So I started off my New Year’s Eve snowboarding at Mountain High and if I can say I accomplished one thing that day it would be linking turns switch. Yes, I did it…exciting! The evening was spent watching the best funk-soul band Breakestra bring in the ‘07 at Zanzibar over in Santa Monica. It was amazing to say the least: the crowd, ambiance, music, and of course the company. I’m sure the positivity will continue throughout the year. I wish you all an exciting, safe, and prosperous 2007!

Hey everybody, Happy Halloween! It seems this holiday every year chapters off true fall weather. Two years ago I found myself and my mind snowboarding the week before trick-or-treating, and this year was no different. I haven’t been snowboarding this season (no snow) yet I find my mind almost in Thanksgiving. I must be the brownness of everything.

This past weekend was spent car-camping up in Montaña de Oro near Morro Bay where my friends from The Bay and LA broke ice around a campfire. Although it was extremely relaxing I wish I had more time to spend in the gorgeous area. One thing that stuck out was how damn cold it was, seriously! Saturday night it probably dipped into the 40s. Helloooo fall!

My Hiro Nakamura Pumpkin Stencil Carving

Yesterday I headed down to the local patch to get a pumpkin for some carving-fun at Charlene and Jenny’s. Since I’ve been all into this Heroes TV show I decided to stencil my own Hiro Nakamura — cause controlling the space-time continuum is awesome. I’ve made the Hiro Nakamura Stencil downloadable if you want to partake in the Heroes Halloween festivities.

Also, I’ve posted all the pictures available in the album section. Have a safe and fun Halloween everyone!

A previous teacher of mine at Saint Francis said that daily hugs promote emotional health and that everyone needs them, something that has stuck with me since. See, I’m a fairly tactile person and not necessarily in the sensual way. Something I realized in high school was that simple touch can disarm sadness, frustration, anger, and any sort of bad mood.

Juan Mann on a Free Hugs Campaign

Many years ago Dietrich and others, including my girlfriend at the time, headed out to The Edge, the under 18 club up in Palo Alto. I felt so cool. I don’t remember why the GF was in a bad mood but that evening it remained so no matter what was said, unswayed by my lifted spirit that was excited to be in such a place. So I did what any other immature adolescent would do: I left her sitting alone on a stool. It wasn’t until Dietich suggest I do the simplest thing did her mood shift. “Dude just walk up and give her hug and massage her shoulders, that shit always works”, and it did!

Fast forward ten years and four hundred miles south in Los Angeles. I’ve been telling and showing a good friend of mine, who has been down recently, that everyone needs a hug. Hug! And although she says she disagrees with a resonating “ewww” I know each time it lifts her spirits if even the least bit. A genuine smile is hard to hide.

What prompted this whole blog entry was an email from Hazel (and her panties) containing a video of Juan Mann on what is known as the Free Hugs Campaign:

Sometimes, a hug is all what we need. Free hugs is a real life controversial story of Juan Mann, A man whos sole mission was to reach out and hug a stranger to brighten up their lives.

It’s a somewhat moving video but I think the video description captures what I’m trying to say here:

In this age of social disconnectivity and lack of human contact, the effects of the Free Hugs campaign became phenomenal.

Free Hugs Campaign Video on YouTube.com

This whole hug topic brings me back to a blog entry where I talked about my mellow mood, which Sonny misconstrued as extreme depression. But yes I was feeling blue so he took it into his own hands and asked the Yelp-verse to give me a hug at that evening’s event. I gotta admit I was initially a bit irked because who wants strangers on Yelp all up in their personal life?

One of Many Yelp Postings from Sonny

Tired from the day and in that irked mood I was received at the Yelp event with open arms — literally. I probably got a dozen hugs from strangers that night and each of them lifted my spirit that much more. It was and still is amazing how that works.

So go give someone a hug and if you see Sonny, give him two! And if you need help on hug technique, click here and scroll down.

A Somewhat Abridged Entry

Airtime between LAX and LIM (after a short stop in Panama City) was about 9 hours on Copa. A $10US almost-shady cab ride from the airport to Miraflores, the wealthy costal area, put us in front of our hostel Friend’s House. It was a cute hostel with friendly staff, many travelers, and community living rooms. Our first walk in the new country found us a popular bubblegum-flavored soda, Inca Kola, and a nice dinner over Cusqueño beers. Peruvians say “chelas.”

Larcomar in Miraflores

Back to Friend’s for some evening planning. My ex-roomate Omar put us in contact with his cousins Marco and Carlos down in Lima so we gave them a buzz and started the night off with some Pisco Sours, a very popular Peruvian drink made of Pisco (grape alcohol) and eggwhites followed by chelas. Twas the first of many. Between getting hit by a car, speeding from car attendants, getting pulled over by the police, losing each other, and meeting the “Jim Carey of Peru” we had an excellent night.

