I’ve Always Loved Healdsburg

For as long as I have been visiting California, I have been visiting Healdsburg. I remember coming here as a kid, going to Oakville Grocery for the most amazing sandwiches and then heading west to Armstrong Woods in Guerneville.

If you haven’t visited Healdsburg California, you really must. It’s like one of the picturesque scenes from the movie Pleasantville, only more wine, color and public displays of affection.

After my court date, I headed up here for some time at The Flying Goat, one of my favorite coffee shops for a fantastic cappuccino and some wifi time. Unfortunately the wifi didn’t work out so I was forced to head over to Starbucks for actually functional wifi.

I got a lot of work done there, more than I’ve gotten done in a single day since moving back to California! It felt great knocking so many tasks off my todo list. Afterwards I met up with Kayla and proceeded to pour a venti mocha on her driver’s seat… Yeah, that happened.

So while she worked out, I washed, vacuumed, shampooed and otherwise cleaned her car. I mean, after making it smell like chocolate (and not in a good way) it was the least I could do.

Later dinner at her aunt’s house, where I am being graciously hosted for the night, with Matt and a fantastic bottle of French wine.

The photo up at the top is of my little work station here at Kayla’s aunt’s house. It’s just about perfect for me and my laptop, the heater on the left is keeping me warm as I type this out and the lamp provides a perfect blanket of light across my keyboard.

Now it’s off to bed for me. I’m hoping to get an early start to the day, get some more work done before meeting up with Kayla back at The Goat around 9. After that, we head south to San Francisco!

School’s Almost Out, Life Goes On

Oh how I can’t wait for school to be over, for good.  Alas, we all know Justin will never be graduating from college… well a least not this year, which is incredibly annoying/depressing/etc.  I’ve been in school for ages now, way longer than I should have been in school.

Of course, lots of great things have happened because of my extended college career.  I made so many incredible friends, realized engineering wasn’t for me.  Neither was psychology, pre-law, sociology, philosophy… you get the point.

I’ve “settled” on a sort of triple major.  I get one degree with an emphasis on three topics.  For me it’s Political Science, Gender Studies and Photography.  I love all three of those and it opens a lot of doors for me, especially with the PoliSci and Photography portions.

But first I’ve gotta get out of school right?

This summer I have the options of summer school, internships or traveling.  I want to do an internship in Europe but my parents moving to Saudi Arabia makes me want to see them a lot this summer, so maybe an internship in Houston… but then I’d like to get some classes out of the way so summer school?

Hate living like this!

Oh yeah, then there’s being away from Ryan.  I really don’t want to spend the summer states, much less oceans, away from him.  But I guess we can’t put our future together on the back burner so we can spend the present together.  The sooner I graduate, the sooner we can move on with our life together.

Get out of school and then let’s move back to California where I can be with so many of my amazing friends… Sean, Kevin, Mark, David, Kayla, Matt…

Until then, here I am, one class at a time.  I now live through another graduation season where I lose more of my friends.  This year I’m going to miss most Chase and Corey, moving to Kansas City.  Congratulations on them for moving on with their band, Scouts, which is awesome.  But going to miss my boys.

And worse yet, Karen is moving to St. Louis. Major sadness over that, first Micheal and now Karen. Blurg. What’s this city going to?

Luckily Phoebe, Joshua, Laura and Eric Cox etc etc are still here.  Ryan and I will stay sane for a bit longer.