Middle Child Syndrome - Thoughts from LA

California Dreamin ...

2010-11-07T19:28:00.000-08:00

I finally found the cord for my camera so I was able to get all the pics and videos off. Now everyone out there in interweb land can see what we've been doing for the last month or two.

In September we went and saw "Walking With the Dinosaurs Live"- I was able to get TJ and myself really good, really cheap tickets to the live show of the popular BBC program.

In the show, an "archaeologist" introduces you to all sorts of different dinosaurs. And they are life size and they move.

Decorations:

This is a mother T-Rex defending her baby.

This one was pretty cool. It's a brachiosauras and it's just a baby. When it would stretch its head up it actually was in the rafters of the ceiling. And that's the Staples Center (you know, where the Lakers play) so it was really, really big.

And now for the video.

It was honestly very amazing. When the dinosaurs would roar it would vibrate your whole body. Especially when the T-Rex would do it. Excellent times.

Then in October, we went camping.

Beautiful Northern California!

We went with our friends Sabrina and Joseph (who somehow managed to escape being photographed the entire weekend) to Montana de Oro near Morro Bay. It's just south of Monterey and what I consider to be the beautiful part of California.

Chloe loves the camping. It was muddy when we woke up Saturday morning so I made her eat her breakfast on the picnic table.

Our camp site.

And for November, we went to Disneyland. You see, back in February we did some volunteer work. We donated our time to help clean up Dockweiler beach.

And because we did, Disney gave us 2 free tickets to the park of our choice.

And today, we finally cashed in our free tickets. It was a pretty near perfect day to go. The park wasn't that crowded - lines were around the 25 minute mark, the weather was crisp and clear and we both got to wear 2 cool giant buttons. My 2 were "Happy Birthday Jennifer" (which meant that every cast member and person in the park shouted out my name and Happy Birthday) and "Honorary Volunteer" and TJ's were "1st Visit" and also "Honorary Volunteer".

Upon entering, we caught sight of Sleeping Beauty's Castle which is already decorated for Christmas.

And some Disney chick named Selena Gomez was performing live in front of it for the ABC Very Merry Disney Christmas special (they tape it in November and air it in December) Apparently she is very, very popular with the children folk which played to our advantage. As the little children were running and screaming toward Selena Gomez, TJ and I quickly and efficiently made our way to:

Space-tacular.

Then on to Buzz Lightyear

I scored 159,000 and change. TJ got 15,000.

Thank you Call of Duty :)

Then it was off to Fantasyland.

A little Snow White

Some Pinocchio

One too many pictures at the Mad Hatters

Then TJ tried to convince me he was a King or something.

No such luck.

Then it was off to the Matterhorn

Oh but the fun doesn't stop there.

We hit Thundermountain Railroad.

Took a quick pause for a photo op with Tom Sawyer's Island

Splashed down a Mountain

Saw some pirates, went on an adventure with Indiana Jones, ate some Dole Whip, bought some candy, and made it out of the park all before sunset.

Twas a Magical Day indeed.

Happy Birthday Dear Chloe ...

2010-10-30T21:33:00.001-07:00

Little Miss Thang turned ... I think 5. Honestly, I have no idea how old she is. Her papers say one thing, Ryan says another. Anyway, I would have missed her birthday completely had it not been for her wonderful insurance company. They sent her a birthday card - it was even addressed to her. Pretty funny.

So, today we went out and did a little birthday shopping. I bought her a new collar and ordered her a new ID tag.

She also got some squeaky squirrels

And a birthday cupcake!

They kind of got squished on the ride home. The one on the left is a bone shaped sandwich cookie. The one on the right is her cupcake.

Yeah, we found a dog bakery.

You have no idea the amount of restraint she is showing. She wanted to dive into those things so badly.

When I let her have at it - it was over quickly

Yeah, that's the only pic I could get.

Born to Run

2010-02-24T10:41:00.000-08:00

my camera broke.
it still has pictures in it and i still need to get them out and post about my DC trip that occurred some two months ago.

oops.

i am, however, going to be buying a new camera in the next month or so. i'm upgrading :) and possibly going to enroll in a photography class just to keep things fresh. we'll see.

anyway,
i've decided to blog about my 5k training for my race in April since Mom thinks i need to blog more.

plus i'm super bored at work.

i have 8 weeks and blah blah days til race day. plenty of time so i'm starting an 8 week training program because why should you run more than you have to?

i'll try to steal one of my roommates cameras and take pics of my training cause i'm sure you all (read: Mom) are just dying to see it. i always look like i'm going to die when i'm done. i'm not joking. people stare at me. my face gets so red and i sweat like a mountain man. but fear not, i'm not out of shape - just always been that way.

i've used a heart rate monitor for a couple of years now. it's my favorite running gadget. i love it.

you see Mom, the heart rate monitor tells me my heart rate during my runs. it also tells me how many calories i burn which is just fun to see.

when i wear it, it looks like this:

except my watch is light green and very pretty and i have on a shirt.

i also just recently bought new nike running shoes and the nike+ running chip.

you see Mom, the nike+ running chip is this tiny little chip that you put in your shoe.

It's the orange oval thing on the right.

and it wirelessly connects to my ipod (the white rectangular thing on the left) and it SUPPOSEDLY tells me my distance, pace, calories burned and other fun stuff.

so i've been using it on my treadmill runs and so far i'm not that impressed. my first try didn't record, my second try stopped recording 8 minutes in and below is the generated graph from my third try.

i'm sorry but that line is wonky. i might believe it if i was doing an outdoor/hilly run but i was on a treadmill with a constant pace. one minute i'm running a 6 minute mile the next i was doing a 23 minute mile. ugh. anyway, the only accurate thing is the 1.51 distance. i've read reviews on this gem and i've heard that it takes a few tries and calibration runs to get it in tip top shape so i'm not giving up on it yet. i really only wanted it to tell me my distance for runs outside so i guess i shouldn't complain. i can always figure out my pace myself. the treadmill hit 1.5 just about the same time so that's good.

alright, next run is thursday.

Two tickets to Paradise

2009-11-30T19:24:00.000-08:00

TJ and I spent Thanksgiving in Oahu this year. We stayed in a condo on the North Shore in a town called Punalu'u

Sunrise from our lanai

And this was the view from our front door

Down near the beach

Lounging

We visited the Byodo-In Temple. It sits at the base of the Koʻolau Mountains in the Valley of the Temples.

TJ basking in his asian heritage.

The flora and fauna of the temple:

Koi

Black swan guarding its egg. I had to stomp my foot and pretend to try to steal the egg so the swan would look at me. I love nature.

Octopus Tree

Paper Bark Tree. The bark really felt just like paper.

Punalu'u is about an hour drive from Waikiki and is the untouched part of Oahu. Waikiki looks like Los Angeles to me - but where we stayed was the unobstructed part of Oahu. This is what our drive looked like to get to the grocery store:

that's called Chinaman's Hat

We tried to eat something "Hawaiian" every day. We ate shrimp from Giovanni's shrimp truck on the side of the road.

We had a traditional Hawaiian breakfast: Spam, eggs, and portuguese sausage

We had malasadas (delicious portuguese donuts) from Leonard's bakery

We stayed just down the road from Kualoa Ranch

This is where they filmed Jurassic Park, Lost, Windtalkers and Godzilla.

You really do kind of expect a dinosaur to come trotting around the corner.

We went to Pearl Harbor. If you look at the base of the flag out in the water, you'll see a white structure. That's the hull of the USS Arizona. It's just beneath the surface of the water and still leaks oil. The stone tablets surrounding the flagpole are of the different US ships that have been lost.

