Ebjournal Revisited.

Terra Firma

It’s great to be back among the flatlanders.

California is a nice place to visit. The weather is beautiful, the people are beautiful, the cars are beautiful, and the land itself is gorgeous. Everything is growing in California– there are plants everywhere, and yet it doesn’t feel like a jungle. And everything is so darn tasteful. The roofs all match in souther Cali.– stucco of various earth tones that make you feel like it’s all one big happy family. I see why some people think it’s a paradise, and why people miss it so much.

But it’s not home for me, and I’m not sure it would ever feel like home. Scary as it sounds, I like the fact that the weather changes here in the Midwest at a moment’s notice, and that I might need a jacket the same day I go swimming in Lake Michigan.

Regardless, I’m just happy to be back on the planet, instead of 32,000 feet above it. Don’t even get me started on the MD80 that had to make an emergency landing at O’Hare this morning. Had I been on that plane, that would have been it. After cleaning up my pants, I probably would have started investing in RV’s and cruise ships. For now, I’m happy I wasn’t, because it means that I will get back on an airplane again. Someday, but probably not in 2006.

So it’s great to be back in Illinois. V and I are switching roles– she’s super busy grad student, and I get to do grad school casually. This means the cat and I are spending time together. It won’t end well.

The rest of the California trip was fun. We went to Hollywood, and did the touristy stuff; the walk of fame, the hand/footprints outside Grauman’s Theatre, and we saw Cars at the restored El Capitan Theatre. Of course, we ate at In ‘N’ Out… On Saturday, we went to the Santa Barbara Mission and the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History. Both were good sources of information for the local region, and had nice exhibits. The mission is in really good shape for 200+ years. (I’m guessing it has to do with the weather.) The museum had a random exhibit on frogs, which I took a decent amount of pictures. I’ll try to use some of them in the classroom next year, but for now, I put some of them on my flickr page, so you can see what I did.

I also got to read a lot on the trip, and for me, instead of grad school.  I continued reading a fantasy series (Child of Flame by Kate Elliot) which I’ll get more into later.  Currently, I have my fingers in three other books.

Dreams From my Father is the autobiography written by Barack Obama before he became a senator.  It’s a pretty interesting read.  It gives me a little more insight into who he is, and I feel like he is very candid in it.

On the recommendation of Minneapolis Red Sox, I’m reading Summer of ‘49 by David Halberstram. Just started it on the train yesterday, but I love baseball, and I’ve always been fascinated by DiMaggio and Williams, and the writing is good so far.
The most interesting book I’m reading right now is called  Fantasyland: A Season on Baseball’s Lunatic Fringe.  It’s written by Sam Walker, a sports columnist for the Wall Street Journal.  It’s about his attempt to break into the elite circle of fantasy baseball. It’s a quick read, and really engaging, especially if you thought you were obsessed with fantasy baseball.  These people are truly obsessed, but have changed the way we evaluate talent and the way statistics are used in the game.  I highly recommend it if you love fantasy (fanalytic) baseball.
Next up: Getting finances in order, cleaning, healing, and grad school. It definitely doesn’t get any less busy until maybe March of next year.

It’s great to be home.

RSS Trackback URL 20. June 2006 (08:59)
Filed under: General, Entertainment Tonight, Chomping on Books, All about me