Back in Business

Hey everybody, so guess what, I took my computer to mac Hollywood yesterday to get it fixed and it turned out I needed a new hard drive (again). I was worried it would be worse than that. Luckily it wasn't.

I gave them my computer yesterday morning and asked for a 120 GB hard drive, which he said they had in stock. The guy told me it would take 3-5 business days for the hard drive to be installed, but today at work I got a call, and bam, it was done.

Everything isn't completely back to normal yet, as the cds of my programs like cs2 will be arriving in the next day or so, thanks to Andrew Jarrell who found them in my bin in the basement and shipped them out. As soon as those programs are installed I'll be able to get to work designing a flyer for Mosaic and doing work for the ccm opera, as well.

One of the good things about my computer crashing is that mac Hollywood put the Leopard operating system on it now, instead of Tiger. I'm looking forward to exploring it and seeing how it stacks up.

Anyway, even though it's only been like two days between the last post and this one, I'll give a quick update. Last night I got to do something insanely cool. Last night I got to be part of a small group of people from Crew who went up to the Warner Bros. Studio Lot in Burbank for a screening of a movie we'll be working on.

The movie itself was fairly disturbing and mildly upsetting, and was not the highlight. The highlight was actually getting to go onto the Warner Bros. Lot. We had to stop at the gate and give the security guy our id's, and then he gave us these magical "golden tickets."


The only reason I say that is because once you are past security and onto the lot with a ticket, you can basically do whatever you want and go wherever you want to and no one will care.

We got to the studio about 15 minutes before our screening, so the four of us that were there wandered around the backlot for just a few minutes. First of all, we parked right under the big famous WB water tower, which was great. Once in the backlot, we saw the train platform from E.R. and a bunch of very cool city sets, including a huge city hall. We walked by the beautiful Warner Bros. commissary, too.

As we were walking in, a golf cart drove by with a piece of paper titled "Rory's Death Kiss" on the windshield. For those who don't know, Rory's Death Kiss is the pseudonym for the upcoming Batman sequel "The Dark Knight." No Michael Caine wasn't driving the gofl cart. If he had been I would have stopped him.

Exploring a little of the backlot was kind of like being at Disney at night when the park is getting empty. That was the really cool feeling. It was another great moment experiencing the "magic of Hollywood" that you really can't find everywhere in the sometimes extremely commercialized Hollywood of today. I'm looking forward to going back during the day and hopefully going to another screening there sometime.

Hollywood is pretty wonderful.

On a side note, I do think Newsies would be a great relay for life theme. Either that or Mary Poppins. We need to decide soon.

Sorry this post is a little jumbled together. I hope you all have a great rest of the week. I also hope you all are enjoying the new header image my blog is sporting as of this past weekend. It's not extremely different, but I like it a lot. Anyway, take it easy.

much love,

Alex

The Good, the Bad, and the Ogley

Ok, so after the weekend, I've got some good news, and some not so good news.

First the not so good news:

With everything pretty awesome here in LA, I guess something bad was going to happen. Now don't worry, it's nothing really bad or traumatic or anything. It's just that Saturday night as I was writing my blog post my Powerbook laptop started to slow down. Yesterday morning when I turned my computer on it took about an hour to turn on, and then it was barely working at a crawling speed. Last night, I turned on my computer to find nothing but the really bad news:

The blinking question mark of death.

It sucks but it could be worse. My computer isn't making loud clicks at start-up like it did the last time my hard drive died. I'm hoping all it's going to take is a reboot and re-installation. Thank the computer gods for external hard drives, as mine has everything I absolutely need on it.

I'm hoping I don't actually have to pay for any fixes, since I've had this one for a while and don't know how much longer it is until something really expensive happens to make me buy a new one. I don't want to have to use all the money I've made so far on co-op to buy a new laptop, but the MacBook Pro is pretty freaking sweet. With any luck a reboot will do the trick and my Powerbook will be back in business.

Until I get some kind of resolution, the frequency of blog posts might slow down a bit, as I'll really only be able to write updates while at work.

Let this be a lesson to everyone, that you should always buy as much AppleCare as possible. If I had bought the 3 years of AppleCare it would've paid for itself a year ago.


Now for the good news:

The Oscars! The show was pretty good last night. I thought Jon Stewart did a great job. Sure, the only movie nominated for best picture or any of the major awards that I saw was Juno, but it was still a good time. To see all the stars celebrating the end of the strike and the return of the magic of Hollywood was pretty awesome.

I thought all five of the best song nomination performances were great. Can you imagine the pressure on Amy Adams singing that song on stage alone in front of all those people? She's great.

The August Rush song was pretty good. I'd still like to see that movie.

Kristin Chenoweth has the perfect personality to sing That's How You Know, but her voice wasn't as perfect as Amy Adams' in the movie. It's hard not to be biased towards what you've heard thousands of times too, I guess.

Jon McLaughlin gave what I thought was the best musical performance of the night in "So Close."

At first when the song from Once was being performed I thought to myself, "This is the song that's going to beat Enchanted?" But as their performance went on, I realized that it really is a very cool song full of emotion and hope and has made me want to see Once pretty badly. Plus their winning made for a very cool story.

Considering Alan Menken has already won 8 Academy Awards, the third most of anyone ever, I can't imagine he's too disappointed that Once won. Having written three out of the five songs nominated for best song isn't too bad of an accomplishment, especially considering the other musicals and original songs this year. Rob Thomas did deserve a nod for "Little Wonders" from Meet the Robinsons, though.

Anyway, another of my favorite moments from the Oscars was when Jon Stewart said there was a 707 parked on La Brea, because not only was it funny when John Travolta ran out, but La Brea is the street my bus drives up every morning. It's the little things about living in LA that make it so much fun...


Anyway, that's it for now. Hopefully my computer comes back to life soon. Have a great week everybody!

Until next time,
much love,

Alex

And the Oscar Goes To...

Well, we'll find out tomorrow night. But for now here's an Oscar Weekend Update. In fact, it'll probably be mostly pictures, and I'll go as far as to call it a photo update! Enjoy!

This morning the weather was much nicer than I expected it to be, so I decided to go up to Griffith Observatory. However, to get to the Observatory, I had to get on the subway, and that meant either going downtown or catching it in Hollywood. I decided to go to Hollywood, and it was definitely a good decision. I wasn't sure how crazy it would be the day before the Oscars, but at the same time, I was excited to find out. The bus took a detour, but I was still able to get off right at Hollywood & Highland, and this is what I found there.


