Blahrific

So, as per usual, I intended to write all sorts of amazing and astounding things when David and I were driving hither and yon, up and down the West Coast. What did I write? Well, mostly my name on credit card slips. I'm pretty sure that David and I managed to b eef up most of the previously moribund economy of California. Anyway, the trip was way the hell too short - only a week and a half, but we didn't have the vacation days to spare this year. We did learn a very important life lesson though - never ever take an 11 hour flight back and the end of a long day, because it pretty much sucks donkey dong - especially when they can't get either the jetway or the stairs to function properly at Heathrow and keep you on the plane an extra half hour!

So, we flew out to CA on the 18th - pretty much as flawless a flight as possible (for sitting in coach). Last row of the plane - easy potty access, and only David and me in the row. I actually made it through two entire newspapers on the way out, as well as some of my interminably long and boring book on the history of British urban planning. The brief period of time we were in SFO (the rest of that day and the following) we hung out with Heather (from Carleton - she schlepped down from British Columbia for the occasion). It's kind of amazing how huge amounts of time can pass and people don't change (well, except for popping out a kid, which, I suppose, is a slight change). Anyway, we just sort of dropped back into where we'd left off, which is nice - always a mark of a good friendship!

Sunday, David and I took our very swoopy white hybrid Camry (which only averaged a disappointing 35mpg) and headed off to Oregon (stopping to gym on the way - one must have priorities. Oregon was just as brief, but full of family, which is fab. A brief sojourn back through Sacto, a pop back to SFO for Tgiving, Riverside and San Diego. David was very brave and survived at least 75 of my closest relatives. Anyway, I would love to write more about all the fine details, but, to be honest, I'm tired and crabby and my brain feels a little bit like tapioca, so I suppose I will have to go with brief.

So, David and Robin are currently watching some movie on the TV in the next room, which means that I have the attention span of a gnat (very deer in headlights). I suppose more now and to the point is that I have decided to do something with my boring and going nowhere career. This has been brewing for a while, but I should probably say a lot of the catalyst was talking to Dad. Besides realizing that, well, I'm bored and not too excited about talking about what I'm doing jobwise, he made a point, and much as I hate to admit that it was a good one, it was. What's in the way of me doing what I would like to do? Me. So, I suppose it's time for Me to do something about it. Not quite figured out what it is yet, but I know, and I've always known I really need to reconnect to the Earth Sciences. That's where I started, but for sundry reasons - some of them good but most of them fairly sad and pathetic, I keep finding reason after reason that it just won't work. There are a few practicalities to keep in mind - I need to work, I can't go out and become a ballerina or join the circus (I'm really so bad on the trampolines - just wouldn't work), but I've started contacting programs in London having to do with spatial modelling and natural hazards. It would mean some number of years of zero social life, but if I could reconnect my GIS skills to something I really love, well, I'd be happy as a pig in shit. So anyway, some potential changes, and maybe next trip I take I'll actually blog during it! Yeah.