This is the one with rain.

It’s pouring this morning in Southern California.  And I love it.I fell asleep last night with the window open and woke up to the smell of wet concrete. 

This is the one with photos

I’ve been trying to collect photos with everyone before I leave mid-December. Here’s the first batch of photos:

This is the one about things at work.

I interviewed a young woman named Linay at work this afternoon. These are the first words that came out of my mouth:

Hello Linay.
Right this way.

Then I laughed a little because I accidentally rhymed. Then I added:

I alway talk in rhyme, by the way.

And the bitch didn’t even crack a smile. Come on!  Needless to say, we won’t be hiring her.

And yesterday at work I did an orientation with three new employees.  We usually show them a video about reporting suspected cases of child abuse, but there was a meeting that was happening in the room where the TV, VCR, and child abuse video were…so instead I re-enacted the movie for them.  My favorite line in this video is “I’m glad I talked with Mr. Ramos in the after school program because you want to know what my mom did?  She made the bad man move out.”

This is the one with my hidden talent.

I’ll bet you never knew this, but I’ve got an incredible talent that many are unaware of: I make really fucking awesome Power Point presentations.

I started to look through my work computer’s hard-drive today to make sure I’ve deleted anything embarrassing or incriminating and I came across a file of Power Point presentations I’ve made in the past. Here are some of my favorites:

This is the one where I pass notes.

In a meeting today the following note was passed between me and a co-worker:

ME: Your nose is pink. Are you sick or cold?
CO-WORKER: My office is really cold.
ME: Well I guess a pink nose is better than a brown one.
CO-WORKER: You would know

This is the one with the seventh thing I’ll miss in So. Cal.

In the coming days I’m going to post, in no particular order, things that I will miss when I leave Southern California.

I understand that saying that I “know everything” could come off as cocky, and that’s not my intention.  But the 7th thing that I’m going to miss when I leave Southern California is being able to answer stupid questions about all things local.

A few years ago I was a community reporter for a local newspaper and I have been running a local political blog for over a year, so when somebody asks, “Why is that out-of-place putting green stuck in between those hotels?”  I can let them know that the site used to be a dump and no hotel developers will touch the land because they know that it could be ridiculously expensive to get treat the soil.

I also like knowing that down the street the local Farmer’s Market is run by a guy who is in the pocket of my state assemblyman.

I like to tell people that one of the members of the Orange County Board of Supervisors used to work for me when she was studying for the LSAT exam and I was the Assistant Director of Operations for a test-prep company.

Or when people reminisce about Belisle’s restaurant that used to be on the corner of Harbor Blvd. and Chapman Avenue I like that I have memories about the elaborate display windows next door at the Michael’s Craft store every Christmas.  And I like telling people about the dispute that the city had with Viacom regarding the billboard that was above Belisle’s.

When I get to Phoenix I could learn some of the history about silly city ordinances or what have you…but I’ll never have memories like the Michael’s windows or the infamous deep and raspy voice of the owner of Los Sanchez.

This is the one with the face transformer.

I just found this really creepy face transformer on the web.  You can upload your photo and then change your race or age to see what you’d look like if born to different parents or at a different time.

The website is: http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Transformer/

Here is the original photo I uploaded of myself:

And here are a few altered images.

Old:

 Africa-American:

Asian:

Child:

Lesbian:

This is the one with the sixth thing I’ll miss in So. Cal.

In the coming days I’m going to post, in no particular order, things that I will miss when I leave Southern California.

I’ve got plenty of acquaintances in all shapes, sizes, genders, races.  But I’ve only got a hand-full of really good friends here in Orange County.  In fact, I’d go out on a limb and say that I really have about 5 friends that know all about me and I genuinely feel like I am going to miss when I leave here.

What stinks is that I know that people have trouble with the long-distance friendship thing, and I’m destined to lose contact with a few of them.

And like my routine, I’m certain I’ll find new friends.  I just don’t like the idea of losing touch with some of the good people that have helped me become who I am.

This is the one where I start selling my furniture.

I sold my bed on Craigslist yesterday, and now I have this ad up:

Anyone interested?

This is the one with guest stars.

There were 2 guest stars on Grey’s Anatomy this week, and they have both played special guest roles in my dreams.

I’ve crushed on Seth Green for the longest time…I know that he’s not traditionally handsome, but he’s got the nerd-appeal that I go for. He played a guy with a gross neck tumor and his artery spewed blood all over the youngest Grey at the end of the episode.

And Gale Harold is a tall glass of water. Holy crap. I’ve had it for him since he was Brian on QAF.

I just finished watching the episode (thank you TiVo), and I’m still catching my breath.