Friday:
It was Grandma Jean’s birthday, and she decided to celebrate it at Thunder Valley, so she invited a bunch of the fam to dinner there. I was still up in Sac, so I said why not, and my parents were going too. The whole dinner thing wasn’t exactly planned too well. My parents and I got there before everyone else (we drove separately). When Grandma Jean did show up, maybe 30 minutes later, they had to wait for Auntie Grace to check in, since Auntie had free rooms or something. We were also going to have to wait for Cliff and Vince to show up before we could eat dinner. And since it was a big group, and it being a busy Friday night, getting seated would’ve taken hella long. My parents and I didn’t eat before-hand, and we were hella hungry. Taking into consideration the points I just listed, we just said eff it and went to the food court to eat on our own. I think we finished eating and parents drove all the way home before the other group left the restaurant.
Another why I couldn’t wait, other than that I was hella hungry, was cause I had to leave early to go back to Vallejo and help Tim install his rear Brembos. God, they’re nice, but way to expensive. I could not justify getting those for the mini. But freakin A....now I’ve been looking into less expensive big brake kits, like the set that Wilwood sells. Brembo and Stoptech only sell the fronts, but Wilwood sells both front & rear, and combined they’d cost a little less than Brembo adn Stoptech. If one year, I have the extra cash, then maybe I’d consider it. But now, it’s totally not necessary, and it’s basically just for show. Though, it would look soo freakin nice.....
But anywho, we didn’t start till maybe 1230am. Being n german car (an Audi S4 Avant), things initially didn’t go so smooth. It progressed from “How the hell do we get to THAT bolt??”, to “Aww crap, do we have to remove the shocks??”, to “Why isn’t this lining up right??”, to getting a hammer for some “gentle persuasion”. And 3 hours later, we got the driver side done. Now knowing what the hell we were doing, the passenger side only took us an hour, and it would’ve been quicker if we didn’t forget to re-connect the shock after we mounted the wheel. But it was well worth it.
Saturday:
Jaymi, Jacqueline, Albert, Haile, and I volunteered for the Bay Area Brew Fest through One Brick. We signed up for the 1st shift so that we could drink afterwards. Our shift was from 11am-2pm, but the event didn’t start till 1pm. The vendors were setting things up themselves, so for the first maybe hour & half, we weren’t really doing anything. Albert & Jacqueline were at the Lost Coast Brewery table, and Haile was at the Rogue Brewery table. Jaymi & I started off at the front checking people in, which was mistake. It was a hella nice day: clear skies, sunny, no wind, but bad for us since we were outside with no shade, and I didn’t bring a hat or sunglasses. But eventually we switched with the people pouring beers. I was at the Anchor table, pouring Liberty Ale and Anchor Bock. Anchor is a local SF brewery, and I just so happened to be wearing an A’s shirt, and basically everyone with any SF Giants gear gave me shit. I suppose I kind of had it coming.
After our shift, we went outside to eat. There were 7 different food trucks, and the event coordinators gave us food vouchers worth up to $10 in food (and they also reimbursed us for parking, which was $10). The lines were pretty long, but I guess that was to be expected. I ate at the Brass Knuckle truck and order a bacon-wrapped hotdog and sweet potato tater tots, which were freakin amazing! After we ate, we went in for more drinks. We should’ve drank more before we ate cause by the time we finished eating and went back in, a lot of the breweries were out of the popular beers. But it was all good, there was more than enough other beers to try out.
Afterwards, we went to Japantown to eat again for some reason. We all ordered our own things, and (surprise, surprise) only Jaymi was able to finish her meal. Then we stopped by Sophie’s Crepes for a crepe, but since we were all sort of full, we all just split one. We also went to the Nijiya Market, cause I had to stock up on ramen, yakisoba, and the chocolates for work. I swear, the drawers at my desk at work could pass for a japanese mini mart.
Jacqueline wasn’t feeling too well after the event. She says it was because she had a bad headache all day and NOT drunk, but I think it was cause she wasn’t used to drinking all that beer. She ended up yakking in the Japantown parking garage, and Albert sent us a picture of it. Gross.
Sunday:
Stress relief at the Blue Rock Springs driving range & lunch at Bud’s with Kev.