Look who returned to the scene of the crime:

The USS Bowfin: Launched exactly a year after the attack on Pearl Harbor, the Bowfin was nicknamed the Pearl Harbor Avenger and sank 44 ships during the course of World War II.

Inside a hull

TJ using his asian wiles to decode an incoming transmission from the Japs

Protecting the good old U. S. of A.

It's nuclear.

us in the Pearl Harbor historic site

On our adventures around the island we found:

a little asian man in his rice field

a rainbow

misty mountains

and Roosters! They're everywhere.

We had a great time. It is truly one of the most beautiful places I've been -

And you can't beat that blue water

Dreams Come True ...

2009-11-27T22:22:00.000-08:00

In Blue Hawaii ..

just a few shots

while on our way

to the condo

more later :)

Aloha!

Do You Believe in Magic?

2009-06-26T12:48:00.000-07:00

a couple of weekends ago my friends and i decided to take a day trip. you see, tj just turned 30 in may and has never ridden a roller coaster. and in california, there's only one place you go to experience the sweet freedom of hurling thru space and time at speeds too great to even mention.

actually, we're all just desperately trying to hold on to our youth since almost the whole lot of us are at least 30 now.

so we all piled into jody's soccer mom car and headed up to Magic Mountain:

we were there right for the opening of the gates so that we could go to X2 first. X2 is by far the most popular roller coaster in the park and one of the most intense in the entire country. and unfortunately, tj was going to get his first taste on this bad boy (the sounds and music you hear are from the roller coaster - it plays music while you are on it):

yes, the seats on this roller coaster spin as you go along the track. you start up the hill going backwards and as you hit that first drop it flips you over and keeps flipping with each twist, turn, and hill. crazy stuff.

we figured if he could conquer X2 everything else would be pie.

he was fine.

we spent the majority of our day trying to hit the 16 (i think) roller coasters.

this is one of my favorites. colossus - it's an old wooden roller coaster. actually, it's the wooden coaster chevy chase and family rode in national lampoon's vacation!

it's me and tj in front and jody and dave behind us.

eric and dave

the riddler - this is a stand up coaster

entrance to goliath

fun waiting in line

still waiting

fun w/ animals

fun w/ characters

at one point, tj and i finished a coaster first and so i took him on the pirate ship - if you listen - tj starts making fun of how "scary" the ride is and at the end of the video as the ship gets to the highest point you can hear him go "woah" because at this point he actually was scared . . . such a baby.

you're going to have to turn your head to watch:

post pirate ship

and then tj, eric, and i went on the log flume while everyone else hit X2 again.

after 10 hours of walking around the park, we headed out and caught this lovely sunset over colossus, superman, and goliath.

it was a good day :)

FAME!

2009-04-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

so i've been in CA for six years now, struggling to find my way amongst the masses. fighting for every inch of success i've obtained. and what do you know?

chloe has been out here for less than six months and she's already hit the big time.

my dog is famous

click here and check out picture 6 of 95. yes, that's chloe. she is now a part of the cookies and water photography gallery.

my friend Sabrina is an amazing photographer and owns Cookies and Water Photography and Milk and Cookies Photography

i was over at her house the other weekend and she snapped a few shots of my little pup:

innocence

hypnotizing

soulful

demure

wistful

and yes, that's me blurred in the background.

she really is an amazing photographer - if any of you would like to get in touch w/ her i will let her know. and who knows .. if i like you enough, i might even put in a good word for you on the discount front :)

European Vacation

2009-03-27T17:56:00.000-07:00

For a lovely video of my entire trip overseas with Ryan ...

click HERE

it'll blow your mind.

Brugge, Belgium

2009-03-19T09:01:00.001-07:00

sunday afternoon we flew out of vienna headed towards belgium. nothing too exciting happened. we did manage, however, to secure the last row of seats on the airplane.

it was a tight fit -

we landed in brussels and then had to take a train to brugge. while it wasn't a long train ride it did prove to be tiring. i was fortunate, however, to be traveling with two wonderful companions.

aren't they lovely?

that's one handsome couple :)

once we got to brugge and checked into our hotel all pains were forgotten. brugge is incredibly beautiful.

since we didn't get in til way past 6 we ventured down to the market square hoping to find a restaurant.

we ended up at a lovely brasserie.

the food was absolutely amazing.

in the morning we set out to explore the town. it was actually very small but packed tight with lots to see.

we hit the belfry first - it's that large 13th-century building to the left

for the bargain price of 8 euros they let you climb the 366 stairs to the top.

it's worth it for the view:

this is us after climbing back down and once our breathing returned to normal

we were mighty pleased with ourselves.

after that we hit the canal tour - it's just a nice little boat ride that takes you through the canals of the city

this is the couple that followed us everywhere we went in brugge.

they weren't just creepy. they were european creepy.

brugge fun fact: in 1488 the people of brugge executed somebody important from austria -- this important austrian person had a swan in his coat of arms -- so the court of austria punished brugge by damning swans to their lakes and canals for eternity.

and they say ever since that execution swans have populated brugge year round.

man those austrians are rough.

more pics:

we, of course, hit the belgian chocolate shops

and ate our fair share of the demon candy

we hit the local brewery, de halve maan

we sampled the frothy brew

and then ate some beer soup

absolutely delicious.

more sight seeing. the chapel of the holy blood

brugge fun facts: the church contains the relic of the holy blood. it is blood preserved by joseph when he washed the dead body of jesus. the relic was brought to brugge and has not been opened since.

below is michelangelo's madonna. it's a marble statue

brugge fun fact: this is thought to be the only piece of michelangelo's that left Italy in his lifetime.

and now ..

fun with modern art

starring ryan hamilton

see the big square in brugge with the funky modern sculpture

watch as our hero drinks from said statue

up next:

amsterdam ....

O Fortuna, Vienna

2009-03-14T19:16:00.000-07:00

Holiday Road

2009-03-13T10:30:00.000-07:00

so my journey began wednesday afternoon. i left LAX at 4pm and 14.5 hours later i arrived in vienna.

sunrise over the atlantic ocean just before we flew over ireland.

thursday was my first night in vienna and ryan and lindsey took me to the ambassador's house for a cooking class by the ambassador's chef.

that's him - surprisingly young and very entertaining!

he taught us how to make pumpkin soup, kaiserschmarrn (warning: it has hot fruit in it), and stuffed croissants. and in case you're wondering, that's butter he's holding. he told us to never make pumpkin soup with anything but butter.

this is ryan demonstrating a proper viennese greeting

i made that up. he's just being stupid.

cooking class in action:

rolling the croissants. we were very, very good at this.

a good chef knows it's important to taste test:

yes even ryan did some of the prepping. i, however, did not. i felt it was best for my classmates and for myself if i stayed away from the large, sharp, knives. i was, after all, severely jet lagged.

and while everything was cooking ryan and i went to go explore the ambassador's house.

it was a rather large house with lots of rooms.

we found a fancy bathroom:

a sitting room

the grand foyer

the official guide to the ambassador's remotes and tv

our best find, however, was this:

the grand piano. the same piano the ambassador uses to entertain dignitaries from all over the world! ryan and i were so amazed at the find we sat down and tried to imagine we were the ones entertaining these worldly leaders:

once everything was ready, we set the table in the ambassador's dining room

check out the official seal on the dishes.

and ate our fancy food.

everything was good except for the kaiserschmarrn. i just can't deal with hot fruit. it's a sweet cake with rum soaked raisins in it and a caramel, sugar coating. and though it sounds like a dessert it's actually a main dish.

we all had a great time and i got to meet some of the people ryan and lindsey know so that was fun.

friday was our first day around the city.

we went to the royal family's summer palace:

this is the front of the main entrance to the house but it spans FOREVER.

the "back yard" so to speak:

they even have their own zoo off to the right.

close up of the fountain

the statues were beautiful

and so anatomically correct

we did, however, encounter some rain and hail. but don't worry, it was just enough to completely soak us.

after the palace we went to hundertwasserhaus which was completely cool.

the architect, Friedensreich Hundertwasser, apparently believes that nature and architecture should exist as one. that's why you see trees growing out of the windows.

fountain in front of the building. you can also see that the ground is uneven. there are hills in the walkways around the building. that's how it is inside too. very strange indeed.

we ended our day with me trying to figure out how to NOT come in last place in mario kart.

so far it's not working.

auf Wiedersehen!

