Camarillo

Jeff and I are in California for a little over a week visiting family and friends. The first few days we spent visiting his dad's cousin and her husband in Camarillo, CA. They were really funny people - and very interesting to talk to. Jeff's dad's cousin has worked in the diamond business and been all over the world. Her husband used to be the president of Mankato State University in Minnesota (where my brother went to college!) and now is president of California State University Channel Islands. Being a university president seemed like a pretty cool job - you get to think about the big picture of what you want the university to be like and then make decisions to have that happen. We took a tour of the new library that is being built right now and of the rest of campus - it was really beautiful.

The second day in Camarillo we visited the Reagan National Library. It is actually more like a museum than a library, and has lots of exhibits about Ronald Reagan's life and presidency. They also have a previous air force one plane on display so you can go through it. The museum was interesting - especially since we had a private tour, so everything was explained for us. We also got to see the private quarters - Mrs. Reagan's office, and things like that. They had a full-scale model of the oval office as it looked when Reagan was there, and that was pretty cool also.

Movies

I've seen a few movies over the holidays, so I thought I'd dedicate a post to my thoughts on them:

Charlie Wilson's War
This movie is about a congressman from Texas that played a big part in helping fund the Afganis in the Afgan-Soviet war. I thought Tom Hanks did pretty well playing the part of the party-loving, world-traveling Charlie Wilson. Philip Seymour Hoffman really steals the show - his character is awesome and his acting is great. Though the movie deals with some serious issues there are many parts that are laugh out loud funny, and though its political, I think it works for all crowds. I'm curious how much of the story is true and what's Hollywood's part, but in general I'd recommend it - even just Hoffman's acting is enough to make it worth it.

Dan in Real Life
This is a heart-warming family/romantic comedy starring Steve Carell. It revolves around a family reunion where the whole group is going up to stay in one cabin. The movie is unique in that the family is all pretty supportive and forgiving, and though there is a conflict (otherwise it'd be pretty boring) it isn't the knock-down drag-out fight that lots of other movies show. In general the movie was more interesting and sweet than it was dark or predictable. Plus Steve Carell is hilarious.

National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets
I'm almost embarrassed to admit that I saw this movie, but it's true. I don't have a whole lot to say about the movie - obviously it wasn't great, but it was entertaining. Similar to Dan Brown's DaVinci Code, it's all about tracking down crazy clues based on conspiracies around the world to solve a mystery. The best way to describe the movie is that it basically does exactly what you would expect and is in no way realistic. Oh, Nick Cage.

I Am Legend
I had heard about this movie before I went and saw it, and, completely out of character, I decided to read about it before going to see it. I knew it was something about Will Smith being alone and fighting some kind of monsters, and I checked out wikipedia to find out the details. Well, wikipedia just had a synopsis of the book it is based on, so I read that. After seeing it, I felt that most of the movie was very good - the footage of empty New York City was cool, Will Smith's acting was good, the attempt to depict changes in behavior after spending lots of time alone were interesting, and the premise is interesting. (Spoiler - For example, I thought that when the two people show up near the end, it's filmed in such a way that you aren't completely sure that they are real, and Will Smith's acting leads you to believe he's wondering the same thing. It was done in a very interesting way) However, I was disappointed when it came to the end - it seemed abrupt and unsatisfying, and I think that may have to do with my prior research - I'll explain more here. <> The movie begins with most of the population of the world dying, and the rest turning into zombie/vampire-like monsters. Basically the same in the book. In the movie, the main character is alone in the city and sometimes kills the infected people - same as in the book. In the movie, new (uninfected) people suddenly show up, the infected attack, Will Smith finally finds the cure and gives it to the new people before dying in the attack. They take it to a small group of non-infected people, and Will Smith becomes "a legend" for having found the cure. In the book, it turns out that some of the infected people have the physical symptoms of the disease, but not the mental symptoms. However, the main character doesn't know this, and kills infected people during the day (while they are asleep). They think of him as a monster - kind of like the boogie man - that nobody ever sees, but that can come and kill you as you sleep. Therefore, he is "a legend" among the infected. They essentially send someone to find and spy on him, and she ends up explaining this to him. I thought that was a way more interesting twist and way more interesting meaning for the title. It seems like the movie considered this, because they had Will Smith make a point of saying that he found the infected had no cognitive ability and were even losing their survival instinct, but then one of the infected clearly sets a trap for him later on, and even later in the movie, leads the attack on his home. I was sure they were building up to the twist in the book, but then it just never happened. Ah well. Still worth seeing.

Battlestar Galactica Season 1 and 2.0
It's not a movie, but the other thing I spent lots of time watching was Battlestar Galactica. It is awesome! It took a while to get into it - I didn't like the miniseries as much as the actual tv show episodes, though it is important for setting up the premise. The characters are interesting and the plot is constantly evolving to provide more information and more questions all the time. It's one of those shows that I turn on intending to watch one episode and then end up watching four. I can't wait to get the DVDs to watch the rest of the episodes.

Hello, 2008.

Happy New Year! I had a great time celebrating New Year's Eve. Jeff and I went out with my sister and her boyfriend, Tom. We went to my friend, Paul's house and took a bus to Uptown Minneapolis. We celebrated New Year's at a bar there, and enjoyed the pool tables and live music. We finished the night back at Paul's place with champagne. Overall it was a really fun night - though I was sorry to have to leave Minnesota immediately following (my flight was on Jan. 1st). Special thanks to Katie for putting together an outfit for me. :)

Merry Christmas!

Well, we're a good way through the holidays, and I've been in Minnesota the whole time. On Christmas Eve we had a family dinner and then went to midnight mass. On Christmas, we had Uncle David, Aunt Natalie, and Drew and MacKenzie for brunch. This is probably my biggest meal of the year - I love those cheesy hashbrowns... We opened presents and played games, which is the yearly tradition. It was really fun to see all of them - we don't get together that often, but when we do it's always very nice.In the evening, my family went to my Grandma John's house to visit my dad's side of the family. We had tons of food, again, and then hung out and opened gifts. By the time we left, we were ready for bed, even if it was only 10pm.