Tag: hiking

Jul 16 2008

Sketch 28

Despite not really having any money, I’ve had a decent enough week.

Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I had a short-term temp assignment at the corporate offices of the Metro YMCA.  It was a nice little break from the joblessness, and its especially nice to have some money coming in this week.

Saturday, I went for a short hike in Topanga State Park.  On the way back out of the park, I even hiked barefoot for awhile.  It was nice.  When I got home, I took the bus downtown to catch the evenings show at Grand Performances series at the California Plaza.  The artist was Rachid Taha a French-Algerian artist, most famous in the US for a Arabic version of The Clash’s Rock the Casbah.  There was a small dance area, packed to the brim, with many French and Arabic speakers around.  I had a blast dancing.

Sunday, I went on a hike with Progressive Christians Uniting in the San Gabriel Mountains.  We went up to a spot on the San Gabriel River, that is quite popular with the latino population of the San Gabriel Valley cities.  The sections alongside the road are a bit overused.  We hiked aways down a trail towards the wilderness area, and were eventually able to find some space without other people.  We even took a little dip in the river, which was really nice on a warm and relatively humid day.

I’m officially helping out with the 10:15 service at church now.  I’m still not that sure how I feel about church in general, but I do like this service…and its nice to be helping make it happen.  I’m in charge of making sure things are set-up before the service this coming Sunday.

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Mar 18 2008

Sketch 11

I find myself often overwhelmed and lost living in a city the size of Los Angeles.  So when a friend offered a chance to not only get out of Los Angeles for a couple days, but to get out of the state, I jumped on it.  My friend was trying to convince me that Phoenix is a cool place, because I had made fun of it in the past.  Mainly the thing I don’t like about Phoenix is the sprawl of urban mess, covering way more ground than is needed (and can be supported by natural water sources in the area).  Because we were flying on a seat available basis, we quickly found out that our chances of getting out of LAX were slim to none, however if we drove down to Long Beach, we’d have better luck.  So braving the Friday evening rush hour traffic, we set off for Long Beach in our quest for seats on a plane.

With plenty of time to spare, we managed to get through the rigorous security at Long Beach, and get on the plane.

On Saturday we went for a 5.8 mile hike on the Go John Trail outside of Cave Creek, AZ.  A relatively short drive from Phoenix, away from most of the sprawl that makes up the Phoenix Metro Area.

The wildflowers were in full force and it was just nice to actually get out into nature for a change.  There are more pictures here.Sunday night was the monthly dinner group I’m a part of.  I think that all nine of us ended up showing up this week.  It was a great evening of food, wine, laughing, and discussion.  I made a Guinness Cheesecake for dessert.  It was a great time for sure.

It’s spring break here, so the majority of the students are gone, and I can mainly work from home this week.  I’ve got a lot of personal projects to work on, as well as a couple work projects.  I’m hoping I can make some headway on the personal projects this week.  Good news is that I’ve got my resume updated, so now its just sending it out for jobs and what not.

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