Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving (1) cleaning the yard



(2) visiting the veterans cemetary (didn't know any dead people, just taking a walk)



(3) cooking dinner



(4) shopping in LA and Fashion Valley. Got stuff for myself =)

Zoo - last trip

Video of harpy eating something furry:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5cPNB4COdj4

Video of Muffy on a Leash Again:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oNnltpcAYIo

I went on a 3 mile/1hr power walk at work today, in 87 degree weather. Then lunch at the Nordstrom cafe, where I busted out my homemade sandwich. Nothing beats turkey and guacamole, not even Nordstrom.

Muffy cake

C made me a muffy cake for my birthday. It has peanut butter frosting with strawberry filling. It's pretty good, tastes the way Muffy would taste if we cut her open. Showed her the cake, she was kind of disturbed.

Washington DC 3

Vietnam Memorial. You know you HAVE to take THE picture, so I did.


The memorial is famous b/c you can see yourself against the names of the dead, effectively bringing the dead to life, or linking yourself to them, depends how you look at it.


Met with a friend at a Belgium restaurant in Eastern Market (one of DC's many up and coming districts). It's the best Belgium bar I've ever been to, with a real Belgian bartender and a selection of 4-5 beers on draft. We split an appetizer, avocado stuffed shrimp and ahi tuna.



Flew back to San Diego after an 8hr flight. Flew out the next day for an interview. I'm getting old, can't do that any more.

Washington DC 2

Korean War Memorial:


Soldiers without eyes. This is my fav memorial...I think it conveys real emotion.


You wander around town and see all sorts of important buildings. Here's the FDIC.


WW2 Memorial, Atlantic side in day.

Washington DC 1

This last week I went to DC for a conference. Didn't sleep or eat a lot, but I got to see the monuments twice, once at night in the rain, and once in the day.

Conference at the University of Maryland:


Of course I visited the Supreme Ct. No arguments on Fridays.


It's autumn in DC. They actually have weather.


Washington Monument at night with the WWII memorial. 11.30pm...you get the monuments all to your self.

Air Show 2006

It poured this morning but luckily the air show wasn't rained out. What looked like a million people went, and it took us an hour to get into the parking lot, and more than an hour to exit. But it's the best and biggest air show I've ever seen, and the turn out (people wise) is absolutely amazing. Plus it's great to be brainwashed every now and then. The announcer had a chaplain lead us in prayer before the air show, and there was plenty of forced love your country and support the military. It's a pretty good ad, and the military wings brought good recruiting toys.

We got reserved seats this round in the front row. As a result, we didn't eat allll day. But we rewarded ourselves with In/n/Out after the show. P/H were there also, but I didn't see them. I think they snuck into the reserved seating area though.

Osprey


Marine w/ the pixelated uniform and face paint.


Marines on tank.

God I'm late updating

This last weekend, we boarded and toured an "amphibious assault" ship for fleet week. This particular ship was the oldest in the Pacific fleet, so it's going to be decommissioned in February. I didn't take pix inside, here's some guns though.


Afterwards we fetched food at Karl Strauss, the flagship one. I'd much rather go to the new flagship bloomingdale's in SF.

Muffy and her new cat tree =)

Slightly mean, slightly funny things said to me on Friday by various persons.

* You need a name brand bag. (ignoring my name brand bag)
* Do you even know what this case is about?
* Do not mock the plaintiff.
* You actually spelled our name right. Why?
* I did not know they had law firms there.
* I am interviewing at [insert awesome law firm]. Did you get an interview [at awesome law firm]?
* You need to focus on job-searching and stop squandering opportunities.
* Lot of walking today, what are you, the coffee girl?
* Lunch was over an hour long. We're never going to do that again.

Yesterday I met my professor, to discuss my externship. He was surprised at the dual personality expressed in my (now deleted) journal as compared to my work product. When I want, I can write in boring lawyer style. You'll never see it on this blog though, no this blog is bad writing incarnate.

On the agenda this week: law review comment, next work assignment, library training thurs (free stuff!), interview friday, party friday night.

Vlad's gone

Labor day, 90 degrees, Vlad left today. Hopefully he'll enjoy his life in the wild.

Spent the morning at Coronado beach. God it was hot. Like searing burning your skin off hot. We didn't last very long at all, I could feel myself turning pink. What is it with expensive sunscreen-lotions...they don't work.

Saturday, took Henrick up to South Coast Plaza. So I don't know the difference between Giorgio and Emporio Armani. Is it wrong to be offended when the salesperson doesn't offer to help you?? I was actually dressed nice, I had expensive brand name clothing on!! I guess I don't project an aura of spendiness. Meanwhile they all ask Henrick if he needs help. But we ended up in an awesome little Japanese used book store, and found a Japanese-Hawaiian grocery store. I'm ok living in Costa Mesa.

