Category Archives: Blogs

Goodbye country, hello nightclub

*waves goodbye to Haystack*

*waves hello to Brentwood*

So here I am in the Delta Valley. It’s going to be hotter than Hades soon, and I dread the coming months. Although my years in Chico prepared me for the coming sweltering heat, I am still not looking forward to it.

I lived all my life along the coast, up until my 30th birthday when I moved to Chico. From Hayward to San Diego to San Francisco to Long Beach and Orange County the weather was always the same: mild winters and summers… a perfect 75 degrees year-round. It was all I ever knew. All this time I never lived with air conditioning–I never needed it.

And then I turned 30 and had, in no uncertain terms, my mid-life crisis. I decided to go back to school and finish college. Oh, and party my motherfucking ass off while I was at it. Oh, oh… and do a little fly fishing too.

Anyway.

Moving to Chico in January was nothing special. Sure, it was cold. But I like the cold. And then the summer came. Six months of 100+ degrees weather every damn day. I knew it was going to be hot. But I had never lived in that kind of heat. I did not enjoy the summer weather in the Sacramento River valley. I took every opportunity to flee to the cooler mountains nearby. I think one year I ran my AC for six month straight.

So then.

Here I am back in the valley. The heat is looming, like a hammer waiting to strike a nail, and I can feel it every morning when I walk out the door.

Thankfully I have AC.

I'm not dead yet… I think I'll go for a walk

Where is Tom?

Is Tom OK? Where has he been? Why hasn’t Tom updated his blog in, like, forever?

Tom is fine, everything is fine. More than fine, actually… things are better than they’ve ever been.

I met Miriam.


Here we are in downtown Truckee (click image for larger pic)

And she is the best thing that’s ever happened to me. Don’t we look happy?

THAT’S where I’ve been. I’ve been busy =)

Not from around here

Today I was having lunch with my girlfriend, Miriam, at the deli near work.

There are two small tables with a few chairs flanking the main entrance. At one table sat a pleasant looking man in his 50s; the other table was empty save for a bottle of Sobe.

As we placed our lunch on the seeming empty table a woman came outside and said to us, “Excuse me, I was sitting there.” She sat down and was later joined by another woman, neither one of them said a word to each other the entire time.

OK, OK, no problem. I picked up our things and was looking to sit elsewhere when the man sitting alone said, “You can sit here with me, if you like.”

And so we did.

We smiled and laughed and chatted as we ate our meals. The man was very nice and had led an interesting life. His descriptions of Colorado had us mesmerized.

And when the conversation turned towards, “Where are you from?” the man let us know that he was from Oklahoma.

“I knew you weren’t from California,” I said. The man smiled and asked me how I could have known that.

“Because you offered to let us sit at your table.”