Sound Off

hey, here i am again, not too long after the last check-in. just came off a nice long break for the holidays, nonwithstanding a few short days of work in the middle of last week, and it's back to the grindstone. my fellow reporter is out for the rest of the week, so i'll be handling the flow of news for the daily sound in his absence. so it promises to be a busy week. luckily, i'll have tomorrow off. unfortunately, i don't get new year's day off, which is a pain not only because i can't get completely hammered the night before, being that my girlfriend is leaving, again, in some ungodly morning hour on the first day of the year for a week in hawaii after returning from a five-month study abroad program merely weeks earlier and i'll likely want to drown, with some sort of fermented beverage, the sorrow of not being able to kiss her at midnight, but also because usc plays illinois in the rose bowl on tuesday and i'll have to train myself to write brilliant journalistic prose while fervently glancing over my shoulder at the television to see exactly how the trojans decide to trounce the living daylights out of the fighting illini.

Monthly Briefer

another slow day at work. things always seem to drag to a standstill around the holidays. luckily, or unluckily, depending how you look at it, a kiteboarder had to be rescued by firefighters, winds are starting to stir up dust and ash from the zaca fire, and a bunch of new traffic laws are going into effect in january. that and an update about the plane crash in panama that killed two santa barbarans and injured another should be enough fodder to fill the paper to a respectable level for tomorrow.

the waves were pretty sloppy and gnarly on christmas day. went down to the beach during high tide and caught some wild ones, getting tossed about and beaten up by a few. there were a few surfers out there too, but we were the only people crazy enough to body surf. my feet and hands are usually numbed beyond belief by the time i decide i might want to get out of the water for a bit to warm them up. had to head into the office for a few hours of work on christmas as well, which wasn't fun, but wasn't a huge ordeal. there wasn't much going on, so it was a quick day to say the least. and this week is almost over for me. it's always nice having a two-and-a-half-day work week.

well, i'm writing this on my work laptop, so i better get back to it before i'm spotted. and i'm considering an attempt to post more often here. but i've said that about 20 times prior to this, so don't expect much.