"To all who come to this happy place...welcome"

So I'm pretty far behind schedule now, and it's the night before spring quarter starts, but here comes the post about Amanda and my trip to Disneyland!

I still have some unpacking to do and some work tonight, so I'm sorry if the post isn't as detailed as you might like. Still, here you go!


Amanda arrived in LA on monday and it was absolutely great to see her. Three months is a really long time to be apart and it was very hard. Just being together again was wonderful. Monday afternoon we went to Hollywood and out to Santa Monica for dinner. It was a lot of fun.

Tuesday morning we got up and drove in the rental car down to Anaheim. Traffic wasn't bad, and we got there in about 45 minutes, just around the park opening at 8. We took the tram over to the park and began our first day at the Happiest Place on Earth.

The park was absolutely packed with the spring break crowd, but luckily we knew what we were doing and we were able to do just about everything we wanted. Here are some of the best pictures from our two days at the Disneyland Resort with some commentary:

We started in Adventureland on the Indiana Jones Adventure, which was awesome. One of the times we crisscrossed the park to Tomorrowland we stopped in the hub to get some pictures. This is one the photographer cast member took of us. How fun we are! And look how small and cute the castle is!


I guess I didn't really take many pictures the first day were were at Disneyland. One of the highlights of the first day was definitely Indiana Jones, and the original Pirates of the Caribbean was awesome as well, especially with the added special effects and amazing Jack Sparrow animatronics. The completely rebuilt Space Mountain was amazing, too, and Michael Giacchino's on-ride soundtrack blasting though the speakers on the train while flying through outer space was awesome. Amanda and I also had fun exploring Pirate's Lair at Tom Sawyer Island. We also had a great lunch at the Blue Bayou, the restaurant in the bayou scene of Pirates of the Caribbean. I got us reservations, which admittedly made it fairly fun to watch the people walking up to the desk asking if there was any space. All in all, we had a wonderful first day at Disneyland, but were worn out before dark and decide to leave and rest up for the next day.

Day two we went over to Disney's California Adventure. First we got fastpasses for the Tower of Terror. The Tower at California Adventure isn't quite as beautiful as the Florida original, of course neither can compare to the amazing new Manhattan-themed Tower of Terror at Tokyo Disney.


The ride itself was very cool, not all that different from the original, but without the moving forward scene. Without that scene though, I had no idea when the drops were coming, and I was definitely surprised and scared.

Other highlights from California Adventure were the great Aladdin musical, that was a whopping 45 minutes long in a huge indoor theater with amazing production values and special effects, and a hilarious guy playing the genie. Soarin' over California was great, too, but getting in the singles line was a must there, as we waited only 10 minutes as opposed to the hour and a half we would've waiting in the stand-by line. I absolutely cannot wait to go back there in the summer once Toy Story Midway Mania opens, which should be pretty mind-bogglingly fun.

Early in the evening we had done everything we wanted to we headed back across the Esplanade back to Disneyland. We got some pictures, including one of me in front of the California adventure gate.


As we went into the park the parade was finishing up, so we ran to the back of the park to try and catch as much of it as we could. Here's Amanda in front of the last float in the parade. She really wanted a picture with Snow White, and since we didn't see her anywhere for meet and greets, this was the best we could do. It's a very cute picture, though!


We did a few rides at night in Disneyland, but the highlight was definitely the Finding Nemo Submarine Voyage. It was the longest line in the park, but it was definitely worth it. Here's the Nautilus submarine in the lagoon. Let me tell you, pictures don't do these subs justice, and when I got up close to them, I was amazing how big they are. Each one holds 40 people!


The ride is completely immersive and absolutely makes you believe you are riding in a submarine in the ocean. They use an amazing technology to project animated fish into the water and make it appear that they are swimming around realistically. Using Thomas Newman's great score from the movie also struck the perfect chord.

The main reason we wanted to be back in the park at night was so we could see the fireworks and fantasmic. The fireworks were amazing, with fireworks shooting off from the whole perimeter of the park and projections on the Matterhorn. Tinker Bell flying back and forth over the castle was amazing, too.

After the fireworks we went over to New Orleans Square to see Fantasmic. The show was great, especially the peter pan pirate battle on the Sailing Ship Columbia. Aside from that, though, I did miss the Pocahontas and Lion King scenes in the newer Florida show. Towards the end of the show, I looked over at the base of a light tower at the front of the seating area and saw a duck there, just standing there staring forward transfixed on Fantasmic. The duck did not move or look away the whole time and didn't flinch, even when the river caught fire. Talk about the magic of Disneyland.


After Fantasmic, Amanda and I were again very worn out, and left the park to head home back up in LA. Before we did, I stopped to take a picture of the dedication plaque at the base of the flag pole. Pretty excellent.


So what did I think of Disneyland? Well obviously it was great and a lot of fun. How could I not have a blast there? Of course it was great and very special to share my first visit with my very wonderful girlfriend, as well. And how does it compare to Disney World? Well, everything is more compact and the park doesn't quite have the spectacular views that the Magic Kingdom Park has. Disneyland does have a great charm, especially on Main Street, which might be my favorite part of the park. It was wonderful to visit, and I can't wait to come back in the summer.

Here's the last picture of this post, looking up at Walt Disney's private apartment above the fire station on main street. Can you see the candle lit in the window? That light is always lit and is there to represent Walt's spirit and the fact that he still watches over the park.


