Mr Mira Mesa’s 27th Celebration

It was wilfredos jr santos’ beday celebration friday and we gathered around happy sushi for awesome beer and sake prices and buy 2 sushi rolls and get 1 free deal. Even though they closed at 10pm we stayed there til like 11 and ran around in the parking lot (literally) til 1130.

Afterwards we went to Thin in downtown for the after party. TK told the security to kick people out by the time we got there. thats why it seemed like there wasnt that many people there. seems like everyone had a wonderful time. Ended the night with a nice fresh plastic plate of supreme carne fries.

Happy bday mr mira mesa. more photos here.

Jim Brown / Esquire Magazine

I’m not a Martin Luther King and a Gandhi motherfucker. I don’t know what they were talking about. Spit on my ass and I’ll knock you out. I ain’t going to sing and march, man. But I’m fair.

Evander Holyfield / Esquire Magazine

It takes just as much strength to handle the good things that happen to you as the bad.

My 1st Attempt at HDR

This is my first attempt at HDR (High Definition Range Imaging). This was a picture i took at the gloomy cove last week. With a few exposure setting in RAW and a kodak-lomo filter later, i would say the image looks alright compared to the original. More HDR attempts to come. Before photo on top and rendered photo on bottom. Shot with my Canon 20d.

UPDATE (bottom picture): So i took the HDR editing to the next step with tone mapping and now it looks so crazy real that it looks fake. I dont know if that made sense but ya know what i mean.

Gameday Videos

Pittsburgh Trip Summary

I had an absolutely awesome time. I think ever year I will plan on going to 1 away game for the chargers. It all starts by going to pittsburgh. Yes i know they lost and you may say what a waste but i dont think it was. the experience was awesome. Being in a stadium that is state of the art, looking at 5 vince lombardi trophies, being in a different atmosphere, and watching a football game in the snow was all worth it. I dont think id ever want to go to pittsburgh ever again but the experience was one of a kind.

The best feeling was when VJ caught that 1st td on our side of the field. Ive never felt that much joy. being in a huge stadium and being only one of the few charger fans in a span of 1000 seats and in the 3rd row cheering in front of everybody. by far the best feeling.

The steeler fans were cool, well atleast the 98% of them were. some were ignorant bastards that obviously dont see that many asians in their city. thats fine, i pity them. they have nothing to live for expect their sports, their steel, and most importantly, their ketchup.

Would I ever go back to pittsburgh? NO. well unless it was the afc championship game with the chargers in it or the super bowl but other than that there is no reason to be there. there nothing to do but drink your depression away. the experience was one of a kind. i cant wait until we do it again next year.

Whos down for Cowboys vs Chargers in the new Dallas $1 Billion stadium?

Click here for more pictures from the trip

Chargers Hangover. On Our Way Home.

The day after we had the hotel breakfast buffet. mike had a 50% off all food card. the waitress was filipina and was in awe that there were fellow asians in pittsburgh so she just charged us the continental breakfast price.

Got to the pittsburgh airport with all the fellow charger fans just excited to go home. We also flew home with kyle kraska from channel 8 news and with his two camera guys with their big ass cameras. We talked a little about the game and he gave doug and kimtan the name tags from some of the chargers lockers in the locker room.

We had to get our plane d-iced twice on the way home. We were so happy to get out of crappy pittsburgh. we landed in chicago and had a 2 hour lay over. we ate subs at this place at the airport called pot belly’s which was good. the airport started cancelling flights out after 6pm because of the snow storm that was coming. our flight was at 505pm and was one of the last 4 flights out. i wouldnt have minded staying over in chicago over night. I passed out before we even took off so it shortened the ride home.

its good to be home.

Game Over

It was a depressing ride back to our hotel. Had to wait for the big ferries to take us back. Met some cool steeler fans the way back. So many steeler fans were talking shit but i didnt care. i kept to my business but the only good thing going for us was going home back to sunny san diego. there is absolutely nothing to do in pittsburgh except drink and play in dirty snow.

Got back to our hotel and ate at the hard rock cafe like a 1 min walk away. We were the only charger fans in there but a lot of the steeler fans gave it up to us for following our team to pittsburgh.

