So as you may have gathered from my last post here and the occasional dispatch from social media, I was in California last week. the photo you see above (and any other photos you might see in this post) is not representive of the views I enjoyed while spending my week in the area around Long Beach. Mostly, my view consisted of drab industrial parks, drab public sector conference rooms, and the uncomfortable back seat of a rental Buick Verano (there it is above, cameoing in my photo).

My inaugural trip to California was largely dedicated to organizational budget meetings, which is just as exciting as it sounds. I spent nine or ten hours a day sitting in a conference room talking purchase requests and funding obligations with people who were just as excited about it as I was. You didn’t miss much, and I shall speak no more of it.

Otherwise, I spent a bit of time wandering around downtown Long Beach, where my hotel was located. It was kind of dumpy, with lots of empty storefronts, homeless people, and folks smoking pot openly all over the place (I’m assuming they all had their weed cards in order). All in all, it wasn’t very exciting. It’s what I could manage without having access to a rental car of my very own; not that I was particularly enthused about driving on the Southern California freeways, which gave off a definite Mad Max vibe, only with fewer marked exit ramps.

I did, however, get to finally experience the wonder that is the In-N-Out Double-Double, Animal Style, which was pretty good, but still, you know, fast food. Also, on Wednesday, after a particularly grueling 9 hour budget session, we took a drive past the slums of downtown toward the prettier end of Long Beach where we were actually able to observe the Pacific Ocean:

There it is. Getting there involved us getting stuck for a bit in the setting up for the weekend’s Long Beach Formula E race; though stop-and-go-ing through pit row and a couple of course turns while the guys were painting the finish line on the road was kind of cool.

the only other business worthy of discussion was the whole airplane thing. I kind of hate airplanes. As someone over six feet tall with wide shoulders, they’re unpleasant. Also, flying from the east coast to the west and back involves a lot of time making myself small so as not to seriously inconvenience everyone else on the plane (if you’re over six feet tall with wide shoulders, this is a fact of life nearly everywhere); roughly seven hours each way, not counting layover time in Minneapolis and Atlanta (normally I like Atlanta, but not when I have to sprint from one end of terminal A the opposite end of Terminal B in five minutes to make my connection all while dodging the beginnings of a fist fight at the gate…seriously). It was unpleasant, though offered me the chance to watch a couple of movies and read a couple of novels. I also have a couple of drink cart-shaped bruises on my left shoulder to show for the experience.

Anyway, I’m home now. I took a day off at the end of things, and spent the weekend sleeping off the jet lag and getting my sinuses back in order after all that pressurized tube time, just in time for pllen season to hit Virginia – woke up this morning to find the trees had had all kinds of sex all over my car, leaving the normally shiny black finish a dull yellow-green.

Yay.