So of course with our great trip and adventure at Disneyland, there had to be a downside, and after we got back to LA, I got pretty badly sick. I guess I caught some kind of a bug. Amanda wound up getting very sick, too, and we're both still recovering. It sucks.

Anyway, school starts tomorrow and hopefully Amanda and I are feeling better. I'm really looking forward to the quarter. It should be a lot of fun, especially once it gets warmer.

So much for a short post. Don't worry this isn't the last of the blog. Things might be pretty crazy until the opera's over this weekend, but I still have some posts to write, including an "interesting typography of Hollywood" photo tour, and a post about things I've learned.

Anyway, I hope you all have great days and weeks. I'm looking forward to seeing a lot of people I've missed in the next few days.

Keep it real!

much love,
Alex

A Post About Nothing

So a lot of you are already done with co-op for the quarter. However, out here in the Godless state of California, we work on Good Friday. No, no, that's not true, plenty of people out here are done with work, too. I'm not, I have work tomorrow. It's okay though, it should be a good day.

Anyway, last weekend, Lindsey Meyer sent me the address of the apartment building here in LA that they used for establishing shots of Jerry's apartment on Seinfeld. I know, I know, the show was set in New York, but just like every other sitcom (including Friends), it was filmed out here. I know, it still doesn't make sense that they would use an LA building for an establishing shot that could very easily be photographed in Manhattan. It makes even less sense when you take into account the fact that many other true New York sites were used in Seinfeld establishing shots, like Monk's (the "Restaurant") being actual NYC site Tom's Restaurant.

I don't claim to have the answers, maybe Lindsey or Andrew do. I did, however, set out on Tuesday during my lunch break to find the building. The address of the building is 757 New Hampshire Ave, and when I looked it up on google maps I found it to be just down Santa Monica a ways, so I got on the bus and headed there.

When I got to the 700 block of New Hampshire Ave, I was crushed when I found this:


I couldn't believe that they would actually tear down the Seinfeld apartment! And replace it with a parking lot and a driving range, no less! How disgusting. I mean, it really is a piece of history. I called Andrew and told him the bad news. Needless to say, he was crushed. He said he wasn't going to have any reason to come visit me out here in the summer now. I told him we still had the San Diego Zoo. I called Lindsey, too, but she didn't pick up, which was probably a good thing. I didn't really want the bad news to make her cry.

I went back to work and did some more searching on the internet, baffled that the building was torn down so recently. However, as I was looking on google, I saw that there was actually a North New Hampshire Ave and a South New Hampshire Ave, and both have a 757! How stupid is that? Like there aren't enough numbers in the world to not repeat on the same street?

Obviously I was very relieved that there was still hope, and if I went to S. New Hampshire I might find it. Andrew was relieved, too.

This morning, I woke up and realized if I got ready quickly I would have plenty of time to go to South New Hampshire to find the building. Well I did, and after two fairly painless bus rides, I made it. The street was a block or two over from the bus stop, and just looking over at the street I knew I was in the right place. Soon, I found myself looking at 757 S. New Hampshire.


That's the view from one direction. It's pretty funny how just about every other tree on the street besides the ones in front of the apartment are palm trees. The building itself does do a good job of looking like New York. Here's a shot looking down the street in the other direction.


It's funny because the building is in an area of the city called Korea Town, and signs on the buildings around the apartment are all in Korean. It's not a great area, but it could be worse. Does it still not look very familiar? Here's a shot similar to one that they actually used on the show:


It's kind of weird that the street is a bit of a hill, I never really noticed that on the show. I guess its all in how they shoot it. From what Lindsey tells me, it actually was called the Shelley on the show, too. Make sure you note in the picture above the guy in blue sitting out front looking at me. He looked like he was really confused and didn't understand why I was taking pictures. I think he thought I was going to come back and rob the place.

Does it still not look very familiar? Well, here's the money shot I took. The one that is most similar to what they'd do on the show. I added the Seinfeld logo to make it look even more authentic.


Pretty cool, eh? Just try and look at the picture above without the theme song bopping into your head. Yeah, so I'm really glad I went. It was a lot of fun and really cool to see in person. In true New York spirit, I was able to take the Subway up to Hollywood from where I was, which was excellent. I do love the subway.

So tomorrow is my last day of work. Man it flew by. I can't wait for Amanda to come and for us to go to Disneyland. It's going to be a blast! I hope everybody that's traveling has a fun and safe Easter weekend and spring break!

Don't worry, the blog isn't finished yet, I still have a week of life out here.

Keep it real everybody.

much love,
Alex

Let's See How Far We've Come

Wow, I definitely cannot believe that it is the beginning of my last work week of the quarter! My time here has absolutely flown by. I feel like I just got here. No, it's not quite time for the retrospective blog post yet, but I am really starting to look back at how great it has been and the ways I've been challenged and grown.

I'll write about that later, because continuing in what has to have been the best weekend of the quarter, last night I went to the Staples Center downtown to see the Matchbox Twenty: Exile on America Tour. And it was extremely awesome.

Frankly, it was so awesome and I took so many cool pictures, I couldn't decide which ones to put in here, so I'm just putting in a lot of them.

First of all, the Staples Center is an absolutely amazing arena. I'm not sure how old it is, but it looks brand new, and inside it is huge. That might not be a good thing for the people with tickets in the upper decks, but the sheer size inside the place was amazing.

On the way into the arena, I passed by the statue of the Great One, Wayne Gretzky (although not the greatest, of course, as we all know who's "Simply the Best".) It's a nice statue, not great resemblance, but still cool.

