Category: life or something like it

Jul 23 2008

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It was a pretty crappy week in the job search department.  I applied to a bunch of positions, but didn’t hear a peep from anyone.  Most disappointing was the wine store position that I applied for.  Oh well.

I tried to get into a free screening of The Dark Knight at USC on Thursday, however not much of the wait list made it in for that one.  So I ended up riding my bike over to the Arclight Hollywood and to see a show Friday afternoon.  The build-up to the movie was completely over the top, and therefore expectations were quite high.  The movie didn’t disappoint.  I think pretty much every one of the main actors did a fabulous job in their roles.  Sure, Heath Ledger is getting the bulk of the press in light of his passing, but he also did a pretty fabulous job reinventing a character played brilliantly by Jack Nicholson in the first Batman movie.  Both Christian Bale and Aaron Eckhardt were great as Batman and Harvey Dent as well.  One of my friends thought it might have been a little long, and I can see that position, but I didn’t mind the length either.

Sunday I went and saw the Independent Shakespeare Companies performance of Twelfth Night at the Barnsdall Arts Park in Hollywood.  Basically, its free Shakespeare in the park, Th-Su, during the months of July and August.  It was fun, and I think I’ll go again, though with a picnic dinner this time.

After spending the morning job searching on Monday, I decided to take a little diversion and do some more exploring of LA.  So I got a Metro Day Pass and hit the rails.  This time I took the train to Universal City and went up to Universal City Walk.  Basically its just a collection of stores and restaurants just outside of Universal Studios.  Touristy for sure.  After walking around the City Walk, I decided to head back into Hollywood to catch a movie.  I was initially thinking about seeing Wall-E at the El Capitan Theater (owned by Disney), however the movie had already started by the time I got there.  Luckily, Hell Boy II was playing across the street at the Chinese Theater.  Check one more touristy thing off the list…See a movie at the Chinese Theater.  Like the first Hell Boy, it was directed by Guillermo del Toro.  A great movie as well, and not as dark and sinister as The Dark Knight.

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Jul 16 2008

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Despite not really having any money, I’ve had a decent enough week.

Tuesday through Thursday of last week, I had a short-term temp assignment at the corporate offices of the Metro YMCA.  It was a nice little break from the joblessness, and its especially nice to have some money coming in this week.

Saturday, I went for a short hike in Topanga State Park.  On the way back out of the park, I even hiked barefoot for awhile.  It was nice.  When I got home, I took the bus downtown to catch the evenings show at Grand Performances series at the California Plaza.  The artist was Rachid Taha a French-Algerian artist, most famous in the US for a Arabic version of The Clash’s Rock the Casbah.  There was a small dance area, packed to the brim, with many French and Arabic speakers around.  I had a blast dancing.

Sunday, I went on a hike with Progressive Christians Uniting in the San Gabriel Mountains.  We went up to a spot on the San Gabriel River, that is quite popular with the latino population of the San Gabriel Valley cities.  The sections alongside the road are a bit overused.  We hiked aways down a trail towards the wilderness area, and were eventually able to find some space without other people.  We even took a little dip in the river, which was really nice on a warm and relatively humid day.

I’m officially helping out with the 10:15 service at church now.  I’m still not that sure how I feel about church in general, but I do like this service…and its nice to be helping make it happen.  I’m in charge of making sure things are set-up before the service this coming Sunday.

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Jul 08 2008

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Well its been a week of worrying about money again.  However, I did start a short 2-3 day temp assignment today.  Its nice at least having some money flowing in.

Besides job searching, I’ve watched a few movies, been to the beach a few times, and went to a pool party at a house in the valley that a friend is house sitting at (who’s owner has won an oscar).

Pretty low key week.

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Jul 08 2008

The Wackness

It’s the summer of 1994 and Luke has just graduated from high school.  He deals weed to make money.  He likes his shrink’s step-daughter.  He pays his shrink with weed.  A twist on the classic coming of age movie.

I saw The Wackness at the Arclight last night.  It definitely brought back some memories, as I am around the same age (graduated in 95, originally class of 94).

The soundtrack is great…definitely a reminder of the times…rap that’s pre- Biggie vs. Tupac. 

In the movie Olivia (the step-daughter), tells Luke that he needs to wake up.  Stop looking at only “the wackness” of life (the negative) and just focus on “the dopeness” (the positive), like she does. 

