New Year's Cleaning

My goal today is to organize and clean my house to perfection. I'd like to wake up in the new year with 'my house in order', literally and figuratively. It's raining here today, which makes it easier to stay indoors and clean.

Bruno, here, is helping me out. Oh wait, he's calling me.

"I'll be there in a minute Bruno!"

Bruno doesn't like it when I keep him waiting.

New art for my birthday!

My sister just got me an awesome birthday gift. It came in the mail today. She knows that I'm a fan of an artist named Phil Noto (www.notoart.com), so she contacted him and commissioned a piece just for me. He's very busy with multiple projects and rarely responds to commission requests, but somehow my sister got his attention. He drew a piece for me based on what I've told him in the past through email about what I liked in his artwork. I like the retro/70's/spy girl type art he does and that's exactly what he made for me. Mostly these days he draws comic book superhero type stuff, so I'm so glad that he took a departure from his norm to do this. The piece is approx 11" x 17". The drawing is below, you can click on it to see it bigger. Thanks Miriam!!



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Happy Birthday to ME!!!

Ok, so now that we're all pooped out from celebrating the birth of Christ, let's take a moment to reflect on the birth of Trevor. Yes, folks, today is my birthday. I bet you didn't know this, but actually when people say "Happy Holidays", they are also referring to my birthday, because today is Holidaylicious!!

I started out the day with a nice early morning workout at the gym and afterwards I treated myself to an extra-hot gingerbread latte from Starbucks, which is actually only available once a year, during the weeks leading up to my birthday. I am working today, cuz a guy's gotta eat, but there is going to be a HUGE celebration later on. Let's just say that workers are out on the street right now putting up decorations wishing me another happy year!

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Day at the park

Volunteering today in Pasadena (about 15 miles from my home) was a lot of fun. I was recruited as a "Line Captain" which meant I was in charge of Line I and keeping the volunteers in that line organized and moving them along when there were spots open. I was also the person the sometimes frustrated volunteers would voice their opinons to when they felt that the line was not moving along fast enough. The speed of the line and the available spots to serve was completely out of my control, but I took the brunt of the blame nonetheless. Once all the volunteers had gone through the line to help serve dinners, I was then able to jump in and help serve dinner as well. I was in charge of cookies. Dosido's and Thin Mints (or some variation thereof) to be exact. Although I did have some fierce competition to my direct right with the carrot cake. Often times the cookies would be completely overlooked in favor of the carrot cake. Volunteering and serving in your community rocks. I highly recommend it. Kids, it's superRad. Awesome!

Merry Christmas Everyone!!!

I just wanted to wish my devoted blog readers and the whole world a very Merry Christmas!

I am on my way out the door to volunteer at a Feed the Homeless event sponsored by Union Station Foundation in Pasadena.

More information about today's event, "Christmas Dinner in the Park" is found here.

Also below is a description of Union Station Foundation in case anyone is curious as to what they do.


OVERVIEW OF USF

Union Station Foundation (USF), located in Pasadena, California, is the San Gabriel Valley’s largest private agency serving the poor and homeless. Union Station offers emergency and transitional housing for individuals and families, hot meals, job development, healthcare, case management services and substance abuse recovery support. Every year, we serve over 145,000 meals and provide 30,000 nights of shelter to our clients.

All of Union Station’s programs and services are free of charge and designed to help program participants find permanent solutions to homelessness. The work of Union Station is carried out by the efforts of a skilled professional staff, devoted community volunteers and generous supporters.

MISSION STATEMENT

The mission of Union Station Foundation (USF) is to provide homeless and poor men, women and families with the means to transform their lives so they can become productive, stable and self-supporting. We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every individual and strive to provide the highest quality of services based on a foundation of respect for all people.

http://www.unionstationfoundation.org


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Naps

Why is it that naps feel so much better than nighttime sleep? I took a small nap today mid-afternoon, and it was like a little taste of heaven. But when I sleep at night, it's just like a duty that I have to perform. I don't get it. I love naps. :)

First Day of Winter

It's officially the first day of winter today and I need to get an air conditioner. It's a warm 76 degrees here today in L.A.

