Jason had an extra ticket to the US-Mexico CONCACAF Cup match at the Rose Bowl.


After an 08:00 Santa Anas-blown Del Mar session, I joined Scott and Ryan for the drive up to pregame with LA people at Angel City Brewery. A couple of pints later we hopped on the metro out to Pasadena.



From the metro it was a short walk to a long line for shuttle service to the stadium.


On account of crushing disappointment, it's hard to talk about the match. Suffice it to say, chasing an equalizer made our two goals very sweet and added time was an excitement I did not get to partake of in Brazil.

The Galaxy S3 finally died after it took a tumble off of my soccer bag not long ago. I was way out of contract so it was a good time to evaluate the options:

• Stay with Sprint. $75/month, remarkably responsive customer service (particularly with getting me a femtocell) but that's about it. Stupid surcharges, e.g. $10/month for having an LTE phone. And, well, when I was still on contract web pages would frequently 404, but it miraculously improved when I had the option to go somewhere else. Midrange phones were looking to be in the $400 range plus contract.
• AT&T. Nope, dead to me.
• Verizon/T-Mobile. The expensive good one and the cheap meh one, probably looking at $110/$60, respectively. I didn't get as far as finding out how much phones were, but I can assume the same ballpark.
• Google Fi. You have to get on the list, but it's $20/month + $10 for ever gig used. Month-to-month, the only supported device is the Nexus 6 (on Amazon for $350).

Yup. Went with Fi, been decent so far. The only notable exception was having H(SPA?) in rural Maine but no packet service.


A week after a lovely Encinitas beachside wedding, I hopped a flight up to Bar Harbor, Maine for more nuptials. Portland (ME) was great and the beach towns are pleasant, cottage-filled affairs. Acadia was lovely for jogging and the island has two breweries. I wouldn't say it's too much different from other parts of New England, other than being more remote.



It'd be a shame to go all the way out to the east coast and not stop into DC for a sweet gaming session. Planetside was the game of the day, as you might guess from recent posting.

I also took J's college-era surfboard out there for Lil'J's big boy room. Flying to Maine and then Baltimore with a surfboard prompts all manner of random commentation.


The board transfer meant I had to procure new fins, since my only other FCS set were for a thruster. But it's all good, having a carbon board with plastic fins is tragic.

Sunday started with the Merseyside Derby at 05:30, then the League of Sport Frolf event at Morley Field. Early morning drizzle kept the crowds away, but it stayed dry the entire time we were out. 19 holes later Cooley and Chelsea tied Courtney and myself at 75, but they won on the tiebreak hole. Not sure about the Jamie/Brian v. Heather/c/Erik matchup. Afterwards we headed over to South Park Abbey for wings and football and crowds.









A couple more vids that just show pretty sights and a little bit of action.