Today, I went to my first meeting of Athiests United. I got there early because they were having a stuffing envelops shindig, and I wasn't doing anything else at 9:00 on a Sunday Morning. I listened to a lecture question/answer session by Lori Lipman Brown, civil libertarian, Director of Secular Coalition for America, lobbyist, and former Nevada senator.  Fascinating. This woman is powerfully articulate.  She is feared by many, many folk and with good reason, cause she can clearly state the cause of individual freedoms.

The question answer time was irritating with most people just speaking their own views instead of asking a question. aka. "I think presidents shouldn't swear on the Bible," and "I think..", and, "I think", and "I think. I was irritated that I didn't get to hear more of Lipman Brown's views.  Do they really think that this is the first time she's ever thought about people swearing on the Bible and that she cares that you think it's bad. 

She presented on non-theists' need to ally with other cultural/political/religious groups who support individual freedom religious or not. Talked about how both presidential candidates are vowing to expand Faith Based Initiatives. (interesting here, though, because many Atheists are anti-religion AND anti-individual freedom especially in the employment and economic sector; I'm looking forward to many future fights with these folks!) I'm thinking I need to become more involved in politics.  Stay posted.

Who could possibly be better at sponsoring Halloween than people who make movies for a living. Went to Universal Studios with some friends and spent a night wandering in the dark being chased by hundreds of creeps with chainsaws.  Realistic chainsaws too that run on real gas and make sparks when the blade hits the ground.  Sometimes the roads would be covered in thick smoke so that you couldn't even see where the next bloody, pig-faced monster would be hiding and waiting for a chance to snarl in your ear.  (Halloween should be named the Screen Actors' Guild's, Full-Employment Holiday for Otherwise Unemployed Thespians)

We went on this one "ride" that was supposed to be an informative, relaxing tour of the park that ended up them dropping us off in the middle of nowhere about a mile and a half from the park because the tram was "malfunctioning". We had to make our way back to the park while being chased by the un-dead. The journey back was somewhat a tour of Universal Sets. For instance, we walked through the plane crash set from War of the Worlds.  Bloody wreck survivors were scattered throughout begging for help. 

The park wasn't "scary" per-se. Though, the bawling girl behind us as we went through the House of Horrors would TOtally disagree. (Which also, totally set the mood for the rest of us btw.)  The park played more on the crawl the skin and make you jump areas of available Halloween aura feelings.

Posing

Cause I Posed in an Enclosed Space...

On Friday, High School Musical 3 released.  And because I like to support the team, a friend and I had planned to drop 14  bucks on listening to the "current opinions of writers on the opinions of high schoolers on love".  We wrap up a tough week at work and on the way out the door, ask a friend if he wants to join us. 'No", he says. "I'm going wine-tasting with a friend instead.Wanna come." Lauren and I immediately weighed the pros and cons of the different possible versions of our Friday night and decided that High School Musical, even though it is the coolest, hippest movie currently hitting the target market in which we reside, was only slightly less cool then spending a night being a poser-wine nerd with some highly-educated and forward-looking people.  We decided to meet our friend at the store.

We walk drive to the store and walk inside. The place looks like a large cluttered liquor store, and we were like. "Where are we?; I though we were going to be chic winetasters not pursuers of a package store Walmart."  We were visibly disgruntled. A clerk can over and pointed to the back of the store that was hidden by tall rows of wine. We walked back and found a cute makeshift straw hut looking place tucked away in the back.   We were immediately served with a menu of our wines for the night and  a plate of cheddar and bread. I found out that the cheese has little to do with the wine except to clear the wine taste from your mouth so that you can taste the next wine distinctly. Kind of like smelling the tin of coffee beans that they keep at the Yankee Candle Factory. Smell a candle, sniff the beans. Makes each flavor actually a distinct flavor. And here this whole time, I just thought that drinking wine was a just a good excuse to eat unadulterated cheese.

Turns out this place has an Amazing wine selection. Hundreds and Hundreds of bottles and expert staff.

Halfway through the night, the wine-tasting store ran out of cheese. 5 minutes later, the wine-pourer plopped down a plate of Cheez-its in front of me. Is that at all the same thing?  So now instead of cheddar and bread, we now had bread that tastes like cheddar. Alright, I guess that's actually more efficient. I approve.

