Family BBQ and Race

There was a Moiseff - Trudelle dual family BBQ that had been planned for months and was taking place at the Priory.  Part of the days events included a race.  There were probably about 50 people involved, so more than just our two families.  The race was a total of 10 miles, but was not just a straight running race.  After the first half mile or so there was a competitive eating component to it.  I got to that part, and my task was to eat one box of chocolates and chug a beer before I could continue.  I felt fortunate that I only had to eat chocolates.  It was a lot easier than some other people's.  I kept trying to leave without finishing my beer and chocolates.  Some judges were there and would make me go back until I finished.  After another quarter mile, there was a long line of racers for the rope-swing component of the race.  I showed up to that part in about 20th place, and was irritated with myself for feeling so out of shape.  I also felt like this part of the race was pointless, since people were just standing in line, negating their previous efforts.

I started swinging on the rope swing, which started out pretty tame, just over a grassy hill.  Before long, I was swinging very high in the air, inside a huge auditorium, that was more like an airplane hanger.  I was up near the top of it, swinging in huge circles high above the floor as I held on with just my hands to the rope.  Nobody seemed to notice or care.  As the rope wrapped more and more around the pole in the middle, I got scared that i'd just slam into the pole at the end.  I was going faster and faster.  Somehow I landed on the floor and was unhurt. 

Then I was biking through Portola Valley with my friend Nick (from the first part of the dream).  As we rode past what is currently the retirement community, it had been converted to a church.  The church was on private land, so you couldn't see it that well.  It had a lot of ceramic statues on the grounds.  A little further on, where there is currently a big open field, and the Windy Hill open space preserve, was a ton of ugly industry.  Piles of dirt and cement lay around in gray rain.  Dump trucks drove around to quarries.  In the background, a lyric "city of the damned" from the background vocals in green day's american idiot musical kept playing as we biked through.

Then we went to a 49ers vs SD Chargers game.  It was raining a little, but warm.

Out of control Elevator

I was in San Diego, it was warm.  I was at USD and back in my freshman dorm, but it was different.  It had been re-done and was nicer.  I pressed 4 in the elevator to try to go to the 4th floor.  The elevator started going up, but then it didn't stop and the door wouldn't open to get out.  We went past the 4th floor up to the 5th floor, and then immediately started going back down, only much faster, so that we were floating in the elevator.  When we got to the ground floor, all of us (me, my friend Muller, and a few people I didn't know) would crash to the ground.  Nobody got hurt, it was just annoying that the elevator wouldn't work properly.  It kept doing that - we'd go up really fast past the fourth floor, then all the way back down, floating as if weightless, to the bottom.

Later,  my friend Chris and I we were walking around in the woods on the fringe of campus.  We were going to climb a fence to help a scruffy and homeless college kid who lived in a drainage pipe.  When we tried, he warned us that he had killed many people, and we shouldn't come any closer.  While we were pretty scared of the guy, he all of a sudden put his backpack on and started walking with us to campus.  He remarked at the new buildings and how nice they were, and how he hadn't seen them in years since he had been living in that drainage pipe.  At night, I was walking around.  It was drizzling, but not cold at all.  I walked by the soccer field in the valley, which is just used for recreation and is not the main soccer field.  I walked by, and it had been set up for the Womens NCAA title game.  I didn't watch the game, but it was Penn State against UCLA, and Penn State won.  There could only have been a few hundred people able to see the game.

A Tropical Vacation

Part 1:  Rachel and I were on vacation.  It was somewhere warm, and our place was right on the water.  The water came up to and underneath the room that we were staying in, so that we could have jumped from our balcony right into it.  We were only a few feet above the water, and  it was very very blue.  And very sunny.  We were in a resort or hotel, but there was nobody else around.  No neighboring rooms, hallways, checking in, etc...  Outside our room, dolphins swam by.  One of my colleagues, Brian, rowed a very small boat past our room.  I was in the room, but he was telling me how great the fishing was and how many fish he'd caught.  I let him know that I thought that was great, but I'm hanging out with my wife right now.  Later, Rachel and I were in one of those boats.  We were inside a very large rock cave that was well lit, so you could see how blue the water was and easily see everything around you.  The whole row over there we really hadn't seen anyone at all.  It was like this big beautiful area with almost zero people.   Brian rowed up to us again and held up a bag of fish, and went into detail on how successful his methods had been in catching him fish.  I looked at the bag, and saw they were small fish, like mackrel or something.  Part 2: Was at the cafeteria at USD talking about the Giants with my friend Nick. Part 3: I accidentally dialed the number for our pastor at 3:00 AM.

