Back to la-la land

Tuesday 11.20.2007 11:12PM

It was just a little over 3 years ago that I last visited California. I needed a short fall break and – since I have a new lease on life this year – wanted to visit a few friends I had not seen in a while. Matt moved out there a year ago, and I have not seen Karla or Elizabeth since my last visit. They do not make it out to Indiana very often, for some reason.

Traveling was interesting. This was my first time flying since the pacemaker was put in and I became gRegorus Prime (presuming you call the device “the Matrix of Leadership”). I had heard a couple things about this. A card I was given had instructions to go through the metal detector as normal and if the device sets it off, screeners should not run the wand over it. Previously in the hospital I had been told I would just have the hand pat down. I had my device/information cards out, but they did not even look at them when I told them I had a pacemaker (nor did they look surprised?), they just directed me past the metal detector for the pat down. Thankfully, it was not humiliating and only took a bit longer than the line. To those wondering: they do same-gender pat downs, so no – no ladies feeling me up.

I arrived midday Friday, got my car, enjoyed some LA traffic, and finally made it to Matt's work. The weather was great; sunny, but cool enough for hoodies (glad I brought one). Matt works at Reality Check, making animations for sports networks, such as the game/player statistics you'll see on TV. He showed me some of it and it is pretty rad. If you are watching the Colts game Thursday on the NFL network (DirectTV), you will see the new animations he is responsible for launching. He is a pretty creative guy as evidenced by his Zombie Ninjas series.

Matt and I hung out, ate some good food at Doughboys and Swingers in Hollywood, caught up on life, and played video games (Super Mario Galaxy is fun). Had some good conversations, including some ideas of what it takes to move out there. More about that later. I did not bring my camera because 1) it's slow 2) it's a bit too big to put in pockets, so thus is not very convenient. Matt took plenty of pictures though, so those should be online at some point.

Sunday was quite fun. Awkward at times, but Karla was there, so that's to be expected. :] Matt and I went to her church service, which I enjoyed (and was not awkward). It is a young, casual church that meets on the Crystal Cathedral campus (huuuuge church that you have probably seen on TV), but not in the Crystal Cathedral itself, as Karla kept assuring me. The message was good and I liked the way they did communion; they had a 10 minute selah for everyone to be silent and go to one of the various stations around the room. There was a bit of liturgy to it, somewhere between Catholicism and Protestantism, which I found interesting.

Afterwards we went to lunch with a group from church, including the pastor (who is younger than me, criminy! [or “oh my”, Karla]). At this point, I should mention that Matt is a vegan. The pastor and some others joined us at lunch a bit later. Apparently there was some talk of how tasty the fajitas were and some jokingly-macho talk; one person said that every guy likes to eat meat, to which someone else responded, “There's a fair amount of guys who don't eat meat.” Karla apparently saw where this was going and tried to stop them, but it was too late because the pastor said, “Yeah, gay guys.” It's not often you get to see a pastor stick his foot in his mouth quite like that. Matt was not offended and we all had a good laugh. It might sound offensive to read, but it was in jest and he apologized profusely; nobody write them off because of this anecdote, because it is a good church with good people. :] On the plus side, before that the pastor had told him he looked like Thom Yorke, and apparently someone else at church had asked earlier, “is that Thom Yorke?” Matt is a rockstar and he doesn't even know it.

We went to a nearby mall where Elizabeth was meeting us, with the intention of bowling or maybe watching a movie. She seemed pretty quiet, but now that I think about it, she had just come from a shindig with her junior high girls at church, so maybe she was enjoying the rest. There was not much rest from the weirdness, though. We had impromptu photo sessions in the middle of the mall, group shots of us using various technological devices (I was twittering, of course), and stuff. Again, I had no camera, but they will be put online soon enough, I am sure. We saw Across the Universe which everyone enjoyed, played video games (including a knock-off DDR where the pads are diagonal. Matt and I bombed; I blamed the diagonal pads.), ate dinner, then went our separate ways.

Back to what I mentioned before: Matt and I talked some about my interest in moving out there. Anyone who knows me a bit knows that I rather love California and have wanted to move out there at some point in life, to try it for a while, if nothing else. Being in school was one consideration, previously. Being away from my parents was another. This year my health threw me for a big loop, so such a move seems a bit scarier (again, being far from my parents). He asked me what it would take for me to move out there, and we discussed some of the costs and considerations. Depending where I am at financially, I think it is feasible within 2 years, and I should be able to keep my current job – a big plus. Even if I did not keep my job for some reason, there is plenty of good-paying programming work there. That would raise the consideration of getting new health care and what it will/will not cover (or, the astronomical premium I would have). Those are pretty big concerns, honestly. That is just an if, though, and I really think I am going to go for it.