Sorry, no pictures. But hey you know what a beach looks like!

I deleted my other blog. I'd bet money that no one would ever find that site, but if anyone at work ever saw me working on it, I would be fired. So now it's gone.

Ironically I almost wrote my paper on options for employees fired for blogging at work.

Remember Muffy?

Muffy on the white chair.



Muffy sleeps on my bed, she takes up an entire side.




Muffy's mad.



What we had for dinner. Beans, duck, and sausage.

Cardiff by the Sea

Today's mission: Cardiff by the Sea. It's a enclave of 12,000, part of the city of Encinitas. About 30min north of where I live.

Cardiff's a town full of modest homes and broken roads. Typical beach town. We had lunch at Las Olas, this place that supposedly created the fish taco. Here it's popular to bring your kids and drink alcohol cleverly disguised by orange juice.

On one side of the restaurant is San Elijo Lagoon, this huge 900 acre estuary. Oh and ya, I got some pple cleaning palm trees, they're showing us how it's done.


Cardiff the beach is right across the restaurant, it's one of many beaches accessible by this road that runs from god knows where down to La Jolla. It's not a very deep beach, rocky and dirty. Nonetheless it's popular because it's a dog beach. We saw dogs of every type everywhere...the most popular being the muscular killer type. The smaller dogs had trouble with the waves. There's also a lot of surfers b/c the water is very churny.


Someone paragliding.

Catching up

Finally uploaded some pix from the cam.

This is Henrick when we took him out to celebrate his new job. He's going to be a rockstar.



And this is Santa Monica Beach. My continuing saga of various beachs in socal. I've photographed Coronado, Mission, La Jolla Cove, Rosarito, Malibu, Huntington, Laguna, Newport and now Santa Monica.

Low energy so far this week =(

It's a bad thing, I need to be bright and perky at work, and equally energetic at all the start of school type things. Coffee isn't working either.

Scheduled to be 87 degrees tomorrow =( All I want to do is lock myself in a room and sleep.

I went to work today.

I need to keep a journal for work. It's here.

Why Law School Sucks

If you haven't noticed, I'm trying to blog more often. I read a commentary on Myspace that wondered, why do all these millions of people, with this versatile software, choose only to discuss and glamorize their own life? One guy answered, it's because the common public doesn't have anything under the surface, that all we can think of doing is talking about our menial daily lives.

So, I'm like that. I'm not a brilliant creative awesome writer. I'm not especially funny, I think I'm boring. I'm not even a concise boring writer. And ya, I'm shallow, thats why my blog is about the boring details of my life. It'll stay that way.

Back to why law school sucks. Law school sucks b/c everyone at my school is insanely egotistic, scared to ask for help, and insecure. I feel like I need to keep my mouth shut, least I offend someone's ego, and end up with a letter explaining why I'm wrong and that person is rite. Of course the letters are always very polite, people try to practice their legal writing skills on me. (I edited out some very offensive not very nice stuff here) I'm sure I won't amount to better, but I'll try very hard (and believe me it's hard), to not treat people unfairly.

Vacation b4 school

We went to the Natural History Museum in LA on Saturday. OMG they had SO many dead birds, all stuffed. Some of them looked newly dead. We saw drawers of birds, and their feet, and their sawed off heads. The special exhibit was about Europeans who sacrificed gold and bodies to a bog. For some reason, the bog preserved skin but not bones, so the bodies were patches of leather. It's an awesome musuem, it's huge and took entirely 2hrs longer than I thought. It's also right across from USC, which is a beautiful school. I wish I went there for undergrad.

Then we went to Santa Monica Beach, which is like Mission Beach, done properly. Fewer timeshares, deeper beach, same deep blue water. I love Santa Monica, it's got an excellent shopping district, it's close to good Japanese food, I saw this bar that's just made for me, and it's got that beach! I dragged C and C shopping. They've got a Zara there (black and white European clothing). A sizeable number of female shoppers sported Zara shirts. We got gelato at this incredibly good gelato place, with a hundred flavors. I got strawberry. Damn good.

Had dinner at Shabu hachi...which is a shabu shabu place, but we got shabu nabe. It's like kimchee soup flavored hot pot. It's what sumo wrestlers eat. It's a good way to start the school year. This guy's blog has a picture, we didn't get the seafood, we got beef and chicken meatballs.

Yep, school starts tomorrow. It's never ended for me though, I've already got 4 meetings set up next week. I've been reading up on this new "Get Things Done" system by David Allen, which breaks terrifying projects down into manageable components. I think the key is to focus less on school and more on other things.

