Dad's Map

Why sometimes life sucks real bad

Most of the time, I have things under control, or at least I think I do. In recent weeks however, I've discovered that I have no control over anything. That is why I have been fasting and I am heading out to go and get blood drawn for the next 3-4 hours. Like last weeks blood session, the blood lady (I know they are phlebotomists but I have no idea how to spell it correctly) will probablly use the same hole every single time and by the end of my time at the lab, my arm will feel like it is about to fall off.

Places I've been

I like to think that I am pretty hip when it comes to the world and I am lucky that I have traveled a lot. However, when one looks at a map of the world, marking the places they have traveled, one sees that the world is much bigger than they thought. Definately something to ponder.

Here's my map:


create your own visited countries map

Here is Ross' map


create your own visited countries map

If you are interested in creating your own map, click on the link under either my map or Ross'.

Heavenly Sleep

After about 2 years of sleeping on a faux king bed (two twins squished together with a piece of foam bridging the gap) we finally got a real california king matress delivered yesterday.

Do you know how good it is to sleep on a matress that doesn't have a giant crater in it? After last night, I do.

So, like, sometimes people read my blog

If I may pose a question...How far do you let something go before you call it quits?

While in San Diego at dinner one night, a coworker of mine mentioned that he had shared this blog posting with someone he goes to church with and that person felt the need to comment on my blog. At dinner I read the comments and found them juvenile and pedestrian at best, but what do I care. The person commenting knows nothing about me, has no idea that I have traveled the world extensively, OR that I am a student of politics, the law, history, and art, among many other things. So, I just chose to ignore the comments.

Well, someone else didn't want to ignore them. Today, for lack of any work motivation, I chose to glance at that posting again and low and behold, there is another comment. Not quite sure who anonymous is, but he/she is not very nice and apparently has bigger issues with accuracy than me.

So, back to the question, how long do you let something go before you call it quits? I think that I am going to turn comments off for the DaVinci post once and for all.

However...Internet, thanks for reading. Just be nice.

San Diego Adventure

Ross and I got back last night from lovely San Diego. By Day, I attended a conference called NECC and Ross hung out in the hotel and by afternoon and evening we toured the city and ate soooo much good food that I may not need to eat for the next week.

Rather than do individual posts for each day, I thought I'd just go through the highlights.

• We stayed at two hotels, the W San Diego right in the heart of SD and at the OceanPark Inn, right on the boardwalk at Mission Beach. Both hotels were nice and accomodating, even though the Internet was not our friend the entire adventure.
• The Conference was not the most exciting part of the trip, but it was okay. I learned a few valuable things that I will definately be able to bring back to my teaching.
• Everywhere we ate was tasty, especially Filippi's in Little Italy and Mission Beach (yes, we dined at Filippi's twice) and Miguel's on Coronado. And, we can't forget the In and Out Burger. Ross and I were more than happy to introduce Jared to the best burger joint on the West Coast. It was also a pleasant suprise to find Gelato all throughough the city and on Coronado Island. I love Gelato! And, breakfast yesterday morning at Longboarders in Oceanside was pretty good, too.
• The San Diego Wild Animal Park is way overrated. Molly the moron was our tour guide, the animals were motionless, and I sweat more at the park then I have sweat breathing ever in my life. I think we'll stick to the zoo from now on. However, Ross and I were witness to a rhino peeing...that was exciting.
• The beach is cool. In one morning on the beach, we saw a dead fish at least 3 feet long with a mouth bigger than my head, too many sessy joggers, a man rollerblading down the boardwalk in a teeny, tiny thong (yes, we've been scarred), and Ross got in the ocean just as a ray swam past him. Who says that marine life doesn't get close to shore?
• On our 2 hour harbor cruise Sunday afternoon we saw battleships galore, beautiful coastline, sea lions, pelicans, and a pigeon with a peg leg. How cool is that?

As usual, traveling is a lot of fun but it is always good to come home and as usual, I am happy to be back in my house...no matter how hot it got because Ross turned the AC off while we were gone.

Help! A Bobcat in the backyard

The bobcat and it's trainer


The bobcat stalking it's prey


The hole the bobcat left behind