Hollywood Blvd was completely blocked off between Orange and Highland, and the Red Carpet spanned a few blocks. They covered it in big tents this year with the rain that's expected. Still, it was very cool to be this close to the action of Hollywood's biggest night.


As I was walking along the sidewalk, I saw people crowding together in front of the El Capitan looking toward the carpet. I walked over, and saw what everyone was looking at. There on the Red Carpet getting ready for his Red Carpet hosting duties tomorrow, was the one and only Regis Philbin. How about that for celebrity sighting number 3?


Regis seems like a pretty great guy. I'll admit it was weird to see him wearing jeans, since I've really only seen him in a suit or behind a desk. It was pretty funny that he happened to be standing in the middle of the street right near his star on the walk of fame. How could I not take a picture?


Following the detour along the sidewalk into the Kodak Theatre, you could look back and see the red carpet covered in plastic where the stars walk inside.


Even though you needed a pass to walk on the part above, at the bottom of the "grand staircase" in front of the Kodak, it was possible for anybody to stand on the red carpet, and even though it was covered in plastic, I was excited to stand on the red carpet, so I took a quick picture of my shoes on it.


I walked up to the top of the Hollywood and Highland complex to see what I could see of the red carpet set-up, and in front of the El Capitan and Jimmy Kimmel Studio it was a bird's eye view of the tents.


It started to rain, which was not cool, since I was going to the Observatory to look out over the city, but I got on the subway to go to the Sunset & Vermont station where I could catch the Observatory Shuttle.

In the Subway station under the Kodak, this guy started to talk to me. He was a black guy probably in his mid to late 30s. He asked me how long I had been waiting, made some jokes about following the rules on the subway, and then started to tell me about how he had recently seen the new Larry the Cable Guy movie and how hilarious he thought it was. I didn't really have to do much in the conversation as we talked about comedians and movies and stuff. At first I just had to tell him names of famous people as he described them.

He told me he was a big fan of Mr. Bean and recommended I check out John Cleese's tv show, Faulty Towers. I told him my favorites were the people that made the Naked Gun and Airplane. He asked where I'm from, I told him Pittsburgh, and he said I seemed like I'm from the Midwest, and I told him Pittsburghers don't really like to think they're in the Midwest and we like to consider ourselves in the Northeast, but that in actuality we probably are more Midwestern.

He asked me why I was out here and I told him, and he asked if I thought I could ever live out here. I told him I had no idea, and he told me he was from Michigan but that he thought LA was a great place to visit but a bad place to live, and that people from here never strike up conversation with each other. That they only care about themselves. I definitely haven't felt that way, but didn't really have time to tell him, since this was my stop. He told me his name was Miguel, I told him mine, we wished each other good luck and I got off the subway.

I went outside to wait in the rain for the observatory shuttle. Luckily I had an umbrella, but I contemplated leaving and going back to Hollywood to just see a movie or something. Still I stuck it out waiting for the shuttle and eventually it came. By some crazy string of luck, as I rode the shuttle up to the top of the hill in Griffith Park, the rain stopped and the sun started to peak out.

Although it stayed relatively overcast, it was a lot better than rain, and I was excited when I got up to Observatory. Just to explain, Griffith Observatory is a planetarium, observatory and museum on Mount Hollywood that looks out over all of Los Angeles. The building just opened last year after a massive 5 year restoration and it looks beautiful.


Some of you might recognize the building as one of the places where the robots land at the beginning of Transformers. Apparently it featured prominently in "Rebel Without a Cause" as well. In fact there's a stature of James Dean because of it. Even with the sky cloudy, visibility was pretty good. The observatory had a great and very naturally beautiful view over to the Hollywood sign.


Here's a shot looking down into the heart of Hollywood. It's not easy to make very much out, but you can see the huge Oscars poster on the side of one building, and you can see the giant orange and yellow iPod billboard on Santa Monica Blvd right near where I work.


Here's the view back to downtown Los Angeles. Very cool.


This is from the roof of the observatory, over the front lawn back toward the sign.


With Hollywood on the bottom left, Century City standing tall in the middle, and Santa Monica behind and to the right of Century City, the sun reflects off the ocean in the distance.


Who knew Los Angeles was so beautiful? Here's some sunlight peaking down through the clouds onto the rolling hills out towards the Pacific Ocean.


After checking out the view, I went into the Observatory, which was just as beautiful inside and had a lot of cool exhibits. I decided to see the Planetarium show, which was very cool. Surprisingly, the voice-over wasn't provided by a celebrity like Patrick Stewart or Leonard Nemoy, but rather by a guy standing and walking around inside the planetarium. He was pretty good and had a voice similar to J. Peterman. There was a line about the big bang that just about blew my mind. He said that it "wasn't an explosion into space, but rather an explosion of space itself." Awesome.

After the planetarium, I went outside to wait for the shuttle. As I was waiting, I tried to see if it was possible to look all the way to Anaheim and Disneyland. I couldn't see it. I could however see the mountains and make out the snow-covered mountains in the distance. I love it!


I took the shuttle and subway back to Hollywood and Highland, because I needed dinner, and was feeling like I should have Crepes. I had been in California for too long without having them, so I went to The French Crepe right next to the Kodak. I didn't realize they made crepes with real food, but my craving was for something sweet, so I got a Napoleon with strawberries, nutella, and chestnut spread. I call this picture "The Grandma Shot." Grandma loves to take pictures of meals, and look at me, I'm doing it now myself.


I know my crepe was more like dessert than an actual meal, but you only live once, right?

So I walked along Hollywood Blvd. and waited for the bus. It was a great day, full of good decisions. Not to mention celebrity sighting number 3!


I'm excited to watch the Oscars tomorrow, especially with 3 songs from Enchanted being performed. Although I won't be headed back to Hollywood for it, it'll be too crazy and probably raining, it was very awesome to witness the set-up firsthand. The observatory was awesome, too. There's a lot of stuff in this city.

I hope the weekend finishes up great for everybody! I really do miss you all and am really looking forward to Spring Quarter! It's going to be filled with so much awesome stuff. It's the little things I'm excited about, too, like UC baseball. Let's go to some games, ok?

much love,

Alex

Saluting the Presidents

Another three day weekend here in Southern California, and it was quite a good one. Brace yourself for a potentially long post.

It's always nice to start things off with a picture. Here's one of the tallest building in the US west of Chicago. It's the US Bank Tower, (I don't know why they've got their name on such a huge sweet building out here and on such a sucky arena in the nati), also known as Library Tower, or as I know it, the L.A. building the aliens blew up in Independence Day.