Balboa Island

2009-03-03T22:54:00.000-08:00

Stacia's sister was in town this past weekend so we took a drive to Newport Beach and Balboa Island

We took the ferry over to the small island.

Balboa Island is very cute

This is Stacia overly happy that I'm taking her picture

on the pier

Back on the "mainland", we walked down to the little village that's just by the harbor

cool trees (if you click on the picture and make it bigger you'll see the trunk of the tree looks like it's painted - one of the most beautiful trees i've ever seen!)

and wild life

a very relaxing weekend.

Chloe's Exciting Life

2009-03-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

Chloe has been very busy since her arrival in Los Angeles. We've gone to dog parks, taken drives, gone to the beach. Lots of fun things. But nothing is exciting as our most recent venture:

Chloe's first time having her teeth brushed.

It was actually much easier than I anticipated. Who would have guessed that chicken flavored toothpaste is so delicious!

and when your teeth are deliciously fresh -- naps are SO much better

yes. she is spoiled

but she also gets tortured occasionally.

one of my clients gave me this for christmas:

And oddly enough, this particular client does NOT know that I own a dog. In fact, I think this is a doll outfit. That didn't stop me though.

It was a tight fit.

That was as far as I got. She did a very good job of putting up with the torture so I stopped.

She's a good pup.

everybody wants to rule the world

2009-02-02T11:38:00.000-08:00

so the government saw fit to bestow upon me one of the nation's highest honors.

behold!

and with great power comes great responsibility

oh dear, dear little brother. in five weeks and 2 days:

die Welt ist mein!

yeah, what she said

2009-01-15T16:53:00.000-08:00

I just thought this was pretty funny ...

and in case you're wondering, i do have a new post to add. i just have to get the pictures out of the camera.

welcome to the jungle

2008-12-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

so i went out this evening to see my friend's band play. i really didn't want to go at first but they were going on at a decent hour and it was at this really small irish pub and everyone else was going so i decided to join in on the fun.

i'm very happy i decided to go. not only were they amazing but my friend has an absolutely amazing voice.

oh yeah, and they also had a surprise guest play with them on the last 2 songs.

i know you're just dying to know who it was.
just look to the right of the lead singer.

can't tell?

how about now?

oh yeah, that's Slash.

and i, i was literally about 10 feet away.

amazing.

mark another one off for jen and her fancy life.

sammy davis jr. only had one eye

2008-12-02T10:15:00.000-08:00

turkey for the girls and turkey for the boys ...

i had my usual thanksgiving celebrations with the kids again this year. who are the kids you ask? this year it consisted of jody, tj, matt, dave, eric and my precious little chloe who enjoyed licking things off the kitchen floor.

now i know you're wondering why i oft refer to this motley crew as "the kids"

it's simply because they act like children.

for example, they wake up excited on the morning of a holiday:

they pace back and forth asking "is it ready yet?" and when you finally give them the 10 minute warning they get all happy:

they all have to have their picture taken while carving the turkey:

oh yes and then they pout if somebody gets to carve the turkey before they do:

and THEN they have to have their picture taken AGAIN but this time there has to be 2 people in the picture:

and you endure all this because once you let them get food ..

they immediately shut up

but truth be told..
they all make for a very fun thanksgiving!

and they even do dishes!!

You say you wanna go there, ride then.

2008-11-05T09:52:00.000-08:00

i stole this from aaron's blog.

i think these are fun to do even though i seriously doubt anyone will get my songs ...

i shall try anyways.

Rules:

Step 1: We Can Have Lots of Fun

Step 2: There's So Much We Can Do

Step 3: It's Just You and Me

Step 4: I Can Give You More

Step 5: Don't You Know that the Time is Right

HUH!

sorry ... spaced out for a minute. anybody else automatically think that in your head when you hear step 1? anybody? anybody?

anyways ..

Rules:

Step 1: Put your music player on random

Step 2: Post the first line (or so, some are hard) from the first 20 songs that play, no matter how embarrassing the song.

Step 3: Post and let everyone you know guess what SONG AND ARTIST the lines come from.

Step 4: Italicize the songs when someone guesses correctly (No lyric hunting! That is cheating!)

Step 5: After doing the first 20, listen to one more random song and post it as your title.

1. Roll on down til midnight then roll on downtown til it's light because tomorrow we may die oh but tonight we're dancing in the faint light.

2. Where were you when we called the police, were you ready to go home and hard to please?But no you were in Portugal so don't come back to Stockholm no more.

3. Hello, I've waited here for you, everlong.

4. Wherever you're going, I know you knew that nobody cuts me quite like you do.

5. I wanted you to know that I love the way you laugh. I want to hold you high and steal your pain away.

6. I will break into your thoughts with what's written on my heart.

7. I woke up early this morning around 4am with the moon shining bright as headlights on the interstate.

8. A sea of waves we hug the same plank. Just as I rehearsed over an hour break.

9. Empty spaces fill me up with holes. Distant faces with no place left to go. Without you, within me I can't find no rest.

10. I wake alone in a woman's room I hardly know. I wake alone and pretend that I am finally home.

11. Find me here and speak to me. I want to feel you, I need to hear you.

12. Let it go, let it roll right off your shoulders don't you know, the hardest part is over.

13. The cigarettes are gonna kill me I know. I gotta get a light before I hit the door.

14. Rosemary, heaven restores you in life.

15. I get home from work and you're still standing in your dressing gown well what am I to do?

16. You must obey the dance commander givin' out the order for fun.

17. And when I see you, I really see you upside down. But my brain knows better it picks you up and turns you around.

18. I'm stupid you're smarter. I'm stupid thinking there's a way that this could turn out right.

19. No sir, well I don't want to be the blame not anymore its your turn so take a seat we're settling the final score.

20. I'm in the business of misery lets take it top from the top she's got a body like an hourglass it's ticking like a clock.

any takers on the title? ( Yay Jody!)

