Bay Area, CA

On October 19, I drove from Bakersfield up to Redwood City to hang out with AJ and Fiona for a while. My time in the Bay Area included the usual assortment of activities: coffee, alcohol, gymnastics, karate, jujitsu, hiking, making fun of ridiculous martial arts movies, going to a boylesque show in San Francisco, and eating sushi.

My friend Pete moved down to the Bay Area recently, and my friend Pat was also in town for a football game. Back in the glory days at Sandia, the three of us called ourselves Orgy of Talent, and we went surfing.

This time, we just hung out in Oakland and ate Ethiopian food.

Bakersfield, CA

On October 9, I drove from Tempe to Bakersfield for a weekend Kokondo seminar. As usual, it was a good time, and we were given plenty to work on and think about. Here's a good shot of all the black belts lined up, preparing to terrorize the non-black belts:

After the seminar, I stayed at Barbe's house for a week, and attended the Bakersfield Kokondo classes on Monday, Thursday, and Sunday. Aside from that, it was a pretty depressing week. I spent most of the week sitting on the couch, watching people fail miserably on Are You Smarter Than A Fifth Grader, which was interrupted every 5 minutes for some bail bonds commercials. Going to see Capitalism: A Love Story didn't help much either. On the plus side, I'm still unemployed!

Ok, it wasn't all bad. One day I was doing kata in a field when a small kid walked by and said, "Look mom, a ninja!"

Boyce Thompson Arboretum, AZ

About 30 minutes east of Tempe sits Boyce Thompson Arboretum, which sounded like a nice place for a quick day hike. Upon arriving, we were told that it would take about 1.5 hours to complete a walk through the park. It took us 20 minutes, which included me stopping to pour some water out of my water bottle.

Although the hike was disappointing, there were some colorful plants, as well as a hummingbird and a huge-assed bee.