The hot smell of thunder

It smells like a thunderstorm outside. It's dark, the sky is navy blue, and there's a hot wind blowing. I'm not sure whether it's really a smell, but there's kind of a feel in the air when thunder is coming, sort of like all the tension has drained out of the air. It feels like everything is covered in a quilt of heavy air, just waiting.

Maybe it will rain.

This is perfect weather to be in a bad mood, which means I'm in luck. I'm in a foul mood. To make things worse, I don't have any obvious reasons for being in a foul mood. I just AM, okay? Work's been pretty good this week, and I just discovered a fun new space opera game. Some kids from the ward are planning on going to the Indiana Jones movie this week and I was invited (readers: if any of you want to go, that might persuade me to go. Let me know). Heck, I even lost weight this week. However, my foul mood defies the necessity of excuses. Growl! Growl!

Also: I want excuses to go camping, bike riding, or [preferably indoor] rock climbing. I don't like doing any of these things by myself. If anyone wants to go with, would you please let me know?

California has better weather

It's sad but true: California has more pleasant weather than Utah. But hey, at least we don't have horrible wildfires, right? (Oh wait...) So far, we've been to the San Diego Zoo, Sea World, Disneyland, and California Adventure (which is pretty much Disneyland with more roller coasters and less pixie dust).

Anyway, I thought I'd throw up a few pictures, since I've been taking tons of them and it's fun to share. This first one takes a bit of explaining. The two youngest siblings and I left early so that we could go visit an old friend of mine in San Diego. Since this particular old friend can only really accommodate two people at a time, and since there were three of us, I figured it would be a good time to finally pick up that backpacking mattress I've been meaning to get.

While I was out looking for the right mattress, I found this marvelous little device. It is specifically designed to make, and I quote the packaging, "beer can chicken." Basically, you take a can of beer and mount it in the railing. Then, you stick a chicken over the top, and stick the entire contraption on an outdoor grill. Presumably the beer boils, and you end up with a roast chicken that tastes vaguely of boiled beer. Yummy! Naturally, I laughed uncontrollably for a couple of seconds and then took a picture.

There are several things I love about this device:

1. Not only does it mean that you're making beer can chicken, it means that you're making a lot of beer can chicken. Enough that you need to run out and buy yourself a special device in order to streamline the process.
2. Yes, the store also has an entire aisle with hundreds of DVDs, all of which have names like "Colorado deer hunt in August" or "Best of the rutting season." I got a little nervous that if anyone saw me, they'd suspect I was secretly a redneck. This device strengthened that fear a little.
3. Seriously, who DESIGNS these things? I mean, in addition to the theoretical group of people who buy beer can chicken frames, who exactly has a meeting where they say "oh yeah, beer can chicken, just like Maw used to make! But 'member how it kept done fallin' over? We should go weld up some kinda frame an' sell it in a hun'in store! We'll make a killin'!" I kind of want to meet that man. From a safe distance.

Oh, I did find my mattress. It's wonderful. It's one of those that contains super spongy material. All you have to do is open the air valve, and it inflates itself as the spongy stuff puffs out. I did not purchase a frame for making beer can chicken.

The second picture is from my visit to Areae's offices in San Diego. They're a nice group of folks who are trying to make it super easy for anyone to make their own multiplayer online game. Their project is called Metaplace. Their offices are rented from an office block in a smallish city north of San Diego. It had this rather strange little fountain outside, which is so kitsch as to be nearly transcendent. There's no sign telling you to keep out of the water, because who would want to go swimming in a pool filled with hippo drool? Honestly.