Good ol' 4th of July...

Most of my celebrating this weekend was done on the 3rd of July, at a little get-together at Gabe's new pad. It was nice to go up there and see them, and others who I haven't seen in a while. We played wiffle-ball (my team school'ed 'em). Watched little Lando toddle around and play with his toy before he left the party early with his grandparents. BBQ'd. I ate a lot. Drinks were consumed, and drinking games were eventually started. Diana and I played a round or two (to the delight, I think, of the Redlands crew). Some people were staying and spending the night, but a little group of us left before things got too out of hand. All in all, a really fun evening.

Diana and I had the actual 4th to ourselves. We didn’t feel like hanging out at the beach in the crowds, or fighting traffic, so we hit up the movies and saw "Batman Begins". When the lights went down, I thought to myself "Oh man, here we go", meaning "another Batman movie, which has big potential to be really crappy." But, I'd heard nothing but good things from coworkers and friends, so figured there was a chance. And they were right! I loved it! I was super-stoked during the entire thing. It was dark, and intelligent, and made sense. It wasn't damn Jim Carrey and Arnold being silly comic book "villians", but a really smart look into the murky psychological origins of Batman. Christian Bale was solid. Liam Neeson was awesome. Morgan Freeman is my bff. Michael Caine was great. Katie Holmes was as bug-eyed as ever. It's rare that I leave a movie theater really satisfied, and in this case, I was. Go see it.

After the movie, I wanted to try to make it to the beach. Eryn left a message saying he was at a beach that I'd never heard of (surprisingly, I only stick to one or two usual beaches!), and we couldn't get in touch. And besides, the beach seemed like a long way from our comfy couch. We ended up going to Home Depot and picking up some new track lighting, and replacing our old crappy lights with some nice new halogen jobbies. We need to get some more lights, but that's easy. I wasn't familiar with track lighting, and how modular it is. I like modularity. I like doing house-projects with Diana, as well. We always have a lot of fun putting stuff together and making things look a bit nicer. She has a silly side that I'm not sure a lot of people get to see, but she never fails to crack me up.

We went to dinner at the Pacific Grill something-or-other, in Solana Beach, right near the CPK. I had salmon in some sort of pineapple glaze, and it was really, really good. From there, we walked down towards the fairgrounds and watched the fireworks. I really wanted to get close, so we walked down 101 towards the bridge, and sat on the east side of the street, with the lagoon below us and the fairgrounds right across from us. I love feeling the fireworks as much as seeing them, and because we were so close, they'd fill up the sky over us, and a second later boom in our chests. It was great. The finale was orgamsic. As we were walking away, I said "It would be funny if they launched up a few more, just to mess with people", and just at that moment, they did just that. Ha.

That night, I finished Cryptonomicon (my second time reading it). I enjoyed it the first time, but actually more the second time, when I could follow the plot a little closer. Really solid book, if you're a little more technically minded than your neighbor.

So there you go, Weekend a la Adman. Good times.