isn't this a cool logo? i thought it looked fun. its the first day of the beinjing olympics. they officially started about 52 minutes ago but it won't be broadcast in the usa until primetime. perhaps i'll watch.

The Batman

Another Batman movie came out and because i was pretty excited to see this one i did, last night. well, technically this morning at 3:15 am at an IMAX theater. i am sure i would have been impressed by the movie anyway but we (carl, Jessica, and me) really wanted to see the movie on the IMAX screen and since all the earlier shows were sold out we decided to do something out of the ordinary and to catch it in the early morning hours. i thought it was a typo on the website and we weren't sure if it would be a waste of our time driving half an hour south in the wee hours but it turned out to be the real deal and we weren't the only ones at the theater at this odd hour, although by no means was the theater crowded.
the movie was a long one and although i went to bed at 9 and got up at 2 i was still pretty tired and towards the last half hour i was struggling to stay awake so i missed a few things but i would love to see the film again because it was a good one.
the oddest thing about watching this movie at 3 in the morning is that when we walked out of the theater it was light out. we got to enjoy the full moon and the sunrise this morning.
i got to sleep when we got home, around 7, but Carl went to work all morning and except for a nap he took while we watched a movie at home, he hasn't been to sleep since 2 this morning.

another saturday afternoon

i have finished my second week at OP TBI. It is interesting and entertaining and i am enjoying it at this point. as long as i don't run out of things to do i should stay happy. i teach a few classes a week and go on activities with the different people each day and mostly i just keep an eye on people and help them cope with their days.
Thursday we were supposed to go on an outing but a storm built up over our lunch hour and when it was time to board the bus the storm hit with force. it was a beautiful storm to watch. a little hail, lightning, HEAVY rains and wind.
the radio was on and for the duration of the storm, almost an hour, it reported severe storm warnings and the occasional tornado watch. sirens went off as warnings for people in the Richfield area and i just watched the whole thing go over us. i love storms.
i was lucky enough to see another storm last night. a lot of the same but it didn't hit the area here by our home as bad as the previous storm.
what i find the most fascinating is how the day can go from beautiful and bright to dark and foreboding. i love a good storm. carl and i were inside a Dave's bbq when the storm rolled in yesterday. the news had already been reporting on the severity of this storm. a couple of tornadoes had touched down in areas Northwest from us so I was expecting the worst. as we ate i kept watching the storm and mentioning the sky to carl, tracy, and jessica but carl said it looked dark because the windows had plastic over them. it wasn't so. it looked dark because huge thunderstorms were coming in. carl believed me once the sky turned green. we hurried home at that point because our windows were open. no damage, thankfully.

happy fourth of july!

its a beautiful day here in the cities. blue sky, brilliant sun, and green everywhere you look. carl, beth, and i are going to spend our day out on a bike ride and than we will have a bbq over at the parents house and perhaps get in a game of croquet before the fireworks. we don't know where we will be going for the fireworks. i kind of want to go to the riverfront becasue i imagine it will be beautiful over the water and the buildings downtown but i also imagine it will be crowded and tough to get to. so...i don't know yet.
i finished my first week of work at TBI metro services, providing services for those who have suffered a traumatic brain injury. my position involves teaching independent living skills through a series of classes and activities. There is one other instructor and between us we are 'teach' and watch over the 9-11 'students' each day. i am sure the job will be interesting and will grow on me but i am unsure of what to think right now.
in the bigger news: there are numerous fires throughout california, many along the coast that we drove less than a month ago. Big Sur is one of the biggest places being mentioned over and over because its touristy. it is lovely there. the coastline from there is one of the most beautiful places i have ever seen and its very woodsy. its a beautiful contrast that is sad to hear that it is going up in flames, but fires are a natural part of the life cycle of a forest.

