Christmas day run

So I'm back in Gainesville, Florida for the holidays. One of my favorite things about G'ville is the University leaves it's facilities open because G'ville has a pretty intense athletic community. Back when I was in school here, I would always to go the track to do my running workouts, and sometimes the football stadium to run the stairs. I used this track for practice back in high school too, so many many many hours spent here.

So anyways, here's a picture from the parking lot at the track and a pretty nice 70F degree day. There were four other groups of people that showed up to the track, so I'm not the only nutcase :) Good thing I went running yesterday because it's only a high of 50F today!

Food intake

So my friend Tiffany was out here on the west coast for a conference, so I met up with her for dinner. It was a mexican joint, so I ordered a burrito that was pretty good sized. Tiffany didn't think I'd eat it all, but I said that it was nothing. It was about my typical lunch size which has now become my biggest meal of the day.

So the spaghetti is my lunch. The tortellini is my dinner, which is actually a tad more than I usually eat for dinner. It's hard to see, but the spaghetti is piled higher than the tortellini.

LA Friday mixed with rain

And you end up with this mess.... Friday afternoon traffic is bad enough; LA turns into a parking lot from about 3pm-8pm. But when you add in some rain... LA people do NOT know how to drive in the rain. I ended up driving down the 405 to Irvine around 7:30pm and hit a relatively light stretch of traffic for about 2 miles before hitting grid lock again. With all that openness, traffic was still only flowing around 60mph. I guess people are scared of the rain? As long as there's no standing water, you can still go faster, so I zipped by them at standard LA free flowing traffic rates... until I hit traffic again.

So here's the really stupid thing. LA drivers are scared to drive at normal speeds in the rain, YET, they STILL TAILGATE. Without fail, there are tons of rear-end accidents because people tailgate and can't stop in time with the wet roads. Oh yeah, all those diamonds on the map are reported accidents.

Working out in winter

So.... I don't get this. I know it's cold out, but when you're in the gym working out, especially cardio, you should be sweating your ass off. So why do people still have on sweat shirts and beanies? I think I'd die of heat exhaustion.

F*&@(@#@*&@ Cali DMV

So my driver's license expires at the end of the month on my bday (yup, after only 4.5 years). I'm heading home to Florida for the holidays, so I need to renew it before I leave. I have a bit over two weeks to do it, so no prob right?

I go to do it online, only to discover it'll take 4-6 weeks. WTF. Okay... well, I'll make an appointment; if you don't make an appointment to go to the DMV, you end up waiting in line for hours. In all of freakin LA county, with ~10 different DMVs I would be willing to go to, only ONE had an appointment before I leave and it's only the day before. Some of the DMV centers don't have any apointments available until next month! Argh..... guess I'll be at the DMV very very early in the morning next week.

LA + Rain = Wrecks

We got a pretty good rain on Sunday which resulted in lots of wet roads on Monday morning. Sure enough, there was an accident on my way to work. Sure enough, a car rear-ended another car. LA drivers like to follow closely. Apparently, they don't realize that when the road is wet, you can't stop as quickly. If it rains in LA, best to stay off the roads.

No Mercy Meter Maids - LA

I remembered there was a reason I don't go to downtown LA often. If you park on the street, you're at the mercy of the meter maids. In my case tonight, I got two tickets: no front plate ($25), and parking in an unloading zone ($50); the 'unloading zone' sign was on a small poll, and the spot had paint lines like it was a spot, and there was a meter at the rear of the spot. Yeah, there's a lot of 'unloading' going on at 9pm. Anyways, that was my fault for not being more observant I guess. And I refuse to put on the front plate. Oh well, that's my $75 donation for the year to LA city. Lesson: when parking downtown LA, park in a pay lot if you don't have a front plate.