Maybe California's not too bad

I grew up in Oregon—Portland, to be specific. Anyone who also grew up in Oregon would realize that this means that I was encouraged to shun California and its residents, like so:

• "Californians? Those are the people who move up here and clog up our freeways."
• "Californians? They're the reason that we can't afford to live in our own city anymore."
• "Californians? They want to move up here, cut down all of our trees, and turn them in into sprawling subdivisions like they had down there. (Too bad they don't know about the urban growth boundary. Hah!)"

Well, I figured I'd try to push the California-Oregon flux closer to equilibrium by moving down here for the summer, and guess what? It's not so bad, and neither are the people.

This past week has been a lot of fun. Among other things, I:

• Played Ultimate with some (new) friends from church.
• Went to a "bonfire" on the beach at night*.
  
• Went on a 20-mile bike ride around Palo Alto and Stanford campus.
• Went to a Giants baseball game in San Francisco (for free!).

Maybe this California place isn't so bad after all.

* Apparently in California, "bonfire" means "three of those Duraflame™ logs". Utah definitely has the upper hand in the pyro department.