I'm not going to make any apologies for the fact that I'm wearing shorts right now. I'm aware that most of my audience is buried under half a foot of snow right now, but it's not like I'm responsible for that snow. Look, I feel about about your situation, but I'm not going to pussyfoot around the fact that it is gorgeous here in southern California right now. And I'm not the kind of man who throws the word "gorgeous" around without second guessing himself.

It was all worth it: The five days packed into a car with an anxious border collie, the instant coffee, the frozen tundra of Nebraska and Iowa. They were all worth it to get here. Since arriving Tuesday evening, the sun has been consistantly shining as we've been enjoying the 70 degree temperatures. We did have a strange fog roll in from the coast yesterday afternoon, but that settled down over night and I'm back out in the "office" again today. In case you're interested, here is what my office looks like for the next six weeks.

I feel that I should also report -- or perhaps confess -- that of our three evenings in Venice, I have visited our local In-N-Out Burger three times. They do have great burgers, but I actually have gotten a bit addicted to their "grilled cheese" sandwich. It's basically the same as the burger with everything but the meat. Fantastic, and I can at least remotely convince myself that it's "good for you." Or at least "better for me." Right?

The place we're staying at has turned out to be a pretty good choice. It's definitely smaller than we're used to, but it's set up fairly efficiently so we don't feel like we're crammed into a tiny studio, even though we really are. The owners are coming out this weekend to fix a few cosmetic things this weekend, but once that's taken care of we'll be sure to get some pictures to post.

Gus is having a really good time. In the picture above, you'll see a door off to the right; That's the main door to the apartment, and we generally just leave that open all day. The porch is entirely walled in, so Gus is free to walk from the inside to the porch at his leisure. He typically splits his days evenly between sleeping in the sun outside, tossing his tennis ball around, and barking incessantly at the skateboards he hears rolling by on the sidewalk.

We're only about six blocks away from the Venice boardwalk and beach, and will probably end up spending a good part of this coming weekend out there. Look for some more pictures Monday, and until then try to stay warm!

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On our way out to Los Angeles last year, we were pretty straightforward about it; We asked Google Maps the quickest way to get there, and that's the way we went. We decided that this year, we should take our time and see a little more of the country on our way out. So on New Year's Day, January and I packed up the car, packed a cooler with water and 5 hour energy shots, and headed west toward our first stop: Omaha.

If there's one thing I can say about Omaha it's that it's cold. Or at least it was during the night we spent there. The temperature was right around zero, but the wind chill brought it down to the negative 20 range. As I unloaded our overnight bags into the Motel 6, I was seriously concerned about frostbite. I've been told by Nathan that this is absolutely normal for this time of year. No wonder he left.

We spent the next day dilligently driving through Nebraska and Wyoming, which is about as exciting as it sounds. In general, the landscape was nice, and I've never seen so many cows in my life, but it got a little old after the first couple of hours.

At the end of day three, we rolled our way into Salt Lake City and settled in at the downtown Motel 6.

After my blog post last week about our tentative travel plans, a friend from Twitter who lives in Salt Lake City volunteered to meet up with us and show us around the city. Christian is actually a local elected official who lives just a couple blocks away from the heart of downtown Salt Lake City, so he was the perfect person to show us everything we wanted to see.

We started the day off up in the hills above the city where we were able to enjoy this amazing view of the whole valley.  Afterwards, Christian guided us around the various historical parts of the city, including a recently built LDS temple, the big downtown temple at Temple Square, and the uber-massive Convention Center where Mormons gather twice a year for teachings. We were able to see everything we had wanted, and with the added bonus of having someone who knew what everything was along for the ride. January has all the really good pictures, so I'll leave those for her to tackle in a more detailed article, but we had a great day visiting Salt Lake City. Thanks for showing us around, Christian!

Early afternoon, January and I hit the road again and made our way through the Salt Flats of Utah. Apparently, back in the day, the Great Salt Lake extended all the way across Utah. Eventually the water dissipated, leaving behind miles and miles of salt, up to six feet deep in some places. We stopped at a rest area about an hour outside of Salt Lake City to check it out.

At the bottom of that picture is actually snow, and you can see where it just stops immediately where the salt flats start. Looking at it, you almost expected it to be 20 degrees warmer stepping across the dividing line.

