Hello world and happy friday!! I am currently having the best move experience of my life! Due to insurance reasons I am NOT allowed to pack or assist in packing so while city moving company boxes and bubble wraps my dishes I am enjoying this rainy friday morning relaxing. Ok its not to say that I didn't have a lot of organizing and cleaning to do prior to this beautiful morning, basically everything I own is in piles and all is left to do is put them in boxes with tissue. I would also like to add that I tried to help several times but was politely told to "relax" lol. Apparently if the company does not package everything then if anything breaks along the way is not covered so everything that I already packed and wrapped from my dorm room is also being re-done. Anyways I send my thanks to Boeing for all the relocation help I can't even imagine how I would get all my furniture and clothes to Long Beach in one piece and in a timely fashion if it was left to me. Aside from packing I am getting ready to say goodbye to Danville :( Ok really I'm not that sad to leave Danville however I am sad to leave friends and family. Last night as I was cleaning up my room I realized that this was the last time that I will consider this "my room" and Danville as "home" from now on I"ll be ......the visitor. Very weird. I know its only a matter of time before my room is turned into some sort of guestroom or as my mom keeps threatening....a nursery, I keep gently reminding her that shes got about a decade until she needs to do that kind of remodeling. So recently in my down time I've been thinking of my top ten things that I will miss about good old east bay Danville as well as the top ten things I'm looking forward to with the upcoming move, basically best of both worlds so here goes:

Things I will miss about Danville/Nor Cal
10) Napa, Tahoe, we have it all!
9) Cable Cars....coolest moving national landmark
8) the use of the word "hella" ...ok not really but I appreciate people that can pull it off :)
7) Berkeley...more specifially The Cheese Board, if you haven't had it, it will change your life
6) Danville Bars....purely for comic relief
5) My cats, even though they both hate me...never be the one to take your cat to the vet
4) Actually having two seasons: summer and Fog (so cal only has one)
3) The Oakland A's
2) San Francisco: all time favorite city
1) Of course family and friends ....mainly my moms cooking and baked goods ;)

Things to look forward to in So Cal:

10) Warm weather 24/7
9) Living near the beach
8) San Diego: second favorite city
7) new place = amanda can finally get a pet!!!!
6) learning how to surf?!?!?
5) more In N OUT (sorry nor cal there are more in so cal)
4) ISLANDS.....when you come to visit me you'll get to try it, great burgers
3) one word: DISNEYLAND
2) Disneyland season pass
1) being closer to friends and family.... :)

Please feel free to add and edit the list if you think that I've forgotten something I think anyone reading this is already included in my number 1 reason why I'll miss the bay area, of course you are all welcome to come visit me and anytime you're in the so cal area please look me up, I just got a sofa this week that has a pull out bed so I'm ready to open Hotel Simens as soon as you book a trip ;)
Below I have uploaded a video of a flock of birds that I watched about a week ago when I was waiting to get on the bay bridge, these birds continued to circle in this crazy fashion from the time that I got in line for the bridge and they were still doing this circle business when I finally got on the bridge 20 minutes later. What I suspect happened is that the lead bird was drunk and obviously got lost trying to get home and the other hundred just decided to follow. Watch for the little black specks in the movie its not obvious at first but after a couple of seconds they become very defined. Funny how this reminds me of LA traffic, a lot of people in one place going no where . Well thats all I got for now, enjoy!!!!

Thoughts on Airports and more......

Hello World!! Welcome to my blog :) This is my very first blog ever so I can pretty much guarantee all kinds of spelling mistakes so let me apologize ahead of time. Anyways theres been a lot going on recently, I graduated in December, got a job and am currently trying to pack and organize everything that I've accumulated over the past 23 years. Note to self: I need to work on my pack rat tendencies, the English binder that I saved from high school has proved to be not only a waste of space but a house for a family of spiders. This Friday, a moving van is coming to pack me up and relocate me to ...gasp SO CAL! Yes after being an advocate for nor cal for so many years I have finally crossed over to the dark side! I am now a resident of Long Beach California, and even though I will always leave my heart in San Francisco I can't deny that I am very excited to be moving to so cal. Even though I will be working in El Segundo (near LA) I am glad that I will be living out of the city, hopefully the traffic will be kind to me and the commute won't be too bad (fingers crossed) The pictures are of my apartment the top picture is a view from the living room window and the bottom picture is everything but the bedroom, I love company so please come visit me!!!
So aside from getting ready to move this past weekend I ran in the Carlsbad half marathon with Adam and Kristin and Ned (we all rocked it set new course records....) Anyways on Friday I flew down and en route I encountered several annoying things at the airport that I felt warranted my attention. First of all, what airport god gave the security people the power to be obnoxious and rude? You see them at every airport, its the security clearance that you have to go through to get to your gate, they typically are pissed off ( it's a requirement to when applying to be airport security.... are you inherently pissy, ok you may screen peoples bags) and not only are these security guards pissed off they feel that it is absolutely necessary to embarrass and harass travelers. As you approach them, don't make eye contact that might inflame the pissyness and you will immediately find yourself in secondary screening and in danger of missing your flight. Anyways back to Friday night, it was the changing of the guard, a new security personal was eager to exert his/her power ( I couldn't tell if it was a he or a she.....bad haircut) and unfortunately the person ahead of me made a grave mistake. It was a young couple and apparently they were holding each others tickets....an honest mistake right? Wrong, before they could even apologize the he/she makes an "annoucement", " ladies and gentlemen please do not hold your husbands or wives tickets YOU WILL ONLY SLOW THIS PROCESS DOWN," the smug he/she then shakes its head and signals the next victim to give it it's ticket. Now I consider myself lucky that I was not harassed on this occasion but is it absolutely necessary for airport security guards to be jerks? I have to many stories to recount now but I've never run into a nice and friendly security person. Case in point, traveling from college the security jerk examined my ID and then commented " Gee honey you've lost some weight," not ok, but if I say anything pertaining to her weight I just might find myself in airport contempt, if you ask me these people hold way to much power and they abuse it all too often. Alright enough about airport security, the next thing that I can't stand about flying is the arm rests in the plane. Yes its when you have the dreaded middle seat, the two armrests on either side of you also belong to mr.window seat and ms. aisle. Unfortunately on Friday I was in the middle seat.... And like always the person to my left and right completely engulfed both armrests. Now I am not unreasonable I think that two people can comfortably share a single armrest however I find that every time I am stuck in the middle seat it is a silent war with the two people next to me. It starts out casual, their elbow might just slightly touch my arm but then as the flight goes on it slowly pushes my arm a little more until its obvious that someone needs to move, and yes I'm weak ...I give in. Hence why I checked in early on my return flight on sunday so that I had a window seat and the power to bully the middle seat...muhaha. Yes its a viscous cycle but these two things annoy me the most when it comes to flying, let me know if you've encountered any of these or if you completely disagree, who knows maybe I've only had the misfortune of running into the dark side of the airport ( last plug for my blog I promise). P.s I dedicate this entry to Ashley from Ash in the City, she inspired me to start a blog and I am very excited to share my upcoming so cal adventures with friends,family and the world!!

Horray I have a blog!

Welcome to Amanda's Blog!! ....more to come soon