Shawna’s Whimsical Weblog

Yes I disappeared for 2 months again. I get into these lulls on here when i have a project that I feel I should finish before moving on to other projects. The unfinished project is putting together a pictorial commentary of our trip to Thailand that took place last month. Seeing as we spent 15 days in Thailand, it’s a fairly daunting task to put together the 100+ pictures involved. However, I can’t let the year end without at least saying what has been going on these past two months. Thailand will eventually appear in our and section.

Eric K. and I have started a very short (4 session) digital photography class offered through San Diego Adult Education. The class is held at Torrey Pines High School, my old alma mater. However, the class is held in a set of buildings that weren’t there when I went to school, so it doesn’t necessarily feel like “I’ve gone back to school”. Our instructor, Rod Deutschmann, is VERY passionate about photography. Here’s something he might say about the number of megapixels a camera possesses, “I don’t care if you have 15 million dots in a picture, 15 million blurry dots is still going to be a bad picture.” I started experimenting with background blowout when Angela came into a town for a weekend. After a very satisfying lunch at Board n Brew, Jeannine, Angela and I hit the beach. I told them to act natural.

As you can see I have a ways to go to learn the inner workings of my camera. I’ll be including more pictures when class resumes next week.

After a flurry of last minute Christmas shopping, Tim and I were driving ourselves up to Napa to celebreat Christmas with Tim’s immediate family. I was very happy that my mom and brother flew up to join us. Bad luck seems to follow Tim and I around when we travel over the holidays. This time it took the form of a cracked windshield, when some hooligan on an overpass decided to drop something onto our car. Merry f’in Christmas!

Here are family Christmas pictures.

First Annual Hamon-Sullivan Christmas!

Joy! A pound of boogers is only $12!

On the day after Christmas my mom, my brother, Tim and I headed over to the Jelly Belly Factory in Fairfield. Even though the factory wasn’t in production it was still an interesting tour. Who knew it took 7-10 days to make one Jelly Belly? We also got to try a number of gross flavors from the Berty bott collection. Apparently while trying to create a pepperoni pizza flavor they “discovered” their vomit flavor Jelly Belly. Mmmm. Tasty!

On the 27th, it was time to drive back home. We decided to take the long way around through San Jose to pick up a few more counties for our California County adventure. We decided to hit the Winchester Mystery House in Santa Clara County. Weird? Yes. Mysterious? No. We also nabbed pictures of the Contra Costa, San Benito, Fresno, Merced and Stanislaus (blurry) signs.

The most amusing picture i took on the way home has to be this one:

But oh! The fun was just beginning. On returning to San Diego, I was able to catch up with my best friend Michelle. On Wednesday we drove up to the Glen Ivy Hot Springs Spa about an hour north on the 15. With the $35 admission, we got free reign of all the jacuzzis, mineral baths, saunas and red mud pool. We also opted to do “The Grotto”, where they paint a layer of sea kelp moisturizer on you and sit you with your friends in an underground cavern. As far as slathering layers of gunk on your body, the Grotto didn’t seem worth the $25 charge. The free red mud was great (the mud was supposed to extract impurities out of your skin, not act as a moisturizer) even though it wasn’t sunny enough to really dry the mud to the point where you could dust it off. We did stand in the Wafa, a small room with heat lamps, with many other souls which did help the drying process out. The problem with experiences like this, you really can’t take your camera out to take pictures while you’re covered in mud. Michelle and I did take some pictures when we exited the place.

But one day with Michelle is never enough! On Thursday we picked her boyfriend Joe up from the airport and were off to Sea World with free tickets from her parents (the cost is regularly $53 -ick!). We did stop at Shakespeare’s pub for lunch before heading over as food is not allowed to be brought into the park. I had never been to the pub before and was happy with the banger on a roll I ordered. I know the Brits aren’t exactly known for their food, but they do do sausage well :). Tim and I now want to head back to the pub to watch an English Premiership game sometime. Sea World was pretty crowded, but we did manage to see all the major exhibits. While Sea World was good fun, I was far more pleased to get to meet Joe and spend time with him and Michelle. See more pictures of people enjoying manatees like this one below:

Peter and Nicole

Michelle is not the only high school friend visiting in town. Nicole is also visiting her parents for the holidays. Her family had their annual holiday party on Friday which Tim, Angela and I attended. Nicole also has seen a love blossom this year. She met her current boyfriend Peter through her old roommate’s ex-boyfriend. Peter has been attending George Washington University and hopes to muddle through visa work (he’s British) to land a job in the States when his schoolwork is done. They seem blissfully happy and are moving in together next week! I’m very happy for them

That pretty much wraps up December. I’m still slowly getting over my turf toe injury from October(!), but a sports medicine doctor gave me the green light to start playing soccer again. The season starts up again in 3 weeks so I should be ready. I’m at 95% these days. Yet another hockey season will start the same weekend. My last season’s Cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs (a brown team) lost in the finals. Perhaps my new team will help me claim a 4th championship title. Welcome Winter Hockey 2006!