California 5/29/08 - 6/2/08: Day 3 Part 2

Saturday, 5/31/08 – Tourists in Hollywood Continued…

After the Hollywood wax museum we went on the Starline Hollywood Homes tour. The key is, we got to ride in a limo! Nice!

The problem is while I took a ton of photos, I don’t know if I’ll actually remember the photos that I took. So, some of these may be accurate. Some of them may be made up. We’ll never know! We’ll just pretend I got it all right.

Our limo took us up to Lake Hollywood.
This is where we had a beautiful view of the lake.


And our first glimpse at the Hollywood sign…


Apparently, I wanted to be sure I had a good photo of the Hollywood sign.


The limo driver took a photo of us with the Hollywood sign.
Except we didn’t think he got the sign in the shot…turns out he did.


The lake.


The lake, without people in my shot.


The Hollywood sign, yet again.


Madonna’s house. It's the one on the right...it has stripes.


Mountains.


The lake, yet again.


Two more shots of us with…Yes, the Hollywood sign behind us.



Back down to Hollywood Boulevard where there was a guy walking his dog who was wearing sunglasses and a cigar in his mouth. Shana took the shot.

She got dog butt instead.


The fake celebrities were out and about.

"I am Optimus Prime"


I tried to get another picture of Optimus Prime but the car moved. So here’s Jimmy Neutron and Tigger, cause that’s who I ended up getting the shots of instead.


Then we went back over to where all the celebrities’ homes were.

This was the house of James Dean.


And this was THE MOST exciting House for me to see because the moment I saw it, I KNEW whose house it was!


It’s Freddy Krueger’s House!


Ironically, only two houses down from Krueger, lives Laurie Strode. I guess Michael Myers technically also.


Then we were back on the road again.

The Director’s Guild…


The Comedy Store, owned by Pauly Shore


The Actors Studio


Sometimes, I did rock at getting signs in a moving limo.


And sometimes I sucked, even though it was HUGE!

"Beverly Hills, That’s where I want to be…"


This was my attempt at "Rodeo Drive" which I also failed to get and instead got "Wilshire Boulevard."


I never did get a Hollywood and Vine photo.

And here is where my brain goes blank.

These first couple of photos are celebrity homes… but I couldn’t tell you anymore WHOSE homes.
One of these could very well have been the home of Elvis Presley.

Within seconds of passing these homes, I basically forgot whose homes they were.
So I’m no good at celebrity home stalking apparently.





Oh, this one was Steve Martin’s house.


I believe I didn’t care about the person who owned this house… But I liked the sculptures. There was even a story about the sculptures. I wish I had a memory.



Another house…I don’t remember.


Okay. So this gate used to be the home of Walt Disney.


And normally I like Rod Stewart, except Rod Stewart BOUGHT Walt Disney’s home… Not to live in because he lives next door in this house.


Rod Stewart bought Walt Disney’s home, which is next door to his home, to build a friggin’ soccer field. That’s just sacrilegious!

And now we’re back to some houses that I don’t remember.

I honestly can’t even remember whose names stood out to say ‘take a picture’ so let’s just look at the homes anyway.

Actually I think there is a very good chance this house was Demi Moore and Ashton’s…


Making this house Bruce Willis’ since he lived 2 or 3 houses down.
Then again, their houses could be some of these other houses I don't really remember.


Two more houses I can’t remember.



These next two are of Shaquille O’Neil’s house.


It’s been under construction for something like 7 years.
You know he’s got skillz…


This was the other house that was completely recognizable…


"I pulled up to a house about 7 or 8 and I yelled to the cabbie "yo home smell ya later". Looked at my Kingdom, I was finally there, to sit on my throne as the Prince of Bel Air."


This was Nicholas Cage’s Gate.
Apparently, He has a dog as there was a "beware of dog" sign by the gate.


Just part of the gate to the community.


Hey Hey Hey… Bill Cosby turns people into statues for his home.


The Beverly Hills Hotel.


That was about the end of our limo tour. After that we decided just to go back down to Santa Monica Boulevard and hang out. Wait for night fall. Have some drinks. Take a few more photos.

The Hustler Store.


The Whisky A Go Go.


Where bands like Motley Crue once played.


