post-thanksgiving, pre-christmas

here are a couple pictures of us spending thanksgiving with our families (better late than never!):
can you tell which side is which? we spent the first part of the week in augusta with both our immediate families, then we went to south georgia and spent thanksgiving day and weekend with chris' maternal grandparents. they have a farm house in the country, and our visit (as usual) consisted of lots of eating, talking, & sleeping! we also fed some ducks at the pond, shot rifles (thanks to kyle!), and watched the uga-tech game with chris' cousins - one of whom went to uga and one of whom went to tech. talk about a divided house! the highlight of the game (for me) was receiving a text from my dear friend jessie (who went to uga), which stated: "what do georgia and georgia tech fans have in common? none of them went to uga!" (sorry to our uga friends who went there and are fans...this is obviously just a generalization!)

since we got back, i've been doing a lot of decorating, shopping, & baking. here are some pictures of our decorations this year:
this wreath was made with less than $10 of material from michael's! after we put it on our door, chris commented that we should start calling our apt "g-unit".we kept our same charlie brown christmas tree from last year, but as you can see - it just needs a little love!

october updates: church

a few weeks ago we joined the church we've been visiting. we also started going on wednesday nights and are in a class about discovering your identity in christ, which is a study of the book of ephesians. we've enjoyed getting to know the couples in our sunday school class and have gotten to do some fun things with them. we went out with the class for miniature golf & go-cart racing. we also carved pumpkins with brandon & lori, who made a tradition of doing that each year. it was my first pumpkin carving! lori is an interior designer, so i am thrilled to have found an art buddy in greenville! she & i went downtown to greenville's open studios last weekend, which is an annual event where you can interact with local artists at work in their studios. we decided we need to find an art class in greenville & take it together!

october updates: football games

sorry for the lack of posts this month! football season is in full swing, and we've been at games the past 5 saturdays. i, for one, am thankful for a break today! we've really enjoyed having friends & family come to the games with us. justin & linda joined us for the duke game. luke & julia (who announced they're expecting their first baby next spring!) came to the gardner-webb game. the clemson game was away this year, but it felt more like a home game to me since it's now closer to us than our atlanta games. a few friends from tech (derek, john, & jon) came to stay the night with us here in greenville, then we tailgated after the game with my friend audrey's clemson crew (she's the girl i met taking the class this summer).
the game vs. uva was homecoming, and jordan & emily (who just got engaged!) got to come with us.last weekend was the fsu game, and we went down friday night to see wes, blakely, & ashton again. we hung out at...guess what, another football game (of the high school where wes directs band). then on saturday, mr. chris & mrs. cathy (our parents/in-laws) joined us for the fsu game, and we enjoyed unlimited stir fry at chow baby afterwards.

published...

i can now add author to my list of accomplishments. my grad school paper is finally getting published! it's in the american society of mechanical engineers journal of manufacturing science and engineering. click here for the citation. the funniest thing is that they sell it for $25 per copy. if you actually want to read it, you'll have to subscribe to asme or pay up! :)

job update

on tuesday, i was feeling more frustrated than ever about not having a job, and i prayed for trust in God's timing. not even one hour after i finished praying, i got a phone call from a place i interviewed checking on one of my references (jamey!). it was just the encouragement i needed, and i felt like God was reminding me He was still working in that situation. then a few hours later i got a job offer and felt like it was a direct answer to my prayers!

i start next week as a treatment coordinator at a group home for boys where i'll be providing group & individual therapy, as well as some family sessions. i'm excited that my supervisors are open to letting me incorporate art into the group sessions. i'm definitely nervous about starting something new, but i truly feel like this is what God prepared for me.

church update

after spending all summer visiting a lot of churches in greenville, chris and i are thrilled to start attending one regularly: brushy creek baptist church. they have a great newlyweds sunday school class we've been going to. though we feel like we've been married long enough not to be considered newlyweds anymore (we're pros at this now right??), the other couples are closer to our age and typically stay about 3 years before moving up to the young marrieds class. it doesn't hurt that the teacher went to georgia tech, and he & his wife are big gt football fans! last weekend we went with them to see the movie fireproof, and it was great! we're looking forward to becoming more involved there and getting to know people better. everybody we've met so far has been so loving and inclusive, and we're grateful that God has led us there.