Beaches to Attend

I'm going to visit the following beaches:

Imperial Beach => close to the border, home of the U.S. sand castle building competition

Windansea (La Jolla) => surfing, snorkeling, kayaking

La Jolla Cove => best snorkeling in San Diego

Cardiff by the Sea + San Elijo Lagoon => old surfing town

Moonlight State Beach (Encinitas) => family oriented

Sunset Cliffs (san diego) => 68acres of cliffs, no facilities

Black's Beach => past torrey pines state beach, swimsuit optional hanggliding dangerous to access beach

Silver Strand Beach (Coronado south) => camping, Navy Seals training center

Muffy

Torrey Pines State Beach

My goal...go to every beach in San Diego. I'm waiting for my picnic basket to arrive first. ETA 3 weeks.

Torrey Pines is the beach between Del Mar and La Jolla. It costs $6 to park, doesn't have a whole lot of sand, but it's got that multi colored water reminiscent of tropical areas. I saw a baby shark in the water, or at least a foot long fish that looked like a baby shark! I went on a Thursday afternoon and the beach was absolutely packed with children learning to surf. A fair number of people simply walk to the beach, lucky persons who live in Del Mar.

The marshy river that empties into the beach:


Condos in Del Mar overlooking the beach:


The beach, packed!

Liquids on a Plane

Flew back to Los Altos right during the no liquids on a plane scare. No one searched me, the worst I got was a verbal question, are you carrying liquids?

Saw cousin Grace, visited Santa Cruz. It was one of those days when there were a million sardines in the ocean, and everyone had fish in their coolers. People went nuts with happiness.

Would have been a good trip but GM tagged along everywhere. Would be ok, but she didn't even know I came back, she didn't want to go to Santa Cruz, I don't understand why she got into the car.

Here's Grace with a cat.

So I made it. I got on the plane, they didn't search me, they just asked me if I had any liquids. I got my assigned seat on Southwest, and it was the best seat I've ever gotten on a plane. Sad in a way, it's the closest I'll ever get to first class.

Grace is here too. Yesterday we went shopping at Valley Fair, where I got a skirt and a shirt. No one else bought anything. Today we went to Santa Cruz. It wasn't really hot, foggy. We checked out the botanical gardens where I held a stripped tabby, went to the pier, the beach, and then downtown. The ocean was packed with sardines today, you could see them, dense and thick. Everyone was catching fish, people, birds, sea lions. I bought a cat lunchbox. It's plastic, neon pink and blue, and has drawings of cats. I'm going to take it to work.

Tomorrow we're going to Mayflower for dim sum, and we're going to hang out with the super dense Chinese crowds. It'll be a China day. China days make everyone (grace, grandma, parents) happy, b/c they all understand each other. I'm kind of left out.

Monday....I go back to SD.

Burj Al-Arab

I want to stay at this hotel. It's supposedly 7 stars. Located in Dubai over the Arabian Gulf. It's about $1000/night, and you get a concierge on every floor. They're also building an Atlantis hotel in Dubai, set to open in 2009. It'll be on the Jumeirah strip, where they built an island shaped like a palm tree. Dubai will be the next big tourist destination, and I'm going to go before anyone else does.

Catalina

Went to Catalina today, boarding from Newport Beach. Catalina is a 1.5hr boat ride, in the choppy Pacific. There's a good chance of getting seasick on this ride. On the way there, I saw a million dolphins. Yes. The boat went straight into a pod of dolphins. There were dolphins as far as the eye could see, thick and shiny, flipping through the waves, and it went on and on and on. There was no space of ocean without dolphin. Hard to think they're endangered, or that any fish was left in the sea.

This is a picture of our boat. It's a catamaran! It seats a lot of people, passage is $50 per person round trip, and the boat's packed at 9am. It's docked in Catalina.



Catalina's really rocky, when you land you go to this small town called Avalon, with a few restaurants and shops. Houses are small and thick stacked high on the hills. People drive around in golf carts. Boats are a big deal, people just dock their boats anyplace, and kayak/raft out to them when they need. What's popular today is sitting with a bunch of friends and beer on your anchored, non moving boat.



The island also lacks beaches. This is Descanso Beach, a private beach that really didn't have sand, and was made of rocks. People don't care, it's a place for beautiful women to show off their new bikinis. This is also where we launched our kayak. We kayaked out around the island. There's ships everywhere...even on the parts of the island with no beaches and no real shore access at all. People just park their sailboats wherever there's space. I saw kelp forests, sardines, and starfish from the kayak. The water today was warm and clear, and the ocean very choppy.



This is another example of how there isn't a beach. People just sit on a raft in the water. Note how the area is packed with boats, people, and housing.



All in all, it's nice to see once, but I'm not sure I'd go again. It's a long trip, both driving up to Newport and then the 1.5hr boatride.

Muffy's 8.5yrs old.

