California

On May 1, 2008 I received a traffic citation while driving approximately 5mph in the middle of a bottleneck on Sunset Boulevard. A motorcycle cop driving between the lanes was stuck next to me because the guy in the other lane had drifted too close to my lane. He looked at me and nodded. I looked at him and nodded. We inched forward in the congestion. He looked at me again. I smiled and he motioned for me to pull over. “I can’t possibly have broken the law,” I thought, “I’m not even going 10mph!”

[click to continue...]

Last night I finally finished reading Among the Mansions of Eden: Tales of Love, Lust, and Land in Beverly Hills, a book I bought for Tricia about five years ago. I sailed through the first few hundred pages of David Weddle’s tome a couple of weeks ago and was entranced by the marvelous stories of early 20th century Beverly Hills. But then somewhere about 3/5 of the way into it, the author seemed to lose focus and so did I. He shifted from all these awesome anecdotes about architecture and amour in the first half of the 1900s to depressing essays about drugs and crime and porn and immigration in the second half. It’s really a fascinating book, and Weddle obviously spent a tremendous amount of time on research and documentation, but I’d only rate it about 3 1/2 stars.

Whoa. I felt that one. A nice 4.5 right under my buddy’s house. At first I thought that one of the cats knocked over a lamp or something. Scary. I can never remember what I’m supposed to do. Hide under a table? Stand in a doorframe? Jump in the bathtub? Stop, drop, and roll?

On Saturday morning I ran a quick 7 miles at 6 am, came home, and told my girlfriend to get ready for an adventure. We packed the truck and headed for wine country (photos). The President’s Day traffic was brutal so it took us almost 3 hours to go what should have only taken an hour and a half. We had a terrific time, though. The Santa Barbara vineyards — of Sideways fame — are just as much fun as going to Napa and they’re only a short drive from Los Angeles. First we hit the Firestone Winery and its sister vineyard, Curtis Winery. Tastings are rough for me because I don’t like any reds, but Firestone had some wonderful whites. I bought a delicious chardonnay and two awesome sauvignon blancs for less than $50 total.

[click to continue...]

Words cannot describe how frustrating is it to drive anywhere in Los Angeles. The part that really slays you is when you realize that the problem is not bad drivers. (Warning: It will take you at least a solid year to come to this realization.) The real problem is the traffic infrastructure: traffic lights, stop signs, road configurations, and construction. I’ve written before about the supreme idiocy of the Santa Monica Boulevard Transit Parkway Project. Today I was quite upset to learn that in 2005 the Federal government — not money from my California tax dollars, but from my Federal taxes — granted $1,611,962,012 to the California Department of Transportation. And yet it still takes 30 minutes to drive 5 miles.

The threat of an earthquake hitting southern California is not really something that can keep you worrying all night. For all intents and purposes an earthquake is unpredictable. There is little to no humidity, and I haven’t seen a cockroach in four years now. I honestly must admit, though, that I miss this sort of thing. My uncle, aunt, and their kids took a forced vacation to Mississippi. I’m keeping my fingers crossed hoping that my mom and grandmother are going to be okay. Could Frances make it all the way to Gainesville? That’s what they’re predicting, but I doubt it. Kickoff is Saturday, for Zook’s sake.

It rained in Los Angeles today.
Rain? <Princess Bride>Inconceivable!</Princess Bride>

I grew up in Daytona Beach and spent the 90s in Gainesville, Fl. Rain was not unusual. In Daytona it rained like clockwork from 3 to 4 pm pretty much every day for eight or nine months each year. In Gainesville you could wear shorts and a t-shirt to a 9 am class in the blistering sunshine without a cloud in the sky and walk out of that class into a hurricane-force downpour. Rain was … well … if not your “best friend” … it was at least like some guy you see every day and get to know pretty well. Rain was somebody who worked in the same building as you and you saw him every morning in the elevator. Rain was “not unusual”.

[click to continue...]

The Bucs won. I had a good time. Chris and I played Teras Kasi and MTV Snowboarding and argued at length about logic, infinity, nanophysics, the soul, “dark matter”, and relationships until 4 am. Then we watched the Simpsons. Chris is doing well. He has a really cool girlfriend named Al. She burned me a copy of the Orange County soundtrack, which is just great music.
[click to continue...]

I finally managed to finish all my Christmas cards last night. It figures that I would run out of stamps with three left - mom, dad, and Nana Rainy’s. People should start getting my Christmas cards around the first week of January, so that’s always pleasant. And of course I haven’t mailed any gifts yet. Oh well. I’ll try to do better next year. 2001 was pretty whacked for me all around anyway, so this is all par for the ‘01 course.
I’m off to Chris’ in San Diego to watch the Bucs game. While I’m gone, try out the new “dark” theme. I like it. And hey, look! Only about 1200 more entries to put in the correct category and I’ll be all caught up here. w00t!

So what’s shakin’ in your neck of the woods? Apparently the San Andreas decided to wait exactly one year to welcome me to California.

Here’s a great photo of the view from Jason’s balcony in San Francisco.

I was shocked and amazed to find that the California Department Of Motor Vehicles actually has a great web site. It’s informative and helpful and easy to navigate. Inconceivable!

Megnut mentioned one of those ‘net services a few days ago. The mylackey.com and askjeeves.com sites are nifty, to be sure, but I just found a place that is even more useful. While I was in San Diego this weekend Chris showed me Food.Com and I was astounded. What a wonderful web site! You enter your address and the site tells you which restaurants will deliver food to you. You can see the entire menu and pay by credit card. It’s like amazon.com for dinner! It is totally rocking cool. I’m very excited about it.
[Oh, and if everyone else in the world already knows about this place, shame on you for not telling me about it sooner!]