Friends

Last Sunday we had lunch with the Tobers at Six Feet Under in Atlanta. I had a terrific fried catfish po’ boy and about six gallons of sweet tea. You just cannot get sweet tea in Los Angeles anywhere, so it was a treat.

Then on Tuesday, before the presidential debate, we had dinner at No Mas! Cantina, right around the corner from Ryan’s place. (They had amazing salsa but mediocre margaritas.) It was really cool to get to visit with my old buddy for a little while.

Last weekend I hopped on a flight to Denver for my friend Bob’s 36th birthday party. His wife spent months planning “Bob’s Amazing Race 2008“; we spent Saturday as six teams of four people roaming around LoDo, barnstorming bars and looking for clues. It was a total blast.

The event was conveniently simultaneous with the first annual Mile High Music Festival, which featured a few dozen bands and Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Dave Matthews Band.

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My friends Bob and Gretchen were in town last night for the X-Files premiere at Grauman’s Chinese Theater in Hollywood. I met them afterwards and we went to Citizen Smith for a late dinner. (It took me just under an hour to get to the restaurant from my house, even though it’s only about eight miles away, because a single block of Hollywood Boulevard was closed for the movie.) Just like every time I’ve been there, the food was delicious and the service was atrocious. We had a great time, though.

On Saturday night Kelly and I played in a “Nite Lite” golf tournament at Porter Valley. One word: Awesomeness. The format was a Texas Scramble, which basically means everyone hits a ball and then decides who had the best shot. Then everyone hits from there as if that was his shot. We got to use two or three of my drives and several of my other shots, so that was heartening. The sun was gone from the sky by the time we started the back nine and it was just about pitch black, so we had glow-in-the-dark balls and neon necklaces and little glowing ropes on the carts. It’s quite amazing that nobody was killed.

Because there were so many groups we started on the 5th tee. Every fourth or fifth hole had a theme. The first tee was margaritas and fajitas and tacos. The fifth was ribs, chicken, and rum drinks, etc. The best was probably the 10th hole, with chocolate brownies, scotch, and cigars and coffee. One of the holes was cheese and crackers and wine. Our last hole was, if I remember correctly, fourteen; we finished the night with Italian sausages and beer. This was not an evening for the intestinally weak. Lots of photos, of course, posted to Flickr.

Ryan has finally posted a gallery of photos of the painfully cute Madeline Tober.

I played Porter Valley Country Club with Kelly on Sunday. I shot a 55 on the front nine and a 54 on the back nine for a 109, tied for my best round ever. As usual it took me nine or ten holes to get to the point where I could put all the pieces of my swing together and really feel like I was hitting the ball well. (Kelly promises that will only last for about ten or eleven years.) We played the back nine with a nice couple, Dennis and Linda. (Dennis does “flutter testing” for a living, which means he takes airplanes on test flights to make sure the wings stay attached.) Next weekend I’m going to play in a “night golf” tournament at PVCC, so I’ll have to bring my camera and let you know how that goes …

A year or two ago I was returning to my office from lunch with some co-workers. I spotted an old, rusty, razor blade on the sidewalk. “You don’t see that every day,” I said. In retrospect I was probably wrong. Everyone likely sees dozens of rusty razor blades on sidewalks and in gutters every day. We just don’t notice them. That’s not the point. The point is that I told my friend, Jon, that it would make a good domain name. “You should register rustyrazorblade.com,” I said. And he did. Now, if you’re looking for an esoteric, complicated, intense Apache and / or MySQL resource, it’s the place to go. True story.

A week or two ago I linked to a video clip my friend made: Casino Royale with Cheese, a seriously funny film about how James Bond would handle being paired with a really annoying partner. It’s a great little piece of web satire that’s now been nominated at the MTV Movie Awards! Go vote for it!

My best friend’s wife’s mom — which sounds like many more degrees of separation than it really is — was recently diagnosed with breast cancer. This is definitely something to file under “Why Do Bad Things Happen to Good People?”, and I truly, truly despise that folder in my life. His wife is going to participate in The San Diego Breast Cancer 3-Day to generate support. Do me a favor — c’mon, do I really ever ask you for anything? — and help them blow away their goal. They’re already almost half-way there.

… Pam was diagnosed with INFLAMMATORY BREAST CANCER on March 29, 2006. She always had NORMAL mammograms until one day when she noticed swelling in her breast, no lump! She went to the doctor who ordered an MRI which revealed nothing significant. They opted to do a surgical biopsy which revealed the malignancy. Since her diagnosis she has shown such grace. Her mission is to educate women that even when you don’t have a lump, if something doesn’t feel right, go to the doctor, educate yourself and be persistent. If she wasn’t aggressive to check this out early, we may not have had this fighting chance!

Went to see the Fab Four at the Canyon Club tonight. They were pretty awesome (as far as cover bands go). They changed costumes a few times and played probably two dozen Beatles songs. They weren’t the Red Elvises or anything, but it was a good show and a lot of fun.

The place was packed, but I got the feeling that there wasn’t much else to do in Agoura Hills on a Friday night. If you go to a show at the Canyon Club, eat first. The very few items on the menu all started over $20. I went for the rib-eye and was severely disappointed. I don’t cry about spending $30+ for a good steak, and the one I got was huge, but it was mostly gristle and fat.

I should add something about the fact that Budweiser Select is actually a very good beer and not a new-fangled low-carb diet beer, but since I didn’t try it for two months because that’s what I assumed it was, I’ll keep my mouth shut until their marketing department gets a clue.

Sometimes it’s ultra-cool to live in Los Angeles. My girlfriend’s little sister is in town, so we went to Mr. Chow for dinner tonight. (It’s only the best restaurant in the universe, so if you ever get a chance, I highly recommend it. Sly Stallone and Burt Reynolds were sitting together at the next table, which was pretty nifty.) Then when I got home, suprise, there’s my buddy Rob guest-starring on CSI: Miami. (Yes, believe it or not it’s filmed here in LA.) And — hell — I forgot to mention that just the other weekend right on my street I bumped into and subsequently had Sunday brunch with Bill Caco.
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Does anyone have any idea where Chris O’Brien is? The last address I have for him in New Zealand — on Clifford Street — is apparently no longer valid. His Christmas / birthday / New Year’s card was returned however-many thousand miles back to me as “Return to Sender — Not at This Address”.

My friend Bob has started a blog called absorbed dose over at journalspace.com. His wife — inconceivably — is “with child”, and the baby is allegedly his. Bob is also apparently in Munich right now, which would explain why he hasn’t been responding to post cards.

The wedding of Melissa Overton and Ryan Tober was Saturday, May 18, 2002. I was the Best Man and had a terrific time. This is a photo of the Brothers Tober that I took shortly before the ceremony. They are three really great guys and I was honored to be in the wedding party. I shot almost 300 digital photos and some of them are, IMHO, excellent. I’m working on getting them all onto CD so I can send the images to their families; let me know if you’re interested in a copy.