Happy Valentine's Day

To commemorate, I've searched through my photos for something appropriate:

Driving through Valentine National Wildlife Refuge, Nebraska, on our 2013 South Dakota road trip

Monday

Finishing this up today since I fell asleep yesterday while writing it. 

Woke up at 5am after a frustrating dream about moving into an (already run down) apartment and discovering the previous tenants had left all of their stuff behind. Not just furniture, but the closets were full of clothes and the kitchen cabinets packed solid with all sorts of Tupperware and storage containers. I was furious with the dream apartment manager who was trying to brush me off so he could go to dinner. I gave him a severe dressing-down as I pounded my fist on the table for emphasis.

After waking up and cooling down a little, I lay in bed watching This Must Be The Place on the iPad.  What a great movie with Sean Penn and Frances McDormand.

Had an exhausting day at work, then stopped by the store on the way home for dinner fixins'.  Turned this:

Into a yummy fried rice:

Got to try out the new knife and sauté pan I got for Christmas, as well as a bottle of Pinot Grigio I received - loved all three.

Happy New Year!

Todd's sick and I'm exhausted, so saving the champagne for another day. For tonight I'll just stick with this Crispin pear cider.  It's delicious. 

Happy New a Year everybody!

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and your family a very merry Christmas.

A Currier and Ives Christmas greeting

Busy Sunday

Put in 4 hours at the office,

It helps that it's a winter wonderland - thanks to Kylee!

Movie Day At Home

I made a big batch of homemade Texas Trash (spicy chex mix; recipe below) and we just let whatever came on tv flow through us:  Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, St. Vincent, It's a Wonderful Life, and Hedwig and the Angry Inch. It was a good day. 

Texas Trash

6 cups corn Chex

6 cups rice Chex

4 cups wheat Chex

3 cups pretzel sticks (preferably broken in half, but not necessary)

2 1/2 cups peanuts

2 cups Cheerios

3/4 cup butter - melted

5 tablespoons Worcestershire sauce

1 tablespoon seasoned salt

1 1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

1 teaspoon onion powder

1/2 - 1 teaspoon cayenne pepper (to taste)

Preheat oven to 300 degrees F.

Combine cereal, pretzels and peanuts in a large roasting pan.

Melt the butter, then add the spices to the butter. Mix well.

Drizzle the butter mixture over the dry ingredients, then toss to coat evenly - best if done by hand.

Bake for 1 hour, stirring thoroughly every 15 minutes. Enjoy while it's warm if you like, but allow to cool completely before storing in an airtight container.  Enjoy!

Happy Thanksgiving

Saturday At The Forth Worth Auto Show

What I'm Currently Listening To

Wow, what a great album:

Laidback Luke - Focus

Lightning Cloud

Looks ominous

The storm passed us by, but gave a show as it went:

L.A. Trip - Day 9: Going Home

Woke up, checked out, dropped the car off, flew home.

Goodbye Los Angeles

L.A. Trip - Day 8: E.T. And The L.A. Philharmonic At The Hollywood Bowl

Just like everything else in L.A., there's extremely limited parking for the Hollywood Bowl.  So we headed back to Hollywood & Highland again to catch a shuttle - for $6 each round trip, it was definitely the way to go (because parking at the Bowl was a nightmare).  We got parked and it took us a minute to find the shuttle pick-up area.  When we did find it there was already a shuttle bus waiting which quickly filled.

This is the scene outside the Bowl.  Yes, that is someone just getting out of the car in the middle of the intersection as two officers "direct" traffic.

L.A. Trip - Day 8: Coco's and Venice Beach

I got up at 6:30am, and Todd finally got up at 10:30.  We got going around noon and drove to Coco's Bakery, a chain restaurant sort of like Denny's that someone had recommended to Todd because of their pies.  I had a turkey burger (which was actually really good) with fries, and for dessert I had coconut cream pie and decaf coffee.  The pie was also good, but then so is almost all pie.

Just driving down the road and, oh look, there's a movie studio.

The food was good, but I'm not sure I would go out of the way (again) for it

L.A. Trip - Day 7

It's Thursday and today we leave the Disneyland Resort and drive back to L.A.

I woke up at 6:30 and read/surfed on the iPad until 8:30 or so, then showered and dressed.  I headed out at 9am while Todd slept.  I walked around the hotel and through some of the shops at Downtown Disney, but didn't buy anything; was just killing time.

I spy a hidden gazebo

I'm guessing they hold weddings at this one

L.A. Trip - Day 6: Disney California Adventure, P.M.

Ok, this is a long post with lots of photos.

After lunch we went back to Cars Land and used our FastPasses for Radiator Springs Racers.  We also took our time and looked around a bit.

The detail is incredible.