I had to go to bed early on Friday night, because Saturday morning I got up early to do some volunteering with Mosaic. This guy Ben was happy to pick me up from my apartment and he was a very awesome guy. Ben and I drove down to the Union Rescue Mission's warehouse south of downtown. There we met up with 5 other guys from Ben's Mosaic small group out of the Pasadena Mosaic community. Ben was probably in his late 20s, and the rest of the guys with him were all in their mid-to-late 30s and 40s. Still, they were very cool guys, and although I couldn't really join in conversations when they talked about their kids, it was a lot of fun.

We spent an hour or so packing up 1000 kits of stuff like shampoo, toothbrushes, socks and combs that will be part of the 3000 that Mosaic and Union Rescue Mission are handing out to the homeless in the city next month. The sheer number of homeless people in this city continues to amaze me, so it was awesome to be doing a little to help them out. I'll be looking forward to more opportunities to reach the homeless here, as much as it might take me out of my comfort zone.

After we finished packing all 1000 kits in 1/3 of the time we had planned on (we couldn't do any more because they wanted other volunteers to be able to help with more packing next weekend) the men of the small group decided to head out for some Breakfast/Lunch, and it was decided that we'd go up to the Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in Pasadena.

Roscoe's was quite an experience. I know I've heard of Roscoe's Chicken and Waffles in some movie or tv show or something, but I don't know where exactly. But apparently it's very famous and is exactly what the name makes it sound like. I had fried chicken and waffles. It was actually really good, especially the waffles.

Although I was really young compared to most of the guys in Ben's small group, as we were talking and all, I was really struck by how good and solid the guys were. They were all really supportive of each other and definitely had a lot of life experience and knowledge that I was learning from.

As we were leaving the restaurant, one of the guys told Ben to make sure he gave me the info about their small group. I don't know that it would be possible for me to ever make it up to Pasadena to join them, but I am really looking forward to being able to spend some more time serving alongside them. Ben was a really cool guy, too, and it would be great to be able to hang out sometime. He was already hoping things work out and I'm able to come back here in the summer.

Since I was in Pasadena at Roscoe's, I gave Alli a call to see what she was up to for the afternoon. Before I do go any further, Pasadena itself was pretty awesome. The place was very nice and looked full of stuff to do, plus there are really tall mountains right next to the city. As you hopefully know from reading this blog, I really love these California mountains.

Anyway, Alli and I took the beautiful new Gold Line light-rail/subway back downtown to check out the MOCA, the Museum of Contemporary Art. The museum has like 3 different venues around town, we only went to one, but it was very cool. I continue to be amazed at how many seriously famous and really cool pieces of art are in this city, and I haven't even seen the Getty yet!

So the museum was cool, but there was this guy outside it that was giving me some serious 'tude. He and I came really close to fighting, but eventually he just backed off.


Let's see, ohh yeah, I also bought this cool shirt from the Walt Disney Concert Hall that has the silhouette of downtown LA reflected below it so that it looks like sound bars like you'd see them in an equalizer or something. If that doesn't make sense, you'll see it when I wear it, it's cool.

On the way home, I caught the bus at Union Station, Los Angeles' equivalent of Grand Central Station. Here's a hall in the beautiful old Train station that is no longer in use. I love the mood and the light from the sunset and everything. The train station really captures what I imagine was the emotion and excitement of Los Angeles in the 30s and 40s.


Sunday morning I went to Supercuts across the street and got a haircut from Alfredo. A man has never cut my hair in Supercuts before. Alfredo did nice work though. I was surprised, the regular supercut out here was $16.95, isn't it just $12.95 or $13.95 back east? I was not too thrilled about that. Maybe I should get my hair cut in the barber shop inside Launderland, the laundromat on the corner. Probably not.

I went back to church at 2:30 to help with set-up again, only this time I got a ride there from Meg (making friends is a wonderful thing). I spent most of the afternoon helping Justin sweep and mop the second floor, which wreaked from the smell of spilled alcohol and dirty bathrooms.

Right before the service I was on flavor of the week duty, but I got a little discouraged, because there weren't as many people alone in need of free drinks and conversation as last week. Still, I was able to talk a little to a guy named Deacon, and talked to a middle-aged guy named Matthew. Matthew was a businessman from DC, in town for work. He told me he had come to town for business last year and checked out Mosaic and was back now and made sure to come back, even though he's only here for a week. I thought that was a cool story. When I told him I was from Pittsburgh, he told me a friend of his from his church was actually going to Pittsburgh to plant an urban contemporary church like Mosaic there. I told him that was an awesome idea, and that Pittsburgh didn't have anything like that from what I know.

Still, like I said, I was feeling discouraged because I didn't find as many people as last week. The service itself was awesome as always. They had the same girl singing as last week, and she had a pretty unique, sort of Avril Lavigne-like voice which was cool. Erwin McManus' message was about streets named after Martin Luther King, and he challenged us with the question "what kind of a road will they name after you? Will it be a cul-de-sac just going in circles, or a dead end, or will you actually go somewhere?"

It was great, and then at the second service for flavor of the week, I had some amazing caramel hot chocolate to hand out and I went inside and found a guy sitting alone. I offered him some hot chocolate and sat down and we immediately started talking. The guy, Ryan, was also a third year student in college up in the Valley and was orginally from Northern California. He said Northern and Southern California were totally different. He's History major and is hoping to be a High School American History teacher. It was a lot of fun talking to him, and reminded me how awesome it is to talk to new people.

It's amazing how more often than not people are thrilled to talk and open up. I'm definitely learning a lot here by taking initiative and hopefully I can remember and use all of this in other places in my life.

Let's see, today I got up, went for a run around the block, and did some prep work for the ccm opera I'm helping out with. Then I took the bus back downtown because I wanted to exchange my medium LA Philharmonic t-shirt for a large so it wouldn't shrink too small. Back at the gift shop in the concert hall, a guy told me the large was a good idea because the shirts do shrink. I was happy to hear that.

As I walked from the Concert Hall to the subway stop, I saw this. It looked like they were filming a car commercial or something. Just proving my point that the Walt Disney Concert Hall is in every car commercial on TV. Just watch for it.


I took the subway to Hollywood and Vine, because I decided I wanted to find Erwin McManus's book, Soul Cravings. I had seen there was a Barnes and Noble or Borders on Vine somewhere, but I got off the subway and couldn't find it. I could however, find the Capitol Records Tower.


