comments on a day

Today was officially "back to school" for me, even though we only had meetings in the morning and classes don't actually begin until the 28th. It feels like summer just began and Fall actually isn't "Fall" anymore, but late summer. I am one of those weird people who get excited about the beginning of each school year - the new students running around, the excitement about classes and best of all, the school supplies!! No kidding, I love school supplies and I make many runs to Staples and Office Depot to stock up on a lot of stuff I could probably live without.

After our meeting today I decided to run a few errands. I finally ordered our platform bed (which we've been just procrastinating on) at West Elm and also went into Borders and walked out with several books. One book I picked up on a whim was Fiasco by Thomas Ricks. I realize that this book is probably filled with biased, unsubstantiated opinions that will annoy and anger me, but I couldn't resist. Who knows, maybe it'll end up being all right. If I actually make it through the book, I'll let everyone know. I did just finish reading Longitude by Dava Sobel, a great little book (175 pgs) about the history behind the quest to find longitude at sea. Sometimes it seems to jump around a bit, but overall, it is a good read that I'd recommend.

When I was leaving OB to head out on these errands, I noticed the first weird thing of the day. My wonderful Jetta was on E and so I pulled into the Shell station to fill up and paid $3.25, relatively inexpensive for SD in recent times. But, as I pulled out I remembered that the local OB Gas station up the street (the way I was headed) had gas for $3.09 and I was a little disappointed I had forgotten this before shelling out more money! So, when I got up to the corner of the OB Gas station I noticed that I had been right about the cost of gas, but also noticed it wasn't a local OB gas station anymore, but was now an Exxon station! In OB? For those who don't know, Ocean Beach is pretty much the "local" of local spots...a place that Mike describes (with love) as "where the ghetto meets the sea". Now, OB is great, and it's not "ghetto" in a bad sense, it's just that it's about as laid back as you can find. In fact, when they had a Starbucks come to Newport Ave (our main street), people protested! Everything is local - the local grocery store, local bars, local food, local flower shops...local! I don't know why this actually strikes me as strange or important, but it's just a little less like OB with another BIG name around I guess!

The second weird (but good) thing I noticed today was while I was at our weekly OB market tonight. I went to pick up some fresh flowers and noticed that on all the street light posts in OB there are now cigarette butt containers sponsored by Surfrider Foundation. I think this is a GREAT idea, but I wonder how much use they will get. These containers aren't as ugly as one would think, but I just hope that they actually work to help clean up our streets!

Other weirdness of the day: JonBenet Ramsey's supposed-killer arrested in Thailand, a guy who is a 2nd grade teacher...where do these sick weirdos come from?!?

A flight coming from London diverted to Boston instead of DC because a woman had a panic attack. On TV they showed all the luggage being checked, bag by bag, on the runway. What are they reporting? That she had hand creme on her...a "no-no" according to recent security upgrades.

On my drive from GR to Chicago I heard an NPR story about how Pluto might lose its planet status...and today they've reported that it will likely NOT lose that status and we might have 3 MORE planets added to the list...if this is true, what will my new mnemonic be?

And, in local news...the U.S. Coastguard arrested one of the Arelanno-Felix drug cartel family members while he was returning from Deep Sea Fishing off Baja. This is could be big for TJ security and a big bust for the war against the drug cartels but I wonder...was he really only fishing out there?

OK, that's all I have for tonight. I hope you've all enjoyed reading Mike's recent posts. He said he's got another one he'll be sending soon, so I'll post that when I get it too. Oh, and after reading another Navy blog (Dried Squid), I'd like to post a link to a game I've wasted many hours playing (in grad school, especially during exam time!). It's Penguin baseball, and I have no idea what the record is...I'm terrible at it! I'm sure animal rights activists would HATE this game, but I assure you, no penguins or yetis were harmed in the making or playing of this game!

That's all for now folks. Hope all is well with all of you!

I love you Mike!