LA, Hollywood and the Sunset Strip

2008-11-02T19:13:00.000-08:00

is something everyone should see ....

especially chloe.

so as part of my birthday celebration, tj and i decided to take the little one around her new home.

ok, so we didn't really go see hollywood or the sunset strip today but she did get to see some of LA.

we first stopped at one of tv's greatest landmarks.

the brady bunch house

chloe and i actually live right across the street from this house. it's the actual house CBS used for the exterior shots on the Brady Bunch. in the tv show, this house had a window on the left side of the house to simulate that the Brady's had an upstairs (remember the kids slept up there). in real life, no such window. the real house is actually only a one story.

and then we headed down to the coast.

chloe enjoyed the salty air blowing against her gigantic ears. also, please notice her new collar. uncle tj bought her that today.

once at the beach, she was a little apprehensive. there are always a lot of dogs down there and she's still a little uncertain how to act around them but she got the hang of it.

and then she saw it ...

chloe's first views of the pacific ocean.

it took her a moment to get off tj's lap and get on the grass.

but she did.

her protector.

you wouldn't believe how many people came up to us to compliment us on our adorable dog.

we started in santa monica and then decided to walk her down to venice along the boardwalk.

venice is filled with street vendors, performers, restaurants and all kinds of people walking around. it would be a true test for chloe. i was a little nervous but after a few minutes she found her bearings and did extremely well. even with all the other dogs around.

we even found a chloe sized palm tree.

we left santa monica as the sun was setting.

and headed over to uncle jody's house so she could see her second home.

he's smitten with her. and she with him. but only because he got her some cool new toys.

after that, we headed home to rest a little and figure out what we wanted for dinner. as we sat on the couch debating our options, i checked nicole's blog to see if she had updated it.

she had (click here to see).

and in the process, gave us our idea for my final birthday treat.

yes, these are donuts from the one and only krispy kreme in burbank, ca.

so thanks nicole. and yes, they were hot off the line.

going to raleigh, leaving raleigh, chloe's first day in CA

2008-10-28T22:24:00.000-07:00

i went to raleigh over the weekend to pick up her highness, chloe, and to have jensgiving dinner (for explanation please click here). since i was in town for just a little over 48 hours, we had to pack it all in. saturday was a blur. that day went something like this:

9:39am
Land at RDU. Aaron picks me up.

10:45am - 6:00pm
get to the house, say hello to the kids, say hello to gordon, leave the kids with gordon, go see high school musical 3 with some of the kids, sleep through half the movie, meet gordon and the kids and leigh at steak and shake, deal with a very rude waitress, shake down 4 kids who are trying to sneak their spit ball shooters past their mother, get back to the house, go grocery shopping with leigh for jensgiving groceries, go back home.

6:00pm - bedtime
cook in the kitchen, sneak cookie dough out of the kitchen, play call of duty

everyone cooking

makenna helping to make the crab dip

aaron doing dishes

ok so SOME of us were working in the kitchen ... others .. not so much

after the cooking, i remember sitting in a recliner and being in mid conversation with gordon as we were watching rush hour 3 or maybe it was gladiator and falling asleep. i was exhausted.

sunday was a little less taxing.

we pretty much just ate all day.

we got up and went to church, then went to lunch at an italian restaurant, went home, played some call of duty, then went and got some ice cream.

oh, it only gets better from here.

after ice cream, we go BACK into the kitchen to cook and hang out some more

gordon showing me how he uses a big boy cup now

this is NOT a picture of nicole yelling at aaron

goofing around - we're looking in different directions because we had 3 cameras taking a picture

the hard work continues

then we do the responsible adult thing and make sure that Gabby gets fed first

DELICIOUS!

then we finish up with our food

final touches on the ham

also delicious!

we sit down to eat AGAIN

after dinner aaron pretended to get a phone call. i say pretend because every single person he knows was already sitting at that dinner table with him!

then we go back into the living room and watch the greatest movie of our generation.

speed.

oh keanu, you are brilliant.

after speed, we eat some cheesecake and freshly baked chocolate chip cookes, watch a shortened version of braveheart (thanks to gordon) and once again go to bed.

whew. just one day left.

monday, we wake up and of course ... we go to eat.

on our way

braeden just LOVES applebees.

and gabby just LOVES french fries.

girl pose!

yeah i told these 2 to get together so i could take their picture and aaron yells "girl pose!" and that's what i got.

classic.

after applebees we played singstar and american idol for .. oh i don't know .. about 3 hours and then it was time for me to pack up my stuff and go to the airport.

my very special carry on baggage:

chloe did very good on the plane. she barked as we walked into the airport but that was it. she stayed in her bag and was quiet for both of our flights.

we didn't make it back to my apartment until really late so she didn't get her first look until the next day. but once she did, she was just a ball of energy running around everywhere.

well, almost everywhere.

i know you can't see them but those are steps.

i have two little steps in my apartment that separate my living room from my kitchen and dining room. chloe can't go up or down these steps. she can go down them if she gets a running start but she can't figure out how to get up them. she just ran around while i got ready for work.

then before going into work we hit the park that's right beside my office building

she then went into the office with me.

she was very nervous but i took her monkey and she mauled it while i worked

and then she'd sit on my lap while i watched tv ... er i mean did my work.

after work we came home and relaxed.

i carved a pumpkin.

and she laid in her bed playing with her pumpkin ball

my pumpkin ended up being way cooler than hers

i am obviously a very busy woman.

The Monster Mash

2008-10-18T11:12:00.001-07:00

on wednesday i had another work party to attend. i completely forgot my camera so i stole some pictures from one of my friends because it was AMAZING!!

one of the managers and his talent threw a big halloween party. it was called "Wintner's Nightmare Bash" and it was themed with all the Tim Burton characters.

i won't lie. Paul Wintner definitely knows how to throw a party. he had hired professionals to walk around. to name a few, there was batman, the joker, jack skeleton, willy wonka and even edward scissorhands.

this guy was amazing. he NEVER broke character. he even had the voice down. he and i had a special love affair throughout the night. every time i'd turn around there was edward waiting to cut my hair for me.

he had life sized replicas from "the nightmare before christmas"

costumes of course were optional so that meant that i did not dress up. i actually had to go right from work as it was in hollywood and i didn't want to get caught in a big line to get in.

that's aric, me, jody, and annika. and looking at this picture just made me realize how short i am.

another great night in my mildly fancy life.

My Disney Vacation ..

2008-10-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

we did other fun things besides going to the parks. . . .

for instance, after we'd spend all day at the park, gordon and i would head down for adult time at the pool. we were fortunate because according to the posted sign, the pool closed at midnight. however, according to the concierge, the pool was open 24 hours as long as you "don't cause a ruckus".

gordon and i cause a ruckus?

never.

guess who else snuck out one night to enjoy adult swim?

gotcha!

we had fun while eating ...

our waitress was very good at one restaurant. gordon wanted water so she more than obliged.

look at him go!

still going ...

gone!

what a man :)

gabby looking fierce at the table.

we had fun with the camera at the Maya Grill

we had breakfast with a chipmunk

we even had fun while waiting to eat. bryce and braedon are showing me the houses they built for us all. i will say while my house was not the biggest one, it was better than gordon's, he got that tiny little thing in the bottom right hand corner.

we even had fun in the hallways!

our room was being cleaned and bryce and bretton had some energy brewing which was looking like it was going to turn ugly, so nicole just said "go at it"

may i present to you, KID FIGHTS:

braedon wanted to get in with the big boys, but we made him wait for his turn with makenna.

and believe me, when nicole called him to his corner, he was more than ready

that's him doing keanu ala "the matrix"

unfortunately, makenna pretty much dominated the round.

then, they all called out gordon.

yeah, he was ready too.

at first gordon was holding his own.

then we had a brief intermission:

yes, bretton was showing us some of his best dance moves.

then it was back to the action.

the break must have pumped the kids up because ...

they started to seriously put the hurt on gordon. notice nicole in the background taking pictures. no concern there.

i even tried to jump in and help gordon. i took it easy and chose braedon.

the fighting then turned into acrobatics. gordon started spinning the kids.

and that concludes fun in the hallway.

we had fun at the lodge.

bryce and bretton got charactures done:

this is gabby waiting for her brothers pictures to be done.

and gordon and i had fun at pleasure island. we went twice.

gordon showing me how to do the scottish shuffle.

he has moves that i've never seen before!

oh trust me, it gets better.

one night while we were down there, we found this irish pub ..

we were lucky. U2 was performing!

ok, so it was a U2 tribute band but i swear if you squinted and listened only halfway it was as if bono and the edge were right in front of us.

gordon even made some new american friends downtown.

i swear that boy will talk to ANYONE.
those are lego people.

we all had a great time. gordon left at the crack of dawn on the last day so the greene's and i went to eat at macaroni grill (YUM!) before they took me to the airport.

so nicole and i took one last photo

we look tired. awesome, but tired.

i'm already resting up for Disney 2010!

