Uncategorized

We did the presentation this morning and it went really well. I was amazed by the turnout, especially considering we were not in the main conference hotel and were part of a session held at the ungodly hour of 8AM on Sunday morning. So I’ve now done my first presentation at a national conference (which is nice) and I’m pretty much done and can start enjoying things a bit more (which is even nicer).

Coming up:

• My third meal in as many days at a hole-in-the-wall tacqueria.
• Maybe an evening trip to the beach with a friend who’s never seen the Pacific Ocean.
• Freebies at the exhibits.
• More Safeway diet grapefruit soda (I’ve missed it) when I get back to my room.

The actual vacation starts Tuesday.

For some reason, I’m having trouble uploading photos in the WordPress app. I may link to some stuff on flickr later today.

…how much I like San Diego. At some unspecified point in the future, I’ll have lots to say about things I do and don’t miss about California. But tonight is not that point.

Today:

• Wound my way from Anaheim to San Diego.
• Covered the El Cajon Blvd. and University Ave. strips.
• Walked around Ocean Beach.
• Had dinner in Pacific Beach.

Tomorrow:

• A bit of laundry.
• More strips and diners and motels.
• Maybe downtown.
• At least one used bookstore.

Today:

• Breakfast at Rudford’s in San Diego.
• Drove to Pasadena and checked into the mid-century motel of my dreams.
• Lunch at L&L Hawaiian Barbecue.
• Took a couple of first-day drives around the city to soak in the essential LA-ness of it all.
• I’m glad I still love it here.

Tomorrow: Who knows? There are many possibilities.

I stayed mainly in Pasadena today and made good on my promise to have a low-key last day of vacation. As a mild insomniac, I pretty much always wake up a few times a night, particularly when I’m traveling, but last night I didn’t budge all night. That was nice.

Today:

• Walked downtown for breakfast (machaca at Andy’s Coffee Shop) and what turned out to be a very frustrating library run.
• Hit a couple of used bookstores on Colorado Boulevard.
• Took a little drive through Arcadia, Monrovia, Alhambra, and San Marino.
• Had soul-sucking conversations with my parents (the second in as many days with my dad).

And then there was dinner:

This place is one of the most wonderful restaurants I’ve found in many years. It’s a time capsule, circa 1965, and is pretty much every restaurant I used to eat at with my parents when we traveled back in the 1970s. The food was OK if a bit pricey–this is the kind of place hat still thinks it’s splurgy–but he atmosphere was amazing, from the elevator music (e.g. an instrumental version of “King of the Road”) to the genuinely friendly waitress who knew all the old people by name and played with the babies. This was not “by the manual” friendliness but the rather maternal behavior of a older lady who’d probably worked there for years, probably lives in the neighborhood, and really loves her job. That she switched effortlessly between English and Spanish was a plus too.

I left here in a really good mood, happy that such a place could still exist in SoCal.

One more picture:

Gotta be up early tomorrow to drive from Pasadena to LAX at the peak of rush hour. Wish me luck.

Finally made it home about 5:00 today, approximately thirty-two hours after I left my hotel for the airport yesterday. Ah, the marvels of the jet age, which allowed me to race home from the West Coast at an average speed of about eighty miles per hour!

Of course, just to make the trip completely symmetrical, my luggage is once again missing in action and will likely be delivered at some unspecified time tonight. My rerouted trip sent me home to Greensboro by way of LaGuardia and also involved an airline shift that they didn’t warn me about. Airline shifts at LaGuardia, by the way, involve leaving the secured area, taking a shuttle bus ride to what seems like the next county, and going through security again: a nice trick with a forty-five-minute layover.

So all in all, a great trip sandwiched within really shitty travel days at the beginning and end.

And upon my return, when all I really wanted was a few hours to decompress and relax before work tomorrow (I’d originally planned on a whole day, after all), I found that:

• My air conditioner is not working. This, mind you, is in the midst of the worst heatwave in a couple of years.
• My mom is having another major episode, apparently threatening to walk out of her assisted living facility.

So I get to spend my first morning back at work dealing with fallout from all that, too. I know problem number one is very “first world” and I don’t want to whine (more), but it really sucks to be completely exhausted within two hours of returning from a vacation. And to know that you also probably won’t be able to sleep it off either because it’s so fucking hot.

I think I’m going to turn around and go back west. Or north. Or something…