will he ever leave?

Nine days to go until I leave the country. (This is my first attempt at publishing on the world-wide waste-o-time.) I will have spent one month longer in San Diego than I had planned, which means I have taken Hawaii off my list of destinations for this trip; it was to be my first destination. In the past six weeks I have managed to get back in shape by running and biking almost everyday and by not going out to eat and drink. I have also spent a lot of time getting paperwork ready for my eventual return, i.e. medical licenses and employment. A lot of time has been spent on preparing for this long trip mentally: reading other travelogues for inspiration, watching movies, looking for more equipment. It has been much too easy to sit in my parents' home, the house I grew up in, and revert to adolescence. I had foreseen this problem, but I was still unable to avoid it. What finally broke me out of this haze was the departure of my parents for Asia three weeks ago. I also spent a long time emailing a couple travel agents over the itinerary and prices. It took me forever to commit to a date of departure; finally, last week, I bought my ticket.
It has been ten years since I moved from San Diego. My observations:
It is much more crowded than I remember.
Traffic blows; the freeways begin to clog up at 3 pm on weekdays. For the past ten years, I hardly ever had to use the freeways (Hershey, York, and Biloxi).
Navigating the aisles with a shopping cart at Costco (a discount warehouse like Sam's Club) and 99 Ranch (Asian supermarket) on a weekend produces more road rage than the I-5/805 merger, which actually has improved in the past ten years.
The wonderful tacos in Tijuana are STILL three for a dollar, which means, ten years ago, I was getting ripped off!