Air conditioning - bliss in SoCal

After spending a number of weekends in Arizona and their 111 heat in monsoon season (read this as heat with humidity = gross), I am beginning to recall my summer days in Texas. I have conveniently forgotten about the heat when missing my home state. It is easy to get complaciant about the wonderful SoCal weather, where it barely reaches to the mid 90's on hot days and always hits the high 60's by nightfall... until your air conditioner breaks. Getting into my car for work in the morning never looked better, even with the broken stereo, I at least have mobile air conditioning!

Sure, it is great to have the windows open for some fresh air. It is even wonderful to wake up to the cool desert air we get in Pasadena over the night... but coming home to a hot and muggy household because you cannot run the central air kinda blows. I bet the cats are enjoying it though- they never get enough of the heat.

The Orange Sunrise

After a Monday night (all night) at Disneyland, then a night (all night) at Harry Potter, I read the email that said belt testing for karate was on Wednesday. (I thought it was on Friday.) Whoa. I almost didn't show up- career yellow belt is nothing to be ashamed of.

The belt testing was in lieu of class last night, which was great. I did not exhaust myself in class only to be followed by two hours of testing. Last time we did have class and by belt testing-time, I was in need of a cookie and a nap!

I have no pictures, but basically it went like this - side steps, punches, kicks, katas, grab arts, punch outs, and sparring. All went pretty well, but I still have to take the written exam. The sparring was fantastic for my sore neck (from falling asleep in the movies). I now cannot move it at all, even with Advil and a heating pad. Yea... I am a karate bad ass. yea.

Oh yea, I did...

This morning, at 12:00am, was the official opening of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. I did- I went on a work night to the 12:36 showing at the Burbank AMC theater with a group of friends (well, one friend, Erin, and her friends, but now by osmosis or something, they are my friends too, right?)

The coffee with CAFFEINE provided by very harrased looking Starbucks workers was providing me with alert attention for the first three hours of our "camping" the theater. We arrived a little after 9pm and by 11:30 my buzz was starting to wear off. We, thankfully, were all seated in the theater waiting for the movie to start, instead of sitting on the sidewalk or some random hallway, which I have done both before for other Potter opening nights.

I don't know exactly where it happened in the movie, but it started- there was Harry and Dumbledore in the cave, then the burrow, and the next thing I knew Harry was dueling Snape and I had a crik in my neck. I FELL ASLEEP! FOr those of you who know how much of a Harry Potter fan I am, you know how much of an atrocity that was!

I have to say that my favorite part that I saw was Harry on the "lucky potion" where he looked a little drunk but played a hilarious role ("with the pincers snip snip") and that Hermonie (Emma) no longer had the exasperated monotone throughout the whole movie.

I have no idea how they plan on making book 7 two movies since most of it was all camping, but I look forward to staying up all night for those releases too! Without the sore neck next time...