Groomsman trip to Santa Barbara

Life has been pretty crazy in the run-up to the wedding.  So crazy that I haven't had time to do detailed blogging of the weekend in Santa Barbara that my groomsmen treated me to in late May.

Albert, Bill, and Nathan went all-out to make this weekend happen.  It was awesome.  Rather than wait for the free time to blog the trip "properly," I think it's better to just call out some highlights now and post some photos for the friends and relatives reading along. :)

[The full dump of my photos from the trip is in this smugmug gallery.  I also took 3 short videos (two on purpose, one by accident), posted on my Picasa space.]

On to the bloggy slideshow!

Kicking things off right ... at the Mountain View Quizno's:

Insane coffee and pastry at The French Press:

Wine-tasting at Stolpman and Fiddlehead:

Dinner at The Wine Cask:

OK, yeah, so we played some Dominion:

...but this is what happens when Jenny and Diana call:

I worked through every obstacle...

...to get to my Pinkberry froyo:

OK, yeah, FINE, we PLAYED some DOMINION.

The beach in front of our hotel (the Harbor View Inn), where we'd later take a great sea-kayaking ride:

Visiting with Soren and family.  He is, after all, merely the smallest bachelor:

Dinner at Bouchon was frankly ridiculous:

But we finished up our on the opposite end of the spectrum, snarfing excellent burgers at the local favorite, the Minnow Cafe:

Thanks again to Albert, Bill, and Nathan for an awesome time, and to Diana, Jenny, Anna, and Lauren for letting the gents in their lives play hooky for a while. :)