Oops, I never told about my trip to SF. It was for a regional conference for the board members of the Texas Exes chapters. As you may or may not know, I am on the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles chapter. My title is Chairman, Thirsty Thursday Committee (basically I organize our monthly happy hours). The trip started after a work on a Friday, when I met my friends Tricia (the President of the LA Texas Exes) and James (the Treasurer) at James’ condo. From there we took a cab to the airport and made it with minutes to spare in catching our flight. Anyone in our family can relate; for some reason, none of us seem to think the "1 hour before your flight" rule applies to us. Our flight was uneventful and we landed in Oakland Airport in the middle of the first half of the Texas Men’s Basketball Elite Eight game against Xavier. Since there was a game-watching party near our hotel, we decided to scramble to the hotel and try to make it for the second half. Unfortunately, time was against us. Even though half time is 20 minutes, the buses were slow, the trains were slow, and even the fast lane was slow. Luckily, I had my phone that has Internet access – I was able to keep us up to the minute play-by-play (although now I’m afraid to get my phone bill this month!).

Once we got to our hotel, we checked in and went downstairs to a wine & cheese welcoming event. There, we met several people from the San Francisco chapter, as well as the East Bay and South Bay chapters, and from Denver, and St. Paul. After the wine & cheese some of the SF folks took us out to a local dive bar. It was great, cheap beer and good company. I met several of the girls there who are my counterparts in the Bay Area chapters (they organize the happy hours too) – two of whom were cute (Marissa and Marie) and two who were very social and party animal types (Alyson and Cheri). We all had a great time that night.

Saturday was the conference part of the trip; we had a big meeting in the morning which included two speakers, and several activities. There’s an anecdote here: one of the activities was designed to show how some people get left out of a group when they don’t know anyone (a common problem for newcomers to monthly happy hours). We each got a piece of paper with a word pre-written on it, and we were supposed to match up with the people who had the same word. Of course, there were certain papers that didn’t have any matching words and mine was one of them. As I was walking around trying to find a match, Marie also was trying to find a match, so we banded together despite our unmatched papers. The coordinator thought it was very telling that we both served on social committees. Overall, the group was in general impressed with our LA chapter – we seemed to have good ideas, good organization, and we had already implemented solutions in our chapter to some of the problems other chapters expressed.

After the lunch meeting, we were free for the afternoon so we took the time to walk along the Fisherman’s Wharf and have a beer. James’ friend from college (Stephanie) and her husband (Aaron) joined us for the rest of the trip. That evening we attended the SF chapter Texas Independence Day barbecue, where I won a half-rack of ribs! After the barbecue, the Bay Area girls invited us out again, and since we didn’t have a meeting scheduled for the early morning we stayed out late. In fact, we took a limo back to our hotel. Sunday we walked around the city some more with Steph and Aaron, until we all had enough clam chowder and shrimp to eat. That pretty much ended our trip. Our flight home was delayed 1 ½ hours, it was a long boring wait in the airport.

Haven’t really done too much lately. Mostly just running errands after work; for example, today I did some laundry and yesterday I went grocery shopping. Pretty boring stuff, but I’m preparing for my trip this weekend.

The Texas Exes are having a regional conference that is being hosted in San Francisco. I’ll be flying up there this weekend for the conference with a few other people. It should be a mix of business and pleasure. I’ll let y’all know when I get back how it was.

It’s been a busy weekend for me! Starting since St. Patrick’s Day actually (Mar 17^th).

WEDNESDAY: That night, even though it was a Wednesday, I went out with a few friends. We wanted to go to an Irish pub that wasn’t too far away, since most of us had to work the next day and we didn’t feel like driving out to Santa Monica. The first place we drove to, Barney’s Beanery in Hollywood, was packed! There was a long line, which at Barney’s is rare since they generally don’t try to be so pretentious. No one wanted to wait an hour to get in, so we decided to go to a little dive bar that I know in the Valley. That place was packed too, but since I know the bartender (she was an ex-roommate of a Texas Ex) we didn’t have to wait long before getting in. We had a great time, although Bret was the only one who wore green, and every girl that walked by gave him a hug or a kiss on the cheek.

FRIDAY: My friend Ally’s birthday. She was having her party at a bar (Shane’s) in Santa Monica. Ashley wasn’t in the mood to go out (she was a little down since having her car accident, no injuries except to her poor car), and Nita was out with her friend Sabina, so it was just us guys – David, Hunter, Bret, and myself. We got to the bar around 1100pm and one of Ally’s roommates (Lauren) was already headed home, partied out. We only had to wait about 15 minutes in the line before getting in. Shane’s is a great place, they have three sections: the front, where there are tables to kick back at; the middle, which is an open area and tables to mill about and hang out; and the back, where they have a DJ in a small room for dancing. I tried to meet one girl there, a really cute Asian girl, but she was there hanging out with her boyfriend’s brother, so she was really nervous talking to me. Oh, and for people reading my Xanga who are wondering: yes, I danced (with Ally’s other roommate Whitney).

SATURDAY: A day of relaxation. Around 1pm I called Nita, and we went to Santa Monica to have coffee and brunch at this great little café in a hotel lobby in Santa Monica. They have some of the best coffee there. We ordered a couple of food items, which weren’t so great, but neither of us felt like drinking (they also have excellent cocktails) or having dessert (never had dessert there, but the dessert menu sounds delicious). It’s a pricey joint, so we dropped $60 between the two of us. Afterwards, we stopped at O’Brien’s to watch the UT basketball game (UT v UNC – we won). Hunter, Whitney, Ally, and Lauren showed up to watch the game too, and since Nita left early, Hunter was my ride home. I was tired though – in bed by 930pm.

SUNDAY: After mass, I went to Starbuck’s for my Sunday morning routine: grande mocha no whip and the LA Times. What a liberal rag that paper is, let me tell you. From reading it, you’d guess that LA was full of people who thought that Saddam’s government was flowers and back-rubs for the Iraqi people. Anyway, usually I just hang out there for about 2 hours and sip my mocha and read the paper. My friend Ned was back in town from visiting his parents up North so he came by to sit with me. Eventually, we decided to roam around town looking for a bath mat and toilet seat cover which I’ve wanted to get for my bathroom for some time now (tip for bachelors: the bathroom floor will stain the bottom of a white towel). I was also about to buy myself a network router so I could hook up the multiple computers I have at home, but I didn’t want to drop another $50 bucks since I’d spent considerable money in the past two days already (see Friday night, and Saturday brunch).

As most of you may have noticed, I rarely post to my Xanga. However, I’ve decided that one of the things I will do for Lent is to post more often. So basically, I’ll talk about what I’ve been doing lately.

Mostly just work. A colleague left the company and so now there is more work for the rest of us. What this means is that I’m in line for a promotion and raise. We’re in the process now of interviewing candidates for a junior analyst position – someone that will do some of the grunt work and probably report to me unofficially.

In non-work related news, I’ve been having a good time hanging with friends and such. Just last night I went out to an Irish bar with a few friends (there were a total of 8 of us) and had ourselves a good time. I took a couple of pictures on my cell phone, I figure since I got a phone with the camera option I should use it a lot.

Tonight, there is a house-party that I’ve been invited to. I’m feeling tired, but it seems like several of my friends will be going and so I may go as well. I’m not particularly in the mood to drink tonight, so maybe I’ll offer to be the designated driver, if I choose to go at all.

Now, I don’t want to go overboard with my first post in a few months so I’ll keep it short and try and post again tomorrow.