Mountain Top weddings are the new awesome

Although I know my last post made it sound like maybe i went to Utah solely to visit DI and find a photo of my long lost college friend, the truth is that I went out for the wedding of one of my not so long lost college friends.

Kim (on the right) married this guy Jason (middle on the left) on the top of a mountain in Park City, so of course I had to go and see it happen.

I used the trip as a great excuse to see a lot of people that I have been missing. I even got to go get all paparazzi and take photos of the brand-new baby of brendan and veeda. Take that, Brangelina and TomKat - you guys think your baby is cute, but you have not seen Mei yet. Just wait til I sell these photos to US Weekly.

I also visited Jeff Thomas in his sweet bachelor pad with his art deco bathroom. Not only does Jeff live alone in a huge place that costs half of what I pay in rent in SF, he has a neat peephole on his front door to make sure that he doesnt let in just anyone.

I had a lot of wedding related parties to attend over the weekend. The bachelorette party began with some burritos at the Red Iguana, involved scandalous activities in a hotel room, and ended up at Port O'Call.

Amber and I were so excited, because we had been wanting to visit Port O' Call since our sophomore year in college when all of our UofU friends talked it up so much. I think it was everything we had ever dreamed it would be, right Amber?

I took a small detour in the middle of the bachelorette festivites to see Earl Scruggs play as part of this cool Twilight Concert Series downtown. Aside from wanting to see the man who made banjo history, I also needed to visit the funniest mom i know, Kim Dubois and her mohawk baby Liam.

Special bonus surprise: best friends Stephen and Dan. I love these guys.

Aaron and I made a point to visit several of the weirdest places in SLC, which of course had to include Gilgal Garden and the Joseph Smith sphinx.

Gilgal is this great garden full of scriptural sculptures, all made by Thomas Battersby Child, Jr. (pictured below in the sweet brick pants) in the mid-twentieth century. It is one of my favorite SLC spots.

The actual wedding itself took place up in Deer Valley. Dianna, Amber and I were sort of hoping that the bride and groom would come down the mountain on that ski lift for a more dramatic entrance, but they walked in like normal people.

the lovely bride, now officially kim wedlick.

On Sunday, Caroline King decided to throw Soul Food Sunday, and everyone donned their aprons to get cooking some grits n' fried chicken.
Not just aprons. Bonnets as well. Elin tells us those are coming back big.
How do you know it was Soul Food Sunday? Because Damian and Stacey brought the pigs feet.

Dave is pretty excited about the tasty treat, obviously.

The other dave is seemingly excited about a different treat.


We took a parting shot with all the SFsters past and present.

Bye, SLC. Try to show my roommate as good a time when she comes out next weekend.

DI is the new awesome

I just got back from a trip to Utah, which we all know would never be complete without a trip to DI. Deseret Industries, the LDS-run thrift store, has got “Bargains to DI for,” just like their awesome billboards promise. They price all of their clothing the same, no matter what name brand they are sporting, so if you hunt around you can find some great deals. And they are the best place to find old LDS epherma and books and movies from the 70s when all sorts of crazy videos like "Cipher in the Snow" or "Prime the Pump" were still being produced.

Anyway, I was in the picture frame section, and picked up a family portrait still in its cheap gold frame, wondering why someone would donate their family photo to the thrift store.

Then I looked closer, and realized that I recognized one of the people in the photo. A baby-faced Steve Young (no, not THAT Steve Young) from my freshman year of college stared up at me from the frame. Sure enough, I took the photo out of the frame and "The Youngs, 1993" was scrawled on the back. So I took the photo with me.



Steve Young from my freshman year of college - I have not seen you in 10 years, but i just found a photo of you as a 14 year old in a portrait with your family in a thrift store on a random trip to SLC. This makes me feel so strange. We all know that Utah makes the world feel like a small place, but this is ridiculous.

Waiting for it is the new awesome

Friday night I finally got my wish. I went to see Miami Vice with Alex, Heather and Shawn! If you've ever been to a movie at the Metreon then you know that sometimes they have a problem with people pulling the fire alarm and then your movie turns off and then you have to evacuate while there is a really loud alarm happening and then you have to get a refund and you get really sad.