And the Viper Room. Owned by Johnny Depp.


Where River Phoenix sadly died.


It figured that some lame potheads in a band from Tennessee were trying to hang out with us. Pshaw. I go to the other side of the country and I still only have lame dudes try to talk to me. Go figure. We kind of ignored them, drank our Mojitos and people/car watched.

This concludes Day 3 in California.

California 5/29/08 - 6/2/08: Day 4

Sunday, 6/1/08 – San Diego.

We decided a day trip to San Diego might be fun. Little did we know… it wasn’t.

San Diego is about a 2 hour drive from LA so we figured it’d be a good day trip plus it was our last real day there as the actual last day was going to be spent on airplanes and in airports going back home…it would be a sad sad day.

We headed out for San Diego.

Car Photos!



This was another one of those "My attempt at" photos.
This time an attempt at Laguna Beach.


And I continued to be off on pictures.

We pulled off the main highway just for the heck of it and ended up in Dana Point. There was a beach so we figured what the heck. I suck at taking photos…even if the subject of the photo is not moving.


But Shana got a better photo. Doheny Beach. Apparently you can’t do much on that beach.


Water!


Some stuff washed up on the sand!


There was also a huge dead fish head and we think some other parts of a dead fish. It was really weird. I touched it with my foot. Shana was weirded out by that. We went out onto some rocks because we could see where we were walking but then the water covered it all up and there were some fishes and creatures in the water…it was a little scary. At least we did not see some stupid Jelly Fish like you see in freaking Ocean City.

More water!



Steppin’ on the Beach doo Doo doo Doo!


"Okay more photos of ourselves, let’s get a nice backdrop"

But apparently we forgot to turn off the fat cam.

Me!


Shana!


Back on the road we saw this view point stop off so we went there.
This would become the highlight of our day.

Squirrels.


The view point was neat. You had the water on one side.


A beautiful sky above you.


And Mountains on the other side of you…


But as I said, the highlight of our day was the squirrels.


Apparently they kiss toes.


And they like dog food. There are two squirrels chowing down to the right on a bunch of dog food.


I LOVE YOU SQUIRREL!


But the thing they REALLY seemed to love…
Remember those Huge strawberries we bought… oh yeah, they dug them.


And ran away with them!


They were the absolute cutest things in the world! They’d just run up to us and grab the strawberries that were twice the size of their heads out of our hands..run off and eat it. Then another squirrel would come up. Adorable!

If you find yourself driving down the highway in California towards San Diego…somewhere around Oceanside you will find a view point, pull off…love the squirrels.

This next picture is titled:
"The only cool thing in San Diego."



Honestly. There really wasn’t anything spectacular in Downtown San Diego. Maybe we just didn’t know the right place to go, but it just really wasn’t that interesting. Also, since it was our last day we didn’t really have a lot of money and we were unable to afford stuff like Busch Gardens and Legoland and Sea World. Even the Zoo was a lot of money. After we walked many a block in downtown San Diego we decided to head back anyway because we had an early morning (3am wakeup call again) to go back home to Baltimore. Boo Hoo.

While in California we made sure to eat at a Jack in the Box.



Jack in the Box wasn’t that impressive.

Also, when we were in Dana Point we saw a Denny’s so on our way back we made it a point to eat at Denny’s in California. You can never go wrong with Denny’s (except when your waiter charges you for a meal you didn’t order that was 2 dollars more than what we did order!).


We also ate at an El Pollo Loco. This place was pretty good.


All in all in was a good trip.
We took a lot of photos.
We had a lot of fun.
We had a lot of laughs.

Butt Paste!


And we even left our mark outside of our hotel (thanks to Shana’s left foot!)

(Skid Marks!)

That was the recap of our trip to California.

I loved it there and I will be back. Sooner rather than later.

By the way, 50 years from now when I look back at my life… I would like to know that I had the guts to get into that car… or in my case, to live on the left coast.

9.23 // The one with the neverending story

It's the end of the world as we know it... and I feel fine.

So really, you only learned 22 things...not 23 as the last "thing" is just an overview of the 22 things you actually learned. What a ripoff! just kidding. hardy har har.

Reaching the 23rd thing... check!
Pat on the back... check!

