First off I have tons of new pictures and a new video: check them out!

As I am sitting here, the cool California air is reaching through an open window, seducing me to go outside and breathe in as much of it as my lungs can embrace. I’ve been to California once, but I forgot the drug like addiction with which it pulls at you from the moment you step out of the airport and into its open arms of large palms and sweet electric air. It is awesome. Not in the adolescent sense of the word, but it its true denotation. I am awe struck.

So far I have eaten a burrito at a run down taqueria that makes Chipotle and Freebirds taste like the disgusting creations of a McDonalds (henceforth known as “The D’s”), ridden a bike clear across the city with one of my gracious hosts with which I am staying, seen Captain Ahab play some sort of drum-tar or guit-rums (see my videos) and vigilantly kept an eye out for aliens (see my pictures). I have also noticed that in San Francisco, a cyclist feels a little like the equivalent of an 18-wheeler in Dallas. Drivers show you respect, they give you space and keep their distance; you are an important object on the road that people give right of way. It’s a great change of pace (I’m thinking I’ll just do a couple laps around California instead of going across the country?).

My flight was miserable (Thank you Southwest!) Dallas flight an hour late to Austin, missed my connecting to San Francisco. Laid over 3 hours waiting for my new flight to Denver? (Yeah, apparently to get to SF you need to go north first). Then I wait in the Mayan inspired Denver airport for my flight to San Francisco that is also 2 hours late. Overall more layover time than flight time. But from a quote my dad sent me, “The crisis of yesterday is a joke of tomorrow.”

Anyways, I start orientation in a few hours and then begin all the logistical training they have in store.