4th of july

This year I celebrated the 4th much differently than last year. Last summer, I celebrated it much differently than I had the previous 5 summers. I guess that's change for you.

For the most part I enjoyed myself, although I was in a very strange mood (I think I'm just tired) and probably not all that happy.

It started poorly because I woke up at 3am wide awake (I went to bed at 9, which is actually my normal bedtime here in California because of getting up soo early) and couldn't fall back asleep. Eventually I did around 5 and woke up for real about 8.30. Then I bummed around on the internet for several hours, catching up on a lot of things and generally just enjoying being alone. I went to the grocery store and successfully biked home with a bag of groceries on my back (oh, the small accomplishments in life :) ).

In the afternoon Karen and I went over to Meryl and John's place. I really enjoy their company, although I am the odd one out in my age range. All the people there are either young grandparents or aunts & uncles in their 50s and 60s, young parents in their really late 20s/early 30s, or little kids under 4. So I don't really fit in anywhere with people my age, but I definitely enjoy talking with the grown ups. They know a lot and have interesting stories to tell.

I left for Andrew's party around 5.30pm. The Strand wasn't too bad until I hit El Porto. Then there were a lot of people, but it just kind of felt like any other Saturday afternoon down there. Then I actually hit Manhattan Beach and it was crazy. So many people everywhere! And no one looking to make sure bikes weren't coming. Bikes totally own the bike path, not the pedestrians! Silly peds. It only got worse. I got off the Strand like 20 blocks north of the Hermosa Pier because I just couldn't take it. Crowds of drunk people clogged the path and the beaches were packed. (Unlike in the Midwest, our weather here yesterday was absolutely gorgeous and perfect: sunny and mid-70s and a slight breeze.) I hate large crowds of people when I don't want them around (some exceptions: concerts and amusement parks), and I really hate crowds of drunk people. Like, just despise. So I was not in a particularly good mood with not being able to ride my bike more than 6 inches at a time, and switching to the street is scary when you know half the people driving are probably drunk too, and would think it's a fun game to see if they can hit you on your bike. Luckily, nothing happened. I even saw my friend Mallory which was just crazy. What are the odds of that??!

I made it to Andrew's at about 7, much later than I anticipated (I was hitting 15-18 mph on the bike before Manhattan Beach). The party was pretty fun. I met a lot of people I didn't know before and that always makes me happy. We watched fireworks on the beach. It's hard to beat watching fireworks go off over the ocean, especially when you can see about 7 shows up and down the coast.

Afterward I biked home, although many people wanted me to stay at the party, but I was not really in the mood to party and I was tired. The ride home went without incident (although there were still a ton of people around, even at 10.30pm) but I didn't get the calmness that I was longing for with a bike ride by the ocean under the stars. It should have been really nice but I think I was still too strung out from all the drunk people and being on high alert for any attackers or anything like that. I may take a nice long ride up north to Pacific Palisades and hang out at Will Rogers State Beach this afternoon. I just kind of want to be by myself for a while! I usually feel this way after trips with groups. I am so used to being able to get away on my own that when I can't for several days I start going a little crazy :) DePauw is wonderful for this. Feel like being alone? Go take a walk to the park and you've got it. Love it.

Russia stories coming soon, I promise. I'm going to experiment with taking this netbook baby on my ride and writing on the beach. My dad has all my pictures right now so I've got to wait until he uploads them to put them with my posts, which I would rather do than just have text. You might notice there are no pictures from the 4th here -- I generally don't take my camera with me to parties and also both of my cameras seriously suck in darkness, so I didn't feel like lugging either of them around last night.

so i am crazy and biked 100 miles in a weekend

Yeah. 88ish today, then the 12ish from yesterday.

I went up to the Santa Monica Farmer's Market this morning. I didn't know where it was so I decided to bike up to Pacific Palisades to get some extra miles in, then on my way back semi-randomly took a street and tried to find Main St. Actually, it worked out really well because one of the streets I ended up turning on spit out right next to the market -- convenient to say the least! The first thing I noticed about the market was that there were a ton of people, the next was that it was huge (or at least significantly bigger than what I'm used to!), and then that it was totally green. They have a "Zero Waste" policy! Awesome!