My seat was at the back of the floor on the risers, so I was kind of far back but I was right in front of the stage, which was awesome. At 7, Mute Math came out and played a few songs. They were actually really good and I was impressed. I'll definitely check their music out.

At about 7:45 or so Alanis Morissette came out and played an awesome show. She was up for like an hour, and played every song you would want her to play, including the Dave Coulier revenge song. She had a very cool and beautiful backdrop hanging went she performed of two clasped hands raised into the air above blowing hair and a flying dove. It was cool.

When she sang Ironic, of course the whole arena sang along and she held out the microphone and stopped singing at a few points. At another point she spun around more times in a row than I have ever seen a human spin. Seriously, it was insane, I was getting dizzy myself. The other highlight was when she had some fun and performed her cover of "My Humps" while her band members threw money and jewelry at her. She's got a great sense of humor and she rocked.

Finally around 9 came the moment everyone was waiting for. Matchbox Twenty came out to an awesome version of "How far we've come." After the song, Rob Thomas thanked everybody for coming and said to all of us, "For the next few hours, we're going to forget about all the s*** that goes on outside these doors. Tonight we are going to f***ing celebrate life!" And f***ing celebrate life we did.

Since Exile on Mainstream is mostly a greatest hits compilation, the concert did not disappoint, and the band played all of their huge hits. It was so awesome to go to a concert and know all of the songs and even more than that to know all the words to all the songs.

There were many highlights, too many to name. I was however, a big fan of "If You're Gone," one of my favorite matchbox songs, and one of the ways I was reminded why Mad Season is my personal all-time favorite album. I was also pleasantly surprised that they played "Downfall," one of my favorites from More Than You Think You Are. Unfortunately they didn't have a gospel choir to back them up like on the record which is one of the big reasons the song is so amazing, but it was still great to hear it live.

As you can see from these pictures, the stage was pretty sweet and made for a pretty awesome experience. These pictures don't show nearly all the different configurations or styles they used, the lighting and colors at times were just absolutely beautiful.

You can see the main features of the stage were these four giant screens that were lowered and raised and moved forward and backward. I don't exactly know what they were, if they were actually emitting any light and imagery themselves, or if it was just very powerful projections. Either way, it was sweet. Isn't it an awesome time to be a digital designer?

I've got to say, it was extremely surreal hearing Rob Thomas say, "Hello Los Angeles!" because I don't think its very often that I'm actually able to just stop and think about the fact that I am currently living in Los Angeles, California, the epicenter of the west coast and the center of the entertainment universe. I just don't know if I can still believe it. It's pretty amazing to think about it, and hearing Rob Thomas say "Thank you, L.A.!" and to have him be saying it to me was just crazy to a kid from Pittsburgh and Cincinnati.

Anyway, Matchbox Twenty finished up before the encore with a huge version of "Bright Lights" that was amazing. I think they were even playing some Beatles for a while in the middle too. It was great. Then, at the encore, doves flew together to form the word "exile" like in the top picture and the band played a few more songs and finished with "Push." It was awesome.

Rob Thomas made sure to thank everybody in the audience very much for coming, saying he knew we could do other things with our money. He's a good guy and I like him, like Ron Miller and Brian Kelly.

Buying a ticket to Matchbox Twenty was definitely worth it, and I would love to see them in concert again. They put on a great big, emotional show and it did not disappoint. Hopefully they keep working and writing great music for many many more years.

The concert was the perfect ending to my awesome weekend, and has also been an awesome beginning of the end of my first quarter out here.

The City of Angels still has a lot to teach me, but I know I have come pretty far already. I can't wait to see where else it takes me.

much love,

Alex

A Weekend for the Ages...

Wow, so much great stuff to write about. It really was an amazing weekend, and its not even over yet. Something happened that has absolutely made my quarter, and maybe even made my life, but I'll get to that later.

This could be the longest post ever, but it'll be worth it.

Yesterday Mom came into work at the end of the day to see the place and meet some people and it was great. People were very excited to meet her, and its funny because with mom in the office, my supervisors and bosses were telling her things about me that they hadn't really told me, and found out that they actually love having me at crew and that they think I'm doing great work, too. Not that I didn't feel welcomed and appreciated, because I definitely have, but I didn't know that it was to the extent that everybody said it was. They were probably lying.

Anyway, after meeting people and seeing the office, Mom and I went across the street to AMMO, this very cool, very hip Hollywood restaurant. Apparently famous people frequent the place, and just earlier in the day someone from work said they saw the editor of Vogue (aka the inspiration for the Devil Wears Prada) eating there. We didn't see any famous people, but we did see one of my bosses, Julianne, having a drink with one of the project managers, Mike.

After Mom and I finished eating, Julianne came over and met Mom and thanked me for doing such great work on a project I was doing for her. She stayed and talked to Mom and I for a while, and having grown up and lived in New York City for most of her life, she offered a great explanation of what makes Los Angeles so wonderful. She said that in New York people are kind of miserable and stuff, but out here, everyone is still chasing their dreams, optimistic that with hard work they can do anything. She said its very refreshing, regardless of how many people won't actually be able to accomplish those dreams.

Now I definitely don't mean to smack down New York, because anyone who knows me knows I absolutely love that city and will definitely be trying to co-op there in the future, but it was still cool to hear Julianne explain why she loves it out here. She also brought up the fact that its wonderful to have the beach in one direction and snow-capped ski-able mountains in the other.

