Goodbye Phoenix! And Good Night!

Today marked the end of my vacay in Phoenix. Goodbyes were said and hugs were exchanged. But before we get to that, I will tell you about my day yesterday (Monday the 13th). I woke up at 8:12, quickly got ready, and went with my Uncle Lance to take Hailey and Garrett to school. It was their first day of the new school year and I couldn't imagine how bummed out they were. They were big kids though and handled their teachers and new classmates like men. While the kids were at school, my uncle and I went to this landscaping/homebuilding warehouse type place. My uncle is building an outdoor kitchen in the backyard so he needed some materials. After he bought what he needed, we dropped it off at the house and we went shooting. Yup, with guns. Yes, real guns. And yes, I, Sean Song, pulled the trigger on a real gun. In order to legally shoot the guns we brought out in the open, we had to drive out into the desert in the middle of nowhere. But before we left, we needed things to shoot. So my uncle stopped to get gas and sent me into the QuickTrip to buy some targets... a 12 pack of soda cans. I picked Wild Cherry Pepsi because it was the cheapest they had and it's wildly delicious. So we laid out the cans and put some on raised platforms for the main attraction (more about that later). I'm lucky to have such a patient uncle, let me say that right now. With the first couple guns I shot, I couldn't hit a sumo wrestler if he stood ten feet away from me. I really sucked at aiming using the pistols.

It wasn't until I shot one of the bigger guns we brought did I have more control. It looked like a typical army man's gun. It rested against my shoulder so I felt like I had more control over it, which made aiming a lot easier. I hit a couple cans with that one. And seeing a pepsi can fizz up and explode after you shoot a bullet through it is a pretty satisfying feeling. How powerful the kick is on some of those guns is just crazy. I had no idea it was so hard to keep a steady hand. We saved the best for last. We busted out "the fifty." Another appropriate name for this last gun would be the "don't-mess-with-me-or-I-will-shoot-you-from-a-mile-away-gun."


It weighs about forty pounds, it's about four feet tall when it is stood up vertically, and it's in a number of action movies. That thing is insane! First of all, when it is fired, it is so incredibly loud that I had to brace myself whenever it was shot. Secondly, there's a huge burst of air that is backfired at you when you're shooting it. I'm talking like enough air to recreate the Marilyn Monroe photoshoot if you wore a white dress. And lastly, the bullets that thing shoots are huge and they travel amazingly fast. I shot a glass beer bottle with "the fifty" and it made me feel like a manly man. We were out there for about an hour and it was about 111 degrees out. But it was pretty fun shooting all those different kinds of guns. I mean I'm not a gun person, but it was one of those experiences that you can really appreciate and still have fun with. I wouldn't have done it if it was anyone else but my Uncle Lance, I'm glad we got to do things together this summer. Well after I "played terrorist" as my uncle jokingly said, we picked Hailey and Garrett up from school and then my Auntie Lara came to pick me up. But first, my Uncle Lance showed us his dinner for the night (huge King Crab legs!).


Then my Auntie Lara took me to Saporro where we would meet up with my Auntie Lana and eat. It's this really modern looking sushi place with pretty good sushi. My Auntie Lara told me it's like a night club at night and people try to pick up dates there. It was their happy hour so my aunties and I went happy and ordered 60 bucks worth of half-priced sushi rolls. The place was good, just like they told me.

[to be continued...]

I Went to the Grand Canyon?

Well my aunties took my cousins and myself to the Grand Canyon this weekend and it was vonderful. Let me break it down for ya. My Auntie Lara picked my cousins and myself up from my uncle's house Friday afternoon and we met up with my Auntie Lana at their house. Then we ate and spent three hours or so driving to Williams, Arizona. It's basically an old run-down "quaint" but hick-like small town. Cowboys are seen as cooler than Batman and Superman in Williams. Cowboys are pretty much the ideal profession in Williams. It was a cute little place. Our hotel was conveniently located right next to the train depot where we would journey to the Grand Canyon the next morning via train. Friday night, we walked around downtown Williams, which was probably about the size of your neighborhood, if that. Something that was pretty cool about that little town was that Route 66 ran right through it. So we did as the tourists do and took pictures in front of the Route 66 sign. Then we ate at Max & Thelma's restaurant, the dining/gift shop place located next to our hotel (which was also owned or founded by Max & Thelma whoever they were). Before we ate dinner, we stopped by the gift shop and my Auntie Lara bought me a pocket knife key chain with my name engraved into it. It is BAD @$$ mann. Keeping that thing in my pocket makes me feel invincible. I mean sure, a ten year old kid could strangle me before I could pop the little blade out of the thing but whatever. It's still cool and it is officially my first real weapon! And it was only $4.99 pluse tax. A dinner buffet at Max & Thelma's was part of the Triple A package my Auntie Lara paid for. The buffet was satisfying to say the least. Mac & cheese, potatoes, steamed vegetables, string beans, broccoli, two different kinds of pastas, honey barbequed roasted chicken, clam chowder, salad, and prime rib. Then the desserts included chocolate puddiing, banana pudding, red jello, yellow jello, carrot cake, strawberry shortcake (ghetto version), chocolate cake, nasty looking cake, a different nasty looking cake, and whip cream for your dispensing pleasure. Sounds good, huh? It was definately good. The buffet made the trip worth while and this was before we even saw the Grand Canyon.