My Disney Vacation ...

2008-10-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

we spent a good amount of time in animal kingdom. i really enjoyed this park because i had only been to animal kingdom once before and that was when it was still pretty new. they've added a lot of cool things to it since then.

while on the bus going to animal kingdom, braedon and i had some fun w/ the camera. braedon is so much fun to take pics with!

this is a really big park so we did a lot of walking

the main focal point of this park was the roller coaster (of course). actually, this was the fastest, scariest one that we went on but we all went on it!

some pics from the line.

we, of course, saw animals.

kevin was even brave enough to get up close and personal with one.

we did, however, almost have an accident.

a bear took a swing at gabby. . . very scary.

she was quick though. turned away just in time.

we did the safari ride

we did a lot of standing in line ..

good times.

My Disney Vacation cont ...

2008-10-04T18:31:00.000-07:00

for nicole's birthday we went to a princess dinner so we of course dressed for the part.

totally believable i know.

braedon and i riding on the bus on our way to the royal banquet.

gabby enjoying herself at dinner.

what a strange and delightful little girl.

the boys waiting for their food

kevin and his princess

the kids and the princesses

the princess dinner was at epcot.

we also ate lunch at the aquarium at epcot. that was very cool.

and that concludes my part on epcot. you see, epcot is not what you would call the most "popular" park. however, both nicole and i agreed as we were leaving epcot, you have to go do it because if you don't you feel like you're missing out on something.

now, what that something is ...

i couldn't tell you.

My Disney Vacation

2008-10-04T11:21:00.000-07:00

ok, i know i've been back from disney for awhile but i just got internet at my apartment so now comes the blog.

i now present for your viewing pleasure:

My Disney Vacation ... by jh

we all met at the airport to catch the disney magic express to our resort. we got on the bus and it was as if someone said "let the pictures begin".

i kid you not.

that's us on the magic express. we went to our suite at the Wilderness Lodge and then promptly went to Hollywood Studios.

this is nicole on the backlot tour at Hollywood Studios. this is how most of us saw her on the whole trip, with a camera in front of her face.

the rest of us on the backlot tour:

costume shop

miniature from con air

we went to this extremely entertaining live show called Disney Playhouse. I believe the following picture of Bretton acurately portrays the enthusiasm for this particular show.

we found a princess.

we also ate lunch at this place that had a very inaccurate map of my southern california neighborhood.

and at night, we hit Fantasmic.

The next day we hit Magic Kingdom. We did end up going back 2 more times on 2 separate days so these are pics from all of our adventures.

First views of Cinderella's Castle:

our first views of the nurse's station:

Braedon climbed on top of the stove at our suite and burned his little fingers. notice the bubbling skin.

walking to tomorrowland and thus our first attempt to get the little ones on space mountain.

we of course took pics while we waited for them to make up their minds.

Gabby almost walking to Gordon.

And finally, Kevin, Gordon, Bryce and my first ride on space mountain.

bryce looking a little uncertain ...

but it was all good!

and even though Bryce assured Bretton, Makenna and Braedon it was "AWESOME!", it would be awhile before the others would join us.

so we did rides that everyone could enjoy.

like Pooh!

Gabby loved this one.

It's a Small World:

notice the excitement on Kevin's face. yes, he loved this ride THAT much.

and here is Scotland. Gordon assured us this was an extremely accurate representation of his homeland.

We hit the Teacups:

nicole took our picture as we were waiting in line. i believe you can see the picture she took on her blog. just look for the thumbs up i guess.

the little ones had their own teacup.

and the big kids had a teacup. we wanted to spin really fast.

spinning.

still spinning.

oh yes. gordon and i also took makenna and braedon on the Haunted Mansion.

Bryce wouldn't even consider going on it even after having already braved space mountain. i do have to mention that i got off of the haunted mansion ride with 2 crying children. i probably should have taken a picture of that.

we had lunch at Liberty Tree and it was very very good!

fun pics from lunchtime.

we stood in line ... lots

to meet the princesses and even mickey and minnie

and you're probably wondering where the rest of my pictures of mickey and minnie are. trust me, i had my own picture taken with the both of them. minnie even gave me a kiss on the cheek. i had pics of the kids meeting the mouses too. however, apparently soon after leaving the mouse's house, those pictures magically disappeared. names shall not be strewn about here but she knows what she did.

moving on.

we had some fun on splash mountain:

bryce, braedon, gordon and i hit splash mountain many times. bretton was not one for the bigger rides. in fact, bryce would remind him every chance he got that he had yet to even ride space mountain.

and then it happened.

bretton said "i'm going to go on space mountain just so bryce will quit making fun of me". gordon and i immediately raced him over and we got in line. and then we realized it was closed for maintenance.

with his confidence waning, we suggested trying something smaller first. so gordon and i took all the kids (sans gabby of course) on Goofy's smaller roller coaster.

braedon LOVED this ride. i know that looks like fear but it's not. i think we took him on this at least 3 times.

that did the trick!

the confidence was back up which meant ...

yes, he conquered space mountain too.

in fact, all of the little ones did.

we did some window shopping and hanging out.

bretton picked out a nice gift for his grandmommy.

we got on the monorail just to ride it.

the kids were having a party in one part

gordon and kevin had gabby in another

and nicole and i were having camera wars in another. we were each laying on a bench and holding up our camera to see what kind of picture we could take.

first she was there.

then she was gone.
yeah, she's a quick one.

but she came back.

did i mention we were tired?

i don't believe in beatles, i just believe in me

2008-10-01T13:24:00.000-07:00

i don't have internet at my house. we've been waiting for the wonderful folks at SoCal Time Warner to come hook us up.

they came on the 13th and told us our apartment wasn't even wired for cable. they said all the wires had been cut. we were baffled.

come to find out. we are in fact wired, the cable guy was looking in the wrong place.

how can you be a service technician for a cable company and not even know where to look?

that was over 2 weeks ago.

then they were saying they wouldn't come back UNLESS we got a hand written note from our landlord and delivered it to their office saying they could come back. how weird is that?

the unfortunate part is that they are the ONLY cable company. we have no options. they scoff at you if you say "well maybe DirectTV is better ... ". they know you won't go.

so glad we aren't allowed to have monopolies in this country.

did i mention that this is all happening during fall premiere week?

torture.

leaving on a jet plane

2008-09-14T04:19:00.000-07:00

and so it begins. i sit. i wait.

i have been up since 9:30am Pacific time on Saturday. According to MY watch, it's just now 4:19am Pacific time on Sunday. however, these way too perky people from disney that are in front of me assure me that's it's past 7am.

i'm not fond of perky people.
i'm not fond of the morning.

i'm sitting in MCO awaiting the arrival of all those other people i'm going on vacation with. nicole assured me they were almost ready, but i couldn't help but notice it still sounded like she was still in bed.

hhmmmm...

at least the sun is up now.

oh and in case you are wondering, no, i didn't sleep on the plane. not one second.

awesome.

move along

2008-09-07T22:26:00.000-07:00

i hate moving. i hate it so much .. flames. Flames, on the side of my face, breathing-breathl- heaving breaths. Heaving breath... (anyone? ryan?)

but here's an interesting fact. i have moved every year since 1996.

that's a lot of moving.

so guess what i did this weekend?

yup. i moved. or at least started the process.

thanks to tj and dave who sacrificed one of their saturdays to help eric and i haul our stuff up and down a lot of steps.

this is just one of our loads.

and there's a glimpse of the new digs. that's dave. this is what it looks like when a real man helps you move.

and this is what it looks like when tj helps you move.

it's not done yet. i have much, much more to do before i fly out to meet nicole et al at disney world on saturday.

and even more to be done before i fly home to gather queen battle.

exit music (for a film)

2008-09-02T12:57:00.000-07:00

terribly dramatic title for my blog but i thought it was fitting considering the subject.

a colleague of mine passed away yesterday.

you know him as Don LaFontaine. we referred to him as simply "the king".

he was a good guy. a really good guy.

i think ashton smith said it best "when you die, the voice you hear in heaven is not don's. it's god trying to sound like don"

so on that note, i leave you with a little piece of heaven

holiday

2008-09-01T23:59:00.000-07:00

celebrate.
if we took a holiday.
took some time to celebrate.
just one day out of life.
it would be.
it would be so nice.

so, we just had a nice long weekend. labor day weekend. i'd love to tell you it was filled with fun times, parties, the beach, etc...

alas, i cannot.

i did 2 things this weekend.

