Day 9

Extreme unnecessary closeup

Los Angeles is a big city. Los Angeles, like Houston, is very spread out but it also has a much greater population density. There is a lot to do in this city. I was there just this past July and I know I barely scratched the surface of what the city had to offer. Los Angeles has Hollywood, famous beaches, Beverly Hills, Disneyland, 6-Flags Magic Mountain, and these are just a few of the more touristy things. My wife was in Los Angeles once 12 years ago, but did not get to see any of the city... what to do, what to do.

First thing to do was breakfast. This was to be the last meal at the hotel as the breakfast buffet cost $15 per person... but that homemade waffle was so freaking good. The first place we went was up to Mulholland Drive. I wanted to show my wife the view of the Los Angeles basin from up there. Unfortunately all we got to see was a mixture of fog and smog... it was hard enough just to see the buildings on Hollywood Boulevard.

From there we went to Beverly Hills and the world famous Rodeo Drive. Rodeo Drive is a beautiful little stretch of urban street, but just being on that road makes me feel poor. Any effects from a sick economy aren't felt in Beverly Hills. We walked around for a bit, took some pictures, and left to see where we could go next.

While trying to exit the Beverly Hills area via La Cienega, I came across The Stinking Rose. I wanted to eat there last time I was in Los Angeles, but never got the chance. We had lunch, which would have been perfect had it not been for the appetizer, and dessert - garlic ice cream. I like garlic.

We did some walking up and down Hollywood Boulevard. My wife got to get some pics with her favorite stars' landmarks and some pics of the sidewalk in front of Mann's Chinese Theater. I had no problem doing the touristy thing with my wife since she had not seen any of this before.

After spending about 30 minutes at the hotel we went into Hawthorn, California, near Inglewood to visit one of my wife's childhood friends. The last time they had seen each other was in 1996 at her wedding. They were happy to see each other, although I'm not quite sure what to make of this woman's husband. He was curt to the point of rudeness when we got there and after about 10 minutes made a not-so-graceful exit from the room. As far as I was concerned it was good riddance. My wife's friend wanted us to stay there while we were in Los Angeles, but I'm glad my wife decided not to do so. I think we would have been searching for a hotel on the 2nd day.

As we leave her friend's house I realize how glad I am took the Loss Damage Waiver on the car. The front air scoop under the front fascia bottomed out as I backed out of the driveway. I looked at when we got back to the hotel - it was scratched up pretty bad. That little voice in my head actually got through to me for once.

Off to bed we go because we have an early brunch appointment with my wife's friend. Goodnight.

Day 8

I am soooooo tired.

First off, I know I was going to try to post every day while I was line Los Angeles, but we were on the go all day everyday we were there and was tired by the end of each day. I did, however, take notes... here we go.

This has been one of my longest days ever. I got to bed around 2 am, got to sleep sometime past 3 am, and was awoken at 4:30 to get ready to head to the airport. I didn't even get to REM sleep... this is going to be a rough one.

And rough it was. I did manage some catnaps on the plane, but nothing approaching restful sleep. The flight was uneventful and smooth as glass going in. At least we were able to get an exit room seat where we could stretch our legs. Got our luggage and went to the car rental counter. The car smells like cigarette smoke and there are scratches all over the passenger side. I got someone to fill out the damage inspection and made sure every little ding was pointed out. I''m too tired at this point to try to get another car. Besides, 24 hours with the windows down or AC blowing should clear up some of the stale cigarette smoke.

The first purpose was to do a location check on the Philippine Embassy so I could get an idea of what time we needed to leave the hotel in the morning. When we left the airport, however, it was not even yet noon. My wife suggested going into the embassy and seeing if we could take care of business that day.

We got to the embassy, which is located on the 5th floor of an office building in the middle of Korea-town, at around 12:30 pm. There weren't too many people in there waiting, but the employees were on lunch break until 1 pm. We took our number and waited. As it got closer to 1 pm, however, the room started to quickly fill up as those who had been waiting since morning also came back from eating lunch. By the way, our lunch consisted of a soft drink and a shared bag of Cool Ranch Doritos. By 1 pm the room was very crowded and the first number called was 169... we had number 283.

We waited until just before 5 pm before my wife was called. We took care of things and headed back to the hotel. We ate dinner ($43 for a burger, a chicken club sandwich, an appetizer, and 2 drinks) and went up to the room. Off to dreamland with thoughts of what to do in Los Angeles on Day 9, now that we don't need to go the embassy.