i never meant to let this much time pass in between posts because i knew it would be hell to catch up, especially since i took a two-week trip up the west coast and over to Minneapolis. it was about 3000 miles. carl and i drove the little Honda that could. Thirteen years old and it keeps going and going. It's funny, this car, because in 2001 the speedometer quit working on it. Along with that the odometer was no longer reliable either. it kept working but sometimes it wouldn't do its job, simple as that job is, so it says I have driven 218, 000 miles but i am fairly sure it is more than that. In fact i believe that i am closer to the 260k mile mark. I wish it was working effectively because I would love to see it turn over into the 300k mark.
Because of my car I am a big advocate for Honda. this little beast has carried me across the country numerous times, put up with 4 years of reckless driving when i was a Dominos delivery driver, and has given me very litte trouble. So i don't have A/C anymore (again), and two door handles are broken, and the muffler could fall off at anytime (it only cost me $100 under the table), and one window doesn't roll down, and it is beginning to rust. So what? this car is still my beauty. when it is clean and full of gas i feel like a proud mom. i know that i will likely be getting a new car in a year or so but maybe not because I thought this same thought a few years ago when we moved to California and my car has continued to amaze me with its ability to keep running day after day. By the way, my car still has its original brakes on the rear.
well, i never meant to start writing about my car but i did and that's that. what i meant to write about was the trip Carl and I took. it may take me several blogs to get it all in. Basically, we left California on June 3rd. we only made it as far as Anaheim because we went to Disneyland. After spending a month dealing with the details of the move we felt we deserved this. Disneyland was not as magical as i had expected but it was fun. I especially liked Space Mountain (why aren't more rollercoasters in the dark?). I did not like the other mountain ride. i called it the back breaker because the jerkiness of that ride made my back tweak twice. unpleasant and not worth the wait in line. We didn't do any of the rides for kids, except for the teacups and i loved those. we rode all the big rides and i wasn't too impressed by them. they were amusing but we had to wait too long for all of them and it wasn't even a busy day at the park. i worried that we would spend a lot of money on junk food at the park but we only had two things while there-an ice cream bar and a pickle. they were both delicious (and not eaten at the same time).
in all we spent 8 hours at the park and were pooped when we left. we only had enough energy to stop by Buca Di bepo on our way to our hotel. we had the best pizza there. i would recommend it if i could remember what it was. That was day 1 of our trip.

Rock and Roll moving experience

abe ran the rock and roll on sunday. he finished in just under 4 1/2 hours. he was up at 4 am to get to the race on time (and ended up with too much time before the race) and you could tell he was exhausted when he ran past. i had initially planned to see abe at about the 13 mile mark than to go over to the MCRD (military base) to see abe cross the finish but my parents did not show up on time (they say its a long story and i imagine they were fighting so i didn't ask) and we barely missed abe by what we think was 10 minutes so we rushed over to mile 18 and waited. we once again thought we missed abe because we saw a particular man dressed as elvis run past, whom we had seen before at the other mile so we were just leaving when my dad said, "ayi esta" and we turned around in time to see abe about to pass us. we did the whole cheer thing and he came over to us and that was fun than we got in the car and decided to go see him a few miles ahead to cheer him on again. the drive to the next location happened to go side-by-side the marathon so we honked at abe as we drove by (he had been walking at this point). at the next location we waited for awhile, and saw that same elvis again (i think he recognized us by this point because he was encouraging us to cheer when he ran past) and we chilled out until we saw abe run past us one last time. He was only a few miles from the end at this point and still looked to be doing all right. i wish i had gotten to see him at the end but that is life and it didn't work out that way. instead we went home after this. my aunt, cousin, and one of their friends went home to and i ended up napping for two hours because i too had been up since 4 to take abe and my parents left for the beach and carl disappeared to pick up abe.
when they got home, and i got up, we ate some IN n Out and relaxed than we went to the bay with my aunt, cousin, and their friend, and my parents to bbq and enjoy the best that california has to offer. it was very beautiful just chilling at the bay and i am glad we had dinner there instead of at someone's house because it showed my family what i would soon be missing.
on Monday we had to pack up our moving container and something that i thought would take about an hour took over five hours and that was with my parents and abe helping. it was not pleasant and we still had to work on it a little after we dropped abe off at the airport than went out for dinner (and got wasted on giant margaritas) with some good friends (mark, caitlin, jenn, kent, brian, tania, and joel, and a friend of kent's). i will miss them .

this is my mom, visiting me in San Diego, over Memorial Day weekend. Mom is wearing my jacket, she has lost some weight recently and looks great. we spent the day driving around san diego county and enjoying the beautiful day. it was a little chilly but that helped make the day seem clearer and feel crisp. it was an ideal day to watch the kayakers, swimmers, sea lions, and even a couple of dolphins play in the waters of La Jolla shore.