So, I’ve been absent for a while, in part because I’ve been trying to stock up on things to say. 😉  However, just when I’d get something cool, Mollie would say it!  Such a good little blogger. 🙂

Today, I went to Pomona to take the Engineer in Training exam, along with 2,000 – 5,000 other people.  The directions are all very clear: things like “OMGWTF, GET HERE RIGHT AT 7:00 OR WE WILL STEAL YOUR FIRSTBORN” and “LEAVE TIME FOR PARKING OR YOU WILL LOSE YOUR IMMORTAL SOUL.”  I didn’t like either of those ideas, so I was sure to be ready to park at 6:25.  What they DIDN’T tell me was that parking would take every one of those 35 minutes I left myself, so when I did park, I was still power-walking for the door.  When I got there, however, I discovered that my effort was all for getting at the back of a 5-row line some 400 feet long, STACKED with people slowly filing in the door.

The actual test took place in a massive barn-like building at the fairgrounds of the Pomona Fairplex (one of three buildings there that the NCEES rented for the occasion).  We were instructed where to sit and what we could have with us, which was virtually nothing (we had to leave all our “forbidden devices” on a table by the door), when to go to the restroom or leave the building, the whole nine yards.  Somehow, all some-hundred proctors they had were from the “overweight, old, mean people’s society,” and the “head proctor” was nice and condescending, to boot.  Yet, for all their strict rules, they were severely lacking in actual punctuality.  The test did not start “EXACTLY AT 8:00 AM”, but at 8:31, and the afternoon session didn’t start until 2:11 PM, meaning I didn’t actually get out until around 6 (I finished early).

The nice thing about the experience, though, was that I got to enjoy two nice long car ride on our lovely LA freeways in our need Mazda 3.  Mollie told you it was nice, and new, and I’m hear to tell you that it owns.  The car is amazingly quiet on the freeway, and handles the (many) irregularities in the road surface with exquisite grace.  Also, I had almost forgotten how much better it is driving a manual than an automatic… this car makes me happy. 😉

Not that I would know at all, but I have a suspicion that the new car might be able to make 0-60 in 7-8 seconds, and top 95 in fourth gear.  Maybe someday someone I don’t know at all will find a long, empty stretch of highway and see where it maxes out… 😛

Not too much has changed since my last post, except for the view to the North from our home here in SoCal:

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No, that’s not a cloud. We don’t live in the best part of town for optimal smoke viewing, but that immense body of suspended particulate is the smoke plume from the “Day” Wild Fire, a 120,000 acre blaze doing its best to burn up all the condors left in the world, and threatening a few towns and causing some rather severe highway closures. Here in safe Camarillo, though, all we really have to worry about is the smoke and ash stopping up our lungs and making our pretty cars all dirty.

In Baby news, Mollie has recently passed the 14 weeks milestone, which means our baby actually looks like a little tiny baby, weighing somewhere in the neighborhood of 1.5 oz. More on that as it develops.

Look! We’re not dead. We’re very much alive and have been busy, which has led to our lack of posting recently… First off, you should all know that I found a beer that was clearly made for me.

Black Toad is a dark, “chestnut” colored beer with a nut-y flavor, which is further more named for me, a man who appreciates a good dark beer.

One of the things we’ve been busy with is a fun trip to San Diego last weekend, to visit our friends Jubal and Suzanne Marlatt, and The Dinwiddie Family. On our way down, we found an interesting Vietnamese restaurant in Oceanside…

First off, when did “OK” become a noun? And, what really is an OK? Whatever it may be, it has another sign that claims that “We Carry: Dine In & Take Out; Special Order; Party & Birthday Group; Gift Certificate Available; Catering.” Last time I checked a “Gift Certificate Available” was a complete sentence. How do you carry a sentence? Go go Engrish!

Sunday in San Diego we spent the afternoon in Balboa Park. We went to the Natural History museum and the Air and Space museum, which were both very fun. We also saw a big pipe organ, and a tree with some mighty impressive roots, which are pictured for you below. I wish I had a person in the tree picture for scale, but those roots are probably a good 50 feet long.

This week, we’re off to a business trip in glorious Stockton, CA, which I’m hoping will go smoothly. More on that later.

So, I noticed that I’ve been, well, lax in my updating, while my wife has been much better about it than me. 😉 Thus, I figured that I ought to drop by and give an update from my perspective.

Work has been about the same as when last I posted; I’m enjoying the work and am being given some of my own projects, which is a good combination of challenging and fun. The apartment is very much our home now, and we’re trying to figure out where to put some baby furnishings. 😉

As Mollie mentioned in her last post, we’re expecting a baby! This is very exciting for both of us, and has introduced a lot of new challenges in our lives. To keep poor Mollie’s tummy happy, our eating habits have gotten a little weird, and there’s lots of last-minute shopping trips or being roused from bed to get new water bottles on my part. I’m really not complaining, though, because even though it doesn’t sound all that fun (and indeed isn’t always), I am overcome with joy at the prospect of having a child, and I am so happy that I can take care of Mollie when she’s not feeling well.

Excepting the baby news, there haven’t been that many new developments in our lives these past few weeks, but that news is probably development enough for a little while. 😉

Back before the Cynic turned into a Nice Guy, he started a list of crappy towns. I believe, now, that I have found the winner.

Now, we’ve all heard the joke about cities with populations less than their elevation. We probably even all know a few of them. Generally, however, we don’t find cities with populations considerably less than 1/100th of their elevation.

Yes, friends, the city of Mountain Pass, California
is a community of thirty people (yes, the sign said 30, I wish I’d got a picture) cast among the crags of the mountains along the California-Nevada border along I-15. I say “cast,” because while the word I first thought of was “nestled,” it occurs to me that “nestling” implies some care, and this collection of homes surrounding a broken-down stone mill gives no such impression.

To boot, there are no services of any kind in Mountain Pass: not even a gas station. The closest gas station is 4 miles to the west, and gas there is a low-low $4.29/gal, and the closest market is in Baker, CA, a good 15-30 minutes to the west. Yes, Mountain Pass is the epitome of convenience!

With that, Scholl, please consider my addition to your list.