L.A. continued

OK So let me break down the Laugh Factory. Not nearly as big as we thought it would be and what was up with the MANDATORY 2 drinks, damn $45 isn't enough on tickets. It was aslo kind of ghetto but yet me still had fun. While we were upstairs waiting for the next show, there was this couple in front of us who smelled like a skunk had attacked them, and not matter where we went we couldn't get away from the smell, even as we were walking down the stairs to the show room. Luckily, they didn't sit near us or I dont think we could have made it. I tried to get my girl to sit in the front but she refused so we were in the second row. She thought we would get picked on if we sat up front but the comedians weren't that bad anyway so it wouldn't have matter, as far as I'm concerned.
So after the show we head up the street to the Hustler Store where of course my girl gets into with the stupid security guard there. There was this limo trying to do a 3-point turn in the dead-end road we had to go down to get to the Hustler Store's parking lot and my girl moves up to try and get out of the way and the security guard comes over and starts yelling at her, saying can't you see the guy is trying to get out. Then she gets into it with him saying she is trying to get out his way and dude should not have been trying to turn a limo in this small a$$ road. It was hilarious. Security guard dude had nothing to say back, he shut up and walked away.
We went in the store only for a hot second because by now it's after 1 which means for me it's like 4 in the morning. We head home and I knock right out, sweet.
Only to get up early again to do some more touring. Off we got to the Hollywood sign and it was a trip I'm sure watching us trying to get the sign in the background big enough for you to be able to tell what it says as well as me, without being actually close to it. It really didn't work out that well.
After that we were off to the street with all the stars on it and the place where the actors/actresses put the feet/hands in the cement. We took a couple of pictures with someone the starts I actually knew and off we went. By the way, we have yet to eat so we are all starving now and we choose this really good Greek Restaurant called Ulysses Voyage. The food was really good and I was stuffed when I left there. I had some zucchini patties fried, Tzatziki, hummus and a nice Greek salad and a Mimosa to top it off.
So after that we're off to Venice Beach and wonder around there. There we got o Malibu beach where we were going to have some crepes but it was impossible to find parking so we go to some ghetto want to be crepe place (definitely not worth the calories). after that we are off to Redondo Beach and that's where I see it, a real churro, what was so yummy and worth the calories, I should have had two of these instead of the crepe.
Now we are discussing dinner options, which considering we are all still full was silly but we do come to an agreement. I have never had Japanese so they have convinced me to try Tokyo Wako, but we're thinking way later.
We finally go there and have to wait until another couple arrives so that there are enough people at the table for the Chef to come out and cook in front of us. My girl ordered some cucumber/avocado sushi and it was delicious. And then I decided on the Filet Mignon and shrimp. All the food was very good.
So to wrap up the trip, Fri and Sat food was bad Sunday was filled with too much good food.
Over all the trip was a great success but too short.

Trip to LA

Ok it has been a very busy weekend here in L.A. My girl was trying to stuff as much as possible into my visit and she did a great job but now I'm exhausted lol.

So the trip to LA has now come to an end and I am exhausted. Boy we did a lot of stuff in two days. It will probably take me a week to recover from everything.

Let’s see, Friday we started at a restaurant right after coming from the airport called Alpine Village. It was suppose to be an authentic German restaurant but let’s just say it was pretty ghetto and the food was average, this was not what I was expecting, man I miss Germany. That’s ok, hopefully we’ll be there in May J Damn ticket prices better start dropping though because right now they are $1330 or so. Anyway back to the LA trip.

So we get back from the restaurant and I’m tired as hell so off to bed I go.

Saturday we are up way early, 0700hrs (which technically isn’t that early for me considering the time difference but damn it I was tired) so we can get an early start to go wine tasting in Solvang, CA. Now on our way there, Nicky and Caesar are telling me about this movie I just have to see called Sideways that has to do with the area (ok I am basically putting the name in so I don’t forget later when I go to watch it). It ends up being a two-hour drive to Nicky surprise she thought it was about an hour. So we get there and it’s about 1030hrs and we are starving. So we stop at the tourist info booth and ask about which vineyards to go to and what restaurant to eat at. We figure we will eat then go taste some wine at one spot, as we don’t have too much time since we are having some BBQ at 1700hrs. We trot off to the restaurant the guy in the tourist booth told us expecting some good food; it may have equaled IHOP if we are lucky. It was mediocre but we were starving so what could we say. Now had we taken our time and walked around a bit first we came across several other nice looking places we were sure would have had better food, such is the punishment of impatience. We did buy a few things while walking around and then prepared to go to the vineyard. Now though we are a little skeptical in regards to if this place will be any good as the same guy from the booth had recommended it. As we pull up to the Sunshine Vineyard though, it looks promising.

We go pay our $15 to get the up-graded version of the wine tasting and start to have at it. Sometimes the little snacks they had were better than the wine lol. The best one we all agreed on was a red wine, Ethos 2005. I think we tasted a total of 12 wines, 4 whites and the rest reds.

On the drive back both Nicky and I were struggling to stay awake, man wine makes you sleepy. I managed to stay awake but Nicky on the other hand not so much.

So we’re off to....

BY THE WAY DON’T WORRY THERE ARE MANY PICTURES AS PER REQUEST OF SEVERAL PEOPLE

Cesaer & Paul's house for BBQ where we manage to stuff our faces just in time to run out the door to get on our way to the Laugh Factory on Sunset Blvd. (This is the part I have been looking forward to). We had a really good time. The picture below is of me and Dwayne Preston, MC for the night. Who by the way was one of the best we saw that night. He could have done a lot more and we would have been happy.











We saw :

Dwayne Perkins, *****

Natasha Leggeri , **

Jeremy Hotz, *****

Dom Irrera, *
Dane Cook, **

As you can see we had our favorites, and neither one of them was on the stage long enough.

As this blog is getting long I will continue on a new blog.

in the airport

yup you guessed it, I'm sitting in the Augusta airport for the first time waiting on my flight to leave for Charlotte so I can catch the connector flight to LA for my weekend trip.  I'm off to see one of my good friends that I was in the AF with and we have all kinds of plans.  She has us traveling all day tomorrow, then off to a BBQ, then to the Laugh Factory on Sunset for some laughs and Sunday we are still debating on.  We were going to go to a Lakers game but the tickets were more than I wanted to pay for a NBA game I'd only pay prices like that for college basketball.

two weeks of down time

Well the end of the exodus has come and I am sure Monday will bring many things.  It was nice having time to catch up on everything at work, even though I still didn't get nearly half of the things I planned on doing done.  This  is the first time I have actually been in the office for Christmas, before I was either in Germany or working TDY for President Ford's funeral.  It was nice but I think I preferred being on vacation for the two weeks but it's such a short time to go to Germany, besides it's still expensive to fly over there but we'll see :)

I am excited that I managed to grill a perfect Filet Mignon on my new grill that I bought myself for my birthday/christmas ( or whatever holiday was appropriate).  I haven't done it before so I wasn't sure if I should risk it as that is not a cheap meat, lol.  But hey how do you  know unless you try.  Good thing I had use it 2 other times before to get a feel for how is works, because the first time it didn't really get hot enough (not enough coals) and the second time it was WAY too hot (of course too many coals).

I have so lapsed so here goes

So of course Thanksgiving was hectic with all the events we had going on and that quickly led into December and next thing you know it's after Christmas already and New Year's is right around the corner. It has been nice to get some days off here and there and of course it has been quiet since all the troops are on exodus. It's given me some time to catch up and clean my office just a little, next week will help hopefully. There is so much to organize and get straight.

Oh yeas let's go back to before Christmas for a second. On post we had trees for troops which was really cool and the trees were actually very nice, I haven't seen this before but I'm sure it's happened other places. After all the troops had the opportunity to get the trees, the rest were left for people on post to grab, hence I got a free tree. We didn't decorate it right away as the next day we set off to go to Chapel Hill, NC so K could meet the basketball team.

The drive there was longer than I expected, good thing I got a free hotel room with all the points I got from staying in the hotel here for 30 days. We got there and of course I went christmas shopping what I mean but that is I stocked up on UNC ornaments, wreath ect... and a few things for the house of course. The next day was the day for the team so we had plenty of time. We even managed to go eat at Carrabba's and hit a movie, Bolt (not bad).