Anyway, after we talked, Julianne went back to the bar, and when we asked for our check, the waitress told us it had been taken care of and that Julianne had covered it. How amazingly nice was that? We went over and thanked her so much, and she said that they don't get an opportunity to spoil me very often. I think she may have been forgetting the catered lunches every day, the candy, snacks, pop and now friday afternoon alcohol, the wii playing, the opportunity for a massage, and the fact that I don't get in trouble when I get in nerf gun battles.

We talked to Mike and Julianne at the bar for a bit, and Mike told a great story about his mother and why she ended up moving to Pittsburgh, and Mike reiterated the fact that they loved having me at crew, and he even said I was one of their best interns. Now I'm sure that was an exaggeration, and I definitely don't tell anybody this to show off how great I am, its just so amazing to be thought so highly of by so many extremely talented and well-connected people. If there was any question of my coming back in the summer or not, the question has been answered this weekend; there is no way I can pass up an opportunity to come back to such an awesome place and work with such great people.

After dinner in Hollywood, Mom and I drove out to Santa Monica, where we walked along the edge of the beach at night past very swanky hotels and restaurants and saw the Santa Monica Pier and went up to the 3rd Street Promenade as well. It was an excellent day.

Then came this morning...

Mom and I decided to head downtown so that we could see the Walt Disney Concert Hall. Unfortunately when we got there, there were some performances going on and they weren't offering the free audio tour. Mom was disappointed, but I showed her we could still walk around and enjoy the building a bit. So walk around we did. I showed Mom the building and we were about to leave, when mom needed to go to the bathroom.

As we were walking around the side of the concert hall to the bathroom, I noticed this older man who looked very familiar to me. Immediately I mentally tested him against the celebrity/famous people database in my head, and after a moment realized he seemed to be Ron Miller, the son in law of Walt Disney and the former President and CEO of Walt Disney Productions.

Well, of course my brain started racing, as I realized if he was here, there was a chance that Diane Disney Miller, Walt Disney's only biological daughter, would be there too.

Low and behold, who do I see come around the corner after Ron but this shorter older woman that I immediately recognize as the one and only Diane Disney Miller.

I turned to mom and whispered to her, "Walt Disney's daughter is walking behind us."

Now Mom went to bathroom, and Ron and Diane continued walking around, enjoying the gardens of the concert hall and all the action of it, as there were many activities for kids and a special free performance going on. Needless to say, I knew this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and although I was extremely nervous, I knew I had to talk to them.

I walked up behind Diane and said "Mrs. Miller?" She turned around and responded with a rather surprised but pleasant expression on her face. I went on, "My name is Alex Ogle and I just wanted to tell you how great I think this hall is." She immediately shook my hand and thanked me, as did Ron, who had the handshake of a USC and pro-football player if I ever felt one.

Diane asked me how I recognized them, and I told her "I'm a bit of a Disney fan."

From there, we just started to talk, and in no time I was completely at ease having a great conversation. She immediately referred to me by name, saying "now Alex, what are you doing out here?" I told her I was a design student in Cincinnati out here on an internship. I told them I was from Pittsburgh and Ron told me that they had been to Pittsburgh a few times and that they loved it. He commented on our great sports teams, too. Ron knows his stuff.

I told Diane how much I loved the story told in the audio tour of how her mother and Walt's wife Lillian, wanted the concert hall to look like a small old brick church with ivy on it. Ron said, "That it sure isn't!" and Diane said that that was just the kind of woman her mother was.

Diane went on to explain that the future Walt Disney Family Museum that they're building in San Francisco will actually be more true to that vision. I asked her why they chose to build it in San Francisco, and Diane told me that was actually where she and Ron are living now. Ron said they basically could have built the museum anywhere, and that they could've built it in Pittsburgh, since the Disney legacy is so far-reaching. Diane said building the museum in San Francisco is basically about California, and what California meant to Walt.

Awesome. After a bit mom came back out and walked over where I introduced her to the Millers, and they told us they were actually meeting Frank Gehry and his wife in just a few minutes for lunch and to see the performance that afternoon. She said that they hadn't seen a concert with Frank since the opening.

I didn't want to take up too much of their time, so I asked if it would be okay if I got a picture with them. They were both very happy to take a picture. In fact in a very classy move, Ron took off his sunglasses for the picture. Ron made sure I stood between them next to Diane, and surprisingly, Diane put her arm around me when I stood next to her for the picture! Then mom snapped this picture in front of the Lily fountain in the gardens of the Walt Disney Concert Hall.

I don't know if you can tell from this picture or not, but as it was being taken, I was fairly nervous and excited at the same time. After the picture, we all said goodbye and parted ways. I don't totally remember what we said to each other...I was still kind of in shock I think.

I just cannot believe how incredibly kind and down to earth both of them were. They were so happy to stop and talk and share stories, and Diane was just so full of life and energy, it was amazing. I mean, this is as close as it gets to seeing what the true Walt Disney was like, and it seems like a great deal of his personality and love is reflected in her, let alone his looks.

I know, I could have talked to her for hours and there a probably a million things I should've said, but I don't care. I know very few other people would ever recognize them, no one else outside the concert hall did, but I think if you know me you can understand how huge this was for me and how much it meant to me. Meeting Diane wasn't about any obsession or anything, it was about learning more about the actual person that Walt was, and what it was that made him so unique.

That being said, I'm still in complete awe. Can you believe it? I actually met Walt Disney's daughter!

Wow.

