A Second Book Signing and a Mission

I actually went to two book signings in February.  The second one was for Caramel Pecan Roll Murder, the newest Hannah Swensen mystery from Joanne Fluke.  I didn't spend much time there.  I got there late, and the tables all had people at them.  Rather than try to get a chair, I just got my books signed (the new one plus the older ones I hadn't gotten autographed yet), and left again.

However, before the signing, I did something I'd been wanting to do for a long time - I went to the San Fernando Mission.  I see signs for it all the time while I'm driving around.  It was a mission.  There wasn't anything super exciting about it, but it was nice to finally get there.

I also finally looked for a couple Little Free Libraries after the signing.  Thanks to the app, they were fairly easy to find.  I left a couple of extra books I have around here (duplicates I got from publishers) with my business cards for my review blog in them.  We'll see if they ever get read and anyone starts reading my blog as a result, but I had fun finding them and leaving the books.  I need a cheap way to get more books I would be willing to leave.  We've mentioned how much of a hard time I have letting go of books, right?

First Book Signing in Two Years

I actually made it to two book signings in February.  Today, I'm just going to talk about the first one.

It was near the beginning of February, and it was for Gregg Hurwitz's newest Orphan X novel.  (Which I, sadly, haven't read yet).  It was at the bookstore in Santa Monica where he has had all the launches for this series.  One difference, however, is we were outdoors the entire time, except for buying the book.  It's been cold in the past, but we were having a warm spell, and it was quite pleasant to be down there outside even as darkness fell.

I headed down after work, and I was fortunate to make good time getting down there.  As a result, I was able to snag dinner at the BBQ place across the street from the bookstore before.  I like the place, and I was glad to see it was still in business.

The book signing itself was fun as always.  I really do want to get to the book soon.

It had been two years since last book signing, and it was nice to go to one again.  Sadly, even during normal times, I don't seem to be able to get to too many.  I really miss them.

Muddy Dash - 2022

I've started out the year with another mud run!  I was back at Irvine Lake (although a different company was putting it on).  This time it was a Muddy Dash.  Again, I signed up last minute, and again, I did it because it was a great deal.  There was just a little bit of fees, etc., but not the normal costs.

The other reason I signed up last minute was weather.  Since you never know what kind of weather you will get in February, I don't like to sign up months in advance.  But I signed up about a week out, and the weather was looking like it was going to be perfect.  It was.

I went with my friends Rory and Cameron.  Despite the great deal to sign up when we did, it was pretty empty.  We hardly had any wait to get our stuff, and there didn't seem to be many people on the course.  The good news was, we didn't have to wait at obstacles this time.

And yes, there was mud.  No mud we had to crawl through, but there was some thick mud we had to walk through at times.

However, the course seemed short.  It was supposed to be a 5K, but it felt more like two miles.  Unless there was a part of the course we missed, that is.  But I sure didn't see anything like that.

They had hoses for us to clean up with afterwards.  I'd bought some water in case they didn't, but it turned out we didn't need it.  However, they only had five of them, and the lines were long.  That was the longest line we were in all day.

The weather was wonderful.  We've been having wind here at home, but down there we had no wind.  It was upper 70's.  Perfect weather for being outside and getting muddy.

My friends didn't seem that impressed.  They are looking for harder obstacles.  I do wish the course had been longer and we'd had to crawl through mud at some point, but overall, I was happy with it.

Los Angeles Zoo Lights

Thanks to a friend, I got to go to the Zoo Lights at the LA Zoo again.

My friend Angelique volunteers at the zoo, so she had some free tickets.  When she asked if I wanted to go and if I thought our friend Ann wanted to go, I naturally said yes.  We tried to go in December after Christmas, but it was raining that day.  So we went in January.

While none of the animals are out, they've got some great animals that light up and some other fun things to look at.  Since I love Christmas lights, I thought it was all beautiful.  We went two years ago, and I enjoyed it just as much this year as I did last time.

While I'd seen Angelique twice recently at Disneyland, we hadn't seen Ann for a couple of years.  It was great to see her in person (we'd talked) and just hang out.  We went to dinner in Glendale afterwards, which was also fun.

Christmas 2021

What do you know, Christmas was a month ago, and I still haven't blogged about it.  I guess that is because I am still trying to process what happened....

Kidding.  I'm kidding.  I had a fabulous time.

As usual, I drove north for the holiday.  I headed up on the 23rd.  I needed to use some vacation time, so I took that day off.  Christmas Eve, we got together with some family friends I hadn't seen for a while, so that was fun.  Then we went to my family's church for the Christmas Eve service.

Christmas was the usual of going over to my brother's house for the kids to open their presents, then everyone coming to my parents house for dinner.  My uncle and aunt came over, and a good friend of my mom's was there as well.  It was a fabulous day.

I was up there for another few days since my job gave us the week off between Christmas and New Year's.  My brother took a couple of days off as well, so we got to spend lots of time together as a family.  We play games.  We went to the redwoods and a beach.  It was a nice visit, and I wasn't ready to come home.  Especially since I had to work one day we were off.  Too much work to do to truly be off a week.  Job security, right?

