Merry Ho Ho!

We just finished eating Christmas Dinner/Lunch/Supper, and are waiting on our very distended stomachs to process the duck and make room before we attack dessert in about an hour, give or take. Here is the menu:

Roasted apricot glazed duck stuffed with apples & garlic
Sauteed swiss chard with bacon & onions
Chinese sweet potato & pear casserole
Cheese & hominy grits casserole
Oyster dressing
Homemade cranberry & orange sauce
Homemade Virginia rolls

Gin & tonics
Red wine

Dessert is:

Homemade chocolate chip cookies
Chocolate Nemesis-ask the MacArthur's how freakin' good this one is!
Homemade pecan pie-personal favorite


Damn I love the holidays!

Photos Online

Okay,

So I finally started uploading some pics to the web using Picasa. I will be regularly updating the folders, as well as creating new ones as I go through my archives, and as April and I travel around. I am setting the folder options to not allow downloads or printing as all of my images are copyrighted and I don't want random strangers to steal them and use them for personal profit.

To all my friends, you are welcome to any of them. Just email me if you want to download or print any of them, and I will share it with you so you can have full access.

I am by no means a professional, but I have been lucky enough to be in some remarkable places with a camera in my hands. I hope you enjoy!

Oh yeah, the site is http://picasaweb.google.com/elihpaudio

-J

Did he eat it?

I'll never tell...

Desolate Beauty

Another photo from the Grand Canyon.


More to come...

Today's History Lesson

Just read the plaque. No homework today, class.

Yes, it's what it looks like

When we lived in Athens, there were a couple of mostly wild cats that the lady next door fed.

If you look in the picture here, you will see the cat on the left, and yes, that is a baby squirrel on the right.

And no, the tree is not in between them, they are both about a foot behind it.

And no, the cat never saw the squirrel , which eventually just walked away, and climbed up another tree.

Cats can really be stupid sometimes.

Nice View

Even though my favorite thing about living in a big city is getting out of town as often as possible, I have to admit that there are great, even beautiful things to see.

This is an extended exposure of the Staples Center where the Lakers and the Kings play. I took the picture from my boss' office, which faces to the south. Downtown LA is directly to the left, and Beverly Hills, and then Santa Monica, are to the right.

If one were to look to the very far right, the Hollywood sign is just visible in the distance.

Not a bad thing to have to look at every day...

Stupid doggy...

Did you know that more than 1,600 Dire Wolf skulls (to date) have been pulled out of the archaeological digs at the La Brea Tar Pits?

Can't teach an extinct dog a new trick, I guess.

Mmm, Mexican for Dinner!!!

April and I decided we wanted Mexican for dinner on Saturday night, and went to a place close to our apartment. It turns out that it specializes in cuisine from Oaxaca, the southern state in Mexico that was primarly home to the Zapotec peoples in pre-Colombus times.

The waiter came over, we placed our order, and as he turned to walk away, April stops him and says, "Can we also get the Chapulines?" The waiter gave her a funny look, but nodded and wrote the item down on our order.

When the waiter walked away, I asked April if she ordered what I thought she ordered.
"No way," she said. But Chapulines sounded familiar, I remember seeing the word on the menu.

It turns out that it WAS what I thought it was:

A PLATE OF F$&*'in GRASSHOPPERS!

I immediately dug in and made a cricket taco, dousing them with hot sauce. April didn't believe that they were really grasshoppers, and in all honesty, if you kinda squint and look at them out of the corner of your eyes, it almost looks like a plate of chopped up grilled chicken.

It wasn't.

I managed to eat an entire taco of the little critters, and the taste was not that bad.

The problem was the texture. Every time I crunched on a leg, which was every single bite, it was painfully obvious that I was eating something with an exoskeleton and a lot of little legs.

If it wasn't for that, I would have had no problem eating more. But my Anglo-European blood just couldn't get over the fact that I was eatin' freakin' grasshoppers!

On to April...

SHE WAS MORTIFIED when I finally got her to look close enough at the plate to realize that she did in fact order up a big-ass plate-o-bugs for our appetizer!