2 i say!

first, i went head to head with my arch nemesis. a force not of this world. a force from beyond.

behold!

DEMON CAT:

as most of you know, upon starting my fancy life in los angeles, i had a second job as a pet sitter to help pay all my bills. now that i'm making THREE dollars an hour (yes, three, eat your heart out ryan), i no longer have to do that. however, out of the hundreds of clients i used to have i have kept one and only one. i've been with her four years and it is currently the only client i am still active for.

what can i say?

she takes care of me.

so this is the cat:

and this is how i got to spend my nights with her:

good times.

oh yeah, and the second thing i did all weekend:

pack

boo!

let me tell you how great this is. i get to move all the stuff out of my current apartment on saturday. this coming saturday. i get to move all my stuff into my new apartment but i don't get to live in my new apartment til the 15th. why am i doing this? i'm so glad you asked. see, my lease at my new apartment starts on the 15th and i'm to be out of my current apartment on the 15th. now it would seem as if this would be ideal, HOWEVER, i fly out of los angeles on the 13th to join the ranks at disney world. so this coming saturday is the ONLY saturday i have to move my stuff. so i have to suck it up, move all my stuff, get my new room ready and sleep on my aero bed until i leave for FL. then, when i get back from FL i go directly to a new apartment.

it makes me tired just thinking about it.

SO ...

who's coming to help me this saturday?

oh for the love of ..

2008-08-28T13:51:00.001-07:00

donuts.

yes, donuts. i don't know how many of you know this but my sister loves donuts. and when i say love i don't mean how some of you love your parents, or love your significant others or even how you love your prada backpacks, i'm talking about the real thing here.

let me explain.

she visited me in CA a couple of years ago and i took her to burbank, ca. now, burbank is an awesome little appendage of los angeles. it's the home of warner bros studios, disney studios and for you older folk i believe some guy named johnny carson used to refer to "beautiful downtown burbank" on the tonight show (don't have a fit, of course i know who johnny is). so you can see there are many many things one can see in burbank. oh yes, and there is also a krispy kreme. at this particular krispy kreme they make the original glazed donut so when you walk in they're coming right off the line and you can eat one freshly made. quite delicious right off the line.

anyway, i took my sister to this krispy kreme so she could try one of these freshly made donuts. she loved it! how much you ask? well, i do believe in the week's time she was here we had to go back to that krispy kreme like three times. and she bought my friends and i donuts every time. i don't think i went back to that krispy kreme for at least a year after her visit because i had OD'ed on them.

she loves them so much that if you plan on visiting me or CA ever and ask my sister what's the one thing you should do while you're out here, she will tell you "go to krispy kreme in burbank!". think i'm kidding?

read the comments nicole posted (hers is the second comment, mine is the first) on aaron's blog here

now that you have an idea of her love for donuts this next story will make much more sense.

so i just got a new apartment and they allow me to have dogs. or at least i'm hoping they will allow me to have the dog i want. i want chloe. now, some of you know chloe as my sister's dog. she's a miniature dachshund and i love her. my new landlord, however, wanted to "interview" her before allowing her to live with me but unfortunately, chloe lives in NC. so in lieu of the formal interview, he wants to see a picture of her. i was told by the manager of the building that it's pretty much just so he can make sure she's not huge. upon this info, i asked nicole if she'd take a picture of chloe but put something in the picture so the landlord could have a reference to her size. i wanted her to look small.

this is what my sister came up with:

yup, that's a krispy kreme box.

so, i chatted with nicole today about this lovely picture and chloe's size. i'm going to post a little bit of that conversation for you to enjoy -- the yellow bubbles are me and the blue bubbles are her (if you click on it you can read it):

yeah, apparently my new dog is about five donuts long and maybe 2 donuts wide.

now THAT is love.

for a minute there, i lost myself

2008-08-25T22:12:00.000-07:00

the weekend was awesome. friday i had a work function that proved to be a little more fun than i had expected. didn't bother to take my camera because i honestly didn't think i'd be staying that long.

saturday i spent the day at the beach. no pics from that because i was just too lazy to take my camera out. i know mom, "must be rough".

sunday was the cherry on top!

it all started with a bus ride:

that's me and TJ .. notice the blurriness? well, that's a product of two things: first, jody is a horrible photographer and second, we're so excited it's hard to capture it through a lens.

the ride takes us here:

for those of you that can't read or are not in the know .. that says Radiohead.

this night has been anticipated for four months.

and it all started with a girl and dream.

a dream to sleep.

let me take you back ... back four months.

four long months ago i was having a horrible bout of insomnia. at that time i didn't know why i was marked for such a plight. little did i know that those weeks of suffering would ultimately lead to this glorious night. let me explain. on one of the nights that i had yet to sleep i was up and surfing the internet around 4 in the morning. on that night i caught wind of a blog somewhere out there in the land of the interweb that spoke of a presale of radiohead tickets that were to be going on sale at a secret time. i was intrigued for i am a huge radiohead fan as are my friends. i searched deeper and found that it was highly suggested that that EXACT night i was doing my searching they were to go on sale. the excitement built as i desperately looked for the time. then, as if god placed his hand upon mine, i went to the ticket website and they were magically available. i'm not going to lie, it was a struggle. man against machine as i had to use all of my book learning to finagle my browsers to work against the rush that i was up against. thousands upon thousands of people trying to electronically grab the tickets that were to be mine. the battle started at 6 am and at around 620 i looked up from my computer in triumph. i had scored four box seats to radiohead.

box seats being the operative word here, for when you have box seats at the hollywood bowl you get to sit with such people as:

heather graham (that's my foot at the bottom of the screen)

and

the current love of my life

john krasinski though you might know him as jim halpert on NBC's the office (that's my head)

they were sitting in the boxes in front of us. not together though.

this was our box:

that's me, jody and tj.

it was lovely. we had four individual chairs in our own box. we even had tables for the picnic style food we had brought.

the fourth seat was for my other friend Sam

he kinda looks like jon stewart. don't be fooled by his expression. he still can't believe that we got box seats. the last time we saw radiohead we had to drive down to san diego and stand way in the back.

i realize these pictures aren't that clear. that's because we decided to follow the rules and not bring our cameras in. these were all taken with jody's iphone.

in any case, the show was amazing

and THAT aaron, is how you spend the perfect evening.

i love la .. WE LOVE IT!