I think its a good point…but we need to make sure not to be extremely in either direction.  Yeah, its not healthy to focus just on the wackness…but likewise its not healthy to focus just on the dopeness.  Both exist…and both need to be dealt with.

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Jul 03 2008

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The end of my friends visit was punctuated by a little freaking out about my lack of job and money in my bank accounts.  I placed a call into the Diocesan’s insurance administrator to check the status of my unemployment benefits application, and was told that they only cut checks once a month and that is around the 15th of the month.  So it would mean that I wouldn’t get a check until mid-July.  Thankfully on Thursday (the 26th), a check arrived with my first payment (which was backdated to include everything from my last day of work (May 15th).  That took a big weight off my shoulders for sure.

I signed up at a temp agency downtown.  They have mentioned a few opportunities, but I haven’t been sent out on anything yet.  The person there did give me some resume tips…so I’ve made some updates and plan on bringing them in Monday after the long holiday weekend.

I saw the movie Wanted, on Friday.  It is directed by the same director as the Russian films Nightwatch and Daywatch.  It was pretty enjoyable, lots of action, a cool car chase, and fun with trains.  Its not going to win any major awards or anything…but it was fun and worth the $14 (gotta love weekend movie pricing in LA).  The car chase almost overtook my previous favorite car chase in a movie (Ronin Car Chase), but its more special effect created, while the Ronin chase was just driving. (Wanted Car Chase Part 1, Part 2)

Other than that, it was a pretty slow week.  Still trying to be frugal with the funds, trying to read, trying to spend time at the beach avoiding the heat.  I got to do the prayers of the people at church on Sunday.  That was cool, my first involvement in a church service since finishing at Canterbury.  I’m really liking the new 10:15 service.  Its keeping me at Beverly Hills right now.  I might be getting more involved with this service in the near future.

…and wow, the year is half over.

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Jun 26 2008

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From the 17 – 24th I had a friend visiting from out of town.  So basically we spent the week playing tourist in LA.

After picking my friend up at the airport, we headed straight to the beach (Manhattan Beach).  Spent a little time there and then headed back to my neighborhood.  My friend was craving mexican food, so we walked over to the taqueria that is near my house.  After that we just kind of chilled out for the rest of the evening.

The next day we did some more exploring around the neighborhood.  We walked down Melrose, to about halfway between Fairfax and La Cienega.  The plan was to check out some of the stores (even though neither of us had money to spend).  However, we left a little early in the morning, and a majority of the stores weren’t open.  In the end, we got some coffee and did about 7 miles of urban hiking getting there and back.  Needless to say, after that much walking in pretty warm sun, we didn’t do much else the rest of the day.

Thursday, we got day passes for the Metro and did some exploring public transit style.  We had an early lunch in Little Ethiopia, went to the La Brea tar pits, and in the evening went a saw a sneak preview of the movie Finding Amanda in Beverly Hills.

Friday, we got up early and headed downtown to check out the LA Flower District.  They claim its the largest flower market in the world.  It’s basically 2 big warehouses full of venders selling flowers (and other accessories).  It’s mainly geared towards the wholesale market, but they have public hours each day as well (though some of the vendors shut down by then).  After that we went up to Griffith Park and walked around the Observatory for a bit. I’m pretty sure we went to the beach at some point as well.

Saturday, my friend wanted to visit another friend in San Diego.  So we headed down south to do that.  I dropped my friend off at her friends and headed over to one of my friends place to hang out with her and her husband.  They decided to take me to Coranado Beach to check out that area.  We first went to Mr. P’s Irish Pub for lunch.  Mr. P’s is a big Navy hangout (my friend’s husband is in the Navy.  I had a pretty good corned beef sandwhich.  Then we walked over to the beach and hung out there for a few hours.  My friends husband and I spent a significant amount of time body surfing.  It was pretty much a great time (and I managed not to get sunburned).  Later I met back up with my visiting friend and her friend for some dinner at California Pizza Kitchen.  After dinner, we started our journey back to Los Angeles.  But on the way, stopped at Stone Brewing Co. in Escondido.  We got two beers to split between the two of us, a 2006 Double Bastard and a Cali-Belgique IPA.  Both were good, the cali-belgique was a really interesting hybrid beer.

Sunday, we went to church and then to the beach all afternoon.  I think we got there a little before noon and didn’t leave until after 6pm.  It was great (and again…no sunburn).

