Today was an interesting day of travel challenges (minor, in the grand scheme of things, but it gave me something to blog about). At the Burbank office today, I joined my coworker for lunch, and we sat outside the cafeteria enjoying the unusually warm fall day (I’m talking high 90s, unusual for this time of year, even in Southern California). As we left, I walked back up with her to her desk where I’d stashed my laptop bag and my overnight bag, and realized I’d left my purse back down at the cafeteria. Oops. Read more
Stress and the management thereof
My job’s been more stressful than usual of late, and I’m grateful that (for the most part) I’ve been able to (and have pushed myself to) take advantage of most of the best stress management techniques I know. Getting up for my classes in the morning makes a noticeable difference in my day – Friday last week was the only day that I wasn’t able to go (I had to be in a meeting too early) and it was also the only day I came close to a meltdown (didn’t actually melt down at work, fortunately, but Sean was kind enough to let me do a big vent in the car on the way to the airport Friday night).
A weekend away at Skydive Elsinore helped somewhat, though I found that when my brain is on overdrive like it has been, sometimes a weekend of not having to think – even about skydiving- is a good thing. So I spent most of the weekend being social, only doing a couple of jumps, and it felt great!
Categories: Life
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Culinary Creativity
Getting a box of produce from Farm Fresh to You has really stirred my creative juices. Instead of gravitating to the same vegetables and fruits all the time, I find myself “forced” to try something new, or something I’m not normally drawn to. Sometimes, I just need to use something up before it goes bad, so I come up with a different way to use it than I might normally. Read more
Categories: Food, Life
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Back from the Hack
Apologies to anyone who came to my main blog page in the past few days … I got hacked. Apparently it’s not an uncommon thing for WordPress blogs, particularly for ones like mine where I’d been lackadaisical about upgrading and changing my security settings.
No more. Took me a few hours to do everything I should have done a while ago; hopefully now things are less vulnerable. There are probably some broken links (photos, in particular) but hopefully everything’s copacetic. If you see anything I’ve missed that needs cleaning up, shoot me a comment or email.
Categories: Life
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How do you describe the trip of a lifetime?
As I sat in the Las Vegas airport yesterday waiting for my flight back to Oakland, I called Sean to catch him up on my 9 days in the Grand Canyon. As I said to him (and I’ll say here now) I don’t even know where to begin. I do know that I want to go back, do the full trip, and bring Sean with me. Maybe 2013? Read more
Categories: Travel
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Preview: Grand Canyon Photos
Much more to come, but link to photos will have to do for now.
Categories: Travel
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Mobile Blogging from the Grand Canyon
So here I sit in a cabin built early in the last century, taking advantage of technology of early in this one. 3G @ the Grand Canyon!! Of course, as soon as I use the phone as my alarm clock tomorrow, off it goes for 9 days.
Got to Vegas last night; joined a tour bus to get me to the Canyon today. The tour bus represented the kind of travel that I have come to dislike: crowds, rushed itineraries, having to be on a schedule. And the “through the glass” experience of a place. The trip I start tomorrow represents what I enjoy: fewer people that you can really interact with rather than just sharing space, getting away, and really experiencing the physicality of a place. Yeah that’s the stuff!
Categories: Life, Travel
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Nostalgia Ain’t What it Used to Be
Several things have conspired lately to have me thinking a lot about the past, to childhood and my early adulthood. The first is the creation of a couple of Facebook Groups – one for folks who worked with me at University Transit Service (UTS) at U.Va., and one called “You know you grew up in Fairfax when…” I think going to Sean’s 25th high school reunion last week contributed to thinking about Fairfax, too, as I anticipate my 25th in two years. Read more
Categories: Nostalgia
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Somewhere Over the Prairie
15-way over Lost Prairie, MT
Ah, my beloved Lost Prairie – how wonderful it was to be there for (almost) the full boogie this year. Sean was a trooper and did ALL the driving, so I got to experience the joys of the RV without having to do much of the work. He left late Wednesday and got a few hours in, then drove most of the day Thursday and Friday, ending up in Spokane at our friends Cindy & Ed’s house. After a quick shower for Sean, the three of them came to pick me up at the airport and we enjoyed a nice dinner and headed back to their house for the evening. They were kind enough to put us up for the night so we didn’t have to rearrange all the stuff in the RV that was blocking access to the beds, so that made our lives a lot easier.
Categories: Food, Skydiving, Travel
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Feelin’ Fine, Prairie Prep, Paleo Guests
As we’re in the homestretch before Lost Prairie, I’ve spent some time recently making sure I have enough clothes to make it through 10 days of Montana weather – hot in the daytime; chilly at night. It meant digging through my entire closet to see what fits these days, and hitting Target and Macy’s for a few new pieces (mostly shorts/capris, as I’ve got more shirts than I know what to do with but I always struggle to find shorts/capris/pants that I actually like that also fit my oddly-shaped lower half, so I just don’t have all that many). Read more
Categories: Food, Life, Skydiving, Travel
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