the daily dub

Last night I made history.

A year or so ago I first heard about a candidate, a young candidate, for the presidency. One who had a lot of community support, one who spoke about change, about fighting corruption, and about progress.

Last night I watched that man give the best acceptance speech I’ve ever heard in my life.

Last night, I helped to elect the first black president in our great nation’s history.

Sadly, though, another piece of history was made last night. While the majority of the nation was saying, “let’s put the past behind us, and focus on the issues, rather than the color of our skins or our political party affiliation,” the voters of California were saying just the opposite.

Last night, California voted to pass Proposition 8. Proposition 8 makes it constitutionally illegal for same-sex marriages to be recognized in the state of California. Last night, voters told the gay community that they could not legally enjoy the same relationships that the straight community can, and for what reason? Because of their sexual preference.

Clearly, this is an issue of civil rights. And we just robbed a large portion of our state of a very basic, and necessary civil right - the right to enjoy the same level of love and commitment that everyone else can enjoy. Having just recently gotten engaged, I can only say that this very deeply saddens me. Every day with my fiance brings me joy, and to think that some of my close friends are being told by the state of California that they too cannot - no, are not allowed to - feel that joy is depressing.

I sincerely hope not one person in my family voted yes on Proposition 8.

I called up continental. Every flight into and out of Houston, Texas prior to 2pm was unconditionally canceled. This includes my flight. Unfortunately, since the cause was weather (as opposed to overbooking, mechanical malfunction, etc.), Rule 240 does not apply - so I had no dice getting my Continental fare transferred to another airline that didn’t have to go through Houston.

Eventually, they found a flight. 3pm departure from Indy, 8:06pm arrival in SJC. This is a 9 hour delay from my original arrival time. Very, very no bueno.

So, I took the flight as a contingency, and immediately loaded up Travelocity.com (shameless plug - thanks guys!), and booked a US Airways flight from Indy to Charlotte (wrong way!) to SJC, leaving and arriving only 1 hour later than my original flight.

Diving catch number 67 of this god-forsaken trip.

I need a new personal adviser to tell me “hey, dip shit. Don’t fly to the east coast (/mid west) just before a hurricane hits the gulf coast.

Especially when the words Houston, Texas are printed all over your itinerary.

*head-desk*

My Boo and I went fishing today on a whim. We went and bought our Bay-Delta stamps (even though we didn’t actually need it), headed over to Lexington Reservoir, and started fishing for trout and bass.

I tried various flies (was fly fishing), from a grasshopper, to a bubble bee, to a minnow, to an elk-haired caddis fly, with no luck at all - not even a strike.

Athena, on the other hand, thought she had a snag hooked on the other end of her Krocodile lure — at least until it started moving sideways on her!

She landed a nice, 14″ Large Mouth Bass - her first fish ever! Very nice! (And very tasty, too!)

All in all, the scenery around Lexington Reservoir wasn’t very good, but spending the second half of Sunday fishing with my Boo was downright bad ass - especially since she caught our dinner for us! Everything we ate tonight was locally grown, even our fish!

Kick ass!

Athena and I went backpacking to Relief Reservoir from the Kennedy Meadows Trailhead right near Sonora Pass this weekend as a last minute trip. The hike was unbelievable - very spectacular (and hard). We were rewarded for all our hard work with a splendid campsite right on the beach of Relief Reservoir (@ about 7000 ft). On Sunday, we fished all day. Of course, we had to forget to put on sunscreen (we both skipped because “we were wearing hats…”) and so today, we’re paying for it - fried a nice deep red color in various places.

Something happened on the hike down. I must have tweeked my left knee a bit, because today (and last night), I can hardly walk.

All in all, though, I’d say it was a kick ass overnight trip! The views up by the reservoir were amazing.

Since my return trip to Lyon’s Lake got weathered out this past weekend, my Dad and I instead opted to go Fly Fishing on Sunday. We headed up the American River to a little known spot on the side of Highway 50.

Really, no sign, no parking (save for the side of the road). I’m sure almost no one knows it’s even there - we had no one bother us all day. There’s this turn in the road, with a “40 mph curve” sign, and right there, bam: Random day-use area. Picnic tables, swimming/fishing hole and everything.

So, at about noon, we setup our rods, and started fishing.

Right off the bat, I had two strikes from what looked and fought like small steelhead trout. I’ve never had one of these on the line before, so the two minutes that I fought each one before they jumped off was pretty exciting.

After that, we had about 5 hours of nothing. No strikes, no fish swimming by, nothing. And then, at 5 o’clock (damn drunk fish), my dad gets a strike from a HUGE rainbow. He barely landed the thing - right as he got it to shore, the fish broke his line. He only got it because the damn thing was so in shock from fighting him, that it just wouldn’t move once it broke the line. Almost going in the water, he was able to grab the end of the line, and yank the fish on shore.

A beautiful, 15″ rainbow trout.

15″ Rainbow Trout caught by my Dad

My Dad with his catch

Too bad we didn’t get to eat it (I was running late to get home, back to Sunnyvale, so I missed out).

Until next time…