I have been taking professional banjo lessons for the past few weeks, and so far I’m having a great time with it. So far I play a mean “Skip to my Lou,” and my “Old McDonald’s Farm” is coming along quite well. It will be a while before I challenge anyone to dueling banjos. I’ve also started Contra dancing, which is a fun activity where I can hear good bluegrass music being played, and where my two left feet don’t stand out so badly.

I played my first real game of ultimate frisbee at Cal State last Saturday and fell in love with it! Anyone that knows me knows that my coordination for throwing/catching sports is very poor. Somehow I’m able to hold my own in this game. We’re playing again this Sunday, and hopefully will keep it up. I found a regular Saturday morning game on craigslist that I’m going to check out this weekend. Lucky enough, I was shopping at REI on Sunday and found this great “Life is Good” frisbee (regulation size/weight) on clearance! Wahoo!

I did a nice 6.2 mile, 4 hour hike today in Las Trampas. It’s the highlighted part on the map.

I went on a fun weekend camping trip to Big Sur with my roomate Sarah. It’s the first camping trip I’ve been on since moving in here. Big Sur is just a South of Monterey.

This was somewhere over Huntsville, AL tonight. Finally, I made it back to CA.

I had a great New Year’s Eve, celebrating with Paul, Cynthia and friends in East Livermore. There was plenty to eat, drink, and light on fire. Each new year’s with Paul is something new. This year, he had Josh bring over half a dozen dry cleaner bags (ultra-light plastic). He slid straws together end-to-end to increase the length, and then taped them into a cross. Along the cross he attached birthday cake candles.

The tricky part was getting them outside. The house was around 70 degF, and it was only 20 outside. This caused a breeze to flow when the door was open. Once outside, the theory was that a hot, light balloon would fly in cold air.

The first balloon, despite a lack of optimism by the house engineer (Eric), performed flawlessly, and travelled somewhere over N. Wayne we guessed. It was airborne for at least 15 minutes, and seemed to climb the whole time. The second balloon went up, and came right back down in a tree near the house. After a few minutes, it did rise again, but then consumed itself in flames, dripping hot plastic down on the woods.

Please, do try this at home!