The beginning of the year was a busy time for me because I was finishing up work on APF 2K8, but I did manage to squeeze in some fun time. Things started off with a visit from my good friend and one-time Babe of the Week Erica Ramos in the middle of March. She was in town doing some modeling for Hot Import Nights and afterwards, I gave her the world-renowned Dave Z tour of San Francisco before just chilling at my place for a few days, mostly laughing our asses off doing whatever.

She’s a fucking dope ass chick and we share a lot of the same feelings about life, kids, relationships, weed, etc. Oh, and when she’s giggling she sometimes transforms into a Jennifer Love Hewitt look-a-like. It was quite amazing. The only negative about her visit is that it was a few weeks BEFORE she got herself some saline-enhanced puppies instead of a a few weeks AFTER. I would’ve enjoyed it being after just a little bit more.

Immediately after Erica left and I was going through “wicked” withdrawals (I admittedly got hard every time she said “wicked” in her cute Boston accent), I flew down to LA because one of my FL friends, Nikayla, was there on vacation and hanging with her friend Kim. I figured since I adore Nikayla like no other, I just had to be there when she was partying it up in La La land.

While there, I went out with Nikayla, Kim, Brandon and Jordanna “Parties at the Playboy Mansion Every Other Weekend” Gross. I got really super shit-faced falling-over-sloppy drunk and had a great time. It’s no surprise, though, I always have an amazing time with Nikayla and Jordanna’s always a joy to be around. Speaking of Jordanna, I will write a book about her some day if she doesn’t write one first…her story is an enjoyable one that needs to be shared and she’s my “fave”.

After these two breaks, it was pretty much non-stop 80+/hr work weeks on APF. Nevertheless, I decided to try and squeeze in a weekend vacation to FL for AIDS Walk Ft Lauderdale. I was able to get a bunch of people to donate based on the fact that they felt compelled to donate if my fat ass was going to walk the 10K in the south FL heat and humidity. However, things didn’t work out quite as planned.

As I was leaving to the airport, which was right after I got off work on Friday night (after putting in 60 hours from Monday through Friday), I found out that my sleeping arrangements for the trip weren’t available anymore. I was supposed to stay at someone’s place who was doing the walk with me, but some roommate shit happened and I couldn’t. I was tight on funds so getting a hotel last second for two nights wasn’t even possible. After calling a bunch of people, I found another floor to crash on for the weekend.

I arrived in FL after a long and exhausting flight where I couldn’t sleep because someone had a cat that would simply “meow” repeatedly for the entire flight. It was easily one of the worst flight experiences I’ve ever had to deal with, including ones with engine trouble and extreme turbulence. From the airport, I went over to where my friend Jackie was staying because she was my last second emergency floor option. It was in the early AM but she was still up with her friends partying. I got there, crashed on some pull out bed in the living room and then finally got some rest.

We went out partying hard that night and that’s where the all the photos are from. I was able to get a lot of my friends to come out and drink, including first-timers Charis, Suzy, and Stephanie, as well as old stand-by’s Nikayla, Dora, Maria, Bernadette, etc. It was great times and this is where I started developing a bit of a crush on the lovely Charis, but we’ll save that for another day.

The problem with all this fun was that I had to be up at 8AM for AIDS Walk. I was used to getting up early after a long night of partying so I didn’t think it was going to be a problem. Boy, I was wrong. Even though I had gone to sleep with my cell phone next to my head, it didn’t wake me up when my friend called because it somehow got put to silent. I actually woke up exactly when the walk was set to start, which was way too late for me to get there.

I was extremely depressed because this was really the whole point of the FL trip, but I rationalized things by telling myself that the most important thing was that I was able to raise a lot of money for a good cause regardless if I made the walk or not. Nevertheless, I was extremely pissed off at myself and disappointed that I wasn’t able to participate in it because I wanted to really bad. I even did a full 1oK walk on the treadmill the week before just to show myself that I’d be able to do it.

I ended up going out that final night, but it was more of a chill night than a party night. We drank and hung out till about 4am and then I left to drop off the rental car at the Miami airport to head back home. Luckily, there weren’t any cats on the flight back as I was able to get one or two hours of sleep before landing in SF and driving straight back to work from the airport before starting yet another 80+ hour work week that continued until APF was ready to ship.