Yay California, v8.0!

For a family vacation, I did a pretty good job of not spending any time with my (immediate) family. Ah, the benefits of visiting the same place for the nth time; no one expects you to actually visit the same boring touristy places with them again.

Shockingly, my mom was tired about 30 seconds after we got to the hotel on Thursday, so the beach was replaced with the pool. We met up with Sean, Aunt Iris, and Ron for dinner, then brought Brent's to him at Blockbuster.

After dinner, Toaster picked me up at the hotel. Friday we went to Fry's (okay, so I went to an electronics store on vacation just so I could say that I've been to a Fry's), Hollywood (where, oddly enough, I've never been as far as I can remember) and Santa Monica. The carnival at Santa Monica was pretty fawesome, though we failed to win a stuffed dragon at one of those ring toss booths. A second attempt at victory was thwarted by the presence film crew. Saturday I had to play family vacation again for a few hours, so we met up with my mom and Marc at La Brea Tar Pits.

For some reason, my mom thought it would be a better idea to go all the way back to the hotel then go to the beach. That idea didn't kill a couple hours. We did manage to get in a few hours at the beach before certain people (for the record, not me) got cold. For dinner, I went with Sean, Brent, and Francine to a Mexican restaurant. Afterwards went to Tilly's, mostly because it was there. Francine got a purse shaped like a radio, and I was bestowed with two pairs of earrings.

Sunday I went to Knott's with Sean. He picked me up at the hotel, after we took advantage of the free breakfast for guests (and people the guests sneak in). Conveniently, Francine works at Knott's so we were able to jump some of the lines. It's a pretty small park and we finished everything good by 5. Afterwards, Sean and Brent's dad treated everyone to dinner at ESPN Zone. Next came the concert. Of all the bands I've seen live, The Presidents of the United States of America is one of the better ones. Some of their new songs weren't up to par with Lump or Naked and Famous, but I am considering getting their latest album. Especially since Some Postman has been stuck in my head.

On to Monday and Disneyland. It was Disneyland. I got a tiara. And it was the first full day with my mom and Marc. Need I say more?

Tuesday resulted in San Diego. Approximately 80 miles away from the hotel lies the San Diego Zoo. The trip there took 80 minutes (okay, so I had fun driving on 5). It was entirely too hot that day, so we were lazy and took buses and the skyfari everywhere. I hadn't been there in over a decade, so I didn't really remember much going in. The zoo itself was fawesome, partially due to the trained emu. The drive back took slightly over two hours. Damn traffic. We didn't get back in time to have dinner with everyone, but we stopped by Aunt Iris's house for a couple hours. I got to play remove-the-spyware and other exciting games.

We spent about an hour on the beach before leaving on Wednesday. Personally, I would have preferred staying, but that idea didn't fly too well.

The plane back landed twice. The first time we were close enough to the ground such that I could read various airport signs before the pilot changed his mind. Something about there being another plane hanging out on the runway. The second attempt, after about 20 minutes of circling, was much more successful.

LA interstates note: Much better road signs than the pitiful ones along the NJ parkway and turnpike, but much worse traffic during most of the day.

Grad school note: About 12 days ago I finally decided that I'm going to get a master's in cs before moving into the "real world." About 3 days ago I decided this would be accomplished at Caltech.