…Woke up on my flight from SFO to Chicago O’Hare and watched the people around me for a bit, most of who were asleep. It’s interesting to just look at people and try to figure out who they are and what they do, or where they’re going. My flight arrived on time and i made the trek from the arrival gate to the depature game for LEX stopping off for breakfast on the way. I had about a 2 hour lay-over which wasn’t that bad, but as tired as i was it seemed like much longer. I wasn’t in the mood to read so i mainly just people watched more. The gate i was at had three flights leaving from it within 30 minutes of each other so i entertained myself by trying to guess who was headed to Lexington. I actually did pretty good, some of them were obvious, when they talked i could hear their accents (and the other flights were out west and in new england.) We got on our plane about 10 mins late and as they were doing their pre-flight checks they discovered that one of the plane’s front tires had worn down to a indicator and had to be replaced so we had to de-board the plane and then get right back on it. All of this caused us to depart about 45 mins late. I couldn’t really get to sleep on this flight so i read a bit.

We landed in Lexington about 10:30 and i called Jennifer who had graciously offered to pick me up from the airport. I waited a bit for my luggage to come out and then headed out to her car. On the way home i tried to convince her that i was going to go to sleep when i got there and not going to wake up until time for work the next morning. She didn’t belive me which is ok, b/c i think i was trying to convince myself more than her. I did manage to sleep for about 6 hours and then i got up for a few and headed back to sleep for a normal nights sleep. Going to bed at midnight or later west-coast time and still waking up at my normal eastern time had caught up with me.

All in all it was a really cool trip, met lots of cool people and went lots of cool places. I think i’ll have to do it again in a month or two, heh.

Got up, ready, etc. and drove down to the Youth Center with Melissa. Hung out there for a bit reading more of A Brave New World until Franny got in. She had a couple of odd jobs for me to do this morning (as she promissed the night before) so i did a couple of them and then left to return the rental car. Got a ride back down there and helpped out a bit more, although i guess i wasn’t much help sorting the prizes. Misty got there about 11:30 to pick me up to take me back to San Francisco. I went to say bye to Franny and talk to her for a minute, she gave me the book Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. (which i just started reading today.) I then went back into the art room and said bye to Melissa and then headed out.

Misty and I went to Whole Foods for lunch which was pretty good and then headed back to her house to pack up the last little bit of her stuff. We made a few stops and then headed north on highway 1. With all of the change going on in her life she had a lot on her mind. It’s hard to be around her and not try to cheer her up, or probably even more not be able to. I guess she wasn’t really down as much as just had a lot going on. We talked quite a bit and had pretty good conversations, hopefully i at least didn’t make things worse.

We went through oakland right at the start of rush hour, which probably wouldn’t of been as bad if it hadn’t of been for a wreck or two. We headed to Misty’s place in Berkely and i got to meet her roomates. We carried her stuff up and she unpacked, or tried to as much as she could without moving stuff into her room for a bit while Justin (one of her roomates) and i talked chatted, about computers, cycling, food and anything else that came up. We then headed out for dinner and went to good an italian place, with really good bread, the name of which escapes me at the moment. Misty dropped me off at the bart station after dinner and i took the trains back over to SFO for my 11:20 flight. I was really tired by the time i got to the airport and almost feel asleep a time or two waiting for my flight. The flight left as scheduled and was only 60% full so i got to spread out and managed to get a little bit of sleep…

Woke up kinda early and go up and headed into the living room, Kris was fixing breakfast, but i wasn’t really hungry. Well i wasn’t until i smelled her home-fries which smelled and tasted really good. Got cleaned up and dressed once Melissa got up and said that we were going to church. After she got ready we left and headed that way (the salvation army chapel) after a quick stop off at albertson’s.

Once we got there i met majors Ted & Cindy and talked with them for a minute or two before it was time for things to begin. The service was pretty good, it was cool to see Josh speak, fun to see him get exicited, you could tell he’s pasionate about it. They had a lot of music in the service much of which tied into their messages which was pretty cool as well. Major Ted spoke about two types of sermons, those that were biblically rooted and those that were about topics of concern (i can’t remember the words he used, but that’s the gist of it.) He talked about the tendacy to find (flimsy) biblical support for the second of those types with verse that uses the same word in another context.