2008-08-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

ok, so we love it more when we win but when you get free tickets to see the LA Dodgers play -- you go!

they were up against the colorado rockies last night so upon getting free awesome tickets (thank you steve!) eric and i decided to go

plus we wanted to get a first hand look at the new guy

yeah. we saw him hit one good base hit but nothing fancy.

unfortunately, our lovely ladies could not see it through.

we lost.

new england state of mind

2008-08-20T10:39:00.000-07:00

so last weekend i was in new england to visit stacia. there's a lot of adventure here so be prepared for the blog of your life.

i flew into boston and we spent the day in the city. i hadn't been to boston since i was a teenager and i had forgotten how awesome it is.

first thing, we went on a duck tour. the duck is a wwII amphibious vehicle so in layman's terms, it goes in water AND on land. amazing! AND they were built by women.

you know what else is awesome about the duck tour?

he let me drive while we were in the charles river.
i'm way less of a liability on the water.

views of the river and charles town bridge

stacia and i on the duck tour.

once back on dry land, stacia and i hit the streets to get a closer look at some of the sights we saw on the tour.

this building is quite awesome. on the balcony in the front is where they would come out and read the declaration of independence. and in front of this building is where the boston massacre occurred.

MASSACRE !!!! great word. really only five people died. but i guess back in the day that was like 1/5 of the population.

we then went to say hello to some friendly faces.

that's sam adams. he makes beer.
ok fine, he makes beer AND he apparently played an integral role in the rebellion against great britain AND was a signer of the declaration of independence AND did a bunch of other good stuff.

we kept walking, a little unsure of where to go and wishing for a little guidance. and then we happened upon:

the statue of paul revere and out of the corner of my eye i caught a glimpse of something.

you may or may not be able to see the figure in the photo above. it is, in fact, the ghost of paul revere. he whisked right by me and whispered "go that way" pointing behind him. now, i'm not sure how many people around me could actually see this patriot ghost but he did have a group of people following him and he kept turning around and spouting out various facts about the area to the group. oh yeah, he also had a name tag. very strange indeed.

i digress.

the ghost of paul revere led us here:

this is the old north church. it was here in 1775 that paul placed the lantern to warn that the british were marching into lexington and concord.

and for those of you that don't remember your history so well. it's also the place where ben and patrick gates tricked ian howe into going so he wouldn't find the treasure! (anyone get it? nicole??)

we also stopped by this little pub

this is the green dragon. it served as headquarters during the american revolution (see the little dude holding the flag)

and across the street from that is a holocaust memorial

it's actually very cool. it's just a bunch of glass panes with numbers etched into them. it's the numbers they gave all the residents of the concentration camps. they divided the panes by camp. if you look closely or open the picture you'll see all the numbers in the background.

boston was very cool but we soon left for portland, maine.

maine is very beautiful. it's exactly how i pictured it in my mind.

stacia lives right on the water and it's just harbors with fishing boats and recreation boats and even ..

tugboats!!

we did a lot of sight seeing and i got to see a bunch of awesomeness. i recommend going to maine for a vacation. there is tons to do and it's just beautiful.

we took a boat over to peak's island and enjoyed our day

on saturday we hung up our sightseeing shoes to pay tribute to stacia's little sister kasi.

she's getting married in two week's so we had a special "bride day" for her

she was so thrilled that we made her wear a veil all day.

we went to old orchard beach (it's kind of like myrtle beach with the amusement park and carnival food and games and stuff)

we had kasi do all sorts of fun things like gettin her palm read and getting a fake tattoo. that's stacia and kasi's mom in the background giving her best shocked face.

also, when a bunch of girls go out with a bride apparently the men folk love it.

i spent the whole day with stacia and some of the women in her family. we had a great time. it's nice to see that craziness doesn't just run in my family.

what? it's true.

i also got to spend time with the davies men folk.

well, one of them

that's rick.

he loves me.

or maybe just my hand. yeah, he drew a heart on my hand with our initials in it.

on sunday the sightseeing continued.

kasi, stace and i drove up north to boothbay harbor. ok, so kasi drove, stacia talked to her and i slept in the backseat. man, i love sleeping in cars. it's a problem, i know.

it was beautiful there. and it was also the site for my entire reason for going to maine.

that was my lunch. yes, i ate them. they were delicious. and many thanks to stacia for taking the reigns and cracking those suckers open so i could eat them.

on monday we hit a few more hot spots as we made our way back to boston so i could catch my flight.

we went to portland headlight

it's beautiful.

and so are we!

and then we drove to kennebunkport

this is an awesome place. very fancy. lots of expensive houses on the water. it's also where the walker/bush's have a place. you know, as in george walker bush.

it's basically a little peninsula jutting off into the water. here's half. this i believe is guest quarters and slave er i mean servant quarters.

and this is the main house.

and this is their view

and that's just a little taste of new england.

many thanks to stacia and her family for putting up with me and showing me a fantastic time!
i will definitely be going back!

saying goodbye to old friends and learning to love again

2008-08-11T21:45:00.000-07:00

my weekend was a roller coaster of emotion. it started on friday night. i went to a birthday dance party (yes, dance party) for one of my friends.

what's this you ask??!! a girl in jen's blog?? could it be??!!
yes, this is jannea and i on the way to the celebration.

and this is melissa showing us some of her dance moves.

everyone had a great time. we danced and hung out and had a huge birthday celebration for our friend michael (seen here w/ roxanne - yet ANOTHER girl!).

i was thinking "wow! what a great weekend this is starting out to be!"

then i woke up on saturday:

we had to say goodbye to mr. bernie mac. it's a shame. i guess that means no ocean's 14.

a damper was put on my weekend. but i somehow managed to pull through it. i had already had a phenomenal friday and i was excited to post about my lovely evening.

and then, things got worse.

really worse.

i had to say goodbye to one of my best friends.

my camera. yes, i've had a few "accidents" with it. it has managed to squirm its way out of my hands on quite a few occasions (yeah, those black marks are dents and scratches) but it had always pulled through.

not this time.

so i've been mourning.

until today.
today, i found a new love.

old and busted:

(yeah, the screen is really that scratched up)

say hello to new hotness:

bike riding madness

2008-08-04T15:50:00.000-07:00

so my roommate and i were trying to come up with the cheapest weekend ever. we spent saturday looking at potential new apartments because we want to move to a place with a pool. nothing caught our eye on saturday. pretty much everything is ridiculously overpriced. anyway, saturday was spent driving around looking at apartments intertwined with watching movies we've already seen. except mr. woodcock. we did watch mr. woodcock which is exceptionally horrible. you know, the kind of horrible that when it comes on again i'll probably have to watch it again BECAUSE it's so horrible. anybody else like that? i tend to do that with bad movies. for instance, "from justin to kelly", when that gem kept coming on HBO years ago i think i watched it every single time. deliciously horrible.

but i digress.

so sunday we only had one apartment appointment and it was down the street so we decided to ride our bikes. we both have convertibles so we both bought fold up bikes because we can't fit bike racks on our car. what does this mean? this means we look amazingly cool on our tiny little bikes. this is my bike:

and this is what it looks like when it's folded:

amazing really. it fits nicely into the back seat of my bug and i can take it anywhere!

again, i digress.

so after viewing the apartment (big old no to that one too). we went for a jolly old ride down the bike path.

we had the best ride!

look at our smiling faces!