Check out those recycling and composting bins!

Crepe for lunch. I would live off crepes if I could...
It had chocolate (of course), bananas, and strawberries. Good.

Everything was compostable!

I ended up buying some organic fresh butter (!) and homemade organic garlic cream cheese-type spread. I would have bought everything at that cheese shop if I could have, and that's really saying something because I am not so much a cheese person. Anyway, that meant I had to get back home as soon as possible to get the items in the fridge. So as I was getting back from that ride I had this great thought of "let's ride the whole Strand from Redondo to Pacific Palisades today!" So I got home, rested a bit, charged up the Zen and got back on the beach. 

Starting point, at Redondo Beach, looking at Palos Verdes

Me really tired after getting to Pacific Palisades for the 2nd time today

So I am pretty tired from that, but it was a pretty good ride! And a good day :)

art walk & relax

This late morning/early afternoon I went down to Hermosa Beach to meet up with Andrew to find him some art. (He needs more art on his walls.) I raced myself and got to HB in 15 minutes. Wow, right? I cut time like whoa. Anyway, we were successful in finding him a piece of art. Actually, it is really cool. This lady exposes objects directly to photo paper instead of photographing them first and then developing the photos, and it plays with colors and lighting like no other. Super awesome! And the picture he got is really neat.

After that we walked around a bit more, checked out this mall that was empty (like, eerily empty even), then he left to go meet some people and I left to go home. Stopped in the bike store on my way back to my bike to see about baskets, but they were 20$ and up and man I'm just not going to pay that much for a stupid basket. Anyway, I feel like having a basket makes you lose some credibility as a legitimate biker. Most people with baskets are girls on Strand cruisers who don't know how to ride in the first place. Of course, it's not all people, and it would be convenient to have a basket sometimes (read: groceries), but still - that's a lot of money for a little wire frame.

As the afternoon wore on it actually got kind of sunny and much warmer, and the beaches filled up a bit more. So volleyball players and, more importantly, surfers were out in abundance. There is little more gorgeous than a talented, good-looking surfer. (Last summer I met the most gorgeous person I think I've ever seen while he was surfing and I was body boarding. Scott from San Diego, if you're reading this, ohmigodyouaresogoodlooking.) Other gorgeousness for the record: good runners, good soccer players, good swimmers. ........ I guess, really, the common denominator that I like is skinny, in-shape boys. ;)

About halfway home on the bike I got really tired and didn't feel that great, so I took it pretty easy. However, I did manage to bike all the way up the ginormous hill on Grand instead of stopping and walking the bike. Ironically enough it was because I felt like if I got off the bike I wouldn't have the energy to walk it up the hill. By the time I got home I had convinced myself to either take a nap, sit in the hot tub, or go get a pedicure. The pedicure won :) mostly because the place right by my condo is awesome - they have those sweet massage chairs and the people there are super nice. And they give really good foot massages.

That has been all I've done, really. Very lazy this afternoon, but I am feeling better so that's good. Tomorrow I am going to go to Santa Monica and try to find their Sunday farmer's market. (I simply adore farmer's markets, but I bet you couldn't tell ;) ) Hopefully it'll be nice out!

the week

So this week ended up being pretty busy but at the same time not that busy. Unfortunately for me, my computer is slowly dying (it's 4 years old this month, actually) and several days earlier this week it was being a real pain to try to do anything with. Also our Internet went out randomly during a time I wanted to blog. Anyway, let it be known that some of the money I'm earning this summer is going to buy myself a solid desktop, a widescreen monitor, and a netbook (or maybe just a superlight laptop). The laptop I'm currently on is going to turn into a fulltime Linux machine, instead of just having it partitioned.