I got on the bus and rode it to the West Hollywood Target where I looked for Erwin's book. They didn't have it, so I got on another bus and decided to go all the way to Santa Monica Beach, where I knew there was a Barnes and Noble. The bus ride was long, but I made it.

The Barnes and Noble was at this place in Santa Monica called the Third Street Promenade. It's a few blocks of a street that is closed and lined with all these cool stores and restaurants. Musicians play music all along the promenade and singers perform as well. I stopped for a little while to listen to an amazing violin player, who was hooked up to speakers that were kind of laying down a kind of beat that he was playing classical music with a modern flair to it. It was very cool.

Anyway, I found a border's on the promenade, but they didn't have Soul Cravings. So I grabbed a panini for dinner and was about to head home, when I noticed a barnes and noble further down the promenade. I went in there and found Erwin's book! I was excited and got a moleskin sketchbook too. Now my day was a success.

Then I waited, got on the bus, and came home.

It was a lot of Metro riding in one day. Probably more than I will ever do again. I essentially went in a big circle around West L.A.


Well, I don't have too much other big news from the weekend.

Aaron Sapp told me the theme for Relay for Life this year is Disney movies. I'm pretty excited about that. Should be lots of fun. I love relay. Usually in my mind I forget about the part that isn't as much fun, like getting really tired and cold. Still, the fun and the greatness of the cause makes up for all of that.

That's about it for now. I'm starting to read Soul Cravings by Erwin McManus now and I'm really looking forward to it. Have you read it? Maybe you should.

Alright, I hope you have a great rest of the week. Call me, it'd be fun to talk.

much love,

Alex

Exploring Mornings

So folks, it is the weekend at last. Here're a few pictures and highlights from the times in the past week or so when I've gotten up to Hollywood early enough to explore a little before work.

I took this picture probably a week and a half ago in front of the Chinese Theatre while up on Hollywood Blvd. They're definitely my favorite cement footprints of all those at the Theatre.


I get a kick out of Darth Vader's signature. It's not really as evil as you might expect. Looks like it was actually Anthony Daniels, I wonder if it was David Prowse and Kenny Baker? Probably not.

I think this picture was from this past Monday or Tuesday morning. I walked back up to Sunset past the Henson Studios. I was mostly just hoping to catch a glimpse of Brian or Lisa Henson, or maybe Steve Whitmire or Dave Goelz. Don't know who they are? Google it. Unfortunately, I didn't see any of them.

I did, however, look up at Kermit's statue, and contemplated why he's dressed so classy with the tuxedo, hat and cane and all. Very quickly it hit me that the Henson Studio is, as I mentioned, the Historic Charlie Chaplin Studio, and Kermit is dressed like Charlie Chaplin to pay homage to him. As if you didn't love the Henson Company enough already, right?


Speaking of Charlie Chaplin, a week or so ago I was crossing the street with one of my co-workers, and a dead-on Charlie Chaplin impersonator rode his bicycle right across the street past us and made sure to look us straight in the eye as he passed. He had the mustache and everything. Dave and I just stopped because his resemblance was so impressive, but because we're a few blocks from the center of Hollywood, we're not used to seeing characters out and about like that.

Let's see, oh and here's a picture from this past Wednesday or Thursday when I decided to take the bus all the way up to Hollywood and Vine, so I could scope out the area then take the Subway back to Hollywood and Highland.

As I got off the bus I saw the Capitol Records Tower which is pretty cool. I also was right across the street from the Pantages, the home of the West Coast's Wicked production. I still haven't seen it out here. I'd definitely like to, but probably only with the lottery discount. Still, it's very cool to see the Theatre all decked out.


As you'll tell from these pictures, the weather here has just been terrible every single day.

The Hollywood and Vine Subway station is pretty insanely awesome. The one great thing about Los Angeles Metro is that the Subway is new and clean. Every subway station is cool and unique. I walked into the Hollywood and Vine station and noticed that the ceiling had a very cool circular pattern to it. However, when I got closer to the ceiling down on the Subway platform, I looked up and saw that the entire ceiling of the hollywood and vine subway station is covered in empty film reels! It's pretty freaking sweet. There must be thousands upon thousands of film reels in this place, because when I say the entire ceiling is covered in film reels, I mean the whole ceiling! Sorry, no pictures right now, I'll see what I can do in the future, though.

Most mornings when I go exploring up too far on Sunset or Hollywood Blvd. I end up not making it to work until like 9:35 or 9:40 or so. Nobody really notices or cares that I'm a little late when I am, but I still feel bad.

in other news:

The Writer's Strike ended on Wednesday! That's very cool. There hasn't been any noticeable change between during the strike and after that I have seen. I was hoping for some kind of a a huge parade or party in Hollywood when the strike ended, but there wasn't one. I guess the Oscars will pretty much be like that anyway. Still, it's awesome that the town and its people are back to work. It won't be too very long now until the Office comes back (in the middle of April, I think) and we might actually end up getting 13 episodes of Lost this season too!

If you didn't watch Lost last night, man oh man was it amazing. You need to see it ASAP. Things are really getting crazy.


CELEBRITY SIGHTING #2

I had my second celebrity sighting this week during a lunch-time run to Target with the coworkers. It's probably not as exciting as Bill Nye, but it was still pretty cool.

On Thursday at the West Hollywood Target I saw Jonah Hill from Superbad and Knocked Up. It was pretty sweet. He was completely alone just shopping and stuff. He had a massive beard going (see imdb for recent pictures of him) but it was definitely him.

Two solid celebrity sightings is pretty sweet. I thought maybe I saw Creed Bratton from the Office drive by in a car at the bus stop tonight, but I didn't get a good look, so it probably was my imagination.

Anyway, that's it for now. I've got to get to bed because I'm getting up bright and early to go downtown and do some volunteering at a rescue mission's warehouse with folks from Mosaic. I'm really excited about it, looking forward to serving and getting to know more awesome people.

I'm surprised how much I'm learning to love Los Angeles. Who would have known L.A. actually has a heart and soul? As long as I stay far enough away from Orange County and Laguna Beach, at least. Ha, just kidding, of course.

Have a great weekend!

much love,

Alex

Taking this City by Storm

Purpose, it's that little flame,
That lights a fire under your ass
Purpose, it keeps you going strong,
Like a car with a full tank of gas

Everyone else has a purpose,
so what's mine?
Oh look, here's a penny
It's from the year I was born
It's a sign!

-Avenue Q


So this was a pretty awesome weekend in many ways. Let's start with Saturday, eh?

