It was my first time down to San Diego in the longest time. The band had moved out of Casa La Mesa; Bob, Mark and Kevin now had a three bedroom in Grossmont and Brian had moved in with two girls from his work place. We decided to crash at Brian’s because his two roomates (they were sisters), were in Colorado visiting their stepdad.

Brian had forgotten to give us his address so Hui Chin and I spent a few minutes hollering out his name in the parking lot. We eventually found a phone and called him.

Brian’s new place definitely had a female touch to it (everything was color coordinated and the place did not smell like old socks and stale pizza.) In the apartment with him was Brian’s new squeeze, Elena. It was my first time meeting her. Just tought I’d mention that.

To cut to the chase, Hui Chin and I were down in San Diego to catch a Chargers-Rams pre-season game. I had not caught a live NFL game before and it was the closest the Rams were going to get to LA this season.

Qualcomm stadium was packed when we got there and it took us a good hour just to park. As a result, we missed the coin toss. Bummer.

The St Louis Rams, a.k.a. the greatest show on earth, s.k.a. the LA Rams, packed Qualcomm with more Ram fans than Charger fans. In the stands, Ram jerseys outnumbered the home jerseys by about 5 to 1 and a Ram firstdown brought a lot more people to their feet than a Charger touchdown.

The game started off really slow and it was tied at 0-0 up until midway through the second quarter when Warner rolled left on the 15 yard line and completed a pass to the tight end Ernie Conwell. Touchdown St Louis, and we were about 6 rows behind the uprights where all this happened.

At half-time, because it was a pre-season game, Rams coach Mike Martz took back to back MVPs Warner and Faulk out of the game as they marched into the locker room with a slim lead. Trung Canidate took over for Faulk and some yet-to-be-heard-of guy took over for Warner. San Diego scored a late touch down in the fourth quarter to tie the game at 10-10. In the final minutes of the game, St Louis marched the ball the other way to the 1 yard line and find themselves with a 20 yard field goal and 5 seconds on the clock. Jeff Wilkins kicks the ball through the uprights, the clock runs out and St Louis is charged for holding. The play is negated and they go into extra time. San Diego scores a field goal in extra time and the Rams lose.

But, hey, I got to see a Warner touchdown.

Ryoko and Frank arrived. The pizza arrived. Hui Chin arrived. The crazy bunch arrived. We had ourselves a party.

After dinner and some goofing around, we decided to head on to Castle Park for some minitature golf. Ryoko was the best player amongst us having ammased the most points. Unfortunately, because of our after dinner dilly dallying, we weren’t able to complete all 18 holes. Or else I would have been able to catch up.

Back at our place, Ryoko translated the Gundam Wing theme song for Hui Chin and I. To my amazement, the theme song was really raunchy. Well, not raunchy, raunchy. It was more along the lines of sophisticated raunchy.

Ryoko had a flight to catch the next morning so she and Frank left early.

Before bed, Bob and the group performed a song they wrote. It’s always nice to have song under one’s roof. And so I went to bed happy.

I picked up the phone and listened for awhile.

“Hi, I was wondering if you’ve seen my monkey?”

Bob and Muriel’s group were in town without Muriel. This group was going to be a lot of fun.