Let's fast forward to Saturday morning. I had trouble sleeping. Well for one, we all went to bed at 11:30 which is super early for me. I kept waking up and the bed or the pillow or something was just not working for me. Oh well, it happens.... at bad hotels. Haha I'm just kidding. Well I woke up at 6:50 AM and we left for a buffet breakfast that was at the same restaurant we ate dinner at the night before. The food included pancakes, potatoes, french toast, sausage, bacon, scrambled eggs, biscuits and gravy (that looked like fish fat), four kinds of cereal, and an oatmeal bar (definately a highlight). We ate for an hour or so and watched a staged cowboy shoot out. It was funny, grody at times, and cheesy, but entertaining nonetheless. Then we walked 200 yards or so to our train car. Our train attendant (?) was named Kathy and was very nice. The train ride was two hours and 15 minutes long but seemed longer. We arrived at the canyon and it was absolutely breathtaking. It was so huge and so stunning in its natural beauty that pictures don't do it justice. Everything about it is just so amazing that it makes you realize how big this world is. For the first time in my life, I wanted to be an eagle soaring over Arizona. Okay the last four sentences were bs but I'm sure some people felt that way. Don't get me wrong, the Grand Canyon was indeed much bigger than I thought it would be. I thought it would be more orange but what are you going to do? It was pretty crazy to look down and out and see nothing but rock. It was uncanny how big the Grand Canyon is and how far it stretches. It's 7,000 feet above sea level. What a drop! And apparently at least two people a year experience that drop and a not-so-sudden stop. Which got me thinking how stupid some people can be. There is like a three foot rock-built barrier around the rim and people still manage to fall off and "sugar we're going down swinging." Thinking about that fatal drop gave me the idea to throw rocks down into the canyon. That was fun! I couldn't see where my rocks finally landed but just knowing that they fell 3,000 feet or so was enough to make me throw more and more rocks. We ate at El Tovar or something like that. Rachel Ray ate at the restaurant we decided to eat lunch at on one of her food network shows. My aunties and I ordered the same thing Rachel Ray did just because Rachel Ray ordered it and that seemed like a good enough reason at the time. It was the Novajo Taco, which was Indian fry bread on the bottom of a plate topped with lettuce, tomatoes, red onions, and cheese. It was mediocre at best. We blame Rachel Ray. As long as I don't end up looking like her after eating that thing, I'm fine.

[to be continued...]

Vegas Baby, Vegas!

Today we got back from Vegas. What a trip! I loved it for a number of reasons. First of all, it's a city. I love the city life and always have. But I don't dig all the cigarette smoke and dirty advertisements in Vegas. I wasn't too fond of the 100+ degree weather either, so I guess a city more like San Francisco is more my style. Nonetheless, I liked Vegas. I thought it was fun. Big hotels, bright lights, cheesy replicas of famous landmarks. That's basically the ideal formula for tourism. Secondly, I saw Emily there! We both stayed at Treasure Island and everything sort of worked out. Explaining everything we did there would take far too long and far too much energy to try to remember everything. Ergo I will just upload all the photos I took with hopes that you can create a story of your own to go along with the pictures.

We stopped at Hoover Dam on the way to Vegas.



Paris during the day.

m&m's world!! I didn't go inside it though.

Treasure Island (our hotel)


The Mirage.

Look who it is! It's not a Mirage!

The errupting volcano show we watched at midnight.

The Venetian (my favorite hotel on the strip)


Caesar's Palace


[to be continued... more photos to come!]


Here is a tribute to Michael Jackson starring myself along side my cousins Hailey and Garrett.

Vegas, here I come!

Today was my day off of work but since I'm one of those worker types... I worked today too. But not at the shop. I worked for my aunties today. They needed to clean out their attic so I lended them some muscles, since mine are so huge. So we did that from 1ish to 6ish probably with breaks in between. It was probably 10 degrees hotter up in the attic than the temperature on normal ground level. I was up in the attic most of the time. But for 45 minutes or so, I was pulling weeds in the front yard. My lower back hurt so bad afterwards. That pain only lasted like three minutes though because I'm immune to pain. After we got all sweaty and covered in dust, I showered and drank some juice. Now I think the plan is to go to Trader Joe's to buy some snacks for tomorrow's road trip because

WE ARE GOING TO LAS VEGAS!!!!

Yup, my uncle's family, my aunties, and myself will all go to Las Vegas tomorrow morning and will return sometime Tuesday. I have never been so I'm excited! But I'm even more excited because my beautiful girlfriend Emily will be in Vegas as well. She's there now actually. And get this, we are even staying in the same hotel! Treasure Island baby! Pirates! Whooo hooo! Well after we go to Trader Joe's tonight, my aunties and I are coming back to their house to eat and watch a chick flick called Friends & Money, or is it Friends With Money? I could care less what it's called because I most likely won't want to watch it. Well I have some packing to do and some food to eat and sleep to get. I'll be checking in on Tuesday because I'm not bringing my laptop to Vegas. I miss all of you back home and thanks for reading!