Bees and Whirlpools

I was at my parent's house in Portola Valley.  Miles was older than he is now, maybe 18 months.  He went outside and walked under the trampoline in the back yard.  My cousin's kids and their friends were jumping on the trampoline, so I told them to stop so that they wouldn't hit him.  All of them stopped right away except for my cousin's daughter, who was purposefully not stopping.   I had to sternly tell her again to stop so that Miles wouldn't get hit.  Then I felt bad for cracking down on her.

Next, I started getting stung by bees that lived in the walnut tree by my parent's back yard.  Every time I went outside, I'd end up getting stung.  The bee would get bigger and bigger every time.  I stopped going outside after awhile.   A lot of people gathered on the baseball field behind my parents house to witness a phenomenon.  At first I thought it was the bee thing, but it turns out, there were whirlpools that would appear and then disappear.  Each one was bigger than the next one.  The last one I remember was so big that most of the infield was covered with water.  I was out there, and looked back to where all of the water was draining to.  It was flowing to under the porch of my parents house, where there was a big pit.  We could see clearly into it because the porch was cut away and there were lights shining down into it.  The pit had a character that lived in it that I'd describe as a sinister / borderline evil King Triton.  It appeared that he was the lord of these massive whirlpools.

Green Day and Ping Pong

I was hanging out with the guys from Green Day.  They had been in a plane crash but had survived.  Billie Joe was describing what happened as we walked through the scene.  The plane had been flying at a very very low altitude and was either connected to or following the path of a chair-lift type system - essentially green metal towers with metal cables that were stuck into the ground.  There was wreckage and mangled metal all over the place.  As he described, not long after takeoff the wings fell off.   The plane was still flying without wings, so  a helicopter came in and had a claw like device that grabbed the fuselage and tried to fly with it in it's clutches.  Eventually, it was too heavy for the helicopter to carry, so it crashed in the green hills of northern CA.  Everyone was ok.

Part 2
I was at USD and it was nice and warm.  I was dressed casually in jeans, but wasn't wearing any shoes.  Since it was warm though, the ground felt great and it didn't bother me.  Some people were showing me around campus, which had changed since I went there.  When we went to the gym, I was instructed to stand in line for ping pong practice.  The coach was playing another student, and really exerting a lot of effort.  It was an intense match, and the coach was winning.  It turns out, the coach was one of my former customers from work.  As I waited in line to take my turn at ping pong, one of the other guys in line told me that this is actually Harvard, not USD.  And it's required that everyone play a sport, so the guys that play ping pong do it because it's the least amount of required practice and there's really no stress.  After ping pong I went to the library.  They were only allowing you to read one book at a time.  I remember standing under some banners that had pictures of old works by authors with the same last name as me. 

A second Chili Peppers Show in Seattle?

Part 1

The Red Hot Chili Peppers were coming back to Seattle for another show.  (They just played here a few weeks ago, then went to Canada, so I dreamt they were coming back on their way back into the USA).  Again, I had suite tickets for the show.  I was with my friend Shawn.  We were driving to see the show on I-5 by 85th in my accord.  It was dark out already and there was a ton of traffic.  It turns out, there was some sort of border crossing right there.  Everyone was either getting out of their car to walk, or just waiting out the long line.  Shawn and I got out of my car to start walking to the show.  It was an exciting scene, everybody was looking forward to the concert.  As we approached the police at the border, I asked Shawn where Miles was.  He said "oh he's asleep so we just left him in the car seat."  This bothered me quite a bit, because we just left the car in a massive traffic jam in the middle of the freeway.  It wasn't even officially parked in a lot or on a street. And my son was asleep in it, unsupervised.  I immediately said that I can't go to the show, and I started making my way back to the car.  I gave my ticket to Shawn to sell.  He posted it on facebook and it sold really quickly to someone that I went to elementary school with.  When I got to the car, Rachel was there with Miles, so everything was fine.  I couldn't get my ticket back so I hung out with them in the car.

Part 2

I was at the Priory pool, playing some games with my brothers and sisters and some people that I didn't know.  The pool had been nicely set up for a swim meet and had all the flags.  People were doing synchronized diving from dual diving boards.  I started swimming across with width of the pool, holding my breath underwater.  A bunch of people started following me.  We were passing right underneath the  serious swimmers that were swimming laps, and trying not to run in to them.

A business appointment that went wrong

I had an appointment to meet with someone about a loan.  They requested that I meet with them at their condo, which was on the 94th floor in a building in downtown Seattle.  It was dark when I headed over there.  When I got there, it seemed to be the same building as the downtown Marriott, which I only knew because the building is shaped like a tall cylinder.  I got into the elevator and pushed 94.  The ride up was taking awhile, and I realized that I didn't have my tie on yet.  I stopped the elevator at a lower floor and got out to tie my tie.  I don't remember getting back in the elevator but somehow I was inside someone's condo (with my tie on) and it was the wrong person.  It was about 6:00 on a weeknight, and there were a few people in there, having drinks and smoking.  They had a beautiful view of the whole city but didn't seem to notice or care.  I remember thinking to myself that they must not work.  Whatever the case, they weren't the people that I had the appointment with.  I apologized and started out towards door, but they got really mad and started yelling at me.  They said I had trespassed on their property.  I don't know why I didn't just continue leaving, but instead I got down on all fours and kind of started to cower as they just kept berating me.  They said they were performing a citizen's arrest on me.

