Every once in a while Tasha and I will have a real adventure at lunch time.  A few weeks ago we went looking for a CPK and by the time we got to it we’d spent half of our hour on a street with way too many red lights.  Yesterday’s adventure doesn’t technically count as a lunch time adventure because we were actually at a trade show but it still counts as an adventure nonetheless.

The trade show was at the Long Beach Convention Center.  Neither one of us had been there before so we had no idea where to park.  The GPS dropped us off right in front of the Long Beach Performing Arts Center which, apparently, is attached to the Convention Center, but, being tourists, we didn’t know that.  We ended up parking in some underground condo parking lot.  We had no idea where to go from there so we just started walking.  Neither one of us was wearing walking shoes as we were dressed for a trade show not for wandering around.  We walked into the admin offices at the Performing Arts Center and got directions.  Then we had to walk about three blocks to get to the convention center.  Yeah – we would have moved the car but we’d already paid eight bucks (!) to park it.

We found the trade show, found our booth, chatted with the other peeps there and then walked the floor.  After seeing all there was to see, including the restrooms, we took a short walk to the cute little harbor right across the street.  The Convention Center being the size that it is though, it was another two blocks to get there.  By the time we got close enough to see everything both of us felt like our feet were going to fall off.  Tasha was in worse shape than I was as she was wearing heals and everything outside was concrete.  There wasn’t anywhere close enough to buy some sandals at so we had to just keep going.

It was BEAUTIFUL outside that day and it was so nice to be out in the nice ocean breeze.  I’m still a little sunburned from last weekend’s trip to the beach with the Barneys but it was still so nice to be outside for a change.  After taking some pics of downtown Long Beach, we headed back to the car so she could get me to the train station in time to go home.  We decided to take a short cut and ended up behind the convention center in the shipping and receiving section of the building.  We could see the row of doors that we needed to get through in order to shorten our trip to the car and made our way over there only to find that they were all tied and locked shut.  Luckily there was someone inside that pointed us to a strange backdoor entrance.  Once inside, we found that the other doors that we needed to get through were also tied shut.  We ended up wandering around all the service places in the Convention and Performing Arts Centers.  We finally found a door that lead to a hallway that lead to the side entrance of the admin office that we had walked into looking for directions in the beginning.  From there it was easy to find our way back to the car – at least it was for me.  Poor Tasha’s feet were hurting so bad that she’d lost all sense of direction.  By this time we were both laughing so hard that it was a bit of a miracle that we were able to keep walking.

Anyway…  here are some pictures that I took down at the harbor yesterday.  The one of the really tall building with the green roof I took in the car on our way out of LB.  All in all an eventful and interesting day.

Downtown Long Beach

The Harbor

The Harbor

Endless Dreams and a Lighthouse

Sea Gulls Taking a Bath

Random Building with a Green Roof

This is going to be completely unbelievable – I know that before I start typing this out.  I swear that not one single piece of this is even in the least bit exaggerated.  It all happend right after my previous post.

I got on the train to come home today, like I always do.  In case you’re not familiar with the structure of a train car, when you walk in the door, you’re standing in the downstairs portion.  Off to the right or left is a set of stairs that leads up to the middle level.  The middle level has four sets of seats.  Each set has two rows that face each other and two of those sets have tables.  There’s an aisle splitting the sets down the middle and at one end of the aisle there’s a door going to the next car and at the other end there are more stairs leading up to the upstairs level.  I usually sit up there but today there was a table completely open on the middle level.  Never stay on the bottom.

Here, I tried to sketch it in Paint (what a joke) – hopefully this will help.  The arrows are pointing the direction that the seats are facing.  There are two seats for each rectangle – split in half by the black line under the arrow.

So I’m sitting, facing forward, on the right side of the train in the front (where the star is).  This guy that rides the train almost every day sits in the seat across from me and next to the aisle.  He’s kind of annoying and loud so when he sat down I thought, “Great.”  Across the aisle from us, facing forward, is a guy listening to his iPod, minding his own business.  Across from him is another guy playing a video game on his iPod with the volume up so we can all listen to it.  Behind me is a couple on their way to Oceanside for a weekend get-away.  I don’t remember who was in the other two seats across the aisle from them, and there were two people sitting in the “jump seats” in front of me.

Ok, so to the fun part.

I get on at Tustin.  We stop at Irvine.  Uneventful.  Laguna Niguel/Mission Viejo is where the fun starts.  The guy with the iPod gets off (lucky sucker).  About 12 women in various stages of drunkenness get on the train and head upstairs.  They’re loud and obnoxious and no doubt annoying the commuters upstairs because they’re annoying us and we’re not even up there.  The train conductor asked for their tickets to find out that they tried to pull a fast one on him and only bought half as many tickets as they should have and that they are on the wrong train – they really wanted the Amtrak.  Oh well.