Picture it...the four of us enjoying Miami Vice in pretty much the best seats in the house. The only thing annoying about the movie experience at this point was the family sitting in front of us that decided to bring their two year old to the Friday night showing of Miami Vice. What? Yah, a two year old. Right in front of us. It was okay though because Heather had smuggled in Beard Papa's for us and I had smuggled in homemade peanut butter cookies which made the baby a little bit tolerable.

Then right when we're so into it, lights on, alarm sounds, theater evacuates. So we hang out. I didn't think we should wait. Heather, Alex and Shawn were so nervous about what was going to happen next in the movie. Or maybe they were nervous about the fire inside the Metreon?


I didn't care about the fire so much, I was mostly just so mad at the Metreon.


Like I mentioned, I thought we should leave. But everyone else said we should wait. So we did. And it was a good thing we did because it gave me time to notice how pretty our city is. And that nice turquoise glow is very 80's/Miami Vice.


Best news ever, they let us back in the theater and told us the movie would pick up where it left off in about 10 minutes! So we went back inside and the other best news ever is that the baby didn't go home!

Miami Vice is the new awesome

Maybe I'm so excited about this movie because I remember watching my brother Matt tape every episode of the tv show. Maybe I'm so excited about this movie because my brother Matt dressed up as Crockett for Halloween one year. Maybe I'm so excited about this movie because I love Phil Collins.

Whatever the reason, let me just say I love you Don Johnson and Philip Michael Thomas and I'll never forget you. Not even tonight while I'm watching Colin Farrell and Jamie Foxx.


If Miami Vice is as awesome as Collateral and Heat were, I think we're all in for a treat.

Rent is the new awesome

Tuesday night Rebecca and I saw Rent with one million of our closest friends. If you know me, you know I love Rent. And you know that I can sing every single word and do a pretty good job imitating every character. If I looked a little more like a Puerto Rican, drug-addict, AIDS having, exotic dancer, the role of Mimi Marquez just might have been my perfect avenue into my career as a Broadway star.

Rebecca, Jordan and I rode the train together. When we were taking the escalator above ground Jordan smelled a bad smell. Sometimes that just happens when you take the train.


Betsy's heart starts to beat faster.


You thought I was kidding when I said one million of our friends were there. I wasn't. Patrick, Lindsay, Mengting, Elva, Julia, and Kevin.


Preston, Brian and I are seasoned Rent fans. We know jeans are appropriate attire.


Rebecca bragging about all her tickets.
Jordan poking her head up like a chipmunk.
Emily pointing but not looking.


Are Jason and Casey the cutest kids in America? Yes. Also cute? Wayne. Casey makes me want to have blonde hair so badly because she reminds me of my girl crush.


Also, I'd like everyone to know that I'm totally buying
this today because awesome.

Sneaking food into the theatre is the new awesome

Everyone knows how to sneak food into movie theatres to avoid paying one million dollars per peanut butter cup, but the gholdston girls know how to do it in style.

Step one:
Place smuggled items into stylish purse and walk into the theatre without looking suspicious or saying things to the person taking your ticket like, “don’t look at my purse.”

Step two:
Once safely inside dark theatre, remove smuggled items from stylish purse and wave them triumphantly around. Candy apples!?! What a brilliant smuggled theatre food.

Step three:
Admire your choice in food – gourmet apples covered in chocolate and cinnamon and mn'ms. Unwrap your food proudly and place it in the cardboard tray you stole from the concession stand. Make everyone a little jealous that they are relegated to eating jujus and you have a delicious healthy apple treat.

Step four:
Ignore the dirty looks you might be getting from your neighbors as you eat your crunchy apple SO LOUDLY. They are all just jealous. Laugh a little louder than necessary when Luke Wilson gets a shark thrown at him, just to rub it in that you are having a better time than anyone else in the entire theatre.

