In Texas

I arrived in Texas on Thursday evening. I am here for a couple of weeks to visit my family. I will still be working full time, just working from here instead of L.A. I'm primarily staying with my sister and will go up and visit my mother for a few days next week in Oklahoma. Miriam (my sister) has been taking me out to several places in Denton that she likes. Denton is a great Texas town. It's a college town with lots of character. I also got to see my nephew, J.D. for the first time. He is almost 2 years old and I have just never had the opportunity to see him. He's adorable. We hung out with him and my brother, Jesse, his dad, yesterday. It's raining like crazy here! It's flooding everywhere.



My sister's yard in Texas. That's supposed to be a front yard, not a lake.



My nephew J.D.


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Film set outside my apartment.

They were filming a movie today right outside my balcony. They blocked off a lane on Sunset Blvd and had tons of trucks. This was a big production. It is for the movie "Forgetting Sarah Marshall" starring Kristen Bell (Veronica Mars). I kept peering over looking for a glimpse of my favorite crimebuster hottie, but she was nowhere in sight. They had the tents up all over. The signs posted outside on the street said they were only filming for the day. Living in Hollywood, I run into film sets all the time, but this is the first time one has been 50 feet from my window.


Blocking off Sunset Blvd.





View from my balcony.


Forgetting Sarah Marshall: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0800039/

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The Haunting

This weekend I went with some friends to see "The Haunting" at the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. During the summer they show old films under the stars inside the cemetery. It's a lot of fun. You bring your own food, a picnic blanket, and laugh at all the older cheesy over-acting. About 2000 people show up for the event. The Haunting is about an old house that is haunted and a team of psychic investigators show up to study it. I honestly couldn't pay close enough attention to really understand what was going on. It brought more laughs than shrieks from the audience, that's for sure.


"The Haunting" at Hollywood Forever Cemetery

http://www.cinespia.org

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How to give a great man to man hug

I love Apple

For the past week or so my laptop has been making crazy noises with the fans spinning really loudly. At times I felt it was going to explode and leave shards of nice Apple design features embedded in my face. And then the fans just stopped running altogether. This led to it overheating and then just shutting down on it's own. So, I took it into the Apple Store at The Grove and told them of the issue. I paid for AppleCare protection, which is so worth it. It's an extended warranty for your mac. The guy at the store said that the fans were completely dead. And that the parts were on backorder and wouldn't be available for another month. This was bad news. I could not go without my laptop for a month. I earn my income on that puppy. I told him this was just not a good solution for me and he directed me to call the main Apple Customer Support line. He said that maybe if I explained the situation, they may just give me a replacement laptop. So, that's what I did. I spent about 45 minutes on the phone with Gina from Apple Support explaining the issue and being on hold for a while. Her first solution was to have me mail in my laptop and then they would mail me back a brand new one. That was great! But I wanted better. Why should I have to mail mine in and wait for a new one when the Apple Store was right there. Couldn't I just hand mine over to the Apple Store and let them give me a new one? That would work out so much better for me. I tried to convince her of this and she then called the Apple Store to see if that was OK. It was. I walked back to the store, they took my broken almost 2 years old laptop and gave the very best top of the line 15 inch MacBook Pro that was just released a couple of weeks ago! I walked into the store at 11:00 am and 3 hours later I was driving home with a brand new laptop. I love Apple.

Arcade Fire Live

Last night I saw one of my favorite bands, Arcade Fire, perform live at the Greek Theatre here in Los Angeles. The Greek Theatre is an outdoor amphitheater situated in Griffith Park. It is a beautiful venue. I almost didn't go because I had an extra ticket and couldn't find anyone to go with and even though I love the band, I wasn't looking forward to going by myself. But, at the last minute, I forced myself to go. The parking was horrendous. I was stressed by the time I got to the gate and questioning my decision to go at it alone. But then everything got better. I guy bought my extra ticket outside the gate, I went inside and some of my friends happened to be there as well. So we hung out for a bit and then went to our separate seats to enjoy the show. And enjoy I did! What an amazing band. Afterwards we met up to hang out at a local fav, the Cha Cha Lounge. It was a fun time to be had by all.


Arcade Fire live at the Greek Theatre.

Cha Cha Lounge.

From Arcade Fire

Links:

Arcade Fire
Greek Theatre
Cha Cha Lounge

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Cooking with Trevor and Rachael Ray

I've just gotten on a cooking kick. Until recently, I've always been strongly opposed to anything more difficult than opening up a hot pocket and putting it in the microwave for 2 minutes. Last week I got one of Rachael Ray's cookbooks on an impulse. I read through it and the recipes seemed fairly easy and something that I could handle. As I've tried more recipes, I've gotten more excited about cooking for myself and abolishing fast food all together. I live right across the street from Ralph's (California Grocery chain) and so I'm there pretty much every other day buying ingredients for that night's meal. The portions are usually for 4 people, so I stick all the leftovers in the fridge or freezer. It's also fun going to the grocery store and asking cute women such things as "excuse me, can you help me out? what is a scallion?", or "do you know what tamari is?" My favorite dish so far is the Thai Chicken Pizza. It is so delicious, even better than California Pizza Kitchen in my humble opinion. Each of the recipes are supposed to only take 30 minutes to prepare, that's Rachael Ray's whole shtick, but it generally takes me about an hour because I'm fairly slow and slicing and chopping.


Thai Chicken Pizza.



This is a great starter book.

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