Through various experimentation, we have discovered Liam’s favorite word…. “kick.” He starts laughing his head off when he hears it. Switching back to the “Boo!” game has little or no effect.

Through continued tests on our son, we’ve discovered that he reacts in a similar fashion to the words “rick”, “mick”, “sick”, “pick”, “lick”, “brick”, and “wick”.

Here’s a video of Liam being cute, with the word. I, on the other hand, sound like an idiot.

Well, we attempted to hike to the Bridge to Nowhere.

The Bridge to Nowhere is a bridge that was built in 1936 in the San Gabriel forest. Basically, it was part of an extension of highway 39 (Beach Blvd, which goes all the way up into Asuza). It was to be an alternate route to the high desert. Shortly after construction of the bridge, however, the road to and from the bridge was washed out by a massive flood. So now there stands, 5 miles deep in the hills, a large stone bridge with no roads.

It was a J hike. J. Demars (Mike), Jason, Jason, John, and Josh. Mike and the Jasons planned to spend the night at a campground just past the bridge, while John and I were day hikers, and heading back the same day.

This was the best hike I have ever been on. There were several river crossings in which the water went past our knees. We stopped at a nice shaded, sandy spot overlooking the river to have our lunch. There weren’t very many hikers for quite awhile… but there were plenty of people in the river panning for gold. As well as a few adventurous fishermen.

About three hours into the hike John and I thought it would be a good idea to turn around. If it was really going to take us three additional hours to hike back we were sure to be late for other plans that night. We said goodbye to the three J’s and headed back.

The hike back went by at a much faster pace, and the trail was much easier to find. We probably only crossed the river three times, as opposed to the eight or so crossings on the way in. The three hour hike in turned into a one hour hike back.

The meeting of the minds! Last weekend Clare and I headed up to Mike and Michelle’s to brew another batch of beer. Mike and I headed out to Steinfillers in Long Beach to pick up a new set of ingredients. This time we went for “Red Ale” (scroll down the page to see it).

While out, we also hit up Lowes to buy the materials needed to build a Wort Chiller. After over an hour looking for the right parts, and getting little help from their employees (save one), we headed to the register, and found that we were set to spend about $7 more than if we bought one pre-built at Steinfillers. So, we wrote off the hour, headed back to Steinfillers, and bought one pre-assembled.

The brew went pretty well. The chiller worked *great*. Instead of waiting an hour for the wort to chill, it was down to the appropriate temp (90 degrees), in about 10 minutes! Apparently this will also help keep the beer a consistent flavor. We only had two mishaps during the process… the first was that the second packet of yeast was hidden in the box. Luckily, Mike found it at the last minute so we quickly dumped it into the carboy and gave it a good shake. The second problem was that the cork nearly pushed itself all the way through the neck of the carboy! There wasn’t much we could do, so we left it there.

Fermentation went nicely for about 3 days. At which point Mike pushed the cork the rest of the way into the carboy (er… not exactly on purpose), and siphoned the wort out into a secondary fermenter (a second, 5 gallon carboy). He was then able to extricate the cork from the inside of the primary carboy.

I look forward to trying this beer out! With this batch we had to steep some included grains and drain it into wort. Definitely a new step for us, but tons of fun! This was also the first time we’ve tried out the secondary fermenting step. Seems that this step will help the flavor of our beer as well.

Liam and Clare are doing well. The little one has started to fuss a bit more. He’s much more vocal during the day and night. Mostly just little wimpers, grunts, and whines. He rarely cries (*knock on wood*).

Clare’s been given the OK to drive again, and has had more strength with each day. Today we’ll be going over to Mason Park in Irvine for a picnic and walk.

I love Father’s Day!

Woo! Today I got my birthday presents from Clare early!

To go along with the theme… she got me my very own bowling ball, ball bag, and bowling shoes! Rockin’! I’ve always wanted my own bowling ball (even though I really don’t bowl very much… that’ll change now!)

The shop she bought it from was very cool. The staff were awesome, chatting us up the whole time they were measuring my fingers, giving us tips (bowling, and baby, tips). They custom drilled the holes in the ball and we were off on our way. I’ll post on Tuesday night, after I’ve tried my new gear out!

After my mom’s surgery, we celebrated at the nearby Cheesecake Factory with drinks. From left to right: Sam (old friend of the family), Aunt Susie (Aunt from Venezuela), Aunt Joan (Aunt from Florida), Cousin Susie (Aunt Susie daughter that lives in New York). And not seen in the picture is my brother, just to my Cousin’s left.

Then, for my birthday on Saturday, Clare took me (and a group of friends) to the horse races at Santa Anita! It was a blast!! Then afterwards we all came back to our house for continued gambling (Clare gave me a gambling table and card-shuffler for Christmas) and partying. Also, I got the coolest birthday cake ever, designed by my roomate Marc.

Woo!!

On Saturday I went to the 2:40pm showing at the University Edwards because Bruce was going to be there! It was a sold out show… with an amazing number of freaks in line. The movie was horrible…. horrible and FANTASTIC! The story of an aging Elvis Presley in a nursing home with an African American JFK, saving their small community from a soul-thirsting mummy.

After the movie Bruce did a Question and Answer session. Some of the questions were as bad as the movie… the whole time he was incredibly sarcastic about his career and his movies: “Are you disappointed that there wasn’t more interest in Bubba Ho-Tep from the big motion picture companies?” “Uh… you just saw the movie, right?”

Unfortunately he didn’t do any signings afterwards.

Oh, also… Returner looks DAMN cool!!!

John’s friend from college, John, drove up from San Diego with his family on Saturday (his wife and two kids), and we all went swimming. It was great to have so many laughing kids around the pool, diving and splashing.

Sunday we went to Main St., Huntington Beach for lunch before they left.

Some pictures from the weekend!

I wish I could say that I’m entirely out from under it, but the people at Paramount have a finely tuned eye for detail, and there are still a few bugs to be worked out. Definitely nice to be able to say I was the Tech lead for this project, though!