But I will give her credit. She tried them as well, managing a single bite before letting the mortification at what she was eating get the best of her. Luckily our dinner came out almost immediately and we could turn away from the bugs and eatt some real food, like the goat burrito that I ordered, and the Banana-leaf wrapped chicken in chocolate mole' sauce that April ordered.

And it was pretty good.

I enjoyed trying something that I ordinarily would not have considered, and April learned to not order things off a menu in a lanquage that you do not understand Without asking,

"EXCUSE ME, BUT IS THIS GRASSHOPPERS OR CHICKEN?"

She didn't mean to push me, really...

I don't believe her, but that's a story for another day. If you click on the picture you will see the terror in my, uh, sunglasses.

As you can see above, we finally found the pics of the Grand Canyon, and I have built a badass computer and will begin the process of editing and uploading photos over the next few days.

Movin' along...

Surreal Life...

Richard Donner, pictured to the right on the far right with Mel Gibson, some fat guy, and Jet Li, is a customer of mine.

Richard Donner has directed and/or produced a slew of big hits, including The Omen, Superman & Superman II, the Lethal Weapon Series, and my personal favorite, The Toy starring Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason.

It's just strange.

Burn, Baby Burn...

The wildfires have been raging for a week now, and it is absolutely scary how bad it is. The fires are both north and south of LA, and thousands of homes have been destroyed.

LA is (un)naturally hazy from the smog, but I can usually see downtown pretty clearly as I drive in in the morning, but on Friday the air was so nasty I could barely make out the skyscrapers as I drove in from Westwood, and it progressively got worse and worse.

By 11 am I could not see more than 200 feet away, and the air was thick with nastiness.

It was ashes from the fires around San Diego being carried in on the wind, and it was so bad that most of Orange County (South of LA) was shut down. The air quality was dangerous, as the ash being blown around was loaded with all the toxic stuff that had burned like paint, chemicals, drug dealers, etc.

Tens of thousands have been displaced, thousands have lost everything, and people have died.

And people will just rebuild. I don't get it. This many humans shouldn't be here anyway!

Next spring it will be mudslides, houses getting buried in tons of mud when the rains start in the spring.

And THE BIG ONE is coming any day now, right? The earthquake that ate California...

I am not trying to make light of the loss that so many people are experiencing right now, but for Christ's sake, there is NOTHING natural about 20 million people living in a completely artificial environment and not expecting bad shit to happen every now and then.

It's a desert! Stuff dies and get very dry! Very dry stuff burns! A lot! The first clue is that it is AGAINST THE LAW TO SMOKE IN ANY PUBLIC OUTDOOR RECREATION AREA IN ALL OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA BECAUSE THE WHOLE GODDAMN PLACE IS A TINDER-BOX!!!

Despite my smartass sense of ironic humor at the whole thing, we will be doing our part to help the people that are left with nothing in the aftermath. After what we went through, I can relate to what it feels like to lose most everything you own. We want to help. Besides, despite all the potential ways to lose everything you own through some sort of calamity, I really do like it here, and I think I understand why they stay. It's a great place to live, if you don't mind maybe dying. But I guess that's a risk we take everywhere, huh? Just more choices in LA LA Land.

By the by-

I really, really hope they catch the bastard(s) that are responsible for the fire(s) getting started.

FURNITURE!!!!

That's right, we have furniture! May God bless and keep IKEA safe from the Southern California wildfires....

