Toppling Tower and Tattooed Toddler

I was up in Malibu, Canada with some friends from High School.  It was a long trip up there on a bus.  The ferry had the bus drive up onto it, and then it dropped the whole bus off at camp even though there were no roads there.  Overall, the camp only vaguely resembled the one that I just went to back in May.  I got there and there were a few weird things about it.  First, one of the main activities was to watch a football game on TV.  Then later it turned out that the NFL was actually playing a regular season game there.  So there was a huge field there to accommodate the game, but no stadium for spectators.  The players would all fly in for it, and the only spectators would be the 100-200 or so people that were at the camp.  I was disappointed when I found out that the match-up would be the Broncos - Redskins, but I was still excited to see Payton Manning play live.  Also, it would be a nationally televised game, so I was going to be one of the few fans to make it on TV.

I looked over to the field and a bunch of people were climbing a tall metal tower, presumably to get a good spot to watch the game.  I thought about climbing it also, but it seemed pretty unstable.  There were a lot of kids on it, and some adults.  I remember thinking that I thought Miles was on it, but I couldn't see him.  Then it started to tip over and fell to the ground.  The people that were high up on it fell hard onto their backs and heads.  Me and some of the others ran over to help.  I thought that people had to have died, but the ones I came across were seriously hurt and groaning, but still alive.  Then I saw Miles running towards me.  He was about the same size he is now, but a little bit older I guess since he could run.  He was not wearing a shirt or pants, just a diaper.  He had colorful tattoo sleeves on both arms and tattoos covering his torso.   He gave me a big hug.

A burger for old times.

Rachel and I were in San Diego for an event, like someones wedding.  We were staying at a hotel in La Jolla, though it seemed much more tropical and vacation-ish than La Jolla.  Rachel had a massage appt at the hotel so I decided to take a trip down to Ocean Beach, where I used to live.  I drove down and parked on Del Mar Ave, where I had lived for the last couple of months before moving to Seattle.  I remember thinking how sometimes it was tough to find parking, and feeling grateful I'd found a spot.  Then as I got out, I hoped I was going to see Muller's car (the legendary JETNBIU) on a street somewhere.  It would have made me feel good to see my friends car, and know that he was around town somewhere or at the apartment.  I made a point to remember where I'd parked.  Of course, it was nice and warm out, even though it was dark.  There was an ocean breeze and I could hear the waves.  I didn't have much time, since Rachel's massage was only an hour, but I decided to go to Hodad's (classic sd burger joint) for a burger.  My friend Casey is a huge Hodad's fan, and I felt bad that I hadn't even let him know I was in town.  As I got to Hodad's I pulled out my phone to call him, but then I realized that he and his wife Erin were right in front of me in line.  I was excited to see them, but nervous about spending much time eating dinner there, knowing that since I had the car Rachel wouldn't be able to come down.  I ordered a single cheeseburger with bacon, no sauce, fries, and a chocolate shake.  The workers kept repeating the order, each time with more and more of an accent, until the word fries was barely recognizable.  I thought about how the old me would have gone double patties, double bacon, but that now that just seems like too much.  I was very satisfied with my decision to order a single burger.  I know there was a lot more in the dream but that's all I remember.

VIP customer

I dreamed I was writing a mortgage for Billie Joe from Green Day and easily transitioned between talking about mortgage and their music.  I was really proud of how good a job I was doing explaining everything clearly while at the same time asking questions that i'd always wanted to know the answers to.

A tear down project and Alaskan Voyage.

I was hanging out on Lake Washington Boulevard in Kirkland.  There was a construction project at a huge house, so i went over to check it out.  It turns out that the house was actually in good shape, but there was a massive scrap metal heap sticking straight out of the water about 40 feet in the air.  It was blocking the owners view of the lake, so he was having this big crane tear it down and get it out of there.  I got up closer to watch, and somehow the best seat to watch was on a boat, so I walked onto the boat and didn't really notice as it drifted out a bit.  The heap of metal was weird in that the owners house was in good shape, and he had a nice yacht.  So it seemed out of place.  It was a fairly nice day out on the water.  The project wrapped up and the boat I was on started hauling the metal away.  I didn't really notice, but before long we were out of seattle and it was cool and cloudy.  I knocked on the window from the outside to talk to the Captain, who was commandeering the vessel.  He had some freshly cooked giant shrimp that he was working on eating just sitting there on the console by the boat steering wheel.  I explained to him that I hadn't intended on being on the boat, and asked him where were we going.  He said we were hauling this metal up to Alaska.  We didn't seem to be too far on our voyage but we were definitely out of Lake Washington.  I asked him to turn around and bring me back to Kirkland, and he did so right away.