Saturday morning I got up bright and early so that I could get on the bus and be in Hollywood in time for the 10:30 tour of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre. No one probably remembers, but seeing a movie at the Egyptian was part of my list of things I wanted to do in LA. Well, it turns out that one weekend every month they offer tours of the theatre and then show a movie called "Forever Hollywood," a documentary about the history and magic of Hollywood.

Saturday was just about the nicest day ever. I know its freezing and maybe even snowing in Cincinnati and Pittsburgh, and I don't mean to shove the amazing weather in all of your faces, but it was about 85 here on Saturday. It was another beautiful and perfect Southern California Day.

Here's the courtyard of Grauman's Egyptian Theatre, the first major Hollywood movie palace, where the red carpet and the idea of a huge Hollywood Premiere were all born.


The tour was very cool. There was a lot of amazing history in the Egyptian, unfortunately the interior is not quite as grand and amazing as it originally was. I believe it was in the 50s that someone bought the Theatre and saved it from falling into disrepair, but unfortunately that owner took out the amazing proscenium arch that once graced the stage. The theatre originally held about 2,000 people, but since the building was restored and turned into a more state-of-the-art theatre it now only holds about 600 people. Still, it was great to learn so much about such an important and beautiful part of Hollywood history.

The movie, "Forever Hollywood," was very cool, and captured the magic and grandeur of Hollywood in a way that very little of modern Hollywood actually does. Steven Spielberg, Mel Gibson, Clint Eastwood, and John Travolta were just a few of the A-List celebrities interviewed in the great documentary. Visiting and touring the Egyptian Theatre was very cool, and very cheap, too. Only ten bucks for the tour and the movie!

After going to the Egyptian, I grabbed some lunch at the Hollywood and Highland complex, then Jenn picked me up and we headed to the Los Angeles Zoo. The zoo is in this really huge, really cool park called Griffith Park. Seeing the beautiful huge grass fields were a welcome change from the urban sprawl of the city.

As for the zoo itself, it was fun and cool, but zoos just don't really do as much for me as they once did. It's just like, ohh there's another animal, not moving, sitting in an extremely unnatural cage. Still, there were highlights, like the Gorilla Exhibit was very cool, and I always love seeing the sea lions. They're just always swimming around having so much fun. If I was an animal, I would definitely be a marine mammal, like a sea lion or Dolphin. Probably a dolphin, though, because they can intimidate sharks.


The zoo was however, just about the most confusing place I've ever been. It was a crazy maze of pathways and bridges and I'm kind of amazed that we made it out. Still, it was a good time, and it made me think how cool it would hopefully be to go down to the San Diego Zoo.

After the zoo, I came home, and sent some more emails to people at Mosaic, asking about serving opportunities and small groups. Well, this morning I woke up to find replies from both of the people I had emailed! I was very excited. The small group guy told me he didn't actually run a small group but recommended people to contact. I had emailed this guy Adrian about serving with Mosaic, and he very enthusiastically replied to me. He told me we should meet and talk about it and asked me if I could come to Mosaic at 2:30 to help with set-up. I was stoked about the opportunity to serve at Mosaic so I of course told him I'd be there.

So around 1:30 I went and hopped on the bus downtown, realizing I should probably make sure I take a book or something when taking the bus all the way downtown. When I got downtown, I had some time to waste, so I walked around a bit, checking out some of the city's amazing older architecture. Then at 2:30 I came back to the downtown home of Mosaic , the Mayan Theatre. Here's a picture to show how seriously awesome the building I go to church in is.


It's seriously cool on the inside too, but I don't have any pictures of that at the moment.

Anyway, at 2:30 I met Adrian out front and we pretty much immediately starting helping with set-up for the 5 o'clock gathering.

For anyone who doesn't remember or didn't read it, Mosaic is a church in Southern California that does not own any buildings, but rents out spaces around town to hold their services in. Erwin McManus is the amazing head pastor of Mosaic, and I seriously recommend checking out his podcasts at mosaic.org. I believe Evan even quoted Erwin McManus or told one of his stories recently at Navs. The building where Mosaic meets downtown is an old theatre that is now a pretty popular dance club the rest of the week. Because it is a club, it's full of amazing lighting and stuff which can help enhance the mood and make for extremely powerful worship experiences. Needless to say, the place is awesome. I love it.

As I was saying, I helped out with set-up, moving stuff around and changing the letters on the Marquee above the front door to say "MOSAIC AT 5 & 7" After that I walked to Starbucks with the rest of the "connection team" as they're called and hung out. How about that, I walked to Starbucks with people. I didn't get anything of course, because I have no idea how to order anything at Starbucks or what I like from it, and I'm very happy keeping things that way.

I was made pretty happy when at one point Adrian and I were talking to Laurie, who's basically the leader of the connections team, and Adrian said to her, "doesn't Alex just seem like such a nice guy?" She agreed and it was cool, because until that time I wasn't sure if they thought I was an ok guy or not.

After that it was about time for people to arrive for the Gathering, and I was put on Usher and Flavor of the Week duty. Basically for flavor of the week I was given a Mosaic nametag and a tray of dixie cups of Vanilla Chi. My task was to walk around and give free Chi to anyone who looked like they were alone or new. Well, I wasn't sure how i'd do, but it was a blast! I met J.J., who is in audio dubbing, originally from Indiana, came out here on an internship and couldn't stay away. I met Dani, a woman from Bulgaria, who moved here with her family 11 years ago. I met a few other cool people too, like Kevin from Kentucky, and some girls told me the Chi tasted like Christmas. I told everybody I offered drinks to after that that the chi tasted like Christmas, and everyone agreed.

During the service I listened to Erwin's awesome message on judgmental Christians, (download it) and then performed the usher duty of passing around an offering bucket.

At the end of the first service, I talked to Laurie and she told me that if i stayed for Flavor of the Week duty for the 7 o'clock service that they would find me a ride home. So again I rocked flavor of the week. Again I talked to some cool people, like Michael from Charlotte, and John, an aspiring actor from Chicago.

At the end of the first service, Adrian told me he had found me some graphic design work, and I basically didn't know what he was talking about, but I said great. A few minutes later I was by the bar and met a girl named Annie and she asked me what my last name was. I told her it and she immediately said "Ohh I need to talk to you!" I'm not used to people hearing my name and saying they need to talk to me out here, so that took me off guard. But she explained that she needed my help making a flyer to promote serving as part of "Big Sunday," a citywide community service day that apparently even the mayor gets involved in. As if the day hadn't opened me up to my purpose being here enough already, eh? So I'm stoked.