He also spoke about a book he read while on vacation talking how people come together in times of disaster to central point of reference, for instance a pole in the center of the village considered to be the central point of earth. He said in more modern (christan) cultures this central point is the cross and the greater church. Again this was interesting, he is a pretty good speaker, kept my interest when i wasn’t distracted by tedward.

After church the members (but not really members as the salvation army has interesting church membership process) had a meeting about the state of the church and things they’re looking to do to bring in new people etc. I passed the time by heading down the road to circut city and borders books. Didn’t really see anything interesting at circut city, but borders was pretty cool, probably had 3 times more of a computer books section than any other bookstore i’ve ever been in. Looked around and almost got two books, but decided that i wasn’t in the mood to get any technical books at the moment. I did end up buying a Diana Krall cd. i’d been looking to get something of hers for a while and they had a good listen before you buy system so i could listen to all of the cds so i picked one i liked. I drove around for a bit just look at what there was to see and then headed back to the salvation army complex and waited for a bit till the meeting was over. Then we headed back to the fort for a bit after picking up some lunch.

Got back to the fort and hung out for a while watching tv. At some point i asked Melissa what movies they had and she read over them. They had spaceballs and i asked if it was her’s or kris’ and she said kris’. About that time Kris came out of her bedroom. I thought she was pretty cool already, but upon hearing that she owned spaceballs i was overcome with her coolness and decided to propose to her. She accepted and at this point i’m still waiting on her to pick a date.

A bit later we headed over to Franny’s to watch a movie and hang out. We picked up Souen and stopped by Keva’s on the way. We chatted for a bit there (with the beach boys in the background, haven’t heard them in a while, used to be my favorite music when i was little.) She wasn’t going to join us, but Melissa and Souen talked her into it so we headed on over to Franny’s. We watched the movie A Mighty Wind it was pretty good. It’s done by the same group of people as Best In Show and is similar. It’s pretty funny and entertaining. It centers around a folk music concert/reunion, it has no real plot or story-line but manages to keep interesting with quirky characters. After the movie Franny showed us her pictures from the Costa Rica mission trip and we hung out for a bit and then headed back to the fort.

Kris was going to stay up and we were going to watch Badder Santa, but she wasn’t feeling well and went on to bed. Melissa and i watched it. It was really funny, but probably the most vulgar movie i’ve ever seen. It wasn’t to the point of not wanting to watch it or anything and i guess it was somewhat central to the story of the movie so there wasn’t really anything wrong with it, i just say this b/c it’s the kind of movie that would last about 5 mins if they showed it on network tv. It was nice to get my Lauren Graham fix during the offseason for gilmore girls. I have come to realize that it’s her character on the show and not her that i like so much. After that we headed to bed.

Woke up, got cleaned up and road to the car rental place with cynthia (a former vista, who i talked to for a bit the night before at the dinner party, she seemed cool.) Got the car and headed down to the youth center while melissa worked a half day i mainly read more of a brave new world. Left the youth center at lunch time stopping off at albertsons for charcoal, firewood, and food stuffs. then we headed back to the fort to pick up the camping supplies and then headed towards pebble beach to take the 17 mile drive. There were some amazing stops on the drive, most of which i stopped to take pictures of. The only dissapointing part was that i didn’t find a good pebble beach sign to get dicky’s picture in front of, but oh well.