To be honest, I was not that enthused in the idea of doing these 23 things. I'm pretty computer savvy in the first place. Granted, at home I have a Windows 98 second edition. It's pretty much ancient at this point. So in some ways it keeps me from doing things. I used to be able to watch new movie trailers on apple.com, but I can't download the latest version of quicktime to do it anymore. This happens. Even so, I know what's going on in the computer world. I think it's a generational thing. Kids these days know how to use the computer in the womb. I think my generation just picked it up quickly.

I used to have a commodore 64. My parents never touched the thing. My brother and I were the only ones who used it. When we got our family computer, a mac, a few years later...it was still my brother and I who knew it and had to teach our parents. Even now, years later when we all have our own computers in our own places, it's still us who have to teach our parents.

Anyway, Like I said... I wasn't too enthused. I figured I already know everything and I know what I'm interested in and what I'm not interested in, what am I going to learn?

It turned out that I actually enjoyed working on the 23 things. I'd say I kind of flew through it. I finished in a week (it would have been 2 days but my internet was acting up and then completely disappeared) because I did know a lot of these things and that helped me to fly through.

I did have fun and I did find a few things I hadn't found before. I can't honestly say I learned anything new, but I'm sure I did and I just didn't realize it. But I enjoyed some of it. I enjoyed playing around with image generators and searching for interesting things. I enjoyed showing off the stuff I have fun doing anyhow like searching youtube for things that make me happy and rambling...just for the sake of rambling.

I'd say my biggest dislike was having to join things... because I don't like to join and make accounts for things I'm never going to use. There were a few things (Rollyo and Bloglines for example) that I joined and I truly doubt I will ever use again now that I'm finished with 23 things. Besides that, even the things that I knew I wouldn't be interested in (RSS feeds and podcasts/audio downloads) I still enjoyed searching them because I did find things I could use, even if it's not the way 23 things intended.

Every day there are newer things added to the internet. Every day you need to learn something new that you never knew how to do before. Every day you can find something to utilize than you never would have thought to use before. So, now that we've all learned these 23 things, in about 6 months time I'm sure there will be 23 NEW things out there we should learn and my advice would be for everyone to keep exploring because you never know what you'll find! I think THAT should be the 23rd thing.

Thing 23: Discovery Exercise...
Keep Exploring... you never know what you'll find!

9.22 // The one with the impaired hearing

*ahem* Should I repeat myself?

As stated in the post below about Podcasts, I have to say that I'm just not an audiobook type person. I'm visual and yes, though I don't always read books with pictures, I can see what it is that I'm reading. But when I just listen... I just can't concentrate. When I listen to music it's always because I'm doing something. I'd do homework in school and rock out to some rock and roll. I listen to music while I'm working on the computer or driving to work. I can't just listen to music without doing something else and because I'm doing something else I'm not fully concentrating on what I'm listening to. So I'd say that audiobooks just don't work for me. It would be a huge waste of my time to try and listen to a book through audio and not know what I just heard afterwards.

With that said, I'm not interesting in downloading anything. But as with podcasts, I see it being a great source for those who CAN concentrate on audio... Just not me.

9.21 // The one with t-u-r-t-l-e power!

Heroes in a half shell. I don't know... podcasts reminded me of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

Podcasts. Something that I've also known about.
I'm a very visual person. I can't do books on tape because I'll get distracted listening and end up not listening. When I read books though I visualize what I'm reading. I see it all happening in my head.
I like watching movies because I hear it and I see it.

I don't know why, there's just something about just listening to someone talking that puts my mind in a blank state where I don't focus at all on what is being said, but on all the other things driving the highway of my mind.

So...Video podcasts, they can work for me. I can see it and focus while listening to it. But if I'm just listening, it's like I'm in my own little world.

I searched for bookreviews to complete the tasks, but all I found was... Christian podcasts. Admittingly, for this reason I didn't add anything to my RSS feeds. Does that mean I don't pass?

I, personally, just don't like Podcasts. I think, for the library, they could be very useful. I think that we circulate enough books on tape and books on CD to see that there are people who can listen to books that way. I just know myself and I know that that is just NOT the way my brain functions. I think it's something that could potentially have a lot of good use within our libraries in the future.