Next, we pull into San Juan Capistrano.  The guy with the iPod gets up to get off.  He has a big ol’ backpack that he swings around to put on his shoulder, narrowly missing the guy sitting across from me.  As it’s swinging around something is coming from the back of it.  He grabs the case of Mobile Motor Oil he’s carrying and gets off the train.  It all happened so fast that I didn’t realize what was going on until he was off.  The lady behind me said, “What WAS that?”  I looked at her and said that I didn’t know and then looked down to see that my OPEN laptop bag was wet.  Really wet.  She asked if it was motor oil or if it was the chew spit that he’d been collecting in a water bottle.  WHAT?  My laptop bag is black so the only way to figure out what it is and then determine how to clean it up is to lean over and smell it.  I thought I was going to hurl.  It was CHEW SPIT.  And there was enough of it in my bag to create a puddle in the bottom.  Seriously.  Not even joking.  But it gets better.

By this time we’re getting close to San Clemente.  I’m still sitting there trying to comprehend what’s going on.  After we leave the San Clemente station, I ask the not-so-annoying-anymore guy across from me to watch my things so that I can go down and get some paper towels out of the bathroom.  He offers to go for me but I’m already up so I head downstairs.

Apparently, this crazy man got on the train by accident in San Clemente and he’s pacing back and forth trying to figure out how to get the doors open so he can get off the train.  He was beyond drunk.  And so were the three friends of his that he had helped onto the train (reason for being stuck).  I get past him and fling open the bathroom door.  The door is wide enough to fit a wheel chair (just to give some perspective).  Inside the bathroom is a woman sitting on the toilet.  She understandably freaks out, stands up and slams the door in my face, locking it.  DUH!  Why didn’t you try that to begin with?  So I stand there waiting for her to get out.  She comes out swearing at me in some language I’ve never heard.  I grab a handful of paper towels and head back to my seat.  I wipe out what I can and then take my hand sanitizer and drench my bag in it.  The smell will not go away so now my bag smells like chew spit mixed with alcohol.

We’re now somewhere in the middle of Camp Pendleton and the guy across from me is going over the whole story with me and we’re cracking up.  The couple behind me is laughing too.  As we pull into Oceanside, I look over at the pier and the beautiful ocean, grateful that this is almost over and then, just in the nick of time, I glance over at a couple of surfers in the parking lot pulling a “surfer change.”  They have towels around their waists and are changing from their wetsuits to their clothes.  One of them looks at the train and pulls his towel open, flashing us all.  Thanks dude.

Seriously.  All in one trip.

I need a new bag.

I’m working from home today (dr apt) and I’ve been watching the dog as she moves with the sun.  I took this pic with my phone so the quality isn’t super great, but you get the general idea.  She’s so cute.

Ellie Sleeping In The Sun

I love seminary.

My friend Joan told me something that’s held true all these three years.  She said, “There’s nothing worse than a bad day at seminary, but there’s nothing better than a good day at seminary.”  I think I’ve shared that before, but it’s only truer with age.

This morning we had two devotionals.  The first one was given by Kalala and she spoke on Doctrine and Covenants 31:3.  It says, “Lift up your heart and rejoice, for the hour of your mission is come; and your tongue shall be loosed, and you shall declare glad tidings of great joy unto this generation.”  She said that we never know when our mission may come so we should be prepared.  She said that there are kids at school that ask her questions and that sometimes she remembers scripture mastery or other verses that we’ve talked about in seminary and can answer the questions.  Sometimes she can’t remember where they are and sometimes she’s stumped by their questions, but she testified that if we continue to prepare ourselves that we will be able to answer the questions with the help of the Spirit and the scriptures.

Anna gave the second devotional on motivation (a great tie-in).  She used Moroni 7:6. “For behold, God hath said a man being evil cannot do that which is good; for if he offereth a gift, or prayeth unto God, except he shall do it with real intent it profiteth him nothing.”  She talked about what our motivation should be for sharing the gospel or when saying our prayers.  She testified that our Heavenly Father knows what our intent is when we ask for things so we should be sincere when we pray.

As part of the lesson, I asked the kids what their favorite verses were from their reading of Ether 3 last night.