Check up on your future self

There's this website out there that lets you send an email to yourself in the future. You can check up on future you and make sure you're doing all right. Perhaps you can even offer future you some advise, or give future you some encouraging words. You can also see other people's emails to their futureselves. Check it out, it's pretty interesting. Send an email to future you. It might be nice to hear from yourself.

http://www.futureme.org

and this one in particular is interesting. It's from a girl who is now 23 and it's a letter to her 53 year old self...

http://www.futureme.org/public.php?index=7334

Saturday Night Live

I just wanted to say that Saturday Night Live this past weekend was actually really good. Jack Black hosted, which helped, but it was funny apart from him too. The Chronicles of Narnia SNL short video was hilarious! Parnel and Sandberg rocked the hizzie!!

Gmail news of the day

Now Gmail will let you create your own 'groups', choose which email addresses belong in that group, and send out email's to that group name. Been a standard feature on other email programs for a while, but finally available on Gmail. Yeah! :)

The Chronicles of Narnia

I saw the Chronicles of Narnia on Monday at the "El Capitan" theatre here in Hollywood. Wow. I wish you could've been there. If you're local, you must check it out. For those that don't know, El Capitan is the only movie theatre that Disney owns and thus it only shows Disney movies. (trivia courtesy of Gavin). They only have one screen and have balcony seating. Sort of like the Uptown, for my DC friends. But they also totally do up the decorations and go all out. They have this guy on stage playing a pipe organ until the previews start. And the whole theatre had Narnia set decorations. They had life size figures of some of the characters in the film on the sides of the theatre. There was a huge ice sculpture looking head of Aslan at the top center of the stage overlooking everyone. And then right before the movie started, they did a light show and spotlighted all the decorations with cool music from the movie. Then they shot out all this fake snow over the audience. The kids were having an hysterical time. And all of this was just before the movie started. The movie was so exciting and spectacular to watch. Having been a fan of the Narnia stories since a child, it was great to see it translated so well on film. I'll probably see it again in the theatre. So, if you haven't seen Narnia yet, go see it! Next weekend is King Kong!

Don't Download Illegal Music!

The music industry is cracking down harder. If you're currently downloading music using Morpheus, Limewire, or any other file sharing program, you'd better stop. A judge just ruled that a 29 year old mother in Chicago pay $29,500 to the music industry for having 30 songs on her computer. Big brother is watching. And he will make you pay!!

http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2005/12/09/ap2382499.html

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Bewitched

I saw the recent movie, "Bewitched" today for the first time. It was much better than I expected. Granted, it's a romantic comedy, and it's not going to win any oscars, but it was very endearing. I used to watch the TV show all the time and it was fun to see this movie with an interesting twist on the TV show. But hands down, Steve Carroll stole the show as "Uncle Arthur"! That guy is amazing.



Also, check out a cool sketch by one of my favorite artists, Phil Noto, of Elizabeth Montgomery who played Samantha in the original TV series:

http://www.notoart.com/Lizfr.html

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Happiness is...

Happiness is...

Walking home from the gym down Sunset Blvd on a sunny, clear 72 degree day, stopping off at In-N-Out for a cheeseburger and shake, while listening to The Killers on my headphones.

X-Men 3 Trailer Online

The new X-Men 3 trailer is now available online! I just peed in my pants a little.

http://www.apple.com/trailers/fox/x3/

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Disneyland fun today!

Today was a nice sunny warm day, so some friends and I decided to go to Disneyland for half of the day. Gavin, Mike, and I had such a blast. I love Disneyland. :) I'm going to go as often as possible this year! The only thing bad about Disneyland is that there are too many kids. They get in the way. And the strollers! I got ran over by a stroller while we were there today. They should do something about that. And they should put a limit on the amount of kids allowed in the park. There's just too many.

My favorite roller coaster ride is in the California Adventure park and is called the California Screamin'. It is superfast and you get a great view of the local area as you take the ride. It makes me laugh with joy when I ride it. :) Next up is Space Mountain. Today was my first time on Space Mountain and it was so much fun! (this was my 2nd trip to DisneyLand).


me and Chip or Dale (not sure which one)
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Gavin talking to his best friend, Mickey.

---> Check out more pictures from today's DisneyLand adventure by clicking here.

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Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion