welcome to sunny california

Jennifer, Stephanie, Lindsey, the doggie-dog Annabelle and Brittany were all here with us last week. Our guests enjoyed a flurry of Six Flags, beach sand castles, and everyone stayed in a hotel in San Diego to go to Sea World one day.


Doesn't this look wonderful? This hotel was reasonable and had a kitchen, living room with pull-out couch and double beds to sleep six. But no one guessed it would have this view! Everyone loves the eels.

I much appreciate Jennifer and Lindsey making sure that Brittany had a chance to do a lot of fun stuff while I was at work or unable to hang out.

i love LA

For lunch, my crew took me to a swanky Carribean restaurant, Prado, on Larchmont for my bday.

After work and dinner, Nancy joined Mark, Stephanie and I for a walk over to the modern art section of the Los Angeles Contemporary Museum of Art... we checked out some Warhol and had a nice time. Nancy had never seen the Tar Pits, so we walked through there, too. And I got a cupcake on the way home. And I rolled down the tall hill at the Tar Pits like a little kid.

We walked over to the paper store "Pulp" on the corner, where a film crew was just wrapping up shooting of the TV show LIFE. We got to walk right up to the window of the store, as the bright lights were shining into it. However, the actors were already wrapped.

We're planning to celebrate my bday for real on Friday. Today was kind of mellow, but nice. I enjoyed it. I can't believe I'm 32.

steph's first show

We walked down to the El Rey to see a few local bands play at a show that Stephanie picked out. She loved Cold Forty-Three, which was a kind of generic-punk novice band. She talked to them after their set for about 30 minutes, and they gave her a sampler CD, tickets to their next show, and a T-shirt. They even signed the CD (which was a big deal, because no one had a pen, so they had to send a groupie to the drug store for a sharpie marker, and he came back with candy, too - which they also shared with Stephanie.) They were really nice and ate up the attention from Stephanie and vice versa.
After their set, Karisa Winett played. She had all this attitude on stage, but she had the voice to back it up, and played pretty classic hard-rock. Her band was also very talented.

Then, Profit and Business... this was Mark's favorite, and probably mine, too. But it was hard to like them. They would go from this really melodic post-rock ambient loveliness, to screaming heavy metal and back again. It was a little chaotic, but going back and forth from yuck to yum made the yum part yummier. I don't know. It's hard to explain. Anyway, we had fun.

not perfect, but not too bad

That's how my exam went. Not well enough to suppose that I passed, but well enough to have a small ounce of hope.

As for the rest of the day, some scrapbooking and a second delightful serving of WICKED which was just as good re-heated as it was fresh from the oven. Stephanie is still making fun of me for actually crying at parts. (She also liked the show.)

As for catching ya'll up on my step-o-meter - my current daily average is 11,674 -
Day 6: 12,347
Day 7: 16,456
Day 8: 13,833
Day 9: 11,722
Day 10: 8,947
Day 11: 7,595
Day 12: 16,793
Day 13: 8,516

(I unapologetically studied on day 10 & 11. I have no excuse for today. And I did not do a weigh-in this week because I blew the diet during the few days leading up to the exam... but no more of that. I'm back on track.)

knotts berry nice

Sierra Side-winder; Stephanie's top selection for "go-again" status.

We got what we came for ~ drenched. Design flaw: you have to scream, ergo water in your breathe-hole.

Stephanie rode Montazooma's Revenge THREE times. And yes, it cost me dearly in bribes. She's not a coaster junkie like me and her mom. But, we are both determined to make her one.

I studied quite a bit yesterday, and again this evening. My test is tomorrow morning. I'm not sufficiently prepared, and I don't want to have unwarranted optimism... but I couldn't help it. I got all the problems I did today right, and got a little seed of warm, buttery hope blooming and waiting to have it's soul crushed in two months (that's how long I have to wait for my results.)

hanging with stephanie

We went to the Lucky Strike for bowling. I rolled the best game of my life, and got a 138! (Okay, I realize that this is pretty sad for an all time high.)
And I found out that you aren't supposed to wear your shoulder strap of your seatbelt under your arm. Apparently, this is enough to get you a ticket.

And Stephanie REALLY doesn't like her picture taken. But she is so cute. I just love to catch the reaction when she realizes that I'm taking one.

I've been looking forward to making this sand castle that I saw some people making before. You drizzle drops of very wet sand to make a bunch of spires, and it looks really melty and cool. While we were at the beach, I started to show Stephanie, and grabbed a handful of wet sand and started drizzling it and thousands of gross small crabby bugs started crawling out of it and swarming all over. I freaked out started screaming and ran into the ocean to wash it off my hands, and everyone on the beach, included Stephanie, was totally cracking up. I was too busy screaming my head off and trying to make sure they were all off me.... it was hilarious. (And freaky.)