3rin's View…

A collage of sights from my Christmas trip to the San Diego area. Featuring (l to r): sea lion, harbor seals on beach, sea lion pile, sunset, metal detecting, dog sporting shades, surfing, stand-up paddle boarding, rowing, brown pelican close-up, gull close-up, decorated tree at the beach, an injured harbor seal, harbor seal poop, harbor seal yoga (3), sand loving harbor seal, harbor seal yawn, tide pool waterfall, sea lion close-ups (2).

Bailey is helping me watch all the Star Wars movies in preparation for the new one. Thus far, he appears to like Jar Jar Binks and Watto the best.

That’s a lot to be thankful for! Our Thanksgiving weekend started with a celebration of Scott, George, and Coralie’s birthdays (all within a week of each other). Desiree and I topped the cake with 205 candles (their cumulative ages). We couldn’t get them all lit before the heat melted the icing and started a small fire. The flaming cake was hysterical! Luckily, we didn’t need the fire extinguisher and some of the cake was still edible.

Thanksgiving Day was blustery and cloudy, very Fall-like which made staying inside and eating lots of delicious food quite desirable. During our after dinner stroll through town we admired some of the fine architecture. The evening was capped off with belly dancing by Deborah.

On Black Friday we “shopped” for treasures along an old, abandoned rail line: netting one dime, an intact Thomas Edison battery oil bottle, flowery painted pieces of Southern Pacific china, 3 devil’s claws, and 2 barrel staves.

Good food, laughter, and random activities = one of our typical family gatherings.

Stephen and I are in the middle of our first tiff. Don’t get me wrong, I like the guy. I admire his impressive intellect, his boyish good looks, his undeniable charm, and his sensational sense of humor but those attributes were dreadfully diminished when he mocked my fair city.

My Aunt Coralie gets invited to the coolest events and often I’m fortunate to be her guest. The tour this week was led by the University of Arizona’s amazing Athletic Director, Greg Byrne (technically Vice President for Athletics but I think AD sounds better). Greg joined the UA in mid-2010 and we welcomed him with out of date facilities for fans and student athletes, aging buildings, luke-warm support for sports other than football and men’s basketball, and roughly a billion dollars in needed upgrades.

Boy, did he hit the ground running! No one expected Greg to improve the programs by this much this soon. He’s raised hundreds of millions in donations, overseen $72 million in improvements to Arizona Stadium, $30 million in upgrades at McKale, hired exciting, dedicated coaches, solidified UA branding, and increased awareness of UA throughout the state. He’s a dynamo and he’s all-in. During our tour he greeted every single athlete and coach by name (there’s well over 500 athletes alone).

There was a twinkle in his eye when he talked about future projects. He couldn’t share the details but based on what we’ve seen so far it is going to be great. And yes, I’m an alumnus but trust me his enthusiasm would’ve rubbed off on you too!