Disneyland - Part 2

I had one last day on my parks pass at Disneyland I had to use.  Angelique was nice enough to pay to go with me again, and we headed down there the first Saturday of the month.

This time, we started in California Adventure since we hadn't been there at all in October.  We hit all the essentials and quite a few of the optional rides.  The lines for those were short, so it was hard to walk past them.

I finally made it on the rethemed Guardians of the Galaxy: Mission Breakout.  We enjoyed it.  I was always a fan of the Tower of Terror, which it replaced.  But this seemed better, mainly because the scenes in between the drops were actually telling a story.

We also made it on the new Spiderman ride.  That was a disappointment.  I feel like I might better follow what is happening after another couple of rides, but it wasn't all that fun.  Definitely not worth the wait for it.

Around 5:30, we hopped on over to Disneyland.  I was impressed with how much we were able to get done there.  Most of the big rides and quite a few of the smaller ones.  We didn't get back on Rise of the Resistance, which was a disappointment.  And Small World hadn't quite reopened after their flood in November.  But we still had a good time.

Park open to close makes for a long day, but it was worth it.  If it weren't so expensive, I'd definitely be plotting a return trip, but this will have to do it for me for a while, I'm afraid.

Thanksgiving

 As usual, I went up north for Thanksgiving.

We had quite a group for Thanksgiving day itself.  In addition to the usual group, my sister-in-law's sister and her husband were there.  It was great getting to hang out with them.  The food was good, and a great time was had by all.

Friday, my parents and I drove over to the Sacramento area to see my uncle and aunt, and my cousin and his family, who were down for Thanksgiving.  I haven't seen my uncle and aunt in quite a while, and it's been years since I saw my cousin and his family, so that was fun.  We played Bocce ball, and my team won both games!

Saturday was back with my brother's family and my parents.  We played some games and generally had a good time together.

Sunday, I had to fight traffic driving home.  It was worse than I remembered it being the year before, even with leaving as early as I did.  Sadly, I had to be back at work, but hopefully next year I can take that Monday before Thanksgiving off again and not have to fight traffic coming home.

Terrain Run 2021

Guess what?  I got back in the mud (sort of) last month.

I did the Terrain Race on the Saturday before Thanksgiving.  It was a last minute decision because the weather wasn't looking too cold (could have been warmer, but it was okay) and a friend wanted to do it with me.  Plus, we got a great deal on it.

It was down at Irvine Lake, where I've done many mud runs in the past.

While it was nice to be out there again, it was a disappointing day as far as the race goes.  There were long lines.  Lines to pay to park.  Lines to pay to pick up our packets.  Lines to do the obstacles.  Usually those get better after the first one or two, but they didn't here.  It took longer than I thought it would to do it.

Even worse, for a mud run, they had one little bit of mud, and it wasn't all that deep.  But that turned out to be a good thing since they didn't have any way for us to clean up afterwards or any place to change.

Afterwards, we grabbed a late lunch and then went to visit some friends of mine who live not that far away.  That part of the day was great!  I had fun visiting with them, and my friend seemed to have a good time as well.

I'm signed up for a mud run in 2022 already, and keeping an eye opened for the Camp Pendleton Mud Run to open up for registration.  We'll see if I do more than those two next year, but I'll be happy getting to do any again.

Disneyland!

I made it back to Disneyland last month.  I've got a couple of days on tickets I bought last year that I need to use, and I used one of them with my friend Angelique.  We did our usual full day in the park trying to hit everything.  It was a bit harder without Fastpass (I'll be mourning the loss of that for a long time), but we still did it.

A definite highlight was getting to go on the newly redesigned Snow White ride.  I've had issues with how the old version ended, and I was happy to see this one finally tell the entire story.

Also, we made it on Rise of the Resistance.  That was a fabulous ride!  So creative, well done, and surprising.  I can't wait to go on it again.

We are going back in a couple of week to use my last day.  Hopefully, it will be just as great a day.

Hawaii Vacation

 Last month, I got a much needed vacation.  I went to the Big Island of Hawaii for a week's vacation with a couple of friends.  We had a fabulous time!

We spent the first few nights in the village of Volcano, not too far from Hawaii Volcanos National Park.  We spent some time exploring in the park, naturally, including hiking across a volcano.  Then, we went to the southern most point in the 50 states and hiked out to Green Sand Beach.  I went on my first zipline, and I had a blast doing it.

We spent the rest of our time on the other side, staying in Kailua-Kona.  We went snorkeling just about every day when we were on this side.  We also swam with dolphins and manta rays.  One of the friends and I went hiking in a canyon one day, as well.

It was a fabulous trip.  I desperately needed the time away from work, and it was nice to be out of the condo for more than a weekend.  As much as I love working from home, it is nice to get out of the house every so often.

And we got along well.  We were good friends before we went or I don't think we would have agreed to go on vacation together, but it was just fun hanging out together for an extended period of time.

None of us were ready to come home when it was over.  And I'm already plotting where to go next.