i keep a diary

December 03, 2004

Alyshas 30th Birthday in Tahoe

My good friend Alysha Naples hit the big three-oh. We threw down big.

Wednesday, December 1st

On Wednesday night we gathered at some bar downtown to celebrate Alysha's 30th birthday! Here's Heath, Kerry, Michelle and Jeffrie.
After everyone had a few drinks and gorged themselves on the ridiculous spread of food at the bar, Brian took the stage to introduce a very special birthday guest.
The crowd waited with apprehension and then...
...CORN-MO APPEARED! For any of you not in the know, Corn-Mo is like a modern day Meatloaf except that he plays the accordian and sings songs about being mistaken for Gary Busey. Alysha'd started taken accordian lessons because she was such a big Corn Mo fan so Brian arranged for him to fly out and play her party as a surprise. The best part about watching Corn Mo perform is that he...
...has a cymbal on the floor and a drum stick shoved under his shoelaces and everytime a line in his song crescendos...
...he stomps on the floor and hits the cymbal with his shoelace drumstick. Shit's soooo fucking funny.
Here another shot of Corn Mo pouring his heart out.
The crowd.
More Corn Mo.
More crowd (cracked up by Corn Mo).
Corn Mo taking it down a notch with a piano ballad.
Before returning to the accordion to wail away. (I think he's doing his famous rendition of Queen's We Are the Champions in this pic).
accordion
alysha, cornmo
The birthday girl with Corn Mo. The funniest part of the night is when Brian started telling everyone how earlier in the week, Alysha, who goes to SO MANY shows, saw that Corn Mo was going to be in town later on in the week and wanted to go to the show - not knowing that the only reason he was going to be on the west coast to play said show was because he was first flying out to play her private birthday party. Brian had to come up with this whole elaborate ruse to try to talk her out of going to the show.
alysha ˆ cornmo
alysha, cornmo
Alysha even busted out her accordian and played a few bars for the man who inspired her to learn.
accordion ˆ alysha ˆ cornmo
Apparently, the first thing they teach you when you take accordian lessons is how to make and hold this expression (more commonly known as "Accordian Face.")
Mmmmm...red cake.
Me, B-day Alysha and Mike Doyle!

Friday, December 3rd

On Friday morning, Brian and Alysha picked me up and we headed to Lake Tahoe for a snowboarding weekend!! (Well, actually we had to head to the airport to pick up Joanie's boyfriend Richie who came in from LAX but fell asleep at the airport and so after driving all the way down to the Oakland airport, we had to turn around and drive back up the SFO airport. This 3 hour snafu landed us smack-dab in the middle of rush hour and basically tacked on another four and a half hours onto an already long car ride. Not that I'm STILL MAD about it or anything.)
Here were are stopping for a much needed In N' Out pit stop. Mmmmm.
Parking lot feast.
We finally arrived at the (crazy "If My Grandfather were a Cowboy / Pimp / Rancher" themed) house around midnight and just had enough time to...
...line our boards up before settling in for a few drinks and then beddy-bye.

Saturday, December 4th

Got up nice and early and went out on the back deck to check out the sweet views of Lake Tahoe.
The sweet views of the insane mansion next door...
..and most important, the sweet views of the huge-ass hot tub on our deck...which we'd soon be needing to soothe our "holy shit we're old and don't excercise much" sore muscles.
Out in front of the house packing up Alysha's wagon and Heath's truck with gear.
Check out the technique! Cam with timer on the dash! Noice! L to R: Me, Guillermo, Joanie, Richie and Alysha.
'Brito surveys the McMenu.
Breakfast of Champions.
Alysha recommended we head to Alpine Meadows - a local's favorite with no crowds and check tickets.
Alysha, me and Brian getting ready to take our first run.
Lake Tahoe in the background.
First run.
Lunch.
Mountain out the window.
Heath (definitely NOT Alysha) and red-nosed me.
Heath's truck loaded up for the trip back to the house.
In his excitement to open up the recently-purchased Grand Theft Auto III, Guiellermo ripped off the cellophane wrapping AND the vinyl cover that holds the game cover on the DVD. Hahah.
Birthday Girl poses with her friend, BigFace.
Chad and He-Soo.
Birthday pasta feast!
I stopped for a sexy pose down to show off my almost knee-high blue thermal socks before...
...doing the holy-christ-it's-cold-and-I'm-only-wearing-a-bathing-suit mad dash across the snow-covered deck and into the hot tub.
Heath was worried that I'd try to put the moves on him in the tub so he constantly made this face to discourage my advances.
After the hot tub we all got our brownie ice cream sundae on and...
...keeping in mind this is Alysha's birthday we're talking about, settled in to watch...
...The Big Lebowski! Surprise, suprise. Yo, I'm totally not exagerating when I say that I'll be Alysha's seen this movie AT LEAST 75 times. (What about it, Al? Is there an official count?)

Sunday, December 5th

The next morning, the four of us that were ambulatory (Every year I'm amazed at how FUCKING SORE I am after first snow) we got up bright and early and headed back to the mountain. (You just can't get enough of me in that helmet, can you?)
Early morning at the mountain.
We ended up only riding for about three-quarters of the day because after a ton of runs we were all so sore we could hardly move. The end!