Weekend update

OK. Here's what went down this past weekend.

Friday: KG took me to the airport and dropped me off to get on my flight. It was very nice not to have to take a bus, but of course was very expensive. To cover it I am going to sell my bass. The flight took an hour, a huge improvement over the like 10 hours it took by bus; however, I was sitting next to a definite spreader, who decided that the armrest was not a real dividing line between the seats, and put his knee on my side. He also used the armrest. Even though I was there first.
I got to L.A. and got myself on the Flyaway bus to Union Station to meet the wife. Every indication on the internet is that this bus costs $3. Alison said that all advertisements indicate that it is $3. So I had $3 in my pocket. When I finally got there, I discovered that it is actually $4. But then if you don't have luggage in the stowage area, apparently you don't get hassled to pay. So for me, it was free.
Having no idea where I was, I had to then discover where Alison was waiting, but it turned into a big debacle because it turns out that Union Station consists of a main station and an east station. Alison was at the main station; I was at the east. Neither of us had any idea. It took a great deal of walking around and consternation before we found each other in a tunnel somewhere. All was forgiven.
We walked to Little Tokyo for an excellent dinner. If I worked near this place like Alison does, I think I would be poor. Poor and fat. After dinner we met up with Alison's friend J at the jazz bar for some drinks. I tried some not-so-local beer (brewed in Paso Robles in central California - somewhere I have actually been!) from the Firestone Walker Brewery, having both the Double Barrel Ale and the Pale Ale. I was fairly ambivalent toward them, especially at 6 bucks a bottle. We also played some darts (real metal-tipped) and some weird short-table shufflepuck that actually had the real shuffleboard triangle design at the ends. After the bar we went to J's house and slept in somebody's bed.

Saturday: We got up in the morning and drove J to her car, then went to Altadena to go on a hike, one that Alison had been to already (to Echo Mountain and Inspiration Point). The hike was 10 miles long, going from Altadena to Echo Mountain to Inspiration Point via the Castle Canyon trail, then back along a different trail. The hike was in the Angeles National Forest. It was very pretty, and for most of the way up we could actually see all the way to downtown, several miles away!
After that we were all hot and sweaty and gross, so we went to the In-n-Out for lunch. This was a drive-through only place, and cars were backed up onto the main road, even though it was past 1:30. What a crazy place. Alison accidentally ordered a veggie burger instead of a grilled cheese, so it was just a burger bun with some vegetables and weird sauce on it. My burger was good though, and for once I actually loved the fries; I think they salted them a lot more than usual.
With full bellies we drove back to Alison's house to shower, then did some searching for a hotel. We located the Glen Capri Motel in Burbank, which was like $65 a night, about the best we could do for a 2-star hotel. We booked online over Orbitz, then immediately headed down to the motel to check in (having nothing really better to do). When we got there, and rang the bell, the dude at the desk was a total ass to us and said that we didn't have a reservation. So we left and I spent the next like 30 minutes on the phone with Orbitz, having the customer service guy recite to me every detail of my reservation for some reason before finally letting me tell him that the hotel did not have our reservation. He called them and sorted it out, and we headed back to check in. Once again, pretty much an ass to us. We got up to our room, and it was not a non-smoking room, which was really annoying. The room itself was pretty OK though, and we didn't want to deal with the desk jerk again, so I just turned on the vent full blast to try to get some fresh air in.
We headed out to Citywalk at Universal Studios to check it out and have dinner. We ate at Panda Inn, which was tasty and had very competent servers. Alison was upset to find out that it turns out that Panda Inn is basically the fancy-schmancy offshoot of Panda Express. Following dinner we walked around for awhile, and did some shopping at Sparky's, a big candy store. Bought some sugary sweets and a rockin' Grumpy Bear alarm clock. It was some good times. After this we went back to the hotel and went to bed.

Sunday: Today we slept in and took it easy. There was a restaurant right next to the motel that looked pretty nice (Cafe Patrick, I believe), so we decided to try it out for brunch. I had the "Carnivore Sandwich" which was a roast beef, along with fresh fruit. The sandwich was okay, but I absolutely loved, loved, the fresh fruit. I want to live somewhere that has fruit. It was awesome.
After brunch we decided to head down to Malibu just for some grins, to drive through the mountains there. The mountains were pretty, although they were regularly marred by mega-mansions that are probably second or third houses for people. We got through the mountains and drove down highway 1 for awhile until we located a beach access spot that wasn't crazy busy and got down to the beach! We walked for a little while until Alison accidentally stepped on a bee and got stung on the bottom of her foot. It was very sad. We hobbled back toward where we had come down to the beach, then sat down for awhile so she could recover.
When we eventually got back up to the car, we drove toward Anaheim to see the Angels-Tigers game. Getting there a little early, we stopped at a Del Taco near the stadium for dinner (to avoid spending the money at the game). This was my first Del Taco experience, and while I appreciated the idea of getting a burrito and fries at the same meal, I was pretty ambivalent about it. Alison likes it so I will be happy to go again some time for her benefit. :) We headed over to the stadium and parked (at $8 it was $7 less than we were charged to park near Dodger Stadium a couple weeks ago), then limped the like half mile to the stadium. Our tickets were the very very topmost row in the stadium, but it still had a good view of the action. The stadium was pretty full, and there were a lot of Tigers fans there, which was pretty exciting. We were also in the shade for most of the game, which was nice (interestingly, we started in the shade, then were in the sun for awhile, then we were back in the shade due to the vagaries of the construction).
My excitement about finally seeing a Tigers game was pretty quickly dashed as they gave up 4 runs in the first, 2 in the 2nd, and 6 in the 3rd to build a 12-0 hole. When we left it was like 12-3 or 12-4. I don't like to leave baseball games early, but I had to get on a bus again. The final score was 13-4 as the Tigers got swept by the Angels. So sad. After watching some Family Guy in the Greyhound station I boarded the bus by 10pm, and got into like the 4th row with a seat to myself once again. The trip from Los Angeles to Phoenix is SO much nicer than the trip in the other direction.

Monday: I slept so poorly on the trip back again, but had breakfast with MD and KG, then went back to my sister's apartment and had a 3-hour nap. Then I headed out to east mesa to have lunch with KG (highly disappointing; the pizza place had changed hands since the last time we ate there) then got the hell out of town. I drove the 60 all the way out to Socorro; if you've never taken this drive you should. It's so much nicer than taking the interstates. Back in Albuquerque around 11pm and exhausted.

That's it, that was my weekend. Since my last book update I have finished two books: The Federal Landscape by Gerald D. Nash and A Wind in the Door by Madeleine L'Engle. The first was an interesting book about how the federal government affected the western U.S., both through the ownership of federal lands and the buildup of the military-industrial complex to support the Pacific fleet. Interesting stuff.
The second was the book after A Wrinkle in Time. I read these books many many years ago on my own, and enjoyed them back then. I enjoyed this book much less this time for some reason. I guess that's what comes with getting old. Two more of these books, then I get to start The Origin of Species which I'm sure will be highly stimulating.
I've also decided that (for no real reason whatsoever) I am going to keep track of my media experiences for the next year: all the listings under my "Latest" from beer to movies. Should be completely uninteresting!