Day 7

Waaaaaay too much forehead. It makes me wonder why I need a haircut.

I hate putting my cat into the cat carrier. I don't like fighting with her as she knows how to bite and still has rear claws. I also hate to have to squeeze her hard to keep her from squirming while I dump her into the carrier head first... rear legs flailing, claws out, trying to bite my hand, squirming, and white cat hair flying everywhere.

In less than 12 hours I'm off to Los Angeles. I was there in July 2008 and found what I saw to be a pretty cool city. I'm looking forward to going back. I have an aunt in Pasadena and another aunt, uncle, and cousins in Victorville, CA. I'm going to try to visit both this weekend. Besides, I think it would be rather cool to get some desert shots to add to my portfolio and my flickr page.

Speaking of pictures, I just realized I forgot to buy film for my film SLR. I use Kodak UC film in my 35mm, which is pro-level and not available at your local Walgreen's or CVS. I know there's a camera store chain in Los Angeles called Samy's. Perhaps I'll pick some up before we head to Victorville. I would love to take my Pentax 645, but that camera is heavy and not much fun for traveling.

Well, folks, I'm off to bed as I have to be up in about 5 hours for my trip. I'll continue to post what I can each as this is a project for the whole year. As for now I wish all of you a good night.

To all of my metalhead readers - pick up the new Cattle Decapitation when it comes out... this is some killer material.

Day 6

Lowering my blood pressure by supressing the production of ADH by my pituitary gland. Wine is good.

Icewine is a white wine that comes from those countries in the northern climes. Canada and Germany are the 2 largest producers of icewine. I heard once there was a French icewine, but this is probably wishful thinking on the part of some wine snobs.

Icewine gets its name from the fact that the grapes used are picked frozen off the vine. The vineyard does a late planting which brings the grapes to maturity in late November/early December. They grapes are harvested after the first frost. From there I would assume the rest of the process pretty much follows normal winemaking processes.

I had my first glass of icewine tonight. I was rather taken by the sweetness of the wine. It was definitely not expected. My wife seemed to enjoy it as she downed almost half of my glass. I guess this would make a great dessert wine. The bad part is that this particular brand cost $18 for 187ml. It definitely won't be an every evening wine.

I finally took a day off from the gym. My legs were really tight this morning and the blisters were burning. Last night was also my 5th day of going to the gym in a row. My foot feels a lot better so tomorrow I will be back at it.

Well, everyone, it's off to sleep as I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow. To all of you faithful and not-so-faithful readers, I bid you goodnight.

Day 5

No, no, no, no

There's nothing like the first day of 2-a-days at the gym to make you really tired. I finally started them today. I decided that this first week of 2-a-days is strictly for cardio so I can build up my long-term stamina again. At this point I'm doing the power walk thing and building up to some long distance jogging. Next week I'm going to hit the weights. My only problem is my trip to LA at best will only afford me one opportunity per day to hit the gym. I'll do what I can, though.

Today was fairly uneventful with nothing really exciting to report. I've been trying to follow the reporting on the Israeli operation in Gaza. So far on most news sites I've been reading a lot of news with an anti-Israel spin. I would expect the anti-Israel stuff from the nutball liberal blogs, but the mainstream media spin truly amazes me. And the mainstream outlets wonder why they are losing money.

As much as I hate to cut this short, I am a little tired and need to do a couple of things before going to bed. To all of you I bid goodnight.

Day 4

Swoosh! Stretching my leg after getting back from the gym.

Congratulations to the Baltimore Ravens and the Philadelphia Eagles on their playoff wins today. They join the San Diego Chargers and the Arizona Cardinals in advancing to the next round of the NFL Playoffs. I wasn't too happy last night about the Chargers overtime win over the Colts, but I have to hand them kudos for hanging in there to win.

Note to my friends and family Viking fans: the Houston Texans handed you guys that playoff spot... what happened?

Unfortunately my plan to start 2-a-days fell through, mostly through my own laziness. I went to bed really late last night and woke up rather late this morning. I'm not complaining though - the extra sleep felt really really good. I did go to the gym earlier this evening so it's not like I went the whole day without some strenuous exercise. I'm thinking the 2-a-days are going to start soon, but when is still up in the air at this point.

