112 is too hot for me.

It was a time of firsts in the past week. While not the first in my family to graduate from a university, I was the first to do so right before a fire alarm vacated the hall. I visited Yosemite with almost my entire family, minus Kara and Brandon, and we also saw the giant sequoias. Upon return, I left to visit the Magical Kingdom for the first time in my life. That's not to say I haven't been to any Disney park, just not this one. I even got to ride all the rides, b/c of my friend Brittny's elite skills at using her handicap, and see the interior of Space Mountain with the lights on....after legitimately fearing a crash, and for my life.

Today was the first time I experienced a day well above triple digits. It hit 112 in SLO today and my own room was 101. I just think that's too hot for me.

Insult to Failure

As I was riding my bicycle home from school today, after 2 hours of slow, slow, quick quick, slow slow quick in dance class, I found myself cut off by a vehicle in the apartment complex known as Mustang Village. Unfortunately to my skin and my dignity, my bike decided to sidled up next to the curb when I hit the speed bump in the road. AS awkward as I found this particular tumble I took from my bicycle, I was greatly suprised by my head, rolling over the front end of my handle bars, and my bicycle flipping over with me. Sprawled out on the road, a man in a golf cart stopped to grab my newly wrought basket and asked if I was ok. I was ok, luckily I managed a graceful fall and because I was going so slowly, i acquired no road rash. I did however bump a bar or two and my elbow had a jabbing fight with the pavement. I got up, laughingly took the embarrassment and made my way home.
I quickly grabbed a snack because Mary was picking me up to go get some Italian Freeze on our first warm day, and we walked downtown a little before her work hours started. We went into Gap and Express. At Express we had a debate about whether a top was a dress or a shirt. I went to try it on the fitting room, and there I found an insult to my earlier injury. There on my shoulder was a six inch tire tread mark from my bicycle.
Later news, we went to go see a sneak peak of Forgetting Sarah Marshall only to be constantly cut infront by other student nabbing free admission to the movie.

Right now, I dont know if i am going to bed anytime soon. When Jackie and I were dropped off from Mary's(movie night) two cops were sitting outside in our neighhborhood in the dark, one with his gun out. They shined their lights on us, but we quickly went inside to hide from the happeings. Also, there is a helicopter flying around outside. Jackie called, and all they said is that they are " looking for someone"

Haha

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced out of a dust cloud toward him.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leans out the window and asks the cowboy, "If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, will you give me a calf?"

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, "Sure, why not?"

The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo. 

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg , Germany. 

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses a MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response. 

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 10-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer and finally turns to the cowboy and says, "You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves." 

"That's right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves," says Bud. 

He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on, amused, as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car. 

Then the Bud says to the young man, "Hey, if I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?" 

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, "Okay, why not?" 

"You're a Congressman for the U.S. Government," says Bud. 

"Wow! That's correct," says the yuppie, "but how did you guess that?" 

"No guessing required." answered the cowboy. "You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew,to a question I never asked. You tried to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don't know a thing about cows...this is a herd of sheep. . . . 

"Now give me back my dog."

Attacking Umbrellas

This past weekend I did something which a person of my timidity with strangers is unexpected to do. I went networking.

I joined my roomates Jackie and Anna on a trip north to San Fransisco, where the firm Hart Howardton was host. They gave both an alumni get together and a student walking tour of the company's projects through the city. We left early Friday afternoon and spent the three and a half hour drive singing any songs of which we knew atleast a respectable portion of the lyrics. We got into Lafayette at about 5 and then Anna and I took Bart into the city to meet and old friend and join to party at the firm at One Union.

Much to my suprise, Anna and I were the ONLY students at the party. Apparently we were crashing the alumni party. My own department head did not recognize either of her students present, but Anna and I did get a few thumbs up and kudos from the few professors there. I met with a couple people who were from different firm types including CalTrans, who apparenlty is a very good employer, an irrigation company, and a girl who works for a firm who does solely high end resorts. I got all their cards and plan to maintain some sort of correspondence with them. After the food was eaten and the alcohol consumed, a partner in the Peter Walker (big name) firm asked us to go out to a bar down the street. We accepted the invite, but found the whole situation boring and some particular conversations innappropriate. I recieved one card from a girl who was none too sober. She didn't think that we would like where she was b/c it was away from the hubbub of the city in Napa. (sounds great!) We walked around that area of the city for a little while and then our friend Kevin drove me back to Jackie's for the night.

I woke at 7 am the next morning to the smell of bacon. Jackie's dad made a breakfast for champions of eggs, toast, bacon, potatoes and toast. Yum! Jackie quickly took me to Bart station where i made my way to the embarcadero and then walked to Union once more. The partner of the firm remembered my name from the previous evening. (exciting) There was bagels and coffee, which i had no inclination to eat and the firm gave a small presentation of their work. I was uninterested. 200 people, one office, downtown SF. Yeah....no. We started the walking tour in a light drizzle and headed to Levi Plaza, original design by Laurence Halprin. The rain picked up. We walked through downtown and stopped at the pier and ferry building where they had a wide array of foreign cheeses and oils. We continued onward and the rain and wind picked up. We finished the walking tour at Union Square in the rain.