While talking to my friend Jenn last night, she said “just do it” and suggested I shoot for doing it within a year. I just might take that challenge. Stay tuned.

My trip in a nutshell:

jenn: share one highlight?
me: ...ladies

(watch Demetri Martin)

Currently Listening Songs of Innocence and Experience - Hope and Science by The Echoing Green

Tagged: life / travel / california
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My heart beats for California, Vol III

Monday 11.01.2004 01:22AM

Read Vol I and Vol II if you haven't already.

So this is now the third time I have attempted to write Vol III (oh the irony). I had most of it written when I posted Vol II, actually. I left it sitting in the text editor to finish later, and then there was a power outage. Doh. “Learn from Jesus, gRegor. Jesus saves.” Then yesterday I was at “work” in Glendale mall typing it up for the second time, and there was another power outage. So here goes take three. I'll be saving it every minute. :-]

On Sunday the plan was for me to meet Karla and her roommate Molly at their place and go to church with them. Ryan wrote out directions for me, but neglected to put which way I should turn off the highway. So I guessed. I was wrong. Unfortunately I had not left with much time to spare for such extratripular excursions, so by the time I got turned around and arrived, I was about 25 minutes late. I got there just in time, they were about to leave. Like, getting-in-the-car about to leave. We made it to church on time, though, thanks to Karla's jedi powers. The drive there was beautiful, going up winding roads into the mountains and then coming down out of them to a lovely view of the ocean. It's things like this that make me really love California.

So church was really good. The sermon was on unity and reconcilliation (II Cor 5:16 - 19) and it was cool because it tied in somewhat with some things God had been showing me just that weekend, actually. Perhaps I'll go more into that at a later point. Honestly it was nice to just be hearing something from God, because I've been rather spiritually dry lately. This has been changing, thankfully.

After church we went out to lunch at this Mexican place, which was good. Karla and Molly provided lunchtime entertainment with massive quantities of Napoleon Dynamite quotes and other fun things like Molly's uncanny impression of falling down a hill. Karla actually said at one point that I am Napoleon Dynamite, which is a rather cool compliment, though I doubt I'm half as cool as he is.

The plan for the evening was to meet at gwyn's place and head to Huntington Beach for a bonfire. Brian, Rachel, Karla, Patrick, and Elizabeth came. Elizabeth was one that I only knew through xanga, so it was nice to finally meet her. Karla's parents were nice enough to provide us with firewood, so we stopped by there to pick it up, and got to see the infamous carcass room. Dead lions and tigers and bears (oh my). We had fun making S'mores and telling jokes around the campfire. I think it was the perfect ending for my last night there. Brian brought a digital camera, so there were some pictures taken that night. I think Patrick or Elizabeth also got a group shot, but I haven't received a copy of that one yet.

back (hard to see): patrick, gwyn, karla
front: elizbeth, rachel, yours truly

gwyn and karla; never met before this weekend, but hit it off grandishly

gwyn threw a chocolate bar wrapper in the fire, so she was thrown down and kicked for hurting the ozone

karla, rachel, and yours truly (mid-raspberry at something karla said)

brian, rachel, and yours truly

And the morning and the evening was the Sunday.

Then I flew back home on Monday. Nothing to really tell about Monday, so that wraps up my California adventures. I really love California, and have since my junior year in high school when my family took a week long vacation out there, driving up the Pacific Coast Highway. The landscape is so beautiful and diverse, the weather is awesome, and there's just so many people and different cultures to experience. I've had a desire to someday live out there ever since that trip, and this weekend trip confirmed that desire is still strong. Currently it's somewhere on my “five year plan” after graduating and doing a cross-walk.

Anyway, thanks to my friends out in California for making time in your schedules to hang out, drive long distances, and let me sleep on your couch. You guys are a blessing. Feel free to stop by Indianapolis sometime. :-]

my God has rescued me
   taken my rags and made me clean
 opened my eyes
so I could see
my God has rescued me

Currently Listening Faith and Devotions of a Satellite Heart by The Violet Burning

Tagged: life / travel / california
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My heart beats for California, Vol II

Friday 10.29.2004 05:37AM

Read Vol I if you haven't already. Then Vol III finishes it off.

Editor's Note: It's been brought to my attention by Brian that they're “not entirely in the dark” about culture; they were familiar with Homestar Runner, just hadn't had time to visit it this year due to how busy they've been.

