My Dad turns 60!!!!

I am usually very lucky where my Dad's birthday and my fantasy football drafts occur on the same weekend. This year we celebrated with family fun and a great trip to the best restaurant in the world (The House of Prime Rib in San Francisco).

The Highest Place in the Bottom 48 States!!!

Ashker asked me in January if I was interested in climbing Mt. Whitney over the summer. He had a group of his hiking buddies that were going to tackle the monster. So, on August 15 we drove out to the middle of nowhere on highway 395 and stayed in a hotel near the base of Mt. Whitney. On August 16, 2007 we completed the monster. Here is a short version of how the day went. If you want a long version, I would love to tell you all about it. We woke up at 1:30 AM and drove to the base of Mt. Whtiney. We were on the trail by 2:55 AM with our headlamps and ready to go. Unfortunately, after about 60 minutes one of the four of us was not feeling well and turned around. We continued to truck up the hill with great pace. It's pretty amazing to be 8 miles into your hike as you watch the sun rise. After some insanely long periods of uphill and the elevation affected you more and more we finally made it to the mile 9.8 marker (only 1.2 miles to the top). This is the first time you can see both the east and western valley's below Mt. Whitney. At this point we met some Boy Scouts and chatted it up with them before we headed to the top together. 7hrs and 33 minutes from when we left our car we were standing at the tallest piece of land on the lower 48 states (14,505 ft). We stayed on top of the mountain for 47 minutes taking pictures and enjoying the beautiful sights. After being harassed by the Boy Scounts for wearing a Broncos hat and being from SD, I signed the guest book go Chargers and we headed down the mountain. It took us 6hrs 8 minutes to get down the hill for a total time of 14hours 28minutes and 5 seconds. We were laying down in the parking lot with our backpacks off at 5:23.05 PM and couldn't believe what we had done. Climbing this mountain was beyond amazing!!!

Keller's Bachelor Party - Vegas Style

After many discussions on where the grand event of Marcus' bachelor party should happen, we finally decided on Vegas. We were going to stay in style, so we stayed for 3 nights at the Bellagio. We had great times gambling, consuming beverages, joking around and giving Keller a great party before he left the single life for a better one being married :) One of the best parts of the bachelor party was having so many Keller's buddies show up. Thank you Vegas for stealing way too much of my money :)

I love to race :)

Kindra and I started a tradition last year of racing every year at the Balboa Park 3 mile/8 mile race in early August. This year Bill and Karen came too and it was a family event. Due to my spider bite incident I decided to run the 3 mile course with all of them because I hadn't put in enough distance training. (The 8 mile course is so awesome and I recommend it to everyone because you hit almost every part of Balboa Park. You run in open space, over the main bridge, by the 163 freeway, through the front part of the zoo, and by all the museums). We had a lot of fun at the race. I followed the leaders in front of me in the wrong direction (memories of doing this in High School with McDonough at Central Park in Santa Clara) but still had a great race. Kindra took over 4 minutes off her time from the year before and looked super strong. Bill and Karen came in about four minutes after Kindra and looked great for their first race in awhile. Amir came and snapped some photos. A great Saturdaya morning for everyone!

I think these ladies are on steroids :)

Amir had a two for one coupon to the Acura tennis classic at La Costa Resort in San Diego and since we were both priviliged to be on summer vacation we headed to La Costa for a little tennis action. I had been to a women's match once before at Stanford when I was 17 and I don't remember the ladies having so much power. We had great seats to watch three of the top 10 ladies in the world and then we got to see Venus play. It was awesome seeing these ladies hitting the most amazing shots. What a great way of spending the afternoon!