Kevin met up with me and Anna and we went to lunch inviting one of our professors, Vangelli (Greek). The Boudin bakery is where we ate lunch and i enjoyed every bite of my turkey and havarti sandwich. We stopped and H and M, with thoughts of Europe. I bought dress pants for $20 and a hair clip just like the one I lost somewhere in France. Anna dragged us to a soap store called Lush and we tried samples of exfoliant and wierd shampoo bars. It was interesting. After washing our hands of the whole affair, we walked to Chinatown. Amazingly enough for timing, last weekend was the weekend of the Chinese New Year, so the streets were packed. Everyone was buying cherry branches and orange trees. There was a market going on down one of the streets and I bought some candy that I am fond of. The unfortunate thing about Chinatown in the rain it the people's heights. Everyone was shorter than us. Their umbrellas were too. All three of us were constantly dodging umbrella points so that we would not get poked in the eye or beheaded. From Chinatown we walked far towards Lombard street, stopping at diverse starbucks along the way for their restrooms. When we got to Lombard street we did something i will only do once in my life. We walked up it. Tired and worn out, we tried to get the best pictures we could. We headed west from the top of Lombard and walked back towards the Embarcadero so that I could catch Bart and meet up with Jackie. A long time later Jackie picked me up at the station.
That night we went out to celebrate Jackie's birthday with good italian eating. Her dad is from Boston so he is very particular about his italian. The next morning we slept in and met anna at Target. We then drive home with the spectalular view of a series of rainbows following us down the coast.

Lesson of the weekend-We were told this weekend would be a big networking opportunity, but had we not crashed the alumni party, i would not have met anyone to spark my interest and alieve some of my fears. Students of legal drinking age are not responsible enough to say no to alcohol and cannot be invited to parties. Therefore, they must crash them to get what they need out of life.

Lazy Tuesday?

I suppose waiting 2 months between posts is a little obsene, and I have no true excuse for it. I have to admit however that blogging is one habit that is easy to kick. I gave a big presentation yesterday for my world cup rowing venue research. It took four hours for 10 people to talk about their research. Its week 7 and still I have so much to do. Papers, midterms, tests, projects, research and work. Yay winter break! I can almost see you.

Im going to Seattle next week. I am going to visit my site at Sand Point, Magnuson Park.

Go Bus!

Count down

Its about to be the end of the summer for me, as I will actually be working in an office next week. While I still will be doing work for Kevin down at his firm in Santa Maria, a former professor of mine needed some "extra hands" in the office, so I will be helping her with that hopefully even a couple of hours a week into the school year. It was odd how coincidental the opportunity came up because i had just started looking for an additional job when i got a message from a classmate on myspace about the job. I guess some things do happen for a reason.

Last night i saw one of the strongest and longest storms I have ever seen in California since I moved here. It lasted from about 10 at night to approximately the last big bang of light ending at 5 in the morning. The storm was so strong that I was outside for a couple of hours watching the light show, though i do hear that my friends and I were not alone. Along with the neighbors being outside, I heard many stories of other people lining the streets to watch the weather pass by. I hear christine even stood with many other people in Morro Bay watching the bolts of lightning course through the sky as they reflected along the bay.

The weather changed today, only to be horrible and hot. Hopefully it will not be hot tomorrow, or atleast tolerably so.

All Apologies

Apparently time has proven that only European inundation provides me the fastitidy to keep up with my nearly daily entries of what's happening in my world. There was a reason that I did not end my travel journalling as a I should have, because I left Europe a week early. After Andie and I spent some time in Spain, we found that daily travels were not nearly as fun, nor informative without the rest of our class and professors. Our days of discovering a city took longer and we were both travel worn and ready to have more than 3 changes of clothes. The fact that there were some problems in the Spanish government and we saw more than a fews mobs, not riots pressured us into changing our flights. I kept my coming home a secret to everyone but my family, and Jeff. Jeff would have been in the dark too, except that he needed to pick me up.
I spent my last day in Europe in the city of Barcelona. We went to see Antonio Gaudi's Sagrada Familia. It was quite fantastic and the fact that they are still working on the construction from over 100 years ago astounds me. Oh, and yeah, that day was my 22nd birthday. It quite truly sneaked up on me, as I didn't realise it until Andie wish me a good one. I got no physical gifts that day, but I am quite sure a nearly 3 month trip to Europe covers that one. Thanks. :) We spent the last part of our day at the beach eating hot dogs and drinking our last true sugared (not corn syrup) sodas. We went out to dinner on the main shopping strip in Barcelona called La Rambla surrounded by street performers and and tourists. We ate seafood paella and I had my first sangria. Afterwards we ate our last gelato and andie lit a match in it for me to make my wish in La Paca Reial. We then headed to the train station to pick up our bags and head to the airport where we spent the night repacking our bags to the best of our abilities and taking small naps until the Lufthansa desk opened up. We took a short flight in the morning to Frankfurt where Andie and I said farewell as we had different flights and I flew home. I landed in the late morning only to find that my bag had not mafe my plane, so I went through customs with no baggage, only a carry on and a paper stating what I meant to bring through. The people were so nice to me, and the spoke English! It was amazing! I took the shuttle to Union station and took the pacific coast starliner up the coast. 38 hours after getting to the airport in Barcelona, I arrived in San Luis Obispo, thus ending my European excursion.

