Ohh, doesn’t that title sound so awful. Well, it’s official. I am getting a cold. I felt run down all day, and my throat is just progressively getting more sore. I just hope it doesn’t turn into a sinus infection like 90% of my colds seem to do. I have the worst immune system ever! At least the weather here is going to be awful for the next few days, so I won’t be missing anything. The weather has already been awful for about the last two weeks. It was so nice for a while, and then it all fell apart. I don’t know WHAT the deal is. I had to move here when the climate suddenly changed to become the new Seattle.
Meanwhile, my dreams have been so vivid lately that I’m having to think about whether or not something actually happened. Like a conversation with a friend – no wait, I dreamed it! It didn’t really happen. It’s been very trippy to say the least.
I finally finished the last book of the “Girl With The Dragon Tattoo” series. Great ending. The character of Lisbeth Salander is amazing. I wonder if the fourth book will ever get published.
Hopefully I will be traveling to Palm Desert this weekend to meet up with Aunt Linda and Uncle Frank, and Katrin and Donny. That will be fun. Hopefully I’m not sick for it.
Surfing has been great. I had been surfing so much up until about 2 days ago. I’m getting way better at longboarding. The other day I had a couple of great noserides. I’m more consistent with them, and I know when I have to back off the nose before I fall. It doesn’t look good if you ride the nose till you fall. You have to retreat stylishly. Paddling back out this guy said to me, “I want to see you hang heels on the next one!” I’m having such a blast with it since it seems to come naturally to me. It will be interesting to see how I can progress in a few months, especially since I’ve really only been longboarding for like 2 months.
So, as I was leaving the house this morning I mentioned to my mom that we hadn’t had any thunderstorms at all since I had gotten back home. None. Zilch. This morning was sunny with some clouds, but overall pretty nice. So I’m sitting in Panera and all of a sudden it starts getting dark. It wasn’t supposed to rain today. Then all of a sudden it starts absolutely pouring, and thundering so loud. The power went out for a second. I went outside and there are bolts of lightning exploding right overhead. It’s raining harder than I’ve seen it rain in a very long time. SO WEIRD!! I looked at the weather map and there was one little storm cell that passed right overhead. How random is that? I get done saying that we hadn’t had any good thunderstorms and that it’s probably too late in the season to get a good one, and the sky opens right above my head an hour later. Haha. Thanks God.
Wow, I can’t stand this. The weather in San Diego has been absolutely abominable. It’s cloudy and drizzly! It’s like 64 degrees. It does NOT feel like summer! The sun came out for a few days last week and it was great, but it was so short lived. The sun has come out for about 5 days in total over the last month and a half. The worst part is that this horrible cloudiness makes me so tired and draggy. I hate surfing when it’s like this – I mean, it’s cold! And it’s endless. It just doesn’t go away!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH
I’ll be going to NY in about 10 days, and I can’t wait. It’s sunny and hot there. I wish I could go tomorrow. However I know as soon as I take off for NY it will become beautiful in San Diego. Ugh.
Everyone was saying how nice summer is in San Diego. So I stay for part of summer and it’s been the most horrible summer they’ve had in like 100 years. Grr.
So basically July has been all the bad stuff about summer – annoying kids running around because they’re not in school, traffic, crowds. And none of the good stuff – heat, sunny days, etc.
Sorry, I had to rant. This is almost as bad as Michigan in the middle of winter.
I just have to vent a little here. They made the stupid iphone 4 as slippery as a bar of soap. So needless to say it slipped out of my cell phone holder case 4 feet onto my asphalt driveway, chipping the edges in a few spots. Nothing major, but I just got the stupid thing. It cost me $360 dollars and a ball and chain contract with AT&T.
It’s not even the cosmetic chips along the edge that upset me, but now I have to be worried that something in the innards of the phone got knocked around, and now it’s not going to run as fast or as well, or reception will be worse. Something unmeasurable.
So great. Not even into my 2nd day with the phone and it’s messed up.
I was going to buy a case but damnit I did not have time and the apple store (useless every time I go in there) was sold out.
Alright, I’m going to go be pissed off for the rest of the day.
So, upon moving to California I had no idea about this pesky natural phenomenon called the Marine Layer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_layer). It’s basically a layer of clouds that hangs over the coastline of California. It’s just along the coast too: if you drive a few miles inland it’s completely sunny. And if you look back towards the coast you can see what looks like the edge of a giant blanket over the ocean with the edges conveniently tucked in over my apartment. Blah! So that means it’s been very cloudy here. They call it May Gray and June Gloom. Thankfully May wasn’t too cloudy, but June has been a different story.
Yesterday it was very nice out finally, sunny all day. I went surfing in the morning with Beth and Val, and caught some fun waves. I also got run over by a longboarder again. Seriously, kooks that can’t control their boards should not be in a crowded lineup. Thankfully I jumped off my board and got out of his way before he hit me, but my board was still in his path and got run over. Miraculously my board did not get damaged.