gt vs. miss state

we had our second home game of the season this past weekend, and this time my parents joined us. since it was a noon game, we had a breakfast tailgate before and a lunch/dinner (linner?) tailgate afterward. that's a lot of tailgating! it was great to catch up with some of our old bsu friends and enjoy good food. my parents really had a good time and were glad to get to meet some of our college friends. i guess i've been married a while and people have gotten used to my new name because one friend accidentally called my parents "mr. and mrs. golden" when we introduced them.a funny thing happened. my parents brought a (brand-new) cooler with drinks for the tailgate. they were a little concerned about leaving it under our tent during the game, but chris & i reassured them that it would be fine. we've been tailgating in that spot for a few seasons now and always leave our tailgate equipment there during the game; nothing's ever been stolen. you can see where this is going...when we got back after the game, their cooler was gone! it was the only thing missing.my dad summed up the day pretty well when he gave us "A+ for food, A+ for hospitality...and F for security!"

64 crayons

today chris is watching football...all day. so in my boredom, i found this. brings back some great memories of one of my favorite childhood pastimes! i guessed them all - with a few mistakes. apparently they've renamed a few colors since the last time i bought a box. my favorite is blue violet, but sea green is pretty awesome too.

ramblings...

like i always say at the beginning of a post, it has been too long since i last blogged. katy has been doing such a good job keeping up with our goings-on that i haven't really had anything more to say. but, she's watching the hills and we only have one tv, so i literally have nothing else to do. so, i'll give it a shot.

i've been living the blue collar life these days as i'm working out on the shop floor for a two week manufacturing rotation. this kind of stuff is right up my alley; sometimes it's much more fun to get to work with those guys than deal with the day-to-day office frustrations. but, it's back to "real" work next week, and i'll be glad to do it. between this training, our vacation, and another week of training prior to that i've effectively been out of the office for about a month. luckily, i work with some great folks and we all try to pick up each other's slack when training and travel come around.

my birthday was last week. i'm 25 now, but i don't feel any different. maybe my car insurance bill will be cheaper this november.

football season officially started 11 days ago. so far the jackets are 2-0, and i'm still very much enjoying football season. here's to hoping for a great season and many good times in atlanta with old college friends.

we're still looking for a church, and we've basically got it narrowed down to two. we like different aspects of both, and we're sort of dreading making the choice. please pray that God would show us (in one way or another) where He would have us serve. we love greenville so far, and we know that it will be much easier to get involved once we're settled into a church.

maybe something exciting will happen this week, and i'll be back to blogging before you know it. i'll keep you posted...

gt game & anniversary trip

last weekend was our much-awaited vacation. chris took thursday & friday off, so we were able to leave thursday morning for atlanta. i'd been wanting to visit the coke museum for a while, so we took the tour in the afternoon. my favorite part was by far tasting coke drinks from around the world.

then we met our friends angela & joseph (both tech alum) and rode marta down to midtown together. after dinner at the varsity, we enjoyed the first game of the season. i have to get used to our new seats...but i definitely like being able to sit down during the game (impossible in the student section).due to some unexptected circumstances, our plans to go to the beach had to be changed. we decided instead to go to asheville, nc and see the biltmore house. it was beautiful, and i especially enjoyed the tour. it reminds me of an american versailles, and i left with the same thought: people actually lived here?! we liked it so much we got annual passes - they pay for themselves in two visits, and we thought we might go again for christmas or with our parents sometime.
we also explored downtown asheville. it's both quaint & strange. i was freaked out when we saw a street performer painted like a statue. she stood on the same corner for several hours, not moving a muscle except when someone dropped change in her bucket -- then she'd play a drum beat. pretty bizarre...and cool.we ate at a restaurant that was formerly an s & w cafeteria. what attracted me was the awesome art deco facade. the steak was pretty good, too. all in all, it was a fantastic weekend. we came back sunday night and celebrated chris' 25th birthday monday with four cheese lasagna and a strawberry pie.

new specs, pt. II

as promised a while back, here is a picture of my new glasses. can you tell they're glare-resistant?

passing the time

as i exhaust all job possibilities for counselors in the greater greenville area, i'm coming up with a lot more free time than i expected. i've gotten my daily routine down to about 15 minutes of checking various employer & career finder websites and following up with places. this week hasn't been particularly good - no new job postings, and i learned that the sc state dept of mental health has put a freeze on hiring new employees. (about 75% of new job postings in my field come from the state, unfortunately.) looks like i might need a hobby!