After the concert hall, Mom and I went back to Hollywood to grab some famous chili dogs at Pink's and they were delicious. From there, we went down the sunset strip into Beverly Hills, and we drove down Rodeo Drive, which was, well....impossible to describe. It's probably the most fun to just watch all of the insanely wealthy people walking along the street buying who knows what from all of the extremely fancy expensive stores.

Then we headed up the 405 to the Getty Center, this enormous museum that is absolutely amazing. The museum is only 10 years old, and it sits up in the Santa Monica Mountains overlooking all Los Angeles. It was pretty stunning.

One really cool thing about the museum is that you park down at the bottom of the mountain then take a tram up to the top and it is a huge museum that is just beautiful. We took the architecture tour soon after getting there, and learned about Richard Meier's amazing work on the center.

Although the building is without a doubt a work of art in itself, inside the building are many more very impressive pieces, including some great Rembrandts and Van Goghs. The whole place definitely feels like California and has some great views off to the ocean in the west and the city in the east.

If I was a James Bond villain, the Getty Center would totally be my secret evil villa.

After the Getty, Rob (my roommate), Mom and I went back to Santa Monica for a delicious italian dinner and then came home. Mom's leaving early tomorrow morning to go up to San Francisco to meet a friend of hers' and I'm heading to the Matchbox Twenty concert at the Staples Center tomorrow night after Mosaic. Sure i was made fun of a lot at work on friday about the concert, but I don't care, I'm stoked and it should be a blast.

Anyway, that's it for now. Sorry the post was so long. I just had to share the details. Call me, let's talk! Now, I'll leave you all with a shot off the helipad off of the front of the Getty Center, looking down onto the 405 and crazy traffic below, to remind everyone that Southern California does have its vices...but it sure has been tough to see them this weekend.

Until next time...

much love,
Alex

The wheels on the bus go round and round

Hey everybody, so the other day I was thinking about it, and I realized I've probably had more than 200 rides on buses in the last two and half months. That's a lot of bus rides! There aren't all that many left. Here's a small update about the real-life sitcom I've lived that I would probably call "Metro":

Most of the time when I don't make it to the bus stop as early as I'd like or when the bus takes a long time to come, at first I'm upset that I might not make it to work on time or that I won't get to do anything fun early in Hollywood, but usually I end up seeing fun people on these later buses or funny things happen.

This morning for instance...

I like riding the bus with the singing bus driver. Although everybody else thinks he's crazy, I get a kick out of it. We connected one day there was nobody on the bus when I got on and I asked him "where is everybody?" and he replied "I wish I knew!" Aside from "thanks" that's all we've spoken with each other, but he's a good guy.

I don't really like it when I ride the mean driver's bus. I'm glad he got over getting upset at people for using the front door and telling them to use the back door instead. He was doing that for a few days. I know I like using the front door so I can say thanks to the driver. Plus one time he kind of reprimanded me and got upset and told me to "come in" when there was a lady putting her coins in the machine that I didn't want to walk into. I haven't really liked that driver too much.

I didn't have either of those drivers this morning, but I did get on the bus this morning to find Mr. Dole sitting there, probably having already eaten many delicious fruits and ready for a great bike ride. I get a kick out of how Mr. Dole puts his helmet on his head inside the bus well before the bus actually gets to his stop. It's almost like he's saying "hey everybody, check out my helmet, it's covered in hundreds of fruit stickers...and it's awesome." Mr. Dole is a cool guy. If I get a chance again, I'd like to talk to him.

But anyway, the other fun part of the bus ride came on the second bus this morning. I got on and it was relatively crowded so I headed toward the back of the bus. I stood for a second and noticed a few people had open seats next to them, but they all had their bags sitting on them and stuff. Then this larger black woman lifted her bag and asked me if I wanted to sit there. I said thanks, and as I sat down the floor was slippery and I stepped on her toe. It wasn't like a full weight step onto her toe, but enough for me to feel bad. I apologized and then made a comment about how much of a jerk I was for stepping on her toe after she moved over to make space for me. She said it was no problem and that was that.

As I sat there, a few moments passed, and I realized I should have started up a conversation with the woman, after we had already talked a bit. Sure nobody talks to strangers on the bus, especially in the morning, but I realized I had missed a great opportunity to do it. I was bummed, and then became determined to wish her a nice day when she or I got off the bus.

As we neared the Santa Monica stop, I stood up ready to wish her a nice day, but then she stood up to get off as well. As I walked out the back door down the steps of the bus, the woman followed me, rather slowly so I was able to hold the door open for her. As she walked through it, she said to me, "Thank you....have a nice day!" I immediately smiled and couldn't help but happily laugh, knowing that I had been planning to wish her a nice day for the last few minutes, but she beat me to the punch. I wished her the same and walked away smiling, that simple encounter having made my day.

If there is one definite thing volunteering at Mosaic and my few Metro conversations have taught me, it's that strangers are amazing people, full of great stories and they are often happy to talk and open up. Regardless of how short or simple an interaction with a stranger is, there's just something awesome about making a new connection to another person. I will definitely remember that and seek out ways to see it work back in Cincinnati.

People are great.

Well I also have a bus related story about me solving the mystery of the Let's Go Person's gender, but that's going to have to wait for another post. It's getting late.

The one and only Debbie Ogle just got into LA a few hours ago, and she's here until Sunday. She's asleep right now, being that its 3 in the morning EST. It's great to see her and we'll be able to do some fun things so I'm definitely looking forward to the weekend.