Chargers vs Steelers

We all know the outcome. the chargers had a bad series of luck. you cant win a game with only running 1 play in the 3rd quarter. what a horrible 2nd half. enough said.

Pre Game Warm Ups

So after hanging out in the steelers walk of fame, we checked out the chargers warm ups and had many close encounters with the players and coaches. Oh yeah and a whole bunch of media photographers. I just hope they appreciated us being there all the way from san diego.

To Hienz Field

Sunday morning before the game we walked around the hotel to test the weather. It wasnt as bad as i expected. I went from wearing snowboard pants to just wearing jeans with thermals.

We took the water taxi that leaves from our stadium and drops us off right in front of the stadium. The only reason why steeler fans were talking shit was because the luchadors from san diego were being rowdy. It was a short 5 min boat ride. As we landed the snow flurries started falling.

We got into the stadium 3 hours before the kickoff to check out the new stadium. dont get me wrong, pittsburgh is crappy but they do have a nice stadium. They have this side of the stadium which was pretty much the steelers walk of fame. they had live music, 5 super bowl trophies in cases and other steelers stuff. We were pretty much one of the few charger fans that got in there early.

2 hours before the kickoff they finally let us into the seats of the stadium. I did my research before coming to pittsburgh and knew what tunnel they came out of and where they warmed up. We stood close to our seats and the tunnel and started seeing a bunch of the chargers come in and out on the field warming up.

In The Mix

Quickie Around Station Square

Gameday.

As of 745am pac time, there are snow flurries.

Woke up this morning to SD time. Mike had 50% off room service so we got breakfast sent to us. We are staying at the sheraton station square which is across the river from heinz field. I took some pics of what the weather looks like from our hotel room. Its gonna be a crazy day. LET GOT BOLTS!

Welcome to Pittsburgh.

No one said that to us. It was more like “GO STEELERS… blah blah blah”.

We left SD to Pittsburgh via Las vegas. Believe it or not there were prolly a good 20-30 charger fans on their way to pittsburgh. there was one guy on our flight that was a steelers fan wearing gay wrist bands and a mexican steelers poncho!? and yes, he was talking shit. When we landed in vegas, pretty much all the charger fans connecting to the next flight possee’d up and headed to the next gate. Met with North County Times reporters and photographers that remembered me and doug on the front page last tuesday.

The whole day in the airports all i heard was “go chargers”! It was amazing how many times we heard that. On the flight to pittsburgh, a friendly charger fan sat with us and hooked it up with free drink tickets for beer, wine, or mixed drink. The whole flight i watched curious case of benjamin button. It was an awesome movie. Im surprised my computer lasted the whole time. Mid way through the flight, the pilots announced the final score of the raves/titans game and passengers on the plane went crazy.

Arrived to pittsburgh to a whole lotta steeler gay pride. it seems like all the airport has to decorate it with was stupid steeler gear. I guess thats the only 1 thing to be proud about in pittsburgh. got a taxi and found out the driver was in steeler gear. great. before we drove he had to put his terrible tissue on the dashboard.

Got to the hotel and checked in under a big sign that says “steeler country” and a whole lotta steeler fans in the lobby. already a lot of heckle-ling. We took a taxi to a bar/food joint called fat heads. in the charger forums, people were supposed to meet there tonight. the food was good and especially the beer. I drank the ROGUE FAT HEADS IPA 5.5%, ROGUE DEAD MANS IPA 6.5%, and a shot of MARKERS MARK.

We are back at the hotel and about to pass out. im not going to adjust to pittsburgh time. and by the way, the weather is cold but warmer than i expected.

The plan tomorrow is to meet fellow charger fans at a bar called finnagans at 11am (8am pacific time) and party till game time. We are going to head in the stadium a little early to check out the new heinz field, check out chargers warm ups, and what a superbowl trophy looks like.

Things are good out here in pittsburgh. theres a lot more chargers fans than i expected. A LOT MORE. a lot from san diego. im so nervous. its gonna be hard to sleep. time for bed.

good night san diego.