So the next day is cold as hell of course as we have to stand in line to get into this event. We waited for about an hour before they let us in and then we watched the team play for a bit and finally it was time for all the kids to make a mad dash onto the court to see if they could get the signatures they want. K was very disappointed he didn't get Hansbrough's signature but the line was long within seconds so he tried his best to get some of the other's signatures. He was so disappointed though and you could see some of the other kids cutting the line but no one was doing anything. Parent's weren't allowed down there so things were a little out of control.

Anyway we finally finished there, they only give the kids 30 minutes (way to short) to get the signatures but at least we were able to get on the road. I am getting old, all the driving wiped me out for a few days.

Halloween and the best costume goes to...

US of course or why else would i bring it up.  See pictures below.  We went to this spot called Monkey Joe's which has all kinds of inflatables.

That was just a quick up-date. Got to go.

I was worried

But I received my voter's registration card just in time.  Some things take forever here in GA.  I ordered my personalized plates (of course) way back in the middle of September and to this day I still haven't received them.  

Off topic, I need to vent about work.  As a Public Affairs Specialist, no where in the regulations does it say we are responsible for the quarterly awards ceremony and annual awards ceremony and that's what I have been stuck with for about the last 3 or 4 weeks.  But it gets better, the people involved like to take their time and then everything has to be done in the last week.  When I say everything, I mean EVERYTHING.  I mean I have to track the awards for soldiers and civilian, contact all the contributors, track if they are coming and what they are "donating" to the winners, run by jag the gifts, arrange everything for the ceremony place, equipment, speaker, narrator, band and protocol, then write the winners bios, then the script for the ceremony, then make sure the ceremony is properly announced on post through all the means we have and also make sure all the contributors have the info they need for their contributions. OH yeah and make sure all the info is right on certificates, pick-up contributions for the people not attending, oh did i mention make sure the star notes are done and of course do the civilian certificate.  I'm sure i've left out a lot of things but i'll know tomorrow exactly what once the ceremony is done with.

That's it for now because Veterans' Day is right around the corner and that has a bunch of things going with it that I am tracking or working on still even though all requests are suppose to be 45 days out.

Canada

Went to the comedy club last night and had a pretty good time. The comedians were Barry Kennedy, Cal Post and Daniel Tirado. I am hoping to hit it again before I leave Saturday morning. I also got to see some other comedians on Thursday night that were pretty funny. Over all the trip wasn't bad. I sold my first thing on Craigslist, my old winter tires from the Honda for like $260. They were Michelin and had only been used for 5 months. That money was my trip to the Spa money and that was good too. The drive there and back was ok but the distance now is almost double but still better than being in Albuquerque, NM.

The job

OK So now I have been settled in the job for a few weeks and it has been a busy few weeks.  I am glad my position is community relations as that is what I wanted to do but I never realized how busy that position can be especially when you ‘re in a community as supportive of its troops as Augusta, GA.  Of course that’s a two-sided sword, it means they also ask a lot of you, which is where I come in.  With Veteran’s day coming up, I have had at least 10 requests for things such a speakers, color guard, firing detail team and of course the Band.  It takes a lot of coordination and you can’t always support everyone, which isn’t fun, then I also get the wonderful job of telling those we can’t support.

That is not the only thing I do, I also deal with all volunteer requests, which come in often as well.  This does give the soldiers the opportunity to give back to the community they are currently a part of. 

Another thing I am working on is feeding the troops for Thanksgiving.  Several churches have invited troops to join them in a Thanksgiving meal and trying to coordinate that is not as easy as I thought.  

Off to Canada we go

Well the first half of the drive wasn't bad at all besides the fact that we had to wait to leave until after K was released from school at 1530hrs.  Made it to MD by midnight 8hrs and 15 min drive.

Did I mention K's stupid school wouldn't let him have excused absences for the 3 days next week because they don't see Canadian Thanksgiving as a special circumstance and denied my request.  For crying out loud, it's kindergarten.  That's why even though I had a training holiday Friday we couldn't  leave nice and early or  else may have had a conniption fit at the school.  Anyway we're getting ready for the second half of the trip hopefully this part goes well and I get to Ottawa in time to hit the comedy club tonight.