We finished up the drive and headed down the coast on highway one towards big sur stopping again to take several more pictures, one of which is probably the best of the lot, looking out over the distance at the ocean and a bridge. When got down to phiffer big sur campground around 3 or 4 and got an campsite assigned. Interestingly we were assigned the site across the stream from the one that misty and i had picked when i stayed there before. It was pretty much perfect. We set up misty’s tent in about 5 mins and then spent about 30 minutes trying to figure out alex’s (both of which we borrorwed.) It wasn’t that complicated, it would probably only take 5 mins to set it up again, but it just wasn’t obvious. We hung out for a bit, took a nap, and then hung out some more waiting for the rest of the group to arrive. Everyone else got down there around 7:30 or so as i started the charcoal for dinner. We had burgers, brats, and hotdogs and various other munchies. After dinner i raked out the coals and started the campfire with it. We sat around chatting and playing the non-game for a while til most of the group (josh, jessica, souen, and p.j. turned in for the night.)

melissa franny and myself sat around the campfire chatting about all things great and small. as we started talking i was getting sleeping, but apparently the conversation was good enough that it woke me back up and i wasn’t all that sleepy several hours later at 3:00 in the morning (6:00 my time.) the rest of us headed towards bed then. I fell to sleep pretty quickly and awoke a few hours later to the sound, bump-shuffle-shuffle-thud-shit, of someone falling outside the tents. i looked up out the door to see melissa laying on the ground, i said are you ok, and p.j. half asleep, who was sharing the tent with me responded that he was. i told him that melissa had fell and he said ok and went back to sleep. I laid around for another hour or so and then got up and grabbed a bagle and started the reamining charcoal to toast the bagels and we sat around for a bit before packing up the tents and heading out.

Josh, Jessica, and P.J. headed home/to work and Melissa, Souen, Franny and I packed the rest of the stuff up and parked the car at the lodge so we could take a few of the hiking trails. We walked up to phiffer falls first which wasn’t a bad hike at all. We sat around there and took a few pictures and then started back towards a fork where the valley view trail split off. We started down that trail for a bit and mellisa and souen stoppped to talk for a bit and Franny and I went on. The trail wasn’t very long, but it was very up. Franny and myself talked the on the way up about life libery and the persuit of happiness. I had a lot of fun and the view at the end was well worth it.

We headed back down afterwards and then dropped off Franny and Souen and headed back to the fort to rest up for a while. We watched a bit a TV and then melissa laid down to take a nap Kris and i sat down to watch Camp, a very goofy/funny/entertaining musical about a group of kids who go to an arts summer camp. Talked to kris for a bit until melissa woke up and then got cleaned up and waited on Franny, Souen and her friend (Manuel i think.) when everyone got there we headed towards santa cruz (yeah this was a long, but good, day.)

We got to santa curz and went to the main shopping stip (don’t know what it’s called) and walked around for a bit trying to find a place to eat supper. We originally headed towards 99 Bottles of Beer, but it had a 30 minute wait, so we moved on and ended up at an irish pub where we had interesting conversations about food, namely vinegar is is french for sour wine. After dinner we headed down to the boardwalk and after a few tries managed to park (“look kids big ben.”) We headed to the arcade and played games for a while and hung out afterwhich we were all pretty much ready to head home and so we did. After several mildly successful attempts (by me) to get us totoally lost we managed to get onto the right highway headed back to Monterey. Hung out for a bit when we got back to the fort, talked with Naj, Jackie, and Misty (not misty koger) for a few mins and then went in to watch TV. Sat around there for a while and then headed to bed.

Got up, showered and headed to the Youth Center and then took the car back when Franny got there (she picked us up from the car place.) We then headed back to the Y.C. and i was assigned the job of shredding a bunch of papers (by hand, although i was given the option of using a shredder.) Being my normal self i quickly came up with a process to use which gave Melissa and Franny plenty of fodder for making fun of me. We also had a discussion about accents in there somewhere. We met misty for lunch at a place called (something like) Rosine’s. The food was pretty good, it had a cool atmosphere, we split a piece of chocolate cake for desert that was pretty good, (it was better the next day after sitting in the fridge overnight.)

After lunch we headed back to the Youth Center, i met Josh, Jessica, and Tedward somewhere in here and started reading “A Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley. It’s interesting reading it so soon after 1984. The books have a lot of similarities (and obvious differences.) The thing that has caught my attention the most is that both discuss their respective societies with sex/lust as one of the primary illustrative mechanisms, or at the very least have secondary plot-lines that center around how the society has affected them. At any rate i plan on doing entries on both of those books as well as the others i have recently read.