We were going to go shopping Friday night, but for reasons that shall remain nameless we went on Saturday. We got up bright and early (7:30 am) and headed to the giant IKEA in Carson. This means we have to take what Californians call "the 405." (Don't ask me why they refer to highways as "the" whatever. They just do.) This is the freeway from hell, just so we're on the same page. We arrived, our Excel spreadsheet in hand. Click, click, click, we are writing down bin numbers and picking up self-serve items as we go along. Lunch in the bistro. Back to the showroom. Then, we are ready to pick up our furniture. This is what we bought: kitchen table, four kitchen chairs, 2 large bookshelfs, one small bookshelf, TV stand, endtable, two storage shelving units, a six-drawer dresser, a bed, an underbed box, and all the other assorted bits and pieces to put them together. The pile of cardboard boxes was really impressive. I wanted to pay for delivery - it's usually next day or the day after. Jay wanted to take it home RIGHT NOW. So he began loading the car. When I say loaded, I mean if there was an available space it had an IKEA product in it. Even tied to the roof. We had a small group of onlookers gathered to see just how much he could actually attach to our car. I had to sit in a small spot in the back, holding more items. We went 25 mph down "the 405" highway from/to hell. I wish I had pictures, because I bet Subaru had no idea how much cargo an Outback can really hold. It was terrifying. But we got home safely, got unloaded, and went to the Japanese Curry Spaghetti House for dinner (food fusions are all the rage in LA right now, and I had to try this one). On the way home, we bought the TV replacement. A flatscreen HDTV. My husband was on cloud 9. He was at Best Buy on his lunch break buying it accessories - it's so sweet when they're still in that courtship phase....

We will post pictures of the furnished apartment once we get everything assembled, put in place, and the boxes cleared away.

Celebrity Sighting

April and I were in Border's Books at Century City Saturday night, and it turned out that Tia Carrere of Wayne's World Fame, came out and sang a few songs from her latest album, which is mostly traditional Hawaiian music and was produced and co-created with Grammy winner Daniel Ho, pictured playing guitar.

It was surreal.

It was really cool. She is very attractive in person, and her voice was great. -april

Getting more settled

Slowly, things are falling into place. We now have our morning routines established, and I have figured out the bus routes for getting around town. Work is beginning for both of us, real work, with me planning projects and Jay visiting clients. We are beginning to be able to find our way around without consulting the map too much. So things are progressing nicely!

The insurance companies are still a bit of a pain. The truck will be completely paid for - that was our good news this week! Now if UHaul would call us back, maybe we could get some furniture... I'm a bit tired of sleeping on a pallet in the bedroom floor. And keeping our clothes and books boxed up is not very convenient.

We have managed to cook dinner this week and do laundry. These are our major accomplishments thus far - it feels good to be getting back to normal! We went last night to see a movie. Pretty cool that the theater was located right next to the MGM building. And can anyone else believe that I'm cold here? I am wearing sweaters and jackets everyday.... everytime I move somewhere for science, people say it's going to be warm. Well, it snowed constantly on Cape Cod, and now southern CA, while very sunny, is also very chilly. Bleh.

Quick update

We are moved into our new place. The address is:

3240 Sawtelle Blvd Apt 210
Los Angeles, CA 90066 USA

Still no final resolution from insurance companies, except truck has been called a total loss, and we have sent the list of damaged items to the other insurance company.

We are back to work, and my laptop is still down. I swear it will be back up by this weekend so I can get some pics uploaded.

More in a few days.

Oh, we bought a Subaru Outback, it's badass. I never thought that I would say that about a freakin' station wagon, but there you are.

It looks like this:

we are there

We are in LA, arriving at around 3am local time Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

We are still in the process of sorting our broken stuff, dealing with two insurance companies, and to top it off,my laptop has, to use a New-Englander term, "shit the bed," so sorry no witty/cute/majestic picture with this post. I am using my work computer and it can't edit shit.

Who woulda thunk a 40mph impact with a tree would damage a computer hard drive? Strange.

We are moving into our new apartment on Friday, maybe buying a car over the weekend if the insurance stuff is straightened out by then, and in between we need to start replacing things that we have to have like beds and plates and chairs and tables and, well, I guess you get the picture.

Please allow me to summarize my impression of the Grand Canyon, where we spent our last night on the road:

"Oh my effing God."

April and I ran out of adjectives after about two minutes. We only spent a few hours there, but it was easily the most physically immense and overpowering natural sight I have ever seen, and I have seen a fair bit of what the U.S. has to offer. Don't get me wrong here, I have seen a number of things that were easily more "beautiful," like the sun setting over Cape Cod from Martha's Vineyard in early Autumn, all the colors in the Badlands in South Dakota late in the afternoon, and the Catskills in upstate New York in winter, but the sheer, mammoth, overwhelming power of nature and time on this scale cannot be summed up in words. Actually, not even pictures do the trick.