Right before I was leaving with Meg, who gave me a ride home, I went over to Adrian to let him know I had talked to Annie and to say bye. He told me he was so excited I was here and that he had never seen someone so willing to serve, and I told him how excited I was, too. He said he was watching me on flavor of the week duty and that I was a rock star at it. I don't know about all of that, but I cannot believe how amazing the afternoon was. I am serving and making new friends. Does life get any better?

Adrian made sure I'll be back at 2:30 next Sunday, and I most definitely will. This has really been the best weekend of the quarter so far, and I truly am seeing my purpose for coming out here. I just can't believe any of it.

Amazing!

. . . .

Some people like to include music they're listening to at the moment, and just last week I finally bought Lauren Kennedy's CD, songs of Jason Robert Brown. It's pretty amazing, especially the first track, "And I Will Follow." Although it's more about love than faith, it's doing a pretty good job of capturing how I'm feeling at the moment. You should probably get it, or if you're a fan of JRB, just get the whole thing.

Finally, Roy Scheider (Cheif Brody in Jaws) just passed away this weekend. I mention that because I've always been a fan of his. When I was little way before I ever saw Jaws, I vividly remember that Dad and I would sit in the basement and watch him on the tv show seaQuest DSV, and since then I've thought he was very cool. I remember that being a sweet show, and Jaws wouldn't be anything without his Chief Brody, especially in the dinner table scene with his sons.


Anyway, have a great week everybody. As you can probably tell, I'm so excited for the rest of my time here, and I'm really feeling like I hope I come back here in the summer and get to experience more of this amazing place and these awesome people.

much love,

Alex

Inspired on the 212

Hey eveybody!

How are you doing? Tonight something pretty awesome happened, so brace yourselves. This story is too good to not include the details, and as you probably know, it's pretty much impossible for me to tell a story without the details. Enjoy!

So today took a lot out of me for a number of reasons. I was feeling pretty worn out at the end of the day. Jorge was out sick from work, so I didn't have a ride home and had to take the bus. I wasn't too upset, because for some crazy reason I was feeling like I had kind of missed taking the bus home at night.

I sat down on the bench at the bus stop, and after a few minutes an older man with an Old Navy bag sat down on the bench next to me. He did not seem to be too old, but his back was arched in a kind of hunched way that made him appear older. He took out a gift from his bag, red and white with pink ribbons. I took a few glances and saw that he was using his keys to curl the ribbons. Pretty soon, I started to think that this would be a perfect opportunity to strike up some conversation with a stranger and I planned on asking him if that was for his Valentine. However, just before I was ready to ask, he put the gift back in the bag and walked over to the street to see if the bus was coming.

At this point, I was bummed because I felt like i had missed my conversation opportunity, but as the man looked for the bus, he turned back to me and said, "The bus should've come by now. Shouldn't it have? You must have been waiting here for a while"

I had been waiting about 10 minutes and told him so, then I said, "If they just got this bus schedule working better it would get more people off the roads."

He seemed to think this was a brilliant comment and told me how right I was. I went on to make a comment about how amazed I was when I found out that the subway was only about 15 years old. We began to talk about Los Angeles public transportation, and the man then told me that he was actually from New York and lived there his whole life. I immediately realized he had been speaking with a strong New York accent. He told me that in New York everyone takes the Subway because it's such a crowded city. (I obviously knew these things, but I got a kick out of the way he made sure to explain, so I went with it.)

He said, "Well I'll tell you a story. It's about a man in New York who's been dead for a long time now, but he was a very very wealthy man. Head of a Company on Wall Street. If I told you his name you'd know him, but I won't use his name. I was fortunate enough to meet him when I was younger, but his wife told me this story." As he said this, the bus (the 212) pulled up and I stood up. He asked if I was taking this bus and I told him I was and he said he would continue the story on the bus.

We got on, and I sat in one of the open seats near the front where we could sit with each other. He sat down next to me and began to continue the story. He told me, "Now Manhattan is an Island surrounded by water" (again I went with it) "and this man lived Uptown but of course worked downtown on Wall Street. He had many chauffeurs who would drive him around the city in fancy cars at different times. Well, the chauffeur who drove him downtown to work every morning would pick him up at his building, and drive him to the nearby subway station. This Executive would leave his briefcase in the car, but would take his New York Times and Wall Street Journal and ride the subway downtown because it was so much faster. And his chauffeur would drive his briefcase to the office every morning, so he wouldn't have to worry about carrying it and such. This was all because the subway just got him downtown so much quicker."

I got a kick out of hearing this story and I told him, "I'm actually originally from Pittsburgh, I go to school in Cincinnati, and I'm out here on an internship. But I've been to New York a few times and found the subway to be very efficient and even fun."

When I had said Pittsburgh, his eyes opened wide and he told me he was amazed because when he was a boy he actually lived in Pittsburgh for a few years. He told me he grew up in an outer-borough of New York with great parents, but he had humble beginnings and was very lucky to achieve success in his life. He said he was born in 1943 or '44 (I don't remember exactly) and when he was 9 years old in about 1952 or so his father took a job in Pittsburgh and his family lived there until his was about 13.

He asked what part of Pittsburgh I lived in and I told him the North Hills. When I said this, his jaw just about hit the floor, and he said, "I lived in the North Hills." I asked him if he remembered any of the details about where it was, but he couldn't really remember anything besides describing the apartment building. Then he said, "Babcock Boulevard, that just came into my head. Is there a Babcock Boulevard? I remember that for some reason." I was excited and told him I had actually lived just 5 minutes from Babcock Boulevard at one point in my life.

He went on to tell me he has a nephew who lives in Cincinnati who is doing very well for himself and who he calls often to tell him how proud of him he is.

The man asked me what my internship was and I told him I was a design student working at an advertising agency in Hollywood. I told him I've been here for a month and had two more to go. He was very impressed and excited for me and he asked what kind of design I did. "Fashion design, industrial design?" he asked. I told him I was in more graphic design and advertising for the internet. I also explained I am hoping to get an internship in New York in the future.

He told me that my internship sounded like a great opportunity and he was thrilled for me, and that he could tell I was really enjoying myself and that it was good that I still had more time to be here and enjoy the city.

He told me he wished me the best. Unfortunately he was getting off at Wilshire and his stop was coming up, so I asked him what his name was. He told me, "Stan," and I told him my name as we shook hands.