Blue is in the lead

L.A. Trip - Day 6: Disney California Adventure, A.M.

Woke up this morning at 5:30am.  Apparently it doesn't seem to matter what time I go to bed or how tired I am; I'm waking up early.  I went back to sleep from 6:00 to 6:30, then got out of bed at 7:00.

Morning view

L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, P.M., Part 2

Since the Haunted Mansion was closed and we were near a train station, we decided to ride the train all the way around the park - not something we would have done had the park been crowded.  It was great though - we got to relax and see the Grand Canyon diorama and Primeval World; two displays that don't exist at Walt Disney World.

The French Market across from the depot.  We'll come back here.

L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, P.M., Part 1

After lunch we headed over to Adventureland and the Enchanted Tiki Room.

Adventure awaits!

All the birds sing words and the flowers croon in the Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Room

L.A. Trip - Day 5: Disneyland, A.M.

Welcome to "The Happiest Place on Earth."  It's going to be a great day!

L.A. Trip - Day 4: Disneyland Resort

I woke up this morning at 6:30am, threw on some clothes and walked down to the corner Starbucks.
Pooped a short while later - hooray!

VMAs are over - looks like they're taking Miley down

The Walk of Fame stars are everywhere.  They're over here by our hotel...

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 3

After our snack stop we headed over to the Waterworld stunt show.  It's a little strange that USH has a stunt show that's now based on a 20 year old movie flop, but the show was really good with a strong stunt cast.

Ignore the partial-people - there was a lot of movement while I was taking the panoramic

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 2

We next went to the studio tour which had a line longer than Crystal Gayle's hair and a 65 minute wait.  But thanks to the magic of our one-time pass we skipped the line, picked up our 3D glasses and boarded the next tram to depart.  Each tram consists of 4 linked passenger cars, each with it's own video monitors that play various clips as you go along.  There's also a live guide leading the tour from the front tram.  We sat on the right-side middle of the first car on the tram.

City backlot at the bottom of the hill

The studio tour is a 45 - 60 minute tram ride through the studio backlots, sets, and a few interactive events.  It's the reason why we chose to come to USH.  We didn't take a lot of photos as we just wanted to enjoy the ride.  Also, it was Sunday so there wasn't a lot of production action going on.  Here's the order as best I can remember:

After leaving the station we headed down a hill and past the sound stages, including where The Voice is currently shot and The Mindy Project (which is still in production and will be on Hulu).  Then we drove through the city streets backlot, passed some production offices/bungalows, then moved on to King Kong.

Sound stages down below

L.A. Trip - Day 3: Universal Studios Hollywood, Part 1

Ok, this is going to be a long entry.  Today we went to Universal Studios Hollywood.

This has never been photographed before, I'm sure

L.A. Trip - Day 2: Dinner And A Movie

I'm not sure what time we made it back to the hotel, but it was around 5:00pm.  We freshened up a bit then walked down Hollywood Blvd. to have dinner at the Pig'N Whistle.

Situated next to the Egyptian Theatre, the Pig'N Whistle opened in 1927 as a family soda fountain and restaurant to serve the patrons of the theater.  It was either part of or launched a chain than eventually dwindled.  Now this is the last one, or there are only a few more in the L.A. area.  I don't remember the details.

Pig'N Whistle exterior.  Photo from pubcrawls.com

The Egyptian Theatre and Pig'N Whistle Cafe circa 1946.  Photo from cinematicartsacademy.com.

L.A. Trip - Day 2: Griffith Observatory

We got back to the hotel, got the car, and took a crazy drive up into the hills toward Griffith Observatory.  We approached from the Southeast and drove up a maze of narrow, twisted roads through neighborhoods of houses built along and into the hillside.  Somewhere up there was a trail where you could hike up to the observatory, but after about a 1/2 mile of driving past cars parked bumper to bumper (reducing the already narrow road to less than a lane), we found a place to turn around and headed back to the main Eastern road and just drove there.

Even so, we had quite a hike uphill from our parking space along the side of the road to the observatory.  We knew ahead of time that (like everything in L.A.) there is much less parking than what is needed, and with all the cars parked along the main road we didn't try to park in the tiny lot actually at the observatory.  Instead we found an empty space someone had just pulled out of and walked climbed the rest of the way up.

So that's a parking lot over on the right, and everything from there is uphill.  The observatory is left of center at the bottom.  There's an itty-bitty parking lot just north of the observatory.  Heading Northwest from the observatory parking lot, the closest spot we could find was on the side of the road about 1/4 of the way down the first road to the left (in the upper left corner).  Then we walked up the rest of the way.
Screenshot from Google Earth.  I did not skydive just to bring you this parking explanation.

Fancy a hike?  There are miles of trails around the observatory.