For the most part we spent the day trying to get a passport photo for my wife to renew her Philippine passport. I know you're saying that it can be done anywhere, but Philippine passports are not that easy. The Republic of the Philippines recently changed over to a Machine Readable Passport system which will apparently utilize some sort of facial recognition technology. The new requirements are to have a 3.5cm x 4.5 cm head-on shot on a royal blue background (most nations require a plain white background) with no open-mouth smiling. The royal blue background offers greater contrast so the face can be scanned by the machine. Most other passport photo places weren't aware of this and are not yet set up to take this type of photo. The cool part is the trip to Los Angeles that is coming up in a few days.

Off to bed I go. I have a long day with a lot of errands tomorrow in along with getting my billiing done for the clients. To all of you I bid goodnight.

Day 3

My thumb resting on the couch as I watch the beginning of the 2nd half of the Colts-Chargers playoff game.

It's now 3rd and 7 for the Colts in the 2nd quarter of their playoff game against the San Diego Chargers. Make that 4th and long... oh well, there's still about 33 minutes of football left for the evening. I have faith that Payton Manning can pull it through, especially against that wannabe quarterback Philip Rivers.

Today was a decent day in my world. I work up early for once and went to the gym fairly early. Of course it was crowded as for some reason the gym is always crowded early on Saturdays. I made it through my one hour treadmill experience without incident while rocking out to Witchcraft and Pantera. The bad thing is I had a blister develop on my foot while on the treadmill. This usually happens when I return after a layoff, so I shrugged it off.

Off to eat and then to the Houston Museum of Natural Science we went. Bodyworlds 2 is in Houston right now and I would like to see it. We saw the original Bodyworlds in Charlotte, NC in late 2007 and I thought it was one of the most interesting museum exhibits I had ever seen. The problem for us was we weren't the only people in Houston thinking of taking it in today. Judging by the length of the line for tickets to get in, it would seem that half the metropolitan area decided to descend upon the museum today. Off to Hermann Park we go.

The park visit was uneventful. I got one or 2 good shots in the park, but nothing really earth shattering. The bad part for this park visit, however, was the blister that formed earlier today. The blister opened while I was walking in the park and now it really hurts to step on my left foot. At least the skin didn't tear while I was walking. That event would have made the journey back to my car a living hell. I did make through a liquor store (to replace that $30 bottle of French wine, which is now a $35 bottle of French wine) and a computer store to purchase a USB cable.

It looks like my 2-a-days are going to start tomorrow. That's not a problem as now I am able to finish watching this game. The Colts are now up 17-14 and just inside Charger territory with the football.

At the risk of this turning into a live-blog of the game (and thus me earning the wrath of the NFL) I will stop this discussion. I bid you all a good night as I finish this game.

Day 2

Just got back from the gym and cleaning off my sunglasses.

A fairly uneventful day as far as days go in my world. I woke up, groomed and fed myself, and did a little bit of paperwork. Earlier this afternoon I went to the gym for the first time in 2009. I was going every day for a month in late October/early November but stopped as the semester was entering its final weeks and the demands on my time academically began to pile up. I guess for the month of December I just didn't feel like going but it's all good because this year we really didn't take in the gluttony that comes with the Christmas season. In fact, we didn't even order any petit-fours this year (and I love petit-fours).

That's not a bad thing though. It helps keep the unwanted pounds off my body. I wrestled with a nasty stomach bug in the week prior to the week of Christmas that dropped nearly 10 pounds off my body. My pants fit a little better now so that's definitely a plus. Hopefully with my pending return to full time gym-rat status I will get back down to my smoking weight. In fact, I plan on doing 2-a-days for at least a month. From there I can go further back down the slide.

Of course, eating at a Chinese buffet for dinner doesn't help with keeping the weight off.

Day 1

Bored as hell just looking at some photos on Flickr.com

I slept in really late for this first day of 2009. We attended a (mostly) alcohol-free gathering to ring in the new year this year but still got home really really late. Our host did offer a cup of champagne in celebration. I get the feeling that the hosts are mostly tea-totalers. This makes the fact that my wife talked me into giving them a $30 bottle of my favorite French wine as a gift all the more heartbreaking.

January 1st is always a pretty boring day since most places are either closed or open really limited hours. We went to see "Marley and Me" earlier this evening. I would describe it as a chick-flick version of "Old Yeller." The movie had its funny moments, but it's definitely chick-flick material. I was looking at some photos on Flickr after we got back... I need to find something else to do at this point.

I know this post is dated for Day 2 of the year, but I was inspired late in the day to do this project. The picture was taken on January 1st, so I'm still good to go. I do need to get some sleep, though.