Stan told me he could tell from talking to me that I was a very good person and we both told each other how much of a great pleasure it was talking. As the bus stopped, he told me again, "Well, Alex, I really wish you the best in everything." And I told him the same and we said goodbye. I got up and moved further back in the bus, knowing now that there was a reason I took the bus this Friday night.

Stan was the first person I've had a real long conversation with on the bus. I was enjoying every second we were talking. I needed a bit of a pick-me-up tonight, and man, did I ever find one. 64 year-old Stan made my night, my day, my week, maybe the quarter. It was the most significant interaction I've had with anyone out here.

I believe sometimes God just wants to remind you he's there and tell you how much he loves you. Well, tonight, I'm definitely feeling that he's done that through meeting and talking with Stan.

Now I don't claim that from now on I'll be striking up conversation with everyone I meet on the bus, but I can tell you that I will now be more likely to ask that first question or say that first "Good morning," should the opportunity arise. The world is full of amazing people who all have very unique, amazing life stories, and God is in all of them, whether they know it or not. I look forward to hopefully learning about a few more of my fellow bus riders.

I wish Stan and I had more time to talk, as we could've talked for much longer. Maybe we'll meet again. Probably not. Regardless, my conversation with a stranger came right when I needed it most, and taught me a lot in a mere 15 minutes.

Just yesterday I happened to skim an article on CNN or somewhere where a self-proclaimed grump went on a search to find the Happiest places on Earth. He found that the richest countries like Qatar were far from the happiest. He found it to be relationships and interactions between people that truly bring happiness.

I'm definitely feeling that tonight, and I'm reminded how thankful I am for you!

I know it's cheesy and all, but I am.

I hope you all have great weekends! I know many of you are at Key Laborer's right now, and I'm very bummed that I can't be there with all of you. I know you're having a blast.

I'm planning on touring Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood tomorrow morning then going to the Zoo in the afternoon. It should be a lot of fun!

Regardless of where you are and what you're doing, have a great weekend. Take it easy and enjoy life!

much love,

Alex

Monday Mingle-Mangle

Yes, I really did just use the word mingle-mangle. I saw it on dictionary.com and couldn't help myself.

Bill Nye: the consummate teacher.


This zoomed-in picture was taken by Alli while we were kind of stalking Bill Nye after he had walked away. Here in the profile, you can notice a few things:

1. That man is definitely Bill Nye: the Science Guy
2. Bill Nye does not need to be in front of a camera to be passionately educating.
3. The man with Bill was unfortunately not Ed Begley, Jr.
4. Bill Nye has really cool shoes.

Here, for your enjoyment, is a picture of me in the arms of a Giant Sloth. Don't worry, Amanda, as much as I was interested in a relationship, it turned out the Sloth just wanted a funny picture with a human, and it pushed me away right after this picture was taken.


Seriously though, this is the actual size that Giant Sloths were during the Ice Age. Wouldn't it be amazing if they had survived and just hung out in the woods and stuff?

Speaking of Bill Nye and teachers and Amanda, congratulations to her for getting her first voice student today! It's a big deal and is very exciting!

Not directly related to Bill Nye but perhaps subconsciously connected:

After this weekend, I'm feeling like I want to do some good in this city. I don't really know what at the moment, I mean, the homeless population is huge and its a big city so its dirty, but I don't feel called to any specific work yet. I just feel like I've been a spectator here for the last month, now I want to see how I can take part and do some good and become somewhat more connected to this city of Angels.

Tonight, I'm going to shoot an email to Mosaic, the church I've been going to, to see if they have any service opportunities or if they can point me in some good directions. I'm keeping my options open right now, but I'm excited to see what happens. I've been praying about it and about finding some deeper purpose while I'm out here, and already today at work I was put on a team working on advertising for a non-profit cause. It's a really cool project and really will be having a positive effect on our world. I'm not sure to what extent I'll actually be involved in the project, but after only one day I'm already finding answers and seeing some deeper purpose in my career. How cool is that?

Hopefully these developments continue. I'll obviously keep you all updated!

It's nice that the Super Bowl proved that nothing is ever definite in football, even when you're "perfect." No hard feelings to New England fans. New England itself is a sweet place. I'm a big Revolution Era history fan. The founding fathers were wicked cool.

That's all for now. Keep it real.

much love,

Alex

Possibly the Best Day Yet

So I normally would probably wait until the end of the weekend to write a blog post, but this day was too crazy to not write about now. You'll see why soon.

So today I went to the La Brea Tar Pits. I took the bus up to Wilshire Blvd. and meet Alli and her roommate and fellow Disney Store design co-op Colin. It was a wonderful day to go to the tar pits.


In the picture above you can see the statues of mammoths that show one mammoth stuck in the tar and its child looking on helplessly with another parent standing by. Don't worry, that's not all tar, its water with tar bubbling up in it. This is the largest pool of tar, and is also where the volcano began in the classic movie Volcano starring Tommy Lee Jones. Here's a clip of the Volcano starting at the tar pits and the mammoths sinking into the tar: http://youtube.com/watch?v=eVBn6vYyM4Y&feature=related

From what I remember, the tar pits have been here for about 40,000 years, and because of folds in the layers of the earth caused by earthquakes, layers of tar seep up to the surface of the earth. For thousands of years, thousands of animals have gotten stuck in the tar and died. In fact, in many cases, an large animal like a mammoth would get stuck in the tar while trying to drink water, then a Saber Toothed Cat would come too feed on the mammoth, and would itself get stuck in the tar as well. Dire Wolves would even come to fight a Saber Toothed Cat for their prey, and many of those got stuck as well.

In fact, there have been more Dire Wolves found in the tar pits than any other species. Here is a case full of hundreds of Dire Wolf skulls in the museum.


The museum was pretty cool, with many skeletons of animals like Mammoths, Giant Sloths, Mastodons, Horses, Wolves, Birds, and Saber Toothed Cats, to name a few.

One of the things I learned that surprised me was that there was such a creature as an American Lion. Did anybody else know there were once Lions in North America? Apparently they were very similar to the African Lions we now know, only they were much larger, like Aslan, I guess.

Also, did anybody have any idea that Camels once lived in America? I was really surprised by that, too.

Anyway, one of the pits you can walk to outside the museum is Pit 91. They have been digging in Pit 91 for something like 90 years, and they are still finding things. Pit 91 is a tar pit that is probably about 30ft by 30ft wide and they just keep digging into it. Just last year, they found a whole Saber Toothed Cat in it, and obviously, more wolves. They only dig in the summer though, when the Tar is softer, so we didn't get to see any digging in action.

