To my whole three readers, it has been a long time. My life has changed pretty drastically since I’ve last posted. I recently accepted a traveling position with the company I currently work for. My “home-base” is be in Orange, California, but I will only be there for a week or two at a time before I travel elsewhere.

My current location is the home of Golden State Warriors, The Bay Area. I’ve been holed up in a hotel somewhere in the North Bay; for those stalkers out there. Obviously, work is my primary focus or I wouldn’t be out here. Because of the privacy attached to the line of work I’m in — Mental Health — and for the sake of keeping your interest, I am not going to be talking about work.

My first day here I visited the Golden Gate Bridge, and have drove across it several times since. I decided to go gor broke and checked off another box of my California Bucketlist, which was to run across the Golden Gate Bridge. I haven’t been consistent with my cardio for about a year, but I’m satisfied with my time of average pace of 8.14 mi/hr across the 1.7 mi long infamous bridge.

I’ve been applying myself a little bit more and attempting to stay motivated, so I created a Cali checklist of things I want to do in my new home state during my trip to Yosemite. Which just happens to be to the most exciting thing I’ve done so far since traveling up here.

A Co-Worker/New friend of mine, her friend, and I took an spur of the moment trip to Yosemite National Park, since we both had the same two days off. We stayed in a house/cabin in the park’s premises and even though we got there that Tuesday evening and left Wednesday afternoon, the only word that come to mind is breathtaking — as cliché as that sounds. As someone who used to have a climbing gym membership, I was interested in attempting to climb at least part of Half-Dome or El Captain. Unfortunately the time restraint of having work the following morning, I wasn’t able to do so. We did stop at the scenic Tunnel View and hiked the entirety of the Lower Yosemite Falls Trail.”

“You went all the way to Yosemite and only hiked the Lower Yosemite Falls”.

– Inner me

During my second week in the Bay area, I actually flew back to OC during my two days off. The plan was to move out of the room I a renting before the end of the month to avoid paying rent and move me items into storage. Long story short, I got a little too drunk the night before I was going to grab the rental trunk and the hangover kept me from accomplishing this. Hangover as in, violently dry heaving in front of a restaurant the next afternoon level of hangover. With someone’s suggestion and because I literally do work in mental health/addiction treatment, I set out to quit for 30 days after this incident. I ended up having a small drink a week later. Including today I have drank 2 days out of the past 14 days. I didn’t necessarily reach my goal, but I am being more vigilant with my bad habits.

Old Habits Die Hard

The next two weeks back in NorCal I definitely went back with a clearer purpose and it wasn’t until the hangover incident that I ran across the bridge. Several notable things I also did: went skateboarding at two skateparks, went to the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and San Francisco Botanical Garden twice with work, hike the Bluff Trail at the Golden Gate, and despite being a MMA fan since being a teen I took my first Brazilian Ju-Jitsu class.

I’m back in Orange County for a week and headed to a different part of the Bay on the 19th, so as always…

—Till Next Time

Malik Kwazi Hall