On a normal day I would have told them to go ahead and pawn my kidney while they were at it, but for the first time in my life, I more than willingly handed $6 to the parking attendant. Being moments away from catching the best tennis player that has ever lived in action kinda put me in a better than usual mood.

Today's semi-final featured Xavier Malisse and some local guy who had won Wimbledon 7 times. What was as exciting as the match itself was that this was to be Hui Chin's first ATP tennis match. (It would have been a first for me had I not been all impatient and caught the earlier rounds.)

Malisse could have made more of a match of it but it was still truly amazing watching "dee" man in action. We weren't close enough to see Pete's tongue but we were able to catch his infamous eye brow wipe where he lifts sweat off his brow with the back of his hand.

Hui Chin and I stayed for doubles afterwards, O'Brien/Gimelstob vs. Roddick/Gambill. Oh, I forgot to mention that we bought dinner from the stands at the tennis grounds. Oddly enough, my Thai BBQ chicken pizza came up to $6, the same price for parking. The pizza was tasteless and covered with burnt carrot strips. I guess those bastards get you one way or the other.

I took a personal day to go watch the second round of the Mercedez Open with Herbie. It really felt unreal seeing Kuerten, Safin and Haas on a tennis court, in flesh and blood and not just as electrons bouncing off the TV screen.

To start the day, I almost bumped into Taylor Dent as he was making his way to play Max Mirnyi on one of the outer courts. Because I had never seen him before on TV, my initial impression when I first saw him was that he was some no name doubles player. Anyway, we were able to catch Dent-Mirnyi 6 rows from courtside, so close that you could here the ball whizzing through the air after they hit it.

We scurried over to stadium court afterwards to catch World #1 Guga, dressed in his signature yellow, walking behind the baseline between points like a flimsy piece of melty rubber. I think this guy is made of just tendons and bones, just like the skeleton dummy in biology class.

After the Kuerten match, we caught Safin-Malisse where Malisse upset Safin in two sets. A lot of baseline groundstroke brilliance in that one.

I don't know, but it may have turned into an annual event, which may actually be nice. Muriel and her Canadian exchange students spent last night at #3, a welcome break from work life monotony actually, and an event always full of surprises. This group was smaller than last years, and we had less time to bond, given that last year we joined them for dinner the first night, camped with them at the Valencia campground and then had them over to the apartment the following night.

Muriel, nutty and always unpredictable, arrived bearing gifts; three bottles of champagne, two bottles of Merlot (merchhkkkggh lerr), and six bottles of beer. All the kids were too young to drink, Bob and Hui Chin aren't big drinkers, leaving lots of alcohol for Muriel and JC. In a mere two hours, Muriel popped open two bottles of champagne and a bottle of Merlot.

Herb, Jesse and I headed on over to UCLA for the Mercedez-Benz Open qualifiers matches. It was free, we got to sit as close as we wanted, and we got to watch three courts of action simultaneously. Even the qualifiers are kick-ass good, not to mention fun to watch, and to think that all these guys would get their butts whooped in the first round by the regulars of the ATP tour. The only qualifier I recognized was Italy's Christiano Carrati. We managed to catch a Behr and a Joyce match, both of which went to a third and was highly entertaining.

After all that good tennis, we just had to test our skills on the court. I think it's really amazing how watching good tennis raises your game... for a few hours anyway. After tennis, Herb, Jesse, Hui Chin and I had dinner at Thai BBQ, and we were treated once again to an epic Herb-Jesse dialog, that to my current experience, has never failed to intrigue me.

This was the last time Hui Chin and I were going to walk into this shop. This year anyway. Unless we were to run out of wine labels.

Bottling day. After sitting at the Wine Making store for two months, our wine was finally ready for bottling. 30 bottles of Merlot.

We started by extracting a wine sample using the siphoning beaker a.k.a. the wine thief so that we could determine the alcohol level of the wine. I believe it was 11%. Or was it 19%. Oh, never mind. I think I sometimes give out too much information.

The next step in bottling involved a device that pumped the wine out of the vat into the bottle. The device works a little like a gas pump as it stops pumping once it detects that wine has reached the neck of the bottle. Having as little bubbles on the surface wins you the distinction of good pumper.

Next, we cork the bottles. I would have to say that this was my favorite part. This is what the corking machine looks like, it has a long lever, a base on which to put the bottle, and a slot in which to put the cork. You start by putting the bottle on the base, insert the cork into the cork holder and pull the lever. Pulling the lever does two things; the cork gets squeezed in the cork hold, and a rod like thing comes along and pushes the cork into the bottle.

The final part of the bottling process involved sealing the bottle. Hui Chin and I had a field time picking from the store's wide selection of seals. Bottles are sealed by putting the seal over bottle and turning it 360 degrees with the neck of the bottle sitting in a heating coil. Sealing was really tricky as you had 2 seconds to put the bottle in, twist it and pull it out.

And voila. 29 and a half bottles of wine. It's a pity Hui Chin and don't drink wine.

Take all ten of your fingers, place them on your keyboard, and type anything, jlkjsdfsl hlkdsflkjlk, yeah anything, as fast as you can for a minute. Michael Flatley does that with his feet. Flatley, who holds the record of having the fastest feet on earth, was going to perform Lord of the Dance Feet of Flames for the third last time. And Hui Chin and I were there to catch it.

I'm sure there are many who speculate that Flatley would come out of retirement to perform another dozen or so Lord of the Dance shows. And many people would go just to see if he still has his feet. If he does indeed perform another dozen shows, I guess I'd have to alter my claim of catching his third-last show to having caught his fifteenth-last show, which doesn't sound as impressive, unless of course I were to say that I caught his first, third-last show.

I think I've just confused myself.

I'm not sure I have the language to describe the performance I caught to night, only that my feet acquired a huge urge to tap, after and throughout the show. Flatley came out for three encores, and it was then that we got to see his individual talent, and how he acquired the title 'Feet of Flames.'

It did cross my mind several times that I may have some unrealized obscure talent for Tap. Fortunately, though a rare event, my mind kicked into logical gear and I came to realize that any attempt of mine to do what Flatley does would probably land me with several severely torn tendons and dislocated bones in my feet. And who knows, all the Bengay I would have to put on my foot to ease the pain may actually grant me exclusivity to the title 'Feet of Flames.'

I thought I was going to be one of those who would never be able to juggle no matter how hard I tried. And then, wham! It just came to me. Just like they said.

Juggling is a lot like learning to ride a bike. Once you've got it, you'll always have it. And just like cycling, when you've got it for the first time, you just won't stop for fear that you may lose it. And there's an incredible sense of relief to wake up the next morning to wake up the next morning, and the morning after, and still be able to repeat the feat.

It still amazes me how, at one point, I could be so hopeless, and then in the next be not so hopeless. It's as though the switchboard operator in my brain grew bored of my juggling mishaps and failed attempts and decided to connect the juggling wire to the juggling socket at the back of my head.

She's going to live.

She wasn't feeling very well, so we turned around to go back. As we did that, the bitch broke down.