One of the things I really like about my new job is that I am spending a lot of time in San Diego. Being away from home a lot isn't the greatest, but there are worse places to be. My old job had me in Texas and Oklahoma on a regular basis. I could find at least one nice thing to say about both places, but there weren't a lot of places to surf. Not that I actually "surf", but I've always thought it would be fun and I (in theory) could take it up. I bet I'd be a really good surfer, too. I wonder if they have wet-suits in "Extra Fat"? Probably not a good idea for me to be seen in something skin-tight. I've seen my skin. There seems to be lots more of it than there used to be.

One of my nieces is working on a school project based on the book "Flat Stanley". I'm not 100% sure what the whole plot of the book is, but it seems to be about a kid (named "Stanley") who is actually just a piece of paper (I don't know if he actually is paper or if he's just as flat as paper, but I don't think it matters much. At least not to me.) Anyway, my tie-in to the whole thing is Hannah's class had to make their own Flat Stanley and get pictures of them having "adventures". Since I travel a fair amount, I was asked to take Flat Hannah on my trips and get some pictures of her in exotic locales. So far, Flat Hannah has been to the beach, Petco Park (Go Padres!), Las Vegas and Tijuana. At first I felt a little uncomfortable taking pictures of a paper doll in public, but I was taking Flat Hannah on a photo-shoot in Vegas and a woman stopped and said, "Is that a Flat Stanley?" So, apparently, Flat Stanley is something of a celebrity in the soccer-mom circles. I'm not so sure the waitresses at Taco Bell - Tijuana really understood why I was taking pictures of Flat Hannah, but I guarantee they've seen stranger things on an average Friday/Saturday night in TJ. I've been told that the picture of Flat Hannah drinking a Pacifico probably won't make it into the school project. (Not flat) Hannah was actually worried that I'd taken Flat Hannah out of the country. She didn't know if that was against the rules. It's probably OK.