Monday we got up late, had some breakfast and had a somewhat lazy day.  We went and saw the new Incredible Hulk movie at the Arclight.

Tuesday, we went to Doughboy’s for breakfast and then it was time to drop my friend back off at the airport.

It was a great week…and fun being a tourist in my own town.

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Jun 18 2008

Hallie update

I just heard from my little sister about her dog Hallie’s head xray (mentioned in this entry).

There was nothing abnormal on the xrays, and the blood tests came back negative.  So they don’t really know why her eyes rolled back and why she was lethargic.  My dad says she seems to be doing better the past week though.

So good news for sure.

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Jun 16 2008

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Posting early this week, because I have a friend visiting for a week starting tomorrow.

It’s been a pretty slow week event wise.  Mainly I’ve just been job searching.

I did ride my bike to Pasadena last week, which was a significant ride for my out of shape self.  I did cheat and take the Metro train home.  Baby steps with the getting into shape.

I’m slowly starting to get in the swing of cooking again.  Tonight, I’m going to make my first attempt at homemade pasta.  We’ll see how things turn out…but it’ll be fun just to try.  I’m liking getting back into cooking…and who knows…maybe I’ll even start blogging about it soon like my friend Nicole at Pinch My Salt.

For those of you reading this in a feed reader…I tweaked my design a little bit over the weekend.  There are more tweaks to come, so check out the actual site every once in awhile and let me know what you think.

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Jun 12 2008

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I don’t have much to talk about this week, which is why I’m late posting my weekly update.

I’m still looking for a new job.  I got laid-off at the coffee shop, because we just weren’t busy enough.  It will be a long tough summer I imagine for Rich.  I hope he survives because it is the best cup of coffee near USC.

I’ve been sending off resumes every day, still haven’t had much of anything biting though.  I’m starting to get a little concerned.

My little sister, who lives in NYC and works as nanny, is going to Dubai with the family she works for on Sunday.  They are staying at the Burj Al Arab for three nights. Rooms there start at $1,500 a night.  It is a whole different world my sister lives in.

I got some sad news from my youngest sister yesterday.  Her dog, Hallie, needs a head x-ray to check for a brain tumor.  Hallie got blood work done yesterday, and has the appointment for the x-ray next Wednesday.  Apparently her eyes have been rolling back in her head when she’s been walking and she’s slowed down in general a lot in the last few weeks.  I hope it isn’t as bad as it sounds it might be.  Hallie is such a wonderful dog, so loving.  If it is serious, it will be a big loss for both my sister and parents.  Here is a picture of her from a few years ago:

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Jun 03 2008

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I had a great weekend.

Friday night, I went out with my housemate and a few of her friends to The Mint to see Mama’s Cookin’.  The band is friends with one of Kathryn’s (the housemate) friends.  It was nice to get out and see some live music.  If only the second band would have been any good (they needed a bit of practice).  We got there a little before Mama’s Cookin’ was set to go on…so we also caught a bit of Janeane Garofalo’s stand up act.  She had some funny bits…but seemed to be phoning it in a bit.

Saturday was my friend Frank’s 30th Birthday.  The festivities started off with a BBQ at the park in front of their apartment.  After a few hours at the park, the party moved to an art gallery on La Brea.  This part was a surprise for Frank.  There we had wine, champagne and a little dance party.  We only had the art gallery space until 11pm, so once that rolled around we tried to figure out somewhere else to go.  We ended up at a place on Melrose, but they were booked with private parties…so we couldn’t get into the section where the dancing was going on.  Some of the folks were hungry, so I suggested we check out Kitchen 24, a new 24-hour diner on Caheunga in Hollywood.  It’s on the same block as quite a few of the trendy clubs in Hollywood.  Kitchen 24 had only been open for a few days at this point…so they are still working out some issues (about half of their menu was unavailable), but the food we did have was pretty cool.  The best part was the place has a DJ booth and when the DJ came on around 2am, our group started an impromptu dance party.  We eventially got about half of the folks in the diner dancing with us.  I think we may have been the first group to jump up and start dancing…cuz the staff was taking pictures with their iPhones, etc.

On Sunday, one of my friends and I headed over to Manhattan Beach.  We just hung out on the beach and talked for about four hours.  It was nice and relaxing, though I didn’t quite get enough coverage on the sunscreen, and am now paying for it with a quite red back.  Oh well.

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