A lot of people love Southern California.

I am not one of them; maybe it's that I'm really only ever there for work or maybe it's the frequency of visits I've made there over the past six weeks. Put simply, it's a desert with a coastline and a lot of smog and traffic.

Pros, however, include getting to the see Team Hoov/Hawk regularly, the DoubleTree warm-check-in cookie in Monrovia and the fact that the cheapest rental car happens to always be a convertible. Also, I've been frequenting a chophouse where the waitress knows my name that has the best filet I've had in my life. The frequent flier miles are piling up and I can recite the flight numbers off the top of my head (wait, that might not be a pro).

Cons include the time difference, the days lost of productivity in Texas, waiting for the rental shuttle at ONT, the twenty degree temperature difference between where I am and where Hoov is, and finally how every hotel insists on down pillows. If I wanted to wake up with my head on the mattress because the pillow flattens into nothing, then i'd just forget the damn thing in the first place.

Other than that, I'm ok.