16.5 miles later .....

crash and burn.

yeah, 16.5 miles.

needless to say, my bum is a tad sore today.

what i do

2008-08-01T10:42:00.000-07:00

behold ..

my business card.

so, i don't think i will ever be able to completely explain to my mother what i do. i'll be honest, half the time it doesn't even make sense to me.

in any case, i have decided to post about my job in order to shed some light on the subject.

i work with voice over talent/actors who come in and record for trailers, commercials, promos, commentary, ADR - everything really. once they record, i have to work with their agents and managers to make sure they get paid through the unions (SAG/AFTRA). i also take care of some technical stuff but we'll let that part slide.

so anyway --

when the talent actually come into the studio, they record in the booth and are usually directed by a producer via phone. Tony Rodgers is our resident vo guy. If you can't think of where you've heard his voice just turn on TNT and listen to the promos for "the closer" or "saving grace" or most any trailer out -- he's probably the nicest guy in voice over.

this is him doing an unsupervised session which is why we're all giggles. actually, i told him i was only going to take his picture (he's very self conscious about his voice -- go figure) so i had to trick him. you'll see the semi panic in his face when he realizes i'm videoing.

when the talent is not in the booth it means they're usually recording from home. when this happens we "dial them up" via ISDN (an internet connection) and connect them to a producer and sit and listen while the magic happens.

this is Brian Lee on the ISDN w/ jody pretending to be an engineer (this is an actual session so the woman's voice you hear is the producer)

after the recording is done, we send the files to the producers who then cut them into trailers or whatever. and i, i go to my computer and work diligently.

this is what my computer looks like while i'm working (10 points to the first person who can tell me what i'm watching - an additional 10 if you can tell me what guitarist is in the background on my computer - and if you can tell me who i'm IMing you're just plain amazing) -

yes, i actually DO work. the bottom third of my computer screen is reserved for the work. if you look closely you'll see that it's my list of talent payments .. they make big money.

exciting right? i'll post pics of my office later as we are in the middle of being remodeled and i have to pack everything up today because i'm getting new carpet over the weekend!

so that's kind of what i do ...

and finally, i will show you something my company put together one christmas. it's a compilation of some of the talent that come in on a regular basis so you can get an even better idea of the different styles of voice over that we work with. if you listen closely, you'll even hear pooh bear (no, not you ryan, the real one)

Maybe I do have an exciting life

2008-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

i was having lunch with some co-workers at Katsuya. it's this AMAZING sushi restaurant in Studio City. now, for those of you that don't like sushi trust me, you'd like it here. for those of you that have visited and are wondering "why have i never heard of this place? why did you not offer to take me there?"

good question. it is, however, a little on the fancy side. not in decor or atmosphere but in price alone. but believe me, it's worth it. it's a nice little treat every now and then.

but i digress.

back to my fancy life.

while Katsuya is NOT fancy. my life is fancy.

and so are my friends.

that's my cup there /\

you know how you go to a restaurant with more than four people and they ask you "would it be ok if we put you at tables beside each other?" you really want to sit together but you are also REALLY HUNGRY and really want to eat so you say "sure, that's fine"

well, my good friends Bret and Jemaine (you might know them as flight of the conchords) desperately wanted to go to lunch with me and my co-workers (like i said, i'm fancy)

why aren't we sitting with them you ask?

like i said, we were too hungry to wait
:)

my exciting CA life

2008-07-29T19:48:00.000-07:00

i hang out with my friends quite a bit. i also house sit quite a bit, so my friends get to reap the benefits of my house sitting ventures. on this particular afternoon, i was house sitting (yet again) and had the boys over (the boys are usually Eric *the roommate*, Jody *the bff*, and Matt *Jody's roommate*).

now, i know it must seem as if i lead a terribly exciting life, but the truth of the matter is that i don't.

sometimes my friends and i are hard pressed to find fun things to do which means sometimes we have to get inventive. luckily, most of us are in the "business" which means we have creativity oozing out of us at all times so you can imagine the things we come up with when we get bored!

i can tell you're intrigued so i'm prepared to show you.

yeah, we actually spent the better part of that afternoon trying to get all three of them on that boogie board. did you see the concentration?

yeah, this is all we could come up with.
yeah, i went to film school.
yeah, it IS a little sad.
don't you just want to come visit now?
i think i still have the boogie board.
any takers?

My Weekend Part Deux - Sunday

2008-07-28T11:16:00.000-07:00

Sunday! Sunday! Sunday!

So being the awesome friend that i am, i went to cheer on Jody for his last softball game of the season.

check out that form ..

by the way, he plays on a team with a bunch of actors. they aren't very good. this was the last game of the season and they were 1 - 9 going in. however, the team is filled with a bunch of comedic actors so they DO have the funniest team in the league. some w/ very recognizable faces.

after a hard fought battle (they were playing a team of 40 - 50 year olds who were either wearing knee braces or limping violently)

they finally won by 6 runs, finishing their season 2 - 9.

which leads us to ..

last game of the season BBQ

hamburgers, hotdogs, tri tip, bagel, fried egg

yes, fried eggs
we get a little fancy sometimes ...

did i mention, the BBQ was poolside?

after a long day in the sun ( i have the BEST farmer's tan! ), i finally finished my day back at the house playing ..

yeah,
you guessed it.
2 and a HALF hours of
DDR

yeah, i'm sure it looked something like that.

My Weekend - Saturday

2008-07-28T10:50:00.001-07:00

I had a very eventful weekend.
So eventful that in order to share it all, I'm going to post Saturday and Sunday separately

First, I was called upon by one of my engineers to house sit this weekend. He trusts me implicitly :)
He also has two dogs that need to be taken care of and as I am the seasoned professional (going on 4 years now as the utmost authority on professional pet care assistance) he chooses me to take care of his four legged friends.

Look at him ..

His name is Willie. Please don't be fooled by his innocent expression -- he's part Pit Bull part Doberman. VICIOUS. I'm kidding. He thinks he's a lap dog.

This is the house .. well, part of the backyard that i was sitting for .. very nice

Saturday I chose to play DDR ..
Now, for those of you that do not know. DDR is Dance Dance Revolution. You may have seen the kids play this in arcades. I own the home version. I don't play it often because I live on the second floor of my complex and my downstairs neighbors probably wouldn't like it that much.

Still curious? So, I didn't take pics of me on Saturday but I do have this lovely footage from Los Angeles, Thanksgiving, 2006

Yes, that's Ryan and my friend Jannea. Lindsey and I were taking breathers at the time. We're playing at another house I was house sitting at. Actually, it was the sister of the guy I was house sitting for this weekend. They all love me.

So imagine two hours straight of doing that.
Quite the workout.

I then showered and met up w/ my friends to go see a movie.

Stepbrothers

If you're a fan of Will Ferrell I suggest this movie. It's much better than Talladega Nights.

And that concludes my Saturday. Just wait til SUNDAY!!

Stuck in the Middle

2008-07-25T11:27:00.000-07:00

ok, so i named this blog middle child syndrome because i thought it was cool. and yes, i do have a degree in psychology, but i still did an internet search to refresh my memory on what the middle child syndrome entails.

in case you're wondering. i don't have it. here's a few reasons why.

according to some random internet sites that are probably completely inaccurate ...

I am what is known as a 66. since 2 of the three of us are both female, we make up 66% of the gender ratio. these people are so creative.

(nicole, in case you're wondering, G-Mak is what is known as a Carnie Bird -- that's much cooler than 66)

The long and short of it ..
apparently, i'm ignored, feel like i'm not the favorite, detest the limelight, am not an overachiever and a bunch of other crappy stuff.

on the contrary, i'm never ignored, have always been the favorite of not only my parents but of both siblings, am ok with everyone looking at me, am positively immaculate at everything i try and a whole bunch more wonderful things.

i'm really glad i looked that up!

anyway, the title will stay because i don't feel like changing it.
so, i'm writing a blog for a couple of reasons.

A)
i live far away from my family so it will be good for the kids to see pics of me so they remember what i look like

B)
this will make my mother feel like she can "look in" on me

C)
both nicole and ryan have one so i want one too!

and now for the obligatory picture:

yup, i'm the one in the middle ...