I also met this guy named Bob who was lanky and had straggly blond hair. I told him that he didn't look like a Bob; he didn't fit his name. All the Bob's I knew were bald. I told him he looked like a Kevin. The bald man on the chair next to Bob turned around and gave me a strange look. Later in the night, I got to know this bald man's name. Turns out his name is Kevin. Ugh. Please, people you are really messing up the way I like to box people up in my head.

The bathroom was located through the storage room of the store. On the way back to it, while waiting for the bathroom to be free, I wandered an aisle over and found this creepy alter. They are giving a statue some fruit apparently. Being a little stingy I think. All this good booze and the ceramic thing isn't getting any. Shame. Maybe the statue doesn't like alcohol, and if that's so, What are these people doing liking it? At least give the statue some SoBe or something. Still fruity AND fits more with your core competencies. It would be like a compromise.

Vendome Wines & Spirits

11555 Ventura Blvd

Studio City, 91604

5$ - 20$ wine tastings 3 times a week

They really do go together.  They go especially good together when one is watching 'House'. So my night is pretty cool.   House is freaking funny. 

I used to think that in order to eat cheddar, you had to eat Sharp Cheddar. Cause that is legit.  And is the only legit kind of cheddar eatin. However...Mild Cheddar is soooo much nicer on the palette.

Not doing anything with the rest of the life except working 12 hour days.  That will stop in 2 weeks hopefully when I start doing new work instead of new work And old work.  Right now I'm just stressed out with no time to do anything.

Trying to shut the brain off before going to bed.  The cheese is definitely helping.

Back in February, I spent a sleepless night sitting in my bed with my head in my hands wishing all the noise would stop. The parking lot 3 feet out my window was being turned into a production lot. This happened about once a month before I moved to my new place. It happened because Honolulu street in Montrose, CA is a cute avenue with cute stores and cute benches and cute flags. And people like to film here. I went to work the next day without any sleep, but on the way, I passed droves of equipment, chairs, and people all labeled 'House.'  Today I finally saw the episode that ruined my sleep cycle. It is called 'Not Cancer.' The segment was of House and a friend walking down the sidewalk quipping at each other for about one minute. I CANNOT believe the kind of fire/manpower that was apparently necessary to get that shot. I was hoping the scene turned out to be a man having a seizure falling off of a building, but no, I got to be miserable for a conversation.

A much cooler piece of my local environment movie trivia is that the roof of my parking garage at work was where they filmed the white ship scene in the 3rd Pirates of the Caribbean. These movie people are clever cause my parking garage looks like a parking garage.

Free Thing to do in Los Angeles. (Free after parking anyway).

Get to see a part of LA at night that you would otherwise never have the courage to visit after dark. (You could go in the afternoon, I guess, but that wouldn't be any fun). I went after work and walked around for about an hour after eating dinner at a chic Asian Tapas Cafe on the same block (Warung Cafe).

The Los Angeles Downtown Art Walk occurs on the 2nd Thursday of every month during the evening. Park at 415 S. Main St, Los Angeles for $5.  This parking garage is right in the middle of the action. You might be able to find cheaper parking a couple blocks away, but you would have to walk through the Land of Sketchy People in order to get to the action.

The Downtown Art Walk is hopping with people. Many street artists as well as open and free galleries.  Get a map at many of the galleries or print one at the website. Many of the free galleries have complementary cheese, crackers, and fruit.

If you are going to BUY art. Expect to spend at least a few hundred dollars.

Most of the plentiful eateries have art walk deals at bare bones prices.

One of the open galleries

So my car currently smokes, well...steams heavily. It's the worst when I come to a sudden stop or when I turn on the air conditioning. It's not overheating. All my fluids are fine. I've been told its just a leak of some sort that is dripping on a hot engine. Carcinogenic sure, but otherwise not dangerous.

I am in the mood, however, to never have to worry about the condition of my vehicle. Leasing here I come.

