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I think I’m done traveling to LA for quite a while. Between Sushi Decompression, the Long Beach marathon, business meetings and seeing family I have already been down to LA 4 times this month and I. Am. Done.

Sushi Decompression on the 4th was a ton of fun, though. Seeing everybody wearing clothes, clean and with hair was quite a treat (as was the after-party at Robert’s house - thank you for hosting!) Here are some pics:

On the 18th, Rick and I celebrated Oktoberfest at The Old Vienna Inn with a couple friends. It’s a huge party, everyone eats family style and we met a very cool couple from Riverside who were celebrating their 1st wedding anniversary. Rick forced everybody to have Jager shots and a good time was had by all. The food was amazing, too (from what I can remember)

By the way, History class is going quite well. We had a test recently and I scored 60 out of 60. w00t! Who would have thought I’d do so well at a subject I always said I’d hated?

No plans for Halloween as of yet. The thought of relaxing, watching movies and passing out candy is quite appealing, though.

And for your viewing pleasure, here’s a picture of Rick’s cat, (Fat Man) Puddin’:

Rick and I went to the Mid State Fair in Paso Robles this weekend with a co-worker of his from India, Awi. We went around noon which was great to avoid the crowds but bloody hot - it was 100 degrees! While there we saw the world’s largest pig weigh in at 1000 pounds and checked out all the livestock from the 4H kids. We drank cold beer, ate some giant turkey legs and checked out some rodeo competitions.

On Sunday, I ran (only) 10 miles to keep up with marathon training. (View my route.) It was nice to do a long run in the cool beach air in Los Osos for a change. The knee is still doing well - I just need to figure out the plantar fascia pain that bothers me for a few days after these long runs.

In older news, my first foray back to college has gone well! I took a summer drawing class to get back into the swing of things and scored an A. Here are some pictures of our final setup and exhibition. Click the photos to visit the set on Flickr and you can hover over some of the photos to see which are mine.

And in random news, Rick and I found a heinous black widow outside his apartment. At first, I thought it was a garden spider because of its sheer size!

I ran 10 miles this past Saturday! (View my route.) There’s an intense hill in there that goes on for a couple miles. That was kind of fun, actually. My left knee started to give out around mile 8 and I ended up having to walk limp the last mile. I finished 20 minutes behind everyone else and the team was ready to send out cars to look for me by the time I made it back. D’oh! However, that knee lasted 2 miles longer than the previous week so maybe it’ll continue to get better.

After the run, I iced the knee for a bit and went to Phil’s sushi birthday lunch. The whole gang was there and it was a lot of fun to see people. Directly afterwards us Burners met up at Cathy’s house for a meeting to organize our finances. I continued to ice the knee and was in pretty good shape for the drive back home.

Sitting in the car for 4 hours was probably not a very good thing to do, however. When I finally made it to Rick’s house that night, my legs and feet were as swollen as if I had sat in an airplane for a trip to the Philippines. The next morning, I got out of bed and almost fell over because my feet had stiffened solid! Stretching helped some but a one-hour full-body massage that evening helped even more. The massage therapist said she’d never felt quadriceps that tight before.

Monday I was back to school and work. This week has been so crazy - everything seemed to go wrong and I had my midterm drawing portfolio due along with two major projects. Right now, I’m so grateful that it’s over and I have a nice, long weekend to relax and NOT drive to LA again.

Also, my auntie (who had emergency surgery for an aneurysm) has been moved out of Critical Care and into the Step Down unit. She’s off the ventilator that they had to put her on when she crashed last week and is on oxygen. Thank goodness. Send some good thoughts/prayers her way if you can.