The latest:

• The final details of the May 2006 Galapagos trip are being worked out with Thalia & Greg. I've been collecting the names of people who have said they might want to come, but if you're at all interested please drop me an email so that I can make sure I keep you in the loop. Costs (not including the flight to Quito) will be in the $3000 range for a two week trip, although you're welcome to stay longer. Scuba diving at Darwin and Wolf should also be a possibility.
• The apartment search is ongoing -- hopefully I'll have a place in the Bay Area soon, after which a road trip may be needed.
• I'm not planning on working a regular job for a while. There have been several ideas rattling around in my head for a few years that I'd like to play with, so it won't be until after I fail miserably with those that I'll start thinking of what to do next.
• I've started running again, but at the moment I'm moving about as fast as a 160 pound sack of crap. Despite that I need to avenge my loss in the San Diego marathon to that 66 year old woman -- the next time I run a marathon there will be no old ladies crossing the line in front of me. Old men, maybe -- 26 miles is a long way to run, and those old dudes are wily little bastards.

Lastly, since this journal is slightly less boring when pictures are posted, here's one from one of the rare sunny days while on South Georgia:

Not that anything will change, or that it will make much difference, but here's another among many, many examples of the current administration's "sound science" policy (from http://www.shepherd-express.com/):

"Look for national parks' geology to be written more in the image of creationists over the next four years in the continuing effort to create "faith-based parks." An ongoing dispute at Grand Canyon National Park bookstores is that Grand Canyon, a Different View was ordered to stay on the bookshelves by top NPS brass. The book says that the Grand Canyon is 4,500 years old and was formed by Noah's flood. Conventional scientific wisdom has the canyon more around 6 million years old, still rather young compared to the age of the Earth. Despite protests from scientists and the Grand Canyon Park superintendent, the book has stayed on the shelves. The Bush administration said it would review the policy, but the review hasn't even been started since the February complaint. NPS has also ordered bronze plaques with verses from Psalms placed at canyon overlooks, truly emphasizing what a Judeo-Christian religious experience the view can be."

It's one thing to advocate a belief system; it's quite another to promote that belief system as fact. I can't help but feel like the country is slowly turning into some bizzaro world in which facts don't matter and can be dismissed, but anything that has no proof behind it at all can be held up as an "alternative view". Sadly, for at least the next four years this bizzaro world is the reality within America, and I don't understand how the majority of the country allowed it to happen.

After a harrowing apartment search that included the world's skinniest studio (probably seven feet wide) and the world's most lopsided studio (I would have been an earthquake casualty waiting to happen) I finally found a new place to live. It's up in the hills in Lafayette, and for once in my life it's actually somewhere I really like -- a separate cottage with deer that come by in the morning, an owl who visits in the evening, and a bunch of squirrels to fill in the hours in between. When being pooped on by wild animals gets old it's only a five minute drive to the nearest Starbucks and a twenty minute shot into San Francisco. I'm still unpacking so the photos below are a bit of a mess, although they do show off the big manly fireplace fairly well.

We arrived in Vegas on Wednesday night in a limo. After less than twenty-four hours in Sin City we were able to get back to the airport in a cab... barely.

Merry Christmas everyone -- hope you had a good one. Best of luck for 2005!

A look back at 2004, by Dave Barry. "But no question, 2004 was bad. Consider: We somehow managed to hold a presidential election campaign that for several months was devoted almost entirely to the burning issue of: Vietnam."