It was father’s day yesterday and I couldn’t even call my dad until like 9pm eastern time since I had left my phone at a friend’s house in Irvine and had to wait for someone to drop it off as they were heading south. It would have been a nightmare to try to drive there and back again just to pick it up.
Anyway, it’s cloudy again today, and the surf looks poopy so I guess I’ll go for a run later!
Definitely got my adrenaline going! There have been a lot of quakes around here recently since Easter – more than usual the locals are saying. I think the earth is pretty mad about the awful way we are treating it – so it’s just gonna shake us off into the ocean.
There’s just not enough time in the day to do all the things that you want! Like today for instance – it just went so fast! I did get a fun surf session in though. I surfed for two hours and really felt like I broke through the plateau that I was on. I was in full control of my board, I felt like my arms were in good paddling shape and I could catch anything. The water was clean, and the waves were glassy. Then I had to go to the laundromat, but even that seemed to go fast. There weren’t 9825 screaming children running around, so that was good.
Then I had dinner with Val and we went to get frozen yogurt. Golden Spoon has some very good coffee flavored fro yo. Then we went over to Joanne’s place to give her money for the concert tickets we’re buying for next month. Yeah, sounds like a pretty bad day right? I shouldn’t complain at all.
It’s going to rain the next few days here, and I love how the talk of the town is that it’s going to rain for TWO days. Gasp!
Wow, I’m having the hardest time doing work right now because my stomach feels like I have an ulcer or something. It’s from the antibiotics -- I took the last one yesterday but boy did they screw my digestive system up. I’ve had almost no appetite for the past 5 days or so. It’s a bummer.
So instead of working (which is really frustrating) I’m just doing some random stuff…like updating this blog.
Two nights ago the weirdest thing happened. I was woken up at around 5am (it was still pitch black out) to the sound of a very low flying plane. It sounded like it was circling around. When it didn’t just pass over I got a bit nervous so I jumped out of bed and ran to the front door. I realized there was a helicopter with a searchlight hovering over my neighborhood. I got pretty freaked out when I saw a few men walking quickly down the street with flashlights looking into people’s yards. There were no sirens or anything. My adrenaline was definitely pumping. I didn’t know if there was a murderer running around or what. I was a little on edge thanks to the two stories that have been in the news about the girl that was recently kidnapped and killed and the body of Amber DuBois found recently in Pala, which is inland and not that far from here. In the morning I talked to my landlord and she said that apparently it was Border Patrol looking for a boat of illegal immigrants (Mexicans). Crazy huh?
Recently I’ve been listening to a song by the Smashing Pumpkins called 1979. For some reason that song gives me this incredible feeling of nostalgia about high school. It gave me a feeling about high school nostalgia while I was in high school, for crying out loud. How can you have nostalgia for the present? Anyway, I think it just brings out a certain emotion about the past. I sometimes fall into melancholy…it’s weird but for some reason I enjoy it. That sounds completely emo I know, but it’s more that the song brings out some memories that are incredibly crisp and clear. Like the green fields on our school grounds, and sports practice after school. Like class night. Like lockers and changing classes.
Music is quite unique in that it can bring out emotional memories. If you buy a CD for a trip and listen to it the entire time you’re on the trip, then put the CD away for 6 months, the next time you listen to that particular CD you’ll feel like you’re back on the trip. It’s like the songs store a particular emotional fingerprint. It’s really cool, and I think this is why I like the interplay between movies and music.
The weather is absolutely BEAUTIFUL today here in San Diego. It feels like summer. It was almost too hot for me after lunch. Too bad I’m suffering from this stomach ache. I’m going to to try to surf a little later and see if that helps. Usually if I surf when I’m having indigestion or something it totally helps. Fortunately my sinus infection is quite a bit better.
It’s been a bit chilly here in San Diego the past week. Not sure why, but it’s been a bit chilly to want to hang outside. Listen to me – now I think that 63 and sunny is too chilly! I think that it’s COLD when it’s 56 and cloudy. I’ve lost my mind. But seriously, it gets kind of cold if it’s breezy, which it usually is after lunchtime. I was looking at the observed temperatures for this past week over at weather.com and yeah, to me a week of sub 60 temperatures is COLD. I guess it’s proof that I’m now a San Diegan.
I finally have my voice back today. Well, not completely. Some of my range still comes out as no sound, but it’s 75% back to normal. I sounded absolutely awful since Saturday, and my voice was cracking on every word. Plus, my right ear somehow got clogged and it wouldn’t drain. So I went back to the doctors and got the usual round of antibiotics again. This is a bit ridiculous – antibiotics three times within 3-4 months? Oh well. At least I’m getting better. I’m going to have to become one of those people who uses Purell every 5 minutes because I apparently have the immune system of a little baby. Sigh.