Most of the morning and early afternoon on Saturday I spent with gee win over at her pad (er, flat?), playing dice, listening to music, and trying to get her laptop to display DVD video on the TV properly so we could watch the Five Iron Frenzy DVD, but no such luck. We got it to display on the TV, but the size was way too big, and we tried everything but it just wouldn't cooperate, so we gave up on that. I went by Downtown Disney, where Heidi works, to have lunch with her, but she wasn't able to take her break for at least another hour due to coworkers already on break. Jerks. So I only got to spend a few minutes with her, which is better than nothing.

At about 4 gwyn and I headed to the Getty Museum to meet up with Ryan and Karla. The Getty is pretty cool, it's a free museum up on top of a mountain, which has quite a nice view of the whole LA area. Ryan and Karla didn't know gwyn, but hit it off pretty well right away. Karla made a good... Karla first impression. Heh, we won't talk about that. There was some very nice art there, as well as some rather weird art. Gwyn fell up the stairs, which was pretty impressive and humorous. Karla warned us about getting our noses too close to the paintings; she almost got kicked out one time for sniffing the paintings.. or something like that. :-] Unfortunately we missed most of the sunset, but did get to see a bit of it while up there. I think it was a beautiful view at night, too, with all the city and traffic lights for miles. We topped off the night eating at this bakery/deli place which was pretty good, and talked for hours about all sorts of stuff like Teen Mania, Reese Roper, movies, and how your mom went to college.

And the evening and morning was the Saturday.

we were so young
 and brilliantly naive
  to the joy
 and the pain
   and the days
   that we would see

Currently Listening Fires of Life by Cool Hand Luke Song: Friendly Jas

Tagged: life / travel / california
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My heart beats for California, Vol I

Thursday 10.28.2004 06:18AM

I opted to break this into volumes instead of one huge post. See Vol II and Vol III.

So, California. It was a blast, as expected. My flight was at 8:55 AM on Friday, and since I had just worked at FedEx till about 3 AM (and had not really packed yet, heh) I just stayed up because I knew it would be hard to just get a couple hours sleep and drag myself out of bed for the flight. I figured I'd sleep on the flight, and sleep I did.

I got my rental car on hotwire.com for a pretty good rate, and since I selected “economy” I was figuring I'd get a little 2-door, 4-cylinder car, but I got a nice roomy 4-door, 6-cylinder Chevy Malibu Maxx. This made for fun driving in LA since it had those cool options like “get up” and “go”, not to mention “cd player”.

I was told that LA has the busiest traffic corridor in.. the world? Certainly in America at least. I didn't mind it much at all, though, it was actually kind of fun, perhaps it's just the different scenery.. palm trees, mountains, curves - all while driving on a 4 or 5 lane freeway. I drove to my friend Ryan's place in Hollywood, where I was staying for the weekend. It was pretty cool to get off the highway, make a turn, and see the Hollywood sign at the top of the hill. It was still a few miles away, I'm sure, but looked pretty close. Closer than I had ever been, for sure. I found Ryan's place without too much difficulty and buzzed him. It was funny, he kind of forgot it was Friday that I was coming, not that he wasn't prepared for me, he just has been crazy-busy lately with planning the Tandem Arts launch party (which was last night actually, hopefully it went well).

I caught up on a couple more hours of sleep, then headed back out into traffic to go visit Brian and Rachel. Rush hour in LA... yessss! (Again, I actually did not mind it. It wasn't parking-lot-traffic bad.) We ended up just hanging out at their place. Rachel cooked a really good dinner (raspberry chicken) and we played a derivation of Scrabble while catching up on old times and ... new times? They weren't too familiar with Homestar Runner, so I showed them some of the better Strong Bad emails, including keed's booook of course. They had this pewter picture frame on their table that didn't have a picture yet, so we decided to fix that. I suggested they put a picture of their computer in it because... you know, it'd be funny? [If you're lost, think 'puter = computer ... ?]

Yes, the three of us have similar senses of humor, so there were many instances of corny jokes like that...

Rachel: (from the kitchen) “how does chicken sound?”
gRegor: *pause* “cluck-cluck”
R: *pause* “ok-ay. and what's your reaction when you think about the idea of eating dead chicken for dinner?”
g: *pause* “mmmm”

And the evening and morning was the Friday.

Are you gonna live your life,
   standing in the back looking around?

Currently Listening Jimmy Eat World by Jimmy Eat World Song: A Praise Chorus

Tagged: life / travel / california
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