Yet despite the futility in the effort, I will put together some panoramic shots and post for everyone to see, just to give you the vaguest impression of the immeasurable scale of this place. Well, that's not fair. It's very measurable. It's about a half-mile to the bottom. And if you get a good running start, you can make it all the way down in about ten bounces.

More in a few days, and by the way we miss you all.

Got Wood?

Petrified Forest National Park was formed when volcanic ash buried these trees about 10,000 years back ,and the silica in the ash replaced the organic material as the wood decayed. This process took several millinea and a lack of oxygen to create the petrified wood we see today.

For those of you that have never seen petrified wood up close, it's amazing stuff. You see a tree with bark and rings and knots, and then you touch it and it's stone. It really just looks like a tree that has been fallen for a long, long time. That is, until they cut it up into pieces and polish it, then it looks like what it is- a tree that has turned to mineral!

Did you know that petrified wood has been found in every single state and Canada? See, you got wood too!

And you thought I was being dirty when you read the title...

Shame on you!

Across the Great Divide

We crossed the continental divide today, just west of Albuquerque, NM. The drive was breathtaking.

We saw a lot of this:

Tomorrow will be the Painted Desert and Petrified Forest National Park.

It will be cool.

Roswell, part 2

OK, a) it was a thunderstorm, b) it was the car in front of us, and c) the cat is NOT walking funny. She always sways like that.

Seriously, Roswell was fun. Streetlights painted to look like aliens, and even the Wal-Mart had UFOs in front. Well, where else do you stop to pick things up on an intergalactic trip, right?

We have pushed through New Mexico (where we actually saw antelope playing, but no buffalo roaming) into Arizona. Beautiful all the way. Can't wait till the pictures are downloaded.

Finally...Proof of Alien Life!!!

We were driving towards Roswell, NM, watching an alien spaceship battle in the skies above, when this thing swooped down from above. Unfortunately I had the camera on extended exposure mode. Oh well. April thinks that it was just the car in front of us. She also thinks that the spaceship battle was a thunderstorm. Yeah, right. Whatever.

I know the truth.


I also know that my cat was walking funny today. Looks like somebody got probed...

Our Super-Sweet New Ride

The nice folks at Uhaul set us up with this pimped out 24-footer. It can do 65 with only a little wobble, and gets a whoppin' 9mpg. with a tailwind. Downhill. If it's steep. The little black dots are called love-bugs, and are all over Florida and the gulf coast of Alabama and Mississippi this time of year. They are so-named because the male and female are locked in coitus when they splatter on your windshield. I estimate our kill-count at about 26 million. At least I hope.

We left the scene of the crash and made it to San Antonio, TX where we took a couple of days to get our bearings and be sure that the insurance companies had everything that they needed. Of course the person that I needed to speak to at BOTH insurance companies was off on Friday. I wish I had that job...

Anyhow, we are recharged after a couple of days to let the initial shock wear off.

By the way, my brother makes the best breakfast burritos. He says that they are tacos.

They're burritos, bro.

On the road again again

Okay,

Now that we have had a good night's sleep, here's the latest:

Yesterday afternoon, while traveling down I-10 in Florida, an 18-wheeler ran us off the road. The trailer struck a tree, and the sudden change in momentum and direction caused the truck to flip. Luckily nobody was hurt.

Our stuff, on the other hand, didn't fare so well.

My estimate is that it will cost around $6k-$8k to replace all the stuff that was damaged. The list includes all of our bookshelves, a buffet table, the kitchen island, TV, a $900 printer, the vacuum... well pretty much anything containing wood or glass.

Funny side-note: there were two cases of wine (bottom center of pic above) that should have been obliterated from the impact. We lost one bottle...

As far as the rest, thank God for insurance!

Crashed!

April was driving...

Yes, yes, the cat is just fine.

On the Road (again...)

We left Athens, GA Monday night on the first and shortest leg of our journey to LA. We spent Monday night in Cedartown, and on Tuesday went through Rome to see my Granny, and then to Dallas GA to see April's sister and our new neice. Tuesday night is in TyTy, GA at my Mom's for the night.

Next stop, San Antonio!

Welcome Ansley Grace!