After another night of driving, this time through Nevada and the winding hills of California, we reached Motel 6 #3 in Oakland. It was right on a harbor and was actually pretty cool, but we were really too exhausted to appreciate it. The next morning, we worked our way into San Francisco for a brief self-guided tour of the city. We eventually reached the Golden Gate Bridge and stopped to get a few pictures and contemplate walking across, which we ultimately decided against.

The weather was amazing; Although it was only in the upper 40's, having passed through Nebraska and Wyoming really made us appreciate it. Gus also appreciated that, as we worked our way down California 1, we kept our windows down so he could enjoy the breeze.  As we approached Monterey, home of our fourth and final Motel 6 experience of the trip, we took the time to stop at one of the fresh fruit stands on the side of the road. I'm pretty sure that if I lived out here, I wouldn't eat anything except oranges from these stands.

So here we are, tucked in at the Motel 6 in Monterey California. In the morning we'll get up, load our overnight bags back into the car, and stop off at Monterey Bay to catch the sunrise before we work our way down the Pacific Coast Highway toward our eventual destination in Venice. We've got a lot more pictures (and videos) from the trip, so we'll have to compile something once we get settled in, but we wanted to give you a little taste now. I hope you're enjoying following along with us, and if you haven't yet, you can see updates and pictures from along the way on the main Team Soell page.

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Every year when I put together my "best of" music mix, I have three very strict rules:

1. Only include tracks that you've first heard in the past year
2. Include music with strong memories associated with it
3. Don't go overboard

While I would prefer to include only music put out in the past year, there is almost always a large chunk of the mix that has been around for years, but I've only just heard it at some point in the past 12 months. I feel pretty good about this year's mix: only half of the tracks are from 2008 or earlier.

I tried to add all the tracks that have a strong memory attached, but also really didn't want to violate the third and most important rule. What kills a good mix, nine times out of ten, is too many tracks that just don't all go together. So I've got a nice 11-track mix here that sums up 2009 nicely for me.

I hope you enjoy it, click here to give it a listen

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In one week, Team Soell will be on the road to California! In between wrapping presents, going to various family functions, and visiting with friends who are in town we've been eagerly discussing our travels plans and the sights we want to see along the way.  Last year, as you may recall, we took the straight-forward southern route; This year we're taking our time a bit and seeing what there is to see in the northern states. So, I present to you, The Plan:

January 1: Team Soell packs up first thing in the morning heading west through the neighbor states of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa. After twelve hours of driving we plan to set up camp in Omaha, home of all that beef you've heard about.

January 2: We continue our westward push through Nebraska and Wyoming, ultimately landing in Salt Lake City. January has a strange fascination with the LDS church, so we're hoping to get there late on day two, get some good sleep, and spend the next morning visiting the temple and other big Mormon sites.

January 3: After getting our fill of Big Love, we'll work our way through northern Nevada and Plumas National Forest in California until we end up in Napa Valley.

January 4: Our apartment in Venice won't be ready for us until the 5th, so we'll spend a day in Napa Valley checking out the vineyards, drinking some local wines, and enjoying the warmer weather.

January 5: On the last day of our trip, we'll work our way down the California coast on the Pacific Coast Highway until we reach the LA coast.

If you know of any interesting places we should check out along the way that are relatively close to our travel path, we'd love to hear about them. We've already been told that we absolutely must visit Harris Pizza in Bettendorf, Iowa and we're planning doing exactly that.

We're also going to take tons of pictures and make frequent posts here and on Twitter, but you'll want to keep an eye on the main Team Soell page for the most frequent updates, including a live map of our progress with embedded status updates and pictures.

We'd also really like to hear from everyone while we're out of town. Unlike last year, we'll actually have a mailing address this year, and I promise here and now that anyone who takes the time to send us a letter (or baked goods?) will get a letter in return:

Team Soell
363 Rose Avenue
Venice, CA 90291

January 3: Instead of heading to Napa -- let's be honest, neither January nor I really know that much about wine -- we'll head down to San Francisco and set up shop for the night.

January 4: Six hours away from Venice, and 36 hours until our apartment is ready. That leaves plenty of time to do some sight-seeing in San Francisco. After we've had enough of the Golden Gate Bridge, we'll drive two hours down the road to one of the top dog-friendly cities in America: Carmel-by-the-Sea. We'll settle in, grab some dinner, and rest up for the last day of our roadtrip.

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