If you give a man a Moose steak...

He's probably going to want to take a picture of himself looking like an idiot with the steak. Ahh Fall, the colors, the smells, the beards. (Seriously, way more beards in Minnesota than in California, I feel like I'm with my people there. On the other hand, I am a little disappointed with the lack of men wearing flannel. They were pretty rare and even when I did see them they were carrying "Caribou Coffee" cups, no chainsaws, no axes. I'm beginning to think these Minnesotans are going soft...)

Wait, rewind. I lack creativity and I must proceed chronologically so lets go to the previous week.

Wednesday October 16th, we spent about 4 hours or so cleaning our old apartment like crazies. (Pictures coming for all this stuff, I only have the ALMS pictures on my computer at the moment.) We signed a new lessor onto the lease the following day and we got out of there. We also rented a massive Budget truck and moved all of our crap into the new place. (Massive thanks to Kristine and Jason for the help.) We're still setting it up and getting things arranged but it is worlds better. A garage, I'll list things in order of importance, a GARAGE, a main bedroom with attached 3/4 bath, a nice big living room and kitchen with bar dividing the space and a guest room/office and a full bath. Additionally, there is big backyard which has grass coming in, an area in the corner for a small herb garden, a patio with rockery area and a locking gate which opens up directly into a park...Score! The park has an off leash area, tennis courts, odd octagon basketball court and baseball fields right off our backyard. The dogs love it and Reg and I do too.

Shortly after, ~12 hrs later, my two brosephs Scott and Josh flew down from Washington. To hang out on my birthday and to attend the American Le Mans Series championship at Laguna Seca Raceway in Salinas/Monterey, California. Unfortunately I had a midterm on Friday which ridiculously, they spent the time helping us unpack, walk the dogs, wash the car and change the oil in advance for our trip. Seriously, these guys are ridiculously nice. Scott made us all ALMS shirts which are SUPER AWESOME as you can see in the opening picture. It is almost absurd how great these guys are. After that little tiff of a test was over, we headed down early Saturday morning to Monterey to pick up our tickets. The trip was filled with car-diculous discussion and a few high RPM screams from various cars including a very very nice sounding M6. We spent the day hunting around the paddock scoping out cars, getting into the pits of an ALMS limited prototype 1 class (LMP1, the top class) and getting to shoot the hay with a mechanic for about half an hour. Pretty awesome. The usual Porsche, NSX, Corvette, and Ferrari cars were there to drool over during the very brief stints between racing and of course we staked out an excellent spot on the corkscrew to watch the last bit of the race as we entered into darkness. So hot.

On the way back up to Davis, we swung through Palo Alto and picked up my cousin, Kevin. We all kicked it the next day engaging in a riveting game of Bocce and multiple face off's on Forza 2 on the X-box 360 playing the Laguna Seca course, of course. Kevin was able to hang out till Tuesday Morning and took me to see the Portland, Sacramento exhibition game, which surprisingly, allowed me the opportunity to see Greg Oden play more than he probably will in this season since he injured himself in the first 2 minutes on opening night. We also did battle on the basketball octagon court. Hmm, we did battle on the Boctagon. Yes, the boctagon. An epic battle at that. Unfortunately after that the pressures or school work pulled me into a frenzy and Kevin's flight flew him back to Seattle.

Now, that brings me back to the moose steak. The moose steak we were eating at The Happy Gnome restaurant, a little bar with some pretty cool food and a great selection of brews. We met up with Meg and Steve there, our friends from college who were also in town for Marie and Ben's wedding. I actually had Surly porter, which was pretty good, sounded like all the beers were strong in hops though. I also had a duck dish which was pretty good, not the best, but not bad. Pretty good atmosphere and lots of crazy garden gnomes all over the place. We headed back to the hotel to get in on some games with the Gabrielson/Raley extended clans and catch up a bit.

The day of the wedding we scoped out downtown Minneapolis. Specifically on a hunt for Caribou Coffe, the local joint, which was remarkably hard to find. We also checked out Lindor Park a really cool park and an awesome sculpture garden. Of course the cherry and spoon are famous, but my favorite piece was this thing that had a swinging platform below it. When you sat on the platform, through a variety of pulleys and ropes this giant structure had pieces that would begin to swing subtly as you did. Super cool and I have to admit, I like things that are interactive and mechanically interesting. (I did want to make a coffee table out of a small block chevy and a piece of glass...)

The wedding was beautiful, as Reagan put it, her second favorite wedding she'd ever been to. The little chapel they were wed in was absolutely gorgeous especially in the fall. Marie suprised Ben with a song she wrote and sang to him, something he apparently always insists on her doing but she never will. It was very beautiful and beautifully performed. The reception was at a nice country club near by where they had a live band and an open bar and we rocked it the best we could. It was a really good time and great to get to hang out with Meg and Steve.

On Sunday we met up with some of Reagan's family in MN, Mark and Sandy, for breakfast. They are a really nice couple and as Reagan spoke to them I could really hear her accent start to sharpen back up. We even hit a little flurry of snow as we sat there eating breakfast. For a second, I thought the leaves, the snow, the people... I could probably live here. Then I went outside and realized why it was able to snow. Brrrrrr.

On the flight back we had a short layover in Seattle, but we were able to visit with Bryon, Paula, and Celeste which was really nice albeit short. It was really nice of them to come out to Seatac for such a short layover, we were worried if the flight was delayed that it might all be for naught and we wouldn't have time to cross security, but luckily it all worked out ok.

Thus here we are, tired but really happy we have such great family and friends in our lives. We can't wait to see everyone soon. I've already started humming Christmas carols around the house...


P.P.S. Flyby video from Turn 4 of Laguna Seca Raceway, pretty awesome.