Otherwise known as: spaz, freak, energizer doggy, booger, brat, furball.

I guess I’ve missed most of December as well. Not just in blog-land, but a in real life as well. I’m finally starting to feel a bit more comfortable at the job, but still don’t have the level of depth required to discriminate between “know the reason why X is done via Y” and “X shouldn’t really be done via Y; I should build tool Z.” And, since I eat lunch and dinner at work, I haven’t really been out and about Santa Monica/Venice (not to mention LA) to a great degree. Notable points of interest:

• The Novel Coffee House and Bookstore in Venice: very cool atmosphere, laptop friendly (although the wireless isn’t free).
• Some pizza joint in Eagle Rock: excellent. Some of the best pizza I’ve ever had. I’ll have to dig up the name.
• LACMA Dali Exhibit: again, excellent.
• The Edison Hotel: awesome ‘steampunk-ish’ bar in LA. I wish I would’ve brought my camera to the Holiday Party we had there.
• I now officially add Boxers to the types of dogs (Akita, Husky, Malamute) I’d like to (someday, not in the near future) own. Mainly due to Tommy.

However, I did get the chance to spend Thanksgiving with Pop’s side of the family in Yuma, and trained with Kawika Sensei, David Mills, and some others a few weekends ago. I felt good having a body to throw around again. Lance and I met an hour before class, and Mike and Sean showed up early as well, so we beat each other up in the soggy mud of the park. Ah, yes, I definitely miss that.

Hopefully I’ll get around to posting some new (although shot a while ago) photo to osbornphoto.com, since that’s become nearly static. Also on the docket: continue on with the Spanish, Japanese, and German lessons, get back to taking more photos, and learn how to rock climb. Hopefully I can syntehisize the last two.

Tomorrow I leave for MO to meet up with the girl at her father’s place. I have to bring long johns. Damn it’s cold there.

A few weeks ago, as I was getting out of bed, I felt one of the many recent quakes rumble through. Didn’t phase me a bit, but I did think, “probably a 4.0 or 4.1” When I get in to work, I check the USGS quake site, and find out it was a 4.0. Cut forward a week or so, and I feel another one pass through the house. This time, I peg it at a 3.7, and USGS verifies my guess as completely accurate.

Yeah, and I’m moving to LA.

This should be fun.

Here’s a sport I just witnessed for the first time, and I’m not sure if it’s going to catch on: Mountain Unicycling. Uh-huh. You read that right.

Actually Airborne

Downhill

And over Labor Day weekend, things tend to get a bit rowdy. What happens when you come out of the waves from a session of body surfing, and someone’s fashioned a beer bong out of a tube a seaweed? Well, you make the guy from out of town chug a beer out of it, of course. (I can’t believe he did that. Cool guy and a good sport. I wouldn’t even get near the thing.)

Pre

During

Post

He said it tasted pretty gross, and way too salty. Despite that, this girl from a group next door decided to take a shot at it:

Champ

Wow, that’s disgusting. I still wasn’t enticed. But, later that weekend, I did meet the coolest bartender in Mission, and the only person I’ve ever met that prefers tabasco in her tequila shots:

Prairie Fire Queen

Of course, I still managed to make it up to LA every once in a while. Sometime after the 4th of July, there were quite a few American flags still planted about ‘Nae’s apartment complex. At some point, Tommy (the coolest boxer I’ve every met), decided he was a bit more patriotic than the rest of us. He plucked a flag up in his mouth and hauled-butt up and down the yard with the flag in his mouth. Even when he dropped it, he’d make sure to pick it up by the stick and not the fabric before continuing his circuits. He looked quite happy, and I was probably more entertained than I should have been.

Tommy Flag #1

Tommy Flag #2

And there was Mai’s birthday party at Delve Sushi – the craziest sushi joint I’ve even been to, where the make the entire restaurant get up and do the chicken dance, and the staff perform lip-sync routines to pop music. Very fun.

Mai and Cake

Rich and Mai #1

Rich and Mai #2

Rich and Mai #3

'Nae

'Nae and I

Sadie and Someone

Aerial 'Nae and I