Jamie wanted to post occasionally as well, so she now has a blog at http://www.thesegues.com/jamie/starr/. Enjoy!  (And coming soon, a blog from Jason).

Well, it had to happen, and now the worrying is over. When we went out to get in our car, which we have to park on the street, the mirror on the driver's side was bent back the way it's not supposed to go. It did snap back into place, and there appears to be no scraping of the paint or contusions of the metal. However, the mirror part is just hanging on by two wires. So, I'll take it by the dealer's tomorow on our way to San Diego for the 4th of July to see if they can snap it back into place. Till then, a nice bit of clear packing tape will keep it from falling off any further, I daresay.  And we'll learn to pop our mirrors in while parked on the street.

In an attempt to liven my spirits and give Jamie something to do in between Harry Potter chapters, we took a drive down to the beach this afternoon. We headed down Santa Monica Blvd, all the way to the ocean. The 12 mile route took just under an hour of travel time. But it was nice with the windows down, going a mean 15 mph. We strolled down the beach a bit, where Jamie got her feet and pants wet. We admired the sand castles and the sunburns of people who very recently must have looked like me. Then, we headed back, but this time I noticed a sign for Interstate 10, or "the 10", or the Santa Monica Freeway. I thought this might be a lot faster, and it seemed that way for a full 5 seconds, when traffic ground to a halt, and we averaged about 30 mph all the way home. Needless to say, it is going to take me a while to gauge how long it is going to take us to get from point A to point B. So, if I say I'm on my way, that means I should be there within the next 24 hours.

Well, boo, I've come down with some sort of ear, nose, and throat affliction that has robbed me of my will to talk, smile, and just move in general. But out of sheer discipline, I thought I shouldn't go too long without posting something here. Somehow my sinus problems are mixing with the smells coming in through my office window to become something quite disturbing. I know it's not just the smells, because Jamie would have picked up on the bad smell miles away. The fact that there are smells coming from my office window reminds me to let all of you Texans know that we don't have air conditioning here. In spite of that and it being July, it's quite comfortable in our shady little bungalow with the windows open and a cool breeze blowing through.

Great news! Jamie officially got a job today! She'll be working at the Tony Hawk store in The Grove. Since, it's related to Quiksilver, she's getting to start out as supervisor at the same rate she was making in NYC! For those of you who aren't down with Tony Hawk, he's just about the best darned skateboarder of all time. So, this store is more geared towards skating than surfing. Jamie's going to have to learn how to put together skate boards, and maybe even have to learn how to ride them. I'll be selling tickets to watch that spectacle. She goes in tomorrow to fill out paperwork and starts working on Saturday. Until then, she'll be feverishly trying to finish the new Harry Potter book.

OK, I now have time to personally report on the Australian battered potatoes at the San Diego fair. But before I get to that, let me tell you about the rest of the day, leading up to the potatoes. As soon as we got to the fair, we headed straight to the stage where the legendary Jack Jones was performing. For those of you who don't recognize the name (like I didn't), he's famous for many songs, but the one I recognized was the theme for "The Love Boat". If that still doesn't ring a bell, he also performs the "Old Navy" theme song, which is actually just "The Love Boat", with the words "Old Navy" in their place. Anyway, it was quite a sight, watching the aged performer flirt with his elderly groupies in the audience. From there, we went on a window shopping spree through all kinds of booths and kiosks. There was one massive tent devoted to spas, which have gotten pretty fancy over the years. Many of these models included a TV and DVD player in them. Apart from that, most of the booths were selling things that you could normally only buy on TV. I've never seen so many 'miracles' all in one place. Which brings us up to the battered potatoes. That's right, they cut the potato long-ways. Imagine the biggest ruffle you've ever had, but not curled up. Then, they batter it like it's fried chicken, and they deep fry it. Then, it's smothered in cheese and/or ranch dressing. It was tasty, but after one bite, I immediately became fat. Or maybe it was the funnel cake I had earlier. Anyway, we topped off the evening with a few songs from David Cassidy himself. And yes, he still thinks that he is a teen idol, but I think the best he can hope for is to be a teen-at-heart idol.

On another note, we are now living in our new apartment. The refrigerator is safely in place. I'm all hooked up in my office. We've got the stereo hooked up, with the exception of having TiVo connected to a phone line. We won't get the phone line installed until July 17th! Isn't that ridiculous? We went to see our first movie in Hollywood yesterday, Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle. It was not as good as the first one, that much I can tell you. I did spot my first celebrity, Clea DuVall, whom I recognized from the movie '13 Conversations About One Thing,' but whose name I didn't know until I came home and looked it up on IMDB.

Well...see ya later!

So we got up to our new place today offcally. My frst order of busness was to mae a hole for the refrgerator whch dd wth the jgsaw. t was my frst experence wth the jgsaw. Guess whch fnger hurts worst.

Jamie and I are heading out with the fam to the San Diego Fair, aka Commotion By The Ocean. It promises to be a day full of turkey legs, funnel cakes, and Australian potatoes. I'm looking forward to trying this 'Australian potato' delicacy, but I'll wait to describe it until after I've tried one. I could tell you what I've heard, but then that would just be hearsay. We'll also be visiting some of the animal sections of the fair, as Jamie was in 4-H in junior high and used to show animals there herself. If I had a digital camera and a cool thumbnail generator like Mark, I'd post some pictures, but I don't, so you'll just have to wait for me to paint pictures with words when we get back.

Hey, Jamie and I are going to officially move in to our new place on Friday. By officially move in, I mean that we are going to spend the night there for the first time. We were up there all day yesterday getting it ready. We got cable and internet hooked up. The gas company was supposed to come out, but they never showed up. We got our refrigerator delivered, which didn't fit into the space by about 1/16". So, I'm taking Don's jigsaw, beveller, and electric sander with us on Friday to try to make some room. I don't exactly have a long history with power tools, so hopefully when I post something up here on Saturday, I'll have all my digits. If, however, I've lost one, I'm not going to tell you which one, and you are going to have to guess based on which letters are missing in all of my words. We got the bedroom in shape (it's a pretty tight squeeze), and now that we have the living room organized, it actually feels kind of roomy. I still have some work to do in my office, but less work thanks again to the Siebers, who outfitted me with some new equipment. They got us a new OfficeJet printer, and since I don't have a cable jack where my office is going to be, they got me a wireless router, so that I don't have to run wires all over the house. I have to rewire all of my stereo components, because the cable box didn't have the outputs on it that I was hoping for, and I got some new, longer wires so that we can arrange the components a little more flexibly. Once we get settled in, I'll take some pictures, so that you can get a little taste.

I went for a drive today, and I saw a bumper sticker on the back of someone's car that read, "War Is Not The Answer." I had to wonder to myself, "If war is not the answer, what is the question?" I gave it some thought, and here are some of the questions that I guess the question is not:

1. What does W-A-R spell?
2. What is it that anti-war protesters hate? (Look a little deeper into this one, and I think you'll find some humor in the expression 'anti-war protester'.
3. How did America earn its independence from England?
4. What is the name of that card game where you each flip over your top card, and whoever has the highest card gets to keep both cards?

I don't usually go on political rants, but this bumper sticker annoyed me, less because of the political statement they were trying to make, and more because of the blanket statement that without context is quite frankly nonsensical. So, for those who have that bumper sticker, I have one question: Are you so diametrically opposed to the concept of war that you would fight someone to end it once and for all? As much as I would love to avoid war, my take is that war itself is not the enemy.