That's getting on in years for a cat....=(

Last Thursday was the last day of work for me. Still not sure if I'm returning in the fall. I'd like to get a position that paid money. Thursday was also the last day of class. My tax final will be next Thursday night. Someplace in there I need to prepare for fall recruiting and finish my citechecking assignment.

It's been muggy and disgusting down here. Last night I thought I died. I usually sleep with the window open, but last night, it didn't make a difference. It was suffocatingly humid and hot; we couldn't breathe. What's worse is Muffy and I fight for the same corner, the one right under the window. I denied Muffy last night, and as a result, she crammed her body up against the window, blocking all air. I hear no relief in sight.

Here's a picture of cats in Hong Kong I found online. Notice how the middle one is a composite of the ones on top and bottom.

Comic-Con

It hit 104 yesterday. Luckily, I didn't feel much of it. I had law review training from 11-14, where they assigned work and more work. If it wasn't so prestigious, I would drop out. If I had made top 10% of my class, I would drop out. It sounds like 10hrs minimum of photocopying and running around the library. You pay for your own copies. And that's on top of the time I'll need to spend writing my article. I'm going to write it on copyrights in cyberspace law. I don't care if it hurts my chances of being published, I'm not going to write on criminal justice or Guantanomo Bay or internet poker. Some tool last year changed his topic right after Katrina hit, just so he could get published. No, I'm not like that.

Afterwards three of us snuck into Comic Con. Let me tell you, the booths were AMAZING. The place was absolutely huge. All the television and movie studios were there, along with comic book vendors, American comics, anime, and video and computer games. I saw Dirge of Cerberus, Warcraft, I saw the guy who voices Fry on Futurama, and of course, Snakes on a Plane! Afterwards we watched a Batman Q/A. It was just like on tv, when they make fun of star trek geeks at star trek conventions, where people ask the same retarded questions and the people answering are like...what the hell? Ya, just like that. Real life comic book guys. Then we watched the world premiere of the Teen Titans movie (which sucked). We missed out on the guy who wrote the Last Unicorn, and on the preview of Neverwinter Nights 2, which is today!

I bought two ugly dolls, one for my parents, and one for me. It looks like Muffy.

FISH DIED

Yesterday the fish died.

It was four years old.

Today I saw a large beetle.

I think it was the fish. Reincarnated.

It's 86 degrees today. Muffy's ears are warm. We slept w/o blankets last night, Muffy and me, and Muffy took over the entire bed.

Rosarito Beach

Three of us visited Rosarito yesterday. It's quite a trip by bus, we bussed to the border, then bussed for 20 min from Tijuana to Rosarito. Rosarito's famous for its spring break parties and beautiful beaches.

The bus dropped us off in front of the Rosarito Beach Hotel, which is famous b/c it's where celebrities used to stay. The hotel isn't luxurious like the Coronado hotel, but it's equally huge and spread out. We found the streets packed with clubs, huge industrial clubs booming with music at 10am. They all sold wristbands which offered all you can drink. Didn't go in, too early for that kind of stuff. We found a lot more street vendor type shopping than Tijuana, but it's still about the same stuff.We went to the beach though, where I got really sunburned.

The beach has awesome waves, it's big, white, and somewhat clean. It would be clean if they didn't let people ride horses around at least. It got really crowded in the afternoon. Some mexicans, some tourists. All in all, it's definitely a good place to pick up a girl/guy, good place for beautiful people to go. Not so good if you're into anything besides beach going and clubbing.

My lease expired yesterday. I wanted to move, but everyone on Craigslist is psycho.

Palm Springs

I went to Palm Springs this weekend. It's about 2hrs north of San Diego, in the middle of the desert. Building luxury condos is a big thing, as are boarded up buildings. It looks as if one type of people have left, and another type is coming in, or at least they're hoping a new type will come. Lotsa casinos, things for the old and rich. It's a good place for cosmetic surgery too. There's this main street with restaurants, all that serve the same food (but I'm sure it's good food). There's a Kobe beef restaurant that doesn't serve kobe beef. And we got dinner at a bbq place that served me a super sweet super alcoholic mojito!

The main thing was the 110 degree heat. It's like having your skin seared off. Our car almost melted. We went to the Palm Springs Tramway, which is this tram that takes you way up this huge rocky mountain. There, you can go hiking. The tram's really popular among tourists and hikers. We saw a bunch of koreans...they brought a box of inari to eat.

We also visited a Palm oasis. It's really not like the oases in games, it's not clean, the water's not clear and blue, there are no pristine sand dunes. It looks overgrown and full of dead palm trees. The water is shallow, filled with tiny little fish. And it was HOT.

Today on the way back we went to the Cabazon outlet center, which is absolutely huge. Again, tons of Koreans. It's a good place to get polo shirts. I didn't get anything...nothing fits me =\

Palm oasis


Palm oasis again


View of the parking lot from the top of the mountain.