A Day at the Beach in January

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

At the end of January, we had some very nice weather.  We're talking mid-70's.  Yes, we can get that in Southern California in the winter, usually at least once, but it isn't the kind of thing we always have.  It's been mostly cool and raining the last couple of weeks, for example.

So I had to take advantage of that.  So I went down to the beach in Santa Monica.  I parked where I also do these days, and then walked along the beach.  I'd just set out to walk, but I wound up walking down to the Santa Monica pier.  It's been years since I was there, so I had some fun playing tourist and wandering around to see what I could see.

It was a quiet, relaxing day.  And the weather really was so wonderful.

Lunch with College Friends

About a month ago, I met up with a couple of friends from college for lunch.

It started because Brian is getting married this summer, and he asked John and I to be in the wedding.  He was about to move to be closer to his fiancee, so this was the only chance to hang out and see him before we go back for the wedding.

To my surprise, they both came up here.  In fact, we wound up not that far from my place.  I feel a little guilty about that, but neither one of them seem to mind.

We sat around and talked for several hours, sharing memories and catching up.  Yes, we talked a little about the wedding as well.  It was just a nice, pleasant afternoon.

February 19th's Pun

A three-legged dog walks into a frontier saloon, sidles up to the bar, and announces, “I’m looking for the man who shot my paw.”

Jury Duty 2024

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

I had jury duty again the third week of January.

I'd had Federal jury duty in October of 2022, and I had to actually show up.  And it was in downtown LA, which wasn't fun.  This was back to LA County.  Fortunately, that meant I was going to be going to a more local courthouse.  Still not the one in down, but closer than downtown.

They'd originally called me for the week of Christmas.  Since I was out of town with my family for Christmas, I postponed.  I couldn't have showed up if called to show up.  But I wanted to get it over with, so I just postponed by a couple of weeks.

What I didn't like?  I couldn't call in until after 7 PM.

But I did pick the week of Martin Luther King weekend, so I only had to call in for four days instead of a full week.

And I never had to report.  It was so great every night hearing "You don't have to report tomorrow."

My boss was on call that week, too.  At the same court house.  She never had to show up either, but we were checking in with each other first thing in the morning each morning.

Hopefully, it will be several years before I have to go through that again in either location.

Master's University Winter Classic 5K - 2024

(Just a quick note:  If you are landed here because of a comment I left on your book blog, you might be more interested in my review blog, Carstairs Considers.  But you are very welcome to stick around here, too.)

Well, you can see how good a job I've been doing at keeping up with this blog this year.  So much for my once a week life updates, right?

Almost a month ago now, I took part in the Master's University Winter Classic 5K.  Last year, it was cold and threatening rain, with a little bit of sprinkles on us.  This year?  It was cold, but not nearly as cold.  But the sun was out.  Once we started running, I warmed up pretty quickly.  I finished in a little over 36 minutes (like 36:10 or something), which I was happy about.  I took a couple of weeks off from running in December because of my cough, so the last couple of weeks before the run were a struggle.  I took a couple of walk breaks, but did better than expect overall.  (And I generally walk at some point during my runs, even before I took the break in December.)

As always, I saw a couple of friends there, which isn't a surprise after attending school there and then my time working there.  However, it wasn't the friends I normally see.  Still, it was nice to say hi really fast to them.

February 4th's Pun

A rancher counted 196 head of cattle when they were out on the range, but when he rounded them up he had 200.