yesterday afternoon i felt bored out of my mind, and i realized i hadn't left the house for two days. two days! i didn't have a reason to. i haven't had this much free time since summers in high school. for those of you wish you had more free time, i'm sorry for complaining about having too much of it. sometimes it can be fun - like when i have a project to do or events to prepare for. other times it's a bit lonely, and most of the time it just requires a tremendous amount of patience - like when i'm waiting to hear back from places.

as for hobbies, i've been making good use of the library card i got a few weeks ago. you may have noticed that my blogging (and facebooking) has increased. i've been using the small gym at our apt complex (might as well ellipticize while i watch food network!). i'm trying out new recipes without worrying how long they'll take to cook. i also got a magazine subscription to real simple, which i like a lot. not only are they fun to read, but they're great for crafts. i've had three blank canvas panels for over a year now. i'm not great at painting, so i've decided to decoupage collages with cut-outs from the magazines and other fun supplies like ribbon, jewels, glitter, and maybe some buttons. chris' comments on my works in progress were that he liked them and thought that their style looked "very mary droddy-esque." i told him that was a supreme compliment!

so until i find a full-time counseling job, consider me a freelance artist, amateur chef, and reader extraordinaire.

south georgia weekend

chris & i went to ludowici, ga this weekend for his paternal grandmother's 70th birthday. it was a bit of a drive, so we met chris' parents in augusta to carpool part of the way. we had a great time and got to see kevin & kyle (chris' brothers) before they started college again. i'm still getting used to the size of his family. on my dad's side, i have one cousin. on chris' dad's side, he has nine cousins. this definitely keeps things interesting!

on saturday, we had a surprise birthday dinner for granny golden. i'm sure she suspected something when everybody was trying to convince her not to cook dinner and when groups of us secretly slipped away to set things up. we had it at a local seafood restaurant, and (like most of the weekend) i left the dinner table feeling completely stuffed!

mrs. cathy (chris' mom) & i literally finished decorating the room moments before granny arrived:
here are the children of mr. & mrs. golden, in birth order from left to right. mr. chris (chris' dad) is the oldest, then aunt brenda, uncle mark, & uncle glenn. they were trying to squash her on the couch!
chris & i got to take home these wonderful fresh vegetables grown in papa & granny's garden. our freezer is also full of peas, beans, corn, & pecans.

first anniversary

on monday, chris & i celebrated our first wedding anniversary! it has been a wonderful year that has flown by so quickly. we celebrated with a special dinner at home, exchanged "paper" gifts, and watched our wedding video. here are some photos:

i used a recipe from a rachel ray cookbook we received as a wedding gift. it's supposed to be a "30 minute meal", but it definitely took an hour!

we didn't save our top layer of wedding cake because our caterer said it sometimes doesn't taste good and that she'd like to make us a fresh cake on our anniversary. unfortunately, we weren't able to make a trip to augusta for it. instead, i took a photo of our wedding cake to a local bakery to have them make a replica. they did a great job, and it was delicious!
this is a table of some memories from our engagement and wedding day. my gift to chris: a photo from our honeymoon, matted with our wedding vows & 1 corinthians 13. chris' gift to me: a notebook for poets with inspiring quotes & tips for writing.

we are so blessed and look forward to many more anniversaries together!

the 'lympics

it's pretty obvious to most people that i'm not a big sports fan, but i have to confess that the olympic season is one time when i actually enjoy watching athletics for hours on end. i'm not sure if it's national pride or just the rarity of the games, but there's something special about all nations coming together to pursue perfection/greatness - it's a beautiful ideal.

chris can tell you that i am a lover of variety, and the olympic sports are nothing if not varied. there are events as classic as track & field, as modern as trampoline, as majestic as equestrian, and as everyday as beach volleyball. my absolute favorite is women's gymnastics. i was 12 years old the summer i moved to georgia during the 1996 atlanta games, and i remember watching the usa women's team win the gold medal after kerri strug vaulted on an ankle that gave out soon after her winning performance. the video still makes me cry!



i'm hoping there are some history-making moments this year. i have our american flags ready to wave...go usa!

there was no joy in mudville...

i was sad to read last night that long time atlanta braves announcer skip caray had died. baseball, both little league and the braves, comprised some of the formative experiences of my childhood. i loved playing baseball (usually coached by my dad), and we used to watch the braves together every night. i remember the worst to first braves, i know exactly where i was when sid slid, and glavine, smoltz, and avery were just three of my heroes. i used to dread when jeff blauser would come to the plate. baseball then was innocent for me. it was a perfect game, and i knew nothing about free agency, players unions, or performance enhancing drugs.