Anyway, the week. Work was good. For my Python work, I finished grabbing all the data from the PDF and putting it in Excel. (This takes a lot more time and a ton of regular expressions than it seems at first glance.) So now I get to start on using Java to make SQL queries to look at data from this database and compare it with the data I found, which is now also in a database. It should be a lot of fun! I have never actually used SQL or databases before so I get to learn a lot. For my other work, I finished the script in Java I was working on this whole last week (I thought it'd take me like 2 days. It ended up taking 5-6. Sigh.). I am excited because everything I've done this summer so far has actually had a legitimate use, is important, and is actually kind of a time schedule. Woohoo! Yay for feeling useful!

After work I have been biking home. I changed up my route on a couple of days, so that sometimes I was riding on a highway (!). There is a super nice bike path on this highway, and there are very few hills. Monday I am trying out a new route one of my roommate's friends (and now one of my friends), John, gave me. He says there shouldn't be that many hills on this one either. 

Tuesday, I visited with John and Meryl for a little bit. Meryl is letting me borrow her ukulele and music for the summer! We chatted for quite a while (I could talk to them for hours!) and then I realized it was past my bedtime (seriously, a 21-year-old should not go to bed before retired people) so I had to leave.

Wednesday, a friend from last summer, Alex, started work again out here, which is awesome. Even more awesome is that he only lives a few streets away from me! So we ended up grabbing a drink at one of the bars here, going to dinner, and going down to the beach. Really fun night.

Thursday is Farmer's Market and Ukulele Day -- it is definitely my most favorite day of the week!! I picked up some DELICIOUS strawberries at the market, and also got some apples, zucchini, and fresh-made kettle corn! It's made in a real kettle! So cool and yummy. Some of the strawberries I took with me to ukulele class. People tend  to bring food to share with everyone else. It was really funny because Meryl also brought strawberries (from the same stand that I got mine, even!) and angel food cake. And someone else brought cookies. So we had a lot of food :) Class was fun. Meryl thinks I am pretty good at ukulele for only having played it for like 2 weeks. I am pretty sure it's all the guitar coming through. Learning on 6 strings and going to 4 makes it pretty easy!

Yesterday was Meryl's birthday. Karen and I went over to help her celebrate and most of their family was there. It was really fun, and I got to meet some interesting people. I felt like a grown-up because I was offered wine. Haha. The things that make you feel grown up! 

I wanted to sleep in this morning but I woke up at 7.45 so no go on that. I might be taking a nap later then ;) Should be a fun day - going down to Hermosa Beach for an Art Walk!

bike ride and lakers game

Today I had no plans at all. I figured I would just be hanging out by myself anyway, so when I woke up I looked at the weather. The day looked super nice (sunny and 70s) so I decided that I would try to go north on the Strand this time instead of my usual south. I actually had never been north (besides in a car) except for the bonfire we had last summer on Dockweiler, which can hardly be called going north because it was about half a mile up from El Segundo Beach.

Anyway, I basically decided to hop on my bike and see how far I could go.

It was an absolutely gorgeous day. It was not too warm, and there was at times a strong breeze (which was kind of annoying and kind of nice at the same time). The smell of the ocean was everywhere and people were happy. There are a lot of bikers, roller bladers, walkers, joggers, skateboarders, and random other people like scooters.

I had planned on going to Santa Monica, which is where I thought the path ended, but it actually ends a couple more miles north of there, in Pacific Palisades. Awesome! I made it all the way there in exactly 1 hour and 40 minutes, and I actually was being really lazy about it for most of the ride. Following the Strand path takes you through Marina Del Rey, Venice Beach, and Santa Monica. I made it to Venice Beach in 45 minutes, actually!

Mural on the Strand by Dockweiler Beach

Plane above -- basically right under LAX

My awesome bike (I need a good name for it)

Me. I always wear a helmet. 
Also, that shirt gave me some sweet (and not-so-sweet) tan lines.

Proof I made it to Pacific Palisades!

View north

View south

Looking south. I don't think you can see where I started from

I was zoomed it at 16x digital zoom to get this shot of Santa Monica

When I got to the end of the path I checked my phone and one of my friends was inviting me to go watch the Lakers game with him and some friends tonight. So, of course, I agreed, although I am not really a Lakers fan (at all). I really enjoy being social though! And the game and atmosphere were a lot of fun. We went to a family (lol) sports bar & grill called Stick & Stein. Lakers fans are VERY MUCH into their team. As in, I have never seen any group of people more dedicated to something. It's actually kind of scary. And the Lakers won, so they were all happy. (LAL 101, ORL 96, Finals Game 2)

The bar had a ridiculous amount of TVs

Friend from work and his fiancee and me at the bar

a fairly social day

Today I got to spend a fair amount of time with several different people.

