Look at this fat bastard here...

May 2008 (180 lbs):

May 2009 (155 lbs):

Although I am a little bit disgusted to see pictures of a more rotund me, it's nice to see that my weight loss has had such a significant impact on my appearance. This keeps me motivated!

San Diego Trip '09

We left Tucson after work on Thursday and got to our hotel a little after 11. The hotel was standard, with zero parking, but had a pretty good continental breakfast. Which, I've decided, I will never stay in a hotel without a continental breakfast again. I mean, the money you save on not going out to eat, is fabulous.

Jeff brought his bike, and left bright and early Friday morning for a ride. Keep in mind that we arrived at the hotel when it was dark and Jeff left for his ride when it was dark. So the poor boy had no idea of his surroundings. Needless to say, he got lost, and his five mile joy ride turned into a 25 mile (not so fun) ride. But he was in good spirits when he returned.

We ate our free breakfast, then headed to the San Diego Zoo. We got to the gates 5 minutes before opening, and just as Jeffry was about to purchase our tickets (which were $35 a piece) a kind old woman tapped him on the arm. She asked him "where are you from?" and when he answered she said "well I can take one of you in for free, come with me." I'm not really sure if where we were from persuaded her in any way, but that's besides the point.



So Jeff stayed behind and bought his ticket, while I followed this lady (whose name is Cara) to the front of the line. She sauntered right up to the front of the line and started talking to people immediately. The zoo workers all knew her by name. They asked about her husband. Cara told me she's been a member of the zoo since 1974 and she goes there 3 times a week. When they let us in the gates, we were the first ones through. We pulled to the side and waited for Jeffry, while she told me all the things to make sure to see that day and which way to go first. When Jeffry finally found us, she told us we can't miss the Flights of Fancy Show, where the zoo keepers release macaws from overhead. Cara told us all about the flamingos and different birds while we waited, and she knew a lot about the running of the zoo. Like how the male birds have the identification band on their right leg, and the females on their left. And when Jeff commented that two flamingos were fighting, she said "oh, they're not fighting, they're just... disagreeing." :) She was great.



We said our good-byes to Cara after the Flights of Fancy Show and began meandering our way around the San Diego Zoo. It's not my favorite zoo that we've been to; it's too hilly, and there's a lot of walking without anything to look at. I feel like it could be much better designed, but I've never designed a zoo before so what do I know.



I made Jeffry take a picture of these tortoises because it looked like they were crawling toward each other for a chat. Reminds me of Tim "the Tool Man" Taylor and Wilson.

Here I am taking a picture of a nice family, which Jeffry likes to then take a picture of.



From our Grand Canyon trip last year and London the year before:



It's kinda funny.

That's all for now. More later.

Don't think poorly of me after this...

Jeff and I went to the San Diego Zoo last week, which I will blog about later. I wanted to write about one experience at the zoo in particular: the children. Oh god the children. And I don't mean that positively. It seemed to be school field trip day; there were large groups of kids there, ranging from pre-school kids to middle school. Most of the kids were well behaved, especially the younger kids. But then there were groups that were out of control. I work with kids everyday. I'm used to chaotic situations. I handle loud kids exceptionally well. But these kids were ridiculously rude. They were yelling and clapping at the animals, running back and forth in front of cages, trying to get a reaction from the animals. And I'm talking kids that are 10-13 here. It was so bad that we would skip exhibits because an annoying group was there, or we'd hurry past others because the kids were screaming. It was disappointing that the supervising adults didn't take control of the situation. It made our zoo experience rather unpleasant.

However, I did see this little guy. And that almost made it worth it.