Alli and Colin and I posed for pictures with some of the statues along the pathways outside the museum (check facebook) and then stopped to poke this newly formed tar pit along the walkway.


As we were next to this pit, a man and a young couple came out of the bushes from the parking lot, and the man bent down to point out things about the tar pit. This man obviously knew what he was talking about and was very excited to share his knowledge with his companions.

Well, guess what? TODAY I HAD MY FIRST CELEBRITY SIGHTING!

That's right, we soon realized this man was a celebrity. And who was he? Well who else could so passionately capture and explain the natural wonder and intricacy of the La Brea Tar Pits?

"Intertia is a property of matter"

Why, It was Bill Nye, of course!

That's right, I freaking saw Bill Nye today! My first Celebrity sighting of the quarter! And it was the science guy himself!

Could I ask for a better guy to be my first celebrity sighting? I think not!

Unfortunately, by the time we realized it definitely was Bill Nye, he and his companions had walked away. This was the best picture I could get of the guy. He's on the right in the blue coat.


If he had been wearing his white lab coat, we would have recognized him in a second, but alas, he wasn't and we didn't. But it most definitely was Bill Nye, we could see his face and hear his voice, plus we saw a guy get his picture taken with him once he was further away. I really wish we had stopped him an asked for a picture, but its ok that we didn't. It was still amazing to see Bill Nye in real life and know that I was standing a few feet away from the man.

It made for an amazing trip to the La Brea Tar Pits.

After the tar pits, we went over to LACMA, the los angeles county museum of art, which is huge and full of great stuff. It's free after 5pm, so that was awesome. The museum had lots of stuff I recognized from Art History with Cindy Damschroder. The bronze "Bird in Space" was especially cool to see. The parts of the museum we saw had works from many famous people, including Kandinsky, Pollock, Mondrian and many, many Picasso's. It was pretty impressive. Plus they had Rietveld's Red and Blue Chair. I still doubt it'd be all that comfortable, but nonetheless it would be great to build myself a set of them. The museum is finishing up some major remodeling right now, so I'll probably try and go back once its finished and see some more.

We went to a Pizza place on Wilshire for dinner and all got delicious calzones. It was a darn good day. It was really cool to see more of the famous Wilshire Blvd, which is also where Crew Creative is moving its offices on June 1st, so if I come back in the summer, its the part of town I'll be working. There's some beautiful classic Los Angeles architecture on the street and it was exciting to see.

Well, I'm hoping that now that I've seen one, I'll start seeing celebrities all over the place.

Whatever the case, I have seen one celebrity, and what a great guy to see. If I go back to school only having seen the science guy, I won't be disappointed.

Tonight, I dedicate this blog post to you, Bill Nye, and I thank you for deciding to go to the La Brea tar pits today. A case of great minds thinking alike if there ever was one. I should hope our paths cross again someday.

Anyway, it's great to hear that the Punxsutawney trip was awesome and you all had a lot of fun. I'll be looking forward to more stories soon. Travel safely back school and co-ops!

Have a great rest of the weekend, everybody, and let's all say a prayer for the Giants, eh?

Take it easy!

much love,

Alex

Morning in Hollywood

Friday at last. And check out this day!


Here's a shot from right in front of Target this morning. I ran in to grab some extra darts for Tasha and I's maverick Nerf guns. It's supposed to storm Saturday night and Sunday, but next week its going to be getting back up into the low 70s, so that should be amazing. Still, this morning was classic sunny Southern California.

Yesterday as I was waiting for the bus at the transfer stop, a bus came by, but it was packed, and I had some time so I waited for the next one. Unfortunately the next one took like 20 minutes to come, which was extremely frustrating and pissed me off. Luckily, my spirits were lifted when I looked over and noticed that the old Japanese man from Mexico was waiting for the bus, too (see the earlier post). I didn't talk to him this time, but I was still very happy to run into him again.

A bus came after like 20 minutes, but it was absolutely full, so again I waited. Luckily, very soon after another bus came without many people on it so I got on. When I got on, I was thrilled to find the best bus driver yet. He said good morning to everybody that got on and was just having fun driving the bus. At one point, the "stop requested" recording didn't play, so he said it himself with the same intonation and reflection as the recording, "Stop Requested...please use rear exit." It just about made my day.

Then when it was my stop, I wanted to get off at the front door because I wanted to say thanks to the driver. But an older man was slowly getting off in front, and I didn't want to waste too much time, so I went to the back door. The driver hadn't unlocked the door though, so I had to ask the driver to open the back door. He said "Sorry, I didn't see you there. Have a great day!" I said no problem and thanks and got off the bus. Even though it was already 9:30 (when my work day starts) I didn't care because being late had made for fun times.

This was a pretty fun week. I got a nerf gun to defend myself when Tasha (one of my superiors) comes around and shoots at me with her nerf gun. I kept it hidden in my desk for three days until I was provoked.

Every day that goes by my coworkers discover a little bit more about me. Dave, who I sit next to, decided to look at my iPod the other day and laughed his way through the whole thing. He and another guy, Jason, have loved reading my blog, and make fun of me for it pretty often. Don't worry, though, it won't change this blog.

Things are really good here. My coworkers are a lot of fun and although I take my share of crap for being an intern, they have made me feel welcome. Although Dave and Jason make fun of me for saying so, I do think Crew is a great place.

I hope everybody caught Lost last night! It was pretty awesome. Who are the Oceanic Six? I won't give too much away to anybody that hasn't seen it and wants to. If you're not a lost fan, I'm pretty sure you can watch all 3 seasons on abc.com. Check it out, get caught up.....and find yourself. These are supposed to be the greatest 8 episodes yet, and I think we're very quickly seeing why.

I also caught the premiere of the new show Eli Stone, after Lost on abc last night. It was a lot of fun. It has a lot of great stuff with some comedy, drama, fantasy, heart, and a whole lot of faith. It's pretty funny seeing George Michael, and I think he'll do more in future episodes. Check it out (also on abc.com).

As for this weekend, I don't know what I'm going to be doing. I might go to tar pits or the zoo or something. As for the Super Bowl, I'll doubt I'll do anything huge, aside from watching it and hoping somehow the Patriots lose.

And now I leave you with this picture I took this morning on my walk to the office. I walked by, thought about it, turned around and went back and took a picture of this license plate, because on a day like this, who isn't?


I'm extremely jealous of everybody going to Punxsutawney tonight. I wish I could go with you guys, but I'll look forward to the stories. Have a great time!

I hope everybody else has a great weekend, too!

much love,

Alex