This morning Andrew was super nice and took me to Target to return a bike helmet that I bought before I knew that Karen's sister Connie was lending me hers to use this summer (so nice of her!!). So that was a nice 20$ back on my card (which is good because I've only got like 50$ to last me till Thursday...I think. Hopefully payday is this Thursday?). Then I had a Target coupon, from when I got the helmet in the first place last week, for 50 cents off Poptarts. I went ahead and used that because although they're not the healthiest food (far from it) they are nice treats sometimes and they are really good at filling me up and keeping me full for several hours. So a box of 8 Poptarts ended up costing me 1.02$ (nice...especially because the same box would have cost 2.50$ at Ralph's!). I also took out that 20$ in cash. Around here, cash is always good to have on hand. Some places don't take debit/credit and other places it can be a lot faster for you if you pay in cash.

So then we drove to West L.A. so Andrew could get something he forgot at his grandpa's house. It was a pretty area and I love traveling around so I was happy :)  The L.A. freeway system is cool but crazy and totally different from everything I've ever known so it always takes me a little bit to get used to it again. Driving around here in general is kind of crazy all the time though, not just on the freeways!

Here is something we saw on the freeway--we can't figure out why Pepsi would just have a huge ad that says LOL. Because you laugh out loud when you drink Pepsi? No idea ...

After that we went to this restaurant (it's not nice enough to be called a restaurant though, more like a fast food place but better) called Zankao Chicken. They have really good chicken dishes there. This is what I had:

A quarter of a chicken with hummus, pita bread, and rice, and this super yummy garlic sauce stuff. I don't know what the purple things are, but I think the other bit is tomato. Anyway, I don't really like hummus and I didn't like the purple stuff, but the chicken and pita and garlic sauce and rice were delicious!

So then we headed back to El Segundo... Andrew was again super nice and took me to Ralph's to get groceries that I already ran out of. Who knew I would go through cereal, chicken, and granola bars so quickly?! Also, here is another funny picture from the freeway. Seriously, 341$? Not just, like, 340$? 

Also, if you were ever curious, this is what the place I work at looks like:

And then another friend from work, Chris, and I went for a bike ride / roller skate ride on the Strand. 

At first we were going to try to get up to Venice or Santa Monica (a good hour or two from El Segundo) but he realized he had to be home too soon for us to do that (he lives like an hour away) so we ended up going to Hermosa Beach and back. On the way there we stopped in El Porto and saw my friend Mallory from DePauw -- it's really funny, we almost see each other more in CA than in IN! 

On the way back from Hermosa we stopped again in Manhattan Beach and had ice cream at the Manhattan Beach Creamery. They have super good ice cream there, and now apparently they sell candies and chocolates and all sorts of baked goods, even popcorn and cotton candy! But they sacrified like half their seating for it. Anyway, it was super tasty and gave us the energy to get back to my place where Chris could start heading home from. 

Really fun ride. It was SO pretty today! We could see for miles and miles --- we even saw Catalina Island! And that's pretty rare!

North toward Santa Monica

El Porto

Later in the evening Karen and her best friend Gloria and I went to dinner at Scotty's in Hermosa Beach. We had a great window view of the pier and sunset and I got some nice pictures of the sun going down! Awesome dinner, too. I really enjoy Karen and I have liked all of her friends a great deal as well!

View down Grand Ave. in El Segundo

Sunset pictures from Scotty's

Hermosa Beach, CA

busy is the word

Wow, so, I have barely had time to write anything. I have been going to bed about 9pm (lame I know) but I'm so tired! Plus I get up so early! I've been biking to and from work this whole week, and it's been going great. However, it basically means that I am too tired to do much else. I've swum a few days but I haven't been running. Hopefully this coming week my body will have adjusted to this schedule better and I won't be quite so tired.

