After leaving Encinitas, I drove up to Orange County to visit my friend and former colleague Angela, who now lives out in SoCal. I was meeting her at 6:30 at this Thai restaurent in Santa Ana. As some of you may know, Santa Ana is also home to the South Coast mall. This mall makes my university look like a pup-tent. The mall goes on and on, across several blocks. It’s full of gucci shops, including Gucci, and it’s filled with middle-aged and old ladies who were wearing the latest in juniors fashion. Ugh! But, there was one redeeming feature, an Apple Store! Off I went to worship at the temple of Steve. I picked up an extra power adapter, to use at work, and a new inCase carrybag for my laptop. Woohoo!

After that, I drove up and down Bristol Street trying to find George’s Thai Bistro, where I was meeting Angela for dinner. I finally found it and waited for Angela to arrive. I picked up their local “city paper” rag and was blown away by the fact that the first 15-20 pages of this weekly paper were ads for boob jobs, botox, lipo, and every other superficial modification that plastic surgeons could enact on a human form. It was insane! But, I guess it goes along with the Hummer-mentality of the OC. I gotta tell you, I never saw so many Hummer deathtraps in my life. Every block!

Angela and I had a great dinner (krapow for me and a spicy soup & noodle dish for her). We talked about the office, life, politics, advocacy, pretty much everything under the SoCal sun. It was great that I got to see her and catch up! We parted around 8:45 and I headed up to LA to check into my hotel right by the airport I started at the previous morning.