As for all of you UC kids, don't stress about finals. In the immortal words of Dave the Pharmacist, "School is for saps."

I hope the quarters of co-op and school are winding down well for all of you!

Until next time.

much love,

Alex

"Looks like another perfect day...I love LA"

Disclaimer: The following post is in no way intended to be a smack in the face of everyone who is back east digging themselves out of snow and living in temperatures in the 20s and 30s. In fact, I would love to have some snow and be able to bundle up in a coat, gloves and hat or sit by a fireplace drinking hot chocolate. That being said, I can't really complain about this...

This is what my street looked like this afternoon. It was pretty much amazing, and quite possibly the nicest day so far. I think it was about 80 or so when I took this picture. I really don't know why there are so few clouds in the sky all the time. It's days like this when you understand what Randy Newman is talking about.

Today while I was doing my laundry, I walked over to Best Buy and decided to buy Paramore's album, Riot! I figured since I saw the lead singer I should check them out. I guess they're similar to Jimmy Eat World, and its not any music I'd normally check out myself, but after listening to it with Matt's friends in the car on thursday it sounded pretty cool. The band is technically secular, but they're all Christians and their faith is definitely reflected in many of the tracks, in fact, I think their song "My Heart" was sung a few weeks ago at Mosaic.  

So anyway, I've been listening to the album today, and its actually really good. I'm a fan. They rock hard, but the writing and music is still pretty tight and smooth and there's a lot to like. Some of the songs, like "Misery Business" and "That's What You Get" are songs I've heard in random places before. So basically I recommend them. You should consider checking it out.

In other news, Adrian and Annie at Mosaic liked my third Big Sunday design the best. I liked the fourth myself, but its cool, because I'll probably just end up using the fourth design as a basis for when I redesign my website in the future. Tonight at the Mayan they had already started printing out the flyers and handing them out. I still have to give them a few more sizes, but its pretty sweet to see my work being used and handed out.  

At the Mayan tonight I saw Ben, who I had volunteered with a few weeks ago at the warehouse and he was very excited to see me. I was stoked to see him too, and he was thrilled to hear that I'll be coming back this summer. He was glad to see me involved and volunteering and I told him that I had designed Big Sunday flyers for Mosaic, and Ben opened up his backpack and and asked, "these flyers?" He had stacks of them and told me that my work was already all over Pasadena where he lives. Pretty exciting, eh? I'm going to have to ask Alli to keep an eye out for them.  

On flavor of the week duty tonight I met a cool lady coming to the Mayan for the first time. It's awesome how all it takes is one conversation and meeting one person to absolutely make my night and make it all worth it. It's so much fun when people are just willing to open up and share.  

Erwin McManus continues to be such an awesome teacher. Soul Cravings continues to be an amazing book. I'm almost finished with it, and it's just so freaking cool. I can't believe I've been lucky enough to learn so much from him.  

Tonight at the end of his message about sacrifice, everyone was invited to walk up to the stage and leave your shoes sitting there as a representation of sacrificing yourself and being led by God. Erwin came up with the idea from when God told Moses to take off his shoes when he was on holy ground at the burning bush. Apparently nowhere does it say "Moses put his shoes back on" so it was just a really cool symbolic thing to do to leave your shoes (which are being donated to a homeless mission) and commit to following God, since that was the moment when Moses really began following God's will. It was symbolic of sacrificing all the things that are holding us back and "leaving those things in the shoes." Awesome. 

Let's see, the other great thing about today is the fact that with daylight savings, there is now still sunlight at 7 at night. Pretty much this will revolutionize my southern california life. Now its not even a matter of my feeling uncomfortable at night or anything like that, because for better or worse I've become fairly desensitized and don't really worry about being alone at night as long as its not too late. 

Just the fact that it will still be light out when I walk out of work now will be so amazing and will make it feel like there is so much more day left. Purely emotionally, it will be such an incredible feeling. Plus, I'm sure I'll be taking the bus to the beach at least a time or two in the next few weeks to see some sunsets. In fact as I walked across the street to Ralphs for some groceries tonight, this was the view of the sunset out toward the beach, looking over Launderland, where I do my laundry:

Pretty cool. I'd expect that the smog probably makes sunsets look a little cooler and more interesting. We'll see.

I made Skyline Chili tonight with one of the cans of it Amanda sent me for my birthday, and with the noodles and cheese and hot sauce and all, I was impressed that I didn't mess it up and it actually tasted like real Skyline. Very delicious. My body will be mad at me for it tomorrow morning.  

My second to last work week starts tomorrow. I still have no idea where the time went.

I hope everyone has a great week, and I'll look forward to seeing you soon!

much love,

Alex

My Hotel California

Can you believe that we are just 2 weeks away from spring break?  I definitely can't.  It's pretty crazy to think about.  The quarter has been flying by, even faster than summer quarter did.  

To start things out, here's a picture of the pillars in front of the Kodak, where No Country for Old Men has already been installed at the 2007 winner for Best Picture.  Haven't seen it, probably won't, but man wasn't the Departed awesome or what?

So this week was a pretty good week.  Last weekend I had found out that a friend of mine from Penn State, Matt Case, was coming out here to the West Coast with a bunch of his friends for their Spring Break.  Matt and I were both counselors at Summer's Best 2 Weeks the summer after our freshman years.  Well, Matt's an awesome guy, and I don't actually remember if we have seen each other since camp 2 years ago, but I was definitely looking forward to at least meeting up with him at some point while he was in LA.  

