it looks like i'm beginning to find my distractions. the exhaustion following this past weekend makes me glad i have things to do, but concerned that i don't have time to sleep in anymore! oh well. it's a sacrifice i can deal with, i think. i can always take a partial sick day if i need to catch up.

so, good weekend. i'll start with thursday, even though it wasn't technically the weekend. heather and i went out to woodland (near davis) for a site visit on thursday... it was a celebratory event for the california rice commission and WHSRN (western hemisphere shorebird reserves network). there has been a pretty successful partnership between rice growers and WHSRN to develop wetlands on rice-based agricultural land. rice patties are already good shorebird habitat because of the shallow flooding, but this program has also helped develop actual wetlands in among the rice fields. we went out to see some of the wetlands, and heard from several of the partners as well as a weird speech from one of the founders of greenpeace. he was pretty adamantly pro-genetic engineering, which is a strange topic to be addressing in front of an audience that could easily be on either side of the issue. oh well. met some cool people there, and got to hang out with PRBO people that we love. lunch was included-- sushi, using locally grown rice, and rice krispy treats for dessert. hee!

friday i took my car in for service... $230 on brakes later, i headed down to LA for a UCLA leadership conference through the alumni association. outgoing state chair stephanie brown came with me, and she's trying to recruit me to run the UCLA-Stanford/Cal football tailgates in future years. ugh... that's a huge responsibility that i really don't think i want. yikes! anyway, so we got down to LA in the evening, and she dropped me off at the old foolios' apartment in west LA. i know two of the current roomies, geoff and rich, but neither one of them was home. rich had left the back door unlocked for me, so i walked in and scared the hell out of the roomies who had no idea i was showing up. ahh well. i'm not threatening-looking, and i was supposed to be there, i swear! met up with rich and his friend paul for some dinner, then ended up hanging out and talking until late.

saturday i got up earlier than i wanted to, and went over to campus for the conference. it was pretty fun, and most of it was informative or at least interesting. the keynote speaker was tom fitzgerald, the UCLA men's soccer coach (of 2002's national championship team). he was so cool i thought i was going to cry... i can imagine how awesome a coach he is, because he's definitely the kind of guy who makes you want to work hard and do your best. he showed clips of the playoffs and the championship game, and i got chills. yes, i'm a big dork when it comes to soccer stuff.

met some cool people from other clubs... i mostly hung out with the younger set, although i tried to meet as many people as possible. i hung out mostly with a few guys from the orange county club, who are planning to come up here for the UCLA-Stanford game in november. one of them has already emailed me :) he's also going to try to set up an event down in so cal with coach fitzgerald, so i might go down for that. yay! i also saw an old friend that i worked with in the dorms years ago, nicole luque, who is now nicole trujillo because she got married last year. it's that time of life, i suppose. it was very cool to see her.

after a mad shopping spree at the ucla store (stephanie had to buy raffle items), i headed back for dinner with the boys and some friends. after trying to figure out where to go dancing for what seemed like ages, we finally headed out to The Room in santa monica/west LA area. julie came out and met us, which was awesome because i hadn't see her in forever either. so it was julie, rich, geoff and his girlfriend regal, me, and rich's friends paul and korina. if you've ever been to the cellar club in sf, you know what the room is like (although the room is quite a bit smaller). if you haven't, well, it's basically an underground bar/dance club that's really hot and dark, but somehow that adds to the mystique of it. it wasn't as hot as the cellar club, but it was hot enough for me to leave the place drenched (ewwww). the decor was lots of dark velvet and red lighting, with a long bar down one side and booths on the other, with some space for dancing between and on the ends. we had a good time... although some dude tried to dance with rich and this rather, err, intimate couple kept dancing wildly into us. yikes. anyway, so we closed the place down. it's been awhile since i've closed down a bar...

sunday i headed home and went to an earthquakes game... quakes won, 1-0, and it was rather a warm day. i now own a troy dayak bobblehead, another scary toy to add to my erstwhile collection that i don't really want. heh. oh well. troy himself came out on the field to thank everyone for coming out, and hopefully he'll be back training with the team soon. i miss troy out there, he's such a stud.

and now i'm back at work, and exhausted. i may pass on the gym tonight so i can go home and crash... but first i have to finish my boardbook writeups. ugh!

congrats to marla on her first day back with the illustrious girl scouts! heh. wheee!