Big Giant Happy Bear

Not gonna have pictures up. Yet.

Yup, guess it's inevitable that I'd write about Big Bear. Good ol' bonding time with the RSS people. And I'm still a dead giveaway when I play Mafia. Loud and obnoxious is the strategy to go with (says Jason), but that's just not me. Yes, because that would be a dead giveaway if I tried.

Least all of the drama surrounding the planning is over. Just need to get our money back. And Elaine's car keys.

Maybe I ought to start at some logical point. Thursday night would be good:
Worked on a second batch of chocolate covered strawberries to bring to retreat (it's not baking... it's not really cooking at all... what is the proper verb for it?). It took too long (had nothing better to do, so I worked until about 2 in the morning, all while watching Olympics), and buying everything cost too much, but it sure was fun. This time they looked right, but I never took pictures. Dang. Some of the chocolate ones had white chocolate stripes, a few sported white or brown tuxedoes, but by the time we got to retreat and people got around to eating them, they looked all melted. Dang heat and condensation. Not pretty. I guess it still tasted alright.

Little steps; next time I can make them nicer. This is as good a place to digress as any. I know I complain a lot, but I'm going to miss not having a kitchen (at least during the year we'll have a microwave). Then again, not as much as I miss not having to cook for myself now. Maybe I can borrow someone's kitchen one day? Eh? Eh?

Anyhoo... got out of work at 11 in the morning on Friday, packed, and delivered a small batch of what I had made the night before to Mindy. Met Adam, Grace, Clair, and Jason at Sproul. Man, the first time I've been there since the end of school. Crazy how it was such a long time ago. I miss Puzzles. Late night pizza and gatorade runs. Yup, thank goodness I have premier next year. Yay.

On our way to the top of the mountain, couple of people call for various reasons. John and Van, because they got lost on the 210. Eek. And they had the food. I'm terrible at directions, but at least they made it, and not much later than us. Oh, and it's really fun making your way up twisty one lane mountain roads, particularly with 15 minutes until the rental place closes. We made it on time, literally with half a minute to spare. Such a fun drive up there, watching every minute that we shaved off of Hallie's (Jason's GPS) estimated time of arrival. Picked up the keys, before turning around to the house. Weird, two cars were already there, but no one was inside. Yet we had the keys....

Turns out that Martin, Mark and company had already broken into the house. Through the downstairs apartment. And here the whole drama begins. We paid extra for (and therefore expected) the use of the downstairs apartment. When we got there, there was someone living there. As in squatting-ish. Had a bunch of boxes, documents, and photos everywhere. Took pictures of the condition of the whole place before I called to get everything resolved. Called the rental place (and took forever for them to forward my call through to the Happy Bear lady... and after having gotten sent to the wrong number once), and she had to drive all the way back to the office to get it figured out. The guy downstairs was friends with the owners, and I guess he got an OK to live there. Lady promptly promised to refund us the money, but we were short of one or two beds, no big deal. Oh well, the downstairs apartment wasn't that nice, and neither the bathroom or cooking situation was a problem. So yay, everything works out.

Little bit of drama about Miles, the kid from Sacramento driving all the way down. It's an 8 hour drive, but I get a message on my phone at around 7, saying that he's in the city, but forgot to take down the address of the house. Called us from the Chamber of Commerce (aka, visitor's center), but by the time I run around and make like 20 calls trying to get a hold of him, I explain the situation to others. Suddenly, out of nowhere, he appears right behind me. Speak of the devil.

Everyone said that they loved the house, but I didn't really like it that much. Then again, I do complain a lot. But when the single beds that they promised looked like the beds you'd get at a hostile (I think they measured 3 feet by 5 feet), for me, it's cause for pissing and moaning. So I didn't sleep on it. Claimed a downstairs twin-sized bed (of which I was later booted out =/ but I didn't mind, as long as I didn't have to sleep in one of those iffy looking ones). I'm the eternal pessimist. The whole place seemed kinda small, but in retrospect, it was alright. After the first night of movies, playing pool and poker, I was pretty tired. Rather non-eventful first night. Yup.
Group of six or seven of us crashing on Peony and Kristel's bed, watching the Olympics, provocative quotes coming from Kristel's mouth. "Everything is better between John's legs" and "I know how to satify myself". And I have it all on video.