Prince Harry and Yogurt

Was hanging out with Prince Harry.  He was about a foot taller than me.  He wore huge armor on his legs made out of wood, kind of like a catcher's shin guards and was generally a good guy.  Then my friend Andrew and I were talking about me investing in a Menchie's yogurt franchise.

Hippie Colony

I was at a reception that my friend Daniel was putting on.  My brothers and sisters and I found out that there was some fancy, refrigerated tapioca pudding.  We were sneaking it out of the fridge and eating it.  We either got kicked out, or we left.  All of a sudden I was in this hippie colony.  I knew we were in Las Vegas.  It was really hot.  There were busses advertising the release of "The Killers" CD.  Somehow though, the year was about 2002, because that is when that CD came out.  Where I hung out was this area where people just kind of laid around.  Sometimes people didn't have pants on, and I thought that was awkward since city busses kept driving by.

A new office on Rural St.

I was working for the company that I worked for when I was in San Diego.  They called an in-person meeting, and it was to be held in a newly developing area of Orange County, about an hour north.  For some reason, this area hadn't been populated yet.  When I was driving up, I was excited for the news that I envisioned them announcing - that our office would be relocating from San Diego, to this new location.  I looked for Rural Street, and followed the directions to the office.  It was a really nice office, right on the Pacific, with the beach and blue water right behind it.  My anticipation grew, and I started thinking about if my family should move there, or if I should commute from San Diego every day.  Once the meeting started, the higher-ups said that effective immediately, we were all laid off and the company was disbanding.  I drove home puzzled as to why they made me drive up to this meeting at a nice new office, only to break the bad news to everyone.

Mountain Shuttle service

This is all from one night:

Part 1 - somewhere in the mountains with Rachel's mom and Grandparents waiting for a shuttle.  We had too much luggage and were behind schedule so we barely got the last shuttle.  The other ones kept leaving without us being able to get on.  One weird thing about the shuttles was that they had their customer service survey scores published on the side of the shuttle.  When we were concerned about not getting one it was getting cold and we didn't have a place to stay.  We contemplated having me walk to find a classroom or something (it was in the mountains, but seemed like a college campus at the same time).  Once we got a shuttle, I threw away polo shirt in the shuttle trash can since it was filled with baby poop.

Part 2 - I was at USD on vacation with Rachel, staying in some accomodations on campus.  The hotel was nice, but was surrounded by a patio where people were eating and socializing, so there wasn't really any privacy.  Once we saw some friends out there - specifically our friend Craig, we decided to go out and eat with everyone.  The view was really nice and it was warm.  While we were out there, we overheard a smooth talking mortgage broker trying to sell one of the servers of the party a mortgage.  Rachel and I butted in and said that I'd do a better job than he would.

Part 3 - Rachel and I were at an airport.  It resembled the Chicago airport, but I couldn't say for sure.  All of a sudden my friend Ed from high school ran by with a baby.  He couldn't keep the baby quiet.  It wasn't clear if it was his baby or not.  He stopped to talk to us for a second and invited us to dinner.

Rock N Roll

I dreamed that race organizers decided to move the Seattle Rock N Roll Marathon up from June to April.  I also discovered that there was a Social Distortion concert that night.  The two events were related, as the top ten finishers in the race would get to meet the band, go to the concert that night and be introduced on stage.  I decided I had a better chance of being in the top 10 if I ran the half marathon.  I looked up the previous years times and saw that if I was in shape, I should be able to do it.  I just was anxious about if I could get in race shape that quickly since they moved it up to April.

Creek Walking

I was on a creek walking expedition looking for a surf spot.  I was with some sort of boss or co-worker of mine, but it was unclear who it was.  Whoever it was, I'd never met him, and he drove a bare-bones Dodge Neon.  We stopped by another co-worker's office and he had a huge stack of red hot chili peppers concert tickets.  It turned out there was no surf spot because it was a creek, not an ocean, so there wasn't much water.  However, after hiking through the creek we did come across a Dam.  I had a pole that I was using to see how deep the water was.  We thought that the only way to keep going was to break the Dam.  But I secretly knew that we wouldn't have to do that if we used the other software system that our company was trying to make us use.