Chelas with Carlos, Marco, and Stephanie

The next day was simple with a tour of Lima sending us to a famous church with catacombs ‘neath the altars. It was from our tourguide where we learned about the Peruvian dish Cuy which we were to experience later. The evening was quite tame due to the early morning flight, although Robin managed to buy a stranger a beer for his birthday.

Our third morning was spent on our way to the popular mountain city of Cuzco via Taca airlines. After landing we wasted no time dropping our bags off at hostel Amaru, shooting quick “hellos” to the rest of our group (Dietrich, Jessica, Kay, Ed, Fred, Emi, and Bryce), and heading up the very long hill to Sacsaywaman (sexy-woman) to experience Inti Raymi.

A steep walk to Inti Raymi

Inti Raymi was interesting. I got to see a llama sacraficed with about a billion spectators each finding a rock corner or tuft of grass to put their siki (booty in quechua) down on.

Kids at a Sunday celebration

The following days were spent in Cuzco taking in the city: eating, walking, acclimating, salsa-ing, shopping.

Cuzco: Plaza de Armas at night

After two days of Cuzco we left early morning on a bus to Ollantaytambo and Kilometer 82 — the trailhead for our hike to Machu Picchu.

All I gotta say is “wow!” The 28-mile hike took four days and gave us the experience of half a dozen Incan Ruins, phenomenal scenery, and breathtaking (literally) trails. I’d say the Inca Trail was rather enjoyable (although day two was fairly harsh) considering 16 of us hikers had the support of 22 porters carrying food, sleeping bags, tents, and everything else. Our trek was guided by Victor and Efrain of Peru Treks. The only things we needed on the trail were our day packs to hold our jackets, extra water, snacks, or whatever you needed on a 6-8 hour day hike.

Atop Warmiwanusca: 4215 m (13,800 ft)

Ruins of Runkuracay

Sitting in Sayacmarca

On the morning of our fourth day we woke at about 4am to try to catch the sunrise peek over the Sun Gate (Intipunku) and illuminate Machu Picchu. After waiting to get past the control station (ranger station I’m assuming) and into the Machu Picchu reserve we queued up behind this group of seemingly nice trekkers. Nope. Let’s just say we supposedly disturbed the pleasure of some of these rude (and very slow) hikers and leave it at that. Sadly the sky was cloudy and there was no sunrise. But it was an experience of a lifetime nonetheless.

Group picture at Machu Picchu

A reflection of Wayna Picchu

After a historical tour of the ruins by Victor a few of us decided to brave a not-so-trecherous 15 minute climb (although it did involve ropes) up Huchuypicchu for an aerial view. We followed the Huchuypicchu segue with a bus ride down to Aguas Calientes and a return to civilization: chicken sandwiches, Coca Cola, and pizza.

We gave our fellow trekkers, guides, and porters our goodbyes, packed up our remaining hiking gear, and hopped on the “lazy” train back to Cuzco. The four-hour trip back was occupied by some Crazy-8 cards and rest.

Thinking about the Inca Trail

Finally back at the Amaru hostel we grabbed some grub and rested up for the morning trip to the Sacred Valley the next day. The hour bus ride to Pisac from Cuzco gave me a free Spanish lesson, and the twenty minute cab ride up to Intihuatana gave me the last Incan ruin I’d see for quite some time, maybe forever.

Ed and Jessica staring off at Intihuatana

That night we inagurated our noche de baracho (evening of inebriation) with Kings Cup in our room followed by numerous free drinks around the plaza. We were warned about the endless free drinks in Cuzco!

Everyone took off the following morning leaving Robin and Romeo and I to fend one more day. We fended well gathering gifts for those back in the States and of course watching Brazil’s futbol team lose to France. We ate our last Peruvian dinner at Jacks on San Blas (highly recommend), packed our bags, and with that it was an hasta luego to Peru!

Peru 2006 Photo Album

Thanks to the Dietrich and planners of the trip, and to Jessica, Fred, Emi, Bryce, Kay, Ed, Romeo, and Robin for the excellent company!

Unpacking is a week-long process for me. Aside from that I’ve been busy with rest, fireworks, recouperating, and duces. Today was my first day back at work — not as relaxing as I’d hoped. I’ll be posting pictures soon enough. In the meantime feast your siki sapa on this:

After getting rejected by AdSense, Google’s revenue ad program, in my previous project I decided to apply for the same with my personal site. Has it paid off or has it paid off? I made my first buck from a Firefox install. I gotta tell you, Firefox has bigger balls than Internet Explorer.

Aside from being more secure it has tabbed browsing and a much smaller footprint meaning less work and room for your computer. On top of all that it is FREE as an open-source browser for Windows, Mac, AND Linux. For god’s sake, it’s called FIREfox!

I use it, that means you should too. Where the hell have you been?