Dance Off

I somehow found myself in a group dance contest.  There were about 15 people on each team.  Rachel was on my team.  We were supposed to perform a choreographed dance routine.  Our team hadn't practiced in two weeks.  As the music started, everyone else knew what they were doing, but I didn't.  I tried to look on to other people in the group to figure it out, but it was pretty obvious that I was off.  I couldn't figure out how everyone remembered what to do when we hadn't practiced in a long time.  I could tell Rachel was getting frustrated with my lack of preparedness.  I decided to make up for it by stepping up the effort, so I abandoned the choreography and just tried to dance like a crazy person in hopes that would win over the judges.

31 year old running in a high school cross country meet? Seems normal...

First, I dreamed that Miles all of a sudden had two full sized teeth.  One was sharp.

Then I was back at the Priory, my old high school.  It was the league championships for cross country, and the meet was being held on campus.  For some reason, I was expected to run in the meet, even though I'm 31.  But I wasn't going to run the race since I haven't been running and I'm out of shape.  As it got closer and closer to race time, I started rationalizing more and more, thinking that as an out of shape 31 year old, I could probably "wing it" and do great just based on pure adrenaline.  I was nervous because deep down I knew this wasn't true, that I was out of shape.  But the race is only 3 miles, so I thought I won't even notice by the time I get tired.  I decided to jump in and race it.  My dad told me that it was starting in a minute.  As I was rushing around trying to find a jersey, race number, etc...  the gun went off.  I thought about hopping in late but then noticed it was only the girls race.  The guys race was going to start about 15 minutes later.  I got to relax for a second.  I found a jersey but it didn't match the one the rest of the team, including my brother Johnny, were wearing.  I took a number from some other kid on the team.  I was confident that even holding back, I could run with Johnny for most of the race and probably finish the meet in the top 5.  I don't remember any race details.

We were in line at the Priory cafeteria for food.  I was starving, but the cooks were handing out very paltry portions of food.  When I got to the front of the line, I got four little scraps of ground meat in a thin tomato sauce.   It barely took up a part of one of those plastic plates that are sectioned off for you to put different types of food in.  They wouldn't give me any more, and told me to go to the back of the line.  Fortunately, I was distracted from my hungry state because Green Day was playing a concert in the school cafeteria.  They were playing "Scattered" off of the Nimrod album.  After the song but still during the concert, I talked to Billie Joe about how I like that song, but one of their new ones sounds exactly like it.

A brash and cocky physics student

I was back at the high school I went to, but at my current age.  For some reason, I had to re-take the Physics final from my Dad's class.  (He taught me for Freshman Physics, and still teaches the course at the school.)  I went in to the final without studying and was very confident.  When I got it, somehow I recognized all the questions as the exact same final that I took back in 1997.  I breezed through it, extremely confident of every answer.  I don't know why it was important, but it's like the whole point of doing this was to get a better grade than I had gotten on the test when I took it for the class.  I turned in the test and left.  A few days later I was bugging my Dad, asking if he had graded the final exams yet.  He hadn't, but said he would be soon.  I hadn't let him know how great I felt about the test.  I couldn't hold it in any longer so I just told him that I totally aced it, that I'm positive I got every question correct, I'd be shocked if I had even missed one.  I told him that my memory was just so good, that giving me the same exam twice was a mistake on his part.  He asked me if I was "sure" that I had beaten my old score.  I assured him that I had.  I didn't know what my old score was, but was thinking probably somewhere in the A-/B+ range.  He pulled out my old exam, and the score on that one was 110%.  I don't know how that score was even possible, because he's not one to give extra credit on tests, let alone final exams.  The test I just took had no extra credit opportunities, so I was surely going to fall short.  I didn't stick around to see what I got on the final that I just took.

