I flew to Chicago on New Year's Eve and welcomed in 2007 on the Navy Pier watching the fireworks over Lake Michigan. It was actually warmer there than it was in San Diego at the time, surprisingly. There was a cool thing called Winter Wonderfest that was going on at the Navy Pier. I went for a run on New Year's Day and saw what used to be Meigs Field that is now a park that doesn't look that appealing. How sad. I spent New Year's Day at the Museum of Science and Industry before flying home at night.
I went and attended Petco's holiday party downtown with my sister and friends. It was fancy, had a live band, was in a big ballroom, and we got to go up to the top of the Hyatt and look at the view. It was a fun night!
My sister and I went up to Renee and Fred's for a housewarming/birthday party for the kids. Wow there were a lot of kids!
I went up to the Bay Area for Thanksgiving. We had Thanksgiving dinner, then went to Steve and Jeanine's for Thanksgiving lunch the next day, saw Steve's folks and the kids. They're all growing up so fast! On Sunday we went to Vacaville and did a tour of the Jelly Belly factory. It takes at least a week to make a jelly bean!
Garnet, Joe and I headed for the NOSC Tower. It was a little bumpy on the surface, but once we got there, we dropped anchor right on target, and were treated to probably at least 40 ft of visibility horizontally. We could actually see the boat from about 50 ft down. It was great to be able to see just about the whole tower and swim so effortlessly around it. We found the old whale bone, and it was really cool to see the dive flag up on the boat from 15 ft below the surface.
Roee, Charlie and I met up for a dive on a beautiful day at La Jolla Shores. We could still see the bottom where we dropped into about 20-25 ft of water, and we headed for the south walls. I can't remember the last time there was that much light at 100 ft. The visibility was nice, and we had a real enjoyable dive.
Dan and I got up early and went and did this dive at 5:30 in the morning - at first I thought it was an awful hour, but afterwards I decided it was a nice way to start a day and it was fun to watch it get light from underwater, instead of watch it get dark as normal when diving in the evenings.
Nala has grown up enough to be bigger and weigh more than Fat Flabby, and she's quite destructive now, as the picture shows with her shredding her toys.
My sis and I went to the Bay Area. We went partying with a couple of her friends, and watched a beautiful sunrise on the way home.
My friend Bill plays in the Christopher Cash Band. A group of us went to see them play at a yacht club at Mission Bay. Very cool stuff!
I was summoned for jury duty, but didn't get called into a courtroom. I had almost 2 hours for lunch, so since I had my camera, decided to go walk the waterfront and see Seaport Village.
Our team at work went to Universal Studios Hollywood to celebrate the release of our most recent version of our product. We drove up in the morning, spent the day, and drove back. It was a great day, and the lines were short. Too bad I don't have those snapshots they took on the rides. Some of those faces were hillarious!
When I got home from Australia, a little surprise was waiting for me at home. She's a retriever/pitbull mix, and was 8 weeks old when I got home.
My trip to Australia gets its own page. It was a wonderful and memorable trip with a lot of great, fun people.
It was the annual trip to Baja. This year we didn't have the red tide, so we got in a couple nice dives - they were even warm by Baja standards (really doesn't mean it was warm, but relative to past years when it was 55 on the surface, this was warm!). We did some kayaking, ate and drank a lot, and enjoyed being out in the sun. A fun trip!
James turned 1 this July! I went to his party up in the Bay Area. Happy birthday!
My sis and I drove to Las Vegas during the summer when it was ungodly hot. It was mostly a business trip, as I had to take care of a property management nightmare, but we got to wander around the Strip a little and have a little fun.
Roee and I flew up to Santa Monica on a beautiful day. We went to a cool restaurant called the Spitfire Grill, watched a lot of airplanes take off and land, and got great views directly over the top of LAX. The landing fee policy at SMO is the stupidest thing we've seen.
I went to Dallas to take a SAP ABAP class. Those that don't know what that is, you don't want to know! I did a little exploring around Fair Park and the last day wandered around downtown a little, but honestly, found nothing too special to do in Dallas. I was pretty bored when I was trying to sightsee. BTW, that first picture is a smogged out view of DFW while on a right downwind...
Roee, Stacey and I went to Catalina over Memorial Day weekend. We were supposed to fly there, but they closed the airport to resurface the runway, so we ended up driving all the way to Long Beach and taking the ferry. Instead of diving, we decided to camp and explore the middle of the island. We encountered a bison during a nice hike to the beach. It was real nice, peaceful, and quiet out there. Getting out there can be a logistical nightmare so timing is everything! We went kayaking when we returned to Avalon and discovered the coolest little beach bar. I think a return trip has to be in the works sometime.
Another free Southwest ticket about to expire, so another trip. This time I went all the way across the country to Baltimore and took a bus and train down into DC. I spent a lot of time wandering the National Mall, and went to the new Air and Space Museum over at Dulles airport.
I went to St Louis for a weekend because I had a free ticket on Southwest that was about to expire. It was a nice getaway - think I have enough pictures of the Arch?
I went on my first ski trip to Mammoth with Jodi, Mary, Sean, Jeanine, and John. Despite being totally sick, I went out and 2 days of skiing on harder things than I'm used to. Some pretty good crashes, but hey, isn't that how you learn? No broken bones or torn ligaments, so all was good! Thanks guys for leading the way! It was snowing and absolutely freezing the first day, but the second day was sunny and beautiful.
I went out to visit Dave and Bruce in Boulder, CO. We went skiing, saw a college basketball game that was pretty exciting, and did some hiking. Once again, the weather out there was absolutely spectacular!
I went out to Phoenix the weekend of Rock and Roll Arizona. I elected not to run this year, but went to watch. Afterwards, Matt and I were going to fly, but someone forgot to lower their landing gear before landing at Stellar Airpark (P19), so the only runway was shut down. We got to watch an airplane get airborne the way you never want to see one get airborne - with a lift.
Roee and I flew up to Cable Airport in Upland to watch the airshow. SoCal put a temporary tower in place for the show. We became "TwoPedestrians" that day when we radioed for a clearance to walk across the runway to the side where it was all happening. Fun show - check out all those RVs.