Ansley Grace Allen was born on to April's sister, Amanda, and Andrew, our brother-in-law, Friday Sept 14th. As it would figure, April and I were in an airplane flying to Boston at the time! As you can see she is beautiful and healthy, and mom and baby are home after a minor infection that kept them in the hospital for a few extra days. Andrew and Amanda have done well again!

Welcome to the family, kid!

R.I.P Robert Jordan

Sunday the literary world lost one of its giants, with the passing of James Rigney. Better known to Fantasy readers as Robert Jordan, he died after a several years struggle with Primary Amyloidosis, an extremely rare blood disease that is fatal within 1 year if untreated, and within 5 years with current treatments.

Jordan was diagnosed three years ago, and has been sharing his experiences with treatment with his fans through a Blog on Dragonmount.com.

His landmark, and unfinished, epic Fantasy series called the Wheel of Time, is the most popular and influential series of Fantasy novels since the Lord of the Rings, and many of the top writers in the genre credit Jordan for their success, including literary heavyweights like George R R Martin.

While I spent more nights than I can remember falling asleep to one of the dozen books in the series, and his legacy will be the Wheel of Time, I will always remember the courage and dignity that he displayed as he publicly fought this terrible disease. Writers can be very solitary, and Jordan's fans are very fortunate to have been able to share a part of this man's life, even if at a distance.

He was one month shy of his 59th birthday.

"Life is a mountain, death is a feather."

Happy Birthday April!

April turned 31 today, and we went to the Last Resort Grill in Athens, GA for dinner. I highly recommend this place as a must if you ever find yourself in Athens for a night or two. Another must-try in Athens is called is The Grit.

Anyway, I gave her a bunch of travel books about California and the southwest that we will both enjoy.

Happy Birthday Dear!

The Gateway Arch

As many of you know, I spend a lot of time looking at the world through a camera lens. I will be using this blog to share some of what I see with all of you.

We were in St Louis a few weeks ago, and here is a great shot I got of the Gateway Arch.

I anticipate a lot of very cool pics as we travel across the southern half of the U.S. and visit places like the Painted Desert, the Grand Canyon, and Joshua Tree National Park to name a few.

Stay tuned!

Last night was dinner with Luc & Melissa at the Farm 255 here in Athens, followed by drinks at The Three Kings (which also included a Japanese zombie movie... don't ask).

Many of you are aware that Jason and I lived in Athens, GA previously. I attended the University of Georgia as an undergraduate. Between the two of us, as Jason jokes, we had the perfect college experience. My education was paid for with scholarships, so I was constantly working 2 jobs and studying. Jason filled out the social end of things for me. One of the things that Athens is famous for is its music scene and the fact that you can go to a different bar every week for almost 3 years. Jason, I believe, hit them all. (Sometimes they would hit back.)

It has been a sometimes surreal experience to be back here almost ten years after I left. Lots of memories. We will miss the proximity to family, the constant entertainment, the many wonderful restaurants, and the inexpensive housing.

But we are both ready for our next step, and LA is waiting....

The Beginning of Our Adventure

We have now packed our things into storage and moved out of our little apartment in Athens, GA. Right now we are living with Steve & Ann Hajduk, in their lovely, lovely home near the North Oconee River. Meow has settled in nicely. She is not being allowed to meet Unu & Sam, as her track record with other cats is dismal. Our very comfortable rooms are on the top floor. A sitting room, two bedrooms, and a full bath.

We will be moving to an apartment at UCLA at the end of September. Our apartment isn't available until October 5, so we are looking for lodgings for about 5 days in LA. Any offers appreciated! I'll be sending out emails with our new address & contact information shortly.

Our last trip to Cape Cod (at least for a while) will be Sept. 14. We are going to finish winterizing the house and get it ready for a sale. We are both hopeful that a sale won't take too long - paying LA rent and a mortgage is going to be a challenge for us.

We're currently planning our route through the Southwest to LA. Looks like we will be stopping in San Antonio to visit Jay's brother, then driving through Roswell, NM to the Petrified National Forest, the painted desert, and up to the Grand Canyon. We'll stay there for two nights, then drive through Joshua Tree National Park into LA.