So Thursday night as work is finishing up, I get a call from Matt, telling me he's up at Pepperdine and that he and his friends are coming down to Hollywood and stuff and wanted to know if we could hang out.  I was pretty excited and looking forward to seeing him and meeting the people he was with.  

Well it turned out that he was out here with six other friends who knew each other in random ways but were all in Young Life, and that they didn't really have a place to stay and were hoping to avoid a hotel.  I talked to Rob, but felt bad because my apartment isn't really my apartment, but he was cool with it and we were happy to offer our couch and floor space to them.  

Anyway, I met up with the kids at Hollywood and Highland.  They were all very cool and I got a high five or two right off the bat.  We were going to walk over to Baja fresh to grab some dinner, and as we did Matt and some of his friends were really excited when they saw this girl Haley, the lead singer of a band called Paramore.  I saw her too, and I didn't know who she was at the time, but maybe she can maybe count as my fourth celebrity sighting.  Anyway, we walked into a store, I had to ask one of Matt's friends what store it was, and it was American Apparel.  After looking around in there for a bit, everybody decided they'd rather have pizza, so then we went over to California Pizza Kitchen for some dinner.

On the way over to California Pizza Kitchen, in front of the Jimmy Kimmel Studio and the El Capitan was this set up for some kind of small filming, probably a car commercial or a Jimmy Kimmel spot.  It was kind of interesting, so I took a picture.  Just another night in Hollywood.  Sorry its so blurry!

At dinner, I told them about how cool Mosaic and Erwin McManus are, and they had all actually heard of him.  Some of them were reading his books, too, and one of the guys, Chris, is actually coming out to LA to start a job in the summer, and so he was very interested in learning about it.  It was just fun to be hanging out, eating dinner with a group of cool, solid people like that.

After dinner, we came back to the apartment, and after a few circles around the block, we found a place to park.  We hung out for a little while and then everybody went to bed.  They got up and got on the road to head to San Francisco at six on friday morning.  

So anyway, it was a lot of fun being able to see Matt and meet his friends and it was especially great to be able to help them out with a place to stay and all.  I talked about this to Matt a little and was thinking about it, just about how cool it is to become friends with somebody and even though like we don't go to school together or live near each other, out of nowhere a random opportunity comes up for us to meet up again. 

Just thinking about it, I feel so lucky and blessed to have the connections and relationships with the different people that I have.  Definitely these meetings and opportunities to help each other out are anything but random, and are just awesome ways that I continue to be blessed and inspired by amazing people.  I'm just feeling very thankful for the people that I have met and connected with in my life.  

And you know, as much as it's going to absolutely suck when all of my college friends and I graduate and many of us are led in different directions, its going to be absolutely amazing to have a network of people that love and care about each other to support and and help out one another and meet up whenever we're together.  I know that its inevitable that we'll all fall out of touch with many people after college, but I know that regardless of how much all of us are able to keep in touch, many of those connections will still be there.  That's just really cool, and makes me extremely excited about our post-college years.  

Not quite as excited as I am for Spring quarter, of course, because its going to be fan-freaking-tastic.  

Anyway, Matt and his friends are up in San Francisco today, and are coming back to LA tomorrow, and they might be trying to make it to Mosaic tomorrow night.  That'd be pretty awesome, and I might have an opportunity to help them out with floor and couch space sunday night before they fly home on monday, too.  

Well thats about it for now.  I'm going to probably be spending much of today working on design work for the ccm opera, as next weekend Mom is coming to visit.  It should be a lot of fun and will be great to see her.  I also might have to run over to Best Buy to check out Paramore, since Matt's friends were playing it on the way back from Hollywood to my apartment and it sounded pretty cool.  Plus I think they sang one a Paramore song at Mosaic a few weeks ago.  

Alright, I'm out.  Have a great weekend everybody!

much love,

Alex

The Big 2-1

As hopefully all of you know, Monday was my 21st birthday. I definitely wish I could've been surrounded by all of you people I love to celebrate, but it still managed to be a pretty great day.

I started celebrating on Sunday night at 9:00, because that was midnight in Eastern Standard Time, the timezone I was born in. It was then that I talked to Amanda and opened up the presents she had sent me. I got some pretty great things from her, including some of the best things Cincinnati has to offer, skyline chili and Montgomery Inn Barbecue sauce. She also gave me a Walt biography (there are so many) that I'm definitely looking forward to reading, and she got tickets for she and I to go to a taping of Jimmy Kimmel Live when she comes to visit over Spring Break. That should be pretty awesome. What are the chances of somebody really cool and famous being on the show when we go? Obviously Robin Williams or Amy Adams or somebody like that would be amazing. Regardless of who's on the show, it should be a blast. It won't take much to make me happy.

Monday morning I went into work to find a bottle of Jack Daniel's Whiskey with a bow on it sitting at my computer. Yep, my coworker Dave was the first to buy me alcohol. I had two shots during the day, and it wasn't as hard as I had expected it to be. In the afternoon it was birthday time, and we were celebrating the birthday of 4 of us. Mark's birthday is March 3rd too, Jason's was Sunday, and Todd's was Tuesday. The fact that I wasn't the only one being sung to made it a lot less embarrassing. I got a piece of m&m ice cream cake and everybody gave me a giant card, too. Here it is, in fact.