i remember my first game at old atlanta-fulton county stadium with my dad. we got there way too early to see batting practice, and i had a blast. all along the way skip, pete, don, and joe called all of the games. i hated listening to other announcers (especially during the playoffs; i still can't stand tim mccarver) because they weren't braves homers and it just didn't feel right. my parents would let me stay up late to watch the playoff games (life lesson: you can only stay up late for sports!), and i probably drove my parents crazy doing the tomahawk chop in the living room. i still hate the twins and blue jays, and it was *so* satisfying to finally win the world series in '95.

i guess hearing about skip really brought back some cheesy but good childhood memories for me. here's a perfect moment from my childhood, and one last tribute to skip caray. he truly will be missed.

stop & think

if you have 15 min, this video is definitely worth your time.

draw your own conclusions

quick anecdote that goes with my earlier post: i stopped by the bank just now to get our cash for the month. we're on dave ramsey's financial plan, which encourages withdrawing all the cash you'll need for the month and using an envelope system with categories like groceries, entertainment, etc. i typically feel a little self-conscious cashing a check for several hundred dollars and then asking for bills in specific denominations, but i've gotten used to it over the past 8 months or so that we've been doing this.

at the bank, my cell phone rang right as i got to the front of the line. i didn't answer it, but it kept making noises to notify me of the missed call and new voicemail. the clerk helping me asked if that was my phone making the noise, and he seemed somewhat nervous as he counted my twenties at least three times. i was standing there waiting when i remembered my dilated pupils and wondered what conclusions he might be drawing about this lady coming for her wad of cash!

p.s. totally unrelated, the voicemail i got was from a place i'd submitted my resume, calling to set up an interview - yay!

new specs

i went to the eye dr. this afternoon for my annual exam. this was primarily to renew my contact lens prescription, but i decided i wanted a new pair of glasses, too. the ones i have now are several years old, and they're not ones i'm willing to wear in public. i opted for some cute rectangular frames which are rimless on the bottom edge - i may post a picture when i pick them up in two weeks. chris thinks i should consider lasik surgery in the future, but the idea of a laser beam burning off a layer of my cornea while i sit still in a chair is a little scary, to say the least.

at my exam, i also had my pupils dilated. this is optional but is a better method of screening for eye diseases. basically, they put in eye drops that paralyze a muscle that controls your pupils - so they stay wide open regardless of the level of light in the environment. so, for the next 4-8 hours, i look like the people in the soyjoy commercials:

a long needed upate

i have not blogged in quite a while; i'm sure some of my blog stalker friends have missed me (you know who you are!). anyway, life is going very well in greenville, sc.

i'm enjoying work a lot, and katy is persistently looking for a job. we're both excited about her starting work. we found out friday that she doesn't have to take any more classes to be licensed in sc. now she has to find a job and begin supervision to be on track for a full license in a few years. katy told me a few weeks ago that we'll be dinks (dual income, no kids), and we're both excited about that prospect for now.

we're slowly but surely narrowing down choices in the search for a new church home. we're down to three now, so we're going to start trying out sunday schools to meet more couples our age before making the final decision.

we're quickly approaching one year of marriage. it's been a great first year together, and we've been blessed in so many ways. we appreciate all of the folks who have supported us from family to friends in atlanta, augusta, and greenville. we're looking forward to our anniversary day of course, but we're really looking forward to our combo anniversary trip, mini vacation, birthday trip (mine) at the end of august. we're going to daytona beach, so look for some pictures later.

i'm also looking forward to the ncaa's special birthday gift to me each year: the beginning of football season. the great thing about having an early september birthday is that the opening weekend of football season is always close by. we're traveling to atlanta for the first game against jacksonville state the thursday before our beach trip. of course, katy's excited too, but she doesn't pull out the gameday songs to get pumped up like i do.

it's been a great summer, and we're looking forward to the rest of it and an amazing fall.

the fourth in c'burg

chris & i visited my family in childersburg, alabama for the long weekend. my grandparents (dad's parents) live there, as well as my aunt jenny & uncle larry (dad's brother). my parents were able to come from augusta, and my favorite cousin ashley (shown here with me & my grandmother) was able to come down from her internship in NYC.
it was a nice & relaxing weekend, filled with food, visiting, and sleeping (not so different from chris' family reunions!). my aunt & uncle live on the coosa river, so on friday they had us over for swimming and riding sea doos.