Dell U2410 Monitor
In other news, my new computer came! It’s a beast. I had to get a monitor separately, but I’m not sure I’m too happy with it. I got the Dell u2410. It’s a pricey monitor, but I wanted something that would be business quality and able to be useful for graphic design. Well, it’s great except for one thing – there is this horrendous anti-glare coating on the screen that makes it look so grainy. To me it looks awful, and maybe it’s just my eyes but I feel like I go crosseyed when I try to read text on the screen. It’s hard to describe, but it causes white backgrounds to have a prism quality, kind of similar to what you see on a TV screen if you sprayed it with a mist of water. It reflects the little LCD pixels in slightly different directions so you see itsy-bitsy specks of red, green, and blue. I mean, they are really itsy – you can’t pinpoint one really, but you can still see them as a mist. Sadly I might have to return it to Dell and get a different monitor, probably with a glossy screen. My laptop doesn’t have a glossy screen – it’s matte but it doesn’t have this problem. I’ll give it another day and do some more research on alternate monitor options.
I’ve been feeling a bit listless these past few weeks. I just feel off-track, like I’m not going anywhere. I guess I need a challenge; I need to be creative. That’s the tough thing about doing internet marketing…I’m a bit bored with it and it’s been a bit monotonous lately. I really need a goal to spur me right now – something to accomplish. I’m not sure what that is yet, but I need to take some time to think about it. I guess I just feel that writing websites about computer software and other stuff is just not very fulfilling. Or maybe it’s just that I’ve been sick and sitting on my butt. But I’ve just been a little…bored I guess. It’s weird to say I’ve been bored, because I’ve been doing all sorts of fun stuff with my friends here. But in my down time I feel very directionless and frustrated for some reason. I had a strange but very vivid dream the other night that might offer an explanation; I was on the Olympic Women’s Ice Hockey team (don’t ask me why, I’ve never played ice hockey in my life…I’ve never even held a hockey stick and worn skates at the same time) and I was stuck on the sidelines. I felt like I had all this talent and skill and I wanted to get in there and shoot a goal, but the coach (who was played by, in an amazing amount of randomness, my gym teacher from high school) wouldn’t put me in the game! I guess this just goes to show that I feel like I want to do something significant. I’ve always had that desire – to do something really significant.
Anyway, I’m gonna do a bit of soul searching and figure out a project or a goal that I can work on. I’ll still be doing my usual job, but I really need something that I’m passionate about. I’m just not sure what that is yet.
Ugh. Well, I’m sick again. Somehow I caught a cold last week. Wednesday was about when I started feeling it. I’m pretty bummed – I really think that since Nov. 1 I have spent more time sick than healthy. It’s so frustrating because I keep trying to get into a schedule of running and surfing because I want to get into better shape. I know I’m in relatively good shape but I just like knowing that I’m being active. I like feeling super in-shape rather than just passably in-shape.
Bear Mountain, CA
I went snowboarding with Val and Alexis on Saturday. I had a lot of fun but unfortunately I was a bit in a daze the whole time since the cold was just taking it out of me. I also couldn’t talk! I sounded like a strung-out sorority girl who had too much Vodka the night before. However I think I boarded pretty well, and it was my first time at Bear Mountain here in California. Val was able to get us free lift tickets too, which was awesome! Even though it was crowded and the snow quality was so-so, I really liked Bear. I think it’s because it has a lot of smaller jumps that I can go off without being too scared. I really want to get better at going off jumps – it’s really exhilarating!
Last night a bunch of us watched the Oscars at Megan’s house in Solana Beach. It was fun to actually do that – I love watching the Oscars but it’s so hard to find people who also like to watch them! So we had dinner, wine and cheese, and commented on the show. I really had a good time. I love movies and the film industry, so that’s my thing. I also saw quite a few of the movies that were nominated so I felt like I had a better feel for who should have won. I was psyched that Katherine Bigelow won for best director – the first woman to win a best director nod. Has it really taken that long? I’m not an ultra feminist or anything, but seriously. Also, the fact that she directed the war movie “The Hurt Locker” is awesome. Just goes to show that us girls actually CAN direct a serious action movie, not just romantic fluff. Bigelow also directed Point Break and K-19 The Widowmaker.
Grumpy Clooney
I didn’t think that Steve Martin and Alec Baldwin were that funny though. And what was up with George Clooney!?? He looked like he had a stick up his rear end every time they showed him on camera. After doing some research it was supposed to be part of the gag, but I totally did NOT get it. I really thought Mr. Clooney was angry, and it was kind of uncomfortable. Lots of other people had no idea what was going on either. Check this link for more info.
In other news I’ve been reading a book called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” I really like it so far. I’m about 130 pages in, and it’s a mystery/suspense/political intrigue kind of book. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It takes place in Sweden, which is a really neat setting. I’ve always been interested in places like Sweden and Finland and Norway. You just don’t hear about them that often and I’m curious about their culture. I think they’re pretty modern and Westernized. I’d love to go travel there someday.
Also, I changed the theme back for you, mom. For now.
In other news I’ve been reading a book called “The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo.” I really like it so far. I’m about 130 pages in, and it’s a mystery/suspense/political intrigue kind of book. I’m not quite sure how to describe it. It takes place in Sweden, which is a really neat setting. I’ve always been interested in places like Sweden and Finland and Norway. You just don’t hear about them that often and I’m curious about their culture. I think they’re pretty modern and Westernized. I’d love to go travel there someday.