Work is good, the weather is sweet and the body is still soaking up as much sunshine as humanly possible. Living the SoCal lifestyle includes working enough to live the life of partying and being out in the sun. Where do I sign? Oh yeah--that's why I'm already here! I'm quickly learning that my weekends are a matter of burning the candle at both ends until the wick is chard and literally disintegrated. Last weekend I worked Thursday night, Friday night, Saturday night, rallied in Pacific Beach after hours and stumbled my way though a day of serving barley and hops to football fans all day Sunday. From four days of cranking comes three days of recovering. I mix my Monday through Wednesday with sleep, beach, bike rides and journalism. I recently wrote a short story that will be published in the winter issue of Steamboat magazine! I'm working on turning this specific story about Alpine Initiatives (alpineinitiatives.org--check it out!) into a feature story that will hopefully land in Skiing and perhaps even Outside magazine.

Yesterday a women's conference took place in Long Beach, just up the road from me. It was put on by Governor Schwarzenegger, but run by his amazing wife, Maria. There were over 200 empowering, notable women there. It is a conference that you must either be invited to or get tickets for, and I already plan on making it a goal to attend next year's event. I watched it live online and felt the full-body chills consume me multiple times within the two hours that I caught. They honored women making a difference in the world. Names like Gloria Steinem, Betty Chinn, and Billy Jean King. Bonnie Raitt sang and Bono from U2 spoke at length. I have always wrestled with my thoughts of Bono. I don't like U2's music--which now means nothing to me. I have ALWAYS respected him for both his musical talent and even more so, what he's doing in the world. Watching him speak last night, and hearing his passion come out through his words and ways, was so amazingly contagious. Every day I think about how I want to become an instrument of change in the world, and this conference nudged me that much more. I struggle with the fact that I have been forced to put my life passions on hold until my finances stable back out. I can't really complain for the fact that I am one of the luckiest persons on this planet to still be alive and even have the chance to pursue my life passions in the future.