Thursday night we went to Misty’s moving on dinner party. Got to met a whole bunch of people who’s name’s i’ve heard many times. Met Misty’s “West Coast Mom” Mary, and a whole host of the vista crowd. I found something to eat (Misty had made fake meat burritos, which were just as good as real meat ones, now a steak would be a different story. Had a pretty good time, some good conversations and such. Went back to Melissa’s and (surprise surprise) watched the rest of the Olympics and headed to bed.

Woke up early and laid around in bed day dreaming. Then got up and walked to the bus stop with Melissa. Fort Ord is an interesting place, there’s hundreds of abandoned buildings that have sat unused since the fort was closed (or at least greatly reduced in size.) Everywhere you look are empty buildings, even 100′s of houses. What’s most amazing is that all of these buildings and houses are sitting empty in a place where real estate prices are sky high. Affordable housing in Monterey is in the 300k rage, that’s hilarious.

We were heading to The Tech in San Jose so we walked from the bus transfer point to the car rental place and got the car. We then headed down to where Melissa works at S.A. Youth Center. I met Franny, but she was busy meeting with someone so we didn’t really to anything more than nice to meet you. Then we headed off towards San Jose. It wasn’t a bad drive, but wasn’t particularly interesting either. We found The Tech without any trouble and parked and headed that way. While walking towards the Tech we ran across an interesting piece of graffiti, it looked a whole lot like a UK hat, but i suppose may or may not of actually been.

I won’t go into too much detail about the tech museum, but it was really cool. got to build a over-sized Lincoln Log building on an earthquake simulator to see if it would stand, ride a segway, and go to an IMax movie (which i’d never been too before.) that was all cool, and there was a lot of other cool stuff there too. We picked up Kris on the way back and met Franny at Gianni’s (that’s not even close) Pizza which was really good. Got to hang out and talk with Franny and Kris a bit more they both seem cool. We went to Trader Joe’s and Blockbuster after that where Kris and split a two for $20 previously viewed movies, she got Camp (which was really cheesy, but pretty funny and entertaining) and i got Badder Santa (which was pretty good, probably the most vulgar movie i’ve ever seen, but i suppose that’s what it was going for.) We headed home and watched the rest of the Olympics and headed to bed.

Flew out of Lexington towards San Francisco via Chicago. My flights were all uneventful. I ate breakfast about 8:30 and left Lexington around 10:30, got to Chicago around 11:45 or something like that and pretty much had to head straight from one plane to get onto the other which wasn’t cool because i was rather hungry. I then arrived at SFO around 2:30 in the afternoon and made my way to baggage claim and grabbed my checked bag and then set out about finding the airport BART station. I was still really hungry, but i didn’t have much time before i had to catch the Richmond train to the Ashby station in Berkeley in order to meet Misty at our planned time. There was a BART train that went all the way from the airport to the Ashby station during peak hours so i took it. It was kind a cool, don’t think i’ve ever taken a subway public transit system other than a bus.

I got to the station and met Misty who had just finished signing the lease on her new apartment (she’s going to G.T.U studying for a MDIV.) We moved a load of stuff into her place, which was decent, a pretty nice apartment, but on a busy street. After that we went to get something to eat Blondie’s on Telegraph Avenue. That’s some good pizza. We got pizza to go and walked down to the plaza and at near a fountain: Misty and the plaza.

After that we drove around for a bit, Misty showed me a place that she’d looked into living and really liked. We then stopped by the bakery where she used to work and then headed down towards Monterey. I enjoyed getting to talk with her on the way down, she’s got a lot going on lately, interesting time in her life and all. We stopped by her house for a few minutes, Morgan and Marguerite came home and tried to talk me into moving out there into the beach front apartment with them, heh. We then went over to Alex’s and watched a bit of the Olympics before going to pick up Melissa from the Monterey airport. When then headed to Melissa’s where i met Kris (Melissa’s house-mate) who i’d talked to quite a bit, but never met. We watched the rest of the Olympics and headed to bed.