First blogpost of 2014. Barely a week into the new year.
I enjoyed making that end-of year recap list from the previous update. The only things I left out on the list were self flushing urinals and ride-sharing companies such as lyft and Uber, which both got so much play in 2013. I'm curious and unsurprised to see which asshole will get his or her fifteen minutes of hype and vanish away from fame this year (previous notables include Nadya Suleman, Ted Williams, Christopher Dorner, Jon and Kate Gosslin among others). However, I'm glad that the New Years Day frenzy is over already so that we can move forward with our busy-ass lives. Every person I've talked to this past week has been telling me that they didn't much on New Years Eve. Some of them just stayed home and kept it low key as opposed to going to a club with a group of friends just to watch a countdown while getting shit-wasted in mini-skirts and black ties. On weeks prior, I didn't even know what I was planning on doing for New Years Eve, until I actually did something useful.
I visited the moms on Christmas Day and that was my first time seeing her since my 25th birthday back in March. She said that she got these non-refundable tickets to a New Years Eve party down in Coronado Island next to San Diego and that she also booked a suite which she claims that it was hard to get while every other room was booked for that week. In the past few years, my moms has been telling me about Coronado Island and that how she and my siblings always goes there every so often. I've never been there before, but I decided to tag along since she went through a lot to always take advantage of the finer opportunities in life for myself (she even brought that up during the drive down there). Plus the other reason I went is just to escape Los Angeles for a bit.
So it was me, the moms, and one of the little sisters that traveled down south of California on the I-5 freeway while my other two siblings went to my uncle's new crib on New Years Eve. The fog became totally thick as we approached Oceanside and then it cleared up later when we got to downtown San Diego. We then crossed the San Diego-Coronado bridge which I always see whenever I used to visit San Diego and but it looked kinda cool at night. After we crossed the bridge to Coronado, that's when the fog started to kick in. The town was very quiet and empty as we drove around, and this was about 7:30PM when we arrived.
We then got to this hotel we were gonna stay at. The moms went to go check in and told us that the suite we were gonna crash at had already been taken, but they did give us a small room with a kitchen and a refrigerator, so we went with that anyways. There was no reception at Coronado but they did have free wi-fi at the hotel which was a bonus. As we got to our room, my mother said that we have to go to the New Years Eve party that she told me about. So I changed into my black Primitive Apparel crew neck sweatshirt and took my Nikon SLR with me as we left.
I thought the New Years Eve party was gonna be at some ballroom filled with several well-doing adults in their forties and fifties since Coronado is an affluent community, but instead, the party was at a bowling alley filled with conservative families and their kids. Its was so PG rated. When we got to the bowling alley, I thought the moms was gonna see some bowling schedules or something since bowling is one of her hobbies, but she told me that this was the party she mentioned. Now if this event took place around 6 years ago, the 19-year-old me would've been very pissed and upset for traveling a hundred miles just to go to a party like that, but the present day me just decided to make use of it. The cosmic bowling New Years Eve party consisted of unlimited bowling and free food and endless fountain drink refills. Also, they were playing tons of 80's and alternative 90's music videos on a screen throughout the night. Most of the videos they played were songs I haven't heard in forever. They also had, of course, Dick Clark's Rockin' New Years Eve with Ryan Seacrest televised on one of bowling score video monitors. We had to bowl with this young couple and their kid because the party had this social aspect to meet new and different people. These were families that looked like they came straight from the Reagan presidency era in the mid 1980's. I'm talkin' collared-sweatshirt, station wagon driving, Sunday School going, "learning valuable lessons at the end of the episode" type families that you rarely see in the Valley, and it was slightly diverse with different races there.
We bowled for 5 straight hours and the moms continued for another hours as me and my sister looked back in our childhood from watching the music videos that were being played. Obviously, they did the obligatory countdown and drank Sparkling Cider (the party was PG rated) as the families pulled down the balloons hanging above the lanes to ring in 2014. I actually enjoyed it for once, despite it being family oriented. When we finished, the fog had already kicked in when we got back to my sisters car and safely drove back to the hotel.
On the morning of New Years Day, we woke up very late and then started packing up to drive back to Los Angeles. I was researching Coronado Island on my iPhone 5 to see what's there to do in that place. Then I read about the Hotel Del Coronado, which is a famous, historic, hotel that every US President and actors from Hollywood's golden age stayed at since it was built. I then told my mother about it and she agreed to drive down there for a bit. The Hotel Del Coronado island was right next to a beach and me and the little sister went to go check it out as the moms slept in the car. The beach is quite awesome and there were alot of people there. The temperature was at 70 degrees that afternoon. I spent my time there taking photos and some video of the beach and the exterior of Hotel Del Coronado. My biggest regret was not going inside to check it out cause I forgot to look for the entrance. Later on, we drove around Coronado for a bit and that place looks similar to Marina Del Rey. Then we gassed the car up and headed back to reality in Los Angeles. It was a good trip, yet I spent it with family which I haven't done in a while.
Here are some of the images I took down there
The New Years Eve traffic south on the 405 Freeway (also known as the San Diego Freeway). Riding shotgun in the Air Jordan 1 retro "Black Toes". I didn't drive throughout the whole trip, which was rare and good.
Cosmic Bowling lanes in full effect.
The families and setup for the New Years Eve party.
We made strikes and spares (and some gutters) for 5 straight hours. That's a long ass time.
This photograph, to me, has this Space Mountain/Club MTV style atmosphere.
Ultraviolet Black Lights among the lanes.
Glasses of Sparkling Cider. If this wasn't family oriented, these would've been champagne.
The thick ass fog as we approach my sister's car.
Checking out Coronado in the daytime.
New Years Revelation written in sand.
This is Bill Pavlacka in the white cap and t-shirt building a sandcastle with these two girls. I didn't talk to him that day cause he was busy showing kids how to build sandcastles, but I learned that this bloke builds them at the beach near Hotel Del Coronado either for a living or for fun, or both. I was amazed to see his creativity in building these large sand castles. Here's his website The SandCastle Man
The legendary Hotel Del Coronado.
The horizon, and Mexico is less than 20 minutes from there.
Anyway, that was my New Years Day recap. I also did another long drive last Sunday down to Palm Springs for some business. I've been to that area before (Coachella, Tamale festival) but this was my first time driving down there instead of carpooling. I actually enjoyed the 2 and a half hour drive there, which took place at night. I would like to do more of those cause once in a while, escaping LA for a bit is pleasing. I need to learn how to take vacations alot more.
Thanks for your time reading this, and have a blessed, fun Twenty-Fourteen.