Dallen chose verse 13.  “And when he had said these words, behold, the Lord showed himself unto him, and said: Because thou knowest these things ye are redeemed from the fall; therefore ye are brought back into my presence; therefore I show myself unto you.”  He said that he liked this verse because it talked about how much faith the brother of Jared had.  He had so much faith that Jesus showed himself to him.

Kalala chose verse 9.  “And the Lord said unto him: Because of thy faith thou hast seen that I shall take upon me flesh and blood; and never has man come before me with such exceeding faith as thou hast; for were it not so ye could not have seen my finger. Sawest thou more than this?”  Ironically, she chose it for the same reason that Dallen chose verse 13.

Anna chose verse 26.  “For he had said unto him in times before, that if he would believe in him that he could show unto him all things—it should be shown unto him; therefore the Lord could not withhold anything from him, for he knew that the Lord could show him all things.”  Anna said that she chose that verse because it showed how much faith he had and it also shows what the Lord can do with us when we have faith.

I’ve seen them all pick the same verse for different reasons before.  I’ve seen them pick the same verse for the same reason before.  This is the first time that I’ve seen them pick completely different verses all for the same reason.

I love my kids – all five of them.  It’s a small class this year and it’s been a really blessing to be able to have so much time to spend with them.  They are really good kids who try their best to make good choices.  They have strong testimonies that are getting stronger and they really are trying to get to know their Savior better.  They want to be good.  They want to do what’s right.  I pray that they will always remember how to slow down and let the Spirit in to teach them.

So, I have a confession to make.

I’m typing this blog so that I don’t have to talk to the guy sitting accross the table from me on my train ride home.

No – it’s not Gregg.  … that would be funny though *devilish grin* …

Every once in a while a strange person will get on the train and sit close by.  What makes that person strange varies.  Sometimes it’s the way they smell.  Other times it’s what they’re reading (WHOA – sometimes I don’t even want to look).  Other times it’s what they’re eating or they way they’ve done their hair (sometimes it’s hard not to stare).  In today’s case it’s the fact that this poor guy cannot sit and not talk. 

I bet he can’t walk and not talk either.  I’d even bet that he can’t not talk EVER.  But he’s trying.  For my case, I’m sure.

When he got on I was really absorbed in a spreadsheet I was working on (yes, I’m rambling – remember my cause).  As soon as I moved an inch – literally, all I did was move my hand from one side of the keyboard to the other – he told me that he had a question for me.  He said that he has an older phone and noticed that mine is newer and wanted to know if the newer phones have better spam blockers.  Huh?  It didn’t register for two reasons – (1) abosorbed in spreadsheet and (2) I didn’t realize that phones had spam blockers.  I just stared at him for like 2 seconds so he repeated the question and then elaborated.

“I get lots and lots of text messages to my phone and lately it seems like I’m getting more and more texts that I don’t want.  I’m wondering if the newer phones have a way to block them so that I don’t get them because right now I have to call the number they send me and tell them to take me off their list.”

Still not registering with me.  I’ve never received a spam text message.  I get random ones from my phone company sometimes, but I’ve never received a spam one.

I just said, “I don’t know – I’ve never had that problem.”  Yeah – I’m not a very nice person.

Then he repeats everything he’d just said to me again.  I just repeated, “I don’t know – I’ve never had that problem” and went back to work.

About 30 seconds later he asks me if I’m getting off in Oceanside.  Huh?  Oh, (trying to be nicer) “Yes, I am.”  Then he says, “Oh, ok, well if you want, you can get off before me.”  My face must have said what my brain was thinking – “What the what?” because then he said, “I always make it a habit to let people off the train that are carrying more stuff than I am.”

“Oh,” I said.  Pause, “That’s nice.”  What I MEANT by that was, “That’s nice of you” but what came out was more like “Dude, I don’t really give a flying rat’s tail and I’m busy so stop talking to me.”  Then I felt bad and couldn’t concentrate on my spreadsheet so here I am. 

Yeah, I already said that I’m not a very nice person.  A nice person would have carried on a conversation.  Instead, I’m writing a blog that maybe two people will read while he reads the comics from Sunday’s paper and chomps on his second bag of Peanut M&M’s.

Ok – he’s moved on downstairs.  It’s funny what people will do when we get close to Oceanside.  Some start moving downstairs when we’re in the middle of Camp Pendleton.  There’s still 10 minutes of the ride left at that point and they’ll move downstairs and just stand there waiting to pull into the station.  There really isn’t a point in doing that since there’s going to be tons of people all pushing their way off at the same time.  It’s better to just sit and enjoy the view and wait until we stop at the station before even bothering to turn off the computer.

Anyway – we’re here now.  I guess I should get moving…