This type of fun hurts so good

In preperation for our Mt. Whitney hike towards the end of August, Ryan and I drove to the highest peak close to San Diego, Mt. San Jacinto. San Jac overlooks Palm Springs to the east and all of inland east LA to the west. Ryan and I took off pretty early to get on the mountain at a good time. The hike went by pretty darn fast on the way up. We chatted about life, history, politics and anything. The top was awesome and we chatted it up with a dad and his son. The way back down started to drag a little and the last 4 miles were very tiring (as to be expected). Ryan and I drove as fast as we could to Temecula so we wouldn't crash from being tired and so we could eat some In-n-out. By finishing the 15 mile hike in less than 8 hours, I knew I would be able to make it up Whitney!

Kindra and I's mini-vacation

Kin and I took off for 5 days at the end of July for a little trip to one of our favorite places and a new place. Disneyland was awesome. We got park-hopper passes and went on a bunch of rides we had never been on or forgot about at California Adventure and breezed through lines at Disneyland all day long. Pretty sweet day with some good Disneyland snacks in the middle.

The next day we were off to a 3-day excursion to Catalina Island. Being away with Kin was the best part of the trip. The island was fun but we expected a beautiful beach and got the smallest beach in the world. I guess it's hard to compare beaches when you have seen the beaches in SD and Australia. It didn't really matter how small the beach was because Kindra and I were both heavily invested in reading Harry Potter. We ate great food, had extra dessert everyday, explored the island by foot, vehicle, and even bike. Not to mention Kindra kicked my butt on a little miniature golf. All in all, a great escape with my wifey!

That Black Widow was sneaky!

Sometime between Yosemite and our trip to the Bay I got a "non-venemous" bite from a venemous spider called a black widow. This picture can't even come close to how bad my leg looked. Basically, the thing you are looking at leaked gunk for 60 hours straight and my leg was bright red from my knee to my hip. After all that I only had a hole in my leg that I could stick a pencil in if I wanted :) I am fine and it's healed now, so basically it gave me a two week vacation (on my summer vacation) of sitting on the couch watching movies!

Bay Area McGurk Love

I am a complete slacker who has all these awesome events to update about and have somehow kept it till I am super busy with school. :) It doesn't matter because I am updating now so enjoy.
In the middle of July Kindra and I flew up to the wonderful Oakland airport and had a weekend in the Bay with the whole McGurk clan. We had great times together eating great bbq, walking the streets of Frisco, and hanging out in the Mateo (San Mateo to you non-residents or family of residents!) Kindra and i look forward to the next time we will all be together. It will probably be at Christmas. At least we get to look forward to the McGurk family olympics year 2!

I'm on Top of the World!!!

Okay, so it only feels like the top of the world, but it's the top of the Yosemite Valley. Marcus, Jeff and I took off at 6:00 from the Bay and drove straight to the highest (2nd highest by 5 feet) peak in Yosemite. Mt. Dana sits at 13, 057 feet and was a three hour hike straight up. Climbing over 3,000 feet in less than 3.3 miles caused me not to look up during the hike, but simply look at Jeff's feet in front of me. The last 80 minutes of the hike up to the summit was pure rock climbing like Spiderman. Just for kicks, the wind was blowing around 45 mph towards the summit. ALL WORTH IT WHEN YOU GET TO THE TOP!!! The rest of our Yosemite trip included drinking cold beverages, eating steak that was covered in ash, having bears walk through our campsite and pop my floaty raft while relaxing on the Merced River. All in all, a perfect trip to Yosemite!

The Beach is soooooo nice......

Josh and Sarah knew about a little piece of paradise that was pretty close to us all. Crystal Cove State Beach is located in Newport Beach and we had a little cabin that we could run down the stairs and jump head first onto the sand. The weekend was awesome, full of games (on the beach and in the cabin), friends, and lots of fun. I recommend this place to everyone. It's not expensive and is a great experience. The only catch is you have to reserve it 6-7 months ahead of time!

Summer Vacation

My summer vacation started today and the only thing on tap was going to a Padres game tonight, so I decided it was time to learn how to make a blog. Here I am making it :) I decided to put up a lovely picture of my beautiful wife and I at the USA /China soccer game with Kindra's brother and sis-in-law! Here's to blogging!