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day, Dad!

And Thank You for the trip.

Europe is under construction

On the 11th of June Andie and I decided we wanted to go for a run...a run accross Spain. We started early, early and took a quick train out to the old city of Toledo which in no way resembles its American sister. The city is older than medieval and is situated on a "strategic" hill that is almost surrounded by a river. When we were there, before the crowds, the people of the city were starting to hang cloths, banners and garlands throughout the narrow streets. The celebration was Dias de Fiestas en Honor de Nuestra Señora de las Estrellas. (celebrations in honor of our lady of the heavens) The town had some great views, but much to our dismay, the fort was closed for a complete renovation not be finished until next summer... sad. We did however love to look at all the pieces of demascene steel (inlade with color) that the city is famous for, and the old buildings that remain. We even got in free of charge to a museum that held 18 pieces of art by El Greco. I recognized maybe one of them, which i thought was a pretty good ratio ;). At noon we left the city and headed back to Madrid to catch the early afternoon train to Cordoba. Cordoba is famours for one thing, and one thing only, the Antiqua Mezquita, or cathedral of cordoba. This is an old islamic mosque that traded hands a number of times in the past, and only got more expansive. We have studied this place many times in our history classes, so it was nice to finally see what the pictures never could. It was extremely hot in the city, 36 degrees infact. I dont know what that is exactly, but i know it is uncomfortably close to the tempurature of my body. That is why neither Andie nor I complained when our hostel room had air conditioning! We kept it pretty cold that night, about 19 degre

On the morning of the 12th we took another train to Granada to see the Alhambra, known for its red bricks. This too we learned about in our history classes and to be able to see the Generalife was indeed a good experience. The views here were also beautiful of the palace, the white washed city and the snowcovered sierra nevadas in the distance. The water fountains that were everywhere with cold mountain water helped too. The sad thing is, when we got to our other destination on the hill, the court of lions, there were no lions in the court! They were removed as the originals were getting worse for wear and they were working on replacement ones....again, sad reconstruction. Though i guess i cant blaime anyone for trying to make things last longer for someone other than me.

We ate a spanish dinner of Gezpacho and Pollo Asada. The coffee we had afterwards was probably in my top five coffees for this trip, Spain, who knew? We then hit two birds with one stone and took the trenhotel once more to get sleep whilst we traveled to Barcelona. Our last stop. The train was pretty quiet other the the two old codgers who were sitting beside me. They sat there, watching me draw a building of the generalife until I finished when i asked them if they would like to see my sketch book. They were more than delighted and followed my trips through France as the other countries are in my first book. I think I suprised then that i spoke to them in Spanish, as again they said they thought i was German. They had been to the town of honfleur and recognized some other little known places I had sketched.

I write this now inside a hostel across the street from Parc Guell in Barcelona. The hostel is actually quite beautiful, having been someones estate once long ago, it has high ceilings and beaitiful detail work. Too bad most youths that stay here couldnt give a damn about the history they are sleeping in. Oh well, Parc Guell and Sagrada Familia today!


No worries, i dont actually like Gaudis work, but I feel as though i should atleast see it while i am here.

"Hermanitas mas gualpas" -old man

Yesterday we took a tour of the Palace Real, it was probably one of the most ornate palaces we have been in to date. The halls wre beautiful and the views from the windows were excellent. My favorite part though had to be there armory where they had full suits of armor of both knights and horses alike. They even had some for dogs and children. though most of it was extremely ornate and obviously for show, i liked it, especially the conquistador helmets and the 10 foot muskets.

Our hostel, is pretty nice, though the walls are very thin and I could here our neighbor snoring through the walls last night...atleast that is all I had heard. We slept in this morning until ten then walked around town some more, intending to do some shopping and exploring, though, much to our dismay, we had forgotten today is sunday and nothing was really open. We walked to the parque del buen retiro and the old train station that has been filled withtropical trees instead of tracks. Which by the way was a neat idea on paper, but horribly humid when used as a place for people to travel through. We then went to get out of the heat by going to see oceans 13, which was pretty good, but not up to par of the others. I guess you would expect that for the 3rd installment. spiderman, cough. cough

tomorrow toledo, cordoba!