{"id":1555,"date":"2010-07-21T21:47:09","date_gmt":"2010-07-22T04:47:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/?p=1555"},"modified":"2010-07-21T22:19:00","modified_gmt":"2010-07-22T05:19:00","slug":"relaxination","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/2010\/07\/21\/relaxination\/","title":{"rendered":"Relaxination"},"content":{"rendered":"

When the Backcountry job started in January it was initially scheduled to last until May 1. That date later became June 1 before mysteriously morphing into October 1. Because of the short initial project duration I didn’t schedule any vacation, and through the first half of the year had managed only two days off – Memorial Day and one day of hiking and heat stroke<\/a> with Aaron. With burnout building the little men in the brain were screaming for a long weekend, so the July Fourth holiday became a five day affair, with two days of lounging at home, a night at the new LA Ritz Carlton<\/a>, and then a visit on the Fourth from my enigmatic brother.<\/p>\n

While I’m still a fan of sleeping in the Subaru<\/a> and living the grungy backpacker lifestyle, the passage of time has made a few additional options possible, and a night at the Ritz clearly has its appeal. Audrey and I had a ridiculous dinner of crab and dim sum on the 24th floor overlooking downtown, and the following day I enjoyed my second-ever<\/a> massage from a masseuse who looked like Britney Spears (circa 2001) and would have made a lesser man cry as she attacked any trace of non-relaxation in my back and shoulders. After the short drive home we hosted my brother, who arrived late in the evening, and the next day turned into a Fourth of July grill-fest and wine-drinking event highlighted by New Zealand’s finest $10 wine and a cornucopia of seared veggies.<\/p>\n

While these events may not end up as epic memories in the way that a trip to Antarctica<\/a> or the Galapagos<\/a> might, they’re nevertheless one more page in the future autobiography (“Ryan Holliday: A Cautionary Tale”) to be released at some point 40-70 years hence.<\/p>\n

\"Aaron<\/p>\n

Aaron Holliday, pepper grilling mastermind.<\/div>\n

\"Audrey<\/p>\n

Audrey demonstrates where the steak is about to go.<\/div>\n

\"Los<\/p>\n

Our trip to the Ritz coincided with the Los Angeles Anime Expo<\/a>. Needless to say, we spent a LOT of time people watching. This guy is apparently anime Paul Bunyan.<\/div>\n

\"Los<\/p>\n

I’m guessing these two were probably together.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When the Backcountry job started in January it was initially scheduled to last until May 1. That date later became June 1 before mysteriously morphing into October 1. Because of the short initial project duration I didn’t schedule any vacation, and through the first half of the year had managed only two days off – … Continue reading “Relaxination”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1555"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1578,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1555\/revisions\/1578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/mountaininterval.org\/journal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}