Chilllllll

Yesterday and today were quite low key. I didn't see my cousins at all yesterday or today, which feels kind of weird because I have been seeing them so often. So yesterday went sort of like this... I went to work, left work early at about a quarter to three because my uncle had to install a sound system in this guy's boat back at the house. So after work, I just chilled around my uncle's house, at some sweets, and just laid down in my bed. Then my Uncle Lance and Auntie Debbie took me to eat sushi for dinner at a place called Fresh Wasabi. My autnies (laRa & laNa) met us there also. I orded "Sushi Two" which was a salad and miso soup served with a plate of 10 regular pieces of sushi and a full spicy tuna roll. It was pretty good. Except the piece of sushi with this white rubbery-textured fish on it... and I didn't really care for the sushi with a piece of the Kracken on it either. Then my aunties took me to a Marshalls because it was its grand opening. After that we drove through a Sonic and I got a banana split which was pretty legit. Then we went back to my uncle's house and my aunties went home. My Auntie Debbie and I decided to be daring and watched Disturbia and I did not like it! Those thriller movies are too much for me. By the end of the movie, my back was all sweaty from the suspense. I will never see that movie again. Well today came around and it started like it usually does. I went to work and... worked? Well... I "worked." My Auntie Lara stopped by the store today also, so she took me back to her house where I will spend the night tonight. I snacked and watched some documentaries on the Discovery Channel while it's still shark week. I'm not sure what it is, but I think sharks are pretty cool. Probably because they're so big. Or the Great Whites at least. They kind of remind me of myself. Anyways, enough about me... after that we went to Costco to buy a combo pizza and we just finished eating it. Now we are headed to Blockbuster to rent Casino Royale I believe. Well I'll check in tomorrow.

ranDUMB ramblings:
1) Arizona tap water tastes like poop.
2) Cold water from the faucets here stay cold for up to five seconds before getting warm.
3) I've had three bloody noses so far.

Catching Up

Well I haven't written anything for the past two days, which I'm sorry to all three or four of you actually checking this thing, so I'll do a quick recap. On Monday, my Auntie Lara took me, Hailey, and Garrett to Pei Wei for lunch. I got Mongolian chicken with white rice and it was good. I also jacked two cups of lemonade. I don't feel bad though. (Please forgive me God.) Then we went back to my aunties' house to make birthday cards for my Auntie Lana because her birthday was the following day. I wrote a cute little poem that really touched her heart, I think. Then my Uncle Lance picked his two "rugrats" up as well as myself and took us to Dave & Buster's. We were there for probably an hour and a half or so. After that, we went to my uncle's house and ordered pizza and wings from a place called Brother's Pizza. The pizza was pretty good, but the bottom part of the crust kinda had a cardboard type of texture and taste. Then we planned on watching a movie, but I fell asleep early that night, around 11 or so. Then Tuesday came around and I had work at 9 am. It was pretty dead. I shredded some papers, emptied the trash cans, scraped off some corroding metal off of an old AC unit in the installation shed, and played some online games for about an hour. My uncle decided to close shop a half hour early and we went to Costco. Then my Auntie Lara, Hailey, Garrett, and me went to my Popo and Gung Gung's house to eat wonton soup for my Auntie Lana's birthday. She turned like 32 or something (; haha. After that, we went to Ben & Jerry's because we had coupons that expired that day. I got a strawberry kiwi smoothie. But on our way there, we drove through a thunder and lightening storm. Pretty intense. I tried to take pictures of the lightening but it was almost impossible, but I got a few.




Soooo today.... I went to work and did what I usually did except a little more tasks I suppose. Tasks like collapsing boxes, putting new shipments into the stock room, and kind of assisting my uncle build a speaker box. Well in the spirit of celebrating an employee's birthday, my uncle closed the store an hour early. Soo after work, we went to Sportsman Warehouse. It's basically a Costco sized place full of hunting and fishing equipment and supplies. We're talking rifles, air soft guns, bullets, fishing poles, dead animals, fake animals, bags, camping gear, and other outdoorzy stuff. I felt so out of place because I know nothing about any of that sort of stuff. But I took pictures of some of the dead animals scattered throughout the place. Well I really only took pictures of a "mountain goat" that looks like a polar bear. Then the other animal is a badger that looks angry.




Probably one of the most bizzare things I have ever witnessed while we were driving back to my uncle's house. It was pouring rain with the sun shining as bright as ever. The outside temperature was still in the 90s I'm sure, but it was raining! It was crazy. And then after two minutes of pouring, the rain stopped and it was completely dry. Then three minutes later, the rain would start up again. Then surely enough, two minutes later we were driving on dry roads. The sky looked... well pretty rad. Part of the sky was super dark with rain clouds all over the place. Then another part of the sky was its usual light blue color. The coolest sight was the dark rain clouds covering the sun with sun rays breaking through the holes in the clouds. I'll end this post with the beautiful but stormy Arizona sky.