Work has been great. I am learning Python for a big task, plus I get to do some website redesign stuff, so everything is right up my alley! Thursday I was an escort for the Herndon Science Competition and that was a lot of fun. Basically I walked around (/herded people around) the labs area and got some yummy liquid nitrogen ice cream. Soo good. Also, the keynote speaker was Mark Skaggs! Sweet!

Thursday night I had my first ukulele lesson at Mark's shop. So fun! I went back yesterday for some more practice. Hopefully I will either be able to get my own ukulele or borrow one from Meryl so I can practice whenever. The people there are very nice and helpful and super cool. Mark's shop is my favorite store ever. You can just go in and hang out and it's full of surf and skate and Hawaiian stuff. And there's bamboo on the wall.

This week on Wednesday there was a storm. What the heck? It legitimately rained & thundered & lightninged! How crazy is that! It's been cloudy and rainy the whole week mostly until about Thursday afternoon. Yesterday was nice and today looks like it'll be nice as well. I'm planning on going for a bike ride up to Santa Monica.

first day back at work

Today's work day was good! I biked to work, and it only took me 20 minutes! That is way faster than the bus. The bus would be like this: leave house by 6:15 in order to get to bus stop by 6:30 so I wouldn't miss the 6:40 bus, bus would leave and get to A-space by 7:07, then I'd have to bolt to STARS so I could get there as early as I could. With the bike, I can leave whenever (I ended up leaving at 6.25 just because I didn't know how long it'd take) and I got to work at 6.47. Pretty awesome. This is with some nasty hills and long traffic lights. (I ended up having to walk up some of the hills. You have no idea how steep & long they are unless you've seen them.) Once I got to work I had to get a temp badge so they wouldn't think I was an intruder and then go get my real badge from last summer. Before I could do this I needed to find a parking spot for my bike. Apparently no one really knew where any bike racks were, and I ended up finding one eventually (after going through a building and two visitor centers and a gate), and I needed someone with a real badge to open the gate for me since I didn't have a swipe part yet. Luckily a lady was very nice and did that for me :). Then I got my badge, and made the badge lady a little annoyed because I was there so early (it was 7.07). Then I had to wait for my manager, who wasn't here yet, and then the boss of my manager came by and said she wouldn't be here for a while yet...so I went to the library and read some web content design stuff. That is where Jose found me and told me our manager was there now (30 minutes before I thought she would be). So basically the rest of the day was running around, meeting with potential clients, catching up with the other interns and other people I know, getting a tour of the new building where I'll be spending about half my time, panicking because none of my passwords were working and therefore having to call the help desk (which is super annoying). My email is still not up because of some complications from the way I set it up last summer (sigh). But oh well. All in all it was a great day!

I left about 4.45, walked with Jose to the rail station, then rode home from there. Got home about 5.20 and immediately went on a short run, then came back and had a short swim. Have to make sure I prevent injuries and get lots of exercise :) Made dinner (just a chicken patty sandwich) and talked with my mom and now I'm pretty tired! The day is catching up to me. Luckily I can just go to bed whenever... :)

the strand

Yesterday I biked down to Redondo Beach from my place in El Segundo (it ends up being about 9 miles). Mostly I went because I had left the things I bought at Target on Saturday at Andrew's place and I wanted to go pick them up. I also wanted the exercise, and I just plain love The Strand. For those who don't know, The Strand is a bike path (also running/walking/etc) that goes all the way from Redondo Beach to Santa Monica, and most of it is right next to the ocean. *Amazing*. It's beautiful, well constructed, smooth, and a pretty easy ride (if you're not going against the wind). I went down there in the afternoon so I had some time to recover from Saturday's insanity. I ended up hanging out at Andrew's for a couple hours and met one of his friends, and we played Rock Band. I would like to point out that I got a 100% on vocals on all 3 songs I sang (2 on medium, 1 on hard). We were going to cookout but I realized it was going to take me at least an hour to get back, and I didn't want to ride in the dark, so I left around 6:15ish and got home about 7.25. It was a fun time though.

