Normally by this time of the year I’d be looking forward to the Triton Invitational Water Polo tournament at UC San Diego.  Four years ago 14 teams participated.  Three years ago the tournament was down to a field of eight teams.  At one point there were five UC teams participating from what were then nine campuses.  Even with Cal  (Berkeley) itself never making the journey, it was always great as an alum and most-of-my-life Californian to be able to see water polo teams from five of the nine campuses competing against each other in some quality match-ups.

Just finally saw this year’s schedule this morning:this year’s tournament is down to five teams, with the host being the only UC present.  No brackets, just each team playing every other team once.  I’m sure there will be some quality games, but the trends are difficult to ignore.  Hard to not see it as just another step on the UC’s ongoing Drive to Mediocrity.

At least from our vantage point, the Comic-Con organizers seem to have finally figured out a registration process that makes sense.  We went to the off-site location, showed our IDs and e-mail registrations, and were politely handed our badges.  Twenty-one minutes from parking to putting on the lanyards.

Photos from this year will be going up in this album.  I’ve thrown together a dynamic album of all my Comic-Con shots here for those interested in past years as well.

Saw in the server stats this morning that this photo of Randy and the wonderful John Barrowman is now the ninth most viewed photo in the local gallery here at Howling Point. Out of 1367 posted photos, this is the first non-sports photo to crack the Top 10.

Randy met the actor who played Captain Jack Harkness (not to mention “Lead Tenor” in The Producers) at the 2009 Comic-Con.  I stood several feet away with the camera and tried not to be too jealous.  Hopefully they can rekindle their relationship at Comic-Con this year, which by the way starts in only 27 short days.

One week ago today, thirty or so very good friends and family gathered at The Linkery in San Diego to celebrate Randy’s 50th birthday. The people at The Linkery outdid themselves with great service and great food, and while the Big Five-Oh is easy to poke fun at (and there was a ceremonial presentation of Spinner’s first AARP card), the rapidly-marching-to-death jokes were kept to a minimum, and as far as I could tell a great time was had by all.

Very early the next morning we left Diego and the Great Basil Forest in the care of a wonderful housesitter, and set off for Hawai’i.

In hindsight we’d redo the itinerary. It seems ridiculous in hindsight to fly 21 minutes from San Diego to LAX, then sit on some very uncomfortable seats at LAX draining the batteries on various portable devices for three hours until our flight to Kona. We could’ve driven to LAX in less than two hours, and still left home at least 90 minutes later than we did. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice… As for Delta – I know it’s been a long time since I’ve done anything but a hop from here to the Bay Area, but $25 to check a bag and no food except a bag of peanuts on a five-hour flight? Ohmygawd you’re cheap bastards and you’ll get no linkey-love here.

Once we got off the flying metal deathtrap though, life was renewed. I suppose for Randy it was like how Logan’s spin through carousel should’ve been. Hours of people reminding you of approaching mortality, more hours trapped immobilized in a sealed metal tube, then whoosh…PARADISE!

In our first two hours on the Big Island we swam in the ocean, swam in the resort’s pool, then had mango daquiris and kalua pork quesadillas at the hotel’s poolside bar.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday: we shopped, we ate, we swam, we bodysurfed, we paddleboarded.  Lots of details in the photo captions over at Vista.

Yes, I got injured a couple of times, but it was all still absolutely worth it.  I got stung by a jellyfish or something, but I got stung swimming the water portion of the Ironman course in Kona.  I beat up my ankles on some silly rocks, but I did it body surfing at Magic Sands on the Big Island.   I suppose I should mention the dead brain cells from several rounds of Mai Tais too, but that doesn’t sound nearly as butch as the swimming and bodysurfing.  Would it help if I said they were flaming Mai Tais?

We visited palaces and churches and archeological sites and generally behaved like gawking tourists we were.  Spent lots of time sitting on the seawall just watching local life: the triathletes and open-water swimmers, the locals playing, the outrigger canoe clubs, the birds and crabs doing their things.

We had a great time.  The vacation was way too short.  Probably wouldn’t have come back but for the grim realities of modern life spelled out by Quicken, even given my responsibilities to appear in court this Tuesday.

The flight home was relatively uneventful: same tin-can of death, same lousy service, still no love for Delta.  Diego not only survived, but seemed much better after five days with the housesitter than he’s ever seemed after any time at all in the kennel.  The Great Basil Forest is thriving.  After 36 hours the mountain of laundry finally seems surmountable.  I’m back and I accept it, happy or not.

- Randy, the husband, also known as Spinnerdude, is celebrating his fiftieth birthday today.

- I found out last night that I won an Honorable Mention ribbon at the San Diego County Fair for a photo I took back in February 2009 of a Cal Poly SLO – Navy Academy rugby match down at the Del Mar Polo Grounds.

-  Today is Friday.

Focused on the upcoming vacation, and really wondering why I took on so much family law work.  OK, it was for billables in a recession, but ramen can be tasty and if I’d stuck to my principles I’d be much skinnier heading out to the Hawaiian beaches next week.  I’m expecting to be seeing lots of sights like this or maybe this.  Maybe even a Baywatch moment.  At this point even hanging out with cute little tropical fishies would make me very happy.  If you know reality is different, please don’t spoil the anticipation for me.  That anticipation is really all that’s keeping me going at this point.

Cal became national champions at Rugby again yesterday, beating BYU 19-7 at Stanford.  I didn’t get to see this year’s team play, but there are some shots of the 2008 and 2009 teams up from their visits to San Diego.

This is the 24th time since 1980 the Bears have been national champions.  Go Bears!

The traditional gift for the second anniversary of a marriage seems to be cotton. This year may be unique though with Judge Walker setting closing arguments in the Proposition 8 trial for June 16, one day before the second anniversary of hundreds (thousands?) of same-sex couples in California, and two days before our own anniversary.

Even though paper is supposed to be for the first anniversary, I’d overlook the faux pas if Judge Walker’s planning on issuing a favorable order for the big day.  Who would I be to say no?  Would I return it doesn’t come printed on something cottony, say big fluffy beach towels? No, that would be rude.  Not quite as rude as the people who tried to end our marriage, but rude none the less, and we couldn’t have that mar our celebrating.

If anyone else wants to help us celebrate, or drop a copy of the order by while wearing something cottony, we’ll be back at The Cliffs celebrating our anniversary.  Look for us poolside or follow the sounds of a fluffy little dog complaining he’s not getting enough attention.

Had a great weekend with the alums cheering for Cal at the Crew Classic. Not much to write up: Great food, Cal’s men won four races outright and was the only boat with the balls to take on the Olympic Team in an exhibition race, and for whatever reason, Cal’s women did not travel to the event this year.

Psyched for an alumni fan boy weekend. Randy will be out of town being judgmental, but I’ll be spending Sunday down at Mission Bay cheering for Cal Crew. Once again the very cool local Cal alums are hosting a tent and it should be as good as ever, despite the city’s paternalistic attitude about alcohol on the beach.

I missed last year due to an opportunity to head to Vegas (and watch Randy be judgmental), but definitely looking forward to heading back down this year. It’s always fun to watch the Bears win.