Recently, I had a conversation of sorts with Shane about the difficulties involved in writing blogs with substance. I read many other weblogs from many other people and they all seem to have something interesting to say, whereas mine, more often than not, ends up being tantamount to a laundry list of things that I have done in any given day. I consider myself to be a somewhat witty guy...occasionally overflowing with said wit. Like Shane, I often read old e-mails that I have written to various folks and end up cracking up at the things that I have written. However, when I peruse old blog entries I am often sadly disappointed that my writing skills and wit fail to make their way onto the screen.

Shane had a good point. First of all, when I am writing an e-mail I obviously have a specific known audience. I can therefore direct the e-mail to that person and pepper the e-mail with personal, inside jokes that the reader will understand. Whenever I am writing a blog, however, I am writing to an undefined, broad audience of anybody who might happen to stop by after finding my weblog in a google search for "guy to guy stomach stomping" (don't ask me how or why, but somebody once happened upon my site by searching for that.) The fact that any number of random people, including people I knew from high school or college, might stop by here makes this whole concept of blogging seem a little intimidating. I mean, what if I construct an entry which I find to be absolutely brilliant, and Random Visitor finds it to be absolutely stupid. In a certain sense, I think that's also the reason I've always been hesitant to pursue a career as a writer, but that's a subject for another entry.

So, in an attempt to make my blog more pleasant to read and less like a technical manual for a toaster, I have decided to attempt to write each entry in the voice that I would use if I were actually writing an e-mail to a friend. I don't really have any specific friend in mind...just a sort of generic Mr. or Ms. Anyfriend. I'm not sure how it will work out, but feel free to let me know if there is a noticeable difference in the quality of my entries. I'm not attempting to win a Pulitzer for this site, but I would like for it to at least reflect the strong writing skills that I believe I possess.

Another thing...I have decided that the insertion of links to every single noun covered herein tends to interupt my train of thought. However, I think that, in moderation, links can be somewhat entertaining. Therefore, I have decided that I am going to go back and insert links AFTER I have completed my entry, rather than stop to search the web for pictures of Chris Farley or Bob Newhart. In this regard, you probably won't notice much of a difference, as the links will still be there. The point is that I will not have interrupted my train of thought in order to do these searches.

At any rate, as most of you know, this weekend I joined several friends (Shane Ross, Ryan Cox, Travis Long, John Lin and Truong Vo) up at Crowley Lake, near Mammoth. We stayed at Travis's family's palatial estate of a cabin. I've always pictured Travis's cabin up there to be a simple A-Frame, the likes of which a plebian such as myself is accustomed to. However, this was no A-Frame. Indeed, I can't really even describe it. It might very well be the biggest house in which I have ever set foot...with the exception of the palace at Versailles. Admittedly, this description is somewhat hyperbolic, but I think I'll just leave it at that.

We arrived there late Friday evening, after having driven through severe fog and winds. The first evening was, of course, relatively uneventful. There were a few games of pool played as well as a too lengthy discussion (which is still on-going) regarding the presidential eligiblity of U.S. citizens born abroad. Nothing too exciting, though.

Saturday, we drove down to Lake Crowley and meandered around the shores for a while, discussing such things as how would we survive in a post-apocalyptic wasteland. This did not simply come from nowhere- the land surrounding the lake honestly resembles something directly out of Mad Max.

At any rate, afterwards we headed up to the main lodge in Mammoth, where there was a modest storm dumping snow all over. I imagine, if I had the slightest idea of how to ski or snowboard, it would have been quite nice, as the snow was pure powder. In the lodge, they were giving away free hot dogs, and there was this really shitty band playing some really shitty music. All the while, I was staring longingly out the window at the snow banks surrounding the area, wanting nothing more than to run down and play in the snow. Before we left, I did just that. Ryan and I spent nearly twenty minutes or so in the snow while the other guys all sat in the car, too afraid to face the fierce cold.

After we'd had our fill of the snow, we drove down to one of the local hot springs in the valley, where we were greeted by an ugly naked man, two drunk guys from San Diego, an ankle-snapping dog and some teenager who had some weird, undefined relationship with this ugly naked man.

We had dinner that night in Mammoth at this bad-food-serving place called Grumpy's and then returned to the cabin and watched the second half of Black Hawk Down. (I guess I should have mentioned that we watched the first half before going to dinner.)

Anyway, on Sunday I almost died. I mean that literally. I almost died. See, we'd gone to this area populated with boulders near Bishop, and did some moderate rock scrambling, and then travelled on to another area where we set off on our own meandering hikes. At one point, after reaching the summit of the hill, I was making my way down a gravel slope which gave way underneath me, and I started to slide rapidly toward the edge of a cliff. At this point, I was all by myself, as Travis and Ryan had both chosen their own paths down. So, I was sliding rapidly toward the edge and had to grab onto a thorny branch to keep from going over. When I came to a stop, I glanced over the edge and realized that the fall probably would not have killed me, but it might have resulted in a broken leg or something.

So, after my brush with death, we returned to the cabin, packed up and made the long drive home. I don't know what it is, but I always get bored in cars when I'm not the one driving. To me, a lengthy car trip is worse than a lengthy flight- I'm not sure why. As a result, I was continually pestering the others to entertain me in some way...I'm sure they got tired of me at some point.

Well, that about sums up my weekend in Mono County. I've been to that area once before, but all I really saw of it was Bodie and Mono Lake, so this was a good experience.

Yeah, so Monday, I saw Punch Drunk Love with Katie in Burbank. I was fairly ambivalent toward the movie- I don't think it was as great as several people have raved, but I also don't share the sentiment of the man who left the theater today proclaiming that it was the worst movie he had ever seen.

So, this concludes my first attempt at an uninhibited post. Hopefully it meets with your approval. If not, I'll just have to shoot myself.