Humboldt, you’ve been real. Seriously. It still does feel like home up here, after all these years of being gone, it still feels like home.

There are so many places here to hike around, and I’m sure there are down in LA too, don’t get me wrong…but I don’t know how else to say except that things LOOK and FEEL like home up here. It’s the climate. I’m used to hiking around in the damp coldness with green shit all around me, you know? LA just doesn’t have that. Never will. I think that’s honestly one of the main reasons I loved watching Battlestar Galactica, they filmed up in Vancouver and the ‘Couve is exceptionally similar to Humboldt in climate. Much the same rainfall as we get here (which is A LOT…much more than many other regions of the northwest).

Today was Seth’s birthday. He was at his own house playing this game I’ve only learned of this trip called Hearthstone…at least I think that’s what it’s called/spelled as. Apparently Scott plays it too. It’s a card game you play against other players online…and the game itself has a virtual you sitting at a card table. Amazing, right. Right.

Anyway, the Ho slept in this morning after taking care of the pups with breakfast and a bathroom run outside. I got up and worked on a couple sendbacks I had for two lessons. There were four total sendbacks, but I only had the project files for the two that I did. Holy bejesus was that shit frustrating. Not only was I missing a couple of images in one of the lessons, but the audio render file somehow had become corrupted and I couldn’t just reconnect the media…that’s a long way of saying that I had to go through and re-edit the entire lesson’s audio track. THEN…it wouldn’t render because of an issue with image files being connected to new media that was a different format than the original media. Ugh. That took me like an hour to figure out. But hey. I got it all done. That’s totally a win, right? Right.

Hopefully I’ll get paid for those two lessons this month. That would be pretty cool.

In the midst of figuring all that out, Liz and I took the pups out (finally) to go on a legit walk…and it promptly started raining on us šŸ˜› We were early enough in our walk, however, that we were able to just turn around and get home, put sweaters on the pups, and just drive up town in the car to walk around there. At least there were awnings there to huddle under should it start raining in earnest. It never really did, and we got donuts (which we wanted to do the previous morning, but they were closed). I dropped mine in its bag (unharmed, in the end), and when Liz tried to reenact the whole affair for the camera, Coco nearly made off with her donut. That was hilarious.

Then we were home and we ate some food, did some laundry, and I finished figuring out my sendbacks. It was already time to then feed and take the pups out again, so we did that and my mom came with us. We wisely stuck to just walking down and back up market street this time, because it was still raining in spurts. That was a lot of fun, and the Ho again got some amazing pictures of the sunset across the valley. So pretty.

Then we got back, and dinner was a good hour away, so Liz squirreled herself in our bedroom to record narrations, and I settled in for a quick nap with the pups in the Rose Room (where my mom sleeps at night). I woke up an hour later, and came downstairs *just* as Seth and Queena were arriving for dinner. We had an awesome Roast Beef dinner, topped off with cake and ice cream afterwards. We put Scott on the FaceTime to see Seth open up the present he co-bought with the parents, which was this suuuuper nice drawing tablet for the computer so he can make concept art for this game-to-end-all-games that he’s been working on for a couple years now. He loved it, of course, and it was awesome to feel like Scott was kinda there with us. I tell you, being able to see someone on video while you talk to them definitely makes it feel much more like they’re actually there. Love technology.

Then, we all settled in to watch this Norwegian adventure movie called Ragnarok, which ended up being a bit of a SyFy movie of the month towards the end, but otherwise was legitimately fun and amazing throughout. It was a blast, the perfect movie to watch with Seth, and exactly what he wanted to do on his birthday. The dude is 30 now. Congrats brother, I love you šŸ˜‰

Now we’re settled in for our last night up in Humboldt. It’s gone by so quickly, just like it did down in the Bay Area, and it’s been another wonderful Christmas. We’ve spent a lot of time up here in Humboldt this year, much more so than the past couple years, and that’s been exhausting for sure, but mostly just very very nice. Nice to be home, you know?

Tomorrow, we travel down to see Ryry. Cannot freaking WAIT to see that guy. I got to see a lot of him this year, too, which has also been very nice. I want to savor that while I can. I know as time goes on, seeing all my loved ones in their various places in the world will become more difficult. It’s just natural, as we all spread out into the winds of our own lives.

That’s all for now. I will talk to you guys tomorrow from Rhonert Park, our final last day up in Northern California. It’s been real.

PS- tonight’s artwork is a Comicon preview of next years’ 2015 Hallmark Star Trek ornament. Yes, it is the Spock death scene from TWOK. Yes, it is the best concept for a Christmas Ornament ever. Yes, it will be mine.