yes this is old but I love it

Did I mentioned that I post sometimes days, weeks, months after the fact?
That post accuracy / truthfulness hovers between 5-150%?

Yeah I forget that sometimes too.

Boing Boing has unicorn chasers - This is my favorite unicorn.
Tomorrow night I'll be in Disney World!

We said eff it on Monday and opened our Christmas present early, some gifts freshly wrapped and some just purchased an hour before.

This is my favorite gift from B. She found it off some random website and the actual item shipped directly from China or Korea. I love my robot clock with hand clips for important notes - though my co worker referred to them as roach clips.




Part of the reason for unwrapping so early is that we'll be at LAX on Christmas morning flying to this place (my first time).

The interesting thing is though B has been to DisneyWorld a bunch of times  [being from Michigan and all - did you know that there are airlines with 70% of their flights go only to either Florida or Hawaii from the Midwest during winter?], I'm a little more up to date on recent, small and random changes to the park from all the Disney blogs I read.  Yes I'm a bit of a Disney parks nerd (compared to the Disney movie or character specific nerd) and I love the business side of the resorts.





Big thank you my future In-laws for use of their airline miles and timeshare _ I'm looking forward to hanging gout with them in next week.  (Hi Barb!). 

B will be an excellent guide as I don't know what to fully expect but I am looking to ride this ten times:

tropical island cupcakes for winter

B gives out cupcakes as thank you notes to her co-workers and assistants. Always four cupcakes to make up a single scene: this year a tropical island made of brown sugar, kit kats and a goldfish cracker added for realism.



I should have wiped the table down before taking the above picture. As you can see it was a decent size production for our small table to handle.

ferraby lionheart

With my old laptop sitting on the piano bench across from me, the screen cracked rendering it to a unusable state, I am refreshingly liberated from my music collection. Eventually I will import most of it over but just without many songs/bands that once made up soundtracks to my past life - I'm all about moving forward these days.

Yet revisiting the past can be a good thing sometimes.

Recently I noticed Ferraby Lionheart played a couple nights in LA after a long absence from performing in this city. In Nashville finishing a new album with a early 2010 release, his return triggered a rediscover of his 2007 album Catch the Brass Ring that was buried deep in my music collection. I downloaded the tracks again last week as I came out of a fog, just in time for my life to un-spiral again.

Though this song off his first album might be from the past technically, for me this a new soundtrack. I'm not sure how far under the radar Ferraby is, especially outside of Los Angeles, that I hope his new album on the way creates paths to new ears in this country.



New shows every Tuesday in February 2010!
FEB 2 - LOS ANGELES, CA - Bootleg Theater
FEB 9 - LOS ANGELES, CA - Bootleg Theater
FEB 16 - LOS ANGELES, CA -Bootleg Theater
FEB 23 - LOS ANGELES, CA - Bootleg Theater

website, myspace, video link

October: Best Month Ever - Reason # 1

Reason # 1 - She said Yes.



It is not the most conventional ring.
It is not the biggest diamond.
It is everything I have for the person that is everything to me.



This is two months after the fact but whatevs; my blog, my timeline.

For the when (it was Oct 17th) and the where (The Getty Villa)you can look at some photos here on my flickr page.

October: Best Month Ever - Reason # 2

Reason# 2 - Sonia.

I wrote about my friend Sonia earlier and how she wrote about a lump she found.  This is an update if you haven't been following her kick ass blog which you should as it is all sorts of kick ass.

So why is this reason number 2?

Well during this mess of appointments and tests and worry, her boyfriend David proposed to her beneath the Bay Bridge. I imagine I'll meet him one of these days and I will tell him that it was apparent to me that he was The One based on her blog and pictures. Also her smiles her dead giveaways.

Then October gets better to hear that after her mastectomy Sonia hears that the cancer hasn't spread and that she now officially a cancer survivor.  Now today as I caught up on my blog reading I see that Sonia has been featured in i live here:SF with her San Francisco origin story plus a great collection of photos by the creator of the i live here: SF series. Please check it out!

(Drawing by Sonia's fiancee.)



(I wasn't sure if I was going to ever write this post when Sonia became my first friend to get bit by the Big C.  I've known Sonia for almost 18 years now and while we been friends, sometimes close, sometimes at arms length, this whole cancer reality really threw me for a loop. My dad died of cancer when I was 17 and I didn't handle it well - I just didn't handle it at all.  When B asked my what number 2 on my list was going to be about I told her Sonia's good news.  B was thrilled to hear this of course and as I got through all the details she asked knowingly if I was truly going to write about it.  She pointed out that I never made it passed the the first chapter of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius yet. And I didn't write this blog post until now.  With my Thanksgiving post plus some drafts I'm working one have made it clear that I'm still dealing with stuff.  Celebrating Sonia and her new? renewed? continued? back to same old, same old but that's a good thing? life is probably a good place to start.)

I'm bad at finishing things

The days have drifted down the stream of life so quickly it's easy for me to forget the moments that have defined me lately. A couple months ago I managed a quick rundown as to why October was the best month ever.

Reason # 10 - the internet always win

Reason # 9 Jury Duty - or a much needed day off work.


Reason # 8: Fall in Los Angeles.

Reasons # 7, 6 and 5 - I found the greatest object ever made by mankind

Reason # 4 Halloween of course!


Reason # 3 October Birthdays

I think, well a number of things have made it alright to finish this finally and so I think I will.

Monday photos from Griffith Observatory

Monday was spent at the plant in Santa Fe Springs dealing with our ERP system for work. On the phone was the head programmer in India controlling the mouse and windows projected onto the wall from oceans away.

The rain was pouring here as much as anywhere else in the greater Los Angeles region and it would've been the same at my office south of Beverly Hills. The rain the internet, "the cloud" is all the same these days even for the vitamin company I work for; there was no reason that I couldn't be at my desk watching this and not 25 miles away.

Not that I was complaining since I got home early enough to see the rain blink long enough for the sun to set. My go to place for these moments is the Griffith Observatory, mostly because I live a mile down the hill. It was wonderfully empty and wet.







The view left to right: Downtown Los Angeles, Mid City, Hollywood, Century City, with the pacific Ocean in the background (Not the best stitching or photos)


I wanted to get pictures of the snow powdered mountains but the cloud hung tight to the hills. I should have some from the patio at work tomorrow.

thanksgiving

I meant to visit him this time, my decision firm even before the plane took off from Long Beach. Confirmed driving away from SFO north on 101, east on 24, the fog to my back and stopped at the Berkeley hills.







My dad is dead, has been dead for almost twenty years and my visits stopped at the two, maybe three count. It's not that I don't think of him often. There's no ill feelings, no unsettled business. Always love and respect and fond memories in fact.




Why not then, you might ask. For the same reason I cringe when old friends, at web length Facebook friends, state they listen to 80s music still; I've moved on.

Regardless, I'll be where he is eventually - we'll have all the time in the world to catch up then. Now is for the living.

I'm back

I'm back with a new LapCat laptop.



Please ignore my farmer's tan and the bad florescent lighting. Damn I shouldn't have pointed out my whiteness. oh well.