we ended the night with a round of fireworks, shot off by chris & uncle larry.on sunday after lunch, grandmother wanted to take some pictures on her front porch. here we are, five days shy of 11 months of marriage.

grocery experiments

when chris was growing up, his mom occasionally brought home exotic fruits from the grocery store for him & his brothers to sample. i love the idea of learning about & trying new things, and we are fairly adventurous when it comes to food anyway. feeling inspired in the ethnic aisle last week, i picked up this latin soft drink for us to try. when chris & i watched top chef this season, our favorite contestant richard (from atlanta!) made a meat marinade out of a similar malt beverage at the season finale in puerto rico.

when we opened the drink, it had a strong smell - a lot like molasses. the color is very dark, like soy sauce. even though it's a cola, the fizz isn't as effervescent as coke. it doesn't taste quite as strong as it smells and is hardly sweet at all. chris only took one sip and i just made it through two before deciding it definitely wasn't for us. fortunately, it was only 56¢ that (literally) went down the drain. but you never know unless you try!

atlanta trip

this weekend we took our first trip back to atlanta since we moved. our friends wes & blakely are having a baby in august, and blakely invited me to a shower sunday afternoon at her aunt's house. chris & i decided to go saturday night, so we got to stay with the yorks and chris & wes got to hang out while blakely & i were at the shower.

we really had a nice weekend. saturday we went to little szechuan (see chris' post from last nov.) & rented a suspense movie. i'm sure we didn't get enough sleep because we stayed up late talking, but it was definitely worth it since we don't get to visit often. (though i have to admit i was struggling not to fall asleep in church sunday morning!) we definitely miss our good friends in atlanta.

the shower was beautiful - wonderful people (i got to see our friend joy) & food (hors d'oeuvres are my favorite). this is only the second baby shower i have been to, but i'm sure in a year or two there will be a wave of babies to follow the wave of weddings last year. shopping at babies r us and seeing blakely open her gifts made me realize how much i don't know about babies! i had no clue there are different sized pacifiers depending on the baby's age, and i'm still not clear on what a swaddling blanket is supposed to do. but the wonderful thing about baby stuff is that it is, first and foremost, cute! as i've told chris before, anything that is a miniature of something else is automatically adorable. case in point, tiny socks & little blue shoes.

my time at clemson

this week i finished my psychopathology class at clemson - hopefully my last class ever! after spending these few weeks at clemson and going to justin & linda's wedding in athens last weekend, i've realized how much i like college towns. there's something really charming about a small town where the university is such an important party of the community and there's plenty of space (and trees!) all around. don't get me wrong, though - gt will always be the university that holds the most special place in my heart. anyway, since it was my last week at clemson i took a few pictures of campus.

this is tillman hall, probably one of the most recognized buildings on campus - i like to think of it as the tech tower of clemson. it actually houses the college of education (which includes the counseling dept), and the third floor is where i've been going to class the last few weeks.

i took this one for chris, to prove that georgia tech is not the only place with engineering!
i'm not sure what this building is, but i really like the decorative awning and corinthian columns.
i also stumbled upon death valley! we're looking forward to the tech-clemson game here this fall. i like the rivalry we have (from the little that i do follow the world of football). i've never been inside the stadium, but chris assures me it lives up to its name.
though i was less than ecstatic about having to take this class, there have been some really wonderful benefits. i can definitely see that God had a purpose for me. for one, it has given me a good excuse to relax this summer and not jump straight into a new job. i'm not sure i would have given myself a two-month break otherwise. i've also been able to collect names of several counseling agencies in the greenville area from students in my class, from the e-mail listserv my professor added me to, and from getting to meet with the counseling dept's internship coordinator. i have a list of 20 or so places, so this will be a really helpful start to my job search! another great benefit from my time at clemson is that i met a new friend. it turned out that a girl in my class, audrey, also lives in greenville - in our apt complex, no less! we were able to drive to class together a few times, and chris & i went downtown for a concert last night with her & her boyfriend and a few of their friends.