As you can see, somebody took my head, photoshopped me onto the body of a guy with a wicked shirt on, and put a beer in my hand. It's pretty funny. The caption's not bad either. Then everybody signed it. It's quite a momento. Most people just get regular cards. I think they had run out of cards for guys, though, so I got lucky and got something special.

For my birthday night, I didn't have any big plans and didn't need anything huge. I ended up going out with my roommate Rob to celebrate. We went out to Main Street in Santa Monica and went to a few bars. We went to some cool places, like an Irish pub called Finn McCool's and a pretty hip, modern place called the Circle Bar. Apparently on your 21st, most places give you free shots, so I had a few shots and beers and as I haven't drank before this after a little while was definitely feeling the effects of the alcohol. Don't worry, I do remember everything that happened and I wasn't singing show tunes or anything by the end of the night (as much as I'm sure some of you would enjoy seeing that). For me though, it was definitely a night worthy of my turning 21.

All in all, the day was a lot of fun. I got a few phone calls from friends and family, and was checking facebook just about every 10 minutes. I really appreciate all of you who wished me happy birthday!

Obviously its pretty great when people personalize their birthday wishes, and one of my favorite facebook posts came from Andrew Jarrell. His post included some great lyrics from the musical "The Full Monty," that brought back lots of great memories (memories not related to the male nudity in the show, but rather how much fun it was when a bunch of us went over to ccm to see it.) Doug Schmaltz also had a great line saying "maybe you can wish for better taste in NFL teams." Obviously the actual content of the post isn't worth recognizing or debating with any Bengals fans, but I thought it was clever nonetheless. Finally, another of my favorites came in a facebook message from my friend Everett DeVries from sb2w, who wrote "Way to be alive. keep it up." Just because I didn't specifically mention your blog post here doesn't mean I didn't love and appreciate it, though. I'm sure I'm forgetting other fun ones.

I definitely got lots of great cards from friends and family, too. My parents sent me some amazing cookies, but their main gift was helping pay for Amanda and I to take our trip to Disneyland when she comes out.

Well, I think that really does cover all of my birthday. Like I told Steph, it just won't be my birthday without a trip to Max and Erma's for celebrating and a buffalo chicken sandwich, so you can bet at the start of Spring quarter there will be a Max & Erma's trip.

Well, kids, I really am missing the nati, although its definitely mostly the people that I miss. I can't wait for the coming quarter, and all of the amazing fun it will bring.

And man oh man, is Lost getting crazy and totally amazing or what?

Anyway, I hope you all have a great rest of the week!

much love,

Alex

Lazy Sunday

So this weekend has been one of the more low-key weekends of my co-op. Yesterday was a pretty cloudy and cold day, but that was ok because I wanted to use the afternoon to work on flyer designs for Mosaic.

Just to explain a little more, the flyer I've been asked to make is for Big Sunday. Big Sunday is pretty much this huge weekend of community service in and around Los Angeles. In fact I think its the biggest annual community service event in the country. The weekend doesn't have any political or religious agenda, and different groups and companies get involved in helping. My flyer is to spread the word through Mosaic. Unfortunately the weekend is May 3, so I won't be around here for it.

I worked on three different styles. They're all pretty graphic styles, since I wanted to try use photos that I took personally, and the originals of my distance shots of the city went down with the hard drive.

Here you go, check them out for yourself:

The first design and style I made is probably my favorite. It's obviously very graphic. The perspective lines aren't perfect right now and neither is the leaning of the website and date. Still, I think this one's pretty cool.


The second design I worked on is a pretty big departure from the first. I took one of my favorite shots of the Disney Concert Hall and played around with it in photoshop, then brought it into illustrator where I traced over all of the edges and made the hall building a little darker. This one's probably my least favorite, but I still think it's alright.


The third one is again a bit of a departure but uses the same photo from the Observatory that I traced for the first design. Since I only had a small version of the photo, I first played with it in photoshop to make it look like it was a little nicer of a day, then I took it into illustrator where I did a live trace so I could make it much larger. After I made it, I didn't really like it, but then I played with the type and tried laying it out a bit more interestingly, and now I'm more of a fan of it. I still don't know if the red works, though. We'll see.


Finally, since I liked the first design so much, I decided to try laying it out in landscape format. I also tried out a different color sky, which was actually the original color of the sky from the first design. Check it out.


Anyway, you can feel free to tell me what you think of these, if there are any you might like or if you think maybe I should give up and try and find a new major. I'm looking forward to talking to Adrian and Annie at the Mayan this afternoon to see what they think.


The other big news this weekend is that Friday at work Anette (one of my supervisors) came over to sit and talk with Dave and I, and while we were talking the subject of interns came up, so Dave asked me if I was coming back this summer. He knew I want to, but I think was just trying to ask in front of Anette to see what she would say. So I said, "of course...if they want me back", and Anette said, "of course we do!"

So pretty much that's awesome. To be invited back to someplace as cool as crew is quite the honor and will make for a lot of fun this summer. I'm just not going to think about how hot it will be here, I guess there's no humidity, though, so it won't be too bad. Plus I can go to the beach all the time.

Aside from that, I've got a pretty big day coming up tomorrow. I don't really need it to be too big, but a lot of people are saying they want to take me out, so we'll see what happens.

There's a chance I might try and make it down to San Diego on Saturday to meet up with Gaines to go to Legoland. It would be pretty awesome. The park is mostly for little kids, but they have like 15 foot tall lego recreations of New York City and stuff. We might just have to make that happen.

I'm sure I'll give you an update in the next few days!

Until then,

much love,

Alex