Nelson vs. World

Hello world, its been a while. I blame myself really. I could make up some excuse about all the crazy things I have going on in my life: my crazy summer vacations, my ever growing modeling career, or my strenuous campus job, but ultimately I think I will chalk up my absence to my mourning of the king of Pop.

So here is hoping I can stay more on top of this blogging thing, maybe now that I live 850 miles away from the land of milk and honeys I will do better in keeping everybody up to speed with my life.

I left for my internship here in San Jose first thing Thursday morning. My good friend and fellow intern Ty caravanned with me to the golden state so as to avoid bad guys, rouge tumbleweeds, and most importantly, those savage Laker fans. We made pretty good time actually. We both listened to audio books during our pilgrimage. I listened to Angels and Demons, care of the Beck family. Ty listened to the first Harry Potter, apparently he had not read any of the books yet -- I immediately questioned his patriotic allegiance. Angels and Demons was pretty good, I do regret seeing the movie first, but all in all it was pretty good.

Our first weekend we had exceptional weather, in fact it was on of the hottest heat waves the bay area has had in years. Noting the heat, we decided to hit up the beach our first saturday. The only problem is, everyone in the whole state was thinking the same thing. We made our way to the Santa Cruz boardwalk to see the most crowded beach I had ever seen. It was still quite fun though, well worth the trip. Little did we know that we'd be back on that beach 2 more times before the next week was over.

Our roommate situation couldn't be better. We got in contact with these guys through one of my friends back in Provo, and it turns out these guys are stand up guys. Little known fact: it turns our that the term "stand up guy" is a masonic term. One of my roomies works for PwC in IT audit just like me, another works with Omniture but works on-site at Apple, and me and Ty are kicking it at EY. The singles ward is pretty sweet out here. It is actually one of the largest singles wards in the area, if not the largest. We've had an activity of some sorts like every other day, so we are meeting a lot peoples.

Monday - Wednesday was training at the firm in the San Jose office. We were joined by the Palo Alto interns for training, all in all there were about 50 people in our class. Way cool people as well, I've really enjoyed getting to know everyone. Most of the interns come from Santa Clara, Cal Poly, Berkley, and BYU. Only about 5 of the interns are assigned to the same IT Audit/Consulting practice as I am though.

Wednesday night we joined the ward in Oakland for our ward temple night. It was an awesome session, its amazing how a new stage in life opens up a whole new perspective. Following the session we all ended up in at In and Out as you do when you live in Cali.

We had Thursday and Friday off for the the holidays, so we took the opportunity to see the coast. Thursday we headed out to Monterey to see the sights out there. Thinking of my sister Wendy the whole time, we hit up the aquarium which was awesome! They had some pretty wicked jelly fish, sea horses, and sharks on display. It was pretty sweet man! After seeing some sweet sea carnage we embarked on the famous 17 mile drive. According to 100% accurate Wikipedia, "the 17 Mile Drive is a scenic road through Pacific Grove and Pebble Beach, California, United States, much of which hugs the Pacific coastline and passes famous golf courses and mansions. It also serves as the main road through the gated community of Pebble Beach. Like the community, the majority of 17-Mile Drive is owned and operated by the Pebble Beach Corporation." Pebble was awesome, it was my first time at a world famous golf course. Tee times were a very affordable $350 a person. I played the best golf of my life knowing that I was golfing with the worlds best.

Friday was our first surfing trip, and great was the trip thereof. It turns out one of my good mission friends Brian Green is from the area, so he got a group together to go surfing in Santa Cruz. I was riding a 9-foot longboard, made of newbies like me. Maybe it was the adrenaline rush, maybe it was the fact that I had 9 people watching me, or maybe it was because I was swimming from a pool of great white sharks, but my very first wave, very first try I caught a beautiful wave and was up on my feet riding it all the way to the shore. It was a thing of beauty. It was the only time I actually stood up during our 3 hour session, but it was still way fun. So I was lying a little about the sharks, but we did surf beside 4 dolphins and 2 seals so that was cool.

Saturday, the 4th of July was spent at the Call's home. The Call's were in leadership in our ward a few years back and I guess they just love having us over because they host the singles ward at their beautiful house twice a month. We played tennis, volleyball, and the highlight was watermellon water polo. After the day at the Calls we went to a park in Santa Clara and watched a wicked firework show. It was jam packed because most of the cities is in the area canceled theirs due to the fact that the whole state is bankrupt. Party on.

Well that is my first week in Cali. I'll do my best to keep you up to date with my travels. Stay thirsty my friends.

P.S. I lost my charger for my camera, so I'll have to post some more pictures when I steal them from my roommate. Sorry.