Second day was ok. Our meeting lasted pretty long (about 4 hours?). Certainly it wasn't epic, and not as if we're divided into two factions vying for political power over the club, it didn't help that we kept digressing and splitting into two or three conversations. Funny thing is that when we're well off financially, I get the privilege of delivering the good news -- "yay, three cheers for the guy who gives people their money". But when we're in the hole, it's awww, my responsibility to let everyone know -- *dodges tomatoes and eggs*. Then again, the funny thing is that we're not really in debt. Or won't be after long. No one cares or needs to know.

And after all of that, went for a walk. Turns out that the south shore, the one that borders Big Bear blvd is the nasty side of the lake. Yeah, it was kinda swampy. It wasn't so bad, we walked along the dry parts, and climbed up a couple of boulders... took pictures of a lizard. Yeah, too bad we never found a nice beach. Probably'd get shot if we walk onto the nice private ones. Next year, if you guys want to try the nice beaches, we should break in. And you should go first. Did anyone notice how beautiful the other houses were? The only thing that disturbed me was the ridiculously steep driveway that you have to drive up. Literally a 45 degree incline. Not worth buying a multimillion dollar home if your car tumbles backward before you every make it to the front door. I guess it reinforces sales of Hummers. Yes, thank you, Arnold. Still, I wonder what the end of Cove Rd. lead to.

Got back to the house. Elaine drank her frozen Smirnoff (rather, licked at it as it slowly melted), and Brian had a wine cooler (is that appropriate at 5 in the afternoon?). Well, after they napped and recovered, we all drove into the village, looking for something to do. Small town, I guess not much to be expected. Rented a fishing boat (read a tub with a motor) and set out on the lake. It was someone's inspired idea to visit the S.S. Relief. As you can imagine, it's a floating bathroom. Well, there's a reason that the townspeople told us it's something that we should experience. And there's also a reason that no other boat came near that thing. Must be some cruel joke that the citizens of Big Bear Lake play on tourists. As soon as we got close enough to hook the line to the dock, smelled the worst smell ever. Unfortunately, we hit the engine while the rope was still caught, and for about a minute or two (seemed longer), we had to bear with the smell as we dragged the boat close enough to untie ourselves from the tangle that we had gotten ourselves into. Damn curiousity.

And what's a retreat without playing Mafia? I think we only got through three games, but man, it's so emotionally draining. It's true, we could probably discuss who we should vote for until the sun rises, but when the discussion phase is officially over and it's time to vote, somehow we manage to slip back into a heated debate. Yay for the townspeople though, they won every time.

Fell asleep somewhere in the midst of watching Shaolin Soccer. It's a good movie and all (and Brian the Grinch seems to lash out at any form of comedy that is not Mitch Hedberg), but I was just too tired. It occurred to me that I might have been the only one there who understood the Cantonese, though the girl spoke mandarin (cantonese if her line was only "yes" or "no").

Driving back was pretty quiet, I think all of us were tired. And I knew(!) I heard Grace quietly singing along with the music. It was good singing, of course. Apologies for eavesdropping.

Anyway, as Jason dropped us off at Sproul, we waited for Grace's parents to drop off a check. After writing the check, she said "See you in a month", of course, because school doesn't start for another month. As soon as she left, I grabbed my stuff to go home, but this one guy had apparently heard us talking. He asked me, "Must be hard not seeing her for a month, huh?" I thought, "huh?!", but probably phrased it more like "what?". He said, "That's your little girlfriend there, isn't she?". Had to work pretty hard to suppress my laughing, so I just grabbed my stuff and left. And that was the weekend. Had gotten nothing done, and hadn't studied for a midterm.

Still, always had this feeling like there was something I should have been doing, either to help out more (yes, even though I did a lot of the planning). This is what school has done to me. I have free time to relax, but I really don't know what to do with it.