Just feed the dog.

I was house-sitting for some good friends of our families back home in Portola Valley.  Everything had gone well for the few weeks that I was living at their large, nice house.  But the whole time I was there, I was really busy.   Sometimes I'd forget to feed their dog.  I always thought that the last time I fed it was pretty recently, and that I'd just catch up feed it right before they got home from vacation.  When they got home the dog was barely alive.  It was a super skinny waif of an animal that they had to feed with a baby bottle to bring back to health.  They were really disappointed in me, and I couldn't believe that I had let it get to that point.  Then we were golfing in the sun in their back yard.  It was on top of a canyon, and we were just smashing golf balls down into the canyon, having a longest drive contest.  Some professional basketball or football player was there too, but I can't remember who it was.  We were trying to hit as close to some campers as possible without hitting them.

Running in a lightning storm

I was watching a high school basketball game at the high school I went to.  I was in the bleachers with my Dad, and my brother Johnny was playing in the game.  All the players looked really similar to me, so my dad would tell me who scored.  It was like my eyesight wasn't that good, so I was relying on his glasses.  Johnny hit a 3 pointer from the corner, and had some decent inside drives.  It was against the Priory's rival, sacred heart.  He wore #15, which is the # i wore in high school basketball.  Later Johnny was in Seattle and we were running.  The street had rolling hills, and it was cold, but i remember thinking that spring was around the corner.  We were running in a quiet, residential area with fairly large homes and not any traffic.  All of a sudden I realized that i had already hit my mileage for the day, and didn't need to keep running.  So I stopped.  Luckily, my car was parked right there, so I hopped in.  Johnny still had to finish his run.  As I was driving, huge flashes of lightning filled the sky.  I looked in my rearview mirror and could see Johnny's safety blinker steadily blinking in the distance, as i drove away.  The lightning seemed right on us so I was expecting thunder any second.  It took longer than expected.  At the next lightning flash, I looked in my rearview, and Johnny lit up completely, like he had been struck by it, kind of how it looks like in Mario Cart when you get the lightning and unleash it on the rest of the racers.  I pulled over and waited for him to run up to where I was parked.  Who came first though, were a bunch of serious racers.  I was in the middle of a relay.  The runners were really good, and about my age, but as they all pulled over, they were all complaining about various ailments - hips, back, hamstrings.

Later I was at my Grandmother Kiki's house.  It was like her house, but different in that it was 3 stories.  I was on the top story and dropped my phone.  It fell all the way through some slats down into the basement, where i could see it but couldn't fish it out.  To get it, someone had to sift through a bunch of garbage.  Billie Joe from Green Day was there, and he was really short, like 5'5".  We hung out in the basement, which looked more like a public park covered picnic area. 

I'll have the tacos

i haven't remembered as many dreams recently but this is from a few days ago...

My friend Steve (with a D) was driving me home from our church small group meeting.  instead of taking me back to my house, I asked him to drop me off at our other friend Josh's new snack shop that he just opened up on 85th st.  it was a really small shop that sold candy, soda, and had some food items available for order.  I ordered the "Don Juan Tacos" and a Vanilla milkshake.  Josh was wearing flip flops and a t-shirt.  It was a warm day.  People were calling in and asking questions so they could write yelp reviews.  Josh was telling them no wait for the food, come on in.  i never got my tacos or shake because in real life Miles woke me up.

Not casual day.

I had a dream that I mixed up the days at work.  I was wearing casual Friday attire, but it was a formal day with important appointments, so I was supposed to be in a suit.  I pulled off the freeway in Redmond and tried to find a Ross (Dress for Less), where I could find a cheap suit that would suffice for the day.  It wasn't open and I couldn't find another place.  I had to stop trying to find a suit and get to work.  Then I got to work, and found a suit jacket in my car.  I tried to use that to cover up, but it really wasn't adequate because I was wearing jeans and tennis shoes.

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.