Visit the kelpforest....

Boy, what is with me? Seems like I only make an entry lately when there's a drastic change in the weather. Which there has been lately - abnormally cool summer punctuated with short lengths of record high temperatures. It was over 100°F at my office yesterday, so I don't even want to know how hot it was in San Pedro where I was collecting squid samples. Yes, it is right on the water, but Palos Verdes blocks off any ocean breeze. Not that there was any - the air was pretty much dead still. At least at the second dealer, they sort the boat's load inside their facility, so it was fairly cool in there. The truck's AC seems to be dying though - it was just barely feeling slightly cool when I arrived back at the office (about a 20 minute drive). I stopped at Fresh & Easy for something cool for lunch (I'd brought something frozen to heat up, which just wasn't appealing), and I tell ya, nothing like a grocery store for a place to cool off.

So for a recap of just lately:

• Kids are back to school - Gareth and Angus are now going to the same school again, for the first time in three years. Gareth was a little overwhelmed with the changes the first week of middle school (it's middle school now, when I was going there, it was always "jr. high" - and indeed the school team is the Jr. Oilers, after the high school about a block away). Avalon's the last one at the elementary school, and for the first time, has a teacher one of her brothers had. Angus had her for third grade.



• Two weeks ago (already?) I spent a couple of days in Boise, ID. Last time I was there, I barely got out of the hotel; this time, the HMS agenda items on the Council's plate (which the team I'm on spent the previous two days discussing) finished early, my flight back to LAX wasn't until 8pm, so I got to spend a couple of hours wandering around downtown Boise - and the capitol building. Weirdly, I was trying to find a place for lunch and nearly all the restaurants closed at 2pm , then reopened at 5pm for dinner. Finally found an upscale pizza/wine bar and coincidentally both the hostess and the server had lived in Huntington Beach (after asking where I was from). They had a very good small pizza/salad lunch special, and I'd recommend the place if you're ever in Boise. Especially looking for a late afternoon lunch. Oh, and I also tried Basque food at a rather pricy restaurant that came well recommended - and several of us were less than impressed. I don't know if it was just the restaurant itself or I just picked the wrong thing. Oh well.



• I made a list of topics to write about about a month ago - and I've only gotten to one of them.



• At the top of my agency's intranet website:
  

  Dust off the ol' crystal ball again!  Take the State Budget Survey! (Looks like those of you who chose "When the cows come home" got it right!)




• Part of the update laziness, I guess, is only having a non-starting home PC to write on currently. I could use my phone but I'm just not up to typing the size entries I usually do with my thumbs (and I don't thing the phone browser likes them either - letters start becoming invisible at the end). Anyone just upgrade to Windows 7 and have no further use for their XP disc? Mine didn't come with one, and I'd only need it for attempting repairs and reinstalling a backup registry.



• Scooter is now neutered. In trying to find a vet with a reasonable price for doing this, runsamuck found the range went from $75 for a place in Santa Ana to $350 for the vet closest to us - who used to be our animals' regular vet when her office was in Sunset Beach. However, since she moved to the shopping center close to us, she more than doubled her charges. I suppose it was the rent - that all goes with the realtors calling my neighborhood "prestigeous." We went with Santa Ana. Anyhow, he was so out of it when we picked him up, poor guy.



• runsamuck decided his ponytail is a pain and cut it off. He must have asked me ten times if it was ok with me; however, it's his hair. I'm not going to force him to keep some way he doesn't want it. If I were smart, I'd do the same with mine, but I actually kind of like it.



• We've all had colds; and the dishwasher is going kaput. It refuses to get anything clean, so right now I'm just using it for a giant dish drainer. Which I need to leave for home and go do more of.


Bleh.

In the shower this morning, I think mine was actually fighting back.

I would say it snarled at me, but it was worse than that. Mutual growling occurred on both sides. When I finally got it under contol, I (up)braided it for discipline.

Seriously, I haven't been so close to being tempted to cut it all off in a long time.

We went for a walk at lunch today; I have been trying to do this at least twice week, but this week I was bad. I had just visited Auntie Loo and V. informed me that my hair was stuck in the back of my pants.

Maybe it's time for a trim.

(and I suppose it's better than an ass-gasket stuck to your shoe)