Wow! What happened with July?

I honestly have to say that I don’t remember too much other than basically getting into a regular routine.

Work has basically been non-existent, so I’ve been working on a bunch of other little projects – learning Piano, making my Monkey Maze game for the iPad, and improving my pre and post video production skills. I haven’t even done any flying – Droning or Aerial. My goal was to be actively flying everyday to finish up my FAA Private Pilots License by the end of the summer. I was even planning to do the last leg and final checkout rides in Alaska. But COVID kind of changed all that and there are no instructors willing to take on new students anywhere along the west coast.

Speaking of flying, we did have some old aircraft fly over our house for July 4th (Independence Day). I went out on the roof to get some good shots and when I was all done and putting the camera equipment back through the window, a young 5-year old down below asked what I was doing on the roof and if I was Santa’a Clause. LOL!

I told him that I have a special door to get out on the roof. Besides, his mother was with him and I didn’t want him to get the idea that it’s okay to climb though your window onto a roof! I also had to tell him that it was a little too hot for Santa to be going around rooftop to rooftop in the middle of the summer (it was 100ºF after all).

So for the month of July nothing really special happened, except that the Dubussy-Mulan Piano project I was involved in was completed. We had 130 pianists from all over the world contribute to a score where we played a special arrangement of Pagodes by Claude Debussy and the theme song to Disney’s Mulan. If you want, you can see the video 7 minute video of the complete score in the photos above. That was a lot of fun and I played a few parts while Hugh, my piano teacher from Cunningham Piano, coordinated and put the whole project together.

As for other things, we just didn’t go away and ended up staying local. We kept away from the stores as much as possible because few people are wearing masks or socially distancing. We were getting out everyday in the morning because I had a ‘bee up my Bonnet’ in that I wanted to do a 5K-A-DAY challenge. With who you ask? Well… nobody. Just myself. Of course I also managed to drag Ayano our with me on every single outing – while she also negotiated that I take her grocery shopping once in a while after we were done. Tee-Hee! It worked out great and we had some primetime outside in the mornings together wit next to no people around.

The favorite part of these morning outings was to get down to the beach during low tide. Unfortunately, we only had a few days at the beginning of the month for that. As a matter of fact, the tide was so high during the full moon that the waves engulfed the entire Balboa peninsula over July 4th weekend. There was even a boat that got shipwrecked along the beach we usually run on.

I’m also trying to take a different picture everyday while I’m doing my Nike Plus marathon training and July was no exception as I managed to take a picture every single day. I’d then get home and post it up on instagram with a little blurb for the running community. It helped me keep motivated through out July as there were a few days that I just didn’t want to go out.

And that my friends… is about it. We are supposed to be flying up to Washington State in August over my birthday. But I think we will be postponing that trip as the situation with this virus is still getting worse down here. We shall see… we shall see…