Also, I saw a dolphin on my way to RB, but I didn't have my camera (of course). Very cool though!

settling in

So, I got to the condo about 10.45am. Karen had mailed me the keys so I could just move in right away. Last summer I met John, one of her friends, with the keys and he let me in and helped me get my trunk up and such. He and his wife are on vacation right now so he couldn't do that. But really, I am glad that I just had the keys already. I don't like to bother people too much and I like being able to do things on my own schedule.

At first, Thelma, the cat, didn't remember me, but after about an hour she did and let me see her again. She always wants to be petted but I can't really pet her (I'm allergic), so that's kind of sad. She's a nice kitty. You know she must be because I really don't like cats :) Haha.

I just kind of threw my stuff down in my room, plugged in my computer, and let my mom know I was here. My body was telling me that it was 2pm back home and I hadn't eaten anything since 4.30 in the morning. Well, I had some crackers. But that was not nearly enough. So I went downtown El Segundo to this deli called Rinaldi's. I ate there for lunch the first day I was really on my own for meals last summer (Saturday; Friday I ate with Karen, John, and Meryl for both lunch and dinner), so I thought it'd be fun if I ate there again. I had a yummy meatball sandwich and a strawberry banana smoothie (they use real fruit, and it's so good). This guy I remembered from last year was still working there, and he was still as friendly as ever. He gave me some aluminum foil so I could take have the sandwich home (which became my dinner). 

After lunch I unpacked everything. I brought even less stuff than last summer. I like getting California-related stuff out here, so I try not to bring too many clothes and whatnot. Just enough to get by. After unpacking I walked to the grocery store, Ralph's, which is a little over 2 miles away. I needed groceries for the week and a bus pass. I brought two reusable grocery bags with me, so I knew that I could only buy enough groceries that could fit in those two bags. I also wanted to keep my first grocery bill under 50 dollars, since I don't have very much money to tide me over till the first paycheck, which is two weeks away. I succeeded in both ventures, so that made me feel pretty good. Then I walked back the two-plus miles to my condo, put everything away, and took a short break. 

I decided I want to see the beach everyday that I'm here again this summer (I succeeded in this last summer, too. 81 days in a row!). So I walked the 1.2 miles down to the beach, enjoyed the view, and walked back. It was still cloudy and chilly, so there wasn't too much else to do besides be there for just a few minutes. 

After that I wanted to go to this surf shop to see the guy who took me surfing last year. I wanted to show him my skateboard with its modifications, because he also sells skateboarding stuff. Actually, he builds his own longboards to sell, and they are really sweet. You almost don't want to ride them because they're so beautiful. Anyway, I hopped over there, and he remembered exactly who I was and everything! It was pretty awesome. He was surprised to see me. He had a friend with him, and somehow we got onto the topics of bikes. I said that I didn't want to buy a bike out here because it's a huge investment, and I already have a bike at home, and I'd want to bring the bike I bought back with me, and then I'd have two bikes, which is silly. So this guy says he has an extra bike that he'd loan me for the summer. Sweet, right?! And for free! The only stipulation is that if something breaks I'll fix it. He also had a lock for me to use. What a way to be in the right place at the right time and know the right people! Crazy! So now I have a bike to use this summer. So, having the skateboard is kind of silly, because the bike will get me everywhere significantly faster. We'll see what I can do with it. I ended up hanging out for a lot more time at the surf shop and meeting all these other guys, friends of Mark who runs the shop, who surf and board. They're all at least 40 with wives and girlfriends and kids, but they still think they're 25. It was awesome to watch and listen to them talk about surfing and all sorts of other stuff. A couple guys were mad that Mark didn't have a TV at the shop so they couldn't watch the Lakers game. Haha.

I left about 7.30 from there, came home to the condo, and warmed up my meatball sandwich dinner. Karen came home about 8 and we had a good time catching up with everything. She has made some changes around the condo and everything is just beautiful! I will try to get some pictures and post them. We watched some TV (So You Think You Can Dance)  and then I realized that I was super tired and went to bed. I needed some energy for my big adventure on Saturday.