Oceanside

California by Grimes. Link if I remember.

I've finally gotten a chance to go on a long bike ride again. Long is relative for everyone of course, for me, it's about an hour so. That has gotten from one of SF to the other, and now I find myself over at Ocean Beach. I like it here, especially on St. Patrick's Day. It's a bit too… aggressive? in the city for me. I hope I'm not too old to party, but I'll admit that this one is definitely kind of past me. It's pretty surprising actually - I love beer, I love the color green, I like pubs [dive bars are usually my go to however]. For one reason or another however, it just doesn't click with me. There's some people in green out here, but I think they're just wearing it as opposed to “celebrating”¹.

Regardless, it's quiet out here. Everyone is taking their time walking around. There's plenty of dogs, but even they are pretty content. Maybe they're just tired out too. I know I am - it's been such a long week and I finally needed to stop and just hit the reset button. No better place than in the ocean breeze. I've always loved the beach - it seems like the world's largest playground. It's got a pool and you can build sandcastles - perfect. I'm a bit picky about the beaches though. Blame San Diego - after going to those literal perfect beaches, it's pretty hard to go back to anything else. Ocean Beach has great sand and great water, but it's too cold for the most part. Those few months after summer² when it gets warm here are the absolute best. Despite living in California, people out here seem to be scared of the heat. Shame! That's the best time to be out on the beach - hot sun, cool wind, chilly water. Going through that cycle is the is th ebest way to be really comfortable. There's that [silly?] philosophy [problem?] about needing to be sad sometimes in order to actually be happy. I'm not going to offer any opinion on that as a lifestyle, but they do have a point when it comes to weather.

In other news, I went rock climbing for the second time this week. Both times I went with people from work and it's been… different! I've been pretty up front about my desire ~to pretend~ to maintain my physical health (it's a GoodThing), and my gym membership expired on March 1st³. I've been “searching” (used generously) for a new gym for awhile now, and so I joined my coworkers at their gym. For those following along at home - Dogpatch Boulders. I've been rock climbing a few times in high school, but overall I was pretty :meh: on it. It's a lot more personal than I expected. Sure, there's crowds and you have to wait in line for a bit to try a route, but it didn't really feel like a gym. I've been trying to put my finger on why, and my best guess is that it doesn't have mirrors or TVs. Hear me out - I'm not saying everyone who goes to the gym is a narcissist⁴, it's just a lot of reflection on form and style and all that. On the climbing wall, there's none of that. Just you staring at some colored blocks trying to get up. It's quite refreshing honestly, and despite the miserable aura I put off to my coworkers, they and I both know I enjoy it. The free-form aspect of it is great. The watching the skin fall of my hands aspect, that I could do without.

Last piece of my update - we moved to a new building on Friday! Rather, we'll move into the new office on Monday, but we've moved out of the old one on Friday. It was a pretty cool step for me mentally. Sure, the apartment life was quite fun, and I'm glad to say I was there at that stage, but it also was getting a little old. Now we'll have a real office with real space for real lab work. While the physical upgrade is nice, I'm hoping there won't be any mental downgrade. I am slightly worried that everything will become more corporate, but I think everyone else has a healthy dose of skepticism with respect to that. They've been pretty clear with me on that - it's about the culture, not the space. I don't really like thinking of things in terms of company culture: it feels too nebulous⁵ and vague.

I know it's not cool to think of your job as your friends nowadays because

• It encourages poor work-life balance
• Liberal twitter says so
• I can't think of another reason but a two item list is two short {heh}

but I can't help it! Screw company culture and just work with people you like. I really, really like my coworkers. We've hung out a little bit more outside of my work and it's been great. Simple things like grabbing dinner/drinks, seeing a concert, going to the gym, the usual. They're all people I would want to be friends with outside of work, so this regular 50-ish hours a week is just a bonus. The sun just came out from behind the clouds, so that's what I get to blame this last minute surge of positivity on. Happy weekend y'all.