So I head to a Saturn dealership to look at the 2008 Saturn Astra. I want to lease. The expected bad news; GM cut off its leases. So now leasing a GM car costs more than financing it.  So in other words, GM has a lease, but not one that any sane person would ever get. I explained to Dean (My personal salesman for 3 hours) that it was unfortunate that the Astra had a lease that I would not go for, but I was also not interested in buying the car with a financing package. He used the following argument to try to convince me that leasing was a bad idea and that buying is always better:

Dean: "Let's take this can of soda here. I tell you, 'you can buy this soda for 60 cents and keep it forever, or you can have this soda for 40 cents, but then I take it back'."

Me: "Yes, but by the time you take the can back, I've already drunk most of your soda."

Dean: "No, you are not allowed to drink any of the soda."

Beat

So leasing a car means putting your car in the garage and leaving it there.  Your right Dean, that IS a bad deal. What was I thinking, what a tard I am.

I told him I was also interested in the lovely 2009 Mazda3 (Not GM), and could he possibly show me that. Suddenly, Dean thought leases were a fantastic idea!!

During the price haggling, I told him that I would in no way be putting any money down on a lease. (for various reasons, being that 1. I don't prepay my apartment rent, why would this be different. 2. Total value of lease is not lessened by a down payment. 3. If car is wrecked or lease otherwise ends, more money has already left my hands. (Situation would be much different for a financed car)). To this he responded that, "the reason the economy is bad right now is because people don't like to make down payments"

Sigh, It's not like I should have expected anyone at GM of all places to be able to articulately explain the state of the union.  It's after all not entirely his fault. It must suck to be educated in finances by a company that spends 8 times more on it's former employees then it does on its shareholders.

"When I say something, I say it with logic." -- Dean

Yes, yes Dean. We know.

Portland Marathon. I flew in Saturday morning to Portland and spent the day eating carbs, drinking espresso, and walking around downtown. When we were done aimlessly wandering around downtown for the evening, we were like 'bout time to head back to the car; I hope we can find it'. We literally turned the corner and were standing face-to-face with the hole-in-the wall parking garage where we had stored our car for the day. Walked right into it after walking in no particular direction for hours.

The weekend was FILLED with random positive events like this.  Like while waiting for the race to start,  I walked into a brand new port-o-potty. Never been used. Paper still wrapped up! 

Also, while wandering downtown, we were discussing how we needed to look up the marathon emails to find out where our bag pick-up was supposed to be. No sooner had we said this then people started walking by with Green Portland marathon bags. We followed the trail of green bags all the way to check-in.

Then the day of the race, we decided to get to the race early. We drive get there an hour and 40 minutes prior to race start. The place was deserted.  People in Portland are not early birds apparently. We pick some street parking that we hope is within walking distance of the race. We start wandering the streets of downtown Portland asking the few and far between if they knew where the Portland Marathon started.   20 minutes later we are led back to the starting line which turns out to be ONE block away from where we parked. We had accidentally picked the best parking place in Portland. We were able to sit in our warm car watching thousands of people congregate up until minutes before the race started.

We ran a leisurely, scenic pace (12.59 minute miles). And took pictures at every mile. I had trained nicely, and felt like the marathon was barely a stretch on my current physical condition.  It pays to be prepared.

Now for my opinion on the Portland Marathon itself. BORING. 75% of the race long straightaways through the a warehouse district or a on back road with slummy gas stations and strip clubs.  Course, it did rain the whole time, so the it probably looked slummier than it was, but I don't think even good weather can make a truck portal, train tracks, and a bad smell something I wish I had flown to Portland to see. I kept wondering 'Where was this pretty Portland that everyone keeps talking about. ' The only parts of the race in downtown were the start and the finish. About 3 miles were in the suburbs.  About 2 miles were near or on two of Portland's large bridges.  The burbs were fantastic with enthusiastic lawn crowds. I got a bag of Sun Chips from a toddler handing them out to the runners. 

The Portland Rose Gardens were apparently a must-see. And since I'm here to see the city, I must saw this. Underwhelmed. I'm sure this would have been a photo taking frenzy in the spring, but the undead ones in the fall are just a dripping promise of what once was 5 months ago. Is Portland known for roses or something? Must be. Supposedly, tomorrow I'll get a rose when I finish the marathon.

850 SW Rose Garden Way

Portland, OR

97205

503-227-7033