Step five:
Have a race with your sister to see who can eat their apple fastest. Lose on purpose and then laugh when her stomach hurts from eating too quickly

Step six:
Stop to take a photo in front of the poster of the movie you are pretty sure is going to be the blockbuster of the summer. Plan on bringing candy apples when you go see that as well.

Saturday night was the new awesome

Lindsay, Patrick and Brady came up to San Francisco last night for dinner and touristy fun. I felt so embarassed for Patrick and Brady when they realized they forgot to wear black and white like me and Lindsay.


We took the train downtown to eat at Osha Thai. During dinner Brady was showing off his new phone and trying to convince us that the camera in his new phone could take pictures that were just as good as any real camera.


Patrick was so excited for his really beautiful, tall, skinny, fruity drink.


If you're saying to yourself "Patrick looks soooooo familiar to me" the answer is, you're right!


Not only can he turn things into ice, he can also scoop up cashew chicken with amazing speed and precision.


Lindsay wouldn't stop telling me about Patrick's other super powers.


Just so you know, the food at Osha Thai is soooooooooo delicious (the service is not as delicious). Look how Lindsay and I don't even care that the service at Osha Thai is not great because of the delicious food.


Just in case you were wondering, Lindsay is my best friend who married Patrick. Brady is Patrick's brother that just moved to the Bay Area for a job. Right now he lives in Sunnyvale with Linds and Pat but soon he will be finding an apartment in SF and then we will be neighbors.


Everyone in Union Square definitely thought we were tourists.



Lindsay was pretending like we were wandering aimlessly through the city but turns out she had a secret plan all along.


Good job city at being so fun last night!

Heat waves are the new awesome

When you live in San Francisco, a city that is 75 degrees or cooler 360 days a year, heat waves are a big deal. Yesterday the temperature hit 95 degrees! Since air conditioning is hard to come by, everyone goes outside.

When I went running (outside) I found some kids doing chalk drawings. This is how kids that grow up in San Francisco draw houses.

I didn't draw houses like that when I was little.

Getting revenge is the new awesome

After our last post touching on all the politics of linking to eachother on our blogs, I started thinking about all the ways that the internet is changing our public/private interactions with one another, and how funny it is that we are the first generation really to be discovering these things.

Think of all the things that all of a sudden get to have a whole new spin on them; dating someone always has to manifest itself somehow, but you used to declare your relationship by giving a girl your pin to wear, or having the conversation about officially calling eachother 'boyfriend' and 'girlfriend' and then announcing it to your friends ... add the internet, and now we also have to have discussions about when we are going to change our status on linkup from 'single' to 'in a relationship.' We used to have best friend necklaces, but now the myspace Top 8 makes you define who your best friends are to the world. It used to be possible to just snub people by not talking to them, but now you can not add their link to your blog as a public statement! It's all still stuff every generation has dealt with, we just get the internet spin on it.

One of my favorite things that the internet has also opened up is a whole new sort of revenge. I found a random blog one day called "too much awesome" and since I felt an obvious "awesome" connection to this stranger in chicago, i began reading his blog and found this great post where he talks about some guy in highschool that didn't invite him to his graduation party five years ago, and how pissed he still is about that. He started off his rant by just calling this party-invite-perpetrator "Mitchell", but by the end of the post he had worked himself into such a angry state that he decided to use "Mitchell's" full name. This is what toomuchawesome.blogspot says:

"Also, the reason I wrote this post is because I'm going to use Mitchell's full name. I have no way of contacting him and yelling at him drunkenly over the phone (nor would I have the balls to). However, I am extremely passive-aggressive and writing this blog is doing just the trick. One day, I hope that MITCHELL AUSTIN will Google his name and find this, just so he realizes that he is a huge douchebag. That's right: Mitchell Austin is a douchebag."


This is my new favorite form of revenge. Dropping a googlebomb on someone! Internet slander. This is the equivalent of writing mean things on the bathroom walls about your nemesis in elementary school, but now the whole world can read it.



You heard it here - Mitchell Austin is a douchebag.

Now lets start posting some photos again. This doesnt even feel like the new awesome. So many words!