Trying to land safely

I was flying in a big commercial airline down to San Diego.  But, I wasn't in the passenger section, I was in the cockpit.  My Dad was flying the plane.  We were about to land, when for some reason we couldn't, so we had to pull back up in a hurry.  There wasn't any sort of crash or explosion, but all of a sudden I was falling through the air.  I wasn't falling very fast though, so I had time to think about everything.  My wife Rachel was there with me, and pointed out that if I could try to land on #27, a football player, it would break my fall and I'd be ok.  I missed #27, but landed fairly softly on some green grass.  I found Rachel and she wasn't hurt, but when I asked about my 3 month old son Milo, she said there was no way he could have survived something like that. 

Baseball Tantrum

Last night I had a dream that I was playing baseball in the hallway of a house.  I was up to bat, and the pitcher was not very far away.  He'd wind up and throw, and I'd swing and miss because I wouldn't have time to see the ball.  There were a few people there that I knew - this guy Ryan from middle school that I haven't talked to or seen in years, and my cousin Cam were among them.  After I got fed up with striking out, I complained that the whole thing was a joke.  Actually it was more like I threw a tantrum.  The distance from the pitcher to the batter was supposed to be 45 feet, and instead it was around 8 feet.  That's why I couldn't see the ball.  I demonstrated that the measurement was off by laying down, showing everyone that I was slightly over six feet tall and that obviously, the pitcher was way too close.  We decided to take the game outside.  Then I couldn't find my glasses, so I was worried that I'd come up to bat without my glasses on, which I would need to see the ball clearly.

Muller Chucks the Baseball

I've been meaning to start this blog for awhile.  When I tell other people about my dreams, they usually find them funny or strange.  While I might remember one for a week, I haven't been writing them down, so I'll soon forget.  Sometimes they are confusing or disturbing, and sometimes I don't remember them at all.  While there will be times I recall more, and times I remember less, I will promise this to anyone that reads this - I won't make anything up.  I know there was more to last nights dream, but here's what I remember.

I was with family and we were hanging out on a warm sunny day at the Priory pool.  My good friend Chris Muller was there.  When he was given the challenge to throw a baseball, he took it.  He threw it so far that it just kept going and going into the sky.  It never came down.

Snakes on a Truck

This started out where I had to use GPS to find a rattlesnake.  My dad and I set out to do this.  We were driving in an old red pickup truck somewhere warm and dry - probably san diego or Arizona.  The GPS knew exactly where to take us, because the destination location was marked with a snakes head. Before we got there, there were some narrow alleys where i'd have to get out and move people's trash cans before we could keep going further. When we got there, I found one snake that was almost dead.  It was mostly all bones - no flesh or skin except for the head.  The head was plush like a stuffed animal toy, not threatening at all.  As I was standing in the back of the pickup truck checking this thing out, other real rattlesnakes started coming out from in-between the cracks in the truck bed.  There were a few at first, so I was trying to pick one up by the neck so I wouldn't get bitten.  Then they kept coming, so I started stomping frantically at them.

Staircase to nonsense

This one i remember from about 2 weeks ago...

I was driving with my Dad in Seattle.  It was cloudy and cold.  We were driving the old 1990 Blue Toyota Camry that I drove for a bit in and after college.  I was looking for a turn to get onto the freeway, but I missed it.  As we drove in search of the freeway onramp, the freeway was getting higher and higher above where we were.  We made the decision to ditch the car.  It was the only way to get up to the freeway.  There was a very long flight of stairs - green, metal, switch-back style, like the ones under the Ballard bridge - except many more of them, and with absolutely nothing around it  Just air and the stairs.  Once I was on the stairs, it was just me.  I don't know where my Dad went, but I kept climbing.  I passed a Mom that was dragging her stroller and baby up the stairs.  I don't think I offered any help.  Other than that, there weren't any people.  When I got to the top, it was still under the bridge, and there was a gap between the top step and the platform that I needed to get to.  My friend Muller was there at the top, encouraging me to hop over to the platform.  It was a scary leap being so high up in the air so I struggled to do it, basically falling on it and grabbing on with my arms and pulling myself up slowly.  It was about 2 feet square, right under the bottom of the bridge.  All of a sudden it started rocking back and forth, so i gripped the platform tightly while I sat there.  The reason it was rocking was that kids were bungee jumping from another part of the bridge.

After a bit, I climbed up to solid ground.  Except it wasn't a freeway bridge anymore, it was a driveway/garden.  I was supposed to get a ride home with Miley Cyrus in her white Mercedes.  However, she told me it was full so I was stuck.  Then, these other "kids" (maybe college age) were kicking around my iPhone.  They also pulled out all of the voicemail tape from the phone. (like old voicemail machines that had mini-tapes where you could pull out the tape material), so i was losing all of my voicemails.  Father Mike from USD was there playing soccer with some younger kids / maybe Orphans.