fun in the backwoods

we had quite a fun weekend, particularly last night. our friend emily, who we know from the bsu at georgia tech, called this week to see if chris & i wanted to get together this weekend. she is interning in greenville for the summer, and her boyfriend jordan (also one of our good friends) was visiting for the weekend. the four of us had dinner at monterrey's on friday & hung out afterwards at our apt. then saturday emily invited us to a dance that she heard about through her friend who is a recent graduate of furman. when we agreed to go, all we knew was that the dance style was contra which is a blend of swing, line, and square dancing.

we met jordan & emily for dinner at olive garden and then met emily's friend at furman to follow him to the dance. i assumed it would be similar to some swing dances we used to go to in the ballroom at the georgia tech student center. typically, there would be a lesson beforehand for beginners followed by a dance with some sort of jazz/big band combo playing. even though chris & i are not the most avid of dancers, we always enjoy live music. plus, chris is totally free to dance like the white guy that he is when the style of music involves line dancing!

anyway, we followed emily's friend out past traveler's rest (a sleepy little highway town north of greenville), until we were on a windy two-lane road going up a mountain in the middle of NOWHERE. after what seemed like forever i was thoroughly lost, and we arrived at what appeared to be a barn: our destination. i was pretty skeptical (read: scared), particularly when emily's friend told us that according to barn dance etiquette we couldn't turn anybody down who invited us to dance with them. i was imagining creepy older men loitering at the periphery, ready to pounce the moment a girl took a break (probably because this was the scenario at the gt swing dances!).


so we get inside (i use the term loosely because it was really just a roof & walls with no air conditioning), and there's the band - complete with fiddle and announcer calling out steps (think "swing your partner round and round"). we missed most of the lesson, but fortunately contra (which i would say is heavier on the line & square styles) involves repeating the same patterns over and over as you move down a whole line of people facing each other. basically, you move with your partner down the line but do-si-do & swing with other dancers along the way. this partner switching was actually a good thing, because i discovered that the more "mountainy" the man looked the better he could show me what i was supposed to be doing. i have to admit, i had a pretty excellent time but felt like a city girl out of her element. as jordan put it, "this is fun and i hate it, all at the same time!" i got a pretty decent workout, from all the movement and probably from so much laughing, too. i only wish we had brought our cameras (the picture is from their website - yes they have a website!). i don't think we'll make this a regular outing, but chris & i are are definitely thinking about going back sometime. now if you come visit us in greenville, we know where we can show you a good time!

california trip!

i am finally getting around to uploading my pictures from my trip to california.

on the first morning of my trip, i flew from charlotte to dallas. i brought a book, and my first flight was rather uneventful. upon landing in dallas, i was reminded by every souvenir shop and restaurant sign that i was indeed in texas. i had a short layover, and arrived to my connecting gate to see my luggage getting wet in the rain at dfw. good times! my connecting flight was from dallas to ontario (california not canada), and i had the joy of sitting in the middle seat between a talkative older woman (who nearly spilled her wine on me a few times) and a man who was about 6'4'', 240 lb. they were both nice folks, but i quickly realized that i would not get much reading in on this flight and that two men of our size should not sit next to one another on a flight in coach. i hadn't flown in a while, but i'm pretty sure those seats are smaller than the last time i did.

it was a work trip, but i did have a chance during the weekend to do some sightseeing. on saturday, some coworkers and i decided to go hiking in joshua tree national forest.


the park was about two hours from our hotel, so i actually got to know a few coworkers outside of work. a few interesting landmarks along the way: 1) an 11,000+ ft. mountain with snow still on its peak, and 2) a whole bunch of wind turbines (that's right, you guessed it, ge). we ate at a real mexican restaurant along the way - pretty much the same as monterrey.

we wouldn't call joshua tree a forest in the southeast, but there were a lot more trees there than anywhere nearby. it's on the border of the mojave and colorado deserts, so you get the idea. the joshua tree is a pretty cool looking tree that's a member of the yucca family. anway, that's all more than you wanted to know, so i'll leave you with some of my favorite pictures.




on sunday, i went to the world famous san diego zoo. i'll be honest, it was just a zoo, but they did have some cool animals that i hadn't seen before. like a komodo dragon:

no flying unicorns or centaurs, so apparently the world famous part has to do with the breeding and conservation programs. i also stopped off at la jolla beach about 10 miles north of san diego. very pretty beach, very cold water. i like the gulf stream.


the rest of the time was just work, so if you really want to know you can ask. the flight home was as uneventful as the flight there. all in all, it was a pretty good first company travel experience.