I’m so official now.

I am no longer reachable at 714.  Now you’ve got to dial area code 602 to find me.  I’ve only been here 6 months.  Took long enough, huh?

The political blog that I created and completely abandoned when I moved to AZ turned two today.

I penned an anniversary post here.

The blogroll there is still muckraking and stirring things up in OC. They were recently mentioned in the Orange County Register [link] for posting the Lucas letter. From the Register:

Garden Grove Democrat Paul Lucas lent a hand to GOP fixer Mike Schroeder’s effort to defeat Supervisor Janet Nguyen’s reelection effort — but only after Lucas had his own figurative back-alley meeting Nguyen, according to this fascinating post at TheLiberalOC.com. As you may know, Schroeder and Assemblyman Van Tran are political enemies of Nguyen, and are backing Dina Nguyen’s effort to unseat her.

In 2006, when Lucas unsuccessfully challenged Republican Tran for Assembly, Janet Nguyen gave Lucas opposition reasearch on Tran, according to the item. TheLiberalOC backs this up with a letter of admission from Lucas, which was produced at the Monday’s GOP Central Committee meeting in an effort to block the party’s endorsement of Janet Nguyen for reelection. The effort failed and Janet carried the day.

This supervisor’s race just keeps getting better and better.

The supervisor’s race really is interesting, and I’m slightly disappointed that I am not close enough to hear the day-to-day gossip.

I’ve been in Arizona for about 2 months now. And in all honesty, I don’t hate it. There is something inside, however, that I’ve been holding in because I thought, “If I don’t say it out loud, it won’t be true.” I was wrong, so now I’ll say it:

I’m homesick.

Don’t misinterpret this. I have no intentions of packing up and moving back to California, but I am missing my friends, my routine, my job, my apartment, my neighbors, and my comfort. The idea of starting over was so exciting, but now that excitement has worn off I’m starting to realize how daunting it is to fill that slate that you were so eager to wipe clean.

Little things have thrown me into tiny bouts of depression. Yesterday I realized how different Arizona rain was from California rain, and I almost teared up. I guess I never realized how lucky Californians are that their rain water can just drain immediately to the ocean. Here in Arizona we have to deal with a lot of flooded streets and strange irrigation basins.

When I made the decision to move here I told myself that I wasn’t going to be one of those annoying people that pack up and move away and return in a few months. I’m here in Arizona for at least two years; I’ve made that promise to myself.

So now I’ll just kick it here in my new home and re-read the posts I wrote about the things I’ll miss when I move to Arizona:

• This is the one where I’ll miss my co-workers.
• This is the one where I’ll miss the Strawberry Festival.
• This is the one where I’ll miss the beach.
• This is the one where I’ll miss Disney Tourists.
• This is the one where I’ll miss my routine.
• This is the one where I’ll miss my friends.
• This is the one where I’ll miss knowing everything.
• This is the one where I’ll miss Little Saigon.
• This is the one where I’ll miss Julie Anne Leynes.
• This is the one from my last day of work.
• This is the one with more goodbye-saying.

If I had known then what I know now, there are a few additions I’d make to that list:

• This is the one where I’ll miss multi-multiculturalism.
• This is the one where I’ll miss cheap avocados.
• This is the one where I’ll miss dance clubs.

I woke up really early this morning (I was anxious) and jumped in my small little U-Haul truck and got on the road.

I arrived in Phoenix around 1 p.m. this afternoon.

The entire Mike Lawson estate took about 30 minutes to unload with the help of sister and nephew.

I said goodbye to all of my political friends this evening.  There was an excellent turnout, and Dan even bought me Gustavo Arellano’s book as a going-away present.  And since Gustavo was there, he signed it!

Good people all of whom will be missed.

Here are some photos from my last day at the office:

I’ve uploaded a few more “Goodbye” pictures to my Flickr account.  Enjoy or ignore…whatever.